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1 of 1- Motheroffour
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Was your father gay as well?
My father is a GID as well. I was brought up in a home that had no normal expression of love or enjoyment between husband and wife. I knew I had to get out of my own marriage as it closely resembled my parents marriage but it took me many years to realise how closely and why. The struggle has defined my mother's life but she doesn't understand why and while my father is still alive I'm not going to open the converstaion with her.
Is this particular form of family abuse intergenerational as well? I am hopeful that as gay people can live openly and accepted as themselves that this stops with our generation.
- iamthelorax
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Re: Was your father gay as well?
I agree there's something about our upbringing as well. After I learned about narcissistic abuse from my shrink, I told my parents about it. My mother basically let it be known right then and there that I'm describing my grandmother. It seems she's a sweet grandmother to us but a monster to everyone else.
Somehow, it appears as though I learned to appease narcissists and took it to my marriage. I wouldn't be surprised if you learned to tolerate that behavior in the same way. The good news, this knowledge is power. You can only learn for the better from now on.
- Motheroffour
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Re: Was your father gay as well?
Thank you for your thought provoking reply. Yes I think I have been groomed into this role. I want to learn more so I can help my children. It's like I can see my mother in me and myself in my children. They are so affected by this. I want to be able to help them identify and uproot the unhealthy patterns they have absorbed before It ruins the best years of their lives too.
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Thread Starter- nancy
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Re: Was your father gay as well?
My father was closeted gay, my parents divorced. Then my mother remarried- another gay man. She told me I ruined her marriage to the 2nd man- this was after I was in my 20s and living in a different city. I "upset" him. He scapegoated me to make me the excuse for why he didn't want to sleep with my mother. He was always horrible to me. Now I realize that all his friends were closeted gay. My mother had no gaydar at all.
Now I have provided my own daughter with a closed gay father and I think she has a closeted boyfriend.
I am unsure how to approach talking to her about this. So far all 3 of her boyfriends have been closeted gay. I can just tell. How do I help her- and myself? We are in a strange pattern.
- Kel
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Re: Was your father gay as well?
I have no idea if my father was GID - he never SEEMED like it. Furthest thing from it - the man was a freaking lumberjack. However, I do know that my mother had issues in her marriage with little to no intimacy. I know that when she was in her late 40s that she tried very hard to make herself into someone my father couldn't resist - lost a ton of weight, grew out her hair, got a perm, all new clothes, etc. And everyone but my dad noticed. To this day we don't know why my dad was like this to her, but I'd wager to say that she likely hasn't had sex in the last 30 years. He seemed uninterested in the fact that she was unhappy with that aspect of their marriage. It's part of what convinced me to stop wasting time wishing for my situation to change. She'd stuck it out and it had only gotten worse.
I do know that I constantly saw my father honking the horn in public at pretty girls walking down the street. He did it to "make her day". I didn't like it then, and now I realize just how awful it was that he thought this was something appropriate to do with your children present. I thought it was very disrespectful to my mother, even if she never knew.
I don't really remember a lot of loving expressions between my parents. My dad would come in and slap my mother's butt. She'd be in the kitchen at the stove, with her hands in something, and my dad would come up and start slapping her butt as if he just couldn't resist. It was overt and done in a way that was meant to be funny. My mom did NOT appear to like this. But that was the ONLY time I saw any expression of love between them. I don't remember them telling each other that they loved the other one. I don't remember them kissing each other - even in a hello/goodbye kind of way.
I'm not sure how it affected me. All I know is that my only sister and I both married closeted gay men. Neither of whom really worked. We had a very traditional upbringing where my dad worked and paid the bills and did the yard work and took care of the vehicles. My mom stayed home until I was in my teen years. She cooked, cleaned, mended, shopped, changed diapers. My dad was constantly wielding a power tool or piece of equipment. In his free time, he liked to go motorcycling. He taught us all how to give our cars a tuneup, and how to do general work on the house. I have no real reason to think that he was GID. But whatever he was wasn't normal, either. I think my mom is sorry that she stayed - which she did because she "had children".
Kel
Last edited by Kel (September 11, 2017 11:55 am)
You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.