Alright gents, recently I posted and said I looked at her socials, etc. etc.

Here’s the bigger part of my dilemma as a dad putting my own stupid-ass feelings to the side:

My kids know the new guy to some extent and have since she cheated on me with him; however, to what extent, I don’t actually have a clue. For reference my kids are basically early teens. I want them to know that I’m still their dad, that I’m a safe place for them, all that stuff…

Since they haven’t brought him up to me and seem to be very reluctant to do so, would you breach the subject with them? For context, I never told them that their mom cheated on me (yes I figure that’s pretty foolish of me now, too, but I wanted to protect them and myself and their image of their mom, and I still don’t have a clue what I’m doing here)…

I just need some advice. Should I continue waiting for them to bring him up? It’s been pulling at me to talk to them especially since she made it SM-official recently. It’s also been about a year and a half since they have known at least his name (saw a text on one of their phones from her).

My oldest also seems to imply once in a while that they have been lying to me, so I feel the weight of making them toe the line of listening to their mom [apparently] tell them to lie to me and listening to me basically just asking for the decency and respect of the truth. Unless I’m reading too much into it and then end up saying something up they don’t actually know about and hurting them that way instead?

Help a brother out. What would you do? Also, please try to reserve harsh judgment this time around. I have had to go easy on myself because I honestly just don’t have a fucking clue how to handle any of this, other than the solid but sometimes unhelpful advice of my therapist early on that “there is no playbook for any of this.”