Hi there - hoping someone can help.
My son came out as gay 2 and a half years ago and, despite our complete acceptance and assurances, he changed towards us overnight.
Before, he was the sweetest, kindest, most eager to please child and teenager.
My husband and I are struggling to cope with this now very selfish, self centred, rude, aggressive young man (20 next birthday) and honestly we are on the brink of either a break down or throwing him out.
We have had the worst Christmas ever.
I have read that this is 'normal'. That the pushing of the buttons might be his attempt to provoke us into an act which fulfils his expectation that, despite all our assurances, we don't accept him for who he is. We do absolutely. But does this mean we also have to accept his total lack of respect and destruction of our family life in an effort to keep the peace? We can't bear it any longer.
He picks fights verbally. then gets aggressive with us. He constantly tries to shock us by talking about his sexual conquests. He is at Uni in London most of the time but when he comes home he continually disrespects our house, our boundaries and our belongings. We support him financially as well as pastorally and have, for the last 2 and a half years, tried to ride this all out as best we can. It's only getting worse though.
I'm hoping someone can either tell us that we need to continue to ride it out or that it isn't in fact normal and we need to put our metaphorical feet down!
Any support anyone can offer would be gratefully appreciated. We love him totally unconditionally but we don't actually like him very much at the moment. Nothing whatsoever with him being gay, all totally to do with him acting like a knob most of the time!