Kate

God, this is exhausting. The same old stuff again. The “I refuse to have a smartphone and message people, even though that’s what everyone else in the world does.” The “mechanics are criminals.” The “why shouldn’t women want to hang out with me and be friends, even though they’re clearly on dating sites to date, not make more friends?” Again, you’re missing the huge elephant in the room, which is that women need to feel safe, easy, and companionable with someone if they’re going mini-golfing or to a fireworks show, and they DONT feel that way with you. You don’t even care. The subtext of “everyone should accommodate me, Robert, and my worldview.”

Ugh.

Yeah, you should tell him what you saw, and that you can’t tolerate that, and what does he have to say about it? If it’s anything but “I am so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, how can I earn back your trust?” then you need to leave.

There’s only one thing to do, and that’s leave him. He flat out told you he doesn’t care about you, can’t be there for you, and will go to other women for sex. You know he means that because he’s already doing it. Dump his ass.

And for the future… Does vaginismus really mean no sex? Or sex is difficult and painful but can be accommodated? And are there other ways you can be intimate without p-in-v intercourse? Please talk to a professional about that, don’t just decide you can’t have physical intimacy. That’s not going to work for many people, but your husband sounds like a lost cause anyway.

You’re also disturbingly trying to downplay his behavior to us. “Sleeps next to her,” not “gets in bed with her.” “comes back up every morning.” “Daughter says nothing but good things.” “I feel uncomfortable for some reason.”

You feel uncomfortable because this is shockingly inappropriate and wrong, and you’re letting it happen and just kind of wondering when it will stop. It’ll stop when you kick him out!

I 10000% think it’s inappropriate for a grown man to get in bed every night with a 13–year-old.

Beyond just the optics, which are TERRIBLE, she’s getting to be a woman. She needs her privacy and autonomy. An adult should not be coming in her room every night at 3am to sleep with her.

It gets more serious when he tells you, “you can’t tell me what to do.” Um, yes you can, she’s your child! The defiance and gaslighting here is so fucked up. He’s not willing to listen to you or work with you on this. I’m serious when I say you should kick him out. You cannot have a man around who makes unilateral decisions about YOUR CHILD and shuts you down.

And finally: you actually don’t know for certain that nothing is going on. Please accept that. You don’t.

Yeah I was going to say, I don’t think KTFran is that judgmental at all.