Ask Aunty Pam: Should I spend the holidays with my conservative family who disapproves my ‘lifestyle’? – Spartanburg Herald Journal
Dear Aunty Pam: OK, Aunty Pam, you’ve got to help me: I’m a middle-aged, gay man from a very conservative southern family and the holidays are approaching. Every year I get a knot in my stomach because I have to travel home to Alabama for Thanksgiving and Christmas to visit my elderly parents and family, and every year it’s an extremely uncomfortable experience.
My entire family disapproves of my “lifestyle,” as they call it, which means my 25 year, monogamous relationship, and subsequent marriage to, my husband. Mike has gone with me in the past but was made to feel so uncomfortable that he refuses to go. I understand his feelings because once we arrive at my parents’ house, we are completely ignored. Not a single word is spoken to us outside the usual pleasantries given when we first come in. We are not included in any conversation. Not a single person asks how we are, what we’ve been up to, how is work, nothing. It’s as if we’re not there. We eat our meal, thank everyone, sit around for a couple of hours listening to everyone else talk about their lives, and then we leave.
Going to Alabama is the last thing I want to do but as my parents are both frail and not well, I can’t not go. Any advice? I can’t make Mike go with me and the thought of going alone is literally giving me an ulcer.
Help me, Aunty Pam! Mike and I read your column every week and love it. Thank you!!
Desperate in Asheville
Dear Desperate: Boy, there are few things worse than feeling dragged to go to a place you loathe, especially when it’s the holiday season, which is why Aunty Pam avoids Walmart at all costs. Especially during COVID when I won’t go anywhere unless wearing a wet suit and my head wrapped in Clorox wipes.
If there’s been one positive thing about COVID, it’s been the fact that it’s a brilliant excuse to get out of doing things you’d rather not. With the number of breakthrough cases, you can certainly phone your parents that you and Mike are avoiding large gatherings with this beast of a delta variant floating around, then send a huge bouquet as a table setting gift and simply visit after the holidays.
But while there’s truth to the COVID variant, it’s still sort of the coward’s way out, isn’t it? The cold fact is that you have not been made to feel welcomed by your family after you go to the considerable trouble to travel and spend the holidays with them, when I’m sure you and Mike would far rather celebrate on your own or with Mike’s family. So it may just be time to make a stand. It’s going to take courage as well as finding where your father has hidden a bottle of bourbon (they always do) for a slug before addressing your family.
Should this visit occur as the past ones have, after the last slice of pumpkin pie is served, you can look around the table, thank those who cooked and served, and with this captive audience simply state your truth: that each year you have come down for this visit and each year you’ve felt excluded from all conversation and family intimacy and how hurtful that has been. That while you have a good idea of what’s going on with everyone else’s lives, no one has shown the slightest interest in yours. And for this reason, unless more of an effort is made, you will not be coming down again in the future. Let us hope that perhaps your family has not included you because they’ve felt awkward, juggling their beliefs with yours and have decided to stay silent, not realizing how hurtful that was. At any rate, they will have the opportunity to give any explanations after your speech and if none are forthcoming—and timing is everything, baby, so make this speech just before you normally leave—you can grab your coat and get the hell out of there.
Speaking your truth is always the best way in a calm and dignified manner. So much better than driving home, filled with anger and hurt, your head spinning with all things you wished you’d said. And maybe make some plans to meet Mike at the airport for a trip to the islands as consolation.
Cheers, dear! — Aunty Pam