Ponder Place

Heather wrote:

My girlfriend doesn’t think we should come out of the closet to our very religious families but I say its pretty obvious at this point and we are all participating in a ridiculous don’t ask don’t tell situation - do you think I am right to want to be able to be myself around my family members or do you think she is right in not wanting to rock the boat when we know they don’t agree with our lifestyle?

Well that’s a funny question. Because if I were to finger one or the other to be the person in the “right”, I would, in doing so, be wrong.

Each of you has your respectable environments. When two people meet, the elements making up these environments often clash.

The solution to this worldwide phenomenon is compromise.

It is unfair to ask any one person in a relationship to bear the entire burden of others unfamiliar environment.

In your case, your partner fears the results of fully disclosing her chosen relationship. She fears how she may be treated upon her family discovering this element in her life.

There is a school of thought that would say being yourself and casting off the walls of secrecy is a healthy practice, and will ultimately lead to a happier life.

This does hold some truth. But it is also unrealistic in the way most think of the practice.

People are impractical, unpredictable, and generally speaking, broken. The solution to these problems is one that cannot be taken in all at once.

People are limited, and inherently require a steady stream of bite sized concepts in order to understand the whole picture. The whole picture in this case being your relationship.

The steady stream in this case would be “incidences” created for a number of reasons. These incidences would be little things that have a hint of lesbianism in them, but do not fully give it away.

The first reason for this would be to help you partner become more comfortable in coming out to the family. Second is that it will slowly build suspicion with the other family members. When you do finally come out and say it. They will have a feeling of success, like “a-hah! I knew you were …” etc. Hopefully this would lesson the impact of the actual news you are delivering.

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