telling mummy n daddy!!

[studded_belt]

hmmmm well i wouldnt describe myself as closeted as such... i mean all my friends know, my old lecturers frm college my old collegues at wrk and all my new uni mates know!! hmmm and its not like i hide it from anyone in particular, i mean if someone asked me i would honestly tell them tht i am gay! i donk know why but i jst cant bring myself to tell my dad tht im gay... The words wont physically come out my mouth.

i tried to tell my dad on two occasions actually (as i actually no longer hav a biological mother - lost her to breast cancer about ten years back and i feel tht my dad should be the first to know) and th first time he aske me why i dnt hav a girlfriend and i replied 'i dont want one rite now i wanna focus on getting into uni' (this was last yr around februarry time actually) and he said to me 'are u gay john? ur not gay are u lad?' and i said 'yes i am' well he went mental he paused and started shoutin and throwing stuff so i backed up- stupidly i know- and said to him tht i was joking and tht i liked this girl at college. he was relieved. then my second attempt was about a month after he knew i wnted to tell him summat but i physically couldnt open my mouth after fear of what he was gna do to me. He is a very 'traditional' man in his views and does not agree with homosexuality! he made tht clear to me as a kid and throughout my life!! although ometimes i think he might know!! we do not see eye to eye in the slightest, he bearly rings me now tht i live away frm home all the way up north and all he does is peste and moan at me...

i suppose wat i need is some assistance on how to tell him and maybe some guidelines on how to approach the subject and situation... i think its only fair to tell him i mean ive been 'out' to some of my mates for nearly two years!! im 18 and i feel tht it needs to be said but i am petrified of him. i suppose i dnt want to be seen as a let down to him as a son.

[princealbertofb]

Studded, at this point, I think you must have done everything within your power to deal with your father's adversity and his disappointment at not having raised a son in the way he'd probably have liked to. Your father, like any parent who knows but doesn't know, would probably prefer not to know just now and to be able to ignore something that is staring him in the face. But your father didn't ask for nothing, did he? So something tells us he knows, but.... it's a big BUT... he doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that it can be true. For this, he will need time, time to forgive you, time to forgive his deceased wife, and time to forgive himself for whatever mistake he may think he's made in bringing you up. In any case, he'll need the sort of time you need to mourn someone, to come to terms with the fact that his son is not who he thought he'd brought up.

The thing is, he doesn't realise, probably, that he is not to blame for this state of affairs. Right now he probably blames himself for not doing the right thing, therefore what image does that give him of himself?

I'm not sure my experience will help you at this point, but I can tell it to you nonetheless. The social context and my family context were different from what yours is now, but some things are quite similar in the impression I get from your account.

My parents have been separated (then later divorced) since I was seven. I didn't really grow up with my dad, making the relationship with him sometimes rather tense sometimes strenuous. He was a strict man and easy to anger, as I recall. Now he has subdued so considerably, I think he is more at peace with himself. More of that later.

You've probably seen that I am 48 going on 49 so I'm no longer a young man and much time has passed since I was twenty. I'd grown up realising that I was probably gay. At the time, (the 70s and 80s) I don't know if the notion of being gay was quite as clear as it might be now and not much information was available to our generation concerning what it meant to be gay, but the gay front had started acting politically along with Women's Lib, so being openly gay was quite a brave and political act. I'd been through enough heartache when my parents divorced, and I didn't want to get into another insecure spot by angering either of them. And though I felt determined to love whoever I wanted, male or female, I thought the first one that came would be the right one for me. I was not going to be guided by their gender. However, I was rather private with my emotions, and sufficiently down to earth not to let them carry me away. This doesn't mean I was unfeeling, just that I'd been badly scathed and scarred, I should think, by my parents' separation and did NOT wish to make the wrong romantic choice for a partner. Reproducing the love-then-hate, tenderness-then-spite relationship of my parents would have been catastrophic for me.

I started my first romantic attachment very late in life, at 21, which, then, I believe, was probably not surprising nor abnormal for a gay man. Gay men would easily be the ones to keep themselves to themselves, to focus on their studies and their friendships, rather than get involved in complicated lies and love stories that were, you know, "doomed". The outlook is very different nowadays. Young people can guess more easily how their clocks tick and do something about it. But societal pressures remain quite strong, especially in certain types of social backgrounds but also in various kinds of religious backgrounds. As for the law and medicine, they now say that being gay is acceptable and no longer a disease. (which is definitely an acquisition and a blessing).

So at 21, I fell in love with this young American, and things went fine for a few months, can't quite remember how many, maybe two or three. He was my first love. I knew I was not to do anything sexually speaking under my mother's roof, but, well, ... you know, nature calls and so things did happen but when my mother and siblings were out of the house. Anyhow, where else could it have happened, in cottages? in the wilds? Not my scene, sorry.

My next brother had by then openly embraced the gay life (in the more political, out in your face manner) but I don't really know whether we knew at home that he was or not. I think the idea became clearer later on. He was no longer living at home, studying in a different city, while I was still the homey-boy.

At 22 I had to leave to go and do my military service. I knew I'd be out of the house for a whole year. This 21st year of my life was definitely my last chance to get a bit of experience before being caught up in the enclosed, all-male world of the army.

I was considering coming out to my mother about being with C. when things changed and I found out C. wasn't too exclusive. I didn't want that sort of relationship and I let him go, only to fall in love a few weeks later with a young American woman, who then lived under our roof as a guest. I'd learnt to know her well over the months she'd stayed at our place. She taught me the "straight" aspect of a love relationship and we got on very well for the next 4 years, even living together ("in sin!" as the vicar put it to me later, which I greatly resented) for the first part of my life away from my family (including army year).

My relationship with this woman was very comfortable and comforting. It gave me support while I was at the army, as I was able to boast a real girlfriend, whom others could envy me (lol -- I had photos to show!) and during my first professional years of teaching, and because she was a very loving, decent person, we were happy for those four years. We are still on good terms now.

After that time together, life was going to separate us for all sorts of reasons, family reasons, work reasons, and although the romance was still strong, we decided to break up our union so we could both go our separate ways. It just had to happen and I let it happen. All along that process, I yearned for her, for her love, for her body, for her humour, for her presence, but I knew that I was probably not cut out for a woman, having always this hankering to love a man, not in the sort of half-way that C. and I had loved. That had fumbled a bit. It had been a short-lived relationship, one that had thrilled and excited me because it was new and slightly dangerous, but not one that had fulfilled me, because I'd lost trust in him.

I then started a long period of celibacy (18 years to be exact) which is a long time to go without loving someone, I can tell you.

OK, now, how did all this go down with my parents? What did they know and not know? My father never heard about me and C. Never! My mother got all sort of jealous-indignant at my relationship with S. because she had driven me away from the right path (my mother is quite religious).

My dad, on the other hand, because he'd had umpteen mistresses after my mother didn't mind that S. and I had a "sinful" relationship and even welcomed us under his roof. He even said to S. that he was glad to see that I wasn't gay after all. (These are words that she told me he'd said). S. knew that I'd had a relationship with C. but didn't seem to take offense. She put it down to experimenting since she knew I'd never had another love before. She was just out of another relationship and she'd actually married a gay man when in the army, to get benefits like paid studies, and we couldn't even get married (had we wanted to) because she was still officially married to this man (she eventually filed for divorce, which is what they'd agreed to do after a few years -- this had been, after all, only a financial arrangement).

When my mother made such a fuss about me being with S., I came out to her about my previous short relationship with C. which I suspected she knew about, but she wouldn't even hear of it. She just clammed up on the subject and I wasn't to mention it again. Mind you, I wasn't to mention S. either, as that irritated her. All of a sudden S. who had lived under her roof as a perfectly ordinary paying guest, had become the arch enemy. My mother, is, I guess rather possessive of me, as I'd been her staunch support when my left father left the family. I'd grown up all too soon, really, in terms of responsibility, except in terms of emotional happiness and blossoming.

[princealbertofb]

As I said earlier, I spent the next 18 years alone, without a love in my life, but plenty of friends, and a few ladies romantically interested in me, but I was determined not to fool them so I didn't. I could be a good friend and that's hard enough to find, so I guess I chose wisely.

In the meantime, my younger brother who was very active in the gay community (or underworld?) contracted Aids, unfortunately. Although he would have had to be the most informed man on the planet about how NOT to catch it, he did. It was unlucky but it happened. I don't know when he found out, presumably some time in 1989 or so, but he didn't tell the family until 1992. By then the signs of the full blown illness had appeared on his body and blotched his once charming face. My poor poor brother looked a mess but kept as cheerful about life as he could.

His last year, he was an utter mess being so physically diminished that he could hardly move. That was a time when my father finally owned up to the fact that his son was gay (not me, the younger one) and that he was very very sick indeed. My brother first chose to tell dad, strangely enough, and while he had always had this feeling that his father had rejected him, he still chose to tell him first, keeping the announcement for our mother last in the family. My father had expressed negative opinions about his lovers but it was never quite clear what his opinions were based on.

I found out about the Aids some time before my dad, when I hadn't seen my brother for a couple of years I guess. He was living in Paris, doing his thing, living his life as a journalist, I was living mine in another area of the country, and not being attracted to Paris, I never went to visit him there. I had no idea what his life in Paris was like. I had no idea what combats he'd led against a very gay-unfriendly government (thank God things have changed!) I'd only see him occasionally at holidays when we'd both be at the parents' houses.

In the autumn of 1992, he came to visit us in my area. He wanted to see my aunt who lived not far away. My father said since he was coming it would be nice for the 4 of us to get together for a meal. We did.

I immediately noticed that my brother was very very thin, but being gay, you know, looks were important, so he tried to remain slim. He'd done numerous fasts which he considered to be good for him, to cleanse out the body etc... I also saw that blotch on the tip of his nose. We'd read about Kaposi's sarcoma in the press, I knew it could be that. I was worried. Toward the end of the meal, he asked if I could show him my flat, since he'd never seen it, so we left and had a few private hours together. He didn't say he was ill, he only half intimated the idea, and I was quick to catch the bait, mentally but couldn't ask him frontally. I left him at the station reminding him that if he needed to talk about ANYTHING, I'd be ready for him. He said thanks and disappeared on the platform.

I went home, feeling something was wrong. I took pen to paper and wrote to him. Had I guessed what was happening to him? Had he tried to tell me while not wanting to worry or frighten me? I was ready to hear the truth. He wrote back confirming my worse thoughts. He wrote, now that you know and that our youngest sibling knows, when and how can we tell the parents? I rang back to tell him I'd be by his side.

So we told our father first, over Christmas, the whole family gathered together (except our mother) and it was already a very hard time for everybody. My father didn't say anything. I don't think he knew what to say. The news was such a shock. In 1993, therapies were not what they are now. Anyway my brother had decided NOT to take all of them. He didn't altogether believe in beleaguering his body with a host of tablets and capsules, phials and potions ... He believed in doing it the natural way.
As it turned out, it wasn't a good idea. He suffered in dignity and wasted away. By February 1994, he'd gone.

Telling our mother was not an easy thing either.

Once more, a few days later, the family gathered around her as my brother said the ominous words. Lots of crying, again, lots of pain, again, lots of grief... All of that year of 1993, my brother got visits from our mother and father when they could make it. He had a good network of friends and they kept an eye on him when the parents were not able to be present. I didnt find that out until he died. I could not be more useful to him than I was, giving him moral support but having to be at my job several hundred miles away.

At Christmas of 1993, his potential had diminished quite drastically and he had got very sick. He was on medication, which he now accepted to take but could not move very easily. He was very very thin, almost a walking skeleton. You've seen the pictures of men and women and children in Africa and South East Asia... It's not a pretty sight. A few weeks before his death, I was with my mother, we were talking about going up together to see him and look after him in Paris over the winter mid-term holiday. My mother was in tears with grief, of course, and I can see myself sitting on a stool in the kitchen when she turned to me and asked: Are you gay?

"Mother", I thought, "yes, I am. But how can I tell you this now that my brother is dying of Aids, this hideous, atrocious, monstrous disease? How can I tell you that I too may be doomed to die the same death. You already know you're going to lose a son, why do you ask if you're going to lose another?"

These were my thoughts. I did not answer that way. I said: "I don't like to think of myself that way."

I had, before my brother's illness was disclosed to us, been toying with the idea of telling her about me being gay, but since there was no one in my life to substantiate it, I hadn't done it. Then THIS!! Telling her I was gay became virtually impossible, for I knew all the worry and pain it would cause. And I still had no reason to tell her so. All of a sudden, for me too, being gay was going to be impossible, at least being physically gay and having a gay sexual relationship was going to be impossible. My brother, having fought as well he might for all those gay rights, by dying, was denying me the right to be a happy gay man. With his death, he'd anihilated all hope for me. We all went into mourning.

One more detail that made me doubt my mother's feelings about me being gay was that she deliberately destroyed my brother's journal/diary, one which he kept and in which he wrote about his life as a gay man. She thought it was "not proper", probably too damaging to her, so she denied us, his brothers, and his father the right to know more about him. I read that act as a negation of what or who I was. Again, at his funeral, no mention was made of his being gay, of his being a militant gay man, of his being an activist and of all the things he'd done to further the cause of gay rights and his battle for medical treatment of Aids patients. His gayness was completely wiped off the slate. We were just bereaved of a brother, a son, a cousin, a friend, a lover for some (but that was kept discreet,not negated but kept discreet, or gently swept aside, while everybody knew), not bereaved of a gay brother, a gay son, a gay friend.

[princealbertofb]

By now I've spent 10 years of my life alone... My brother has just died. It's become easier to be openly gay in French society but I still can't tell anyone. I bury myself in work and art and forget about a romantic life. Too late, too bad. I missed the opportunity. I'm growing old. My hair has turned prematurely white. I suppose I'm suffering from some mild form of depression but my mother is far worse. She's a wreck. A once strong willed and admirable woman has become a shadow of herself. She's in mourning and she's struggling to find a way out. I cannot help, I've got my own mourning to do, and she's not helped me solve my inner conflicts with the things she's said. I can't tell my father. I think he's happy to think that I've got some romance going on with my dance partner of 20 years... We're just good friends but he's not to know that.

To cut a long story short, now, we'll move on another 8 years. I'm 43. I'm looking for answers. I find an old letter which had been sent to my deceased brother by one of his friends telling him about the death of his lover, the one who infected him. We'd never been able to get in touch with this person to tell them my brother had died too. But now, we've got computers, now we've got the Internet. Now I can see if I can find this person. And I do.... We start corresponding, and that's how I happen upon UK.GAY.COM. That's how I meet my sweetheart. That's how I wake up from a long slumber and am able to be myself. But by being myself, I also need to be truthful to my parents. I've never said anything to my dad, but he naturally guesses. As for my mother I get sick just thinking about telling her. But now she hears about Marshlander, and so she expects to meet him one day. I think if we go down to visit I don't want her to consider my lover as 'just a friend'. That's not right. I need to clear the path.

One day, I decide to write her a letter. In fact it'll be an e-mail. As I write the letter, the tears start streaming down my face. Marshlander is in another room. I ask him to listen to the letter before I send it. More tears, more emotions. I've come to realise that my mother loves me no matter what, and that she's got to be happy that I'm happy at last. I send the e-mail. Then decide we're going to disappear for the whole day.

When we get home, she's left a voice message on my answerphone.
"You must think I was born yesterday! Of course, I knew you were gay. A mother knows those things."

Thanks, Mum, I'd told you, if you remember, back when I was 20! You didn't want to know then. I've worried for 24 years! You sent the wrong message and I've believed it all these years. Thanks, Mum. But anyway...

The outcome was happy, because now she's got a new son in law. It will never replace the son she's lost. But she sees me happy and that means the world to her.

mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile: mile:

:heartline:

[marshlander]

hmmmm well i wouldnt describe myself as closeted as such ... and i feel tht it needs to be said but i am petrified of him. i suppose i dnt want to be seen as a let down to him as a son.

Hi studded_belt. Your story made me quite sad. I'm so sorry you have found it difficult to have this conversation with your Dad. Still, I'm a fine one to talk. I waited until I was in my forties and my father and I were sitting by my mum's hospital bed while she was in a coma and in her last hours of life. I suppose times like that help put lives into perspective.

I applaud your efforts to take this particular bull by the horns and tell him, although clearly your father isn't going to want to hear what you have to say when he seems to have his own problems with homosexuality ... whatever they might be.

You say he hardly contacts you now you are away at university? That is not necessarily an indication that he doesn't want to contact you. It is just as likely that he's thinking that you have your own life now and he finds it hard to work out when and how to contact you. I promise you, dads can often overcompensate when it comes to worrying about mollycoddling. Before we know it weeks have slipped by and we still haven't made that call. Where a family has a mum and a dad, it's often the mum who becomes the intermediary who sees through all this masculine standoffishness and keeps the lines of communication going. As you've explained, with just the two of you, you have to work out how best to deal with the communication thing.

Have you thought about getting those channels flowing a bit more freely first before you come out (again)? How do you think he would take it if you broached the subject of "not talking as often as we did"? You could tell him you miss those times, if that's how you feel. As a father, I know I would respond to any of my kids saying something like that. As it happens, they mostly express gratitude that I'm not on the phone or the doorstep as often as the in-laws

Some dads are scary and it really saddens me to read your message that you are petrified of him. I would be horrified if any of my children felt that way about me and were that to be the case I know I would do something about it. If he feels let down it cannot be because of you. He can only feel let down because his expectations are unreasonable and have been thwarted by the way life has turned out. What he appears to see as tragedies are no one's fault. Things just happen. We have no choice but to play the hand we are dealt in life. You seem to have adjusted to changing circumstances better than he has. I doubt you would have wished some of them upon yourself. He's lost his wife, now he probably feels he's losing his son. It must feel so unfair.

Families do things differently. In my family, we didn't talk. It enabled me to build a pretty strong antipathy toward my father from adolescence onward for what I saw as his shortcomings. In Albert's family they seem to write important stuff down when they find it difficult to say it out loud. My bad feelings towards my dad lasted right up until we had that talk at mum's hospital bedside. Strangely, after that I really felt the proverbial weight had been removed from my shoulders. I could never have predicted that in a thousand years. We get on really well now. Not many sons get a second chance like I did.

I know you want to face up to this, but why should you put yourself in the firing line again? Now you are away from home, how do you feel about writing to him? This would give you the opportunity to use exactly the words you want to use. You can assure him that you do love him. You can tell him whatever you want about your own feelings and he will probably read the letter many times over. If the written word isn't your family thing, you could gently try to explain why you have chosen this route, preferably avoiding any hint of accusation over what happened before. Take your time to use the words that you know will work best. I assume your aim would be to build bridges rather than tear lumps out of them? Hopefully this would also give him time to work out his responses before he sees you in the flesh again.

I don't know if this needs to be done now or if, like Albert, it makes sense to do it when you have a partner and you have a specific reason to want him to know of your good fortune and happiness.

Whatever, I sincerely wish you both the best. I'm sure many fathers would be very proud to have a son as well sorted as you seem to be.

Good luck and let us know if and when you have something to report.

[princealbertofb]

Hi studded_belt. ...
... Good luck and let us know if and when you have something to report.

I would add: Good luck and let us know if and when you need some support.


And it rhymes!!!!!