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LGBT children

This board is primarily for parents of LGBTQ+ children to share personal experiences and advice. Others are welcome to post but please be respectful that this is a supportive space.

Worried about Adult Son

2 replies

macca5 · 21/04/2025 17:01

I wonder if anyone can help.
My son is 24 and gay/bi. I did what we're not supposed to do and asked him a couple of years ago if he was gay. I knew he was and it's never been a problem for me or his dad but I think he's finding it hard to work through and maybe has a bit of internalised homaphobia. The reason I asked him was that I was (still am) concerned about his drinking and I thought it might be linked to him not being happy with his sexuality, and wanted him to be able to talk to us/ friends/ therapist. However this hasn't really happened, he's still very closed about it all He's never had a partner, has had a date and a holiday fling (both with boys) and maybe that's all he wants, but he was so happy when both of those things happened that I feel he'd like more of that! Both times the other boy ended things and I think that's really knocked his confidence. He is very sociable has lots of friends but not really any lgbt ones. He doesn't seem to have anyone to talk to and his drinking seems to be getting worse. He doesn't live with us, he's got a good job and in many ways seems happy but his interests are more and more focused on alcohol and I'm worried it's starting to take a hold of him and I want to know if there's anything I could be doing. We talk a lot but if I ever ask if he's been dating etc (something i can easily ask my other 2 kids) he gets embarrassed and closes up. I know he gets drunk and goes to gay bars, which is obviously fine but maybe not alone and extremely drunk. Any words of wisdom would be so helpful

OP posts:
Lovelyview · 21/04/2025 18:00

I'm sorry you're worried about him but I think you probably just have to let him work it out for himself. I don't ask my daughter who is in her early 20s about who she's dating - she's said she's gay but not shared any other info. Hopefully your son will eventually meet someone important. Maybe focus on other aspects of his life - how his job's going and if he's got any holiday plans. You can't do anything about the amount of alcohol he drinks and if you keep bringing it up you'll push him away.

macca5 · 21/04/2025 20:17

Lovelyview · 21/04/2025 18:00

I'm sorry you're worried about him but I think you probably just have to let him work it out for himself. I don't ask my daughter who is in her early 20s about who she's dating - she's said she's gay but not shared any other info. Hopefully your son will eventually meet someone important. Maybe focus on other aspects of his life - how his job's going and if he's got any holiday plans. You can't do anything about the amount of alcohol he drinks and if you keep bringing it up you'll push him away.

Thank you, I know you're right about bringing up drinking, so I don't do that either, and yes, we talk about all sorts of other things. It just seems to be taking a long time for him to work through things.

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