I am husband, father, grandfather and gay. The saddest thing is not to have someone to talk to it with

Email sent to us by Marco, replies Alessandra Bialetti*, social pedagogist and couples of the couple and the family of Rome

I entered this page because I am also part of this "category", I notice that our stories resemble each other very much even if different in details. I am 59 years old, 4 children, 6 grandchildren, with my wife I was sincere from the beginning, and this cost me dear, 35 years of suffering, fortunately satisfied by the love of my children, now my life is ad A turning point (I think), the saddest thing for us I think it is loneliness, not having anyone to open up with and also with which to cry.

Marco

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The answer…

Dear Marco, thanks for contacted and chosen to have to share your difficulty. Yes, share. This is a keyword in everyone's path, the word that brings out of solitude, from the suffering lived alone, by the believing that one is the only ones who live particularly delicate situations. Being able to express one's experience, one's difficulties, doubts, but above all judgments is a fundamental step to welcome deeply and start a new journey.

I start from the judgments that, too often, become self -judgments, barriers and walls that make you lose contact with yourself and read their lives in terms of bankruptcy. You talk about being part of a "category". Even if this word quotes, it comes very strong. You are not categories, you do not have labels on you, you don't dress in classifications. All this is the result of both personal and social fear, of a way of reading the lives of people distinguishing good and bad, regular and irregular, right and wrong.

A way that, unfortunately, we need to control a reality that is often uncomfortable or that we do not know. And non -knowledge generates fear, removal, homologation to common thought which, however comfortable, actually leads to discriminate, ghettoize, marginalize. You are not a "category", Marco. You are a person, with his life, with his path that is not easy as each of us, with his fears, his awareness, his fragility. Do not consider you and your life something to be classified, to be judged on the basis of parameters of an alleged justice that becomes non -reception of oneself.

The first evil arises precisely when we tell ourselves in terms of belonging to the group of the wrong, of the non -compliant, of the non -canonical. Based on prejudices that erect walls and generate fear and aggression. Instead, try to read your life as a path to bring light on yourself, to bring out the truth of you and to be born again as you are. Exactly what everyone tries to do every day, trying, finding themselves and sometimes also getting lost but with the awareness of being on the way to a truth without masks.

I understand that it is a difficult and often uphill path and that it costs suffering and tears not only ate but also to those next to you. You speak of a sincerity with your wife from the beginning and also of how much all this has cost in terms of pain and effort in everyday life. I feel it, all your difficulty comes to me, your lifestyle budget that is often seen in loss. But. There is a but that you express strong and clear: you still built a life path, you were authentic with your wife who walked with you in the awareness of reality by deciding to carry out a common project, you have generated life and, In turn, your children have bet on life.

Surely yours and your choice will not meet everyone's positive "judgment". They could teem you with absurdity, non -consistency, confusion. But it is your path, that path that served you to get here today, to take stock and reach that turning point that you speak and that I perceive perhaps liberating. Nobody has the power to make the other feel wrong only because he has a different experience from his own and has made different choices. Darkly when you went on the way it was the road you considered the most just to go and that saw you together for many years.

You have gone through many experiences and now you have come and you have come to this point. The love of your children comforts you, supports you, makes you perceive how much your being a father has made them grow strong and serene ready to build their own life project. Certainly 35 years of suffering, as you define them, have been heavy but have generated, have been fertile, germinated good. Everything that is now part of your luggage to continue the path. It is your wealth, your backpack in which to keep the good and to draw on in periods of famine.

Solitude is certainly heavy and makes the step more unstable and insecure. But already being able to talk about himself helps to get out of the tunnel, from living on solitary his emotions, thoughts, fears. Having walking companions to open up with and being able to cry, but also smiling and feeling welcomed, is the step that you can now give to your life. In this regard, I invite you to contact Rainbow Parents Network, an association that brings together LGBT parents with children from previous heterosexual relationships.

All people, who like you, had built a life project then redefined at the time of awareness of their orientation. Sharing experiences, experiences, tears but also joy could be a first step to abandon the corner of solitude in the Cu often takes refuge thinking that they are the only ones to live a similar experience. Walking in a roped, dividing the same path, supporting and letting yourself be supported is to be reborn and giving yourself a new possibility.

You have already taken a big step by opening your heart to us and giving voice to what you feel and live.

I wish you a good trip, finally without judgments and full of welcome. Out of that "category" and living a land, which if not always hospitable, it is certainly also a meeting place, perhaps even where you don't even expect it. The path opens by doing it. With confidence. In truth. Come on Marco!

Alessandra

* Alessandra Bialetti, lives and operates in Rome as a social pedagogist and couple and family consultant in various projects from different associations and secular and Catholic realities. He discussed his Baccalaureate thesis at the Pontifical Salesian University, Faculty of Salesian Education and Training Sciences on the theme "Parents always. Homosexuality and parenting”. His website is alessandrabialetti.wordpress.com