John's Family

One of the blessings of being committed to John is also getting to be a part of his family. His mom and dad are so sweet to me and they treat me like another son, and they are very supportive of our relationship. I look forward to the time I get to spend with them.

One of the things I love most is his relationship with his brothers. John is the oldest of three boys. He has one brother, married with a kid who lives here in the Midwest, and another one who lives in Texas with his wife. Both are better phone communicators than John is. John tends to be very focused. Whatever he is concentrating on gets his full attention, which means he often intends to return phone calls that he doesn't get around to. I think his brothers get irritated with him about that, though they usually don't admit it to him (they should).

The best thing is that instead of treating John like a moral second-class citizen because he is gay (which happens a lot in families), they treat him like the big brother they have always loved and leaned on for advice. Neither of them skipped a beat in their relationship with him when he came out (neither did his parents really).

In fact, when the younger Texas brother came up for middle brother's wedding (I'm not using names to protect their privacy) he had to go into our closet to borrow some shoes. John is a mechanical engineer and he has never cared about clothes (or shoes!). John told me later when his brother saw my shoes (I do care) he exclaimed, "Finally, this looks like a gay man's closet!"