i have a son, who lives with me, who is mid teens and pretty open minded for a rural kid but not really enthused by changes. my question is for those who have come out to your kids, how did you do it? how do you protect them but make peace with them, you and the "self" of both of you? thanks
Hey, Check out this thread: http://emptyclosets.com/forum/lgbt-later-life/128612-how-i-intend-tell-kids.html
thanks Greatwhale. i appreciate it, i does give me some ideas i can adapt because my wife and i split for different reasons and she doesn't know about me yet. heck the only one who knows is my therapist and i only see her every couple of months.
I was kind but quite honest with mine. My 16-year-old and I were talking about general things, and somehow went into a hypothetical discussion about what would happen to either her mom or I if the other wasn't in the picture. She knows things have not been good for a long time. We agreed that my wife would be dating almost immediately. I said that I wouldn't be likely to see anyone right away, but....I would be open to dating a guy. She shrugged her shoulders and said that was cool, whatever. A few weeks later, after I had come out to my wife, she asked what we had been arguing about, and I told her flat out that I had told her mom I was gay. She was a little surprised but said, "That's OK. I know plenty of gay people. Just for the record....I'm NOT!" I waited with telling my 13-year-old because I was concerned she might spill it before my wife was ready to potentially have others know. When I did, I pulled her aside one day when we were alone together, and said simply that I needed to tell her something. She was understandably surprised and said very little, but we've joked a bit since and she seems to be fine with it. She also knows a number of gay people, so this isn't new territory to her. We have always taught them to be open-minded abut gays (even my wife, who lately has been considerably more negative towards me about it than she was at the start). But more importantly, I've always tried to be very open and honest with them about everything, so coming out to them was just an extension of that. How well you communicate with your kids in general makes a difference; if there's any difficulty in that respect at the moment, you might want to start with just being more open to listening to them first, before you ask them to listen to you. They're really pretty accepting of parents, though.
