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Help - gay brother
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Anonymous
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I'd just like to point out once more that sexual orientation isn't a choice. It isn't "a lifestyle" or any other dismissive hateful garbage.
It's biological. You can't pray it away. I am sympathetic to someone who discovers something this important about someone they thought they were close to feeling upset that their close friend or relative couldn't share this. I am also sympathetic to women who learn that their husbands are gay and men who learn that their wives are lesbians. What I'm not sympathetic to is people like the OP and everyone agreeing that the OP is anything other than a close minded bigot. The second OP compared her brother's partner to a felon or a prostitute was the second she lost any credibility she had left. |
Anonymous
Its not a get of jail free card either. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
| OP, have you ever thought of your brother walking out of that restaurant..? That's what I had in my mind, while stomaching your responses over 10 pages. I think about every step he took until he got to his boyfriend and how his face was probably telling that they would have to go home without a meeting. Try thinking about it from his perspective. |
Anonymous
What jail? What are you talking about? Given OP's reaction and her parents' suspected reaction, I doubt that OP's brother came to terms with his sexuality easily. He clearly struggled for years trying to fit into expectations- his family's, his friends' and probably his own, to say nothing of society. Assuming that OP's brother is at least 30, American culture wasn't accepting of gay people during the times when most people awaken to their sexuality. A few people on this thread have condemned OP's brother for "lying" about his sexuality. That's been labeled a mental illness. It's not. It's a process of accepting something hard, something that will alienate family, that makes you increasingly at risk for harassment and violence, that puts your sexuality into a spotlight that straight people don't experience. It's not "lying" to not disclose that the instant you realize it unless you've got a particularly cold and pedantic mind. People who have empathy are able to recognize that disclosure of difficult things takes time. Any difficult thing - sexual assault isn't the same as homosexuality in any way other than that people take the time they need to disclose those things even to people they love, often out of fear that those loved ones will respond as OP did. Stop making it about your struggle to accept him. His struggle is more important than yours in this situation. If you lose your brother, you will have no one to blame but yourself. |
Anonymous
| Too many pages to read them all, but wow, you suck, OP. You are so self centered. This isn't about you, you selfish, conceited bitch. |
Anonymous
What? This is about OP and her feelings toward her brother. She started the topic to ponder that. |
Anonymous
+1000 People like OP contribute to the high rates of suicide and depression among LGBT youth. Having to live with the prospect that your family consists of ignorant bigots like OP is more than many kids can bear. Fortunately the world is changing and the bigots (that's what OP is-- that's the word for someone who judges based on an immutable characteristic) are becoming scarce. |
Anonymous
His coming out is not about her. Her feelings are unacceptable, frankly. |
Anonymous
| OP, about your feelings that he "wasted" his girlfriend's time: you don't know what was going on between them. He may have told her at some point he was ambivalent and she chose to stay hoping it would work out. Or she could have not been very interested in sex. Or they had an open relationship. Chances are he was struggling with his sexuality and wasn't deceiving her. It really isn't your business because you could never know everything that went on but let's say it was, in fact, time she will not get back in her years toward marrying and starting a family. Isn't it better that she found out before marrying him and having kids? He could have married, had two children and then sorted out his sexuality. He's the same brother you always had; give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn't purposely lie to her. |
Anonymous
His coming out to her is about her also. This is the topic about how she feels. It is ridiculous to say "this is not about her". |
Anonymous
No. it is about him and being honest. He obviously, mistakenly, thought his sister was a decent human being who truly loved him. His mistake. She can feel however she wants but if she can't be a decent human being she needs to be honest and get some therapy. |
Anonymous
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OP:
Do your brother, your kids, and society at large a favor. Go make an appointment with Zombie Kevorkian. |
Anonymous
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I read the first few and then the last few pages as well, and I come down to two things:
What are wanting "help" with exactly? Your brother is gay. That's done. So at this point, you either accept him AND his boyfriend, or you don't. You don't need "help." There's nothing that's going to help you because this isn't about you. And I agree with the PP: either you want a relationship with him or you don't. He's set the terms now. Accept him, or not (see point one), but those are the terms. When he told you he was gay, he set those terms. So decide if you can meet them. I don't see a middle ground. |
Anonymous
DH kind of pulled the same thing on his sister. She had been living abroad for years in South America with no way of reaching her except for sporadic email -- no choice of calling, no real way to keep in touch. I had met her before she left, but back then DH and I weren't that serious. She visited the next summer for a couple weeks and we were more serious, but she was surrounded by family and didn't get to know me. Well, we got engaged and wanted to wait until she was back stateside to tell her in person -- which was only 4 months away. Well, 2 months before she came back, I got pregnant -- and all the family knew but no one told her since they knew we wanted to share it in person (that's not something for an email!). We waited to get married until she would get back. So, she met me 2 years earlier at one dinner, sees me the next summer but never without a bunch of people around, then comes back, and I've "stolen" (her view) her brother, got pregnant, and tricked/pressured/snagged him into marrying him (not the accurate timeline, but the way she sees it), and now there's a wedding only a couple weeks away and NO ONE -- not even her own brother -- bothered to make sure it worked in her schedule. (Even though, to us, and her own parents, we had waited to get married for her to be back in the states). Well, we were both there, waiting MONTHS to tell her the good news, so excited, so happy (and admitting, not really thinking it would upset her -- she'd have a new sister & a new niece/nephew). She THREW me out of the house (it was our house but demanded -- screamed that I leave so she could be with her brother without me). She then (I found out later) proceeded to yell at him for an hour. When he called me and said I couldn't come back (she then went back to their parents house), he all red and had clearly been crying -- I had never seen DH cry. I had to beg him to tell me what happened. The next day I got a very long (maybe 5-page) email about how she wishes she could invite me to be a part of their family, but she can't be happy for me, because I ruined her life, her brother's life, and her entire family's life. I tricked him, manipulated him, controlled him, and was the worse thing that ever happened to him. (And this went on for paragraph after paragraph about how her brother was a "better" person before me, about how her and her brother were close before me, about how I don't even know how awful I am and if I really cared about him, I would call off the wedding. Truthfully, I was traumatized and if I wasn't pregnant, maybe I would have called off the wedding). 15 years later, she never spoke to me again (she did come to our wedding, and we were to her wedding years later, and we have seen her at a funeral once, but she will not speak to me and probably haven't seen her more than 5 times in 15 years). What I can tell you is -- 1) If she had acted calmly and explained her feelings, DH & I would have apologized (we really were thinking about how happy we were) OR 2) If she had apologized, DH and I would have forgiven her. But at this point, we haven't had any relationship with her, and I do feel like she has been very vengeful still. She refused to buy us a wedding gift, brought a random last-minute guest to our wedding without telling us after complaining that her boyfriend couldn't come to the wedding (we had invited him), purposefully planned her wedding on my sister's 30th birthday bash in Las Vegas (she knew about it, because when she got engaged, we had asked her not to pick that day since I was planning the bash -- DH wanted me by his side, though, so I missed the birthday for SIL's wedding), we got her a nice gift off her registry & she didn't send a thank you, and she does visit DC occasionally (still lives in South America) and refuses to see us. HEARTBREAKING. Don't let that be you!!! Call, email, apologize -- make an effort. EXPLAIN your feelings, too -- (I'm sure your brother honestly felt like his good new would be your good news, and didn't think of the shock factor). Definitely, invite the boyfriend to your house and cook a nice meal and say sorry to both of them, and say how much you like having a brother and you'd love having another one! |