Help! My Dad’s Openly Gay and I’m Staying in the Closet!

My post The Diary of a Young Closeted Gay Man explored some of the reasons I chose to get into a heterosexual relationship at an early age.   You may want to check that post out as this is pretty much a continuation.

When the mentioned post ended I had just found out that my dad was gay.  You can surely imagine my surprise as my parents had been married for 17 years prior to their ‘financially’ fueled divorce.  My surprise quickly turned into a form of jealousy that I didn’t understand back then.

I remember when I was 6 or 7 and it was getting close to my birthday.   The only thing that I wanted was a Jem and the Holograms doll (I still don’t know how my mom didn’t know I was gay then).  I remember my mom and dad fighting over her getting me a doll.  His argument to my mother: “What are you trying to do?  Turn him into a faggot?” I ended up getting the doll for my birthday, but the words my dad uttered had always stuck with me.

I remember the feelings rushing through me as my brother Tim revealed the box of gay porn and sex toys my dad was harboring.  How could he argue with my mom about something as petty as a doll when he was exactly what he didn’t want me to turn into? The jealousy turned into a hatred of sorts, which is why I ran home to ‘out’ my dad to my mom.   I didn’t speak to him for quite some time.

My mom was full of homophobic rants after that, and I have to admit I did it too.  Everyone in my family was so quick to point fingers and argue rather than trying to understand things from another person’s point of view.

I put up a heterosexual front and quickly had my first date with Gloria arranged.  We spent the day shopping and had a good time.  We decided to go out again, and then again, and eventually started dating.  I was determined to make this relationship work as I had witnessed first hand the backlash that can result from coming out.

My brother Tim always kept in touch with my dad.   He and my youngest brother would continue to stay with him every other weekend and a few weeks during the summer.  I continued my protest and plugged on in my relationship with Gloria.

When my father and I started talking again it was the summer before my senior year of high school.  My mom and I had gotten into a fight about my curfew.  To make a long story short I ended up moving in with my father.  Even after I moved in with him he still didn’t explain his sexuality to me.  He left that to his boyfriend at the time.

One night after I had moved in, my dad went out on the town with some friends and a male accompanied him home.   It was a weekend, so I was still up when they got home.  We all sat and talked for a while.  Still no mention of his sexuality, even though I hinted at how they knew each other several times.

My dad eventually went to bed and left me with his boyfriend for a minute.  I came right out and asked if he and my father were a couple.  He gave me the honest answer of ‘Yes, but you and your dad need to talk about this’ and then went to meet my dad in his room.  The fact that my dad didn’t have the balls to tell me himself turned me off even more to the gay community back then.

The next day my dad and I actually talked openly about his sexuality for the first time.  I ended up accepting him for who he was and would even get to the point where I’d stick up for him openly among my circle of friends and even my mom.   My friends also learned to accept him for who he was.

I had found acceptance for my dad.  But in my mind that acceptance was only for him.  I increased my heterosexual front ten fold and kept pursing my relationship with Gloria.

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