How It Feels To Breakup With Your Evangelical Christian Parents

By Wade Addison

Recently I told my immediate family goodbye.

Because they currently only offer me what I consider to be toxic, conditional love, I have offered them conditional access in return.

I remember the time in which my parent’s flew from Houston to Los Angeles for one evening in order to preach to me, for hours, about how homosexuality was immoral according to the bible. I left in tears. Below is a letter my mother sent me following that interaction.

And while I hope that some day we will be able to repair our relationship, it will likely be years before I’m ready to be in a relationship with them. Why? Because they have chosen to believe and have in turn taught me to believe that a part of me was damaged. They taught me to believe that a part of me was vile. They taught me to believe that a part of me was disgusting. They taught me to believe that a part of me, the desire to love another man, would result in my eternal damnation.

And that’s false teaching. It’s false teaching that is perpetuating hate in our society and resulting in both suicides and homicides of our LGBTQ youth. Like Nick Hawkins, a bisexual teen in Alabama, who was murdered. Murdered. We have to talk about this and call it out for what it is – bigotry. It’s idiotic. It’s brainwashed thinking. It’s fanatic. And it’s dangerous.

Per Annette Covrigaru’s article on Nick:

A study done by The Williams Institute in 2012 found that, although “gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals make up 3.5% of the population, sexual orientation-based hate crimes make up roughly 30% of reported hate crimes each year.” Additionally, the Anti-Violence Project‘s 2014 report determined that “bisexual survivors of violence represented 11.82% of survivors and victims of anti-LGBT violence in 2014, an increase from 2013 with 8.95%.”

But there is no hell. And even if there was, no one would ever be sent there for loving another person. So don’t discriminate or cast judgment on others because of how and who they love. Just love them. Just know them. Just affirm them.

Okay, let me catch you up. This is the aforementioned letter I received from my mother in September 2010:

Wade,

Thank you for meeting w/ Dad & I Tuesday evening. I know it was not easy – for any of us – but I hope we will always value each other enough to try to keep lines of communication open between us. It is a struggle, I will admit, because you are saying something we do not want to hear. From your earliest day, we have tried to instill in you a reverance (sic) for the Word of God. It is the basis on which we’ve chosen to build our lives. To realize that you consider it as less than a revelation from God to man is something that we are having a hard time wrapping our minds around. In fact, it grieves us deeply & challenges us to what a relationship between us will look like as time progresses: knowing that our love you is deep, but our values are so dissimilar. We are praying to God for wisdom & direction in this area & would ask for your prayers, too.

I did want to just mention a couple of things for you to consider along the sociological causes of homosexual orientation lines. As I said when we met w/ you, in reading about this, Dad & I see our failures clearly, & we apologize to you for our short comings. I know that, especially since we all went to the counselor in Tomball, your dad has realized that some of his struggles from how he was raised were effecting him &, in turn, effecting you & he really tried to step up & worked on improving your relationship – but that doesn’t erase the earlier years.

Specifically, he very much desires the approval of those he loves & feels frightened / upset when they respond in anger, critically, or withdraw. When you & Nikki began to come to an age where we had to discipline you (my father crafted a special wooden paddle that was probably at least 2 feet long just for the purpose of spanking my sister and I), your reactions were usually one of the above. Rather than realize that was perfectly natural & that it was his job / responsibility to take the lead in pursuing your relationships & restoration / reconciliation, because he was the adult, your father took this rejection by you very personally & believed it was your place (as the person who had been in the wrong) to come to him & pursue the relationship. Paula (the counselor) finally helped him see that the adults in the situation have the greater responsibility, but by that time, you were in high school & Nikki in college. You both have scars from the fact that he did not pursue you more, & perhaps I stepped in too much, rather than confronting him more & pushing him to step up in this area. I know that you do not want to “blame” us for this, & I appreciate your sweetness of heart in that. We do appreciate your forgiveness, but don’t think it does any of us good to deny that we are fallible – & we made some mistakes as parents.

Another thing to consider is how Nikki’s pregnancy & relinquishment of [son’s name] may have effected you. I know you had had a couple of little girlfriends back then. Mikayla & then Kayla at that time. I’m not sure exactly what happened or was said when Kayla broke up w/ you – but that happened right after people started finding out about Nikki. I know that you were old enough to basically know the “facts of life.” You saw the deep pain & grief that could be caused by heterosexual intercourse outside of marriage. Perhaps you made a vow to yourself that you would never be the cause of such pain. That could explain why you could enjoy arousal when making out w/ a young woman & yet feel a strong disinclination to “go all the way.” – Just a thought (again, obsessed with sex). That was a very horrific time for all of our family. – We probably should have all 4 gone to counseling then & I’m afraid that, out of all of us, your needs were probably the ones that were most overlooked. I apologize for that.

Anyway, as I was sending you these notes – I wanted to include those thoughts. As you are searching for “who you are” (with your counselor ?), I think those are two areas you might want to explore. Also, I’m sticking in a book I just finished. I allow myself 1 book from the Christian section @ Walmart every time I go misc. shopping. When I picked it up, I thought it was more biographical than it proved to be. However, it had some good things to say & since it was on the USA Today & Wall Street Journal Bestseller lists, I thought you might enjoy it, too. It’s a pretty easy read but more like one chapter at a time then ponder it than most of the books I read. I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

Well, I better close or I’m not going to get all the things done that I need to this day. I love you VERY MUCH, son, & pray that you will receive God’s richest blessings in your life.

Always,

Mom

If you have received a similar note, regardless of the topic, and if you have not already heard or read this, here’s your chance:

This is NOT normal. This is NOT appropriate. This is NOT what you should be hearing from those who are supposed to love, protect and encourage you most. No, letters like the above are distortions and mutations of true love – even if they are well intentioned.

They are not representative of unconditional love but are rather examples of what I call conditional love. Conditional love is offerings of love, acceptance and affirmation that are dependent upon you living your life a certain way – dependent upon you denying a core aspect of your identify.

But unconditional love is so much more powerful that love tainted by fear, pain and shame. Unconditional love is what we were put on this earth to feel.

It’ll take some heartbreaks.

If your like me, it’ll take a few different types of heartbreak. It’ll take a few different nights of waking up and not knowing how you got home but being so thankful for that guardian angel. It’ll take a few blackouts. It’ll take some difficult conversations and enlightening realization. It’ll take some substance abuse that you realize is just yet another coping mechanism. It’ll take a ton of mistakes.

If you’re like me, it’ll take a ton of the above in order to teach you lessons that will allow you to see what’s been true along: that you are worthy. It’ll take all of those things and more for you to learn and understand how wonderful you are.

And the most exciting part is that once you realize these things and believe them as truth, your life will change, you will be reborn, and you will be able to see all the love around you in this beautiful world. You will finally be able to identify the differences between conditional and unconditional love. You will finally be confident and empowered enough to answer conditional love with conditional access.

Because you have to love yourself fully before you can fully love others.

And rejecting conditional love from family may be the last closet you have to come out of in order to love yourself fully.

This article was originally published at Wade Into Worthy.