I’m at home for Christmas this year. My family know I’m gay. We can talk about my life a bit. They politely ask me how my boyfriend is. I deliberately mention him every now and then, to remind myself and them that this is ok, this is normal. I am a gay man and I have a boyfriend and they have to pretend to be ok with it. Just like I had to pretend to them for years that I wasn’t gay.

We’re not at the point where my boyfriend could come and stay with them for Christmas, and he certainly wouldn’t be allowed to sleep in the same room as me (I’m 31 by the way). But things are better than they were.

For so many people, Christmas is a difficult and lonely time. I’m not complaining; others have a much tougher time than me. But it was hard being in the closet at Christmas.

***

Graham Norton’s on the telly. He’s camping it up. Mum’s rolling her eyes. Norton makes a joke about Santa coming down his chimney. The room goes quiet. My brother glances at me. They know. I know they know. I don’t know if they know I know they know. Or rather, they suspect. Or rather, they know something is off. We just don’t talk about it. We’re English. They stopped asking me about girls years ago. I stopped commenting on girls years ago. We just don’t talk about it.

***

Keeping secrets from your family sucks. Maybe you do drugs and you know they’d disapprove. Maybe you spend too much on clothes and you know they’d be horrified. Maybe you lost your job and you’ve been signing on for ages and Mum would be worried. Maybe your family are all vegetarians and you’ve snuck some Peperamis home.

Whatever it is you’re keeping from them, your secret creates a space between you. The space between who they think you are, and who you know you are inside: the gap between the real you and the fake you. The space becomes a gulf and it fills up with guilt and resentment. I started to hate my family – knowing they’d disapprove of me being gay, I felt as though they were making me lie to them. But lying to them also made me feel guilty. A gross mix of shame and pain.

The moment I realised I was gay, I knew what my parents would think. They’re very religious and I knew their feelings about those who chose to live a "homosexual lifestyle". To them, being gay was an illness and if I told them I was gay, they would instantly file me away as broken and sick.

I was lucky. I was never fearful of my family physically hurting me. I didn’t have to worry about being beaten up. I was an adult. If they rejected me I wouldn’t be thrown out and be homeless. What I was worried about was the change. Even if they suspected I was gay, the fact I’d never said it out loud meant we could all keep on pretending. I didn’t want them to look at me differently; with disappointment, disgust, or even hate. It was change I feared. Sometimes we stay in horrible situations because they’re familiar. Familiar feels safe. As horrible as lying was, it was knowable. What was the alternative?