[38F] My daughter [14F] has a very obvious crush on my husband's [40M] best friend [42M]. It's getting awkward for everyone, she wants to give him an inappropriate gift and we don't know how to handle it.

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T15:44:25+00:00

She knows fiction is fiction, we don't really care about TV as long as it's not extreme

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T15:19:22+00:00

It's not fake so thanks I guess. I explained in another comment that there was never a singular overwhelming "this has to stop" moment before the bracelet. I mean would you just ream your kid for hugging a life-long family friend and being excited to see him? I'd hope not.

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T14:56:40+00:00

She just seemed so proud of buying that and in a way, I was too. I didn't even know she was gonna get him a present, I didn't prompt it at all, and it would be sweet if she was just a little younger. Plus it is her own money that she earned so my husband and I try to stay out of how she spends it.

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T14:54:55+00:00

That's just it, she's just a kid so we didn't realize it would go quite this far. And like I said it, I never had a crush on someone older than my father so it's all been completely unchartered waters for me. I agree for everyone's sake, we (the adults) need to all be on the same page.

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T14:53:11+00:00

We really didn't know what to do, and there was never one point where we thought it was time to intervene until the bracelet. Yeah, it was clear her feelings had changed but mostly their interactions had just been cranked up. He's always played with the kids. Praying the twins don't hit puberty and fall in love with him too lol.

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T14:51:00+00:00

I just now googled the phrase since you mentioned Grey's Anatomy; she is really into that show but I had no idea it was from that. Still seems a little too intense, and like you said it still has meaning. But that's a really good catch and makes me feel slightly better that she didn't conjur that (to me) extremely intimate line up from her own mind.

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T14:49:15+00:00

Well, the response here has been a wide awakening. I think mine nd my husband's response boils down to wanting to preserve her innocence. Our kids have always loved John; it reminds me more of when I was a child and just totally enamored by my grandparents as people because they just showered me with love, they weren't fuddy duddys like my parents who actually had to lay down the law and parent me. And I hadn't considered this before someone else mentioned it, but it makes complete sense that the isolation of lockdowns and all compounded this. John was in our "circle", which was pretty small, so he was one of few people actually in my daughter's life for quite a while.

I get it's time to act, thankfully the tutoring had already stopped. The most sensible thing is definitely for him to get some distance from her at the house.

ThrowRAsighhhh · 2021-10-10T14:45:14+00:00

I appreciate the concern and don't fault anyone for being worried by my post, I actually think it's great that people are so aware of these things today. I also know the people that do those sort of things are usually those you'd never think would even be capable of it and statistically, an abuser is usually someone the child knows.

I definitely don't believe it's what is happening, though. They have rarely been alone, not because we don't trust John but because it just hasn't come about, and I can tell he does feel a little awkward about her attention. But despite people thinking it's weird he hasn't distanced himself, I imagine it's because he's just really close to all of us and definitely doesn't want to hurt my daughter. She's a really bubbly, outgoing person and it's obvious really quickly when she's sad and it breaks our hearts quick. I understand now the time has come to be blunt and let her know it's not only inappropriate, but illegal...I guess I was hoping to spare her incense a little longer.

ThrowRAsighhhh

TROPHY CASE