My son is product of my ex’s affair

I’m raising an 8 year old boy who is not my bio kid. My ex-wife cheated on me and got pregnant. She wasn’t sure if it was mine because she was on birth control.

When he turned two, it became obvious that he wasn’t mine and my marriage was over. My ex tried to shut me out of his life but over the years I got physical custody and she pays me child support.

For all purposes he is my son emotionally and legally. I don’t think he knows how he was sired. We do not look alike and it’s becoming more obvious as he gets older.

He looks like his bio father. It kills me how hurt he will be if and when he finds out. He will because he’s very into science and asks questions about his heritage.

I try to smother him with as much love as possible and hope he’s not too hurt by everyone not telling him the truth.

Netizens’ comments

• A dad is the person who raises you into a man. Not the one that made you. Kudos to you bro. You’re a great man.
• I’m adopted, and I have to urge you to tell him as soon as you can. It is much better to know this and grow up knowing it rather than find out when your in your 20s or 30s…so many options may be unavailable to him at that point, and it’s such a shock…
  At 8, you can tell him and he’ll understand slowly. It won’t be nearly as big of a deal. He’ll just know that he’s loved and taken care of, you can explain this to him on terms that you both are comfortable with right now, and you can explain to him that nothing has to change. I really cannot stress to you enough how much better it will be than if he finds out later in life, and especially if not by you, but by someone out of anger or hate.
  Good luck.

I am starting to find dating boring, tiring and expensive. I also find that it is unfair that guys have to do almost everything. I will be putting the juicy part about me complaining about girls’ lack of efforts in dates in the 3rd last para. Burn me if you want to in the comments section. If you think girls put in a lot more effort than guys, list the things in the comments as well. Would love to hear about those.

Most of the time it goes to 2-3 dates and some don’t even go beyond 1. The worst ones are those that you spend weeks or months on the app and never meet in real life. I love it when they find something stupid to stop dating me like my salary or my choice in music (yup that happened) or because I don’t drink alcohol or the best one and the most common one, because I want to have sex after marriage. I do ask them why they want to stop and those are the reasons they give. The more polite girls use the ghosting method which makes me feel more respected,

My salary, though average, is definitely sufficient to run a family. I am just no rich. You do realise that I could get a better job in the future right? I might be the next Elon Musk who speaks singlish. Get ready to eat your words!

Oh yes, if I was a girl and I wanted sex after marriage, my wish is to be respected and I am apparently holy. If I have the same request as a guy, I am a loser? Love the double standard!!!

I only reject girls who are rude, manipulative or think they are made of gold unlike everyone else

The rule is that guy has to pay for the first date so free meal for the lady. If I ask to go dutch, I seem petty. If I pick a simple place, they complain so i have to find something that is at least mid tier. To be honest, I don’t mind paying for meals even it means for the rest of our lifes together. The problem is that we stop seeing each other after a few dates and this happens so often. I am losing a lot of money.

I also feel that the guy has to put in more effort. Come on, the competition is rough out there. I am not exactly Chris Evans. To make myself stand out, I have to put a lot more effort. Based on the person’s profile, I would think of a relevant place or activity for the dates. I would research about the things they mention in their profile like a certain sport or some famous figure. We will have more to talk about and most of the time, it impresses most of them except for the ice queens. They just need to come and enjoy the date, no effort from them at all. They might not even remember my profile or what was in it. If the date sucks, then it is my fault. Yes, I feel amazing when that happens, especially listening to them complain.

I have done this dating thing so many times that I have a routine like those guys performing shows on stages. I have experimented on various jokes or types of humor and found the most optimal ones. The only thing is that since I pay attention to their profile, I might customise it to them. We also talk about the things. Literally the same darn things. Deal breakers, interests, etc. Same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over (approaches infinity).

As i mentioned, I am not Chris Evans but I do groom myself as best as I can. Most girls would come to dates in a decent outfit. I love it when girls come as if they just woke up from their bed and show how much they care about the date.

I find the lack of effort from girls extremely annoying. Some come to dates not remembering my profile. If the conversation is dry, I have to be the one who has to keep it lively and prevent it from turning awkward. Most girls don’t even try anything. They get free meal on the first date. They don’t have to plan dates. They can give the uninterested face and it is fine. If I do it, then it is a sin.

Out of all the girls I have dated, only 3, that is right, only 3 girls have seemed to put in effort. 2 of them made an effort to keep the conversation fun. The last girl planned the second date voluntarily. I am still friends with all 3 of them till today because they are WORTH IT.

Honestly, I don’t mind putting the effort. It is fun to do some of the things. If nothing else, the least I expect is for the girl to put in effort into the conversation and as a plus, remember something about me from my profile or our chats. The problem I have is that despite putting in all the effort, it keeps failing for stupid reasons (2nd para). Guys deserve to be respected too by the way.

As someone who have been in the workforce for a few years now, I am genuinely concerned for students who have just graduated/graduating soon.

While they are probably smarter and are more exposed to the world than the previous generations, I wonder how is the situation in terms of insurance nowadays?

Back in the days we take agents’ words at face value and believe we are indeed getting good advice. Students, please do some reading before getting insurance! There are many agents out there who are really good at giving half-truths to secure a deal. I have taken losses before in the past and so I do not wish for such things to happen to you????. There are companies like MoneyOwl (I am not affiliated nor paid to do so, but just believe in what they do) that can provide conflict-free advice and they will never push you to buy.

Even if you decide not to buy from them you learn what you need and buy from others(your friend or whoever), but at least you probably won’t buy unnecessary policies. Think about how many bbts you can buy from saving 3-5k/yr.

My only wish is that future generations of people won’t end up paying for unnecessary policies. Moneyowl, please do university outreaches to educate our younger generation????. Alright sorry for the boring rant.

(PS: A loved one just kena from agent which really infuriated me)

(PPS: There are indeed good agents out there, but not everyone may have the luck to meet one or the ability to discern)

Couple of months ago, I told a girl on tinder that I drive a bmw when she asked (gold digger sensor activated) Nonetheless I still met up with her n.

I parked my car and walked towards the spot. When she arrived and while we chatted, she asked where’s my car. I jokingly told her oh bmw means “bus, mrt, walk lol” ( yeah I know, it’s an old dry ass joke I picked up somewhere).

Thought I’d be funny to break ice but bruh she got mad saying I “cheated her feelings” etc and just got up and left.

I was left there like 😕 Anyways left the place and went back to my m340i and just I as was exiting out of the carpark, lo and behold there she was standing by the roadside waiting for grab or whatever.

Wound my windows down, drove slowly towards her, gave her the middle finger and revved the B58 in her face before speeding off.

You always see such stuff on youtube but never imagine it would actually happen to you and actually meet people this shallow and materialistic.

But rubbing it into their face at the end makes the whole experience worthwhile lol.

The tech industry in Singapore and Computer Science is now at the top of the food chain and the forefront of development. It can be said that CS and Tech are the king of all jobs right now. Computing students have both the money and the power, they earn a lot and are generally respected by our society. This is just a small but true story to demonstrate why the tech industry is blooming:

My younger brother (born 1995) have just graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering at NUS. However, instead of going for the traditional ME role, he self-taught everything about programming and software engineering, signed up for CS modules as his UEs, and worked remotely for a mid-tier American company for 2 years. He went to class in the morning and went online for only 3 – 4 hours every night to have his works done, earning an official net monthly salary of 3600 USD – or about 4800 SGD. But the main income actually comes from the freelance and commissioned outside projects – completing 1 to 2 of these every week and he could easily earn 9k – 10k SGD in total without paying any additional dollar of tax. After working for nearly 3 years, he now owns a car and a large condominium in Orchard.

Almost every girl are infatuated whenever they hear about IT guys and software engineers. There is this girl studying oversea in Australia, coming back here in Singapore to work and was referred by her older sister to work at the same bank. For some unknown reasons, when my younger brother goes to that bank and doing some transactions, he got both the girl and her elder sister at the same time, and all three started to live with each other in my younger brother’s condominium. The two sisters are hailed from a relatively wealthy and prestigious family, with the father being a university professor and the mother working as a civil servant for the government.

When the parents first heard about the news of all three of them living together, they are quite angry and threaten to disown the two sisters. However, after hearing that my younger brother works in the tech industry, they completely changed their attitude towards him. They called and inquired him almost every week, giving him gifts and doing everything to push him to marry their precious daughters as quickly as possible, so as not to miss on the opportunity. My younger brother should have married the elder sister this month, but due to Covid-19 restrictions and some other issues, they have been delaying their wedding ceremony.

My Strange Addiction..? Help..

Please don’t judge or be mean. I don’t know who else I can talk to about it. This is not meant to be a joke because I think there may be something wrong with me. I am seeing a therapist for something else entirely, but I don’t think I am ready to share this. I don’t know when it started or why.

Tried to do some deep thinking to find out the root cause of this, but to no avail. I’ve always been addicted to smelling my partner. Like specifically, when they’re extra sweaty and the beautiful scent of the perspiration after it dries up on their skin. The pungent the better. It leaves this sweet, natural aroma. My partner doesn’t know about this. I know people say it’s important to discuss what they like/dislike with their partners but I can’t. When I smell their scent, I just feel so close and so much love.

I’ve always had a thing for smell but never this extreme with my exes.

My partner is serving NS now and whenever he books out, I will tell him not to wash his Smart 4, trying to be sweet and helpful, offering to help him wash. But all I want is to secretly get a whiff of his sweat drenched uniform. I feel guilty and ashamed for this. I feel like I am lying to him just to fulfil my needs. I get secretly upset when he books out in cv because he doesn’t sweat as much when he is in uniform and the smell isn’t the same. I love it especially when he falls asleep without showering because he is too tired. He is also a deep sleeper and we both sleep naked. I will wait until he is asleep. Best if he is asleep with his pigu facing upwards. I would slowly creep up on him and gently spread the cheeks just to get a whiff of that fermented goodness. There’s always this sour smell that I absolutely love. I know many of you will think that it’s gross, but I feel like at that moment, we are truly connected. Sometimes when we get intimate and its my turn to, you know, service him orally.. I would sneakily try to get a whiff of his sweaty ballsack. It has this smell, similar to a swimming pool, chlorine-ish scent and I can’t get enough.

Don’t even get me started on his used underwear. Sometimes I dig through the washing machine just to smell it before starting it up and doing laundry. On a few occasions, he caught me in action and I have to come up with stupid excuses like, “Oh cos I don’t know if the clothes have been washed yet so I smell first”. I don’t know if he suspects a thing and I feel terrible hiding this from him and constantly needing to lie to him to get away with this.

What is wrong with me? How can something wrong feel so right? Is there any like-minded individuals like me or do I need to speak to my therapist about this?

Emotionally unavailable mum

Pardon for my long rant.

My mum is in her 60s, and dad is in his 70s. They live together but fights (quarrels) so every now and then that it spills over to their children (me, my sister and brother in 30s who moved out with our own families abroad and locally).

We grew up in a mid-low working class family and we appreciate our parents for doing their best to get us all to tertiary education.

Their fights are always about money, my mum is constantly on about how they have no money, and constantly unhappy about how other people around her is more “well off” judging by the type of residence they live in, and by how much their children gives. She’s also very sensitive and constantly thinks that people are disrespecting her, negative about society, inferior about her chinese education background.

My retired dad is tired of her unhappiness and negativity, and so turns a deaf ear to her ramblings in seek for a more peaceful life, in other words, “Bo chup “ (Side note, they have reached that point in life that they are open to part ways but financially not viable)

As children, we tried and are still trying our best to make things better for them, because seeing them happy makes us happy (and be at peace too). Since my mum is very financially insecured, we try our best to chip in monthly. We asked her, what exactly is making her unhappy? She says money, and so we ask how much? And she will beat around the entire bush but not answering the question. We tried to ask her to go socialise with the community and all and she will say “such activities need money one”. Thing is, there are always activities that are less on money like volunteering and all.

She doesnt reach out to us children often (and little grandchildren), saying that because we are busy and so we should call the folks instead. We have a common family group chat and we keep in touch with photos and all for those abroad, but she doesn’t respond to them claiming “wait I say something wrong you all will say again so I just keep quiet la” – thing is we sometimes try to correct her mentality, voice out our thinkings but to her we shouldn’t be disrespecting her.

Thing is, I would love to call her, but if I call her in the wrong timing (when she’s not in the right mood) she will end up saying nasty things and will end up destroying my day too. She says things like “we should live our own lives don’t interfere”, “husband is you choose one etc”, “I have no time for you all, I’m very busy”, “you all Uni grads so now talk like as if you guys know it”, “if I wasn’t a stay home mum looking after you kids last time I would so much more financially stable”…. And the list goes on.

One instance, She made a fuss when my sister in law didn’t call her to announce the birth of her granddaughter before calling her own mother. (They wanted both sets of in-laws to come in diff days to the hospital so it’s easier to handle, but contacted them both on the same day.) little tantrums like these do wreck happy occasions and random days.

Us children talked to her about seeking professional help on her psychological well being, to be at better peace with herself and to count blessings, and also anger management. We’ve managed to get her an appointment And so she’s obviously very displeased with us labelling her, but we’ve told her many times -falling to deaf ears, we children are hoping to help her be happier and are behind her to support.

It really bothers me and makes me sad because she doesn’t see how much we kids love her.

On my side, I’m trying my best to not inherit her behaviour and to be a better mum, to raise my toddler son a different way to how I was raised.

Sometimes I just wish I have happier parents and parents that I can talk to productively and look up to?

More help for foreigners

The Singapore government should have more agencies to help foreigners. They are the one who wants more foreign talents to work in Singapore, so more help should be provided.

Other countries like New Zealand have free school & healthcare for foreigners. What about Singapore? They should provide more subsidies for foreigners. House rental subsidy as the rentals now are sky rocketing, healthcare subsidies, education subsidies, etc.

They should also assist the foreign families. Allow their spouse to work with a LTVP pass instead of banning them. Singapore needs these foreigners to strive, so they should focus more on foreigners too.

Here are what netizens think:

• If you are a “foreign talent” then do your math before moving here. If you can’t, then clearly you aren’t.

• No free lunch in this world. Someone else will have to pay for what you want “free”.

• Not happy go back loh.

• I think you can take a look at the difference in the income and business taxes for both countries before sharing further. What may be viable in one country may not be viable in another.

• Since you say other countries, then u go other country la talk so much.

• There’s high education foreigners and low education foreigners. High education foreigners are paid $xxk/mth by their own companies and had extensive package which will cover the entire family.

• If by giving foreigners a job in Singapore is not helping, then stay in your country try and ask your government to help you with your suggestion.

 Is he stingy?

I wonder if you consider your partner stingy if:

• Pay for
• Outside meals
• Doctor visit

Dont pay for

• Shopping (kid’s growing up stage thing, stroller, walker, high chairs etc)
• Household necessities
• Child necessities (milk powder, diapers etc)
• Helper’s salary

These are just some of the things I remembered… im very confused with my partner’s love language… he told me because I said i can afford so he dont give me allowance for the things that stating above as dont pay…

He earns 3/4 times than me… those i stated as dont pay is a monthly expenses… while those “pay” don’t happen frequently… we dont go out often for meal, needless to say we dont go doctor visit every month too… so basically im the one spending more… i dont know whether he is acting blur or he just being stingy to me… whenever i bring up the issue, ended being gaslighting… i told him to take up helper’s salary as its 20% of my salary but not even 10% of his… but he always reluctant to give, and i have to remind him every month…

im sick of being a “beggar” in this situation, any advise how to deal with this type of person?

Here are what netizens think:

• I guess both of you never sit down to discuss finances together. Some of the earlier people approach is good. What I can say is tell you hubby to do a proper sit down discuss, share the load equally and plan future goals together. It’s not 1 person responsibility to shoulder the entire household expenses. Do a balance sheet up listing assets, loans and monthly bills that need to be clear. Joint account for joint liabilities – diapers, food, helper, Internet, utilities bills goes here. Each can contribute X amount monthly. If he refused, then you need to consider if he is really a husband that you can depend on in crisis.

• Having a bank account with both parties contributing to the account in ratio of payscale?

• Yes, he’s stingy. Make him contribute or start taxing him for things that he use and never pay for.

• Yep. Tell him u going to stop having a maid. If he wants he pays. Maybe he gambling, investing or just super stingy. Tell him the kids are his also, need to share right.

My wife did not shower for a week

My wife became a different person after marriage and worse after having our kid.

After marriage, she stopped dressing nicely. She wears the same T-shirt and jeans all the time. When she got pregnant, she stopped putting on any makeup. Now after having our kid, she only showers once every 2 days. Her reason is that she’s tired. Things turned from bad to worse.

Recently she did not shower for a week. She also cut her hair short, so she looks like a tomboy now and has gained a lot of weight from when we first met. The way she talks has changed too. Nowadays, she is either screaming at my kid or complaining about life. This is all very negative. She was no longer bubbly and cheerful.

To be honest, I am not very handsome. I know I have no right to expect my wife to look like a model. But the truth is SHE HAS BECOME A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON and I feel cheated. I try to find reasons to continue feeling attracted to her but I struggle every day.

I feel love for the mother of my child, but not attraction.

My female friends say it’s because I cannot afford the standard of living that will allow her to upkeep her ‘looks’ and ‘youth’. It’s normal for a woman like her to turn “auntie” in my situation. Perhaps they are right, maybe if I could afford a maid and she could stop working and get help with our kid, then she could look like one of those rich guy’s sugar babies. Even then, I couldn’t understand why other wives could have it all together and mine just doesn’t care and has given up.