After 2 Years, Man Finally Tells His Fiancée About His 5-Year-Old Kid & Doesn't Get Why She's Angry
There are so many discussions that should happen before marriage. It's a big commitment and spending that time to get to know the quirks and dreams of your partner are key to starting the marriage off on the right foot. That's why many people date for a while before getting engaged, and then even at that point, some choose to have a longer engagement to give themselves time to work out those important factors.
Discussions about how many kids you want to have is one of those important topics. But one man didn't go that direction.
A man who is engaged to be married took to Reddit's popular AITA community to share a predicament he's in. He starts his post off saying that it's "complicated" before he gets right into it.
"When I was 18, I went on a 'lads holiday' to Phuket in Thailand. Whilst I was there we met a group of girls, from New Zealand and I'm from Australia," he said. "I slept with one of these girls and she ended up getting pregnant. I'm now 23 and my daughter is 5. I keep in contact as much as I can but obviously it's difficult with living in different countries."
The issue isn't that he has a 5-year-old daughter, the issue is bigger, really.
"I met my fiancé about 2 years ago now, and although I planned on telling her, it was never the right time to have the conversation," he confessed. For some reason, he thought that it wasn't that important to say since there was no way he'd be in a relationship with his daughter's mom?
"There was no chance of a relationship happening with the mother of my daughter and I only see my daughter three or four times a year if I'm lucky," he said. "My fiancé and I are due to get married in October."
They've been together for TWO years -- and he didn't tell her a thing!
And he didn't say a thing to his girlfriend before she became his fiancée. But, it seems he found his "right time" and finally told his wife-to-be.
"Well, last night I tried to have the conversation. Did not go well," he revealed. "She said that had I told her when we first got into a relationship she would've been absolutely fine with but the fact I kept it from her is upsetting and she's now talking about rethinking the wedding plans which I think is a little extreme."
He doesn't seem to get it, does he? It's not that extreme to think about getting married when something as huge has having a child wasn't on his radar as important to tell. What else is he hiding?
And then he dropped this line, "My friends of course all knew and didn't tell her which has also upset her as she's close to them."
He asked the Reddit community if he was in the wrong for not telling his fiancée about his child.
One person answered the man's question with another question: "How did you manage to see your daughter and not tell your fiancé?. The commenter added, "I just can't even fathom why you didn't tell her early on or how it didn't come up at any point in your relationship. You're definitely the AH."
Another said, "How on earth can your inner monologue stand right with this? You are basically going : 'Hey honey, I lied to you, I have a kid that is 5 years old, I go to see her a few times a year - Yeah, remember these times I said I was doing X, I was actually seeing my kid. Hope you don't mind that I seem to be such a great liar, obviously it's a conversation I would have liked to have sooner but hey, I lacked the cojones, but with us getting married it seems kind of more relevant so... Wait why are you overthinking this? You got the info, I'm a liar and I'm spineless when it comes to hard conversations, let's get married!'" and that's a pretty good rundown of how this seems to others.
People were firmly on the side of his fiancée, with others saying they're wondering why she's not just straight up leaving him.
"YTA, I'm surprised she's just rethinking the wedding and not completely leaving you," another Reddit user said.
Others pointed out that if the dad sees his daughter three or four times a year, that's a lot of times since he and his fiancée have been together without saying where he was going.
"Been dating for 2 years, sees his kid 3-4 times/year meaning he's seen kid something like 6-8 times since they've been dating," a person wrote. "I think the first time was the time to say something."
"Never the right time? It seems [you're] not mature enough to have hard conversations," another of the commenters said.
It's not a good look to lie like this -- having a child is too big of a part of life to hide from someone you're trying to have a solid partnership with."