Coming Out as Gay Hurt my Family, Especially the Children
Chapter 54: The Other Side Of The Closet
As difficult as my overdue coming-out was for me, it must have been magnitudes worse for my family. While I was feeling relief and hope, their most important relationships were under siege and in peril.
For another perspective, here is a piece my daughter Erin contributed two years later for inclusion in Amity Buxton’s groundbreaking The Other Side of Closet. It’s on page 217 as the Personal Story of Lynn. Amity used Erin’s middle name and changed our names in the interest of privacy, even though by then we were all out and open.
Tired of Keeping It a Secret
— Lynn
Sunday morning after the Midwinter Ball, my parents called us into the den after breakfast: Andy, thirteen, Dirk, nine, and me, fifteen. We moseyed in, not thinking it was major. My parents were both crying. Dad, white as a ghost, was pacing and muttering. Mom was on the big chair, trying to keep herself together.
Dad had a speech written out. “This is about integrity and my love for all three of you,” he began. “We’re going to get a divorce.”
Andy, Dirk, and I looked at each other. It was the last thing I expected to hear because my parents had the…
