Mr. Jeeves and I have both been very lucky in that regard. Our families are incredibly accepting, my Dad always offers to fly up Mr. Jeeves too when I go to visit. The very last time my grandmother was able to travel to Idaho to see Dad, he flew Aaron and I up as well, and put us in a one bed bedroom, even though it would have made just as much sence to put us in the two bed bedroom and give my Aunt the one bed bedroom. I never expected that from him, and really appreciate how good he has been. Same thing with my mom.
Mr. Jeeves dad refers to me as son (which makes me a little uncomfortable to tell the truth), and introduced me as his son-in-law when we visited him in Knoxville (Oh boy, we got some strange looks). His sister is extremely fundamentalist christian, so you would think she would have a hard time with it, but I have never sensed that from her.
We are not close to our extended families, so it can be hard to tell with them, but they seem fine on my dads side. I don’t really know about my mom’s side, since I haven’t had any contact with them since HS. No real reason, just lack of initiative on either side since my grandmother died.
Gay guy here. Came out in 1997 at the age of 17 when I was arrested for “cruising” at a truck stop. My parents had to pick me up at the highway patrol headquarters… It was a little traumatic.
My mom, recently “born again,” cried for awhile and fretted for my soul. She eventually came around, though. My dad was surprisingly cool about it - he said that if I felt the need to continue “cruising,” I should just be more careful of getting caught.
My sister cried and regretted having called me bad names as a kid.
My mom’s side of the family never really mentioned it. My dad’s side however - I don’t even know if they know yet. They’re pretty conservative and I imagine they’d just ignore the issue unless I pushed it.
The weird thing about my parents’ reaction is that I wasn’t expecting it at all. They are, genereally, extremely liberal people, and are more or less fine with anybody living his life however he wants to.
But they flipped out when they found I was gay. I was astonished not only because I didn’t expect that reaction from them, but because I had come to terms with it so long ago (I was 17), I suppose I expected it to be a non-issue for everyone else as well (and it’s not like it came out of the blue, either). Following that, I was on good terms with my parents, but we didn’t speak of the gayness for… five years? And I mean Not. One. Word.
Apparently my mom had a change of heart at some point, because just last year she, for the first time ever, asked me if I was dating anybody (I was) and even let me invite my boyfriend at the time to spend Christmas with us. While it was never explicitly stated that we were in a relationship, my parents were very nice to him and my mom actually wound up loving him (to the point where she still asks about him even though we broke up six months ago).
Not a word has been breathed to the extended family. It’s a shame, because I have a good relationship with my grandparents, but who knows how they’d react. Still, I can’t imagine that anyone in my family doesn’t know on some level.
I can share experience of my best friend, who was terrified to tell his Very Devout Mormon parents that he’s gay, even to the point where he was blackmailed by his Bishop to take this 30-days-to-make-you-straight or something program (after a guy he’d dated at the same church ratted him out) or he’d tell his parents. Knowing that his mom and dad were two of the sweetest people I’d ever met, I encouraged him for years to tell them, and when he finally did their response was something like “Well, we obviously don’t approve but we love you very much and nothing’s ever going to change that.”
Years later they came to his wedding, just as happy as could be, and have accepted his husband like another son to them.
Bless you, Mike and Donna - you’re good folks and a lot of parents could learn a lesson from you.
My extended family has all been very cool with me. I haven’t been in long enough successful relationship to really test the waters with boyfriends. My mom kind of freaked at first but she got over it. She didn’t want my brother to know til he was 16 thinking it would confuse him and also worried that her husband (my brother’s father but not mine) would be homophobic and cause a rift in the family. She eventually told him after being guilted by her recently passed gay friend. But she asked me not to tell him that I knew he knew for some reason. I guess he knows I know, but we have never discussed it. I’m pretty sure my brother has suspected for some years based on comments he’s made, but a few months before he turned 16 he asked his Dad if I was gay and he confirmed it. He’s totally fine with it and it’s not an issue, although he hasn’t (knowingly) been around anyone I’ve dated, but he has gone out with and on trips with me and my gay best friend. My Dad knows, and I’ve had one boyfriend over a family get together and he’s been cordial, but he and I have never discussed my sexuality. I’ve had one boyfriend go to a moms side of the family dinner out, but as my “friend”. No boyfriend has spent time at her house, but to be fair, very few of my friends have been over either. My mom and her husband are somewhat antisocial in general.
“These two women friends of ours… decide after a couple of years that they want to live together. So the woman who’s been married a few times says, ‘You know before we move in together, I’m going to have to come out to my parents.’ And so they go home, and her father’s 81 and her mother’s 79, and they have dinner, and her parents are getting up to leave, and she says, ‘No, sit down, there’s something I have to tell you. Mom and dad, Brenda is going to move in with me.’ And the father’s so sweet, he goes, 'Oh, that’s great, you know, I worry about you alone, you’ll save money on the rent, and it’s nice to have someone to have dinner with - ’ The mother cut right in: ‘She’s talking about a committed lesbian relationship!’”
My uncle is gay, and I’m told there was quite a bit of unpleasantness on the part of my grandparents after he came out, but it was before I was born and while I was too young to be aware. My only experience has been that his partner has always been part of the family (even though I only found out he was gay when I was 12 - before that, his partner was his roommate who came to all family functions, as was natural).
His partner is fantastic, and is really the peacemaker among our slightly crazy family when we’re all together. They have a son, and my grandmother dotes on him as on all of us grandkids. She visits them frequently (they live in California), and goes on vacations with them. She still seems to think she did something wrong to make him gay, and I’m sure those early 5-10 years sucked, but now they’re as normal a part of our family as anyone else.
