When Blood is Thick as Water

I am just seeking a little feedback. I am not really struggling with anything, but I am a bit curious.

I come from a family that is not particularly close. My mother passed when I was 10. My father remarried three months later to a woman with mental illness who almost immediately began a vicious regime of verbal and psychological abuse on me and my two older brothers. My father, awash in grief, paid little attention and buried himself in his work, failing to ever come to our aid or protect us from her attacks. I left home at age 16 when I realized that nothing was going to change and that my home was not a safe place for me. My father later divorced her and married another woman only slightly more mentally stable, who became more of a good drinking buddy for him than spouse.

Over the years I have returned home for occasional holiday visits and family reunions. I have little if any contact with my siblings beyond the mass mailed holiday cards. When I was 24 I married and later had a child. I am bisexual and have been out to my wife from the moment we started dating. Our relationship is now in the process of transitioning into something yet to be defined and I have subsequently come out to friends and coworkers and have been dating men for the past several years.

That is all background, here is my inquiry. I have been wondering if one of the big reasons why I am estranged from my family is the issue of my sexuality. I am not out to any member of my family. It is not that I fear what they might say or think; I really don't care. I consider them people with whom I had shared experiences a long time ago. I have little in common with them other than genetics. I have lived the vast majority of my life (I am now 53) disassociated from them versus than connected to them. Quite frankly I don't think any of my family members would care one way or the other if I were gay, straight, bi, or trans. And my perception is that they are not particularly close with one another so it is not just me. It is more how our family has evolved. I will confess that I sometimes feel envy of those who are close to their families and have an extended shared history with others. But perhaps I am simply buying into a cultural narrative.

I don't know, perhaps I have answered my own inquiry, but I am wondering if others have experienced a subconscious distancing from their families due to their sexuality. Are you OK with that estrangement? If you went back and came out to an estranged family what if anything changed for you and your relationship to them? Is coming out to one's family when you are estranged from them really necessary to the coming out process?

Thank you in advance for your feedback.

 

Really? No one in the community has struggled with whether or not to come out to their biological family? No one is estranged from their biological family? No one care to weigh in on this discussion? Now I am curious about that. LOL