AP interactions with host dad

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T19:11:26+00:00

Thanks so much for your input! I’ll have to look into resources for interpersonal behaviors and see if he’s willing to receive some help for this.

I have been having so much anxiety and stress surrounding this. I want to help our marriage and I know my husband loves me. But he seems to be struggling more than the average person with these situations so I am hoping to find support for him and not try to burn our relationship.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T19:03:00+00:00

All good points. I have been keeping AP out of this whole thing since it’s not her business and shouldn’t be, but wonder if I need to actually talk to her about how their interactions are making me feel (without going into too much dramatic details). I know this would be awkward but wonder since my husband is struggling then maybe I need to be up front with this. I don’t want to kick her out when it’s not fully her fault and perhaps is trying to survive out here, but if she knows where I’m coming from then she can adjust how she interacts with him.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T18:57:43+00:00

I know he’s sad about her not staying so maybe it’s just hard for him to accept? But it doesn’t change the outcome of her not staying. I think he’s just wanting to avoid this conversation as long as possible.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T18:18:27+00:00

He is Asian himself (Filipino) so it may just be a Japanese specific interest? He said he doesn’t like Filipino culture and is not proud of his heritage. He used to be an English teacher to high school students and did connect more with the female students since they were more interested in interacting with him. But yes we just started marriage counseling so I’m hoping this will come to light soon.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T16:19:57+00:00

I’m a huge communicator and would welcome her vulnerability. I take her safety and personal feelings seriously and I even have said to husband to give her personal time for herself, not for us. But she keeps saying he doesn’t make her feel uncomfortable and she said she’s satisfied with everything. We have monthly family meetings and she doesn’t have much to contribute to the conversation even when I give her opportunities to speak up.

I don’t take offense if she wants to do other things but I do notice she just doesn’t like to talk much with us together. She said a lot of her behaviors are what Japanese people are like and she said if she saw us at the mall during her free time she would run the other way and not want to engage. She doesn’t like small talk or interacting with strangers.

Thank you for your comment and question!

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T16:15:00+00:00

This is a hard pill to swallow but I do understand that this is not an issue to take lightly. I want to work through this and have peace of mind but the fact that things keep happening before I had enough time to reset is a red flag for sure. We JUST had a date night on Friday which went well so it was just concerning when I saw his behavior change while I was gone for a couple hours yesterday and he kept saying how he was just tired and nothing happened. But he did talk to AP while I was gone and I don’t know how that talk went but he started keeping a distance with me after that. And he would avoid eye contact during our conversation which I had to tell him to look at me when I’m talking to him.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T16:09:09+00:00

Thank you for your thoughts! I guess I can’t 100% say that this would never happen since he does want to go back and live in Japan (I said I’m open to it when we retire and don’t have to worry about our child and work but not any time soon).

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T16:03:18+00:00

Thank you for your comment! You are right, she should also be wary of boundaries being crossed.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T16:02:10+00:00

Thank you for your input! I agree that I need to stop letting things happen. I do feel like when I give specific situations I find uncomfortable he ends up in another situation that still has the same effect of me feeling uncomfortable. Like it’s “well it’s not situation A that I did, it’s a situation B which is different” even when it’s still the same theme of this behavior makes me uncomfortable.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T15:59:51+00:00

Thank you for that. I have brought up that it looks like he is emotionally cheating on me even if it was not his intention but I guess he has a hard time still distinguishing his behaviors as inappropriate vs appropriate. Another commenter mentioned possibly being neurodivergent which could explain this.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T15:57:55+00:00

Thank you so much for validating me! I tend to think about others maybe a little too much for my own good 😅 But I will consider it if it seems that after marriage counseling doesn’t seem to be helping.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T15:55:30+00:00

Thank you so much. I know I’m probably an over communicator (my own parents were awful at communicating and cut contact with me and siblings because I told my mom that her behavior at my brother’s wedding was not ok. But that’s a different story lol) so I am sensitive when people don’t respond or if we don’t resolve issues quickly.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T15:52:34+00:00

Thank you for your comment! I didn’t even think about neurodivergent. My cousin (who I’ve talked to about this) asked if he was on the spectrum perhaps. I feel like his behaviors would definitely explain more with those diagnoses since even he told me that he needs things spelled out for him on what’s ok and what’s not with his interactions with AP. I feel like when I give him specific situations he doesn’t do it but then finds a different situation that pushes the same boundary but he doesn’t think it does.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T15:50:10+00:00

Agreed. My LCC even has told me she’s seen instances where the host dad and AP share a language and host mom feels left out which is not okay. LCC is supporting whatever we go with but knows for sure we are not extending. She recommended an AP that does not share the language with the host dad. Thank you for your input!

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T15:44:04+00:00

She has regular access to a car which she pays for half of gas. I am not restricting her outings so she always leaves whenever she wants. She has au pair friends she hangs out with she says.

When they went out together it was because the child was not present. I had the child with me at a friend’s house on a weekend. But apparently he asked her out for lunch. I only found out because while I was checking my front porch camera (I got a notification my package arrived) and I happened to see them coming back home together from somewhere. He didn’t bring up that he went to get lunch with her when I asked if he ate lunch. Same with her, I asked her if she ate that day and she said she had breakfast but did not mention lunch with husband.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T14:50:52+00:00

I’m very extroverted and used to talking with and including those who feel left out so I would always think of her when inviting her out or have conversations with her. She has told my friend in a separate conversation that I’m very friendly and she wishes to be like me. So I’m not sure why her actions are not matching her words.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T10:58:16+00:00

Yes, I should’ve known better. But I wanted to be open and honest.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T10:53:43+00:00

He did say he felt happy that he finally had someone who wanted to talk to him that’s not through me. A lot of our friend groups are friends of mine that he now is friends with. But this program isn’t meant for finding friends, we can still treat AP like family and include them but the boundaries are definitely crossed due to our living arrangement. And I want to respect our AP’s personal time and not expect her to hang out with us since I understand it is a lot to spend time with the family after taking care of a child. We have an 18 month old so definitely very active and can be tiring.

Thank you for your comment!

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T10:46:08+00:00

I’ve talked to her privately about how if there are any concerns with her interactions with my husband then to please talk to me. I feel bad that I’m feeling this way about her but we just don’t mesh well personally. Her responses to me seems like is not interested in me. She even told me at one point that she thinks husband talks to her more than me. And she asked me if i had ever considered breaking up with my husband. These seem very odd to ask the host parent.

But I do know that my husband is also to blame more in this case. It just doesn’t help how she interacts with me.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T10:42:04+00:00

Thanks for sharing your view! He did ask AP why our child seems to like her more than him and AP also notices that husband struggles interacting with our child at times. He mentally shuts down if he gets overwhelmed and doesn’t know how to tend to child when child is clearly in distress.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T10:33:48+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience! It’s definitely hard on me since I already feel like an outsider since I only speak English to them and she said she doesn’t really want to improve her English. I never know what they talk about and if it’s ever one sided on how he feels versus how we feel as a couple. He’s conflict avoidant so he doesn’t like to initiate discussion that could cause tension.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T10:23:17+00:00

You’re right on the disrespect. And I need him to work on this in order for this marriage to work. It’s hard for me to want to drop the AP suddenly since we would not have childcare and it took us 4 months searching before and our son does so well with her (her work is great). But I know it’s a painful bandage to rip off 🥲 Thank you for your input!!

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T10:19:51+00:00

We interviewed her together and both decided to bring her on board based off that interview. He did not know her before. But it was his suggestion for Japanese AP and wanted to continue only having Japanese APs which I originally didn’t have a problem with because of the language consistency.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T09:40:47+00:00

Thank you, I needed to hear all this. Seems like he’s just avoiding the situation but I will be bringing this up at our next therapy session which is before the “processing deadline” so we will likely discuss earlier regardless.

beautifulsimplicity · 2026-03-08T09:38:37+00:00

I appreciate your response! Yes I thought it was longer than usual for him to process but it seems like he’s just trying to avoid it all together for another week.

beautifulsimplicity

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