agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: In the four years my husband and I have been married, his distaste for the LGBTQ community has grown into a passion. He calls it immoral and unnatural. I've never tried to change his opinion, but because I don't enthusiastically agree with him, he is convinced I'm going to hell. He uses nearly every conversation as an opportunity to share his feelings on this issue. Any response I volunteer goes unheard.

Shortly after our wedding, my father revealed he is gay. Thankfully, my husband can be kind to him while disapproving of his sexuality. I'm not sure Dad knows the extent of my husband's negative feelings. (They live in different states, so they rarely see each other.)

My problem is, my father recently became engaged to his partner, and I'm not sure how to tell my husband. I'm not asking him to agree with my dad's life, but I don't want him to steal my joy over this event or make me feel guilty for going to their wedding. I will certainly be going alone. Advice, Abby? -- ALLY IN MICHIGAN

DEAR ALLY: Yes, I do have some. However, it is more far-reaching than you may expect. That your husband discounts or "doesn't hear" what you need to communicate to him does not bode well for the future of your marriage. Your father's sexual orientation may be abhorrent to your husband, but it is not "unnatural." If you wish to attend your father's wedding, do it, and do not feel guilty for supporting him at this important time. You are not going to hell for loving and accepting your father -- quite the opposite, in fact.

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This relationship is over.

The bigotry is bad enough, but the fact that Husband subjects LW to rants on the subject on the flimsiest of pretexts? How can nearly every conversation lead to homophobic screeds?

LW needs to get out while she still can.

LW may think she has a choice between supporting her father and implicit support for her husband, but she actually has a choice between supporting human decency in general, and implicit support for her husband.

I don’t know if LW actually disagrees with him; she describes herself as “not enthusiastically agreeing”, not disagreeing. And clearly the baseline bigotry never bothered her because she married him to begin with (back when he had a “distaste”) and hasn’t ever pushed back since. I wonder if this is a situation where she agrees with him to a lesser extent, and just wants *her* family member to be exempt. (It’s a phenomenon I’ve encountered a lot where people hold on to their bigotry and then do cognitive leaps to exclude their family member(s) from their generalizations about that group. As one example, I used to have a racist white neighbor who doted on his Black granddaughter, but any other Black person visiting the neighborhood was seen as a likely threat.)

I agree he’s a shitstain and she’s better off without him, but I suspect she’s got some shitstaining herself.

wORD.

Four years ago was 2021, and he already had a "distaste" then. This is not like "I married my husband in 1967 and neither of us really knew anything about gay people." No excuses, LW, you knew you were marrying a homophobe and you did it anyway. Why aren't you asking him to agree with your dad's life? Also it's not like I "agree with" the life of every straight couple I meet. Agreeing with life is not a thing. Being positive and supportive is a thing, and it's absolutely a reasonable ask for YOUR ACTUAL HUSBAND about YOUR ACTUAL FATHER.