Auntie SparkNotes: My Mom Made Me Move Out Because I’m Gay

Auntie SparkNotes,

I’m 23 years old and have been seeing another woman for over a year now. I’m really happy and finally feel like I’m in a healthy relationship. There’s just one person I wish was okay with that: my mom.

For background, I’ve only ever dated men before this relationship, and my mom cracked jokes about this one being “an experiment.” I was okay with that because from her perspective it seems really out of the blue. But I also feel like I should be allowed to like who I like without having it be dismissed or not taken seriously. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t think it was getting serious.

Anyway, fast forward a few months. My mom sends me an email talking about how she feels uncomfortable with my new relationship. She said she “didn’t know” if that was because she was a woman or not, and I told her if she had to ask herself if that’s the problem, it probably is. This never really gets resolved.

Over the summer, my mom found a bottle of her vodka in my room and threw me out of the house because I was “stealing” from her, even though I told her I was just going to use it to make myself a drink one night, but ended up changing my mind and just forgot to put it back. I used to borrow other things from her a lot (tweezers, scarves, nail polish, etc.) admittedly sometimes without asking, and usually she just rolls her eyes and laughs. This time she told me she wanted me out of the house, I was going to find my own phone plan and car insurance, and she would refuse to cosign any student loans I needed for school. I had a hunch I knew the real reason she was doing this, but decided not to make things any worse for myself by accusing her. I’ve done similar things in the past and even worse when dating a guy and it never got this far, and she was angry that I’d been spending a lot of time at my girlfriend’s house because it was closer to my work. I packed my things and left and we didn’t talk much after that until she took me on a vacation she had already booked for us, which went pretty well minus a few moments of tension.

Since then it’s been a lot of awkward interactions via text and email. I’ve seen her once since we got back from our trip, and that was Christmas. It actually did go pretty well and I was happy to see her. I just don’t know how to mend the relationship at this point. We used to be very close, and now it feels like I barely even have a mom because we don’t talk much anymore. What should I do?

I’ll be honest, Sparkler: At first, Auntie SparkNotes was all set to break out the Punishment Salmon and administer a mid-weight beating to your mom, for the grossly unsupportive and extortive way she’s treating her teenage daughter. I was, truly, outraged on your behalf! … Right up to the point where I re-read your first paragraph and realized that you’re 23 years old.

Which, y’know, kind of changes things.
[Puts Punishment Salmon back on ice.]

And look: I’m not saying that homophobia doesn’t have any hand in this. It’s certainly possible that your mom would have been more forgiving and less prone to drawing lines in the sand if you were dating a guy, especially given that she was admittedly uncomfy with your relationship (albeit for reasons unknown). But under the circumstances, one can’t help but notice another equally important factor in play. Namely: You’re an adult, and it’s not unreasonable that you be expected to act like one.

Which brings me to this: Depending on what you hope to accomplish, here, I think you’re going to need to at least temporarily reconsider the narrative you’ve constructed around this situation—the one that led you to send me this letter with the subject heading, “My Mom Kicked Me Out Because I’m Gay.” Not that I don’t understand the appeal of that narrative; it’s neat, it’s simple, and it validates your sense of victimhood by casting your mom as an unambiguous villain, a total bigot bad guy who cruelly rejected her blameless kid. If you were looking for an excuse to estrange yourself, this version of events would certainly get you there, and then some.

But since distance doesn’t seem to be your goal—and since mending the relationship apparently is—then this is where I must inform you that casting your mom as a one-dimensional jerk doesn’t exactly serve you. And while I know it’s uncomfortable and not what you’d prefer, it might be time for you to consider that not everything she’s done or asked of you is wrong and/or motivated by bigotry. Finding your own apartment, paying for your own phone and car insurance, being responsible for your own loans: this is basic grownup stuff. Can you really see no possible reason why your mom might insist that you start doing it, apart from “I’m being punished for being gay”? And if she’s making a stink now where she never did before, could it maybe have less to do with the fact that you’re dating a woman, and more to do with the fact that, like many parents, your mother’s tolerance for teenage shenanigans ran out right around the time you stopped being a teenager? A college-aged kid borrowing your nail polish without asking is a very different thing from a grownup, employed daughter staying at her girlfriend’s place five nights a week, and coming home only to bogart your vodka and treat your house like a free-of-charge hotel.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that’s not how it seems to you or what you would have intended, because you’re a good person and you love your mom. But if that’s what it felt like to her—if she felt taken advantage of—then it’s not hard to understand why she would have chosen this moment to push you out of the nest, for reasons largely unrelated to how she feels about your same-sex relationship.

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s fun to have independence foisted on you in what feels like an angry moment. It’s understandable that you feel hurt and confused. And since your and your mom have been so super-close for such a super-long time, your transition to independent adulthood was probably always going to be rough. It’s not that you don’t have a mom anymore; it’s that you don’t need to be parented anymore. That’s a big change, for both of you, and it can take time to figure out.

But the good news is, it sounds like you are figuring it out. You text; you email; you enjoy each other’s company on vacations and holidays with only sporadic weirdness; and despite having asked you to live elsewhere, you’re still apparently a welcome guest in your mother’s home. In short, you’re doing a bang-up job at getting beyond the initial awkwardness, and onto the business of relating to each other on more grownup terms. And the more you do it, the easier it’ll get, especially if you can find your way to acknowledging that being expected to live independently is perhaps not the same thing as being rejected for your sexual identity. In fact, unless your mom has made an actual, concrete, recent objection to your relationship on those grounds, this would be a good time to stop making assumptions about the “real reasons” why she does anything and just ask. Is she still uncomfortable with your relationship? Does she still not know why? Has she met your girlfriend, or would she like to? Is this even a problem anymore?

To be clear, I don’t know the answers to these questions. But I do know that talking about them maturely and respectfully is how you get back to a closer, more honest relationship with your mom, which, for what it’s worth, I suspect she would like as well. And if the worst happens, and you discover that she’s not supportive for the worst reasons, then this is where you remind yourself that you’re a grownup doing your own thing, and you don’t need your mom’s approval to pursue your own path to happiness.

And then you can invite your girlfriend over to your place for Chinese food and smooching, without having to ask anyone’s permission, because adulthood does in fact have its perks.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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