How do I come out to parents who....seem to ignore it? Has anyone else experienced this insanity?
This entire situation going to sound super weird, but at this point, I seriously need advice.
I'm a lesbian. I'm also in a bit of a different situation than a lot of people here: I'm in my early thirties. I'm fully financially independent and haven't lived with my parents since I was 18. I'm a successful, well-adjusted adult (life gets better, my dear queer kids out there!) with a beautiful, amazing fiancee.
Also, my parents have technically known I'm gay for almost fifteen years. At least, I've been telling them I'm gay for almost fifteen years.
The problem is that they, for lack of a better term, pretend those conversations never happened.
For years, now, we've basically followed the same pattern: We have a conversation about it ( earlier on, it was true, big, 'Mum, dad, I'm gay'-statements, over the past few years, it has shifted to mentions of and stories about my ex girlfriend, then my now-fiancee, or stories about gay events in my life such as Pride Parades or similar). In the moment, they sometimes react - never with any big show of emotion, but they'll sometimes at least acknowledge that some kind of information has been imparted - and sometimes just breeze right past it outright. Then, a few hours/days/weeks later, one of them will ask me whether I have a boyfriend, or whether I have a crush on a male friend who shows up in an instagram story of mine, or something similar.
The entire situation is outright bizarre. If you only count explicit 'mom, dad, I'm gay'-esque statements, have 'come out' to them at least twenty times over the years. If you count any and all mentions of girlfriends, dates, or incidental stories, that number shoots up into the hundreds. It's like water off a duck's back. It's like the conversations disappear into some kind of black hole. They simply pretend it's never happened.
I'm engaged now. My relationship to my parents has become more and more distant over the last decade, for the obvious reason that I cannot talk to them about my private life without them pretending not to have heard or understood the information I am obviously imparting. At the same time, they've also never reacted in an outright aggressive, obviously rejecting way. They simply ignore it and pretend to be confused at any shows of upset, confusion, or plain disbelief I then show at their confusion.
There is no feasible way they haven't actually understood what I'm telling them. I'm visibly gender non-conforming. I'm fully out in all aspects of my life. Due to my job, I am a minor public figure in my local area. There are literal newspaper articles mentioning my sexuality. There is absolutely no way their lack of understanding is genuine. Instead, it seems to be some kind of bizarre protective mechanism - for their own psychology or something else, I truly do not know.
It goes so far that they've met my fiancee - at least once or twice - and seen us hold hands and kiss (in brief, adult-PDA-appropriate ways) and, when forced (and it takes a lot of force!) to mention her in conversation, refer to her as 'my friend'.
The entire situation is bananas. I am obviously angry and frustrated with them and do not understand whatever bizarre psychology might inspire this behaviour. At the same time, I've also discussed it with my fiancee, and we have jointly decided to make one last push before the wedding. We want to try whether it might be possible to get them to acknowledge this situation, understand what the fuck they've been doing these past fifteen years, and see whether they might be capable of attending the wedding, and playing a role in our lives moving forward. We - and I - want them at the wedding, but there's a running joke in my friend group that they'd be fully capable of standing first row, crying as the vows are being said, and then turn to whoever stands next to them and go 'isn't it lovely they formalised their roommate arrangement like this?'. Obviously, that would not be acceptable.
So, we've settled on one last push. We want to try one last time. Which brings me to the question:
How the fuck do I come out to people I've been coming out to for fifteen years?
And has anyone else experienced a similar situation and might be capable of giving some insights?