Coming out to my mom as non-monogamous

I didn’t actually come out to her specifically. I just came out, and she found out.

A couple months ago when I came out as non-monogamous to the world on LinkedIn and Instagram, that is when she found out. She follows me pretty closely on both platforms. But we didn’t talk about it.

Every time we talked on the phone, she would ask me about my health and my kids.

“Are you taking your vitamins?”

“Do you need me to send you anything from Korea?”

“Are the kids okay?”

It felt like she was using her own language to make sure that I was okay. I observed the motherly instinct to protect her own in the wilderness of the unknown and the uncertainty.

At some point, I brought it up (roughly translated from Korean to English):

Me: So….did you see that I am non-monogamous?

Mom: Yeah.

Me: Well, what do you think?

Mom: Well, I guess I just don’t know much to say this or that about it. What does it mean exactly?

Me: It means that I can have romantic relationships outside of my marriage.

Mom: Oh, ok. Well, is Dan okay with it?

Me: Yeah. We’re doing this together.

Mom: Okay well…I guess that’s what matters. I also want to say that I am here to listen to you.

I thanked her.

There was a mountain of things I wanted to share with her. There has always been a mountain of things I wanted to share with her. But in that moment, that exchange was sufficient for me to take a breath.

I felt a little safer in the world, and that was enough for me in that moment.

And over the past couple months, I have been sharing even more explicitly on Instagram about my sex life and the truth of how I am experiencing the world.

She saw all of it.

And yet, she continued to ask me about the damn vitamins and the kids every time we talked on the phone.

It was the only way she knew how to relate to me as a Korean mom to her Korean daughter. It was almost as if she was waiting for me to go first because she didn’t know how.

She was very patient, too.

And finally I called her on my way to a date an hour from my house. I could finally focus on us away from the kids running around and other distractions abound.

Mom: So where you going?

Me: I’m going on a date.

Mom: (pause) A date? What are you doing going on a date?

Me: I am going on a date because I want to.

There was a good bit of silence. I felt her searching for the words to describe what she was feeling.

Mom: Okay, well, yeah. I have been seeing what you’ve been up to and this new chapter of your life. The very first thing that comes up for me is just…a lot of worry. You know?

Me: I understand. What are you worried about? Are there any questions I can answer for you?

Mom: Your health and safety, mostly. It’s just a lot of variables that I don’t know much about, and I just worry about you being okay. Ultimately, I trust you and Dan, and I am seeing the way your relationship is getting stronger. But I also cannot help but be worried because I am your mother.

Me: I understand. Is there any information I can offer you right now?

Mom: I guess you can start with telling me a bit about how it all happened and what’s going on firsthand.

So I told her, everything that led up to my decision to identify as non-monogamous, the work that I did with Dan, and how that has affected our lives. Even though I had shared most of this online, she still wanted to hear directly from me, and in Korean. I was glad to share this with her.

She listened.

And then she shared her own stories around finding her own truth over the years, her reflections around what it means to listen to herself, and how she is able to resonate with what I am saying.

And how, even though all of that may be true, she will still be worried about me because she cannot help it.

I told her:

“I just want to say thank you. I know we’ve had kind of a tumultuous relationship at least over the past decade where, every time you told me how worried you were about me, I would flip out.

I would flip out because all those years, I had made myself believe that I needed to satisfy all your needs first, even though I had no idea what your real needs were. I made assumptions around what you wanted from me based on the information I gathered on my own but without actually talking to you and asking you what you wanted.

I had my own ideas around what you wanted and went on to live a life based on that lie. And so every time you got worried about me, I would feel so triggered because it led me to believe that I was not doing a good job. I concluded that I was not the perfect daughter that I needed myself to be, and I made you responsible for my discomfort.

Ultimately, I was using you as a means to feel better about my place in the world by requiring your approval to exist.

Your concerns for my livelihood felt like the opposite of the approval that I wanted, so I lashed out.

But now, as you were talking about finding yourself and living a life for yourself, I am doing that now. In large thanks to you.

It is because of your struggles, your own experiences, and just the way you have existed in my life, that I am able to take advantage of all the privileges you’ve offered me as a result of your work and your being.

It is why I am able to finally unsubscribe from the need to live up to a standard that was never yours to begin with. All that is left for us is to live our truth and relate to each other from that place.

And when you are concerned for me, that is simply how you relate to me sometimes, and I accept that. In fact, I appreciate that you are able to share your concerns with me while actively supporting me the way you can.”

We took up some silence to absorb each other’s presence.

Took a moment to unwire the need to be anything for each other.

Coming to recognize more fully that we never had to be anything for each other to love each other.

We were finally beginning to embody that concept in our bones.

Slowly, gradually, and surely.

Just like that very first time we began to talk about this, I felt a little safer in the world.

During this hour, not only was I nourishing my own body by connecting with my mother, we were nourishing each other.

And at the same time, we were dismantling and addressing generational trauma in ways that would transform how we relate to our own family, friends, and community.

On the other side of fear and difficult conversations, we fill our cups in unprecedented ways that allow us to show up for others and the world.

I am incredibly lucky, honored, and elated that she is my mother and that I am her daughter.

***

You can find more of me on angela-han.com.