Daily Mirror - 04.03.2020

mirror.co.uk WEDNESDAY 04.03.2020 DAILY MIRROR^29

DM1ST

DEAR COL E E N

you

say

not sure how to come out to family

Dear Coleen

I’m a gay man in my 20s and I’m

in love with a guy I’ve been seeing

for a year. I’ve never come out to

my parents or anyone else in my

family, but now that I’m in a

committed relationship, I don’t

want to hide any more.

My boyfriend is out, but he has

never put me under any pressure

to do the same – he just says it’s

my decision and I should do it

when it feels right.

I’m not sure it ever will though!

It’s not as if my family is

homophobic, but I’ve never talked

to them about anything really

personal and don’t know how

they’d react to the news.

Have you any advice?

Coleen says

It’s obvious from your letter that

you’re desperate to live your life

openly, but you’re just scared,

and I totally understand that.

Your boyfriend is right – the

decision about if and when to

come out should be yours alone

and it’s great that he’s

supportive.

I wonder if his parents or

other family members could talk

to you about how they felt when

your boyfriend came out to

them? They might be able to

provide some reassurance

and insight.

It’s a tough conversation to

have, but you have to remember

your parents love you.

Yes, they might be shocked

and it might take them a while to

get their heads around the news,

but you haven’t said anything in

your letter to make me think

they’d reject you.

They might even have

suspected you’re gay for a long

time, but don’t feel it’s their

place to bring it up.

I’d also recommend visiting

fflag.org.uk, an organisation that

helps families understand,

accept and support their gay,

lesbian or bisexual sons and

daughters. Good luck.

boyfriend is a

flirt and it’s

upsetting me

Dear Coleen

I’m a woman aged 29 and have

been seeing a great guy for a few

months. He’s charming and

handsome, and really good fun –

and therein lies my problem.

I’m absolutely paranoid that

he’s flirting with my friends and

other women.

I think it’s just his personality –

he’s very open and outgoing – and

he’s never said or done anything

inappropriate.

However, my last boyfriend

(who could also charm the birds

off the trees) cheated on me and

it ended the relationship.

I don’t want history to repeat

itself, but am I making too much

of this?

Coleen says

Well, I think it’s important to

work out how much of this is

your stuff and how much of it is

his behaviour.

Of course we can’t help being

affected by things that

happened in past relationships,

but the key is to learn from them

and try to use what you’ve learnt

positively in your next

relationship.

Instead of becoming more and

more paranoid, why not be

honest with your boyfriend and

explain you struggle with

insecurity sometimes because of

how your last partner behaved?

Let him reassure you.

He might be charming and

outgoing, but he’s not your ex

and I think you have to give him

the benefit of the doubt unless

he lets you down (which

hopefully he won’t).

If you can’t trust him and

show him you trust him, then the

relationship is going to fail

before you’ve really given it

a chance.

The letter from the

mum who doesn’t

know how to have the

“sex conversation” with her

teenage son rang a few bells

for me (Dear Coleen, Feb 28).

I dropped some sex advice

casually into conversation

while I was in the kitchen

with my son one morning.

His jaw dropped open and

he nearly lost his breakfast,

and then covered his ears,

saying: “OK, OK, you don’t

have to tell me about the birds

and the bees.”

But I felt better for saying it

and I noticed he made a joke

about it on social media later,

so at least I gave him

something to post about!

Kate, via email

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He’s cast me aside now that

his wife has thrown him out

Dear Coleen

I’m a single woman in my mid-30s and

recently came out of an affair with a

married man after 18 months together.

I’d known him for a while before we

started the affair.

He’d been telling me that his

marriage was dead in the water and he

wanted out.

However, during our time together

he never attempted to leave her, even

though he said he loved me and

wanted to be with me. In the end, his

wife found out about us and threw him

out of the family home –they have two

kids together.

He moved in with a mate and, not

long after that, told me he wanted to

end our relationship. He was

really angry and seemed to blame

me for the break-up of his

marriage and the fact he only

sees his kids at weekends.

His ex isn’t making things easy

for him because she’s so angry

about what happened.

I miss him, even though he’s

treated me badly, and can’t believe he

chucked our relationship away after

everything he’d said to me.

Now I feel like he wasn’t serious

about us at all and was just using me

because he was miser-

able with his wife and missing sex.

I don’t want to move on with anyone

else because I still love him, so how do

I get on with my life? I get so angry.

Have you any advice?

Coleen says

The lesson is: affairs very rarely turn

out the way you hope they will and a

lot of people get hurt in the process.

Maybe when the dust settles

between him and his ex, he might

get in touch and want to give your

relationship a shot, but I don’t think

you should put your life on hold in the

hope it’ll happen.

Of course you’re hurt, and it’ll take

time for those feelings to go away.

However, you must have known you

were playing with fire when you

got involved with someone who was

married.

I’ve been the wife in this scenario

and I can tell you that his wife will

be hurting too, and she’ll feel a lot of

anger towards both of you.

I think if he’d genuinely wanted to

leave his wife for you, it would have

happened before you’d spent 18

months together.

The truth is, he was having his cake

and eating it, and he didn’t want out of

his marriage badly enough and he

didn’t want you badly enough to do

anything about it.

Would you really have wanted to

continue being “the other woman”

indefinitely? He’s the one responsible

for breaking up his family and now he

has to deal with it.

All you can do is learn from this and

try to move on positively, and make the

decision not to get involved with

people who are married in future.

[email protected]

your problems solved

“It seems he

blames me for

not seeing his

kids much