By Robert Brennan, M.A.
At New Hope
Ministries, we often get letters from sisters who have recently learned about
their brother’s homosexuality. The
sister wants to communicate that her Christian values do not include
homosexuality and yet does not want to alienate her brother.
While this
revelation of your brother’s homosexuality is uncomfortable for you, it is
uncomfortable as well for your brother as he has been bearing the heavy burden
of his secret until now. The fact that
your brother has shared his secret with you is an important sign of trust in
your relationship, which can become a bridge to his healing. Your brother is reaching out to you and this
is a courageous act on his part to find acceptance and connection with his
family. You may be the only person he
has this bond of trust with and hidden in that trust is the opportunity for
healing and reconciliation of his past and with family members.
Your dilemma is
how to love your brother on one hand, and on the other hand allow him to know
that your values as a Christian are in opposition to his lifestyle. The concern, of course, is that he will
experience rejection as you tell him you love him but don’t accept his homosexuality
and you may lose him as he disconnects himself form you to guard himself from
hurt. Inherent in this dilemma are two
purposes that are opposed to each another.
The conflict is that you will try to unconditionally love your brother
and at the same time set up a boundary of “faith” which will communicate, “I
love you except when you cross the boundary of the homosexual lifestyle”. For many Christians, giving up the boundary
of faith is synonymous with giving up on God, or is it?
I’d like to
suggest that there might be another lens in which to view this dilemma. At first glance, we might think that the
primary issue here is the potential compromise of our Christianity. We have the opportunity to take the very
real concern for brother’s well being and express it in terms of a desire to
nurture wholeness and healing in him.
The question becomes “How do I love my brother in a way that will
promote his healing of homosexuality and family relationships?” No we can see
sister as the bridge between brother and God’s healing hand in his life.
Bail water, jump
overboard, signal for help, what can you do to save this family? . It
often begs the question “why did it happen and how can I fix it”. At this point we must realize that we cannot
fix the past or the person. In fact if
you try to fix the homosexual, you will create a deeper wound of
rejection. Trying to change someone has
a distinct message, which is “You are not acceptable as you are”. How do you respond when someone says you are
not good enough? Most of us pull away
or reject the notion.
In order to
truly help the family member who has revealed his or her homosexuality, we must
accept them first. This does not mean
that you accept homosexuality but accept the person. The difficult reality to accept is that the family relationships
have created this condition of homosexuality. We must feel the grief of losing
our family member to this condition. We
are in grief over who we thought our brother or sister is as people and family
members. When this acceptance takes
place, real growth can occur because we accept reality and no longer live in
the mystery of secret. This is the
place where we must sit before God and pour out our suffering and place it at
the cross. We have then moved beyond
blame and the need to fix the broken part.
St. John of the Cross referred to this as the “dark night of the soul”.
A New
Relationship
When we accept the role of the family in the production of the homosexual condition, we are more prepared to love our homosexual family member in an unconditional manner whether they are gay or straight. Genuine love requires this acceptance without giving up who you are as a Christian. The model of Christianity is God’s unconditional love for all. Look at your brother as a man first, then as a homosexual secondarily. Your goal is to support you brother in making decisions that lead him to grow in his masculine identity.
There are special considerations in the relationship between a male and female family member. The homosexual male will often confide in a woman about very personal struggles he goes through in relationships with other men. Appropriate boundaries must be established in order to minimize the need to become dependent on each other. The sister does not want the brother to hang on every word she says, asking over and over for her advice. This can create dependence on his part for her input, and on her part to be needed by him. The sister no longer has an objective perspective and she becomes an enabler of dependent relationships by wanting to control him. This is counterproductive to her brother realizing that his real need is to learn how to have healthy, non-sexual same sex relationships.
Because this
process is long and arduous, I would like to recommend some resources to assist
you along the way. Please utilize the
excellent resources at Exodus International (http://www.exodusnorthamerica.org/). You will find many excellent ministries and
books to encourage you along the way.
Robert Brennan
is a Marriage and Family Therapy Intern and can be contacted at (415)
256-0521. If you would like further
discussion about this topic through email, you may email Robert at Apokata
Psychological Services (www.ChristianMentalHealth.com)
By Robert Brennan, M.A.
Part 2
The new
relationship between a sister and her brother who is living in homosexuality is
characterized by open communication. As
sister becomes more intimately aware of brothers struggles, her natural
tendency will be to help him in any way she is able. She may be hoping that her contribution will lead to brother
becoming heterosexual one day. She is striving to restore her brother to the
heterosexual image she had of him prior to his announcement to the
contrary. She may see herself as the
only one in the family who can make a difference simply because brother only
trusts her. The opportunity that sister
has is significant because her interaction with brother can make a difference
in her brother being blocked form healing or moving closer to it. What would you do in this situation?
At this stage
what often occurs is that sister helps to make brother feel better about
life. If brother has problems paying
his rent, she will be happy to pay the difference this month just to get him
through the month. In doing so, sister
notices that brother is happier and maybe this will contribute toward the
health of their relationship and his healing.
Sister feels good about herself when she helps in this way so she is
rewarded for her good efforts. Even
after this first step of “help” she can’t imagine standing by to watch her
brother suffer needlessly. For her,
this would be insensitive and unacceptable behavior for another family member
to turn their back on a sibling.
Unfortunately,
at this point sister has entered into a compensatory relationship with her
brother. She has helped her brother
with his rent payment and in the process enabled him to continue to impulsively
spend money. Next month it may not be
the rent check but a car payment or credit card debt. Brother doesn’t have a need to look at the underlying issue that
drives his impulsive spending because sister has created a climate where it is
not necessary. Sisters’ actions created
a reaction of complacency in brother.
Sister has compensated for the underlying pain driving the excessive
spending by removing the uncomfortable feeling of not having the money he
needs. This is like placing a bandage
over a bullet lodged in brothers’ shoulder.
Sister has in effect “disabled” brother from seeking out healing by the
way she has chosen to help. Even though
money is only one unresolved issue in her brothers’ life, it is linked to other
areas of pain that must be addressed for healing to occur.
Sister also has
the opportunity to support brother in taking responsibility for his financial
decisions and discovering why he compulsively spends. She can do this by encouraging him to go to a financial planner
or to a therapist who can help him uncover his reasons for over spending. When this occurs, brother is beginning to
take responsibility and invest in transformation.
Men in the
homosexual lifestyle often experience despair in the early stages of healing
because they have chosen to take more responsibility for themselves and are
shouldering the disappointment of their lifestyle. They realize that the perfect man is not going to show up some
day to fulfill them in a long lasting, meaningful relationship. With each disappointing relationship despair
grows and brother will begin to reach out for help. This is often the stage when a brother will reach out to a sister
as a search to be free from despair.
Brother is in a vulnerable place as he realizes on some level that the
lifestyle itself is empty and yet is conflicted with whether he can change.
This is a
meaningful time for sister to introduce her faith to her brother with a focus
on what God has done in her life. She
may share a testimony of healed relationships or God’s provision in dry times.
She may invite her brother to her church.
The opportunity is to introducing a new lifestyle model to brother that
has great potential for fulfillment as an option to his despair. This form of witnessing can open a door for
brother to seek God and salvation if he hasn’t in the past. Opening his life to God is the power he
needs to be transformed. If he does,
then ministries such as New Hope Ministries and are excellent places to
continue the journey of transformation.
The sharing of
sisters’ faith in Christ was her goal in the beginning when brother first
announced his homosexuality. She is
sharing her faith at a time that is useful to her brother. Her faith is now life giving as brother
searches for meaning, significance and peace.
This transformation is life long and yet life giving. The process of transformation also includes
sister and other family members. When
brother has decided that seeking God and his healing is the most important
quest of his life, then God will graciously walk with him and his family in a
way that brings life to the whole family.
Because this
process is long and arduous, I would like to recommend the excellent resources
at Exodus International (http://www.exodusnorthamerica.org/). You will find many excellent ministries and
books to encourage you along the way.
Robert Brennan
is a Marriage and Family Therapy Intern and can be contacted at (415)
362-6099. If you would like further
discussion about this topic through email, you may email Robert at Apokata
Psychological Services (www.ChristianMentalHealth.com)