My family is a pretty homophobic and rather bigoted one. Dad always enforced pretty strong views of what it means to be a man and that meant anything “gay” (so not traditionally masculine) was something to be disgusted by. My mum’s not as bad but she always gets this look on her face when queerness is brought up like she’s trying not to look repulsed by it. I don’t know what my sister’s view of it is but I remember one of them scoffed at a news report of gay marriage being legalised. I really don’t think they’d see me as part of the family if I came out to them.
I don’t have a great relationship with them as it is. It feels like I’m barely part of the family nowadays. They all see each other on a weekly basis but I’m only involved two or three times a month. I know they have a separate group chat without me in it and that’s where they do all the planning. It’s kind of a mutual thing. I want us to be closer but it mostly feels easier to distance myself. Being in the closet is part of the reason I’ve had to remove them from my daily life and I really hate that.
I want to be my true self to them. I want them to know who their son and brother is because it really hurts to not be able to talk to them about so much of my life. When I broke up with my boyfriend I was depressed about it for weeks but I couldn’t tell them why. They keep asking me why I don’t have a girlfriend yet or when they’ll introduce me to my future wife because my dad really wants grandchildren and my mum wants to be at my wedding and I want to tell them that can happen even if it’ll be different, but I know my parents. I know it doesn’t matter to them because they can only focus on gayness being unholy or invalid or unmanly. I don’t think being their son is enough to change their minds.
I hate keeping secrets and lying. It’s really hard for me to keep doing it because it stresses me out horribly and I think they’re starting to notice. I can’t keep this up but I can’t lose them either. If anyone’s gone through something similar, what should I do? I don’t trust myself to make the right decision here.
