How do I open up to my conservative friends and family about our girlfriend in a polyamorous (MFF) relationship?

My wife and I have been happily married for 4 years. Six months ago, we both found a girl (I’ll refer to her as C) who melted our hearts. We both went on separate dates with C and eventually she moved in with us.

My wife isn’t mentally prepared to have children yet, but C recently got off contraception after a consensus decision.

We never felt a need to talk about our relationship with others, and many of them think we are just close friends, but we realize it has become somewhat pressing that I inform those around me about our relationship.

When we first started dating, I was able to open up about all of the ups and downs to my best (male) friend. But one day, his fiancee audited his texts and told her that she didn’t approve of him talking to me about polyamory – which I thought was quite petty and insecure – and so I lost that pillar of support.

Many of my close friends are in very committed marriages that motivate their normative views of what makes an acceptable family unit. I tried to steer conversations towards this topic a few times, but no one seems to take it seriously.

The most frustrating response is when you can tell that they think it’s some form of infidelity or fetish.

I also tried to gauge my parents’ opinion on this and asked casually if they were OK if I sought a second wife.

But my mother was vehemently against it with all kinds of non sequitur reasoning, such as “You don’t have enough time to take care of both wives.” (I’m usually the one being taken care of!)

And now that my parents have warmed up to my wife and really dote on her, I feel they’ll be even more outraged if they knew I was about to start a family with C.

My wife and I want C to feel co-equal in our relationship and don’t want her to have an awkward introduction to my friends or family.

It’s quite frustrating that everyone is accepting of the relationship in my wife’s and C’s social circles (my wife is American and C is Dutch), but it is only my Singaporean side that comes across as dogmatic and intolerant.

“I have been married for about a month and the romance is dying fast, because I am discovering my husband has many weird habits whenever he thinks he’s not being watched.

For example, when he watches football on the couch and doesn’t realize I am doing work on the table behind, he will slide his hand underneath his shorts and scratch his private parts, before bringing said hand up to his nose and taking a deep, invigorating breath, as if one were doing meditation.

Other times, the scratching results in some dirt that he rubs between his thumb and forefinger into a little grey ball of death, which he EATS.

Lastly, sometimes the scratching dislodges a strand of pubic hair, which he examines with keen interest in the same way David Attenborough looks at insects on plants, before sucking on it.

I have gone down on him many times and I can assure yall that it is not Bengawan Solo down there.

So why is he smelling, eating and sucking on by-products of his nether region? Do all guys do these?? How do yall cope with this disgusting side of your husbands/bfs???”

I want to abandon this account if I get weird DMs.

Paying my boyfriend’s credit card debt…

How stupid of an idea is this?

My situation:

1. This month my boyfriend of 3 years is moving from overseas to be with me!
2. A lot of the external factors that kept him spending (friends who couldn’t pay rent, etc) are going to disappear, and even though he is moving to a high-cost-of-living city, his expenses are going to drop dramatically
3. He has a lot of credit card debt. I don’t know the exact amount. At least $10k, possibly up to $15k.
4. We are both in well-paying professions. He already has a job for when he moves up here, and if it falls through, he’ll be able to get another one easily.
5. I have significant savings and a high savings rate.
6. He is looking forward to his credit card debt disappearing once and for all.
7. There’s a very good chance that in the future we will get married, and then “my” and “your” money will turn into “our” money. So him being in a financial rut effects my future.

So here’s my idea: Currently, I have a spreadsheet for my family and I that tallies up the monthly expenses (rent, utilities, extra things like if I pick up cat food etc). When the boyfriend moves in, the sheet will be adjusted to add him in.

Instead of him paying me that $X a month, I will extend to him an interest free loan for that amount, and he will contribute that much more towards his credit card debt (along with him paying considerable amounts of his own money; this would basically be helping him pay it down faster) .

Once his credit card debt is paid off, he will start paying me back. If the relationship dissolves, he will still owe me the money, it will still be interest free because I’m a kind soul.

Has anybody else here tried something like this? How did it go? Am I crazy for doing this? It just kills me that he’s probably paying 20%+ in interest (did I mention that he frequently forgets to pay things on time? Fortunately two months ago we sat down and I helped him set up autopay for all of his accounts).

The only flaw I see with this plan is that this upcoming year, I was planning to start paying my parents back for Uni (I owe the about $28k, in the form of an interest free loan.

After you subtract this loan, my networth is till around $140k). My family and I were planning to discuss the terms of this repayment over Christmas.

My dad hinted that faster payoffs mean that they will reduce the amount I owe them (ie, just gift me money) so I don’t know if paying for my boyfriend’s major reoccurring expenses will get in the way of this. I don’t think it will; I’ve got a decent amount sitting around uninvested, so since it’s not making me any money anyway, I’ll probably just hand my parents a significant percentage of the loan in a lump sum.

To make it clear, my idea was not to simply be paying a lump sum to eliminate his debts. It would be to defer his portion of rent/utilities/etc until after his cc debt was handled, so that he could pay it down faster.

Got called at a wedding. Walked away without saying anything.

(33M)Went to a wedding last week, first one since COVID. Thought I’d spend a little on a new suit. Tailored. Got dressed up. The wedding was fun enough, but then…

I went to get some air and on the way back, one of the bridesmaid (Late 20s) and two female friends (Late 20s)were standing near the door leading to the dinner hall, clearing scanning for someone.

Bridesmaid: “Look for the hot guy in the blue suit.”

(I’m in a new tailored blue suit)

Friend: Yeah he was hot….

(I walk past…)

Friend #2: Is that him?

Bridemaid: Ew, no he’s ugly.

(I continue walking, pretending I didn’t hear)

I don’t think they were there to judge me directly, I think they were just loud and didn’t realize that I heard the whole thing, but still it was cruel and I spent the evening doom scrolling. This has taught be an important lesson, no matter how much I spend on clothes, watches, haircuts. I’m just ugly. My face is doomed. Last time I dare to hope.

Anyway, I walked away without saying anything, which was tough, but when I got home and tired to sleep, it just kept replaying, over and over and over.

I hate my life so much sometimes, honestly.

Boyfriend is urging me to see a gynocologist so he can know if we can have kids in the future.

I (19, F) have been considering getting a nose job for quite some time now, i generally am satisfied with my nose when looking in a mirror but when i see photos of myself and my nose in all its 3d form it makes me feel quite insecure.