A Safe Betrayal

When I first thought about coming out to my parents, I would try to work up the courage by watching videos of other people who had come out and had good outcomes. I would draw hope from them. I would think about how my mother had always told me that they would always love me, no matter what. That no one would ever love me like they loved me.

I was not one of those people who had a good outcome.

Many atrocious things were said to me when I came out. First, it was relatively mild. I was told that I had to end things with the person I was seeing at the time, that everyone gets heartbroken and that’s just the way it is. That I wouldn’t be hungry or happy for a while but that I would get past it.

I didn’t end things.

I was then told I was ruining their lives. Every bad thing happening to my family was God’s punishment for my sexual orientation. That I was unhappy and only doing this to hurt them. What would everyone think of them as parents? They were so embarrassed. My father threatened to divorce my mother and leave her as destitute as he could unless I chose to be straight. I was screamed at every day. My father told me once that they thought I would leave one day without saying goodbye, and honestly, sometimes I wondered why I didn’t. Not only did I want to leave, I wanted to cease to exist. I didn’t want to feel anymore.

I ultimately did leave, though I told them I was leaving and did say goodbye. They told me not to come home until I decided to be straight. I didn’t see or speak to them for five years.

Ultimately, the relationship I was in when I left didn’t last. Now, I am with someone of the opposite gender. To all appearances, a heterosexual relationship with two seemingly straight people. I love them. But I love them for who they are, not their body.

Sometimes I don’t know why I did it, but I did reach back out to my parents. They feel very vindicated now. They knew it was just a phase, and they’ve been proven right. I’ve seen sense and “decided to be straight.” They can be proud of me again. They had said they would love me no matter what. What I now perceive their true meaning to have been is that they would always love me no matter what, just as long as I was exactly what they wanted me to be.

When my now spouse and I got engaged, we went to see my parents shortly after for a previously arranged trip. During that time, my father gave me a gift, something he told me he had been saving since my grade school days. It was a very special item that he wanted me to have for a very special occasion, such as an engagement. It would have been a very nice moment, but he ended by saying he had not given it to me before because I didn’t deserve it. The implication was very clear. I spent the rest of the trip trying not to cry, dying to get out of there, feeling just as small and terrible as I had after coming out to them. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my spouse this had even happened until months after the fact.

And this is how things are now. I am straight to my parents and that is that. All my rainbow colored things quietly tucked away and my pride stickers hidden when they are here. I tuck myself away in my safe betrayal of myself, not standing up for who I really am, because I don’t know if I could survive it again.