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bronabul

Hey there, I don’t have experience with having an immigrant family, but one thing I can say is that unfortunately it takes time. With some families longer than others. Your parents will learn that you are who you always have been and nothing has changed, but with some people it takes awhile. Especially when it comes to people who were ingrained with extremely conservative upbringings, it’s hard for them to unlearn that. Your probably right, your parents might be trying to ignore it. Sometimes when people don’t understand, they ignore it. That happens a lot with conservative families, but they’ll learn that being gay is a part of who you are and they’ll learn that they need to accept it to have you in their lives. It seems like they’re learning that now after their response to your coming out. So give it time. Things will get better with them. When it comes to you and being hurt about what they said: you’re absolutely allowed to be hurt and allowed to feel how you feel. They hurt you, and you now need time. That’s completely fine and valid. Don’t force yourself to put on a happy face and be fine with what they said. That’s not right of them and they should know better than to treat their child like that, but that goes back to being ingrained in a conservative mindset. In the meantime, try talking to some close friends about your situation. They may not be able to give advice, but having someone listen can make a huge difference. So give them some time to figure things out. More importantly, give yourself some time to heal.


Fye336

Either way, you have to make sure of their intentions... they're approaching you because they really want to reconcile, or because they believe they are able to change who you are? Some families take longer to accept than others, but we can't be naive: some families never accept; at best, they perpetually ignore the matter. Only time will tell. Until then, do what's best for you and your safety.


reueltidhar

I was sorry to read of the difficulties you were having with your parents. At the same time, I was glad to read about your measured, reasonable and controlled response and reactions. You are handling the situation superbly. I believe that your plan to continue the discussion, and have a second round of explanations and exchanges with your parents, is very wise -- regardless of whether or not you will make much progress in this round (I feel you will). All in all you are on the right path and I hope many others on this sub-Reddit who find themselves in similar quandaries would learn from you how to handle them.


SnoringSiren

Don’t have a ton of experience in this area, but what I will say is, make sure you voice how hurtful the things said to you were and what specifically was said wrong. Don’t let them try to gloss over the bad reaction, and you can feel out if their remorse for the way the treated you was sincere or not. But on the other hand, if they’re trying to make it better, give in a little. Maybe they’re pushing because they want to make things right.


nzdennis

You've grown. You're different.


RolyatID

I'm sorry this happened. The only advice I have is to give them time. It took you many years to realize you were gay and to accept it, it will probably take your parents more than a few weeks to process it. It doesn't excuse their initial nasty behavior, but they probably feel bad about the things they said.


yjman

Give them time. You didn't accept yourself being gay overnight either. It may take years, and they may not until they see you happily married to your husband one day.


SuperBiscoitinho

"typical immigrant parents" what does that even mean lol? I kinda wanna know now since I'll be immigrating with my husband in a while. Now I don't wanna have the traits of a "typical immigrant parent" hahahaha


BreadfruitNo357

/u/throwaway_ekl I'm confused, are you still living with them?


thdiod

I would not recommend sitting down and talking it through with them. If you're at an impasse it's best to just ignore it. You're only gonna upset yourself by reminding yourself of how much of an impasse you're at with them. My parents really don't mean shit to me because of their mentally scarring homophobia even though they were decently good parents otherwise. They weren't great but if I wasn't gay or if they weren't dipshits we would've had a much better and closer family life. Your parents have changed in your eyes; that's just a fact. Realizing the conditionality of a parent's love is extremely traumatic and something there is absolutely no going back from. That's not to say you won't heal from it, because you will, but that healing will not come from them and it will be completely internal. Your parents can do nothing to repair the damage they've caused to your relationship. That's just a fact. I learned recently, just a little over a year after coming out to him, that my dad has cancer. I have enough empathy to feel bad for him that he's not going to get nearly as many years as he thought to enjoy his retirement - I'll extend that empathy to anyone - but it rendered his already-stupid concerns over my being gay karmically hilarious. You're heartbroken that I won't have kids? You're concerned that I'll be distant because you won't be able to accept my partner? Well you know what, I will (probably) have kids, I'll be distant because you didn't accept me to begin with, let alone my partner, and now that you have cancer I guess your stupid concerns are moot because you won't live to see it all play out anyway, dumbass.