Dear Steve and Shirley,
I have known my baby daddy since high school. When I was twenty, I got pregnant, and we moved in together. But he cheated a lot, so when my son was six, we broke up, and my mom offered to let him live with her temporarily.
My son is sixteen now, and my baby daddy still lives with my mom.
My mom has 7 sisters that are very messy, and they’ve always joked with her about having a fine young man living in the house. One of my aunts has said for years that she’s 100% sure my mom and my baby daddy are messing around. She swears my mom got drunk at a house party and went into the bathroom with my baby daddy for close to twenty minutes, then came out bragging about how good he was.
Over the years, I’ve heard things like, “How’s Jamma and Baby Daddy?” One of my older aunts finally told me the truth, but I didn’t want to believe it. She said my mom told her that she really likes my baby daddy—and it’s way more than a sugar mama thing. She said my mom feels terrible about it… but she’s not going to stop sleeping with him or put him out.
A short while after that, my baby daddy came over to see our son, and he had been drinking. They were playing video games when his phone rang. My son heard him say, “I love you too, baby. I’ll be home after I beat your grandson in one more game.”
My son tried to fight his daddy, and I had to get between them. My baby daddy told my son he’d teach him about being a man later—and that “stuff like this just happens.”
I told my son that’s not what manhood is about.
How do I fix this for my son? I'm hurt too, but I'm more worried about him.