People deserve a second chance. But there’s a limit to how many times we can turn the other cheek, even with our loved ones.
For a long time, Reddit userhas been enduring her parents’ disapproval of her wife, even though the main reason for their animosity is her sexual orientation.
However, when they recently refused to invite her partner to their ownwedding anniversary, the woman was so taken aback that she began to feel like enough was enough.
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A wedding anniversary can be a good opportunity to reconnect for the whole family
Image credits:unsplash (not the actual photo)
However, this woman’s parents feel like her wife doesn’t belong to theirs
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Oftentimes, LGBTQ people try to maintain ties with their parents even when facing their rejection
Image credits:freepik (not the actual photo)
A 2024 Ipsossurveyof 18.5K adults aged 18-74, conducted in over twenty countries from the US and Spain to Chile and Singapore, found that internationally, 72% of people believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry legally or obtain some form of legal recognition, while 16% oppose this, and the rest are unsure. However, the numbers can vary dramatically depending on where you look. In Sweden, for example, 86% are in favor of same-sex marriage/recognition, while in Turkey, the figure reaches only 37%. (In theUnited States, it’s 65%.)
Two sociologists at The Ohio State University talked extensively about this with 76 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer adults and 44 of their parents and put what they learned into a book calledFamilies We Keep: LGBTQ People and Their Enduring Bonds with Parents.
“We found a sense of what we called ‘compulsory kinship,'”saidco-author Rin Reczek, a professor of sociology at Ohio State. “There’s this feeling among many LGBTQ people that the family is untouchable and should be maintained at all costs.”
Three themes emerged as to why LGBTQ adults felt they had to keep these ties, and the most common one was what the authors called “love and closeness.”
“In many interviews, there was a lot of talk about the pain and suffering in the relationship with their parents, but then they would say they were close, or they loved each other,” added co-author Emma Bosley-Smith, now an assistant professor of sociology at Alma College. “It was contradictory.”
A second theme was the growth that the LGBTQ adults saw (or thought they saw) in their parents.
Some did see actual growth in how their parents accepted them over time. But for many, it was more of a sense of hope that it would happen. “There were these instances where they would say ‘Well, they are a little better than they used to be,'” Bosley-Smith said.
“We would hear things like ‘There’s not even any love in our relationship, but she’s my mom,'” Reczek said. “It was this notion that the parent-child relationship is so unique that it can’t be replaced or ended.”
Our Redditor also seems to have tried her best to stay close to her parents despite their disapproval of her partner. Hopefully, they can work it out before it’s too late.
But people who read this woman’s story believe she doesn’t have to
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