Gender stereotypes and adherence to strict gender roles lead to a lot of misunderstandings that are rarely good.
A 28-year-old woman and her 33-year-old fiancé are dealing with several issues with her family because of their nontraditional lives.
The woman turned to the Relationship Advice subReddit for some guidance after repeatedly butting heads with her family.
Redditor throwra-myproposal posted:
“My family is going bonkers because I proposed to my fiancé who they think is gay.”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“So my family hates my fiancé. They think he’s gay because he’s into some ‘girly’ things.”
“He likes baking, having tea parties with his daughters and doing their hair. He’s also come with me to get our nails done but I think he just does it to spend time with me.”
“But he’s definitely not gay. Just by the definition of gay he’s not gay, but also he does a lot of ‘manly’ things too.”
“He’s a big guy to start, he works out a lot, and he works on his dad’s old car.”
“Anyway, I proposed to him since I know he’s shy and gets anxious over that kind of thing. I know he’d be freaking out about it for months before doing it even though I’ve told him before that I would accept a proposal.”
“My family went nuts over this and started telling me how I’m wasting my life with him and going to get disappointed when I’m 35. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
“Honestly I would love to cut them off but they have a fair bit of money and it would be a shame if I didn’t get any. I don’t know how to navigate this without making my fiancé feel bad but also without getting cut out.”
“I think they’ll cause problems at our wedding or start saying rude things to him. And the money isn’t just something I can write off as being worth my sanity.”
“It’s quite a lot. I don’t know what to do.”
Redditors didn’t offer many strategies to the OP for dealing with her family, but they did agree that being an active father doesn’t make a man gay.
“He’s ‘gay’ because he has tea parties with his daughter and doing her hair? well then I am bloody GAY too.”
“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard haha!. It’s called being a father.”
“I would personally ignore them whenever they talk to you about it, divert, deflect and change the conversation. Not for the money, but to keep familial contact.”
“Just pretend they’re not talking.”
“Carefully speak to your hubby and apologize that they have this ignorant view of masculinity, so he can understand what’s going on, especially if they start talking to him (which I hope they don’t)”
“At some stage though you may have to say to them ‘let’s wait till 35 and see who’s right, shall we?'” ~ aethanv
“Ya I read the tea party part and laughed. Gosh I’d love to have a father who would willingly do my hair and play tea party with me when I was a kid.”
“This definition of gay is so weird.” ~ Lalalanevermind
“I agree with this. I feel like now more than ever traditional gender roles are rapidly disappearing and modern families have a little bit of everything.”
“A lot more stay at home dads. And dads are being more involved more if you look past the last 20 years or so.”
“I feel like boomers especially don’t understand these things and think that sitting down with your dad and having tea party and he happens to enjoy it, he’s gay.”
“I wish these traditional gender roles would just dissappear.” ~ Thumbupthewhat
“Nah. I don’t think it’s a boomer thing. It’s just an a**hole thing.”
“My dad’s a boomer (literally, generationally speaking) and he did girly stuff with me because it made me happy.”
“We still laugh about the first time he tried to braid my hair.” ~ BeachDreamer16
“This is a great illustration of internalized misandry (a better term for toxic masculinity) which is very damaging to men.”
“None of those things are feminine.”
“And when society projects this toxic view of what men are ‘supposed to be’ it can really mess with a guys head.” ~ TheArtofZEM
“People really have to stop labeling things as gay or straight that don’t have anything to do with sexual preference.”
“NEWS FLASH”
“Homos and Heteros can enjoy the same activities.” ~ evaz729
While OP may not have gotten the answers they were looking for, the did at least get validation.