Kate Hackett
It can sometimes be hard to determine what news is or is not yours to share. Take u/Dry_Leg_9006‘s story in Reddit’s Am I The A-hole thread: he wanted to know if he was a jerk for not telling his girlfriend that his parents are gay.
Before we cast aspersions, let’s check in on the entire post.
OP explains that he has his birth father and his other dad — Dad and Pops.
I’m 25M, i have two parents. My birth dad (John) who’s 48M and my other dad Dwayne who’s 45M. I call my birth dad John, “Dad”. And I call my other dad Dwayne, “Pops”.
OP’s mother left and he hasn’t seen or spoken with her in years, but he is very close to his dads.
My birth dad John was married to my mom for a few years, then she left my dad and yeah. They ended up divorcing and now she’s somewhere in California, idk where or what she’s doing. Haven’t talked to her in ages.
So dad, and pops i’m super close with. They are the best parents any child could ask for. I love both of them and they’ve always been with me. My dad introduced me to pops when i was a little boy and they had told me they were in a relationship (and i was all for it because i had saw my dad become lonely/sad when he was single) so seeing the fact that my dad loves someone and has a life partner made me super happy.
It sounds like OP has been supportive and really happy for his dad when they got married. He loves both dads and is very happy. Aw!
Pops & Dad got married, and we’ve been living an amazing life. I’m probably more to close to Pops then my own dad haha. Due to the fact that Pops is really cool and he’s laid back. I love both of them equally and they love me as well, and i’m blessed to have them as parents.
OP has been dating a girl for a few months and she recently asked for both sets of parents to get together.
For a few months i’ve been dating this girl bella who’s my age. I thought she’s pretty cute and i liked her. So we kicked it and recently she told me “My parents want to meet your parents and want to come over for dinner” I said sure. I’ll tell my family.
When the girlfriend arrived, she quickly realized that OP had two dads and was surprised that OP never told her.
So yesterday, Friday night. Bella comes in. Pops greets her and says “Come on in sweetheart, dinner is ready”. She says “You must be ____ dad so good to meet you” and she shakes his hand and she sees Dad come out of the kitchen “He’s holding the mac n cheese tray” with the mittens and is putting it on the table. Then bella says “Who’s he?” i said, “Oh that’s my dad”. She said “I though he’s your dad” she’s referring to Pops. I say yeah. That’s my pops? And that’s my dad? She pulls me to the side and says “I didn’t know your parents are gay? Oh my god? why didn’t you tell me?”
OP was flummoxed over why that was a problem; before her parents even entered the house, the girlfriend asked them to leave. OP’s dads took it in stride, but OP was pretty upset.
I genuinely didn’t know why, that’d be an issue or so. Because your dating me, not my parents and all. So it shouldn’t matter. But i guess it’s a concern for her. Her parents come at the door after they parked the car and bella tells her parents “let’s leave” and they left. I told my parents i’m sorry and they said “son don’t worry this is nothing new haha” and then we all sat down and enjoyed dinner and went to sleep.
So … was he wrong not to tell her?
So AITA for not telling?
Pretty distressing, right? I mean, it’s not like the girlfriend mentioned her straight family — but that is the kind of world we live in.
As one Reddit user pointed out, “NTA. But perhaps naive. Unfortunately it’s probably better to let a girlfriend know you have two dads so you can weed out the homophobes BEFORE you accidentally bring them home for dinner.”
Another person said, “Obviously you dodged a homophobic bullet here, but you should consider “prescreening” this information so your parents don’t have to deal with unnecessary bigotry. Just tell women ahead of time and if they object then you don’t bring them home. It’s the considerate thing to do for your parents.”
