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Thanks for this post. ... With freedom comes responsibility, and as long as I maintain responsibility, regardless of how difficult things get with my parents, I will have a much more fulfilling life on the other side.
Bawac I am so glad to read this response to my post, and happy it has perhaps help you a bit. Sounds like you are on the right track now.
If it helps you any, I was 35 before I finally stood up to my domineering, demanding mother...and it was in a situation where the incident she caused resulted in my telling her she had to leave my home (she was living with me -- my father had died the year before and she came to Dallas to try to find a job). It was so hurtful to have to put her out of my home, but what she did to me was also hurtful and it was actually the last straw in a long line of things I have since forgiven her for.
Bottom line is: we got past it...in fact my mother lived with me in my home the last 2 years of her life ... she had progressive dementia, and for a little while I was able to enjoy my mother as she would have been without all the societal and familial trappings that had defined her temperament for so long...it was a blessing, believe me...
But more importantly what I want you to know is that we got beyond that incident when I was 35...there is hope that your family will get beyond what's coming too. I pray they do.
I once worked with a woman, a very religious Christian woman, who came to me to say she was devastated that her daughter was "experimenting" in a lesbian relationship and she did not know what in the world to do. I talked with her at length, and having gone through a devastating decade with my own son who had become a heroin addict (who has been clean for many years now, thank God) -- but having gone through that, I tried to explain to her that her daughter could be involved in so many horrible things and, even if she were experimenting, it was only love she was involved with, and moreover that she was the same daughter she had always had...I prevailed upon her to pray about this and remember that love is what matters. Today, 18 years later, her daughter is still with that same woman, they have a loving, positive relationship and my office worker friend learned many years ago to be grateful and now enjoys the love and companionship of her TWO daughters! She accepted the blessing of her daughter as she is, and has gained a grandson (the partner's son) and another daughter (the partner) to enrich her life! They actually dote on her and joyfully take care of her when she needs help.
Don't despair, OP, but don't hold off too long on publicly embracing and celebrating the person you were made to be...you have matured and understand how to be responsible, and you don't need fixing. I pray that your parents will come to accept you as the son they always have had, and as you are.
One thing I want to add. I have no hope that my parents will ever come around on this. The only way it might be possible is if my parents got divorced or my father passed away leaving my mom as a widow. The former would be great but won't happen and the latter is something I don't even want to think about. Without one of those things happening, them accepting my orientation just isn't a possibility. A big reason is my dad is an Independent Baptist pastor and me being out would reflect poorly on him and he could even lose his church because of it. The fact that he has a gay son means he was a flawed father and didn't raise me to be a Godly man as he should have, according to the dogma of the church.
One thing I want to add. I have no hope that my parents will ever come around on this. The only way it might be possible is if my parents got divorced or my father passed away leaving my mom as a widow. The former would be great but won't happen and the latter is something I don't even want to think about. Without one of those things happening, them accepting my orientation just isn't a possibility. A big reason is my dad is an Independent Baptist pastor and me being out would reflect poorly on him and he could even lose his church because of it. The fact that he has a gay son means he was a flawed father and didn't raise me to be a Godly man as he should have, according to the dogma of the church.
I understand that this^^ must make things much more difficult and complicated for you.
However, OP, I hope that you know, deep in your heart and soul, that THIS IS HIS PROBLEM AND NOT YOURS!
Well bawac at least you know that a lot of people even we heterosexuals totally accept GLBT and if we are any examples it will get better every year as acceptance of GLBT lifestyles become more common--and I'm glad of it! You live far and away from me but if I met you wherever I'd be proud to have you as my friend!
It's plain and simple! There isn't anything to fix for GLBT. We love you the way you are!
Sooner or later I hope the whole world embraces diversity and decries discrimination and prejudice. We are all humans! We are one!
I know this isn't PC, but I don't believe in Gay anything and I'm not a bit religious. You're born Male or Female. Period. Deal with it with Dignity.
While I understand you are telling the honest truth from your point of view - I also know that if you would have been born (for example) with a different chemistry makeup (less testosterone) an also had poor male role models....along with some not-yet understood brain wiring, you would be posting something different on here.
i could make the same statement as you and believe it...just as I could say we never could possibly fit a device into our pocket which held the name and address of every human on the earth.
One of the major problems of "some" religions is they preach a "truth" and that is the only truth. The real "truth" is while things like ethics, morals, compassion and other such things exist, much of the rest of the world is fungible and flexible.
And - even then - no one really has the standing to judge....according to the same scripture, if i have my basics right.
I like women myself. But 90% of the time I'd rather work with (creatively, etc) a male. Does that make me weird.
A poem from Jimi Hendrix fits this sort of thing.
White Collared conservative walking down the street
Pointing their plastic finger at me
They're hoping my kind will soon drop and die
but I'm gonna wave my freak flag high.
Fair Haven is about a teenager who goes to conversion therapy to convert from gay to straight, his life afterwards, and ending with him coming around and embracing his sexuality. This movie really struck a chord with me, because his post-conversion therapy life has been my life for the past almost seven years now. I came out of the closet in 2009 the first time and went back in the closet and did the "ex-gay" thing starting in late 2010 because my parents' reaction was so traumatic. I did conversion therapy in 2013-14 and it didn't work. In late 2015 I accepted my sexuality to myself but am still in the closet and "ex-gay" to people who know about my past. My life these past seven years, and especially the past five since I moved back to my hometown, have been brutal. I'm always angry and bitter and upset because I am living the life my parents want for me and not the life I want. It's truly a miserable existence, going through life playing a part and not yourself.
I relate to him when he is starting to sneak with his boyfriend when it comes to that "war between too worlds" i.e. his father, the girl he wanted him to be with, and the church against his boyfriend. That so describes what living in the closet is like when you are close to coming out.
I also envy the kid in the film. He's 19 and is figuring this all out. I'm 31. Much of my prime years are behind me, wasted because of Christianity and homophobia. Those are years I will never get back. Years that could have been happy but instead were some of the most miserable of my life. I look back on that and what do I have to show for it? All I got out of my twenties was a year of unapologetically being myself when I was 23 to around my 25th birthday. I wouldn't give those days up for anything. Everything afterwards was being a slave to my parents, Christianity, and conservative society.
In the movie, the father comes around in the end, which I envy because I know there is no hope of that in my family. If there was, I wouldn't have did the ex-gay thing for this long, throwing my prime years down the toilet for their happiness.
I am very scared though. Part of me still believes God exists and will smite me and take away everything from me if I was to get in a same sex relationship. I know that's irrational thinking, but deep down I still have that fear. The other part of it is I know that day is coming when I'll have to face my parents, likely speaking to them for the last time, and I keep wasting years because I am so afraid of that day that I keep pushing it off into the future.
Look, buddy, that sucks, but 31 is NOT old. Jesus, I didn't even really start having fun til I hit my thirties. Now, granted, I am not a gay man, but I think I speak for fellow humans in general when I say that youth is highly highly overrated. I am 43 and I feel like these are my best years. I look forward to growing older. I see people in their 20s and they look so dewy, like new foals. I don't really find new foals attractive. Older people are far sexier to me, frankly, and I know if I feel that way a lot of others would too.
You will HAVE to face and embrace yourself. The real waste is not your youth, but right this very moment. Don't spend your life living by the dictates of others. I stayed in a miserable marriage for a couple of years just because everyone thought we were this great love story, and I wasn't feeling it. Granted, your situation is far graver, but the takeaway is the same: I only wound up having a great love story AFTER i gave up the fake one. And that's how it is. You haven't lived yet until you truly admit, "this is who I am". Let the chips fall where they may. Do you want to be loved just because you are doing as you are told? Or loved for who you really are? If your family and friends turn their back on you (which I promise you, not all of them will) then you will have to work that out. But you will at least go to bed knowing that you lived honestly that day. Like Bob Dylan said "to live outside the law you must be honest". Don't waste your time on those who would ask you to live by their ideals. You know who you are- be that. Your life is yours only. Good luck.
One thing I want to add. I have no hope that my parents will ever come around on this. The only way it might be possible is if my parents got divorced or my father passed away leaving my mom as a widow. The former would be great but won't happen and the latter is something I don't even want to think about. Without one of those things happening, them accepting my orientation just isn't a possibility. A big reason is my dad is an Independent Baptist pastor and me being out would reflect poorly on him and he could even lose his church because of it. The fact that he has a gay son means he was a flawed father and didn't raise me to be a Godly man as he should have, according to the dogma of the church.
That sucks. That is some deep religious strapping-down of the spirit there. Personally, I don't believe in a Jesus who would abide by that kind of hypocrisy. If his church would exile over him over something that is simply who you are, then there is a problem with that church. There are a lot of people who would disagree with me on this, but homosexuality was not an oft-discussed abomination in the Bible. And the bottom line with Jesus is that he is with the outcasts, the hated, the sinners, the freaks. This is my own personal relationship with Jesus and I always feel that truth intrinsically. He has been hijacked. You should read a book called "The Hijacking of Jesus". Look it up. Written by a Christian scholar. You don't have to dump the entire faith because you are gay. And if you are kind, and do unto others, then you ARE practicing what Jesus taught.
A better analogy would be what if you (a man) meet a woman and become insanely attracted to her but your family and society and church say that your attraction to her is wrong and evil and you feel intense guilt and shame about something you have no control over? Meanwhile you see other men in other places who have happy, healthy relationships with women, but for you to do that you'd have to cast off your family and your belief system.
OP, how you're feeling is why so many gay people from small towns have flocked to larger cities with gay communities (and even gay churches! You don't have to give up faith.) over the years. Many families are accepting and welcoming of LGBT+ relatives, but when they're not, sometimes you have to go and create your own family.
even some of us who are straight have had to make our own families..... far happier and loving and less toxic than our blood relatives.....
When your entire family is toxic that is all you have left. I have only sis and cousins left in my family, and all of them are toxic. I have to make my real family from my friends. I see as little of the blood relatives as little as possible. Alas, sometimes life gets forced on you with no choice on your part. Get lemons, make lemonade.
This entire thread really upsets me. I can't believe anyone during this day and age would try to "convert someone to being straight". There is NOTHING wrong with being gay, bi or transgendered. You either are or you are not. It is should not be such a big deal.
You have only one shot at life. There is a huge world out there. Get out of middle on no where and go to a major city.
Poeple need to stop shaming other people for their sexual identity.
If you can't move to a major city right now, I would suggest you start networking online with gay organizations in major cities. No one better to understand where you are at then someone who has lived through the experience.
I have several male freinds in high school that came out in university. Both from very old school families. One is happily married to another man. His parents are at peace with it and accept it now. Your family just does not know any better. When you 100% come to terms with it they likely will come around.
Come visit Toronto between June to early July. The entire city is celebrating PRIDE with our LGTB community.
Being straight, gay, bi, transgendered or whatever else is just one aspect of what makes you who you are.
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She accepted the blessing of her daughter as she is, and has gained a grandson (the partner's son) and another daughter (the partner) to enrich her life! They actually dote on her and joyfully take care of her when she needs help.
