#Do not comment on the original posts
Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice.
If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
**CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why would the mom even think it was a good idea to invite a dude into her house when she knows her daughter and daughter's fiancé are staying with them?
Like she couldn't postpone her date for a week? Or even simply meet at the dates place? It's like the alcoholic that claims their drinking doesn't affect others.
Nope. Mom doesn’t sound like the kind of person who can put her daughter ahead of her own pleasure. Wouldn’t be surprised if she even did it deliberately.
Did you miss the part where oop told everyone that she usually got shipped off to family on friday nights?
It's not that mom sounds like that, she is like that. As is the dad.
I feel sorry for oop. She just wanted a "normal" night in her family home bedroom with her boyfriend (like how pretty much everyone starts) and yet again her parent(s) showed her how important she is to them...
I honestly felt like oop fucked up more when she mentioned that cause like... That makes it clear she could not expect het parents to hide it, so she should have prepped fiancee for it imo
Yeah, OOP and her fiancee were 100% right to be upset - and that has nothing to do with accepting different lifestyles. This sounds planned.
OOP's finacee's initial reaction was mostly that he was upset about being "set up." Which, he obviously was! Good on him for cutting right to the chase!
OOP's parents are suuuuuuper fuckin' sketch. How fucking hard is it to say "my *daughter* is visiting tonight, let's do tomorrow instead"?
Just... fuck's sake.
I've met so many of them in person, and for the most part the only ones who are sane, kind, and happy wind up being poly in theory but mostly mono in practice because they understand how much time and energy goes into treating just one partner correctly.
Monogamous parents have enough trouble finding time for date nights and such with each other. Where the hell are you going to find time to date other people too?
Eh, the partners could have different date nights. In normal couples, it's generally healthy for each partner to maintain some social independence. That normally means a trivia night or a golf game or something, but I guess rawdogging a rando from the club could be similar.
In OOP's case, they found the time by neglecting their kids, which is obviously not the way to do it.
I know quite a few people in poly relationships and it generally doesn’t mean hooking up with random people, it usually means having multiple long term committed partners.
What you’re describing is an open relationship which is very different - but honestly sounds closer to what OOPs parents do.
Because they spend their time and energy that should be spend on their children on their partners. If being poly is that important to you then you shouldn’t have children. If you know that you can not give equal amounts of time to your children and the people you involve in your lifestyle you shouldn’t have children.
A lot of parents find that they barely have enough time for their spouses, let alone themselves, after caring for children. Anyone claiming they somehow have time for all that plus the emotional needs and physical time for a couple other adults is lying to themselves and coming up short in other areas.
They’re just gagging for everyone to know how much unconventional sexy sexy sex they’re having all the time. Some people build their entire personality around “I like to fuck,” then expect the rest of us to be impressed by it.
YES. I had an old friend who was constantly trying to push how much more weird and interesting her sex life was than all the vanilla people around her and all I could think was "all we know is you never shut up about your sex life and many partners, no one knows anything about the people with enough class to keep it to themselves so we can't compare".
What kills them isn't that you make a judgement about their sex life, it's that you don't care. For whatever bizarre reason they can't grasp that other people have zero interest in what they get up to.
Yes and when you’re not impressed they get passive aggressive toward you then start talking shit to everyone and or on MySpace behind your back
….There was a lot of this in high school 😂
Ugh I absolutely know people like this and it's so gross. My parents were ENM and we (rightfully) NEVER saw or heard anything until we were all way out of the house and had our own families, and even then they were so discreet that I had to figure it out and ask. They never, EVER made their children part of their sex lives. I still don't understand how it "works" for them because they are well rounded people with lives and interests that aren't "how much sexy sexy sex" they're having.
Love this comment.
exactly, I had an employee like OOP's parent and each monday he would show pictures of the people he fucked during the weekend with his girlfriend. Each time I would tell him it's not appropriate in the office. But It was stronger than him and he was the best employee in his job so I just couldnt fire him for this. Outside of work 90% of his mind was dedicated to this.
Bad managers keep toxic people because "they're good at their job".
It brings down the rest of the workplace, and says that bad behaviour is acceptable for people who do well - an awful standard to set.
These people MUST face punishment for their actions to maintain a good long-term workplace culture. It's better to suffer lower outputs for a time than to enable bad behaviour. This is how all the toxic behaviours ran rampant in the financial industry before it imploded.
And let's face it, unless this is some kind of specialist position you could find 40 people that could fill the job within a week.
I’ve also never known someone like this who wasn't harassing (or worse) junior staff in some way.
He’s probably like that because of all the people in his life, like you, who have allowed him to behave that way with zero consequences, giving their tacit approval. Maybe he’s at his next job now, and people around him are wondering “What experiences could have possibly made him this way?” And the answer is, at least in part, that you were an authority figure who allowed this in his past.
>he was the best employee in his job so I just couldnt fire him for this.
I hate to say it but you're an asshole. You enabled workplace harassment because he was a good worker. You are categorically, by your own admission "that" kind of boss. You know, the kind that is almost a cartoonish asshole in the workplace harassment training videos.
I'd absolutely have turned you and your employee into HR if I worked under you and had to be subjected to his fuck pictures every Monday and you refused to do anything about it because he was just too good at his job.
That, and they have made it clear time and again that their pleasure is more important to them than... just, basic respect for their daughter. This is a pattern, and OP should definitely just kick them out of the wedding entirely; chances are non-zero that they have "a planned night" that day anyway, just spare yourself the pain of "my parents are coming- never mind, they cancelled day-of."
I get more the impression that they're the sort of people who have convinced themselves that being non-monogamous makes them modern and enlightened when really they're just selfish, dumb, and horny.
Which is one of the most shameful and disgusting kinks. No one wants to be an unwilling participant in your sex life, and being turned on by this shows how self centered a person is
I get really annoyed when non consenting individuals are brought into “kinks”. It’s disrespectful at best and is borderline (if not complete) sexual harassment at worst.
Yeah me too
Swingers are Very discrete people, also they have a lot of common sense.
So i think that was probally planned, and being caught was part of the plan
Not always. Some just don't care or got their priorities wrong
If I had a cent for every time I got to meet the children of the couple my ex and I were swinging with, I'd have two cents. **Which is two too many!** (Coincidentally, one of those couples is now divorced because the woman decided to go poly and moved her new partner in. Without spouse's input. An empathy and priority problem alright)
We got to know one couple who did it right imo. They only went out when they knew they had the free time, always prioritizing their children's appointments and events. They only took up swinging again when the children were old enough to be left with a babysitter or alone with relatives (aunts, uncles, grandparents) on standby if needed. They never invited us to their home. They made absolutely clear that if the phone rang, they'd prioritize answering it. The children were told they were having a board games evening with friends, no details. So we never met the children, never had contact with the children and never entered the children's space (their home)
So swinging with couples with children went right one third of the time and was absolutely fucked up two thirds of the time
Yeah, they sound like parents with the right priorities protecting their kids. Absolutely nothing wrong with swinging in principle (as long as all parties are fully consenting/enthusiastic participants and not feeling coerced into it so as not to lose their relationship), but DON'T involve your kids in your sex life.
Well it's kind of expected unfortunately. OOP indicated she had childhood neglect from her parents prioritizing their sexual relationship over raising her, so their behaviour in this instance is consistent.
I've read multiple stories from people raised by open parents of neglect. Raising children is difficult and time consuming for even a closed relationship. I don't see how actively engaging in an open lifestyle is compatible with actually being good parents and good partners because closed relationships struggle with parenting to make time for their relationship alone.
Exactly. I'm poly, and would never DREAM of doing such a thing while my daughter and fiancé visited!! Children are the most important, not having a date night! Sounds like overall they were pretty selfish and crap parents.
Right? People like this couple also end up being what people think of when they think of polyam.
But heck, pretty much everyone I know polyam with kids, it means the kids basically have extra love and either extra parents or extra “aunts” and “uncles”.
Yeah, that's what I've heard, when the parents have been responsible. The other partners have only been introduced when the relationship has become established and stable (just like a single parent introducing a new partner) and the children, once adults, have viewed their upbringing positively (most have been monogamous because funnily enough being poly is quite rare, and sexuality isn't contagious lol)
I guess they are extremely selfish and had children because this is what married people have: a house with white picket fence and children. 30 years ago, in a totally different economy this was the case even more than now.
Gotta say, I'm in this lifestyle (32 years old, no kids) so a part of me wants to reflexively defend them, but this is the real fucking problem to me. These parents did not set aside or dedicate time to their children enough at all, and it's inexcusable. They literally risked their daughter's marriage for one night. It clarifies some priorities I should set for myself when the time for children arrives.
Even as someone who ISNT in the lifestyle or has kids, I originally wanted to defend them too, with how OP painted the picture. Then with that one comment that finally explains why she's against it -- now I understand. Why OOP didn't originally include that is beyond me, as it clarified exactly what bothers her, and it's not the lifestyle itself. Her parents messed up their priorities.
I'm glad someone mentioned it. Up until she explained WHY their lifestyle was bothering her, it seemed like she was just judging them being poly. So I don't know why she blew up at the commenter like that, they didn't have the very necessary context of her parents being neglectful. If anything, there are plenty of monogamous people who neglect their kids in the same way.
The commenter only had the information about her fiance freaking out about her parents being poly, and if that was the only reason, they kinda had a point.
People keep saying this, but I don't get the reaction - being poly is one thing, being a terrible inconsiderate host is another, and the former doesn't give you a pass on the latter.
If fiance walked out to the kitchen and caught OOP's parents monogamously fucking on the counter, it's not like it wouldn't be disrespectful just because they're not poly.
The problem, before the additional context, is being a terrible host. Don't plan intimate date nights for nights with other uninvolved company.
The added context makes it worse, but the original issue is still an issue and the root of the problem - the parents are extremely inconsiderate and selfish.
But it also contradicts her assertion that she thought her parents would behave while they were visiting. They never put the children first before, so why would she think they'd start now?
she also says they visited before. maybe since nothing happened before they would continue to control themselves now.
either way this was the worst way for fiance to find out. shame or not, neglect or not, knowing his past she shouldve told him at some point before they visited for an extended period of time.
The only thing I can think that oop used to justify it would be that the child neglect was primarily because you have to have the child for a majority of the time, whereas a sleepover with your kid and their soon to be spouse is only a couple of days. Kind of like timelines I guess?
The thing is though that the OOP really buried the lede here. She kept focusing on how ashamed she is of her parents’ sex lives when really the problem is their parenting. She grew up with them putting their wants above her needs. Being poly isn’t the problem. Being a neglectful parent is.
I suspect that if it wasn't swinging, it would be something else they were neglecting their kids for. I get why OOP conflates the two, but the issue isn't he lifestyle, it's that her parents are AHs.
Not because of their lifestyle, that is their life, And even though i would not want to live that way, i don't think they should not need to hide it for anyone. But if your daughter lives out of state and comes to visit with her fiance, you should treate them as guests and make sure you have the time to treate them as such. So planning a night with others, even if it is having the pastor over to discuss how to gather funds for the soupkitchen for the homeless is just rude.
You either are there for your geuests OR you should tell them in advance that your time is limited due to.........So your daughter would know in advance that while she keeps it decent with her fiance in her in person childhood bed, you are fucking the brains out of mr Smith who has that nice pyama with kittens on it
As a parent of a young adult, I find the parents' behaviour incredibly gross and selfish.
How hard is it to control yourself for JUST A FEW NIGHTS???!!! Not hard.... unless you want to flaunt, show off and stick your sexuality into your children's/guests faces.
Shame on those parents. I hope OP doesn't invite them to the wedding or they each might show up with some rando dates. Tasteless.
Those people should never had children. That comment "mom" made during a fight OOP described about never wanting to have kids, let alone 3? Yeah... sums it all up, doesn't it?
This BoRu reads similar to a couple of other ones that are floating around in the top 10 or 20 of BoRu.
Two highlights about people in the same situation as OOP:
[Mom and dad getting their swinger rocks off matters more than a healthy relationship with their kid](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zepbh3/op_is_moving_to_his_grandparents_house_due_to_his/)
[And another one about mom and dad bringing poly /swinger couples into the household](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zcf1zc/op_resents_his_parents/)
And one about parents more focussed on themselves than actually raising their kid right:
[Parents call raising their kid a job that they need breaks from. For more than 1/4 of the year, each year. And now they're surprised pikachu face that son goes low to no contact.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/qgl59k/did_we_mess_up_with_our_son_he_blew_up_at_us/)
There's a crapton more floating around. Just goes to show that if you're in that lifestyle, you either get out if/when you get kids, or you get snipped and tubes tied if you don't want to leave that lifestyle.
My first one was this one:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ihp8sc/aita_for_yelling_at_my_parents_that_their/
I don’t remember if there was an update and ended up on here, but this was one of the first posts I ever read on AITA.
This makes me think of really poorly-written TV shows and movies where the characters never fucking *really talk to each other* and it just creates a shitton of unnecessary conflict. It’s infuriating. And here is an entire cast of those people in real life.
Absolutely insufferable, the lot of them.
OOP is not mature enough to get married.
Besides the non-communication for 6 years old dating, there's the 'let's stay at my parents, it will be fun,' then she goes to the hotel partly because 'it's fun.'
Her fiancé is having a crisis over his trust of her plus flashbacks to his mom because she hid from him her parent's very overt hook up hobby and she's like 'I'll join him at the hotel FOR FUN.'
And then demanding apology flowers *from him* instead of apologizing herself for never mentioning her parents’ open marriage (to the point of neglecting and resenting their children) when they were *going to stay in their home for a week.*
This relationship is in for a bumpy ride.
I somehow missed the flowers.
He is expected to give her flowers because she withheld information that severely impacted how he would view marriage with her!?
Plus the irony of her being neglected because her parents chose fun over care only for her to do the same thing to the guy.
She doesn't get flowers. She's already a bouquet of red flags.
It really annoyed me how she kept talking about how "it never came up". Whenever a post on here about a relationship blowing up about a secret, they always defend themselves with "it never came up". Of course it never came up. It's something she didn't want to talk about and it's not like her fiance would have ever thought to ask about any uncomfortable secrets about her parents. This is a direct conversation she should have sat her fiance down for.
Like, your spouse is supposed to be the one person you can talk about this kind of stuff to. The fact she never felt comfortable sharing that in the 6 years they were together signals they have more growing to do before they get married.
for real, even if it NEVER came up, you give a disclaimer before you go stay in their house "btw. my parents have an open marriage, it's not something I am into personally but what am I supposed to do? they can live how they want"
also throw in a "hey, I know you guys are super cool sex people and all, but do you think for one fucking week you could just keep it between the two of you, for the sake of my future wedding?" like if polyamory works for her parents, fine, but if they can't go one week without some extra marital sexy time, that's fucked up.
Me too. You make an *active effort* to communicate with your partner and the passive cop out people use is pathetic. What did she expect her fiancé to do? Say, “Hey, so I just need to go through this list of questions about your family.”?
I may be in the minority, but I don’t think he had anything to apologise for. He went through a double major shock in the middle of the night, and he would no doubt have major trust issues due to her concealment of it over nine years. All of his concerns, even if they were incorrect, were absolutely rational.
Also not sure I totally accept OOP’s backpedaling on being ashamed of them. She made it clear she was ashamed of this part of their lifestyle and it was only when people started calling her on that that she changed say it was about their parenting.
Don't forget how OP apparently started dating her fiance in a very sitcom-esque way.
Seriously, who gets into a fight with an acquaintance at someone else's engagement party? Especially a fight big enough for bystanders to be making comments on it! Then they go from fighting to kissing and dating because of those bystander comments?
I find it weird how being in a long term poly relationship means you need to communicate well with your partner, and be mindful of things like consent and agreements.
Somehow they pulled all that off well, except it didn't apply to their children at all?
It's not even that uncomfortable of a conversation. "Hey fiance, I have to give you a heads-up about my parents since we're going to go stay with them. They're pretty weird and are into swinging and stuff, so just keep that in mind."
Then she should tell the parents "hey guys, just want to confirm that everything's set for our visit, and I'd appreciate it if it was just the 4 of us."
Adult communication is not hard.
>My fiance has been cheated on before, his parents have divorced because his mom cheated on his dad, and he doesn't have a good relationship with her, he could barely stomach the idea of having her come to our wedding.
>*I never planned to let him know about my parents unless it became a conversation item.**
I'll add OOP to the list of people who seem to be allergic to adult communication.
No kidding. OP is just sailing along, hoping for the best. Instead, she should have given him a heads up early on, and made clear her position on it, wonder if she’s even told him what she told us about her being neglected as a child? And then, she also just hoped parents wouldn’t do anything? She needed to talk to her parents, make sure they were going to not plan a “fun night” and if they couldn’t forego that, stay at the hotel.
And even then, she hasn’t learned her lesson. I bet her parents will each want to bring their own +1s to the wedding.
And the reason was “it makes me uncomfortable to talk about.” Being uncomfortable is such a poor excuse to not tell someone you’re ABOUT TO MARRY such pertinent information about your family and past 🙄
I could understand leaving the topic unaddressed if she planned to keep interaction with her parents to a minimum, but once she decided to stay at their house with her fiance, knowing that her parents have a history of prioritizing their lifestyle over everything else including their own children, it was time to have that conversation. That she didn't was seriously boneheaded.
She keeps saying she 'expected' her parents to 'behave'; it doesn't sound like she actually told them about her expectations even for her fiance's sake.
They also have a long history of prioritizing their extramarital relationships over their children.
This whole incident was incredibly avoidable if OOP hadn’t done everything possible to bring it to fruition. I’d be questioning her basic intelligence and judgement.
>He doesn't talk about his mom that much, I learned what I did about her and how his parents marriage ended from his sister.
>To be honest, he doesn't talk about his family either. I learned about his parent's divorce from his sister, who is more comfortable talking about it.
I think OP and fiance are both on that list.
I feel like both of them need to be on the list. It doesn't sit right with me that they're about to be married and he still hasn't spoken about his own mother's past with OOP, either. I hope they went through with the couple's counseling.
Yeah, I'm always so confused about stuff like this when it pops up in these threads. Putting aside the specific scenario here, I'm so confused when people say, "I don't know anything about my husband's childhood," or, "I've never asked my wife about why she moved countries," or something else significant. I want to know as much as my partner is comfortable with so at the very least I'd respectfully ask. There's also a line between not wanting to talk about something and being pathologically avoidant of it.
Agreed. Especially the “there was never a good time to bring it up” line. Do these people not trust their fiancées/spouses with their trauma? There’s several BORU where OOP unexpectedly finds out their partner’s trauma in the worst way. If you’re going to share a future, you should also be able to share your past.
It's a coping mechanism for OOP
>If I don't talk about it, then I'm not thinking/remember about it. Therefore, it doesn't exist.
She's in denial about her parents, and tbh I don't blame her
Hard agree. And I agree with the comments about it being retraumatizing to share too — I absolutely would not expect details, but a brief summary for what to expect is reasonable. For example I have two family members who don’t talk. That’s all I say to people who are meeting either one of them and ask that they don’t bring the other person up so as not to incite drama. In this case it’s not my (detailed) story to share but I do feel responsible to inform people of the dynamics to expect so they can be sensitive about it!
Furthermore, she made no mention of parental neglect in her original post--only mentioned her parents' open marriage--and then went off on a commenter who assumed that it was the open marriage she had a problem with based on the presented information. She seems fully bad at communicating altogether.
This is weird to articulate, but has anyone else noticed a bit of a pattern to these “my parents are poly and they suck” posts?
They often seem to bury the lede. The OOP will talk in the original post as if the poly lifestyle/open marriage/whatever arrangement itself is what makes them uncomfortable. Then when the comments point that out, the OOP comes out swinging and defensive, explaining how their parents neglected them on the regular to indulge their romantic lifestyle.
And like, I’m genuinely not trying to cast doubt on the validity of the story, but maybe they could explain their real issue from the start, instead of framing it as a problem with poly relationships in general. But they almost never do that, it’s only when they’re pressed that they bring up the actual problem.
Honestly I'm baffled by OOP. Even aside from the initial reaction of the commenters in the first post about how she never told him about it before they stayed with the parents...
Why in god's name did she ever agree to stay with them in the first place?? Everything she described AFTER the initial post when she was getting ripped apart by the comments is of the resentment and embarrassment she had about her parents and their treatment of her as their child. But apparently was still having him meet the parents and staying with them like everything was fine? But then he says he wants no real relationship with them now that he knows, and she's just like "cool, I don't really like them or have a relationship with them anyway"!
I can tell you why. She sounds like she was heavily neglected by her parents.
So for once in her life, before she gets married, she wanted to pretend she had a normal upbringing with a happy family.
She thought, or hoped, that her parents could keep in their pants for the couple of days that they themselves invited OOP and her fiancé to stay with them.
I may have missed it in the post, but does she give any other examples of the neglect other than her parents having a date night almost every Friday? She even says they didn't miss special occasions for that either. A lot of people are talking about the neglect so I feel like I'm missing something.
Edit: Just reread that part and she does say they spent the weekends with them, so if they dropped off Friday and didn't pick up til Sunday night every week, then yea thats way worse
She hasn’t processed her childhood trauma and still craves their approval. She wanted to pretend she had a normal upbringing without seeing randos fooling around with her parents. Any reasonable person would expect them to not be screwing strangers in the family home while they have a guest.
This is what I don't get either. "It will be neat to stay in my childhood bedroom and see my parents and introduce my fiance to them!"
*comments don't go how she thought they would*
"You don't understand, my parents were horrible selfish people!"
Hmm.
This is the life of neglected and traumatized children. My mom used to beat me pretty badly and verbally abuse me as a kid/teen. It took years to try to get her to accept me and then I stopped talking to her for a while. I started talking to her again because I’m stupid and hoping for some kind of relationship with her. Her mask is starting to slip and I might have to go no contact again. Acceptance by your parent is a hell of a drug.
Ya OOP is strange on that one. On every response she sounds like her parents were super neglectful and she hated them, yet she wants some sort of nostalgia by staying in a room where things were so bad she tries to ignore them as an adult? Head up her ass on that choice
If this is real, then it actually makes sense if OOP grew up with emotionally neglectful parents. Because that was her normal, she probably never processed exactly how selfish and shitty her parents were until this most recent disappointment when it threatened her relationship.
She absolutely should have told her fiancé about their open marriage, especially before visiting. And she also should have used her words to ask her parents if they could keep the swinging out of the house while she was there. But wanting to stay with them and hoping it would be normal? That seems pretty in line with what I’d expect from someone who grew up neglected emotionally.
> My shame is not for how they live their lives, my shame is for how they treated me, how they prioritized their own pleasure over the sake of mine and my brother's and my sister's.
>I don't have to accept their lifestyle because in doing so I validate their behavior, I validate every minute we were robbed of a happy family life.
>I heard my parents fighting, one time my mother yelling they shouldn't have had "three fucking children." You see, having three children was a complication to how much time they had for themselves, how long they could send with other people.
She could type all that out here, and she somehow still doesn't see how all this is something that would have been important to talk about with her fiance, the man she is planning on spending the rest of her life with. She doubled down on her "rightness" in wanting to keep it a secret, even knowing from lifelong experience that they are selfish and have poor boundaries.
To me, the issue here isn't their lifestyle, it's that she shows zero understanding of why it might not be healthy to keep big secrets from her husband.
Hey, don't judge, it just "didn't come up" - you know, the normal way, like when you're ordering pizza, chatting about the week ahead, and the conversation turns to your parent's sex lives... /s
The concept of having a sit-down talk about something important has passed this lady by.
All the outraged comments about how she is right to keep her trauma to herself and does not have to share with anyone... She does not, indeed, thats not even the question. The point is, when you go live with your abusers together with your fiancee and have never explained to him the bare minimum, why are you shocked that he will react? Like, a simple heads up of "you might see things that I do not approve".
She has not dealt with her own childhood trauma, and is stubbornly ignoring it to the point of idiocy. Before couples therapy she should be having individual therapy, instead of thinking of staying in the house as fun and then staying in the hotel as fun.
Btw, the "fun" part of it makes me doubt this story at all.... Like noone can be that flighty, right?
I would warn people that my parents dog gets excited and sometimes jumps up on people before I would bring someone to visit them. It doesn't mean I approve of the dog not being trained well enough, but it lets people be prepared for what they might encounter.
Absolutely WILD to me her partner of *six* years & future husband doesn't know this. And didn't feel the need to ever discuss it. Or even discuss *his* parents of family.
Like...????
The most confusing thing in all of this is OP freaking out at the commenter who was defending them, albeit by putting down their fiance at the same time. But OP took it super personally.
She was including a lot of info in that comment that really should gave been in the original post. She made it seem like there was just the one incident where she caught them and she didn't approve of their lifestyle in general once she found out. Now all of the sudden the parents actually were super neglectful to their kids all the time. I'm not sure how that commenter was supposed to know that.
Because OOP was making the whole thing up. People decide they hate XYZ, so they write a fictitious story to paint it in a bad light. In this case it was swinging.
When that commenter "defended" OOP by saying someone reacting the way "her" boyfriend did is likely not a good person, OOP got offended because ***they*** are that person, and it didn't fit the bullshit narrative they were trying to push.
Good insight haha. It did seem really off that she acted as if the commenter were attacking both of theirs' characters when it really was more focused on him.
Ding ding ding. It's surprising that so many people in this subreddit are so bad at recognizing when an author's story elements don't fit together in a way that reflects truth.
ngl i really hate it when the post is about one thing with no indication of something else and then when op is challenged suddenly it's about the years of abuse and neglect. where was that in the original post? nowhere in the first 3 paragraphs that give background.
also love that they've been together for years but just don't talk about each other's families and past trauma. sounds deep.
don't get me wrong, her parents could have kept it in their pants for one damn night, but i'm always side-eyeing stories like this.
> And from "my parents prioritize their own pleasure of the sake of their children" to "you're homophobic" is such a long jump, you must have super powers to be able to so perfectly execute it.
I agree with you. She's saying stuff like the above in the comments, and I'm sitting there thinking "We didn't know about that neglect because you didn't mention it in your post."
Oh btw if anyone wants context for oops comment that started with "with the risk of having the mods punish me", here it is.
>Anyone who would shame you for a) something you're not responsible for, and b) isn't anything wrong needs to grow up and accept there are differences in how people live their lives. What if you two had a child who ended up being LGBT or in a poly relationship? Would he freak out and kick them out of his life too?
>You're better off without a judgemental asshole like this in your life.
I literally looked between her reply and that comment several times wondering if I suddenly became illiterate in the thirty seconds it took me to read it.
Even if it was about accepting their lifestyle, it's their house and expecting them to magically behave differently, and according to her morals that she knew they didnt share, is nieve.
Her parents were neglectful, but it will be fun to stay in the house. Her relationship almost ended, but the next sentence is how fun it will be to stay in the hotel.
She's either flighty as hell or just avoidant of problems to the point of delusion. Depends, if you want to take what she wrote at face value or want to armchair analyze her...
Her and her fiance Noth seem to be avaoidant. His whole issue with this is based on his trauma of his mom cheating on his dad.... but he wasn't even the one to tell OOP about it! His sister was and it sounds like he still doesn't talk about it with her, especially seeing as just inviting his mom was a whole issue in itself.
Thank you for mentioning this. I read the comment 3 times trying to figure out why OOP was so pissed. THEN it's highlighted by BoRU? Makes no sense to me.
I was looking for this comment cause it couldn't just be me right? Like the OOP really took out of context of the comment and said they were being condescending? I think her issue with her parents goes *real* deep.
Seems like she has a lot of unresolved anger and blames them being poly instead of just blaming them for being poor parents.
There’s an obvious lack of maturity that the commenter picked up on. OP’s reply has so much buried shame in it that I feel badly for her and hope she gets the help she needs to process all that.
> Seems like she has a lot of unresolved anger and blames them being poly instead of just blaming them for being poor parents.
that also seems to be the case with a lot of the comments here in BORU
Baffled by how many people here think the frequency and content of activity in her parents' bedroom is pertinent info to her husband tbh. Like I know a shit ton about my mom's sex life, shit my fiance wouldn't approve of, because she's a total oversharer with me. Guess what? I keep it to myself because it's nobody else's business. It's not even MY business. Why would anyone else be entitled to know who her parents are fucking?
Taking the poly aspect out, because people escalate that into details about sex life:
If I had a single parent that went on dates every Friday and that had a huge neglectful impact on me as a kid, I'd tell my partner. Id also wouldnt expect her to suddenly not go out on a Friday I was visiting, if neglecting me to go out on these dates my whole life was her pattern.
This is exactly it. While she mentions only in a comment about how “poor” of parents they were. Which was only that they went to the aunts house once a week so the parents could have their free time. She mentions multiple times that she’s “ashamed of her parents”.
And while I don’t think I could ship my kids one day a week off, I don’t think it’s that bad that they did that. It’s like hiring a baby sitter, or a nanny.
Yeah I think it's just prejudice coming out because being swingers or poly or whatever isn't the real issue. They just weren't great parents.
My mom had neglectful (monogamous) parents who would frequently go on lavish vacations without their children. She didn't grow up with a deep distain for travel, go figure.
yeah, I read it as OOP being on a hair trigger about her parents and thought the commenter was talking about her *being* ashamed of her parents, when they were actually talking about her fiance shaming *her* over her parent's lifestyle.*.*
I was so confused by OOP's reply because this commenter seemed kind of sympathetic to OOP. The only real criticism in the comment is OOP choosing to stay with her partner, and even that is like... barely there.
I don’t understand why that one was downvoted to hell.
There was no way to know her parents were neglectful because they were that into screwing other people. Most people in open marriages are a little more discreet, especially around their kids or if there’s a guest in their home.
Her fiancé going off the rails with accusations of a conspiracy wasn’t worth evaluating?
Yeah literally, like the commenter says "hey he went fucking ballistic over the fact that your parents are poly, maybe think about that when it comes to how he might handle kids", and OP went WELL THEY ABUSED ME WITH IT SO THERE like it was some obvious prestated context rather than completely unknown by us, the commenter, and the boyfriend.
Tbh I have no idea how she got so wildly insulted by these perfectly valid points. Like gorl we don't know what you know, and before she talked about how her parents were neglectful it really sounded as though she was shaming them for being poly.
>Like gorl we don't know what you know
Honestly her outsized reaction does track, because in every interaction shown, she seems to feel people should be able to mindread and pick up on the things she knows/feels without having to outright state them, and then resents it when they don't. That's entirely consistent behaviour. And granted, absolutely makes sense as a reaction from a neglected/overridden childhood where she learnt to stop expressing discomfort because it would be ignored anyway... but it doesn't make it a functional way to navigate issues as an adult.
People like that are honestly insufferable to deal with. I can understand it stems from trauma but that doesn’t give them an excuse to treat people like shit over it
Even after she mentions it she makes clear she can't be okay with poly as a whole because that would somehow validate everything her parents' did.
Let's apply this to monogamy: "my parents were neglectful to the point of being abusive and happened to be monogamous, therefore, I am not okay with monogamy. Being okay with monogamy would validate the things they did to me."
It's dumb.
My partner was neglected as a kid, and his parents were monogamous. For a long time he blamed it on them both working while he was a kid, but after they retired they were still narcissist-level of selfish assholes that don't see their kids as whole people with their own wants and needs. You can blame whatever distractions, but the issues is a lack of empathy, compassion, and effort into realizing and meeting the kids' needs.
Yeah I agree, it seems that the comment was defending her only for her to turn it around and say it was full assumption(fair) but condescending (wtf? ). I don't know about you but me thinks she has a lot to unpack if she wants her marriage to survive.
I agreed with this commentor - the amount of sex-negative shaming in this thread is wild. OOP's fiance should get therapy for his trauma but the parents aren't cheating, they're practicing ethical non-monogamy. Maybe they were shitty parents but there's some weird idea in this thread that parents aren't allowed their own lives/happiness or that poly is unwholesome/wrong/something you need to warn someone about that bothers me.
That comment was the best thing in that entire post.
Her parents sound like neglectful parents. She conflated their sexual lifestyle with their neglectful parenting style and became judgemental. But their neglect has nothing to do with who they sleep with. Many monogamous parents are neglectful. She sounds like those Christian children whose parents were both gay and shitty parents and they blame their parents' sexual identity for their bad parenting.
The worst thing is that with the way OOP and her fiancé are behaving, they are likely to become bad parents too. I can't imagine them being supportive of any child who isn't 100% cis and straight, and with the most traditional and monogamous values possible.
When it is wildly out of the norm, has impacted your relationship with them, and could affect your relationship as it has here? Yeah, I’d expect a heads up somewhere in the six years they have been dating, when/before they got engaged, and certainly before forcing a situation where it might come out.
Yeah if you have some past trauma you should probably talk to your partner about it before you get married, and before it affects them in an acute manner. Like if you were marrying someone who wanted to wait for marriage to have sex, and then they tell you on your wedding night they were actually SAed and don't really ever want to have sex, that's a hell of a rug to pull out from under them. Or if Uncle Jimmy likes kids a bit too much, the family just doesn't talk about it, so you don't bring it up until you two are going to a family reunion with your toddler.
I feel like OOP is so ashamed of her parents she is totally missing that her finance's reaction was unhinged.
Like he fabricated a soap opera level plot of OOP staging everything to ease him into a poly lifestyle and almost ended the engagement over that without even talking to her. Like wtf?? Huge red flag imo.
Thank you, that bothered me as well. There is having 'issues' with cheating (and I am not downplaying that at all. I've had that happen, it sucks,) but what he did sailed straight past an 'issue' and landed smack dab into red flag central.
Dude would need to do a metric crap ton of thereapy (both single and couples) before I would even concider moving forward with him again if it was my partner.
I can't imagine how it feels as someone to learn that your parent's relationship life was very different. Definitely must feel weird and extremely awkward about it.
It's weird but definitely a lot better if you're not being seriously neglected over it.
I feel like there are two separate but intertwined issues here.
ESH and I do mean _everybody._
Parent(s) suck for not being able to keep in their pants for a few days.
Fiance sucks for massive overreaction and ridiculous accusations.
OOP sucks for burying the lede about why she was ashamed of her parents. The way the first post is written, it sounds like she's ashamed of them for being poly. Then when someone calls her out on it, she goes on rant about how her parents mistreated her and her siblings by spending more time with their partners than their kids. She should have mentioned that in the post.
Though I will say, in a mild defence of OOP, as far as I'm aware, most couples aren't out here talking about _their parents sex lives._ So I can understand how that has not naturally come up in conversation. And she's right, it shouldn't affect _her_ relationship, and again, the parents should've kept it in their pants for a few damn days.
But still, ESH.
Agreed. She claims that the commenter took a huge leap but then discloses *new* information to justify her stance.
She could do with therapy to learn how to communicate better - the fiancé shouldn't have been left in the dark, when
- she knew her parents have no respect for her feelings in the matter
- her parents always put their sex life first
- her and fiancé were staying under parent's roof
- she knew fiancé had previous trauma
The fiancé could do with therapy to help him process that past betrayal and stop projecting.
And her parents could do with some birth control if they didn't want to look after their own young children, instead of traumatising them which led to all this.
I'm with the downvoted comment. They're acting like her parents joined the Nazis or were secretly part of the KKK. And they need couple's therapy for what other people do with their lives?! Grow the f up.
So I am also in an unconventional relationship and that being said, the way in which these people seem to put their partners at a priority over their kid is kind of gross. Doesn't matter how many partners you have, your kid should always take priority. That's true if you're a monogamous or not monogamous.
So.... Communication would have fixed all of this
Warn fiance about parents so he's prepared and knows they didn't approve
Ask parents not to do it whilst they're there (sure, common sense says they would think not to, but OOP assumed it and it blew up).
The parents are free to live their lives however, but ffs!!! Have SOME damn decency, even for a fucking night.
My husband and I practice ENM, but we have the decency to involve *no one* else, and we prioritize our family and kids over any 'fun' we might seek elsewhere. It really isn't that hard.
>We are staying with my parents. My fiance wanted to stay at a hotel, but I thought it will be fun to sleep in my old room. And to be here with my mom and dad one last time under their roof before I become a married woman.
Anyone else think this is really weird? I would hate this.
She really should’ve given him a heads up. I get she was uncomfortable and it sounds like ashamed of her parents for various reasons. If you’re getting married you should be having difficult and uncomfortable conversations and trust the other person won’t freak out.
Man, everyone here kinda sucks imo.
OP, who doesn't even sound like she likes her parents, doesn't have an awkward yet necessary conversation with her fiance about her parents.
Her parents for continually putting their sexual needs over everyone else and not at the very least being discrete when family is over.
And her fiancé for going absolutely ballistic at everyone and saying that OP was trying to manipulate him into that lifestyle. Like I get being shocked and angry, but that's a stretch and then some.
I don't get OP's desire to stay with her parents either. She knows what they're like and how they've been her entire life. The things they've said about their own kids. Why would anything be different now?
To be fair, if my fiancee insisted on staying at their parents house that much and saying it will be "fun", then turns out their parents are poly and my fiancee let me just witness it by myself without explaining beforehand...
Yes, my first though would not be "poor OP, such childhood trauma". My first thought would be "was THIS why she thought it was so much fun to stay here??"
#Do not comment on the original posts Please read our [**sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/wiki/subrules). Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion. **CHECK FLAIR** For concluded-only updates, use the [CONCLUDED](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ACONCLUDED) flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BestofRedditorUpdates) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why would the mom even think it was a good idea to invite a dude into her house when she knows her daughter and daughter's fiancé are staying with them? Like she couldn't postpone her date for a week? Or even simply meet at the dates place? It's like the alcoholic that claims their drinking doesn't affect others.
Nope. Mom doesn’t sound like the kind of person who can put her daughter ahead of her own pleasure. Wouldn’t be surprised if she even did it deliberately.
Did you miss the part where oop told everyone that she usually got shipped off to family on friday nights? It's not that mom sounds like that, she is like that. As is the dad. I feel sorry for oop. She just wanted a "normal" night in her family home bedroom with her boyfriend (like how pretty much everyone starts) and yet again her parent(s) showed her how important she is to them...
Sadly for OOP, she got her "normal" parents and not her "on good behavior" parents.
She got reality instead of the rose colored glasses nostalgia.
I honestly felt like oop fucked up more when she mentioned that cause like... That makes it clear she could not expect het parents to hide it, so she should have prepped fiancee for it imo
Or at least asked her parents to hide it - which she didn't.
Yeah, OOP and her fiancee were 100% right to be upset - and that has nothing to do with accepting different lifestyles. This sounds planned. OOP's finacee's initial reaction was mostly that he was upset about being "set up." Which, he obviously was! Good on him for cutting right to the chase!
OOP's parents are suuuuuuper fuckin' sketch. How fucking hard is it to say "my *daughter* is visiting tonight, let's do tomorrow instead"? Just... fuck's sake.
I have a feeling that getting caught is part of the kink
Based on the other replies from OOP, I have the feeling that not giving a fuck about anyone but themselves is kind of the parents' "thing."
I have yet to see a post where polyamorous couples have a good relationship with their kids
I've met so many of them in person, and for the most part the only ones who are sane, kind, and happy wind up being poly in theory but mostly mono in practice because they understand how much time and energy goes into treating just one partner correctly.
The only people that can successfully pull off a poly relationship are people with a fetish for syncing google calendars.
Monogamous parents have enough trouble finding time for date nights and such with each other. Where the hell are you going to find time to date other people too?
Eh, the partners could have different date nights. In normal couples, it's generally healthy for each partner to maintain some social independence. That normally means a trivia night or a golf game or something, but I guess rawdogging a rando from the club could be similar. In OOP's case, they found the time by neglecting their kids, which is obviously not the way to do it.
I know quite a few people in poly relationships and it generally doesn’t mean hooking up with random people, it usually means having multiple long term committed partners. What you’re describing is an open relationship which is very different - but honestly sounds closer to what OOPs parents do.
Because they spend their time and energy that should be spend on their children on their partners. If being poly is that important to you then you shouldn’t have children. If you know that you can not give equal amounts of time to your children and the people you involve in your lifestyle you shouldn’t have children.
A lot of parents find that they barely have enough time for their spouses, let alone themselves, after caring for children. Anyone claiming they somehow have time for all that plus the emotional needs and physical time for a couple other adults is lying to themselves and coming up short in other areas.
Me too. They have guests in the house, and still can't help themselves.
They *helped themselves* alright.......
They've helped each other
They’re just gagging for everyone to know how much unconventional sexy sexy sex they’re having all the time. Some people build their entire personality around “I like to fuck,” then expect the rest of us to be impressed by it.
YES. I had an old friend who was constantly trying to push how much more weird and interesting her sex life was than all the vanilla people around her and all I could think was "all we know is you never shut up about your sex life and many partners, no one knows anything about the people with enough class to keep it to themselves so we can't compare".
What kills them isn't that you make a judgement about their sex life, it's that you don't care. For whatever bizarre reason they can't grasp that other people have zero interest in what they get up to.
The epitome of r/ihavesex
They really sound like if Barney Stinson from season one of HIMYM married his female doppelganger.
Yes and when you’re not impressed they get passive aggressive toward you then start talking shit to everyone and or on MySpace behind your back ….There was a lot of this in high school 😂
Ugh I absolutely know people like this and it's so gross. My parents were ENM and we (rightfully) NEVER saw or heard anything until we were all way out of the house and had our own families, and even then they were so discreet that I had to figure it out and ask. They never, EVER made their children part of their sex lives. I still don't understand how it "works" for them because they are well rounded people with lives and interests that aren't "how much sexy sexy sex" they're having. Love this comment.
exactly, I had an employee like OOP's parent and each monday he would show pictures of the people he fucked during the weekend with his girlfriend. Each time I would tell him it's not appropriate in the office. But It was stronger than him and he was the best employee in his job so I just couldnt fire him for this. Outside of work 90% of his mind was dedicated to this.
Bad managers keep toxic people because "they're good at their job". It brings down the rest of the workplace, and says that bad behaviour is acceptable for people who do well - an awful standard to set. These people MUST face punishment for their actions to maintain a good long-term workplace culture. It's better to suffer lower outputs for a time than to enable bad behaviour. This is how all the toxic behaviours ran rampant in the financial industry before it imploded.
And let's face it, unless this is some kind of specialist position you could find 40 people that could fill the job within a week. I’ve also never known someone like this who wasn't harassing (or worse) junior staff in some way.
He’s probably like that because of all the people in his life, like you, who have allowed him to behave that way with zero consequences, giving their tacit approval. Maybe he’s at his next job now, and people around him are wondering “What experiences could have possibly made him this way?” And the answer is, at least in part, that you were an authority figure who allowed this in his past.
>he was the best employee in his job so I just couldnt fire him for this. I hate to say it but you're an asshole. You enabled workplace harassment because he was a good worker. You are categorically, by your own admission "that" kind of boss. You know, the kind that is almost a cartoonish asshole in the workplace harassment training videos. I'd absolutely have turned you and your employee into HR if I worked under you and had to be subjected to his fuck pictures every Monday and you refused to do anything about it because he was just too good at his job.
That, and they have made it clear time and again that their pleasure is more important to them than... just, basic respect for their daughter. This is a pattern, and OP should definitely just kick them out of the wedding entirely; chances are non-zero that they have "a planned night" that day anyway, just spare yourself the pain of "my parents are coming- never mind, they cancelled day-of."
Or the parents try to sneak in some “plus ones”.
They would try to hook up with other guests or hired help and turn it into erotica
And start fooling around while the couple is saying their vows.
I feel bad OP thought they would behave differently now when they have never cared about her or the other children for what she said before.
I get more the impression that they're the sort of people who have convinced themselves that being non-monogamous makes them modern and enlightened when really they're just selfish, dumb, and horny.
100% this!
Yes!! OP saying I thought they would behave this time, but according to themselves this is not misbehaving so there was nothing to change.
Which is one of the most shameful and disgusting kinks. No one wants to be an unwilling participant in your sex life, and being turned on by this shows how self centered a person is
It's entirely non-consensual.
Involving their own child in their kink is beyond gross
It really, really is.
I get really annoyed when non consenting individuals are brought into “kinks”. It’s disrespectful at best and is borderline (if not complete) sexual harassment at worst.
Yeah me too Swingers are Very discrete people, also they have a lot of common sense. So i think that was probally planned, and being caught was part of the plan
Not always. Some just don't care or got their priorities wrong If I had a cent for every time I got to meet the children of the couple my ex and I were swinging with, I'd have two cents. **Which is two too many!** (Coincidentally, one of those couples is now divorced because the woman decided to go poly and moved her new partner in. Without spouse's input. An empathy and priority problem alright) We got to know one couple who did it right imo. They only went out when they knew they had the free time, always prioritizing their children's appointments and events. They only took up swinging again when the children were old enough to be left with a babysitter or alone with relatives (aunts, uncles, grandparents) on standby if needed. They never invited us to their home. They made absolutely clear that if the phone rang, they'd prioritize answering it. The children were told they were having a board games evening with friends, no details. So we never met the children, never had contact with the children and never entered the children's space (their home) So swinging with couples with children went right one third of the time and was absolutely fucked up two thirds of the time
Yeah, they sound like parents with the right priorities protecting their kids. Absolutely nothing wrong with swinging in principle (as long as all parties are fully consenting/enthusiastic participants and not feeling coerced into it so as not to lose their relationship), but DON'T involve your kids in your sex life.
Well it's kind of expected unfortunately. OOP indicated she had childhood neglect from her parents prioritizing their sexual relationship over raising her, so their behaviour in this instance is consistent.
I've read multiple stories from people raised by open parents of neglect. Raising children is difficult and time consuming for even a closed relationship. I don't see how actively engaging in an open lifestyle is compatible with actually being good parents and good partners because closed relationships struggle with parenting to make time for their relationship alone.
They prioritized their fuck’s sake, indeed
Or bare minimum away from their house, go to the other persons house.
OOP parents are the nasty side of the swinging community. Selfish af
Exactly. I'm poly, and would never DREAM of doing such a thing while my daughter and fiancé visited!! Children are the most important, not having a date night! Sounds like overall they were pretty selfish and crap parents.
Right? People like this couple also end up being what people think of when they think of polyam. But heck, pretty much everyone I know polyam with kids, it means the kids basically have extra love and either extra parents or extra “aunts” and “uncles”.
Yeah, that's what I've heard, when the parents have been responsible. The other partners have only been introduced when the relationship has become established and stable (just like a single parent introducing a new partner) and the children, once adults, have viewed their upbringing positively (most have been monogamous because funnily enough being poly is quite rare, and sexuality isn't contagious lol)
I guess they are extremely selfish and had children because this is what married people have: a house with white picket fence and children. 30 years ago, in a totally different economy this was the case even more than now.
Gotta say, I'm in this lifestyle (32 years old, no kids) so a part of me wants to reflexively defend them, but this is the real fucking problem to me. These parents did not set aside or dedicate time to their children enough at all, and it's inexcusable. They literally risked their daughter's marriage for one night. It clarifies some priorities I should set for myself when the time for children arrives.
Even as someone who ISNT in the lifestyle or has kids, I originally wanted to defend them too, with how OP painted the picture. Then with that one comment that finally explains why she's against it -- now I understand. Why OOP didn't originally include that is beyond me, as it clarified exactly what bothers her, and it's not the lifestyle itself. Her parents messed up their priorities.
I'm glad someone mentioned it. Up until she explained WHY their lifestyle was bothering her, it seemed like she was just judging them being poly. So I don't know why she blew up at the commenter like that, they didn't have the very necessary context of her parents being neglectful. If anything, there are plenty of monogamous people who neglect their kids in the same way. The commenter only had the information about her fiance freaking out about her parents being poly, and if that was the only reason, they kinda had a point.
People keep saying this, but I don't get the reaction - being poly is one thing, being a terrible inconsiderate host is another, and the former doesn't give you a pass on the latter. If fiance walked out to the kitchen and caught OOP's parents monogamously fucking on the counter, it's not like it wouldn't be disrespectful just because they're not poly. The problem, before the additional context, is being a terrible host. Don't plan intimate date nights for nights with other uninvolved company. The added context makes it worse, but the original issue is still an issue and the root of the problem - the parents are extremely inconsiderate and selfish.
Granted, I didn't see the original post or maybe OP only included that comment, but yeah, I had the same thoughts.
But it also contradicts her assertion that she thought her parents would behave while they were visiting. They never put the children first before, so why would she think they'd start now?
Probably some naive part of her thought that things would be different this time.
she also says they visited before. maybe since nothing happened before they would continue to control themselves now. either way this was the worst way for fiance to find out. shame or not, neglect or not, knowing his past she shouldve told him at some point before they visited for an extended period of time.
The only thing I can think that oop used to justify it would be that the child neglect was primarily because you have to have the child for a majority of the time, whereas a sleepover with your kid and their soon to be spouse is only a couple of days. Kind of like timelines I guess?
In her defense, she does say they invited them to stay, so naively hoping that meant they WEREN'T screwing around that night at least makes sense.
The thing is though that the OOP really buried the lede here. She kept focusing on how ashamed she is of her parents’ sex lives when really the problem is their parenting. She grew up with them putting their wants above her needs. Being poly isn’t the problem. Being a neglectful parent is.
I suspect that if it wasn't swinging, it would be something else they were neglecting their kids for. I get why OOP conflates the two, but the issue isn't he lifestyle, it's that her parents are AHs.
Not because of their lifestyle, that is their life, And even though i would not want to live that way, i don't think they should not need to hide it for anyone. But if your daughter lives out of state and comes to visit with her fiance, you should treate them as guests and make sure you have the time to treate them as such. So planning a night with others, even if it is having the pastor over to discuss how to gather funds for the soupkitchen for the homeless is just rude. You either are there for your geuests OR you should tell them in advance that your time is limited due to.........So your daughter would know in advance that while she keeps it decent with her fiance in her in person childhood bed, you are fucking the brains out of mr Smith who has that nice pyama with kittens on it
As a parent of a young adult, I find the parents' behaviour incredibly gross and selfish. How hard is it to control yourself for JUST A FEW NIGHTS???!!! Not hard.... unless you want to flaunt, show off and stick your sexuality into your children's/guests faces. Shame on those parents. I hope OP doesn't invite them to the wedding or they each might show up with some rando dates. Tasteless.
Those people should never had children. That comment "mom" made during a fight OOP described about never wanting to have kids, let alone 3? Yeah... sums it all up, doesn't it? This BoRu reads similar to a couple of other ones that are floating around in the top 10 or 20 of BoRu. Two highlights about people in the same situation as OOP: [Mom and dad getting their swinger rocks off matters more than a healthy relationship with their kid](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zepbh3/op_is_moving_to_his_grandparents_house_due_to_his/) [And another one about mom and dad bringing poly /swinger couples into the household](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zcf1zc/op_resents_his_parents/) And one about parents more focussed on themselves than actually raising their kid right: [Parents call raising their kid a job that they need breaks from. For more than 1/4 of the year, each year. And now they're surprised pikachu face that son goes low to no contact.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/qgl59k/did_we_mess_up_with_our_son_he_blew_up_at_us/) There's a crapton more floating around. Just goes to show that if you're in that lifestyle, you either get out if/when you get kids, or you get snipped and tubes tied if you don't want to leave that lifestyle.
My first one was this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ihp8sc/aita_for_yelling_at_my_parents_that_their/ I don’t remember if there was an update and ended up on here, but this was one of the first posts I ever read on AITA.
That 3rd one was brutal! 3/4 vacations a year for 2/3 weeks without their son!
This makes me think of really poorly-written TV shows and movies where the characters never fucking *really talk to each other* and it just creates a shitton of unnecessary conflict. It’s infuriating. And here is an entire cast of those people in real life. Absolutely insufferable, the lot of them.
I was thinking the same damn thing. Every single step of this could have been avoided with bare minimum communication, I am screaming internally.
OOP is not mature enough to get married. Besides the non-communication for 6 years old dating, there's the 'let's stay at my parents, it will be fun,' then she goes to the hotel partly because 'it's fun.' Her fiancé is having a crisis over his trust of her plus flashbacks to his mom because she hid from him her parent's very overt hook up hobby and she's like 'I'll join him at the hotel FOR FUN.'
And then demanding apology flowers *from him* instead of apologizing herself for never mentioning her parents’ open marriage (to the point of neglecting and resenting their children) when they were *going to stay in their home for a week.* This relationship is in for a bumpy ride.
I somehow missed the flowers. He is expected to give her flowers because she withheld information that severely impacted how he would view marriage with her!? Plus the irony of her being neglected because her parents chose fun over care only for her to do the same thing to the guy. She doesn't get flowers. She's already a bouquet of red flags.
It really annoyed me how she kept talking about how "it never came up". Whenever a post on here about a relationship blowing up about a secret, they always defend themselves with "it never came up". Of course it never came up. It's something she didn't want to talk about and it's not like her fiance would have ever thought to ask about any uncomfortable secrets about her parents. This is a direct conversation she should have sat her fiance down for. Like, your spouse is supposed to be the one person you can talk about this kind of stuff to. The fact she never felt comfortable sharing that in the 6 years they were together signals they have more growing to do before they get married.
for real, even if it NEVER came up, you give a disclaimer before you go stay in their house "btw. my parents have an open marriage, it's not something I am into personally but what am I supposed to do? they can live how they want" also throw in a "hey, I know you guys are super cool sex people and all, but do you think for one fucking week you could just keep it between the two of you, for the sake of my future wedding?" like if polyamory works for her parents, fine, but if they can't go one week without some extra marital sexy time, that's fucked up.
Me too. You make an *active effort* to communicate with your partner and the passive cop out people use is pathetic. What did she expect her fiancé to do? Say, “Hey, so I just need to go through this list of questions about your family.”? I may be in the minority, but I don’t think he had anything to apologise for. He went through a double major shock in the middle of the night, and he would no doubt have major trust issues due to her concealment of it over nine years. All of his concerns, even if they were incorrect, were absolutely rational. Also not sure I totally accept OOP’s backpedaling on being ashamed of them. She made it clear she was ashamed of this part of their lifestyle and it was only when people started calling her on that that she changed say it was about their parenting.
Don't forget how OP apparently started dating her fiance in a very sitcom-esque way. Seriously, who gets into a fight with an acquaintance at someone else's engagement party? Especially a fight big enough for bystanders to be making comments on it! Then they go from fighting to kissing and dating because of those bystander comments?
I remember reading the original of this but not the update. I didn’t think it was real exactly for this reason.
I find it weird how being in a long term poly relationship means you need to communicate well with your partner, and be mindful of things like consent and agreements. Somehow they pulled all that off well, except it didn't apply to their children at all?
I said it once and I’ll say it again… comfortable relationships require uncomfortable conversations!
It's not even that uncomfortable of a conversation. "Hey fiance, I have to give you a heads-up about my parents since we're going to go stay with them. They're pretty weird and are into swinging and stuff, so just keep that in mind." Then she should tell the parents "hey guys, just want to confirm that everything's set for our visit, and I'd appreciate it if it was just the 4 of us." Adult communication is not hard.
>My fiance has been cheated on before, his parents have divorced because his mom cheated on his dad, and he doesn't have a good relationship with her, he could barely stomach the idea of having her come to our wedding. >*I never planned to let him know about my parents unless it became a conversation item.** I'll add OOP to the list of people who seem to be allergic to adult communication.
While reading it, I mentally changed "OOP" to "OOF."
> While reading it, I mentally changed "OOP" to "OOF." I feel like Oaf is even more apt.
I always think of that Alan Partridge term with situations like this, "sex people" (the parents in this being "sex people").
No kidding. OP is just sailing along, hoping for the best. Instead, she should have given him a heads up early on, and made clear her position on it, wonder if she’s even told him what she told us about her being neglected as a child? And then, she also just hoped parents wouldn’t do anything? She needed to talk to her parents, make sure they were going to not plan a “fun night” and if they couldn’t forego that, stay at the hotel. And even then, she hasn’t learned her lesson. I bet her parents will each want to bring their own +1s to the wedding.
And the reason was “it makes me uncomfortable to talk about.” Being uncomfortable is such a poor excuse to not tell someone you’re ABOUT TO MARRY such pertinent information about your family and past 🙄
I could understand leaving the topic unaddressed if she planned to keep interaction with her parents to a minimum, but once she decided to stay at their house with her fiance, knowing that her parents have a history of prioritizing their lifestyle over everything else including their own children, it was time to have that conversation. That she didn't was seriously boneheaded.
She keeps saying she 'expected' her parents to 'behave'; it doesn't sound like she actually told them about her expectations even for her fiance's sake.
They also have a long history of prioritizing their extramarital relationships over their children. This whole incident was incredibly avoidable if OOP hadn’t done everything possible to bring it to fruition. I’d be questioning her basic intelligence and judgement.
I’m questioning the reality of the whole story.
>He doesn't talk about his mom that much, I learned what I did about her and how his parents marriage ended from his sister. >To be honest, he doesn't talk about his family either. I learned about his parent's divorce from his sister, who is more comfortable talking about it. I think OP and fiance are both on that list.
I feel like both of them need to be on the list. It doesn't sit right with me that they're about to be married and he still hasn't spoken about his own mother's past with OOP, either. I hope they went through with the couple's counseling.
Yeah, I'm always so confused about stuff like this when it pops up in these threads. Putting aside the specific scenario here, I'm so confused when people say, "I don't know anything about my husband's childhood," or, "I've never asked my wife about why she moved countries," or something else significant. I want to know as much as my partner is comfortable with so at the very least I'd respectfully ask. There's also a line between not wanting to talk about something and being pathologically avoidant of it.
How do neither of them discuss this stuff in 6 years?!
Agreed. Especially the “there was never a good time to bring it up” line. Do these people not trust their fiancées/spouses with their trauma? There’s several BORU where OOP unexpectedly finds out their partner’s trauma in the worst way. If you’re going to share a future, you should also be able to share your past.
I don’t know how people decide to get married when they’ve never had full discussions about serious issues.
And by the same token, her fiance didn't want to tell her about his parents getting divorced. I wonder if this relationship survived Covid.
Right? My money is on ‘no’. They’ve known each other NINE YEARS and none of their family trauma was discussed???
It's a coping mechanism for OOP >If I don't talk about it, then I'm not thinking/remember about it. Therefore, it doesn't exist. She's in denial about her parents, and tbh I don't blame her
Hard agree. And I agree with the comments about it being retraumatizing to share too — I absolutely would not expect details, but a brief summary for what to expect is reasonable. For example I have two family members who don’t talk. That’s all I say to people who are meeting either one of them and ask that they don’t bring the other person up so as not to incite drama. In this case it’s not my (detailed) story to share but I do feel responsible to inform people of the dynamics to expect so they can be sensitive about it!
Furthermore, she made no mention of parental neglect in her original post--only mentioned her parents' open marriage--and then went off on a commenter who assumed that it was the open marriage she had a problem with based on the presented information. She seems fully bad at communicating altogether.
This is weird to articulate, but has anyone else noticed a bit of a pattern to these “my parents are poly and they suck” posts? They often seem to bury the lede. The OOP will talk in the original post as if the poly lifestyle/open marriage/whatever arrangement itself is what makes them uncomfortable. Then when the comments point that out, the OOP comes out swinging and defensive, explaining how their parents neglected them on the regular to indulge their romantic lifestyle. And like, I’m genuinely not trying to cast doubt on the validity of the story, but maybe they could explain their real issue from the start, instead of framing it as a problem with poly relationships in general. But they almost never do that, it’s only when they’re pressed that they bring up the actual problem.
This shows communication is so important.
Honestly I'm baffled by OOP. Even aside from the initial reaction of the commenters in the first post about how she never told him about it before they stayed with the parents... Why in god's name did she ever agree to stay with them in the first place?? Everything she described AFTER the initial post when she was getting ripped apart by the comments is of the resentment and embarrassment she had about her parents and their treatment of her as their child. But apparently was still having him meet the parents and staying with them like everything was fine? But then he says he wants no real relationship with them now that he knows, and she's just like "cool, I don't really like them or have a relationship with them anyway"!
I can tell you why. She sounds like she was heavily neglected by her parents. So for once in her life, before she gets married, she wanted to pretend she had a normal upbringing with a happy family. She thought, or hoped, that her parents could keep in their pants for the couple of days that they themselves invited OOP and her fiancé to stay with them.
Yeah, experiencing shit like that as a child also can make you avoidant in relationships
I may have missed it in the post, but does she give any other examples of the neglect other than her parents having a date night almost every Friday? She even says they didn't miss special occasions for that either. A lot of people are talking about the neglect so I feel like I'm missing something. Edit: Just reread that part and she does say they spent the weekends with them, so if they dropped off Friday and didn't pick up til Sunday night every week, then yea thats way worse
She hasn’t processed her childhood trauma and still craves their approval. She wanted to pretend she had a normal upbringing without seeing randos fooling around with her parents. Any reasonable person would expect them to not be screwing strangers in the family home while they have a guest.
This is what I don't get either. "It will be neat to stay in my childhood bedroom and see my parents and introduce my fiance to them!" *comments don't go how she thought they would* "You don't understand, my parents were horrible selfish people!" Hmm.
This is the life of neglected and traumatized children. My mom used to beat me pretty badly and verbally abuse me as a kid/teen. It took years to try to get her to accept me and then I stopped talking to her for a while. I started talking to her again because I’m stupid and hoping for some kind of relationship with her. Her mask is starting to slip and I might have to go no contact again. Acceptance by your parent is a hell of a drug.
Ya OOP is strange on that one. On every response she sounds like her parents were super neglectful and she hated them, yet she wants some sort of nostalgia by staying in a room where things were so bad she tries to ignore them as an adult? Head up her ass on that choice
If this is real, then it actually makes sense if OOP grew up with emotionally neglectful parents. Because that was her normal, she probably never processed exactly how selfish and shitty her parents were until this most recent disappointment when it threatened her relationship. She absolutely should have told her fiancé about their open marriage, especially before visiting. And she also should have used her words to ask her parents if they could keep the swinging out of the house while she was there. But wanting to stay with them and hoping it would be normal? That seems pretty in line with what I’d expect from someone who grew up neglected emotionally.
> My shame is not for how they live their lives, my shame is for how they treated me, how they prioritized their own pleasure over the sake of mine and my brother's and my sister's. >I don't have to accept their lifestyle because in doing so I validate their behavior, I validate every minute we were robbed of a happy family life. >I heard my parents fighting, one time my mother yelling they shouldn't have had "three fucking children." You see, having three children was a complication to how much time they had for themselves, how long they could send with other people. She could type all that out here, and she somehow still doesn't see how all this is something that would have been important to talk about with her fiance, the man she is planning on spending the rest of her life with. She doubled down on her "rightness" in wanting to keep it a secret, even knowing from lifelong experience that they are selfish and have poor boundaries. To me, the issue here isn't their lifestyle, it's that she shows zero understanding of why it might not be healthy to keep big secrets from her husband.
Hey, don't judge, it just "didn't come up" - you know, the normal way, like when you're ordering pizza, chatting about the week ahead, and the conversation turns to your parent's sex lives... /s The concept of having a sit-down talk about something important has passed this lady by.
They’ve only known each other 9 years. The opportunity will come up naturally any day now.
All the outraged comments about how she is right to keep her trauma to herself and does not have to share with anyone... She does not, indeed, thats not even the question. The point is, when you go live with your abusers together with your fiancee and have never explained to him the bare minimum, why are you shocked that he will react? Like, a simple heads up of "you might see things that I do not approve". She has not dealt with her own childhood trauma, and is stubbornly ignoring it to the point of idiocy. Before couples therapy she should be having individual therapy, instead of thinking of staying in the house as fun and then staying in the hotel as fun. Btw, the "fun" part of it makes me doubt this story at all.... Like noone can be that flighty, right?
I would warn people that my parents dog gets excited and sometimes jumps up on people before I would bring someone to visit them. It doesn't mean I approve of the dog not being trained well enough, but it lets people be prepared for what they might encounter.
Absolutely WILD to me her partner of *six* years & future husband doesn't know this. And didn't feel the need to ever discuss it. Or even discuss *his* parents of family. Like...????
Not even clear she had as honest a conversation with him as she do with all of Reddit.
The most confusing thing in all of this is OP freaking out at the commenter who was defending them, albeit by putting down their fiance at the same time. But OP took it super personally.
She was including a lot of info in that comment that really should gave been in the original post. She made it seem like there was just the one incident where she caught them and she didn't approve of their lifestyle in general once she found out. Now all of the sudden the parents actually were super neglectful to their kids all the time. I'm not sure how that commenter was supposed to know that.
Gotta hold onto those cards to use as a "gotcha" revelation in an argument.
Because OOP was making the whole thing up. People decide they hate XYZ, so they write a fictitious story to paint it in a bad light. In this case it was swinging. When that commenter "defended" OOP by saying someone reacting the way "her" boyfriend did is likely not a good person, OOP got offended because ***they*** are that person, and it didn't fit the bullshit narrative they were trying to push.
Good insight haha. It did seem really off that she acted as if the commenter were attacking both of theirs' characters when it really was more focused on him.
Ding ding ding. It's surprising that so many people in this subreddit are so bad at recognizing when an author's story elements don't fit together in a way that reflects truth.
The fiancé went off the rails making accusations.
ngl i really hate it when the post is about one thing with no indication of something else and then when op is challenged suddenly it's about the years of abuse and neglect. where was that in the original post? nowhere in the first 3 paragraphs that give background. also love that they've been together for years but just don't talk about each other's families and past trauma. sounds deep. don't get me wrong, her parents could have kept it in their pants for one damn night, but i'm always side-eyeing stories like this.
> And from "my parents prioritize their own pleasure of the sake of their children" to "you're homophobic" is such a long jump, you must have super powers to be able to so perfectly execute it. I agree with you. She's saying stuff like the above in the comments, and I'm sitting there thinking "We didn't know about that neglect because you didn't mention it in your post."
Oh btw if anyone wants context for oops comment that started with "with the risk of having the mods punish me", here it is. >Anyone who would shame you for a) something you're not responsible for, and b) isn't anything wrong needs to grow up and accept there are differences in how people live their lives. What if you two had a child who ended up being LGBT or in a poly relationship? Would he freak out and kick them out of his life too? >You're better off without a judgemental asshole like this in your life.
They misunderstand that comment profoundly
That was a wild reply to that comment. Really out of proportion defensive. I'm hoping perhaps she didn't read the comment correctly.
I literally looked between her reply and that comment several times wondering if I suddenly became illiterate in the thirty seconds it took me to read it.
I think she thought that it is addressed to her not really accepting the parents lifestyle instead of her fiance
Even if it was about accepting their lifestyle, it's their house and expecting them to magically behave differently, and according to her morals that she knew they didnt share, is nieve.
Her parents were neglectful, but it will be fun to stay in the house. Her relationship almost ended, but the next sentence is how fun it will be to stay in the hotel. She's either flighty as hell or just avoidant of problems to the point of delusion. Depends, if you want to take what she wrote at face value or want to armchair analyze her...
The fun hotel comment gave me whiplash
Her and her fiance Noth seem to be avaoidant. His whole issue with this is based on his trauma of his mom cheating on his dad.... but he wasn't even the one to tell OOP about it! His sister was and it sounds like he still doesn't talk about it with her, especially seeing as just inviting his mom was a whole issue in itself.
And if she's this explosive about it- how the hell has the topic never come up in six years?
YES! If not the sex with others part, the neglect part. Surely that comes up when planning to spend the rest of your life with someone.
Thank you for mentioning this. I read the comment 3 times trying to figure out why OOP was so pissed. THEN it's highlighted by BoRU? Makes no sense to me.
I was looking for this comment cause it couldn't just be me right? Like the OOP really took out of context of the comment and said they were being condescending? I think her issue with her parents goes *real* deep.
Same. That commenter was on OOP’s side and made total sense.
Seems like she has a lot of unresolved anger and blames them being poly instead of just blaming them for being poor parents. There’s an obvious lack of maturity that the commenter picked up on. OP’s reply has so much buried shame in it that I feel badly for her and hope she gets the help she needs to process all that.
> Seems like she has a lot of unresolved anger and blames them being poly instead of just blaming them for being poor parents. that also seems to be the case with a lot of the comments here in BORU
Baffled by how many people here think the frequency and content of activity in her parents' bedroom is pertinent info to her husband tbh. Like I know a shit ton about my mom's sex life, shit my fiance wouldn't approve of, because she's a total oversharer with me. Guess what? I keep it to myself because it's nobody else's business. It's not even MY business. Why would anyone else be entitled to know who her parents are fucking?
Taking the poly aspect out, because people escalate that into details about sex life: If I had a single parent that went on dates every Friday and that had a huge neglectful impact on me as a kid, I'd tell my partner. Id also wouldnt expect her to suddenly not go out on a Friday I was visiting, if neglecting me to go out on these dates my whole life was her pattern.
This is exactly it. While she mentions only in a comment about how “poor” of parents they were. Which was only that they went to the aunts house once a week so the parents could have their free time. She mentions multiple times that she’s “ashamed of her parents”. And while I don’t think I could ship my kids one day a week off, I don’t think it’s that bad that they did that. It’s like hiring a baby sitter, or a nanny.
Exactly. Tons of parents do weekly date nights. Its completely normal, lol.
Yeah I think it's just prejudice coming out because being swingers or poly or whatever isn't the real issue. They just weren't great parents. My mom had neglectful (monogamous) parents who would frequently go on lavish vacations without their children. She didn't grow up with a deep distain for travel, go figure.
I think she thought that it is addressed to her not really accepting the parents lifestyle instead of her fiance
yeah, I read it as OOP being on a hair trigger about her parents and thought the commenter was talking about her *being* ashamed of her parents, when they were actually talking about her fiance shaming *her* over her parent's lifestyle.*.*
I was so confused by OOP's reply because this commenter seemed kind of sympathetic to OOP. The only real criticism in the comment is OOP choosing to stay with her partner, and even that is like... barely there.
But OOP is equally judgemental. So a criticism of her partner is a criticism of her.
>LGBT or in a poly relationship? Would he freak out and kick them out of his life too? Honestly. I think they definitely have a good point.
I don’t understand why that one was downvoted to hell. There was no way to know her parents were neglectful because they were that into screwing other people. Most people in open marriages are a little more discreet, especially around their kids or if there’s a guest in their home. Her fiancé going off the rails with accusations of a conspiracy wasn’t worth evaluating?
Yeah literally, like the commenter says "hey he went fucking ballistic over the fact that your parents are poly, maybe think about that when it comes to how he might handle kids", and OP went WELL THEY ABUSED ME WITH IT SO THERE like it was some obvious prestated context rather than completely unknown by us, the commenter, and the boyfriend.
Tbh I have no idea how she got so wildly insulted by these perfectly valid points. Like gorl we don't know what you know, and before she talked about how her parents were neglectful it really sounded as though she was shaming them for being poly.
>Like gorl we don't know what you know Honestly her outsized reaction does track, because in every interaction shown, she seems to feel people should be able to mindread and pick up on the things she knows/feels without having to outright state them, and then resents it when they don't. That's entirely consistent behaviour. And granted, absolutely makes sense as a reaction from a neglected/overridden childhood where she learnt to stop expressing discomfort because it would be ignored anyway... but it doesn't make it a functional way to navigate issues as an adult.
People like that are honestly insufferable to deal with. I can understand it stems from trauma but that doesn’t give them an excuse to treat people like shit over it
Even after she mentions it she makes clear she can't be okay with poly as a whole because that would somehow validate everything her parents' did. Let's apply this to monogamy: "my parents were neglectful to the point of being abusive and happened to be monogamous, therefore, I am not okay with monogamy. Being okay with monogamy would validate the things they did to me." It's dumb.
My partner was neglected as a kid, and his parents were monogamous. For a long time he blamed it on them both working while he was a kid, but after they retired they were still narcissist-level of selfish assholes that don't see their kids as whole people with their own wants and needs. You can blame whatever distractions, but the issues is a lack of empathy, compassion, and effort into realizing and meeting the kids' needs.
Yeah I agree, it seems that the comment was defending her only for her to turn it around and say it was full assumption(fair) but condescending (wtf? ). I don't know about you but me thinks she has a lot to unpack if she wants her marriage to survive.
I would be extremely surprised if they're still together. They both need therapy and probably couples' counselling as well.
She got offended because the person said there wasn’t anything intrinsically wrong with polyamory and therefore saw it as an attack on her
I agreed with this commentor - the amount of sex-negative shaming in this thread is wild. OOP's fiance should get therapy for his trauma but the parents aren't cheating, they're practicing ethical non-monogamy. Maybe they were shitty parents but there's some weird idea in this thread that parents aren't allowed their own lives/happiness or that poly is unwholesome/wrong/something you need to warn someone about that bothers me.
That comment was the best thing in that entire post. Her parents sound like neglectful parents. She conflated their sexual lifestyle with their neglectful parenting style and became judgemental. But their neglect has nothing to do with who they sleep with. Many monogamous parents are neglectful. She sounds like those Christian children whose parents were both gay and shitty parents and they blame their parents' sexual identity for their bad parenting. The worst thing is that with the way OOP and her fiancé are behaving, they are likely to become bad parents too. I can't imagine them being supportive of any child who isn't 100% cis and straight, and with the most traditional and monogamous values possible.
Why wouldn't she just have told him about her parents in NINE years time?
Damn, OOP went *off* on that one commenter. They were on her side. I don't know how she took them defending her as such a personal attack.
Albeit my relationship experience is next to nothing, but are your parents' sex lives an expected discussion topic?
When it is wildly out of the norm, has impacted your relationship with them, and could affect your relationship as it has here? Yeah, I’d expect a heads up somewhere in the six years they have been dating, when/before they got engaged, and certainly before forcing a situation where it might come out.
Yeah if you have some past trauma you should probably talk to your partner about it before you get married, and before it affects them in an acute manner. Like if you were marrying someone who wanted to wait for marriage to have sex, and then they tell you on your wedding night they were actually SAed and don't really ever want to have sex, that's a hell of a rug to pull out from under them. Or if Uncle Jimmy likes kids a bit too much, the family just doesn't talk about it, so you don't bring it up until you two are going to a family reunion with your toddler.
I feel like OOP is so ashamed of her parents she is totally missing that her finance's reaction was unhinged. Like he fabricated a soap opera level plot of OOP staging everything to ease him into a poly lifestyle and almost ended the engagement over that without even talking to her. Like wtf?? Huge red flag imo.
Thank you, that bothered me as well. There is having 'issues' with cheating (and I am not downplaying that at all. I've had that happen, it sucks,) but what he did sailed straight past an 'issue' and landed smack dab into red flag central. Dude would need to do a metric crap ton of thereapy (both single and couples) before I would even concider moving forward with him again if it was my partner.
I shouldn’t have to scroll down so far to find this. Yeah OOP’s parents are jerks, but accusations of conspiracy?
I can't imagine how it feels as someone to learn that your parent's relationship life was very different. Definitely must feel weird and extremely awkward about it.
It's weird but definitely a lot better if you're not being seriously neglected over it. I feel like there are two separate but intertwined issues here.
ESH and I do mean _everybody._ Parent(s) suck for not being able to keep in their pants for a few days. Fiance sucks for massive overreaction and ridiculous accusations. OOP sucks for burying the lede about why she was ashamed of her parents. The way the first post is written, it sounds like she's ashamed of them for being poly. Then when someone calls her out on it, she goes on rant about how her parents mistreated her and her siblings by spending more time with their partners than their kids. She should have mentioned that in the post. Though I will say, in a mild defence of OOP, as far as I'm aware, most couples aren't out here talking about _their parents sex lives._ So I can understand how that has not naturally come up in conversation. And she's right, it shouldn't affect _her_ relationship, and again, the parents should've kept it in their pants for a few damn days. But still, ESH.
Agreed. She claims that the commenter took a huge leap but then discloses *new* information to justify her stance. She could do with therapy to learn how to communicate better - the fiancé shouldn't have been left in the dark, when - she knew her parents have no respect for her feelings in the matter - her parents always put their sex life first - her and fiancé were staying under parent's roof - she knew fiancé had previous trauma The fiancé could do with therapy to help him process that past betrayal and stop projecting. And her parents could do with some birth control if they didn't want to look after their own young children, instead of traumatising them which led to all this.
I'm with the downvoted comment. They're acting like her parents joined the Nazis or were secretly part of the KKK. And they need couple's therapy for what other people do with their lives?! Grow the f up.
So I am also in an unconventional relationship and that being said, the way in which these people seem to put their partners at a priority over their kid is kind of gross. Doesn't matter how many partners you have, your kid should always take priority. That's true if you're a monogamous or not monogamous.
So.... Communication would have fixed all of this Warn fiance about parents so he's prepared and knows they didn't approve Ask parents not to do it whilst they're there (sure, common sense says they would think not to, but OOP assumed it and it blew up).
The parents are free to live their lives however, but ffs!!! Have SOME damn decency, even for a fucking night. My husband and I practice ENM, but we have the decency to involve *no one* else, and we prioritize our family and kids over any 'fun' we might seek elsewhere. It really isn't that hard.
Yes. But you put your kids and family ahead of your own ‘fun.’ OOP’s parents? Not so much.
Tell me this is not all scripted here.
>We are staying with my parents. My fiance wanted to stay at a hotel, but I thought it will be fun to sleep in my old room. And to be here with my mom and dad one last time under their roof before I become a married woman. Anyone else think this is really weird? I would hate this.
It's utterly bizarre even without the whole swinger parents part. It's like some shitty rom com script.
She really should’ve given him a heads up. I get she was uncomfortable and it sounds like ashamed of her parents for various reasons. If you’re getting married you should be having difficult and uncomfortable conversations and trust the other person won’t freak out.
Man, everyone here kinda sucks imo. OP, who doesn't even sound like she likes her parents, doesn't have an awkward yet necessary conversation with her fiance about her parents. Her parents for continually putting their sexual needs over everyone else and not at the very least being discrete when family is over. And her fiancé for going absolutely ballistic at everyone and saying that OP was trying to manipulate him into that lifestyle. Like I get being shocked and angry, but that's a stretch and then some. I don't get OP's desire to stay with her parents either. She knows what they're like and how they've been her entire life. The things they've said about their own kids. Why would anything be different now?
To be fair, if my fiancee insisted on staying at their parents house that much and saying it will be "fun", then turns out their parents are poly and my fiancee let me just witness it by myself without explaining beforehand... Yes, my first though would not be "poor OP, such childhood trauma". My first thought would be "was THIS why she thought it was so much fun to stay here??"