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AnonymousWow- thank you for this post. My family are all die hard Christians. I”ve mentioned before that my Dad is a long-time pastor. And I have an Uncle who is a pastor. My mom is the oldest of 7 kids and EVERYONE lives here in Phoenix and would never DREAM of leaving the church.
I, too, have wrestled with what to tell my parents (and my husband wrestles with that too — his parents have both passed on but he is fairly close with my parents) . Here they fell in love with my husband when we were dating because he was going to school to be a pastor. So we wrestle with doubt about how they feel about him. They are definitly understanding about why we left ministry and they are sort of understanding about why we don’t go to church but they still think we are planning on starting a house church and I don’t know how to break it to them that we no longer desire that either. We fear that they will think we have “back-slidden.”
They are both dealing with health issues and my brother is on house arrest so they are too stressed for us to even broach any subject such as gay rights. The only thing that makes it hard is that my parents are on FB so if we are ever going to “come out of the closet” so to speak, we would need to make sure and “restrict” them.It’s hard when you want to be as authentic as possible but you still feel restricted.
AnonymousI was going to add that this is how fundamental my family is: most of my family is on my FB (but doesn’t post very often) except for one of my Uncles. A couple of years ago, he “unfriended” me just because we were vacationing in central CA and stopped at a vineyard — not a big surprise for that area. He didn’t like the fact that a had a picture with my young son standing in front of grapevines. What the hell???
My mom has had a few times that she almost left my Facebook for silly things such as “liking” a page called “I like wine.” It is soooo ridiculous.
They are so fundamental that at my Uncles church (not the one who unfriended me) who is a pastor, they sing God bless America at the end of their CHURCH service….. GAG…. it happens to be my grandmothers favorite song and we even sing it at Christmas. Needless to say, I never look forward to our christmas parties . My family is basically huge, loud and all from New Jersey. They are confrontational and dramatic. Except for my mom who is the quiet one at least and I take after her.
Kellie, glad you joined us!
I think that each person comes to a place where they recognize the time is right to “come out.” And I think there are cases where it doesn’t make sense to “come out” to everybody.
I finally took the step once my wife and my sons were all on the same page. People know that I don’t make decisions unless I have a lot to back it up. Since I have done the hard work of deconstruction and honest introspection I am very clear about where I am at each moment.
I find that people respect me because of my clarity and honesty. Christians tend to rewrite my story as a person who is sincere, but misguided, and had a bad experience with the church and I’ll come back someday because god is always drawing me to himself. Others warn people about talking to me because I tend to be quite persuasive. They don’t consider that maybe I’m persuasive because I’m telling the truth. I don’t get confronted that much anymore. I actually like being confronted because it gives me a chance to explain myself. I feel like one of my amends is to deconstruct toxic ideas I used to teach and it makes me feel better when I can give people better tools to discover truth.
I remember a member of an ultraconservative forum I used to dialog with asked me why I was so good at winning debates. I told them it was because I wasn’t trying to win the debate, I was only interested in what was true.
Richard, your last comment reminds me of an episode of Star Trek: TNG. For one reason or another, the ship is ferrying a famed master game player of some futuristic electronic realtime game. Because Data is an android, he decides (or is convinced – I don’t remember) that he should be easily able to beat any human at the game. So he takes this master on. And promptly loses in the first round.
Being Star Trek, there is a story of Data doubting himself and his various friends and colleagues trying to help him sort this out. Then he has a revelation of some sort and asks for a rematch.
This time, he plays so much better that the master abandons the game after numerous rounds. What did he do different? In the game, the goal is to turn all the squares to your colour, obviously according to rules about the existing colour patterns. The game master was actually highly skilled at turning his opponents moves against them. Data was unprepared for this the first time and only discovered it after reviewing past games. So in his second outing, he changed his strategy. He was no longer trying to win, but just restore an equal balance of the two colours. The games master didn’t know how to take advantage of that.
Wade.
Kellie – thanks for bumping this thread – really interesting read…especially for something I’m thinking about/working through at the moment…
It is funny…because here I often feel like we are travelling the same journey in opposite directions…but experiencing and going through exactly the same things on the way.
Perhaps it is all circular?Anyway – wanted to say I like wine and vineyards too – French ones with a beautiful chateau are my favourite. Jesus’s first miracle was to turn water into wine – I reckon he liked vineyards too – he even told stories about them.
Kellie I did not see your comments until just now but am really glad you posted. My family is also very large and the views on everything biblical and political are very much right wing fundamentally conservative and inflexible. We are also pretty outspoken and direct. Not a good mix to bring my pro-gay, anti church establishment views to the table in. LOL As I said earlier…it would needlessly worry my mother even more than she already worries about me. For the most part I try to accept my family the way they are and just enjoy the love we share without worrying about their views or worries about me.
AnonymousKatie, and Gary- thanks for your response. It helps to not feel so alone in this issue. Gary- I like your view point. I also don’t want to needlessly worry my parents. I guess I’ve realize that they don’t HAVE to know everything about us. I think it worries my husband more then me though– we want to be authentic and not feel like we are hiding anything.
i don’t think not telling is the same as hiding. we’re brought up in this odd mixture of shame and tell. we are supposed to expose all our secrets, our doubts and have them labeled sin. then we confess, get prayed over, and then G-d fixes us. if it doesn’t happen, we didn’t confess enough. full disclosure is not supposed to be necessary. having someone require that is unhealthy. secrets are necessary for privacy, for survival, for growth. my every thought should not be visible to anyone, even my husband because they don’t all make sense.
i’ve got wild careening numbers, and mangled code. i’ve got tangled up bits of heard and unheard words, and the ensuing tangle of my trying to interpret social situations. there’s the wild non-verbal smash of anger that washes up at times while trying to deal with something. what comes past my teeth should be somewhat filtered. this makes me careful, cautious, wise. and i think it’s wise of you to consider just what and how much to share.
that you care about being open and honest is a credit to you. sometimes being honest is holding your borders tightly, and considering each crossing as suspect. it’s ok to have strict border crossings, and sometimes parents require more strictures for their own safety as well as yours.
I think when I consider what secrets I am going to reveal I look at the bigger picture. Most of the pain with revealed secrets is due to being judgmental. The harm is really imaginary and the more ego one has the more vulnerable one is to the pain of shame. This doesn’t mean I reveal secrets on a whim.
I think it’s important to empathize with others when considering what to reveal. For me, having no secrets is really freeing. But, I think timing and motive are important with sensitive secrets. I don’t tend to reveal other’s secrets, but with my own I try to have very few. And with those I am intimate with I have none. If someone can’t hang with who I am, then they are not my friend. I hold no ill will, but intimacy, at least for me, requires a pretty high level of honesty.
I have said little to my family, and probably won’t unless a real need arises for them to know. And the fact that my parents live 1600 miles away makes that easier.
When they did live closer one of the major issues we had was their assumption that we were teaching our children the same way I was taught growing up. When you have to follow along behind Grandma and Grandpa and do damage control, that sucks.
AnonymousI don’t tell them much. I try to never be dishonest or misleading, but I don’t wear my views on my sleeve, either. I told my parents and my brother when I left Christianity, but I’ve discovered that they don’t really have a clear view of where I am at any given time because I fluctuate so much and don’t really bring it up on my own. My parents and I were coming home from a funeral and I had to vent about how much funerals suck when you’re the only one you know who doesn’t believe in an afterlife. They were kind of shocked because they didn’t know I had gone “that far,” but I thought that they already knew that I didn’t believe in anything supernatural, afterlives included. I couldn’t remember the last time we had talked about anything religious, so it’s hard to say what impression they would have had at that point.
My biggest rule has been “Granny and Grandpa can’t know,” so I have to be careful about what I say at family gatherings or to certain relatives, but I try to always respond honestly to direct questions. For instance, I was eating with at a table with an aunt and my grandparents, and my aunt asked what classes I was taking. I told her I was in a philosophy class and that I was interested in the philosophy of religion. She asked if I thought I could make it through the class without my faith being shaken (this was about three or four years after my initial deconversion, mind you), and I just mouthed “too late.” She understood that I didn’t want to talk in front of her parents, so we changed subjects.
So, yeah. I wouldn’t say that I’m “in the closet” or anything like that, but I’m not particularly upfront about it, either.
I thought I somehow missed this thread, but no, I’d never actually replied to the OP. Wait: now I remember. I had this same conversation with a close friend on Twitter.
My parents are probably going to be amongst the last people I ever tell that I’m not as Christian as they are. I’ve only just begun telling my friends at church. There are precisely two who I’ve actually said “I’m not as Christian as I was a year ago”. And it was someone who used to go there but doesn’t anymore (she moved away for work) who I told a lot more about. Partly because I knew she’d understand but also because she trusted me with some personal knowledge and so I can trust her, too.
Actually, I’m not even sure I would tell my brother. My sister will probably find out more gradually. But my parents – particularly my mother – and my brother are two quite different types of slightly fundamental evangelicals and neither would understand where I’ve gone and what I’m exploring. There’s no-one else in my family who are churched.
Wade.
These conversations took place a year ago, but will never grow old. I want to thank all of you for sharing your stories. What a comfort it is to be able to relate to most of what was shared here. Knowing that others, too, must do a balancing act with aging parents. Parents who are deeply rooted in their beliefs – not necessarily open or ready to hear “YOU”. Taking their age and mindset into consideration is a selfless exercise. Holding “YOURSELF” back is work.
We all want to get validation from our loved ones. Learning to accept validation from the Divine One alone is something that I’m learning to do. I don’t need my parent to know who I am and I don’t need her to accept me. Is it not more important that I accept myself? Still working on it.
I loved what one person wrote about about “coming out”. As a straight LGBTQ ally, I am slowly comprehending their plight of self-acceptance, acceptance in general. I will never be able to fully relate, but am grateful for the opportunity to feel a small part of what they experience.
That’s all. I love this site. I love the people here.
This is the benefit of the forums… great conversations being kept and easy to access!
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