Is it unreasonable my family is asking me to remove ppl from my socials after telling them my spouse is transitioning?
I don’t post very often, but I need advice. This will be a fairly long post, so I apologize.
5 years ago, I came out to my mom as queer because I (cis f) started dating my spouse (afab). At the time she asked me to remove certain family members and some people we went to church with from social media so she didn’t have to deal with them. I did even though I felt it completely unfair.
I had told my grandmother first in my family (months ago) because I knew she would be supportive and I desperately needed someone to talk to about my spouse’s transition. We moved a year and a half ago to a new city and I still don’t have any friends here. Almost of of my friends back where we moved from are also friends with my spouse and I couldn’t speak to them about it because either a) my spouse was not out yet, or b) I felt it would put them in an awkward position.
I waited to tell my family until after he had told his family. Well, that finally happened last weekend. I ended up texting my mom and dad last night because when I first told my mom I was going to dates with my now spouse, she did not handle it well and went silent on me for a while. They both have come around since then. I knew my mom would reach similarly, so the text felt best both for me to not have to hear her negativity and for her to have space and time to process it without having to react immediately.
Anyway, I spoke with my grandmother at lunch and she told me her and my mom spoke this morning. After chatting a bit, she told me that my mom wanted me to yet again delete people from my social media. Most of the people she wants me to delete are certain family members (mostly on my dad’s side… he doesn’t have a lot of family left) or people from my home town. My grandmother said it would be the kind thing to do so they don’t have to deal with what people might say either to them or behind their back.
Part of me is
- hurt because I shouldn’t have to hide my life or my partner
- hurt because it reminds me of when I first came out, but I don’t have any control over it
- annoyed because it’s a lot of work to go through everyone on all of my socials.. also how the hell am I to know who is okay to delete and who is okay to keep?
Is it even fair that they are asking me to do this? Any advice or comments that are helpful is welcome.