Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Still sorting through it. Love her, she's 22. Basically raised her since kindergarten. But I have not told anyone about her status and it isn't because it's a private issue, It's because I'm actually embarrassed to tell my friends. Always very feminine and traditionally very pretty and "passed" as straight through high school, and till the last year or so when she went full-on butch.
The thing that I'm most embarrassed about is not her, it's me and my embarrassment over it. Her mother and I are on the other side of the country from her (because of work) and it is easy to handle now.
I always talked a good game, supported gay rights for years, etc. But I think my worst nightmare would be to have her walk in and see all my friends after years and then I'd be .......uncomfortable, I guess.
Very confusing time for me. Always suspected it, not a shock. But I'm not announcing it either. She also has no idea I feel these things. My wife is much much better at this than me and i think she'd handle it as business as usual. I'd be sweating thru it.
I love her and want her to be happy. We talk a bit and we are fine as the relationship between all parties is. I'm just a bit ashamed over my "hiding" of this, and certainly me consciously planning to meet her "alone for dinner" as a visit instead of going to my friends parties and cookouts with her, or meeting the crowd at the local watering hole........ anyone else gone through this?
It isn't about my friends I know "if they were REALLY your friends.....etc etc" (they'd probably be cool with it actually). My parents are both passed away but after an hour or two with her, they'd have been fine with it (but might have felt the same apprehension regarding public acknolwedgement).
It really is "what will the neighbors say?" That's what shocks me about my thoughts about all this. That and she's an adult and I'm handling this like she's thirteen and got a nose ring and we're due at Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner with the relatives in an hour.
For your daughter's sake, you have to fake it, and support her.
My daughter is gay and when she came out I didn't have a clue. She was married to a man at the time. They divorced and she now has had a girlfriend for seven years and they really love each other. If she's happy, then I'm happy.
Is it difficult around other people? Only if they make it that way. I love my daughter dearly and I was afraid of what other people would say at first, but nobody said anything to my face. I heard about it in a roundabout way and I cut those people out of my life, because if you can't love my daughter, you can't love me either.
One day we were all out to dinner with the whole family and someone at another table made a comment about my daughter's girlfriend and snickered, "Is that a boy or a girl?"
I turned around and said, "She's a better person than you, either way." I was so angry.
From then on I only wanted to protect her. I hope you get there, too.
Fake it till you make it. I don't think you are horrible for feeling this way or thinking these thoughts, but act like you don't have them and eventually you won't, and you won't have any horrible, relationship-damaging moments to look back on or apologize for.
Fake it. It's a temporary worry, and you will see that it doesn't matter before long.
Let one of your "friends" call you stepdaughter a bull-dyke and see how fast your Papa Bear comes out.
Nothing has changed, after all. Except, presumably, a haircut.
See?
Yep. I cut a friend and his wife out of my life when they disowned their son for being gay. I knew then they weren't the type of people I wanted to know.
For your daughter's sake, you have to fake it, and support her.
One day we were all out to dinner with the whole family and someone at another table made a comment about my daughter's girlfriend and snickered, "Is that a boy or a girl?"
I turned around and said, "She's a better person than you, either way." I was so angry.
From then on I only wanted to protect her. I hope you get there, too.
Thanks.
It has happened once, and only once, after she came out and changed the appearance. A waiter asked my wife what "her son" was having for dinner. She got mad, our "son" laughed it off. I wasn't there but she does look like a high school boy now. My wife, however, was furious and was insulted. I told her to "get used to it." I might have said the same thing, totally innocently. But who knows?
Thanks.
It has happened once, and only once, after she came out and changed the appearance. A waiter asked my wife what "her son" was having for dinner. She got mad, our "son" laughed it off. I wasn't there but she does look like a high school boy now. My wife, however, was furious and was insulted. I told her to "get used to it." I might have said the same thing, totally innocently. But who knows?
We joke that our "daughter-in-law" is the son we never had. It doesn't offend her. She indeed is the one who does all the guy things. She dresses in Skater Boy clothes, wears Vans & Hurley, and does the heavy lifting. I think it's only offensive when someone does it on purpose.
Still sorting through it. Love her, she's 22. Basically raised her since kindergarten. But I have not told anyone about her status and it isn't because it's a private issue, It's because I'm actually embarrassed to tell my friends. Always very feminine and traditionally very pretty and "passed" as straight through high school, and till the last year or so when she went full-on butch.
The thing that I'm most embarrassed about is not her, it's me and my embarrassment over it. Her mother and I are on the other side of the country from her (because of work) and it is easy to handle now.
I always talked a good game, supported gay rights for years, etc. But I think my worst nightmare would be to have her walk in and see all my friends after years and then I'd be .......uncomfortable, I guess.
Very confusing time for me. Always suspected it, not a shock. But I'm not announcing it either. She also has no idea I feel these things. My wife is much much better at this than me and i think she'd handle it as business as usual. I'd be sweating thru it.
I love her and want her to be happy. We talk a bit and we are fine as the relationship between all parties is. I'm just a bit ashamed over my "hiding" of this, and certainly me consciously planning to meet her "alone for dinner" as a visit instead of going to my friends parties and cookouts with her, or meeting the crowd at the local watering hole........ anyone else gone through this?
It isn't about my friends I know "if they were REALLY your friends.....etc etc" (they'd probably be cool with it actually). My parents are both passed away but after an hour or two with her, they'd have been fine with it (but might have felt the same apprehension regarding public acknolwedgement).
It really is "what will the neighbors say?" That's what shocks me about my thoughts about all this. That and she's an adult and I'm handling this like she's thirteen and got a nose ring and we're due at Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner with the relatives in an hour.
As a gay son, I'd say you're doing much better than my parents did. I've never been close to them in adulthood, partially due to their negative reaction to finding out I'm gay. But it took me years to deal with the reality that I'm gay. Most parents are going to take time to deal with it and come to terms with it as well. Don't beat yourself up over it, just take baby steps. It'll all work out.
I just took a moment to imagine what a thread like this would have looked like 20 years ago, and found myself thankful that so much progress has been made. To steal from Dr. King, it is the content of her character that really matters.
Kudos to the OP for your honesty and kudos to the C-D community for supporting the OP and showing what the prevailing attitude is.
It really is "what will the neighbors say?" That's what shocks me about my thoughts about all this. That and she's an adult and I'm handling this like she's thirteen and got a nose ring and we're due at Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner with the relatives in an hour.
People are embarrassed of you for being close minded.
Who are you talking about? Please read the whole OP and understand what it is she is saying. Most of us here giving her props for being honest with us and herself, and she does know she is the one with the problem. Nobody is denying that.
If you don't want to support homosexuality or your daughter being one, you don't have to. You owe no one an explanation or apology.
Interesting. I'm of the mindset that if you're going to withhold support to a loved one over such an integral part of their identity, you do in fact owe at the very least an explanation.
As luck would have it, the OP has it right and no apologies will be needed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
