Being outed

[Blah1]

I am 21 years old and I have always known I was gay. But my family are very conservative and believe homosexuality would bring disrespect to my family so I never told them I was gay. When I went to university in a different city it was the first time I could be free to be myself and I made some queer friends and started a relationship with a guy in the city. He was much older than me, but that’s OK he was able to take me out on the scene and introduce me to stuff. At first it was OK but he seemed to get more and more demanding and threatening if I didn’t do what he said it started with shouting but the last time he actually hit me and I ended up with scratches on my face and marks around my neck. I feel quite frightened of him.

I don’t know what to do – if I end the relationship he has already threatened to tell my family that I’m gay. I don’t know what my brothers and dad would do, my family also support my studies with money and they might stop this and I’d have to drop out of university and I don’t know where I would live. I feel trapped and afraid. What shall I do?

[Elf not on a shelf]

Threatening anyone is not loving them. If you are nervous around him he’s not for you. This is advice I should have given myself btw!!
Do you think he would actually ‘out’ you to your family? Or is it an idle threat to control you?
Would your family believe a stranger over you?
My advice would be to go to the Police. There are lots of laws around threatening behaviour. And lots of laws about what data/ texts/ pictures etc that people can share on line. A call from a Police officer may be enough to give you peace of mind that he won’t do that. Then you can move on.
I wish you happiness and peace, I don’t think you will find that with him unfortunately.

[Domestic Abuse Helpline Team]

Hi Blah1,
Thank you for posting and sharing your situation. It sounds like what is happening is serious. It is not part of a healthy relationship to demand, threaten and attack your partner. You mentioned your partner is older than you and really we would expect him to be modelling what it is to be in a communicative, compromising and understanding relationship. We are really sorry this is your experience.

@Elfnotonashelf makes a good point about questioning is this a real threat or something he is saying to control you and that perhaps a conversation with your local police liaison officer could help you understand what laws there are to prevent someone doing this kind of thing. This is something Galop could look at helping you with, if it was something you wanted to explore. As it is only up to you to come out to your family or not to come out to them. This is a decision for you only to ever make, and you have the right to never come out to them if it doesn’t feel safe for you to do so. It is abusive and dangerous for your partner to threaten to do this and he says it with the intention of controlling you and causing you harm.

You talked about your worries about your dad and brothers reactions and some of the possible consequences of this. You are right to want to think through carefully what impact being outed would have on your life and because of this the helpline team would really encourage you to make contact with us by emailing help@galop.org.uk or calling in freephone on 0800 999 5824 as it might be useful for you to have some on going support.

The Helpline Team

[Author]

Posts