I struggle to accept the fact, that I’m in a gay relationship and struggle to deal with the visibility. I’m bi (I guess), so it would be easy to escape, as I used to do, but I know, that I should change my approach and just face the fact. I grew up in a conversative environment, I was taught that it’s bad and sick, so I still have this resistance inside of me to actively reveal this affection of mine. I had social phobia and although I have overcome it pretty well, I still have this desire to fulfill the expectaions of the society. I know that most people are supportive, but seeing their embarrassement makes me feel odd and strengthen my desire to belong to the majority. It’s like being outside of my comfort zone and being alert all the time and it’s so exhausting.
I know just a few gay person, but they seem to be so chill and confident about it. I don’t know, why I cannot accept it in myself.
Do or did you have similar feelings? How did you overcome it?
I was born in East-Europe in the 80’s, so it was a pretty rejecting environment and more and more anti-LGBTQ laws are made there recently. Currently I live in Central-Europe (Czech Republic), which is much better in this regard.
It is a good question and I guess a root to many of my problems. I guess mainly because I wasn’t loved unconditionally as a child and I was always afraid to lose it all. Being rejected by others is something that reminds me of my childhood, where my mother’s love (what is quite everything for a child) was at stake if I didn’t react, feel or think the way she expected. It’s really difficult for me to feel myself safe emotionally.
Also I don’t want to cause trouble, because I was the silent child at home, I reacted to the family problems being invisible, I was told not to cause trouble because my parents had already enough of them. Probably that’s another reason I want to assimilate, I don’t want to be the problem, because that makes me feel insecure.
It even can come from my family history, they were deportated a few times and had to assimilate to the majority.
In therory I know, that if someone can’t accept it, it’s their problem, they have to deal with it. But I have this gut feeling, this instinct to escape when we are in public, that something’s wrong, it is out of balance, I cannot predict the outcome of the situation, I’m not safe.
Thank you for your last sentence, I don’t know the last time I heard it.
Thank you for sharing your story, it must had been very hard to have a dad with a value system like yours.
I guess it is because of the internal shame you are talking about. If you hear so many times, that it’s not ok, than you start to believe it yourself, you check if you can do anything against it, etc. I can accept it in myself behind closed doors, I know that it’s normal, but experiencing the embarrassment of others tells me the opposite.
Also we, as humans, tend to focus on negative things much more than the positive ones. We have to survive, so we focus on the signs of danger a lot more than the supportive opinions.
Maybe it takes time also. Your questions help me to dig deeper and explore my feelings and question my view of life.
I also have eastern-european roots and from my experience both gay and trans people are painted with the same negative brush over there.
I’ve been following your story and thought I might try to give you a different perspective. Your partner got together with you for who you are as a person. Because they love you, they were supportive of your transition. To me, that means they don’t care about labels, they just want to have continue this relationship with the person they fell in love with. Does it really matter if your transition now labels you as gay, straight or bi? Isn’t it more important having a person you love who loves you back and accepts you for who you are?
Oh @Tomek… I still feel ashamed to say I’m gay, and what @joy_speaks_too has said is so fucking true its other people who have the problems… You are who you are! Trying to defy all this is where we self destruct on ourselves because we are so use to people pleasing instead of standing the ground you stand on and being happy and comfortable with who you are!
I really do feel your internal struggle and the battle you conflict in your own mind but I ask what in the harm is just letting it all go… I feel utterly blessed in the country I live in that it is acceptable as I could live somewhere else where you have to still hide your orientation. At the end of it what I’m accepting that it’s nobodies business except mine and my partner. I didn’t have the approval of my family and I can’t change it… I try to fuck myself straight, I tried to dope myself up and act straight and all I’ve done is damaged myself the only person who I’m destroying is myself no one else cares that deeply except you!
Be you! Your perfect to you!
Yes, I totally admire my partner’s acceptance and the way he supports me. It’s not about labelling myself, I have just always been avoiding inconvenience and now as we are perceived as a gay couple I found myself in yet another minority, I’m stared at, I feel the awkwardness etc. and it triggers me big time. I’m an escaper, I can give up so much to avoid difficult situations. I have to stop these thoughts and work on feeling safe and feeling good enough. I can only do it by tracking down these emotions and the root causes.
Thank you for this thought - yes, sometimes we get lost in the fight so much, that we don’t realize there’s nothing to fight against.
“Letting it go” reminds me of that trust-exercise, when someone is behind you and you have to fall back trusting they will hold you. At the moment I miss this trust in myself that is necessary to let it go, I feel vulnerable and unsafe. But I hope I will reach that peace - I’m working on it.
Hi. There’s nothing wrong with you. Its other people. Screw them. Live your best life. This quote hits the nail on the head. “The most bigoted people have issues with their own sexuality, legit.”
You’ve hit the nail on the head, our left brain looks for patterns and puts things in categories and it will tell us a story that we can’t help but believe. In reality there is nothing there only what we believe to be true. Gay in a dictionary also means carefree and cheerful.
Hi Tomek, I haven’t had to come out as gay myself and for me it is unlikely that it would have been problematic for family and friends but I have listened to people who have some different perspectives. So, that is the only angle I can come at it from.
Someone I know from rehab had to make sacrifices to come out as gay. He came from a community of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and that was the only circle he knew. When he came out he was rejected by his family (he was close to his siblings) and ghosted by the whole community. Even his father would not acknowledge him in the street. I know it is easy to say, well that’s their problem but when they offered to take him back if he “renounced” his sexuality and effectively lived his life as a lie, he was emotionally torn. Similarly, I have discussed this as an on line video group for a course in Social Psychology, which included people from Singapore, China, Indonesia and Dubai which made me realise how brave it was that the Singaporean had come out weeks before our discussion groups started. My Cousin and his husband who were the first UK gay male couple to adopt children did a geographical to Brighton so their sons would be more accepted than in the stuffy Sussex village where they lived. I have also been on discussion groups for the Alzheimer’s Society, where we have discussed the care implications for LGBTQ+ groups with dementia (yes it is important).
So they all made varying degrees of sacrifice and experienced differing levels of discrimination, but the one thing that I have learnt from it is that, firstly the family environment and then the social environment is the strongest influence on how easy or difficult is for all of us to accept sexuality.
Sometimes the sacrifice is real when accepting who you are but it is very often our own ingrained prejudices from our society that we hold and which influences how we view who we are. (What do you think of when you say the word “addict”, for example?) What I have been told including from people, like yourself, who are having a gender realignment and determining themselves newly as male or female, is that you have to accept that part of you that you know is real unconditionally and with complete love to be truly comfortable. Same goes for anything else that people may label you with and have a prejudice about.
There is always going to be a small voice in your head, which is the real enemy, with the prejudice that was originally outside of you but if you can tell that to politely go the same way as your addict voice, you can feel increasingly at ease with yourself.
I don’t know if that helps but it is a perspective anyway. 
You have so much loving feedback here, which makes my heart sing. I just wanted to pop on and say I see you and hear you and respect you for being so vulnerable and open, it is a beautiful thing when we live our truth. 
I like the idea to treat my “prejudiced brain” the way I treat my addict brain. If I label anything it should be this brain and this train of thoughts, I should be aware that it’s just prejudice. When I think others will judge us even before they do anything negative, I should be aware, that it’s my prejudiced brain talking and make me feel fear without no reason. It also applies to my thoughts about myself.
Also others have every right to have a bad opinion of us and it’s all right, I have to accept it.
Thank you for your insight, it helped me a lot!
I’m not gay, but have plenty of gay friends, if your gay straight bi trans that’s not the problem, it sounds like you are having trouble loving yourself which leads to unhealthy feelings behaviors and relationships,
You seen from the outpouring support just in here that you are loved,
I grew up being born in the 80s and raised in the 90s, to closet bigot parents. To the tee, go to church on Sunday low key spew their hate on Monday, I don’t have a relationship with them primarily because of parenting differences, the big one is I taught my kids people will have different beliefs values and cultural backgrounds. And the answer is absolute acceptance
I understand that European nations do have a much stricter regulation on same sex couples. And having closed minded family members Hurts even more
But accept yourself for who you are, love who you are.
Thank you for your words!
Yes, it’s totally true.
Yes! I definitely felt this way for a long time. The mind has an incredible ability to deny our truths, even to ourselves. It took me ten years to accept that I am a gay woman. I even went so far as to get married and produce a child before I just couldnt be stifled any longer.
Try to understand that the fear that you feel is based on the social constructs you were taught growing up, that it isn’t real, especially if your fear is rooted in the christian faith. Understand that your grief and acceptance of yourself is completely valid, and you deserve to be happy. If I could do one thing differently, I would have come to terms with myself sooner, but these things take time for some of us and that’s perfectly okay.
Try to separate what you know to be true because you experienced it, and what you know to be true because someone told it to you. I promise the moment you begin to dismantle the culture you grew up in and start asking yourself honest hard questions, you’ll be able to see and think more clearly. Hang in there!
It perfectly natural to want to be accepted by the majority. To wake up and intrinsically know that no matter what you do or think will be considered normal, is completely understandable! We, as humans, have evolved to be gregarious. Of course, I speak broadly.
It sounds to me like the issue isnt necessarily with the world; rather with yourself. Once you wake up and intrinsically accept yourself, the world will have a different light to it. You were believed you were in a straight relationship when you married your husband, now you know it is gay. If your husband is cool with that, then come what may! If your husband isn’t okay with being labeled gay, then that is something he has to work through with you…
You are blossoming into a gorgeous flower. Do not feel embarrassed because you were a seed. That is what us powering who you are now.
Be proud, exceedingly proud, that you are working through these very complex and tough emotions soberly! That takes an incredible amount of strength and courage.
You are a warrior!
So, if you find yourself in a place that doesn’t accept you for you…
Then find a place that does.
Hey Tomek,
When I was 15 (and living as female) I was in a relationship with another person who identifies as female, when I told my family that I loved her, they all completely disowned me, until I ended the relationship 2.5 years later, then slowly I was accepted back, but the things they said have stayed with me, I have never felt that I can trust them or be my true self around them, whilst navigating the world as my fearless teenage self, I felt no fear or shame for being in a lesbian relationship.
Ever since then, I have only been in relationships with men, for a few years those relationships were seen as straight. My last straight relationship ended when I began my transition to living as male because my ex didn’t want to be in a gay relationship or have children who had gay dads. Another huge rejection.
I have only had one relationship since and this was with another trans man, so we were seen as gay, and I found this very difficult publicly, we were harassed and threatened both in Scotland where he lived, and also where I live in the UK. Both of these times we weren’t even holding hands or being affectionate. One time we were just walking down the street, another time we were laying in a field because it was summer.
The rejection from my family, and previous partner, and these instances of hate, have all really affected me. I’m terrified to tell people I’m gay, especially men, and I’d be scared to show any public affection if I had a partner.
So sadly I know this won’t be helpful in any way, I just wanted you to know you’re not alone. I think it’s internalised homophobia that has been installed in me, and I also don’t know how to manage it.
@Tomek @CATMANCAM
It really upsets me that so many people are bi/trans-phobic and people like yourselves suffer. Everyone is on the same scale of sexuality, and we all want the same things, affection, company and the odd orgasm. Try to love and accept yourself, u deserve it.
Thank you for your help, it was really useful!