I’m 24 and my brother “Sean” is 14. He came out to me around 4 months ago and I’m the only one he has told so far. I’ve always loved him no matter what and I really don’t care that he’s gay. We’ve gotten closer over the past 4 years, despite our ten year age gap. 

He came to me yesterday asking me if I would come with him to tell our parents that he’s gay. Our parents have expressed some not so nice views about the lgbt community, such as they shouldn’t be able to marry, it’s a sickness, etc. He says he wants my support in case it goes bad and that he’s really nervous. 

What Sean doesn’t get though, is that my relationship with our parents is far from ideal, but because he was so young, he doesn’t understand how bad it actually was. 

I have a pretty serious history of bad behaviour and addiction. I don’t want to get into specifics but it was bad enough where my parents thought I was just dead for a couple months because I went completely off the grid for a long time on benders. I stole from a lot of people in the process and completely lost the trust of my parents. 

I only got clean when I was 22 and my parents still don’t trust me two years later. They accuse me of being manipulative and selfish and maybe I still am. But Sean wasn’t even 12 years old when all this happened and while he’s not completely in the dark, he doesn’t really understand just how many bridges were burned. 

So now he has asked me to come to support him when he comes out to our parents, people who don’t trust me. 

So I told him that I don’t think it would be a good idea if I was there because my presence might make everything worse and the focus might shift to me. 

He got really upset and accused me of not being there for him. I tried my best to explain everything to him about why I wouldn’t come but he said that he has no one else to come with him because I’m the only one who knows. 

I offered the suggestion that maybe he goes and tells someone else first, like a friend or one of our aunts, and maybe they can come with him but he said that he chose me because he trusts me the most. This really hurt me but I stuck with my answer and he stormed off. 

I’ve tried texting him but he won’t respond to anything I say. It’s not that I don’t want to be there for him. I would like nothing more than to be there for him as his older brother. I just think that me being there in this situation would be a really really bad idea. 

So AITA for refusing to be there when he comes out? 



