[28/m/gay] Finally came out to conservative family, I’m surprised I didn’t get banished. Thx for the support, redditors! [xpost/LGBT]

TL;DR version at the bottom. Sorry for the length of the post, I just needed to share.I came out to my family this past Saturday (10/3). It’s been a long road up to this point. I’m 28 now, I figured out I was gay about when I was twelve. Because I was raised in a conservative Church of Christ household in central Texas, I rejected and repressed those feelings. I had a really bad nervous breakdown in the 7th grade and have struggled with depression many times in the following years. I never told a soul about what was really going on until Sept. 26th, 2014. I told a few of my close friends and it was great! In the months that followed I told the rest of my friends and have had no problems with any of them. They love me for me, irrelevant to whom I am attracted. Over the past 12 months, I’ve been working on paying off a loan to my parents. I wanted to be financially independent of them before I came out. It was not outside the realm of possibility that they would disown me. So along with the finances, I have been getting copies of my childhood photos, family recipes, and my medical records, and mentally preparing to say goodbye.I knew I wouldn’t be able to say all I wanted to or needed to if I told them verbally, so I wrote out a letter and handed it to each of my parents after I had made dinner for them and my younger siblings. There was a long silence while they read it at least 3 times each and what seemed like an even longer silence after they were done reading. My Dad eventually spoke up, and started by telling me he loved me. However, he followed that by saying he was most concerned with the salvation of my soul. There were a few questions which I answered. Everything stayed calm, thankfully. But when he started to circle back to what God thought about it, I wasn’t ready to have that conversation at that time. My brother and I left (we live in the same apartment complex and he drove to and from my folks’ house). I talked to each of my sisters on the way home (to my apartment) via phone and they were both a little surprised, but accepted me and didn’t care. It didn’t change how they felt about me.The next day my Dad asked if he could come down and talk to me. I accepted. I wasn’t going to be preached at, but I was willing to keep the communication open. We wound up having a long conversation, which only very occasionally got adversarial in a “debate of ideas” kind of way. The outcome was that they still love me, they are confused, but they still feel that acting on my feelings is wrong. It’s ok that I am gay, but not if I act on it. He went as far to say that I can still have a very fulfilling life remaining celibate or marrying a woman (she would know that I was gay). I still haven’t heard from Mom. They typically decide things together, so I feel like what Dad said was inclusive of her reaction. I was a little surprised he reached out to me so quickly. I figured it would take some time before even that would happen. I’ve had roughly 16 years to get used to this, I was ready for lots of time before I got any kind of response.As I mentioned above, I was preparing for the worst, but this went better than I thought, so that is good. But it’s not really full acceptance. When/if I ever bring a boyfriend home, it will be a whole new coming out. I’m not sure if they will ever be able to tolerate that.I am still processing the events, and my memory of what was said the night of and the day following with my Dad is already getting blurry (how I want it, I don’t want to remember the pain). Everything was so surreal, I am still getting used to the idea that they know. I’ve experienced a whole range of emotions, but thankfully, it has not included depression. I’ve only had a few moments of sadness. Maybe that will come later when I really see how things have changed, but maybe not. Relief was the overwhelming feeling of the weekend. Relief that it is done, relief that I am not entirely ejected from the family, and relief that my sister and brother-in-law accept me and I will still be a part of my nephews’ lives.I want to thank you all (the LGBT community on reddit, posters and commenters) so much. Over the last year, I’ve mostly lurked with the occasional comment (with this or a throwaway account). Reading your stories and experiences has helped me come to terms with myself and helped ready me for coming out. Thank you, truly!TL;DR: As a 28 year old man, I came out to my conservative Christian family on Saturday. It’s taken a long time to come to terms with myself. Over the last year I’ve prepared to be banished from the family. That didn’t happen, but my parents want me to be celibate or marry a woman. I’m still processing the events and emotions of this weekend, and will be for a long time to come. The posters and commenters of the LGBT reddit community have really helped me through this and I thank you all.