What did your parents do?

[jryski]

On 7/29/2014 at 2:01 PM, jamessavik said:

My dad punched me so hard I crashed into and broke through the dry wall.

 

I was kept inside without contact with anyone for weeks except for church. Just church- no Sunday school or social stuff.

 

Tell the truth, I don't want to think about it anymore.

Im glad that is over now. It's really hard to move through stuff like that. They never hit me hard or anything but still the stuff they did haunt me till this day. I still have nightmares about it sometimes. Best thing we can do is to live the best life we can and be who we are and surround ourselves with calm, gentle, kind, and open minded people who will support us no matter what because they see us for who we are as a person. It hurts and is infuriating to think about but I'd like to think we are better now because of what we went theough. It made us able to understand and feel for others. The world wouldn't be able to function without people like us. You are the glue that keeps people together and the support for people who are falling apart. I love you *hugs*

[jryski]

They did way too much. It's traumatizing but life goes on. My grandmother one time came up to me and said to me, " Don't be gay! I read online that gay people play with the butt!!!" With a horrified expression on her face. I definitely snickered at that. I miss her so much. She was my biggest supporter. My biggest regret is that I wasnt strong enough to come out to her and wasn't able to be there for her on her death bed.

Edited March 6, 2019 by jryski

[Thorn Wilde]

9 hours ago, jryski said:

They did way too much. It's traumatizing but life goes on. My grandmother one time came up to me and said to me, " Don't be gay! I read online that gay people play with the butt!!!" With a horrified expression on her face. I definitely snickered at that. I miss her so much. She was my biggest supporter. My biggest regret is that I wasnt strong enough to come out to her and wasn't able to be there for her on her death bed.

That's pretty funny, what your grandmother said. I don't think that not coming out to her has anything to do with strength, though. That stuff is hard, and sometimes we worry about the feelings of others as well. Not just about whether they'll accept us, but also how it'll make them feel. I don't think I'll ever come out to my grandmother, not out of worry about her accepting me, but because she wouldn't understand and it would be distressing to her. 

[jryski]

12 minutes ago, Thorn Wilde said:

That's pretty funny, what your grandmother said. I don't think that not coming out to her has anything to do with strength, though. That stuff is hard, and sometimes we worry about the feelings of others as well. Not just about whether they'll accept us, but also how it'll make them feel. I don't think I'll ever come out to my grandmother, not out of worry about her accepting me, but because she wouldn't understand and it would be distressing to her. 

You're definitely right. It's still sad but you're right.

[drown]

I told my dad when I was 17. We were in the kitchen. After working up the necessary courage, I calmed myself and simply said, "Dad, I'm gay." (in German). He was silent for a moment and said, "this is worse than the death of your mother. Go to your room."

 

We just never really talked about it again and after a few weeks, things seemed to be back to normal. I wasn't going to bring it up again. I had moved away to study and when I had my first serious relationship, I told my father that I wanted him to meet someone. So he met the man of my dreams when he came to visit for dinner. It was a good evening. His only response was to later tell me on the phone that he had bought a bigger guest bed if we wanted to come visit him together. I cried.

 

Fast forward 18 years—I'm living with the man of my dreams and the relationship with my father couldn't be better. I guess this is an "it get's better" story.

Edited March 28, 2019 by drown
typos -.-

[jryski]

3 minutes ago, drown said:

I told my dad when I was 17. We were in the kitchen. After working up the necessary courage, I calmed myself and simply said, "Dad, I'm gay." (in German). He was silent for a moment and said, "this is worse than the death of your mother. Go to your room."

 

We just never really talked about it again and after a few weeks, things seemed to be back to normal. I wasn't going to bring it up again. I had moved away to study and when I had my first serious relationship, I told my father that I wanted him to meet someone. So he met the man of my dreams when he came to visit for dinner. It was a good evening. His only response was to later tell me on the phone that he had bought a bigger guest bad if we wanted to come visit him together. I cried.

 

Fast forward 18 years—I'm living with the man of my dreams and the relationship with my father couldn't be better. I guess this is an "it get's better" story.

Thats beautiful! 😢😢😢

[drown]

6 minutes ago, jryski said:

Thats beautiful! 😢😢😢

 

Thank you. 😌

 

He actually did explain what happened all that time ago. When my mother had died, his idea of how his life is going to play out changed completely. His focus was on some day taking care of his grandchildren. He said he was selfish and apologized.

 

[Dissily Mordentroge]

Even though this section of the forum is for young gays I thought some of you may be interested in what it was like to come out to your parents in the 1970’s.

I didn’t have to come out to my mother. Like so many mother’s her instincts had alerted her to me being ‘different’ very early on. Her only comment was to say to me one day “ I don’t care if you turn into a queen but if you turn into a really dizzy, queeny queen that would be too much". 

Soon after my mother died suddenly and my father re-married. Came home one day to find he’d moved out. Took me over a month to discover he’d married a local woman and was living in a boarding house in another suburb. He didn’t attempt to contact me so I rented a room to a friend to make ends meet. About two years later he made contact by writing me a snail mail letter. ( no internet then). It was short and to the point informing me he’d re-married and as his new wife ‘. . . . didn’t want to live with a pervert’. I was given a week to vacate the family home. Some thirty years later he phoned me starting off with a load of superficial chat. I asked him why he’d finally contacted me ” Oh, Molly died last week and I’m lonely”  At first I had no idea who he was taking about. Then it hit me, this must be my step-mother’s name. I ended up caring for him in his last days. Something I still have doubts about. Even now at age 73 I find myself thinking I should have let the old bastard rot.

The other side of this saga was having to learn to be totally idependent at an early age. Luckily I found a brilliant job with the federal govt looking after foreign students and never looked back.

The oddest thing about all this is the family history on my father’s side. His brother (also gay but very closeted) took me aside when I was about 16 and filled my in. My Great, Great Grandfather had been of the Welsh landed gentry, Supreme Court Barrister, church elder, organist and chiormaster. Every year he and his wife entertained the chior, bishop and other church dignitaries ( I wonder at that term) to a ‘Pleasant Sunday Afternoon’ at the family pile. This particular year Great, Great Grandma was taking the bishop, choir etc on a tour of the new orchid house when a breeze blew up stamming the door locking them in. Great, Great Grandma unpeturbed advised the ladies (and the bishop?) to lift their skirts and exit via the back door through the stables. There they surprised great, great, grandpa fucking ( permitted to use that term here?) the stablehand. 

Arrested and placed on trial he was (due to his connections with the court etc) given a chioce between hanging and transportation to the penal colony of Australia.

That’s how the family came to live in Australia.  

 

So why am I here now? Nothing really to do with being gay but due to my view of where our species is dragging us - another topic for another part of the forum maybe. 

[Thorn Wilde]

19 hours ago, Dissily Mordentroge said:

Even though this section of the forum is for young gays I thought some of you may be interested in what it was like to come out to your parents in the 1970’s.

I didn’t have to come out to my mother. Like so many mother’s her instincts had alerted her to me being ‘different’ very early on. Her only comment was to say to me one day “ I don’t care if you turn into a queen but if you turn into a really dizzy, queeny queen that would be too much". 

Soon after my mother died suddenly and my father re-married. Came home one day to find he’d moved out. Took me over a month to discover he’d married a local woman and was living in a boarding house in another suburb. He didn’t attempt to contact me so I rented a room to a friend to make ends meet. About two years later he made contact by writing me a snail mail letter. ( no internet then). It was short and to the point informing me he’d re-married and as his new wife ‘. . . . didn’t want to live with a pervert’. I was given a week to vacate the family home. Some thirty years later he phoned me starting off with a load of superficial chat. I asked him why he’d finally contacted me ” Oh, Molly died last week and I’m lonely”  At first I had no idea who he was taking about. Then it hit me, this must be my step-mother’s name. I ended up caring for him in his last days. Something I still have doubts about. Even now at age 73 I find myself thinking I should have let the old bastard rot.

The other side of this saga was having to learn to be totally idependent at an early age. Luckily I found a brilliant job with the federal govt looking after foreign students and never looked back.

The oddest thing about all this is the family history on my father’s side. His brother (also gay but very closeted) took me aside when I was about 16 and filled my in. My Great, Great Grandfather had been of the Welsh landed gentry, Supreme Court Barrister, church elder, organist and chiormaster. Every year he and his wife entertained the chior, bishop and other church dignitaries ( I wonder at that term) to a ‘Pleasant Sunday Afternoon’ at the family pile. This particular year Great, Great Grandma was taking the bishop, choir etc on a tour of the new orchid house when a breeze blew up stamming the door locking them in. Great, Great Grandma unpeturbed advised the ladies (and the bishop?) to lift their skirts and exit via the back door through the stables. There they surprised great, great, grandpa fucking ( permitted to use that term here?) the stablehand. 

Arrested and placed on trial he was (due to his connections with the court etc) given a chioce between hanging and transportation to the penal colony of Australia.

That’s how the family came to live in Australia.  

 

So why am I here now? Nothing really to do with being gay but due to my view of where our species is dragging us - another topic for another part of the forum maybe. 

That's a fascinating piece of family history right there.

[Hstrychsr]

I was sick to my stomach with worries when I told my family as we sat around the dinner table.

My older sister snorted; "Ya think?!"

My older brother; "You finally figured that out?  Pass the potatoes."

My dad; "Same rules apply.  No closed bedroom doors if you have company."

My mom; "Oh!  A friend of mine at work has the cutest son!"

Sort of anticlimactic. 

[JayR]

It was sort of naturally between us cause I started living on my own in another country quite early and they were just calling me to check up if everything's ok and I just told them about my bf and they were like fine, hope to see both of you here, and after a while we came together and felt comfortable enough. anyways, I'm not sure whether they felt bad about it a first but I'm glad that if they did they managed to figure that out 

[astone2292]

I've had a couple soft-coming out scenarios, but coming out to my parents were such heart-wrenching moments. As an only child raised in a country-bumpkin tiny town in southern Indiana where there was a different church on every fifth block, I was beyond terrified of revealing my true self. I hid behind khaki cargo shorts, tube socks, buzz-cuts and t-shirts that were always one size too big, as to disguise my gay self. I've seen a classmate in high school get the crap beat out of him just for being flamboyant. It wasn't until after my first year of college that I discovered that being gay was, surprisingly, okay in life!

I finally came out to my Mom at the beginning of 2020, the year I was getting married to the man of my dreams. She took it a little better than expected. Raised by fire and brimstone Catholics, she's always had her hand held by the church. But, I have to say, she took it like a champ. I mean, sure I broke her heart because she instantly went to the conclusion that she would never have grandkids (she has now come to the understanding that there are several options out there). I can tell she still has some problems when the husband is around for family functions and holidays, but I think she's finally accepted she just got another son to call her own.

Dad...has always been a mystery to me. He never had revealed to me his political alignment or personal opinions on homosexuality as a topic. Hell...he never even gave me, "The Talk." I haven't even heard the man use the word, 'condom.' Nevertheless, he is my hero! A work ethic that would put Noah and his ark to shame, taught me everything I know from Scouts, and gave me my 'Everything will always be alright' mindset. I told him very bluntly several days after I told Mom, and he was just...okay. Nothing bad to say, nothing good to say. His Catholic upbringing has given him troubles as well, but the second the husband asked Dad to help deep-fry the turkey this year at Thanksgiving...jeez, I can't the two separated! 

But to bring a lighter, happier mood to end this. My college coming out moment where I said, with my mouth, for the very first time, that I was gay...is the funniest moment of my life. I joined a fraternity (already hilarious for a kid wearing tube socks and secretly gay), and the first act of the President and Vice-President involving me...was to get my even shyer roomie and myself laid. With a lady. With a vagina. They send in a sorority chick who, at the time, was a fantastic friend, to figure out our preferred type of lady. Roomie, who I have never seen, to this day, without his patented tube sock and Yoshi t-shirt outfit, was very blunt with the fact that he was asexual, and had no intention of continuing the conversation. I...straight up had enough. Between all of the teasing when I was a child of, "You getchurr self a girlyfriend yet?" from all of my parents' redneck friends, to now in college being confronted with it once more, I laid into this poor 19 year old chick in my first official queen-sized rant that I was gay. Her jaw dropped, expertly handled the situation by telling me "Cool beans," and ran to the President, who needed a briefing STAT! Needless to say, jaws were dropped, I instantly became the cool gay dude in the fraternity, and that next week...I went clothes shopping.

 

[Ron]

3 hours ago, astone2292 said:

and that next week...I went clothes shopping.

Somehow this does make everything better. Did you find a replacement for the tube socks? 

[astone2292]

12 hours ago, Ron said:

Somehow this does make everything better. Did you find a replacement for the tube socks? 

Of course! It's been either black ankle socks or wacky dress socks since then! We don't mention those ungodly things in my house anymore...

[W_L]

Coming out to my parents was freeing.

There was always an anxiety about being gay that held me emotionally in check, I tried to justify to myself it wasn't a big deal if I came out or not. Looking back on it, I think I was more worried of being rejected than anything else.

At the time, I was 22 and I had no boyfriend, only a few gay stories that I enjoyed reading, and only 3 sexual experiences with other guys. Courage isn't what led me to come out, nor confidence, it was a simple and immovable truth that I just had to reveal about myself. My father took it with denial at first and tacit acceptance, nowadays. He's complicated in his own single-minded attraction to my mother/his ex-wife, and as I have told him many times, without him believing it, he's technically an asexual. No lover before or after their marriage/divorce for him, he's doesn't even consider any relationship anyone else possible.

My mother has wild swings depending on who she is around. An ex-husband may be open minded and doesn't care, another husband may be an evangelical Christian and she preaches salvation. I try not to believe in half what she says or does around me, except possibly one time when we talked about marriage and love in-between one of her marriages. She said, "You should find someone who can take care of you. Love is just an empty promise, look at me." I think out of all my conversations with my mother, she was her most genuine and honest about her actual views on sexuality and relationships during that brief interlude.

Family is complicated, whether you're being accepted or rejected or somewhere in-between, I don't think there's ever an easy way of approaching the question of coming out.

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by W_L

[Sherye Story Reader]

I told a few friends of mine that I was bi the first time and they were fine with it as long as I did not touch them (they were females), then I told my husband and he said, HOT DAMN! I started laughing. He wanted to watch me with a woman and he got to finally a year before he passed away. I have never told anyone in my family, blood family, but my stepson and his wife knows and they are fine with it. The only reason that I have never told my blood family is they would disown me for sure. So I stay straight in front of them. 

[ChaosDevin]

I came out a bit late, I came out at 23 going on 24 to one person.  Then I came out at 24 to the whole world in October 2008.  I was thinking my parents would flip out, especially my father.  My mother didn't believe me at first.  She insisted I was straight.  For some odd reason, she was trying to accept it and she considered me to be bisexual.  I guess to make herself feel better?  It took her a few years to kind of accept my homosexuality, but not totally to this day.  Yeah, it's strange.  I believe she still thinks I'm bisexual... why?!  I have no idea.  My mom isn't homophobic at all, but isn't totally comfortable about me being gay.  I've noticed with a few parents, they claim to not be homophobic.  However when it comes to their sons, they're not cool with it for some reason.

As for my dad, he was a bit indifferent.  However, I remember years before I came out he claimed he'd still love me if I came out as gay.  He was a bit homophobic, but couldn't care less about me being gay after I came out.  Not sure if he totally accepted it or not, he died in 2016.  I guess he did, but didn't tell me.  He never yelled at me or called me any derogatory names.

[BigBen]

I came out in the early 1980's when I was in my mid-twenties.  It took that long to get free enough of the crazy Baptist crap.  My mother actually asked me about the man I had just met, and what was going on.  I figured she was ready to hear it, so I told her.  She never wavered in her love and support for me, though certain issues took her a while to get past (lack of grandchildren was big, as I recall).

Dad, on the other hand, gave me a big hellfire-and-brimstone lecture, and refused to speak to me for years.  We eventually reconciled, but his opinion of gay people has never changed, despite his professed love for me.  It still hurts, forty years later, to hear him on the phone with his conservative wing-nut friends, decrying how the gays are going to bring God's wrath down on America.

Interestingly, I have managed to fall in with a crowd of loving, accepting Christians, and it turns out that most Christians are like them, and the virulent homophobes are a small, extremely attention-seeking minority.  Who knew?

Edited January 26, 2021 by BigBen

[Talo Segura]

I was sixteen. My mother opened the bedroom door. I was stark naked lying on top of my "best friend" who was also naked and we were...

I think she said, "Oh! Sorry," she closed the door. I said something like "Oops!" And we carried on... quietly.

Afterwards my friend was more embarrassed than I was and he sneaked out. My mother only said, "You'll have to tell your father." My parents were separated and my father living in a different country. I did tell him, but sometime later, I don't know if my mother had already told him, but I think so. It wasn't a surprise.

They were okay, I guess, I'm still not certain about what they think.

[Ryan Jones]

I'm probably a lot older than most responders on here since I'm nearing 70.

I started out with girls and my parents didn't care if I had them over in my room before I was even a teenager. I discovered boys at age 14, added them to the mix. I'm not sure my parents knew to start but as the year went by I was just more open. I kissed a boy in front of them when I was 15.

With all the people I had in my bedroom the only two times I had comments were when I had 4 guys over and my dad said that I needed to oil the bed because it made too much noise. My bedroom was right above the living room.

A couple of years later my mother said "I don't know where you get your sex drive. It certainly didn't come from your father." and that was more than I ever needed to hear.

Nobody in my extended North Carolina southern Baptist family seemed to care either and I would occasionally bring the boy I was with to family dinners, as a teen and later on. So I've never had any issues.