Reply #5: Well, he's waiting to see if he's worth loving himself [View All]

[sui generis]

based on whether other people do. He'll never be ready to be his own #1 supporter until he gets everyone out of line in front of himself.

The fact is, to be who we are requires amazing strength, courage and self-confidence, and most of us get that strength by overcoming overwhelming personal adversity and emotional pain. Some of us self-destruct, which just makes it harder to face up to what you have to do when your body is recovering from periodic poisoning and your finances are recovering from periodic draining, and your self-respect and self-esteem is even lower because of checking out on drugs or alcohol.

He doesn't know who he IS, all he knows is who he's supposed to be. If he were a straight man living in a gay family and everyone expected him to be gay, he would be just as fucked up. What he really needs is to be away from his family long enough to figure out who HE is and by the way tough love, he needs to stop making up feeble excuses for getting drunk if he's a drunk. Self-medication is not the solution if he wants to solve the problem.

When he's strong enough that rejection won't kill him, he needs to be honest with them and be prepared to accept any answer they give.

To be fair now, in a small town his parents will be targets too unless they're willing to stand by his side and support him, and that's probably expecting too much so he doesn't have to "out" his family until they are ready. All he has to do is worry about himself. My partner took me to his 20 year high-school reunion in a "smallish" town, and the only people who had a problem with it were the ones who hadn't left and gone to Seattle or Spokane, and they at least had enough manners to notice that the more urbane crowd didn't give a damn. That and we're pretty fierce; my baby was a decorated Lt.Cdr on the Enterprise (Navy, not Star Trek), AND we won best looking couple. :P

Seriously, he needs to get away and take some time to figure out who he is and whether or not he's going to learn to actually deal with problems or just get drunk and feel sorry for himself every time something is uncomfortable.