Thanks -- candid answers. You sound like the classic 50s American TV family -- only marriage for both, two kids, except that they happen both to be homosexual.
I can only try to imagine, and that very ineffectually, what you and your wife must have gone through in those years when first your son and then your daughter came out within a year of each other. Were you okay with this from the start, or did you go through a period "how could this happen to us," "what did we do wrong," etc. which I know I would go through (and maybe never get over?)
I assume from the way you write about it that if you did have those concerns, you have gotten over them -- though maybe not totally? Do you still wonder whether there was something you and your wife could have done which might have made things come out differently?
I know if all my children (I have 3) told me they were homosexual I would have a tremendous sense of loss of family, of loss of perpetuation of my family (which traces its roots back hundreds of years with pride), of the end of my line. Has this been or is it still a concern of yours?
I really admire the way you are responding to this, and am trying to imagine myself in a similar situation. But I find it so far out of what I expect my children to be or do that I'm not sure I can even realistically imagine trying to deal with it.
Although I'm not much on support groups, I think this is one time they could be tremendously helpful. The isolation, the "why is this happening to me and not to X," must for many be almost overwhelming, at least at first. |
