Is my son gay or bisexual?

If you love your son, why not tell him that you love him either way? If he is gay I would think that he would tell you!

Why not ask him? It's simple and direct. It's for sure that no one here can tell you.

Invite your son to your house. Just feed him and tell him you love him.

Your concern is why he would not let you in his house. You do have the right to be concerned about that. There could be lots of reasons why he did not want you in the house.

If it's because he has a gay lover, or is gay, you will find out soon enough. Let him bring up the topic of his sexuality.

No secrets - everything on the table.

I don't understand, what are you concerned about? Many gay and bisexual men have perfectly good relationships with their families. Obviously there is a strain in your relationship with you son. Why not focus on this?

I don't understand why the sex life of your adult son would concern you at all.

Let me speak with you as an adult male. I have a pretty good relationship with my mother. We talk regularly about a lot of things, work, family, plans. However, I don't ever talk about my sex life with her and she never brings it up. If my mother were worried about my sex life, I would find it off-putting (and a little strange).

If you want to be involved in the life of your adult son, work on building good communication. Ask about the things he cares about. Tell him about what you are doing. Understand that adult relationships with parents often have boundaries. For me (and I suspect for many men) respect is very important. If I feel someone is not respecting me, I am going to push them away.

But understand this. No adult man, gay or straight, wants his mother involved in (or concerned about) his sex life. If you intrude on this area of his life, it is no wonder he is pushing you away.

His sexuality doesn't matter. Just drop it. You are not going to have any say or part of his sexuality. Don't feel bad about this, this is just the way it is.

This doesn't mean that you can't work on having a healthy, meaningful respectful, supportive relationship with your son. As long as you drop whatever hangups you have about sex.

Why are you asking us? Go ask him.

blink

Littlek is gunning for the red ribbon that's rightfully yours Ragman! Quelle nerf!

blink back. What? Can't be said often enough!

If you really love him then it should not matter if he is nor not. You shouldn't even be wondering. Besides what does it matter if he is or isn't? I think that you do care and that it would effect you, but to prevent yourself from sounding too negative you say otherwise.

Sorry - as a mother of sons, I DO think this is a subject that needs to be discussed. It's the elephant in the kitchen.

HOW it gets talked about is important.

But like I said, the fact that he won't even let her in the house is indiciative of their relationship. Staart there and it cold all come out.

No Punkey. Just no. A mother has no place in the sex life of her adult son. If your sons have become adults and moved on, it is time for you to let go. If you can't, this will be a real problem between you and your sons.

I am a man. My mother knows I have a wife. She knows we have had sex because we have produced children. It is appropriate for my mother to accept a long term partner (whether it is a man or a woman doesn't matter). My mother is a part of our family and I am very happy about that.

My mother is not at all a part of my sexuality. My mother doesn't know if I have had any homosexual experiences (some 20% of men have them without telling their mothers). For that matter my mother doesn't know if I have anal sex with my wife. She wouldn't ask even if she saw santorum on the sheets, and if she did I would feel it a great intrusion.

And let me ask you, just out of curiosity, how much do you tell your parents about your sex life?

Let me just make this point to Laura, and to any other mother of adult sons.

There two separate issues here. One, is how to build a respectful adult relationship with your adult sons. Two is how to deal with the sexuality of your adult sons.

Building a respectful relationship with adults means respect and support. It means offering help where it is needed. It means respecting boundaries.

Your son's sexuality is not your concern. It seems obvious from the original post that your son doesn't want you to be involved in his sexuality. This is not surprising as no son wants involvement from their mothers.

If you build a healthy relationship with your son then he will let you in on things that are a normal part of a healthy relationship with your parents. He will bring home the person he loves (whether it is a man or a woman) and he will let you in on things that are important to him. His sex life will never be a part of this.

If you continue to intrude on his sexuality, having a healthy adult relationship will be impossible.

Put yourself in his shoes. How would you feel if your parents were intruding on your sex life.

If your son is gay and you want support in dealing with your feelings about this, I strongly recommend PFLAG. They are support group for parents and friends of lesbians and gays.

Start here : http://community.pflag.org/Page.aspx?pid=539

There is a link here with stories of parents who had homosexual children. You might find it helpful.

There are also local meetings that might help you.

We DON'T know that is the reason he won't let her in the house. It could be because there was pot smoking going on, 10 people living there, the walls are all painted black or the place is a pizz/beer/porn mess - none of all of the above.

Having an "effeminate" room-mate is not reason to jump to any conclusions.

As I said, the REAL issue is that he won't let her in the house.

I agree completely Punkey. The real issue is Laura's relationship with her adult son. Once we are adults we get to choose what our relationships with our parents are like.

Let assume the goal is for Laura to have a closer healthy adult relationship with her son. Whatever the case, she needs to build this relationship on terms that are comfortable to her son (there is no rule that you need to let your parents in your house)

If her son is gay, she is going to have to overcome her hangups if she wants to build a closer relationship. You can't have a good relationship with someone if you can't accept who they are.

Here an interesting take from the point of view of a gay son.



His advice to gay men is to tell their families they are gay, and then to give them a year to be "dicks" about it. If their families haven't gotten over it by this time, his advice is to put them out of their lives.

Many thumbs up.

I'll just add that if my mother asked me about my sex life, I would FREAK THE HELL OUT!!!!!! If your son wants to tell you, he will tell you in his own way and in his own time. But that's his decision to make.

I should hope not!

What?
A parent should not know that a child is gay?

I never - and still don't today - get involved with my children's sex lives, but if one one of them had a NEW life of being gay (remember, this guy had been with a woman) then, as a parent, I would be concerned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RlTAyNI8WE