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I, unfortunately, am more in the boat with calliopes muse, just earlier in the process. I only came out to my parents four months ago.

I've written about it before on here...most recently going into some detail in the gay marriage thread currently in progress...but since this thread is about parental reactions, I'll give the short verson of the saga again.

My whole life I've had an attraction to women, but growing up in a hardcore evangelical Christian household, I was indoctrinated from birth with this belief that homosexuality was an abominable sin, a terrible lifestyle choice, and that anyone who chose to live it was someone who hated God. I wasn't into dating in high school, so that helped, and I thought I was cured when I fell in love with a boy from England, got engaged, and started planning the rest of my life. When he walked out I not only had to deal with the aftermath of having my heart shattered, I'd also developed a crush on a woman I'd recently met and was beginning a very long road of turmoil over my feelings towards her. She eventually became my best friend and sister (closest thing I've ever had to a blood sister, actually), and for a couple years I was completely head over heels in love with her. She knew about my feelings and didn't reciprocate, but we worked through it anyway. My parents knew how much I cared about her, but I only let on it was as a best friend and it helped allay any possible suspicions when for 18 months I dated another guy (who I was genuinely interested in, but now is more a brother than anything).

Early last year I got into Xena. I was in the later stages of fighting an agonizing mental war between my faith and my feelings. It took me a decade, and aforementioned sister whacking me on the head, for me to realize there wasn't something deeply broken in me. But then I decided while it was okay to feel how I felt, the moral dilemma lay in how I acted about it. I knew I could not ever be with a woman, but at the same time that's what my heart wanted. So I resigned myself to being miserable and waiting, begging and praying, for Mr. Right to finally come along and pick up the pieces. Still not telling my parents of course. I fought my internal war away from home, on my own, and anytime I did visit I put on a mask and was a very different person. When I grabbed that first Xena DVD off my roommate's bookshelf and plugged it in, my sister had recently moved out of state on virtually no notice, I was under a lot of stress with my job, and I had no one to spend time with or really open up to. I was desperate for an escape. I devoured the tv show like candy. I also made the stupid mistake of taking the season 4 disks home to my parents with me on a visit, and watched one of the more subtexty episodes with my mom. I remember her raising an eyebrow at me from across the room and suspiciously asking, "just what is the nature of the relationship between these two characters?" Cue panic moment. I fobbed off with some random explanation about the best friend/companion thing.

Come last fall, I was at a major crossroads. I'd gotten utterly hooked on the show, LK had recruited me into XOC, and I was obsessively devouring Missy Good's extensive Journey of Soulmates fic series. I felt so alone and so torn apart inside, and more than anything I'd ever wanted before, I wanted the relationship portrayed between Gab and Xena in those pages. Lavender Jane and I first started talking around that time. We hit it off and I knew I'd found the other half of me. At that time I expected her to never be more than a sister, but I still could not tell my parents the details about LJ. There was no way in hell. They already had enough reservations about my online communities and the sorts of wayward people I spent my time with. Telling them this new best friend of mine was a liberal lesbian, fifteen years my senior, would've raised hackles and questions I was not prepared to answer.

In June this year, LJ flew down to New Zealand to see me and while here, she proposed. It couldn't have been more magic and I couldn't have been happier. Of course I said yes. Then I suddenly realized I could no longer hide everything from my family. I'd confessed to my brother a couple years ago how I felt about girls and he was so-so about it, but at least not outright condemning. I hadn't told him the nature of LJ's and my relationship, though. I understood then I owed it to myself, owed it to LJ, and owed it my family to finally drop the façade and tell the truth. I had to quit hiding in an effort to protect them and myself. I love LJ too much to pretend on the outside our relationship isn't going to be the life-long covenant we've made on the inside. That's not right, nor fair. Besides which, down the road after x years living together, explanations would have to be made anyway. I was scared out of my mind.

The last week of June I emailed my parents a lengthy letter. I had thought about phoning, but that would've been really expensive, and I knew I'd break down and never get out what I had to say if I did things that way. I'm a writer, so I wrote. In the letter I explained (sans great detail) how long I'd struggled with my attraction to women. I confessed how determined I'd been to hide it, apologized for not being honest, and apologized for the hurt I knew my words were going to inflict. I shared my feelings for LJ with them, told them of our engagement, and asked if -- after some time to think -- they'd like us home to visit for Christmas. Hitting send on that email was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I knew doing so was likely to cost me my relationship with them, something I've worked very hard in recent years to finally build.

It took two weeks before I heard anything back. I'd gotten one email from my mom in that time, about a banking matter, and for the first time in a long time she didn't sign it "Mumsy." That stung, and I knew then there would be much worse to come. When I did hear, my parents emailed me -- on the same day, no less -- lengthy letters of their own. It was not pretty.

My parents accused me of being arrogant, immature, and foolish. Both of them made very clear it was obvious I wanted nothing to do with Christ or the Church, and that I hadn't for many years (which couldn't be farther from the truth). My father wrote volumes on scriptural teaching and why I would be damned for this decision. Mom did too, though to a much lesser degree. I was told I was going to hell, that I had died spiritually, civil unions are straight from Satan, and gay marriage is a hedonistic fallacy that does not exist. I was accused of harbouring old resentments and anger and bitterness for things long past. They educated me that I was not going to live long and would either die of a horrible disease caught from LJ, or would be beaten to death. A surety because of the inherently violent nature of the homosexual community.

LJ...well, LJ was not referred to as my partner. She is my "cohort" in my dad's words. Apparently she and I can have nothing in common, and LJ only wants me around to care for her in "her dying years" as she wastes away from whatever (undisclosed to me) diseases she's caught playing in a sexual toilet. He actually asked -- in an underhanded, snarky goad -- if what we talked about were 401Ks. As for any future visits home he wrote:

We'd love to have you for Christmas, just you yourself, no cohort, no "significant other" this year. If you get right with Jesus, you'll be bringing Him with you and that will be wonderful, but no one else. Christmas is not just a time for "family" to get together. That's the world's perverted view of Christmas. Christmas is a sacred time of remembrance and celebration of who Jesus was already when He came to this world as a baby. He came for our redemption, not to entertain us, and not to have us get together with perverse life-styles to slap Him in the face with them. This house was dedicated in prayer to Him as a place for His Spirit to dwell continually, a place to raise children the best we could, given our human limitations, and a place of refuge for us and you and your future families, as well as anyone we felt we could minister to at our door. It's one thing to minister to people who are seeking God, seeking to find peace, seeking to repent. It is no ministry however to entertain those who know to do right yet choose to do evil knowingly, unabashedly, adamantly. There is no tolerance in God for that, and there is no tolerance here for it either. The world will succor you in that frame of mind, we will not.

If you do come for Christmas, by yourself, you will go to church with us, help to prepare meals and clean up afterward, and continually offer to be of service, like normal gracious people do. You will listen to our admonitions about your spiritual life, for as long as we want to discuss it. You will sit quietly while we pray for you. And you will be respectful of us and our other guests at all times. And these terms will apply any other time you come to visit.

I share my dad's words here because I think they speak louder than anything I could write. One thing that got me was the admission, from both of my parents, that they saw signs of things in me long ago. My dad it would seem found a note I'd written a childhood friend, asking if she wanted to kiss girls. I don't remember it, but it put up warning flags in both of my parents' minds. They chose at the time to not interrogate me over it, for which I am grateful, and instead watched me carefully. When they didn't see anything else they assumed it was just passing childhood inquisitiveness. Heh, if only they'd known. For my own sake, I'm glad I was able to hide it. Life could've gone from hard to hell very quickly.

When I sent my letter, I expected my parents to admonish me. I expected, frankly, to be lambasted...and I was. I knew I was going to hurt them. I know they're afraid, and reeling, and asking themselves why. It has taken me half my life to find answers and peace, to amazingly manage reconciliation between my faith and feelings, and even find the perfect partner to boot. They're just beginning that road and may or may not ever come to my point of view. I don't anticipate they ever will, but perhaps a semblance of peace can be found someday. For now, in their minds I'm walking a sick and twisted road straight to damnation.

I suppose a lot of people who've gone through this before have given up and walked away. I can't do that. I love my family too much. I'm not angry at them for their reactions. The snarky comments did flare my temper, and the attempts to guilt trip me were irritating, but more than anything I was sideswiped by the blow they believe I've walked away from my faith.

*sighs* I suppose mostly I'm just sad. Sad that things must be this way. Sad the truth has destroyed the closeness we had. Sad that when I say "I do" with LJ next month it will be with my family praying hard I won't. Sad that after a year away in New Zealand I can't in good conscience go home, possibly for a very long time. I feel adrift and lost much of the time, with only LJ to keep me tethered to a sense of home and family.

My parents love me dearly. They always have and always will. They're terrified I'm making the worst choices I possibly could, and destining myself to pay for them with my eternal soul, not just my earthly life. Their reactions are based on that fear. Someday, I pray, that will change. If not...well, we all make new families in addition to the ones we're born with. I want to see them, spend time with them, and share my joy. But I'm an adult, and not stupid either, so subjecting myself to the trauma of a showdown on their turf could only do more damage than good. Thus I'll keep my distance for as long as I must. My parents are at least talking to me. Dad and I have exchanged a few quiet emails about some topics. Mom and I occasionally talk on MSN about how things are going with my studies, or stuff in their lives. LJ has only come up once, and then it was a very brief tangent between Mom and I about how the closing of a lot of US Starbucks could affect LJ's job. Dad and I haven't discussed her at all.

I am grateful for my upbringing in a lot of ways. It taught me many wonderful things, gave me strength, and formed the foundation of who I am. But I'm also envious of those of you with parents who are open-minded about being LGBT. Trying to stay sane and grounded, when you're constantly torn between happiness with the one you love and despair over losing the ones you've loved longer, is a bitch. At least in my situation, for now we're keeping the peace, even if it's an uneasy peace that could melt at any time. A lot of people don't even get that much.