10 Years Later

[25yearsmlc]

I appreciate your feedback but I didn't give the lengthy and well thought out analysis I put into that statement, and am not sure I want to here....

I have read extensively on this and have gone to a specialist c on this very topic. Also, my d admits her dad leaving made her "Wonder about men" and "not trust or like them very much"...whereas before he left, she denies having those thoughts or feelings.

I think it is EXTREMELY unlikely that your marital problems have anything to do with your DD's expressed sexual preference. As far as I know, there is NO decent evidence to suggest that marital problems have such effects on children.

That's not true. There is ample evidence that suggests gay women have had a higher percentage of traumatic or negative emotional r's with the men in ther lives growing up, and or were molested as children.

While There are cases of those who seem clearly to have been born that way, there are also those who experiment with same sex relations and later go straight. I'm very very very familiar with the "Born that way" type as I have other family members in that exact category.

They are among the ones who agree with me that this is a reaction in her, to her father. She had boyfriends before he left and is still is attracted to men. But she knows what it feels like to think men desert women (saw her uncle do it at the same time h did and that hurt her a lot too. She loved that uncle).

She began questioning exactly one month after h left. She asked me "why do men hurt women like this?" I told her to talk to her dad about but she had and she had sobbed and he still left. (He feels like [censored] about this now.)

You're making way too many assumptions about my comment in one unrelated post. Really.

As a former softball player, I saw girls who were gay. I also saw girls experiment w/girls they admired or had crushes on, but who later ended up happily m to men, and who turned out not to be gay or with women ever again....

Of those who were labelled, some later choose marriage and kids. I often think if none of them had been labelled, even more might have just gone back to being straight...but the ones who married and had kids and told me they are happy now....Were they gay or bisexual before? Or did they simply evolve? Change? Or get prematurely labelled? Who knows?

I think lumping all the experiments girls engage in, into the same behavioral group or gender orientation as those who always had those feelings, is inaccurate...and I strongly believe that the labels are clearly not applicable or true for all...there are a select few who really don't belong in the "born that way" group.

I think my d is in that group. I Still think so. I did not tell HER that!

Try to be respectful of your daughter and avoid questioning whether something so intimate and personal is an authentic part of her. It is certainly nothing for you to externalize for her and blame on someone else. It won't help her. It will hurt her.[/b]

REALLY?? Be respectful to her?

Man that comment is so offensive to me. Why would YOU assume I don't know that? Just as my h reassured her we love and accept her, so did I.
Why tell me to "try and be respectful of her" as if I am not? Man...

I didn't blame anything on anyone to my d. That would imply she's "wrong" to feel as she does and I don't believe that.

I also don't care whether she is in a phase or rebelling or trying to subconcsiously hurt her dad OR is authentically bisexual as she claims--- b/c for all intents and purposes, NOW, that's where she is. I ACCEPT THAT....don't lecture me on being closeminded or judgemental to my treasured d.

I love her more than anything in the world.

But I know what I saw when her father left (you were not there) and she reacted to the pain he caused her. I KNOW this.

The idea that femininity and liking princesses demonstrates one's sexual preference is also just plain wrong. Plenty of lesbians and bisexual women are very feminine.

Don't take ONE comment out of context and run with it. I'm not Archie Bunker.

I'd like to suggest that maybe you "KNOW" your daughter less well than you think. We all thought we "KNEW" the WAS before the WAS walked.

Start with a beginner's mind. Listen to your DD. Believe her. Be happy that she shared this with you. Sexual preference is simply a property she has, like hair color or eye color. Given you don't plan to date your own daughter, her sex like should not be any of your business really, or affect your relationship with her in any way.


OMG where to begin with your "one post based assessment" SIGH

SHE chose to share all this with me over a year ago & I thanked her for her openness and trust the minute she told me.

SHE states she's "not gay" b/c she is also attracted to men. Is she lying? And I guess it's my business to the extent SHE involved me in this -- b/c she wants it to be ----so she can "live honestly and without shame", and of course I support that.

Straight or gay or bisexual, my kids sex lives are NOT a topic I'm inclined to obsess about. It's like thinking of your parent's sex life...good grief...

Ever cross your mind YOU might know her less well than I do?

See, YOU make assumptions about ALL gays and bisexuals
and that doesn't sound accurate or fair or research based, to me.

You seem to suggest there is NO CONFUSION in them,no possibility that they are ultimately going to end up in a different place, even when THEY tell us they are confused.


I work with college students all the time. Your attitude WILL hurt her. Listen to her and trust. Don't judge.

Look who's talking about judging...I taught college students and I also raised some, including the one I'm referring to here.

Sorry OT but you are off base here. My "attitude will hurt her"? You have some nerve.

You took ONE part of ONE post I wrote and just ran with it - trying to make me out to be some 1950s evangelical condeming my d...or to make me feel like crap about my mothering, all b/c you talk to students in an academic environment...??? Geez talk about generalizations.

I've been through a lot w/this and so has my h.

What I shared with someone on this thread, was a PRIVATELY held view, not something I dumped on my d.

I didn't go into the multiple studies I read or what the gender c said to me or what the gay c's I spoke to said,

some of whom met my d b/c SHE asked me to meet with her and them....nor did I go into what h and I discussed or what D22 told me in detail,

b/c thats beyond the scope of this thread.

Being a good mother is the most important achievement of my life, so don't make judgements about me that undermine that.

I have worked VERY VERY hard to be as loving and compassionate and open minded as I can, and my d has told me she's "so grateful" to have a mother like me. We're damn close.

I can privately think to myself "I love and accept you, but am not sure I really buy it." That doesn't make me judgemental or hurtful to her. That makes me skeptical.

When my s25 first told he was Buddhist his freshman year of colleg I accepted it... Internally I recall being a little bemused and thinking , "gee, that's the same year I was Buddhist..." NO way would I ever tell him that, and discreditor demean his honest searching.

Since I witnessed many lesbian relationships in my early days, I don't really have the beginner's mind you suggested, so much as an informed one.
Yeah you pushed a button.