Hello EC, I just wanted to vent about something. Sorry for the long post. Maybe whining would be the more appropriate word. I mean, so many out LGBTQ people have zero relationship with their parents. I have a pretty decent one, so who am I to whine about it? Well, I'm mainly whining about one parent and that is, at the risk of sounding Freudian, my mother. I'm gay and my current relationship with my mother and father is good. They call my husband "son" and always treat us kindly when we visit them. They were in the front row at our wedding. Yet, lately something has been bothering me. My brother and his long-term girlfriend are getting married in a few weeks and I am thrilled for them. However, our Mom is pumping up this wedding to friends and families in a way she did not for my husband and I. She has been very involved in the planning of my brother's wedding and while we did not need her help for ours she never offered. Earlier this year, at our grandma's funeral, she introduced my brother and his fiancée to lesser known aquantiances as engaged and saying how excited she was. Then she pointed at my husband and I and said "This is my son tidalpool127, and this is [husband's name]" and that was it. No mention of our half-decade marriage. I got a little upset inside because she seems to be so much more excited to share that her straight son is starting a family than when I started mine. The other thing that I want to vent about I should've let go a long time ago. It has been many years since I came out to my parents. They did not react very well at the time, particularly my mom. My mom was quite cruel. You see I've always been a bit of a momma's boy. When the bullies at school would call me "sissy", "pansy", and worse names I would run to her and she would comfort me. But when I came out she used those bullies' same words against me. She was my primary attachment parent growing up and it really hurt me. We're good now, but she never apologized. For some reason I can still hear her words sometimes, if I'm feeling down. Anyway, am I making too big of a deal out of this? Why am I jealous of how she is treating my straight brother's relationship? I'm a grown man, why do I still want her approval?
I don’t have any good advice, but as a mother to a son and a daughter I cannot imagine saying anything like that to either of them, I absolutely love them as they are. Maybe that’s easy for me though as I am LGBTQIA+?
Thanks for the reply. I know my Mom loves me it was just hard to see her act like she's embarrased or wants to hide my husband and I. Maybe I'm wrong though. She's always wanted grandchildren and of course she'll have a much easier time getting them with my brother. So that would be extra exciting for her. The words she used...perhaps I am being too sensitive. It was a long time ago. Back then, she said I blindsided her with my coming out. However, years later my Dad said he suspected I might turn out gay when I was 5. She also growing up did a lot of "boys don't stand that way" policing of me. To be fair, I was born with neurological issues that made me different and right after I came out she came to me crying saying the world would be too hard on me if I had these neural differences and was gay. So maybe she was just scared. I still just want her to say she didn't mean those things she said. But she says she is proud of me now so maybe I'm just whining. I mean, my husband's friend's father swung a baseball bat at him when he came out and they haven't spoken since. So WTF am I complaining about?
Oh god that’s awful. My daughter is gay, when she told me I was excited, gave her a hug and said wow that’s cool, congratulations. I think parents age has lots to do with it, like I’m not sure my parents would be over excited about it. I haven’t bothered coming out to them as bi because I walk on eggshells at the best of times with them and as I’m married to a man it doesn’t seem necessary to put myself through it!
Thank you. You sound like Mother of the Century to me. So happy for you and your daughter. Yeah my husband is a bit older than me and his friend older still. Plus we're from the Deep South. So I think you're right about the age of the parents. However, don't think you could never come out to them. I obviously still carry a scar or two from my coming out, but at the same time if you had asked me a week after coming out if my momma was ever going to say "I'm proud of you two" to me and my male husband I would have laughed and then started crying. However, she said this to us just last Christmas so sometimes it just takes time.
Ha ha, I’m certainly not that, my kids would definitely say I’m unreasonable about some other things! Haha. Yeah I don’t imagine being from the Deep South makes it any easier, I know we are a bit old fashioned in UK but we are fairly liberal. Have a good weekend, I have to go to sleep now before working tomorrow
While generation might have a good part to do with it I think that their belief system is a larger part. I know people who's parents were born before mine but they accepted with no problem (my mother was born right after WWII while my step-father was born between the wars). I also know people who's parents were born mush later who do not accept them, pretty much the same negative reaction that my parents had (I was disinherited and told to never visit when I said that I was going to live as my true self).
Yes, I agree about beliefs. My mom was raised in a fire-and-brimstone of the Baptist Church so I know that had something to do with it. I'm very sorry about you're parents. I'm sorry I shouldn't even be complaining when people like you have it much worse. I need to toughen up.
Your feelings are valid, if it makes you feel bad then it makes you feel bad. The whole narrative of "x has it worse so shut up" is just gaslighting and patently unfair to everyone who has feelings.
This is clearly painful and causing resentment for you. And your mother probably has some residual shame and/or embarrassment. But she may not even be aware of it. Assuming you have a good relationship with her now (which it sounds like you do), what would it be like to bring it up? If I were to do so, I'd approach it starting with "I have something to discuss that's been really hurtful that I've been holding onto for a long time. Would you be willing to talk about it?" And just see where it leads from there. I would not bring up the things she said when you came out; that came from a place of shock, shame, and her religious dogma. But the experience about your brother, how you were introduced... those are absolutely reasonable to discuss. I'm not necessarily suggesting this, but if you have the relationship to do so, it could be healing for both of you.
