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Should I Tell Mom I Think Dad Was Gay? (NYT advice column question)
The New York Times ^ | JAN. 13, 2016 | Name Withheld by NYT

Posted on 01/20/2016 11:38:09 AM PST by presidio9

I think my father, who died 10 years ago, was gay or preferred men, but I have no proof. I base my suspicion mostly on the way he looked at people, some magazine subscriptions and one conversation.

I came out to my parents in the 1970s, while home from college. That same night, my father took me aside and confided that before his marriage he had an affair with a man but got psychological help and was "cured." He hoped I would do the same. He said, "Promise not to tell your mother — it will break her heart." I promised.

Some time later, I asked him to tell me more about that man, but he denied the whole story, and we had a bit of a fight. However, many years later, in a brief autobiography he wrote for his grand­children, he referred to a high-school friendship that he would "rather not talk about."

He grew to be supportive of my sexuality and was gracious to my boyfriends, but his backtracking on his confession made me stop trusting him.

Am I obliged to tell my mother any of this? The thought that I have been complicit in hiding the truth from her makes me uncomfortable. But it's possible that he invented his "confession" in a misguided attempt to help me, abandoning the strategy after it failed. The only thing of which I am certain is that he let me down.

I'm hard-­pressed to think of a way my story could benefit my mother, who is now in her 80s. Even if my father really was keeping a secret, there’s no way to know whether he broke a commitment to her. Plus,

-SNIP-

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: homosexualagenda; nyslimes
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1 posted on 01/20/2016 11:38:09 AM PST by presidio9
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To: presidio9

Why can’t gays just keep their damn mouths shut? Me Me Me Me Me. Why would he tell his mother this? What could it possibly achieve aside from increasing her suffering and grief?


2 posted on 01/20/2016 11:40:53 AM PST by montag813
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To: presidio9

“That same night, my father took me aside and confided that before his marriage he had an affair with a man but got psychological help and was ‘cured.’”

But just prior to that he says he has no proof?!?

This guy is quite the genius.


3 posted on 01/20/2016 11:41:35 AM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: presidio9

LOL.

My mom was quite ill, bipolar disorder, breast cancer, and did not have a lot of road left in front of her, and I was typically brutally honest with her.

Until a coworker said the following: You spent the first several decades of your life lying to her, or at least concealing the whole truth. Now, as she is near the end of her life you tell her the truth?

Don’t tell mom.


4 posted on 01/20/2016 11:41:58 AM PST by dmz
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To: presidio9

Well, number one, he’s not gay, he’s queer.


5 posted on 01/20/2016 11:42:27 AM PST by Graybeard58 (Bill and Hillary Clinton are the penicillin-resistant syphilis of our political system.)
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To: presidio9

What good can come from the conversation? I have a visceral dislike for those that gossip, especially those that gossip about the dead who are no longer able to defend themselves.


6 posted on 01/20/2016 11:43:29 AM PST by taxcontrol ( The GOPe treats the conservative base like slaves by taking their votes and refuses to pay)
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To: montag813
Why can't gays just keep their damn mouths shut? Me Me Me Me Me. Why would he tell his mother this? What could it possibly achieve aside from increasing her suffering and grief?

You answered your own question.

"Me Me Me Me Me." That's all that matters.

7 posted on 01/20/2016 11:44:09 AM PST by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation Continues)
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To: presidio9

Mom knows, cupcake.


8 posted on 01/20/2016 11:44:24 AM PST by Fido969 ("The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes" - Albert Einstein)
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To: presidio9
I promised.

Sodomites disgust me. Their whole world revolves around their filthy, perverted, and unnatural methods of achieving orgasm. That unpleasant topic supersedes all else for them.

I promised.

Yes. You promised. So STFU. Jerk.

9 posted on 01/20/2016 11:44:38 AM PST by NorthMountain ("The time has come", the Walrus said, "to talk of many things")
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To: taxcontrol
What good can come from the conversation? I have a visceral dislike for those that gossip, especially those that gossip about the dead who are no longer able to defend themselves

Yep - that about sums it up. Spot on.

10 posted on 01/20/2016 11:44:53 AM PST by BookmanTheJanitor
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To: montag813

Creepy guy hates women. Mom included. This is a way to hurt her, and that is a pleasing prospect to him.


11 posted on 01/20/2016 11:45:19 AM PST by Jedidah
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To: presidio9
I suppose "Name Withheld by NYT" ought to watch/re-watch "Death at a Funeral".

I generally preferred the UK original over the US remake.

Peter Dinklage played the boy-toy in both versions.

12 posted on 01/20/2016 11:47:01 AM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: ifinnegan

The issue should be left with God. It shouldn’t be used to burden her. There might have been more situations like this than we knew, with a bad habit that was kept curbed by effort of will. And now our modern “gay movement” comes along and shouts “Cheer who you are!” (As long as that isn’t some kind of devout Christian, I guess.)

The devil has his own riff on the Christian promise of permanent salvation. He taunts permanent damnation. It’s so often taken as an excuse when it isn’t even TRUE.


13 posted on 01/20/2016 11:49:48 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: presidio9

The maggot who wrote to The New York Times probably has a mother who was born in the 1920s.
That selfish jerk is NOW going to saddle her with headaches at this point in her life? Good grief.


14 posted on 01/20/2016 11:49:56 AM PST by Blue Jays (Rock Hard, Ride Free)
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To: montag813; All
Why can’t gays just keep their damn mouths shut?

Why can't gays stop posting this crap on Free Republic?

15 posted on 01/20/2016 11:50:04 AM PST by Cobra64 (Common sense isn't common anymore)
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To: BookmanTheJanitor

True... he should use this opportunity to deny evil a chance to advance any further. Leave it with God.


16 posted on 01/20/2016 11:50:33 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: presidio9

if was all THAT homosexual, your Mom knows about it already.
(don’t try to tell Mama anything. Rather, you’d be better off asking her.... where you came from...)


17 posted on 01/20/2016 11:50:51 AM PST by faithhopecharity (Diff tween D's and R's is that the thatD's -allow the poor to be corrupt, too. (O. Levant)
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To: Cobra64

Was it sads who posted it here? News to me.


18 posted on 01/20/2016 11:51:21 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I don’t disagree with you.

I would also say that the Mom already knows.


19 posted on 01/20/2016 11:51:30 AM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: NorthMountain
Their whole world revolves around their filthy, perverted, and unnatural methods of achieving orgasm. That unpleasant topic supersedes all else for them.

Being from NYC, and having attended Columbia, I'm guessing I have a lot more gay friends than you do. I didn't used to, so I was surprised when I got to know them just how much of every aspect of their lives seems to revolve around the question of sex, and when where and how they were going to have it. I know a lot of straight guys who think that way too, but sex is always on the table for gay men.

20 posted on 01/20/2016 11:52:39 AM PST by presidio9 (Islam is as Islam does.)
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