by Gary Nunn

Chris Jewell was in tears after a big, intense fight with his boyfriend of five years. So big, the police were called. Highly distressed, he phoned someone with whom his relationship had become strained: his mum.

He rarely asked her for anything and was always well behaved; the first in his family to attend university. “My older brother was the wild child – in and out of prison, including for armed robbery,” he says. “So I never gave my parents more trouble than they needed. I always got good grades. I was the golden boy.”

Things had become distant when Chris, then 28, felt he couldn’t be himself around his parents. But on this occasion, he just really needed his mum, Yvonne. On the phone, his voice shaking from the distress, he said: “Mum, I’m really upset. I just need to talk to you. I’ve just had a massive fight with Brendan …”

His mum interrupted, suggesting he simply get a new roommate. “Mum,” Chris said. “Brendan’s not my roommate. He’s my partner.” With that, she hung up.

“I was devastated,” he says. “I was already traumatised by what had just happened. I felt completely alone.”

The next day Yvonne requested her son meet her at a cafe. Rather than the hug, the reassurance he needed, she said words that burn into Chris to this day. Read more via Guardian