Updates: “Tired of Being in the Closet in my Own Home” Responds
It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today we hear from “Tired of Being in the Closet in my Own Home,” the woman whose live-in girlfriend hadn’t told her 11-year-old son that she was a lesbian and that her “roommate” was, in fact, her girlfriend. Keep reading to see if she’s since told him the truth and how things are now.
I also wanted to mention her moving in wasn’t planned. She was kicked out of her mom’s house after her mom found out she was with me. She had been staying with her mom for three years with her son. She ended up staying at my place after.
Your girlfriend clearly isn’t ready to share living space with you AND her son, whom she has partial custody of. She should get her own place, and then you two can resume a healthy pace of getting to know each other and figuring out how you fit into her family unit before the two of you make a home together. If you are your girlfriend’s first serious lesbian relationship, it’s understandable that she’s a little shy about being “out” around people like her son, especially considering the influence her mother, who kicked her out for being gay, probably has on both her and the grandson.
If you want your relationship to last, you’re going to have to be patient while she figures out how to integrate you and your relationship into her relationship with her son. I really believe that that navigation would best be done with a little more space, which is why I think she needs her own place, away from you, where she can just be a mom and not a mom-turned-lesbian-who-is-suddenly-living-with-her-girlfriend-and-feeling-kind-of-awkward-and-doesn’t-know-how-to-act. She needs the space where she can just be Mom. When that space is secure, she’ll be more likely to feel secure in sharing you with her son and vice versa.
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If you’re someone I’ve given advice to in the past, I’d love to hear from you, too. Email me at wendy@dearwendy.com with a link to the original post, and let me know whether you followed the advice and how you’re doing now.
I am all over the place here in my reactions to this update.
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On one hand — I am how just HOW affectionate is she supposed to get in front of an 11 year old? Seriously? At the end of the day, you’re just some chick she’s banging. Oh, sure, admittedly she is totally sponging off of you, sure. But that doesn’t make your relationship any more legitimate, sorry.
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But then, I feel for you, LW. Why? Look, this chick is desperate and, well, she is totally using you. (Sorry, but any grown woman with a kid who doesn’t have her own place is a fucking mess. End of story.) So yeah, you are not only a safe port in a storm, but an apartment to boot. How convenient. Honestly? Don’t be surprised when she leaves you for a dude… God knows I’ve been burned before by the “confused” bisexual who wants to keep things quiet. So maybe I am more than a little biased. But if I were you, LW, I’d first get this leech out of your apartment and then out of your life.