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Coming out to an unstable family member?

Discussion in 'LGBT Later in Life' started by cakepiecookie, Jun 17, 2015.

  1. cakepiecookie

    Regular Member

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    I'm mostly out (some people don't know, though it's more of a "it just hasn't come up yet" thing as opposed to it being a secret), but I'm still wary about coming out to my mother.

    I feel silly about it because she's not homophobic in the least and I know she'd be accepting. The main thing that's holding me back is that she can be a bit nutty about certain things. She has a drinking problem and while she's mostly fairly sane, she's kind of unpredictable and can be unstable. For example, when I split up with my husband last year, she kind of flipped out and started messaging him and making ridiculous accusations, and also contacted my in-laws and ranted at them. I never expected her to behave so ridiculously, and it made an already stressful experience so much worse.

    One of the typical things she does is that she'll take some small kernel of truth and run wild with it. For example, when my ex got a new girlfriend a few months after we'd broken up, my mother decided that he must have been cheating on me (despite me making it very clear that that wasn't the case) and sent him a bunch of nasty messages about it. I told her repeatedly that she was making things worse for me and begged her to stop, but she kept on going with it anyway.

    In light of all that, I fear that if I come out to her, she'll run wild with it and blow it up into something it's not, and perhaps embarrass me on social media. I think it's more likely that she'll be totally sane about it, but given her behaviour last year, I just don't know.

    I feel bad for keeping it a secret from her, both for her sake and mine. I just keep putting it off because I don't feel prepared to deal with her freak out, if it happens.

    Anyone else deal with anything like this? Any advice?
     
  2. OnTheHighway

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    Sounds like my mother. Nothing you can really do but go for it. And if she "Runs Wild", so be it. Brush it off, you already know to expect it. And as you said, she is not homophobic, so that should not be an issue.
     
  3. looking for me

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    sounds like my STBX. and i haven't told her because she'll, i feel, try to use it to make my custody of my son difficult.