My Mom’s New Relationship Didn’t Bother Me—Until He Revealed What He Really Wanted / Bright Side

Family drama level: EXPERT. 🎢 Caught between his mom’s happiness and a really weird request, this man is trying to keep it together, resisting the urge to say, “Seriously?!” Read the story and see how the internet weighed in!

Here is the full story:

I’m a 35-year-old man. My dad died when I was 19, leaving my mom with me and my two siblings. It took some time, but eventually, my mom started dating again.

We don’t live together per se, but our houses back onto each other and have a gate, so it’s pretty common for her to offer to do my laundry or for me to just go over for dinner or go look after our dog. Plus, my siblings and I go there for dinner every other Friday night.

The men my mom (58) been dating have been getting younger and younger, and I was okay with it. She’s been very open with me and my siblings that she wants to get married again, and we’ve always been supportive. At least after the initial shocks.

The latest guy (24) is by far the most serious, and they’ve been dating since around last June. He proposed at the start of autumn, and they want to get married next summer. Again, my siblings and I are fine with this because it’s her life, and we trust him. He’s a nice guy, and they clearly love each other. But anyway…

So long and short is, this weekend, her fiancé, let’s call him “Phil,” called me and asked me if I could come over. I said, “Yeah, sure, I’ll be over after work,” and I assumed he just needed help with some DIY stuff they were doing.

When I got over there, he called me “Sport” and said we needed to talk. I should mention this is something he does to me and my little brother, calling us things like “Kid,” “Sport,” “Scout,” “Little Buddy,” or my personal favorite, calling us “Red” and “Blue” seemingly out of nowhere. My brother is 30, by the way. He tried it with my little sister (28) too once and called her “Princess” once, but he stopped when she just stared at him.

So the thing with Phil is that he reminds me a lot of Charlie Day’s character in Horrible Bosses in that his sole ambition has always been to meet a girl, get married, and have a family. When he told this to my brother and me, my brother made some joke about how maybe our mom’s going to ’come short on the last part,’ and he got very upset, but they made up after.

Anyway, so I went around and asked if my mom was around, and he said no, it’s just him, and that we “really need to talk man-to-man.” I said sure, and he started talking about how he’s always wanted to be a father, etc., and raise a son to call his own, and then he dropped this bombshell by saying, “Now I know I can never replace your father, the man who made you, but it would mean the world to me if you could call me dad.”

I’ll admit it: I sniggered a little. And then I knew he was serious because he looked like he was about to cry. And he didn’t drop it, either. I asked if he really meant it, and he got really emotional and started talking about “what it means to be a man” and how his purpose is to have and provide for a family, and he wants me and my siblings to be part of that family.

As he reiterated, he’ll never replace my “father” (and this did rub me the wrong way a bit), but he’s ready to step up and be my “dad” and provide for and protect me and my siblings. And I was just sitting there thinking, “Dude, I’m a decade older than you and live in a separate house. I don’t need ’providing’ for, and even if I did, I don’t think a guy a third of my age who works part-time at the hardware store and is into collecting manga is the man to do it.”

No offense if you are into that, lol, just… I dunno, I was a bit taken aback. I was in shock, so I just said, “Okay,” and he got emotional again, but in a happy way, talking about how he wants to go camping or go to a baseball game (I don’t even like baseball) and how he joined the Lions this year and how he wants to bring me into it too “as his boy,” which just feels so surreal (even more so as I’m a Shriner, so all this talk of service and charity isn’t the brag he thinks it is) because again I’M 10 YEARS OLDER THAN THIS GUY!

Well, I ended it by just saying, “This has gotten a bit too weird,” and I was going home. He got very upset, and I left. I called my brother, and he agreed it sounded weird.

Later, my mom called me, and she wasn’t disappointed but admitted it’s made him very upset and depressed. I told her that if he’s embarrassed, he doesn’t need to be; I get he’s excited about the marriage, and we can just laugh this off as a funny story. She then said that wasn’t what he was upset about; he (and she, too, a bit) is upset about the fact he “poured his heart out, and I rejected him.”

She said, “Yeah, it is a ’bit kooky,’ but this is how he proves to himself he’s a man,” and I guess I was a bit angry and said something like, “First off, it’s not my job to certify this, and second, this doesn’t prove he’s a man; it just proves he’s a nutjob.” I apologized immediately, but she said she didn’t want to hear it and hung up.

She called back 10 minutes later, and we apologized, and she begged me to just go along with it until he “has some kids to call his own.” I won’t go too much into the details here, but she sort of let slip they plan to try IVF treatment because she’s “not ready to give up on being a mom just yet.”

And while I have my own thoughts about whether or not that’s a good idea, I’m not here to litigate on that. We finished up fine, and I reiterated I’d support her; she agreed that it was definitely a ’stressful situation’ for me but begged me to at least think about it. Which leads me to here.

I did think it over, and obviously I’m going to say no. I had a dad, and he died, and that’s the only dad I’ve ever needed, I’ve ever wanted, and I’ll ever bestow that title on. I’m not asking if someone’s unreasonable, what I should do, or what I should say.

This clearly means a lot to him for some reason, and I deeply love my mom, so I want to try and minimize the damage. Especially as we’re still so involved in each other’s lives, and they live behind me.

How can I make it clear to them, as painlessly as possible, that I think this is weird and borderline offensive? I really don’t want to rip the band-aid off because I fear what it might do to the family.

Other Reddit users supported the man.

• “It’s not your responsibility to make your mom’s boy toy feel like a man. You’re closer to being his much older brother than his son. Weird.” @SGTPepper1008 / Reddit
• “There’s nothing you can do NOT to offend a 24-year-old man who wants a 35-year-old man to call him ’dad.’ He’s gonna be offended, no matter what.
  Shut that down, have him call you by your first name (or any nickname you go by) EXCLUSIVELY, and don’t worry about offending his feelings. He’ll get over it. He’s a big boy.” @kemikica / Reddit
• “I think your sister is the one who handled it like a champ and shut it down before it went far. I think you and your brother gave him the impression you were fine with the dynamic, and you embarrassingly shut him down… For that, I see where it went a bit wrong. Other than that, it sounds like the whole thing is sweet, and you guys are being great.
  He just got carried away. Maybe do like your sister. Tell him, friends/cordial relationship, and that’s it. No one in anyone’s toes. And no more cringe exchanges.” @MoonWatt / Reddit

And shared their ideas on how to handle the conversation.

• “Mom, I love you, and I’ll support whatever relationship makes you happy. But I’m not going to participate in a weird charade where I’m a child getting a new stepfather. That’s not a reasonable thing to ask of me, and I hope you and Phil can understand that.” @HatsAndTopcoats / Reddit
• “I’m not going to call you that, because I feel it would be too disrespectful to my dad, who died when I was 19, and you were 8.” @HermitBee / Reddit
• “Mom, I love you, and I’m glad you’re happy. I’m genuinely interested in having a positive relationship with Phil, but it cannot be completely dictated by his terms. I’m your son, not a prop to be used for his wish fulfillment. I had a father who will always be my father, and the title ’dad’ is not trivial enough to me to give it away simply because someone asks nicely. Please respect my wishes.”
  “Phil, I’m happy you and my mother are happy. I want to have a positive relationship with you, but we need to forge our own path. I was raised by my father, and now that I’m a grown man, I’m not looking to give away his title to anyone else, ever. I’ll be frank and tell you that I’m never going to view a man over a decade younger than me as a paternal figure.
  It makes me uncomfortable. I think most people would feel similarly. If you want to establish bonds, then it needs to be as equals, not me conforming to your emotional needs no matter how it makes me feel in turn. That’s not a real relationship. Can we all please move forward from this?” @lastofthe_timeladies / Reddit

Awkward moments—they’re part of life’s comedy reel! We’ve all had them. This collection of 12 cringeworthy situations will not only make you feel relatable, but also will add a pinch of laughter to your day.