The movie Parent Trap is a cool movie. I watched the newer version when Lindsey Lohan was an innocent kid, and I liked it, but when you have your own personal parent trap, it isn't funny.
My relationship with my parents is weird. They would do anything for my siblings and I, and in many ways we are a close family. In other ways, not so much.
As is the case with many guys who deal with same-sex attractions, I never felt loved or accepted by my dad. I can still remember the night my mom told me he said I was too big for him to hug and kiss, and I was around 8 or 9 years of age. The only time he touched me since then, other than to discipline me, was to hug me at my high school graduation, and I still think he did it for appearance's sake.
My parents were backslidden as far back as I can remember, but got back to God when I was 11. I had attended a Christian school and Sunday School, so the church thing and God wasn't a foreign idea to me, but it was something I had never truly understood. Shortly after their getting back to God, I went to the altar and asked God to save me. Looking back, I didn't have a clue what I was doing.
My mom became notorious for asking me how I was doing spiritually and giving doomsday predictions of how I needed to be ready, etc. I got that all during my pre-teen and teenage years. I am pretty sure that is where it got ingrained in my thinking that my parents would only love me if I was where I should be spiritually, and that if I ever gave up on God, they would give up on me and not love or accept me...... the ironic thing is, I never felt loved and accepted anyway.
What doesn't make sense, is as much as they wanted us kids to be Christians, I was never, and still am not comfortable, in testifying, going to the altar, putting my hand up during a song, etc. if they are in the service. It is weird, and I can't explain why, but even when I am doing well spiritually, I want to hide it from my parents as much as when I am doing badly spiritually........ a psychologist would probably have a field day with me.
My parents found out about me being gay when I was around 28 years old. It wasn't pretty, and they were more concerned with who knew than being concerned with me. They, especially my mom, started monitoring everything I did and where I went like a hawk. It made me resent them, and I just got better at hiding my sexual activities, and to be honest, took a perverse satisfaction in doing it without them knowing.
In 2006, I felt it was God's will for me to move 400 miles away and share an apartment with my best friend. I knew my parents would fight it, simply for the reason they want me close. So I wrote them a letter telling them what I was doing and they needed to let me do it since I'm an adult. It didn't go over well, and I felt a cold disapproval the couple of years I lived there. I felt bad they never visited, and found out later it was because they didn't want to make it look like they approved of me moving away. I was like "what the....? I was in my 30's for goodness sake, I didn't need their approval."
Finally, I felt so guilty, plus I missed my nieces and nephews so much, that I moved back...... and in with them. I wish I never had. But I had no job, no money for my own place.
Some days, I wonder if I did the right thing in moving back. Five plus years later, I am still living in their basement. These five years have been filled with major depression, times of unemployment, of being miles from God, 5 years of being back in the anonymous gay sex that hadn't been much of a temptation while living 400 miles away, 5 years of being more dependent and under my parents' thumbs than ever before. Throw bankruptcy into the mix, and it has been really bad.
And as bad as it sounds, I have come to resent my parents all the more. I am sure it isn't easy on them, though had they been supportive and let me be an adult, I may not be stuck living with them while I try to get back on my feet enough to get my own place....... but it has made me regress in many ways. I feel like a failure, I don't feel like a man. I feel like a little kid still being told what to do by my parents.
I may have said it before, but I fear my parents more than God. If God wanted me to do something they wouldn't approve of, i.e. move somewhere, I didn't know if I could, though I want to change that.
I wish I could get to the point that I didn't care what they said or thought, but only what God thought and wanted, but it will take a lot to get there.
One good thing, fear of them and their reactions has stopped me from diving headfirst into the gay lifestyle. Sure, I still had plenty of sex and went far into the gay stuff, but not as much as I could have if I had been "out and proud".
But the bad part, is they have hindered me spiritually. I need to get past it, and I am not really holding it against him, but my relationship with my dad, and even with my mom, has affected how I view God. But they have also hindered me from feeling free to worship in church. Maybe I need to go to a different church than them, I don't know. And there are some things I would do that my church teaches against, but I don't want their disapproval and lectures..... I just wish they'd cut me free and let me be an adult, be the man God wants me to be, not what they want.
I don't know what the answer is. I think one solution is some distance, maybe not as far as I moved before, but enough distance that I would attend a different church and not be in the same zip code or county. I don't think talking would help. I tried that with my letter 7 years ago, tried to explain how they wouldn't let me be an adult....... and it didn't work. It didn't help.
If God opened a door and I knew it was His will to move elsewhere, I would do my best to do so. I can't live my life being held down by my parents, especially when it affects me spiritually, which it does.
And I don't want to make them sound evil. I am sure they do love me, though it seems they only love their idea of what I should be, and they would do anything for me...... anything but let me be free.
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