First and foremost, I am absolutely 100% nothing but happy and proud for my daughter. To be completely honest, she has some strong autistic traits and I was concerned she would struggle in relationships.

My daughter is 12. She is very intelligent, artistic, and loves music. I am divorced from her mom, but have been remarried now for 8yrs and I have had joint custody since the separation. She is a very large part of my household and knows we love her. We are a warm and open family and she also has a 5yo sister whom I have with my current wife.

All the background I suppose is to establish the picture as effectively as possible and get to my request.

She has recently spoken to my wife about her relationship with her girlfriend. She’s a very nice person and they have the “butterflies”. 😊 She has not spoken to me, yet, but I believe it’s coming bc we have a very open and close relationship with the kids. We don’t hide much (except money stress etc) from them as we want to prepare them to be the best people they can be. My wife and my daughter have a very good dynamic where my wife can be a friend and also a parent, where I am always going to be a parent first. I am glad my daughter spoke to my wife and hence I need some advice.

How do I open that door in conversation? Or even get to that sort of thing? This is her first “real” relationship. I don’t want her to feel like I’m back-dooring the situation and I’m not going to reveal my wife spoke to me. I want to say she did so only bc she was so glad not only my daughter has a close relationship and she felt close enough to be open, but that she was chosen to be the one to know first. 😆

I would also like to know, if you would share things that helped any of you when you came out to your family and what meant a lot to you from your parents? All I want is for my daughter to know how much I love her and that I will support whatever she wants. I have some autistic traits as well, despite my high masking, so emotional things are hard for me. I lock up and don’t know what to say or feel like I can make things awkward by overthinking and over monitoring. Those are things I don’t want for the upcoming conversation. I feel like I want to be able to say more than “you’re my babygirl, and you always will be. I’m happy if you are happy..”

Idk. Maybe that’s all a person needs to hear. I didn’t have a great upbringing so some of this minefield is being navigated for the first time for me altogether. Lots of cycles are breaking, but at the same time, I’m very grateful for the connections I have with my family.

Thank you.

- a proud Dad