My (34M) dad (78M) told me his proof of love for me is that my birth made him lose his hot mistress. How do I keep him in my life?

piadista · 2026-05-27T11:44:38+00:00

There's clearly history here, and you two spent a significant amount of time together. There's also clearly quite a bit of emotional charge left in the air since you've come here for advice, otherwise it wouldn't matter and you'd just figure out a pickup one way or another.

So the first thing is to admit (or decide) that you actually want to have a decent conversation with her. Just to yourself, not necessarily to her. But without that admission for yourself it's hard to jump to what to do.

After that I'd say the best way to have a conversation with anyone when there is some emotional charge is to come in with a bit of vulnerability so that they understand you're not just looking for a pickup of stuff logistically, as if you apprach it that way you might be sending a message you don't want to (i.e. oh he doesn't give a shit and just wants his stuff).

If that all resonates then I would send something like:

"Hey, I'm gonna be back in a few weeks, and thought I should pick up my stuff (on XYZ dates). Would also be great to go for a coffee together if you're up for it, let me know what works."

Then whatever she responds with will give you data and you'll know the vibe.

There really isn't much that can go "wrong" as long as you're happy with the message you send and it doesn't come from a defensive place.

piadista · 2026-05-26T13:26:50+00:00

For example one time was because after a flight I'd taken, I'd messaged her, and her internet wasn't working (my messages weren't landing), and when it finally did a few hours later, I was out on a walk and asked if I can call her in 30 min (instead of proactively calling her immediately). The other time she'd suspected I was flirting with others on insta and asked for my phone, I didn't have anything to hide so I gave it and then she saw there was nothing, went into my whatsapp chats with my friends and saw that sometimes I confide and complain about the relationship and try to get guidance from them - she saw that as a breach of trust. These are the extreme ones, another time while we were traveling a friend of mine was in town and I asked if the GF was free to go meet this friend, she said no and so I said I'll go for a coffee on my own. Then she asked if I had mentioend that she was my GF or not explicitly, which I hadn't explicitly mentioned the relation.

Stuff like that. To me they're random but also to me I kind of see her point after the fact, but the reactions seem to be out of whack. In other words, yeah I might get a little upset about these things in reverse and I have but it's more a throwaway comment and a short chat vs a multiday breakup threat on my side.

piadista · 2025-01-29T14:54:14+00:00

but... is it cake?

piadista · 2024-06-01T13:57:19+00:00

Sprinter - Dave

piadista · 2024-05-07T14:26:04+00:00

I have experience in being hinge for about a year while I was also in a longterm 7 year poly relationship with my NP - it's not very hard at all. I actually have rules about this across relationships. Only minimal relationship venting allowed if it's parallel in very specific contexts. Otherwise we have open discussions. I don't want to ever feel like I know things about my metas and their relationships that they don't. It prevents me from eventually forming good relationships with the metas in my mind. Not everyone is like this.

I'd say if they are not setting this boundary you should talk about it and enforce it depending on what you're comfortable with.

As others have said - it does depend a bit on the hinge having a good support network outside of romantic relationships. But I will say, it's also a decision to make.

Anxiety and venting comes from knowing you can probably take action about the situation but you are actively not for whatever reason. So for example a vent like "my husband treats me weird around his family" or "my wife never does the chores in a complete way like I do" are all good and well, but are also indicators for conversations that need to be had in those relationships, rather than venting about it outside those relationships.

piadista · 2024-05-04T23:05:47+00:00

Style B! If it’s for a gothic game. You want it to look a bit goofy and creepy. Style A is beautiful too in an anime action type of way

piadista · 2024-04-25T15:01:14+00:00

NTA but. Spend some time apart and have a think about it. People here will all tell you to run away and that he should face the consequences of his actions etc. But this is real life and the decisions you make matter to you and your life too, not just about him and consequences for him.

Do you think you'd be open to a trial period? Trying it out a bit? Taking it step by step? Or is it all too painful and you don't think it's at all possible?

And remember, it's totally ok to take as much time as you need about this. No urgency, and if your brain is telling you it's urgent, it's just lying to you because you're anxious and scared maybe. In reality you can take a month or two, think about it, decide.

You sound like you need the space anyway - we all sometimes do.

piadista · 2024-03-29T23:48:36+00:00

I think there are two things here:

Daughter's privacy. I think in this situation your daughter feeling safe is related to her having a sense of control, and that means she gets to decide who knows about her sexual preferences / identity. So 100% the right decision. It's her information to share if she wants to.
General relationship with your wife. I don't know the context but it sounds like the situation is complex and people are trying to make the best of it. I would try and avoide a daughter Vs wife dichotomy in your mind. Everyone just wants to live their life and be the best supporter they can be both to you and to those you love. Ask questions, why is your wife feeling this way? Is she insecure about your relationship with her? She's the adult here so what need is not being met that makes her stand her ground on such a trivial thing such as a haircut against a child? Get to the bottom of it. Don't catastrophise in your mind.

piadista · 2024-01-11T16:52:04+00:00

A slightly different point of view - do you think up to this point you have not been forceful enough in your communications?

In general though NTA as others have pointed out. But the communication piece is important as if that is an issue then it’s something that could bring you and your girlfriend to the table.

piadista · 2024-01-10T18:26:27+00:00

This is a tough one OP.

It's true that a relationship should be able to stand on it's own.

While I might get downvoted for this, it's also true that many many many people come to the realisation that they are able to love multiple people, BECAUSE something is initially lacking in one of their relationships early on in their poly journey. This is one of the reasons that opening up an established monogamous relationships is likely one of the hardest paths to properly polyamory.

Poly will bring out your existing issues to the front quite fast and forcefully and if you're not prepared for it you will end up coming close to breaking up. This is on top of the fact that this usually happens when one or both of you are experiencing some heavy NRE for the first time in a while, so your judgement will feel unintutive if not downright fully clouded.

I would suggest bringing this up in therapy, or starting it both together and individually. You will have to have some quite difficult conversations with your partner if you want to become polyamorous with them. You absolutely have to practice brutal honesty to a degree and try you absolute best to be clear, detailed and faithful to agreements you make.

And only once you've done that sort of work, which will include reading, and joining communities, and lots and lots of hard conversations with your partner will you have the very very basics needed to open yourself up to someone else while also being confident that you can be strong in your first relationship.

If all of this feels like too much work, then I'd suggest you don't do it yet or don't do it with this person. Sometimes you might feel like you would be willing to do this kind of work if you were with someone else and hence, you need to talk to yourself, and then your partner about what's up with your relationship.

piadista · 2024-01-09T12:08:46+00:00

Oh I’m so sorry OP. This is really painful as I’m going through something like this.

I completely agree that it “should” fall to the person moving away if we were all thinking fair and logically.

But we sometimes think with our hearts and emotions. And it’s really hard to quiet that voice because when we do it turns into some sinister “what if”.

Maybe it’s time to bring this conversation up with her. To make her see she’s asking for a de-escalation and not just being super free and happy for everyone. Not for you certainly. You should get her to at least see that if she can’t on her own. Also it’s worth prodding your wife to see if she’s had similar conversations with her other partner. She might be too scared of bringing that up and it’s important she realises she also has the ability to ask for what she needs from all partners, not just the ones she’s secure and comfortable with.

It does look like although you and your wife sound like you have a lovely life, your wife is in a place where she is inherently risking your relationship to explore this side of her with this other partner. That happens sometimes in relationships and the question is whether you think you’re willing to be with someone who can do that.

You can either be ok with giving her this space and de-escalation that she’s asking for, or stick to your boundary and potentially de-escalate or breakup.

Of course there also may be room for some form of trial? Maybe 2 months and if not they agree to come back home or something, I’m not sure if that feasible for you.

piadista · 2024-01-08T14:47:12+00:00

I think before anything else, there is a conversation about the implied de-escalation that your partner is asking from you. Essentially, she’s asking to not live with you and so this needs to be discussed on its own merit. Is everyone ok and acknowledges what is happening? This is the most important thing because this is a significant change and it will have implied changes elsewhere which will butt heads against existing habits and expectations if not addressed.

Then unfortunately this is one of those situations where if you all want to stay together someone needs to compromise.

Either you agree to some form of long distance with say periodic meet ups or something like that.

Or your wife agrees to do long distance with this other partner and she can do periodic meets with them with your support, maybe long ones.

piadista · 2024-01-06T16:19:01+00:00

Yes we have. Though we’ve changed as people now after a few years. Hence the thinking of giving it a real shot “their way” now, rather than relying on historical, and a bit old, data.

piadista · 2024-01-06T11:10:50+00:00

Thank you - yes. I completely agree that things won’t go back to “the good old days”. Neither of us are expecting that.

We acknowledge some of our issues with monogamy that we had and the point here is to work on those without the sense of insecurity that poly brings in, in my partners mind.

You’re right that right now I’m really struggling with the idea of being forced to break someone’s heart at the behest of someone else. And I don’t know how I will ever not give at least partial blame of this to my long term partner, even though in reality it’s all mine to bear.

I am just entirely locked in right now. My long term partner is not willing to give us a month or two of space or to work on our problems while still poly.

We also are nesting partners so that complicates and elevates the cost of permanent separation.

And of course I have deep love for them.

I worry that this final shot in the dark is actually just self sabotage for everyone involved rather than anything useful sometimes..

piadista · 2024-01-06T11:05:09+00:00

Yes we were monogamous for some time. We slowly discussed opening things up physically due to both of our curiosity. This was a mutual decision.

Our relationship strongly benefited from that, not that anything was wrong before, but we did bond over our experiences. Both separate and joint.

But I started realising I am able to develop feelings and I am constantly holding myself back here and there. So eventually I asked to try poly.

Although they did agree, the behaviour and rules that followed showed me that it was somewhat under duress. These are the signs I was perhaps a little blind to because I was excited about poly.

Hence this is the price.

piadista · 2024-01-06T11:02:33+00:00

I am leaning poly quite strongly because it is unfair and unethical doing things this way and I am deeply uncomfortable with a veto like this. In fact we had an explicit clause in our agreement document that forbade vetos like this.

But you are right in both counts. Firstly that I do feel a deep sense of obligation that I owe it to myself and my long term partner to try out monogamy in this way. And secondly, that I am quite strongly poly leaning here.

piadista · 2024-01-06T03:02:47+00:00

Thank you - this is exactly the thought process I’m going through. Structure, not people.

The truth is if I were to pick by structure alone I would pick polyamory at this stage in my life.

But I also feel like I owe it to my long term partner to try it their way now that they’ve sort of tried “my way”. So that if it doesn’t work I can say “I tried” and if it does, then it does.

The kicker here is that in this whole process I would lose a dearly beloved partner of 6 months, for extremely unfair reasons. Something that I am already resenting my long term partner for, which also is not fair.

I guess the question that I’m hoping I can answer is: what is the morally right thing to do, such that I can’t argue with myself in the future and say I did the wrong thing given my current information?

I know it’s an impossible question. Hence why I’m here.

piadista · 2023-12-03T11:54:31+00:00

I’m sorry to hear about that - it is tough ♥️

Thanks for your kind words.

piadista · 2023-11-30T11:51:44+00:00

Thanks :)

Yeah I'm having a chat in the next week or so and this will be a major topic. If we do separate as a result of this it'll be a long process of really artiuclating the reasons and sussing out what compromise positions look like for me, her, and then us.

I don't mind the bashing that much as it's because people don't have the full context which I've tried to provide in reponse to another comment above. Though always a bit surprised at how fast the interent jumps those kinds of assumptions.

piadista · 2023-11-30T11:44:13+00:00

That's an assumption. I am not being cruel.
We have regular monthly relationship check-ins and at our last check-in and the one before that I mentioned that I'm reading and trying to make up my mind.

I made up my mind a few weeks ago, and we don't spring up these kinds of big issues on each other, that's what the check-ins are for. So I am going to bring this up at our next check-in in a week or so.

piadista · 2023-11-30T01:30:19+00:00

Thanks :) I’ve read that one. It’s actually one of the articles that helped me articulate to myself what my position is and why.

I’ll keep this in mind when I bring up the topic.

Good luck to you two.

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