Mom catches son with male friend, tells dad, dad 'talks to son' about his sexuality. UPDATED

It's important to have a united front as parents, when one parent goes against the other's wishes on something important, it can cause serious discord.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a mom asked if she was wrong for getting mad at her husband for talking to their son about his sexuality, against her wishes. She wrote:

"AITA for telling my husband our son was gay?"

I (32F) caught my son (15M) cuddling with his friend (15M) while they were sleeping in their room. I decided not to wake them up and I discussed it with my husband (34M) and the possibility that our son might be gay came up. While I initially agreed with my husband's suggestion to approach our son when his friend leave, I later decided that we should just wait until our son was comfortable sharing this with us.

My husband argued saying what if he never tell us that he's gay. I told my husband that if he doesn't tell us that he's gay then he's probably not. I told him that we should just let our son know that we'll love him regardless and leave it at that. However, my husband went against our agreement and questioned our son about his sexual orientation while I was driving my son's friend home.

When I returned home, I discovered my son in TEARS, yelling and accusing me of outing him. I was confused and told my son that I didn't know what he was talking about. My son told me while he was crying that his father revealed what I saw and basically coerced him into coming out before he was ready. My son asked me why I would I tell his father and why would I enter his room with out his permission.

I started crying and told my son that I was sorry and that I loved him and accept him no matter what. My son remained distant and now refusing to speak to me and his father. When I confronted my husband I told him that I was angry that he threw me under the bus. He claimed he didn't mean any harm, only shared what I mentioned to our son hoping it'll make him comfortable about coming out to us.

Despite his pleas for forgiveness, I can't help but feel anger towards him knowing my son is now feeling hatred for me of something that I actively tried to prevent. My husband argues that blaming him for our son's emotions is unfair, and told me our son is only going through an emotional phase that will pass.

Despite him begging for my son and my forgiveness, telling us that he meant no harm, I'm torn between forgiving him because I blame him for causing our son to be angry with me.

Redditors had a lot to say in response.

Mustng1966 wrote:

NTA - Yeah, your husband screwed the pooch big time. Your suggestion to wait until your son was comfortable with coming out on his own in his own way was of course the correct. Your husband, despite his pleas of innocence betrayed your trust and your son's privacy. He has created a terrible rift in the family and it is he that has to fix it between you and your son.

He created the mess and he needs to clean it up. You need to go to your husband with this and if he doesn't straighten it out right now, he will be spending a lot cold nights this winter.

punkybrewsterstwin wrote:

ESH - Except for your son. It is not okay to out anyone, especially when you know nothing for sure. I had questions about my son's sexuality since he was around 13 years old, I kept those thoughts to myself and just waited to see if/when he came to me to talk about it.

When topics like his potential future spouse came up, or having kids one day, I made sure to never say something assuming his partner would be female. When we heard about someone coming out, whether in real life or on a show/movie, I would say things in hopes he would understand he never had anything to worry about if he needed to tell me something, without directly trying to force him to talk about it.

It took him until he was 25, I think largely because he was still figuring himself out, to come out to me as Bi. And the best part was how casual he was about it. In that moment when he said "Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you this in person. I think I might be Bi.", as if he was telling me what he had for breakfast, I knew I had handled it correctly. Unfortunately for you, you cannot re-cork that bottle.

Continue to show your support and hopefully your son will come to appreciate the support instead of focusing on being forced out of the closet. When he is ready to listen, try explaining that in your attempt to handle this the best way possible you simply missed the mark and ended up handling it pretty poorly.

Your hubby definitely handled it much more poorly and is the bigger AH here though, to be clear, lol.

Honestlyhonest2a4lt wrote:

NTA but I’m glad you both love and accept your son no matter what.

Short-Property-1881 wrote:

NTA. Your husband screwed up but I assume his intentions where good. Like he thought the sooner his son comes out and realizes he’s accepted the happy he will be.. he doesn’t have to live a secret life etc. You guys sounds pretty supportive I reckon in a few days things will settle down.

After receiving a good amount of responses, OP jumped on with an update.

ETA: I entered my son's room because I was doing laundry and planning on washing my son's clothes. I did knock to see if they were awake and waited for a response, and when I got no response, I entered. I only usually do this when I plan on washing clothes as I like to do it early in the morning.

I've been doing this since my son was 12, and he told me he didn't mind it because he would wake up with clean clothes. When I saw my son and his friend cuddling, I immediately walked out of his room and shut the door. I was thinking straight and should have waited for his friend to leave. Sorry for not mentioning this before.