dinoceros
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Snowing right now in Michigan. Barely getting above freezing in the next week, and more snow coming up soon!
You’re feeling defensive, which is leading you to claim multiple contradictory things. You specify what his marital status is and that you are developing feelings for him in asking if this is appropriate. But when people say it’s not, you claim you just wanted to be friends and there’s nothing related to romance at all. It’s OK to just acknowledge that you were wondering if his marital status meant it was fine to pursue something with him. I feel like part of what’s wrong with society is that people always feel they have to seem perfect and like they don’t care about anything.
People here were trying to give you honest, albeit blunt, advice. It’s OK to get advice sometimes that reflects that maybe what you were doing wasn’t the best thing for you. You don’t have to try to change the entire narrative to prove that you were right all along or that you don’t even care about the situation at all.
I went back to re-read your original post. First, he’s probably distancing himself because he realized this wasn’t appropriate for him since he’s married. I don’t think you have a good understanding of what open marriages are, so I’d recommend you read a couple of articles about it. As I said before, open marriages don’t mean “anything goes.” There are typically specific guidelines couples have for what’s OK and what isn’t. Talking about your marriage to the other person is most likely not OK. Aside from that, what you had going on is not sustainable. People can’t spend all day chatting with someone they aren’t in a relationship with. They just can’t. They have other things to do.
Second, I feel like you’re changing your story when you get pushback. You say you have no romantic goals, but you said previously you’re starting to get feelings for him. If you’re having intimate conversations with someone you have feelings for who cannot be with you, then it’s an extremely bad idea to continue deepening the friendship with them.
Also, you asked us if it was wrong or not, and people answered. You may think that we don’t “get it” because we gave you the answer you don’t want, but changing the details is not going to make people change their answers.
Some people are in open relationships, and that’s fine. But I’m pretty sure that in most healthy open relationships, you’re not supposed to disparage your marriage to the other person or share intimate details. Even if it’s true that it’s OK for him to be getting involved with you (and honestly, we don’t know if he’s lying or not), he’s handling this in a way that is probably going against what is agreed upon with his wife. Plus, my assumption is that if two people are in an open marriage and the marriage is struggling, they should probably close it for a bit. Obviously, that’s their call, but what your describing doesn’t really sound like the kind of open marriage where what he’s doing with you is actually OK and wouldn’t hurt his wife if she knew.
But a question that came up for me while I was reading this was what you want out of this? What’s your purpose in talking to him? I don’t know you and what you want, but I guess I feel like it’s doubtful that talking to a married man who is having marriage problems is probably not your ultimate goal.
I don’t think small children should be yelled at over their hair. I haven’t heard of anyone having issues with dutch braids.
But I will say that the issue with white people wearing things like cornrows or dreadlocks is that there are black people who get discriminated against for them, so when a white person runs around with them to look “cute” it’s annoying. For example, some black children who have those hairstyles have been sent home from school and some black adults have been told they aren’t professional for those hairstyles, etc.
The point of any of the commentary on cultural appropriation is that white people will use things from other cultures that people in those cultures have been discriminated against for.
A friend of mine was planning a ceremony at a church in one town at like 1pm and then a reception at 7pm in another town (this was on Long Island). I’d initially been planning to go (would have to fly in), but then realized that not only would I have to rent a car, but then I’d have to apparently occupy myself for many hours basically in the middle of nowhere. I decided not to go.
Then when I got the actual invitation, she’d rearranged the time and locations to be much more convenient, but hadn’t bothered to update the Save the Dates, so it was too late to book a flight.
Your reaction to this is very odd. It was an emotional affair. It’s not shocking that when two married people get really close and have intimate conversations (including about romantic interest between them), it might end at some point. He either got caught or came to his senses.
Your whole thing where you act like people here are being ridiculous is BS. I think you know that, or you’re delusional.
I haven’t followed this from the beginning, and there’s not much else to say that hasn’t been already. But under no circumstances should someone use a child to help themselves become more mature. If you’re not mature enough to parent a child, then you need to find someone who is or financially support the person who is picking up your slack. I hope that your son does not share the belief that this little girl’s purpose in his life should be to help him grow up.
Well, we know what Chris was googling on a Friday night.
“I absolutely do not think it’s weird to look at the driving records of individuals who might be transporting your children…”
I don’t think that is weird necessarily (I don’t know anyone who has done this, but I get it to some degree). But I think it’s best to wait until someone has said they may be available and also consent to it. Say a person had some sort of ticket they were not proud of. If you said, “Hey, can you babysit? By the way, I like to check driving records of anyone who transports my kids,” then they could decline to help and be able to make the decision whether you find out that info or not. Or they might self-disclose beforehand and be able to explain themselves — you might still decide you don’t want them to do it, but they at least get to give context that they prefer people to know.
Additionally, if you know the driving record check is going to turn up criminal records, including those of the person’s partner, then you should say that too before they agree to it. In our society, I don’t think that availability of information really is relevant to privacy. Why? Because so much stuff is available to us now that we may be able to access legally and easily, but that doesn’t always make it ethically right. And even if it’s ethical, I think we also have to try to allow people to preserve some sense of privacy despite technological advances. I think our society focuses a lot on whether a person “can” do something or “has a right to” but doesn’t focus much on whether the person would want them to or whether someone would feel weird. Even though there’s a lot of things we “can” do, it’s nice sometimes to voluntarily defer to what someone would want or not want too.
I’m not trying to give you a hard time, as you might feel some people are. So I hope you don’t feel that about me. I just want to add another perspective to it, especially since this will probably come up in the future with other potential babysitters.
I personally would not get involved. The right thing to do would have been to ask her if she was interested and available (though I think it’s best to approach someone who has advertised their services or otherwise volunteered, so as not to put them on the spot), and then tell her that you always do background checks on babysitters and apparently their partners. If you don’t feel comfortable saying that to someone, then they aren’t the right person to ask. Doing background checks on people without their permission, especially if you plan to use the information you get or confront them with it, is not a good idea. It might have even been more understandable if she had at least expressed interest in babysitting first.
The other thing I’d say is that it’s good to have a couple of babysitters that you can call so that if one is busy, you have other options.
ETA: I feel like I have to clarify that I used “background check” because it’s easier to type than “records that are public and everyone can see them.” Also, I don’t really see where anyone said she was “off her rocker.” I thought it was pretty common to comment on things that the LWs don’t necessarily explicitly ask.
I agree with Kate. I’d believe folks were saying it to be helpful if they weren’t saying it in such a flippant way. It comes across as only being suggested in order to show as much disgust as possible.
