How did your parents react to you coming out?

[FPNY]

my mom forced me to come out by asking very pointed questions about me and my boyfriend when i was 26 or so. she freaked out and didn't speak with me for several years. fortunately for me she had instilled in me a sense of security about who i was and that doing what was right for me was paramount to a successful, happy life. she taught me that, and in the end it wound up being what brought us back together years later. my dad on the other hand was wonderful, supportive and loving. he was a wonderful man and i miss him dearly. both my parents died unexpectedly 32 days apart from one another. i'm glad my mom and me wound up having a good relationship, she never did fully accept my partner.

 

[SilverWolf]

My mom does not care whether I like men women or tansexuals so as long I'm happy. I don't have a father son relationship with my dad. I did think about telling him but he said he was glad I wasn't gay so I decided agaisnt it. He said he would still love me though.

 

[ChickenGuy]

DH, I'm sorry to hear that your dad has such an unpleasant attitude.

I almost feel guilty saying this now, but in the week that has passed now since I came out to my dad, his reaction has been nothing but supportive and friendly - in fact, he's being even kinder to me than usual, because he thinks I'm going through a rough time and need company. I take him for granted WAY too much, and don't tell him enough how grateful I am.

As for my mother, she died 10 years ago, but I'm SURE that she knew full well, and she'd be as kind and supportive as anyone. I find myself wondering what she would make of it all were she still here.

Here's to the future.

 

[Lawnmowerman]

I told both my parents at the same time. Dad always kinda wondered in the back of his mind about me, and mom was kind of clueless. How you could NOT wonder about your 41 year old son never bringing home dates or talking about women was beyond me .

They've been super supportive, and I was dating my first guy for barely a month when mom invited him over for Thanksgiving dinner with the entire family . Neither he or I was sure what to make of it.

I always feared the worst, which was one of the reasons I never came out, and now I realize it was all in my head.

 

[AbnormalDann]

Parents found gay porn in my room while I was away on vacation. Denied it at first, but admitted it a few minutes later.

They were supportive. They said they had suspected for a while and that they had not changed their views of me or how they had treated me.

 

[MyReply]

They haven't reacted, because I haven't told them. My prediction is that my mother would cry, thinking that it was her fault...while my father would be sadly silent. My parents aren't evil, so they wouldn't cast me out or anything, but it wouldn't be what they'd want to hear. From there, not much would be said about it, but there'd be an uncomfortable, depressed tension in the air between them and me.

 

[jd0711]

I told my mom when I was 16. She said she already knew. She said something along the lines of... "Duh!" I asked her how she knew and she said "Well for starters, when you were 6 your favorite movie was The Bodyguard."

As for my dad, I didn't tell him until my first year of college. I stressed for weeks before I told him and it turned out he didn't care at all. I joke about it more with him than anybody else I know.

 

[SFMusic]

I never said the words "I'm gay" to my parents because I think they always knew even though I tried really hard to convince them otherwise.

When I was in high school I knew I was gay but no one else did (or so I thought). To keep my cover safe I decided that I needed to start dating girls, so I asked this girl I knew from school if she wanted to go out with me on Saturday night, and she agreed. Of course every time I thought about the end of the date and the good night kiss, all I could think was...EWWWW, but I decided that I had to go through with it no matter what.

I went to my mother and asked her if I could borrow her car on Saturday night. She asked me why did I need it, and I proudly announced to her the I was going on a DATE. There was a very long pause, and then she quietly asked me "With a girl"? I replied indignantly "OF course with a girl. What a ridiculous question" as I stormed out of the room.

I stormed out of the room because my brain was about to explode. The voice inside my head keep screaming "How did she know"?

My parents and I always maintained a kind of "Don't ask don't tell " policy about my personal life (This was during the 60's and 70's) but I'm sure they knew. I mean, I was in my 30's, never married, never had a real girlfriend, and I lived with another man in a one bedroom apartment. Like I said, they didn't ask, and I didn't tell. That's the way a lot of us got by in those days.

There's a lot of truth to the old saying "A mother always knows" If she doesn't know for sure she will suspect when everyone else is fooled. It was certainly true in my case.

 

[geloge]

I didn't have a good relationship with my father so I never told him. Now it's too late to tell him anything.

Mother, she found my porn collection, she was shocked for a while but now she has accepted it, someway.

My sexual orientation is not a topic in my home. But really, sexuality has always been a taboo in my house.

 

[Rob35]

My mom cried at first, but then she told me she loved me no matter what, as long as I was happy. My dad just sat there dumb founded, didn't say a word. My sister said she didn't care as long as my partner made me happy. That was almost a year ago. To this day, they act like the same parents as they did before I told them. What a relief it was to get it out in the open. My actual thoughts were that they were going to disown me, especially with my dad being from the deep south. But, they fooled the hell out of me!!!!!!

 

[AaronG]

Dad cried, and asked how he had failed me.

Mom thought I was joking, then she cried too.

10 years later, they're still anti-gay--religion will do that sometimes--but they ask how my ex and I are doing (still friends, btw). They even invited us both for holidays when we were together. All things considered, it could be a lot worse.

 

[G-Lexington]

There was apparently a long, late-night-in-bed conversation by my parents. They ultimately decided that this wasn't something I decided lightly, and so I probably was in fact gay. And therefore, it was something they were going to have to accept. My mother took to it quite easily, and my father wasn't far behind. Having a good boyfriend that my father had some stuff in common with helped a lot.

Lex

 

[Nomenclature]

I've told this story before, but here's the abbreviated version:

I was caught going out with a guy. My brother found the myspace profile I had at the time, and saw my orientation and friends. He immediately told my mother, and she called me to confront me. She cussed me out, screamed, cried, threatened to throw me in a detention home, called up the guy and threatened him to stay away from me or she'd throw him in prison, had a mental breakdown and begged me "Please don't be gay!!" etc etc.


Fun times.

 

[Swellegant]

"Broken homes" are in many ways much easier for coming out. The parents aren't mired in marital and familial traditions, and in many cases they lack the moral stature to say anything at all about it.

I told both my parents, separately of course, when I was sixteen, shortly after coming out to my Grandmother (who is more a parent to me than those losers) and discovering that the world wouldn't come to an end.

My father said "Well, yeah, OK. I guess I already knew, but thank you for telling me. But not even tits? Tits don't do anything for you? Wow."

Mother said, "I still love you, but I can't approve of your lifestyle," to which I replied, after rolling in giggles on the floor, that her approval wasn't required. I didn't say aloud "the approval of a thrice-married abusive drug-addict who was at that time shacking up with a biker so skungey the Hell's Angels wouldn't have him...well, it just doesn't mean very much."

Grandmother was and remains the hard sell. She sent me to a family counselor when I was fifteen, recommended by her pastor, to "fix" me when she found a Chippendale's calendar under my bed. The counselor was a very kind man and referred me to the psychotherapist down the hall; I think he must have told Grandmother I was borderline crazy and needed more than he could give me. The therapist spent much of our sessions convincing me to come out to Grandmother.

So my sister was still living with us, then, and she was in family counseling, too... a different counselor recommended by her school advisor. During a group session, in which Grandmother complained ceaselessly about my sister, the counselor tried to deflect things by asking her "well, what complaints do you have about Bobby?"

Grandmother was caught off guard, and she was in full-on kvetch mode, so it came tumbling out: "I think he thinks he's gay."

"I know I'm gay," I spit out after a moment's struggle, using up all the courage that eighteen months of psychotherapy had given me.

She hmphed and crossed her arms and stopped participating. I don't remember the rest of the session, but Grandmother never mentioned it again. She stopped paying for our counselors and therapists, though.

And she still doesn't mention it, refuses even to acknowledge it when it comes up... and it does come up, you can't live with someone and never mention being gay. She doesn't like it, but she loves me anyway. And she supports me, too... not just financially, but emotionally. She got me to go back to college, she helped me quit drinking, she's just been there for me all the time...even times when a man broke my heart.

"The gay thing" is the only real fly in our domestic ointment, and sometimes we have bitter fights about it, but if I don't dwell on it and she doesn't dwell on it we're OK... and considering all the other things we differ on (I mean, she's a Christian and a Republican and thinks Bill O'Reilly is the Messiah), that's not so bad.

And something that got me through all of that was knowing that it wasn't my sexuality that was a barrier between me and her: it was her religion that made the barrier. She wanted to accept my being gay, but her religion and politics stopped her.

 

[astrocityboi]

My mother went through a year of depression.

You can all blame that on the catholic church.

 

[Kennylingus]

I did it over the phone when I was literally at the opposite end of the country. I just told her I moved in with a man that I was dating and gave her the address and phone number where I could be reached and that's really all there was to it. Really anti-climactic.

 

[operafan]

SOP: Don't ask, don't tell.

 

[davy]

i told them at the same time.

my mom cried a lot and asked a lot of embarrassing questions about my sex life.

my dad was dumbfounded and silent.

they're still coming around

 

[bounder]

Unfortunately, my dad was already dead for two years before I was out to my mother. I told my parents that I was questioning my sexuality, however, I was then in some deep denial. My dad kept a level head about it, and I think he'd be accepting if he were still here today.

My mother, on the other hand, was a different story. At the time when I told her I was questioning, I didn't want to be gay. She was pretty shocked and immediately came at me from a strict religious point of view. I bottled up my feelings and they laid dormant for a few years until I was able to accept myself.

You'd think my mother would have one those 'duh, you're little questioning fiasco was more than a subtle tip off' reactions, but no, she was gleefully in denial because she thought (and still thinks) it's a choice and God can make you straight if you pray. While I was planning to, I didn't get to officially come out to her. She found out when I left one of my e-mail accounts open when she was using my computer. She went into a fit, sprawled out on the living room floor, pounding her fists, kicking and screaming that it can't be true. She hit me a few times, said she felt like killing me by ripping my throat out and pointed out that nobody else was around. She said she was more hurt then when my dad died unexpectedly of a heart attack, that he was lucky to be dead, and wished she was too. There was a barrage of filth that I never would have expected to hear from here. She said she wished she aborted me, or left me for dead when I was young, and later on (months later) told me that I must be possessed.

For a while, I could barely stand to look at her and we don't talk much at the moment. I love her and she loves me, but I can't pretend that I'm not still hurting from how she treated me. I want things to be better between us, but don't know when she'll come around. I can't say that I'm holding my breath, but I'll be happy when/if she does.

 

[elra]

my mom responded that she thought i was moody because i was on drugs, but this made more sense and that we should probably finish decorating the christmas tree.

my dad just nodded and went back to watching old james bond movies on dvd.