Dilemma with being gay, black, and anti-gay family...

I don't think you have to worry about whether you are manly enough for her because she is with you for a reason and she wants you at family events.

Unfortunately I'm not out to my family so I am not sure how you can handle them. Also, I am not black but I am Indian so I can relate to the anti gay values. I think they will probably treat you like your lesbian cousin.
I don't think there is much you can do about the older generation of your family their views and values are pretty much set in stone. I think you may drift a part.
I think quite a lot about not wanting to be a lesbian because i want my family in my life. but no matter how much I try I know the feelings will be there because it is just natural for me, and in the future if I suppressed my feelings I will be unhappy and resentful of my life. And I think that may be similar for you too. You have to either choose your own happiness or make your family happy.
And maybe you will find someone who isn't superficial

 

Hie Konsealed. I'm 23, black, an only child and have a crappy relationshipwith mydad's side of the family. Trust me, all the things you said resonate with me. My family both my mom and dad's side believe that being gay is demonic (their words). I've tried, most of my life to never give them any reason to resent me...eg just like you, i went to school and did really great, never got into trouble and at some point went to church all the time. I even dated girls (2) for a while but one thing i value the most is my happiness above anyone else's. If that's selfish......oh well.

Does being with your fiance bring happiness and absolute joy? If it does, good. If you are only being with her so you can have that idealised picture of how being a black family is, then you aren't being fair to yourself and fiance. Are you out to any of your family members? You've tried pleasing them but trust me their feelings towards LGBT people are less likely to change.
If i were in you shoes i'd move a bit further away from them, though still maintain contact, and try to discover a new life in a more tolerant community. This way you can explore who you really are with less input from society or their expectations. Oh, and one other thing don't string your fiance along if you aren't sure she's definitely what you want.
Just my 2 cents.

PS..Remember Bi/Gay people can still have kids.

 

Hey konsealed, I know this isn't direct advice for how to deal with your family, but I think it could help.

Something really struck me about your post, how the family is nicer to people with criminal records than you. I'm not saying those folks deserve any disrespect for their choices and mistakes, but it is deeply fucked up that you are treated like some sort of criminal for just being yourself, and even struggling to be the best version of yourself to please everyone.

So the thought is this: find a big "fuck you" to this in yourself. You did all the things you were supposed to do, and it's still not enough. This is BS. You said the aunt went through a lot of BS. It sounds some of your family have serious limitations with what they are capable of emotionally, and you're going to have to accept that and expect very little from them.

I'm not saying to disrespect anyone in real life, but find the big "fuck you" inside yourself for your soul, so you aren't carrying around their resentment and craving an acceptance from people incapable of offering it.

I know this might sound weird, but humans are weird, and I think people can literally sense a passive craving for acceptance and feed into it. If you can find a way to truly not care, I bet it would influence the dynamic with them. I've see this happen in my own life, that suddenly people start treating me differently once they realize I truly don't give a shit about pleasing them anymore.

Hope this helps, wishing you all the best. And be careful with the fiance, too, and her "resentment." If she is vocally acting like she wishes she had known stuff earlier (why, to leave??), I wonder if that resentment will not continue to resurface as time goes on. Be strong. You can do it

 

Konsealed, I fully agree with everything that the other people replied with. I believe you should move away from them or at least distance yourself. You need to be in a more accepting community. You can love your family from a distance no matter what the circumstances are. Yes, its sad and nobody wants to have to do that but if your not excepted for whatever reasons you just need to live your life and fill it with people that will love you for who you are. I also think as far as if you stay with your fiance or not, you need to weigh everything out. Dont stay with her just because it's the easier thing to do. You two can split and maybe still remain friends on some level. Good luck

 

This behavior is, indeed, totally fucked up. This side of his situation and specifically what you brought up rings back to my situation, where I'm constantly compared to my brother, from behavior wise observations to life-wise projections.

I don't really want to bring a horrible image of my brother here, but its just that he needs help, he is particularly attracted to drugs, has a historic of bad influences, does extremely bad at school but all that seem to disappear when my family brings up "failure of a person" that I am just for the fact that I like apples, and I *should* like oranges. That while I work intensively at college, giving the best I can, and getting as many As as I can to rub all of them on their faces and tell them I'm working on my life. but for them, I'm still doomed. Trashed, dirty, doomed to failure no matter how hard I work. I have all the reasons to be trashed and labeled as failure, no matter how hard I work to have none.

That drives me absolutely nuts. I don't consider my family anymore, I just want to run away from here as soon as I can.

Call me selfish if needed, I'm ready to erase my family and ignore them for the rest of my life, and I'll grab the first chance I get to do this.

I don't think people who hurt you on purpose, who say you are worse than cancer (exact words I heard) are really worth any attention or consideration.

OP is a nice person, much nicer than me for caring about his extended family's and parents happiness, but he should really consider first his own happiness instead, on my opinion.

Me? I am, and I will always be a bad person on that aspect. And I will pave my way to success not only to prove I'm worthy of success to all those that trash me and rub that on their faces, but I will also trash them like they trash me today, and watch they perish. If I need to be selfish and bad for my own good, I will be, specially in cases such as this, where I'm hit in the face and pretty much compared to cancer every single day.

It is not worth pursuing other people's happiness, and even less when that specifically deals with you not being happy for the sake of other people. When the time comes you'll realize you should have lived more for yourself, and not others. Its not worth it. Thats why despite all the shit I get, I always held to the truth, to who I really am, and to either pursue my true happiness, even if that means crossing a rough path, instead of living fake happiness to let others have their fake happiness.