You are viewing the thread of a single comment from: My dad is fucking his dead best friend’s daughter. He doesn’t think there is anything wrong with this. I disagree. thoughts?
TraverseAnus

it's weird for you, because of your position. it isn't weird for anybody else, because they aren't in your position. it's unrealistic for your dad to expect you to be happy about it. if he were practicing empathy, then he would validate your feelings and help you work to navigate them together. people aren't perfect, though, especially with regard to the management of personal relationships, so as a show of filial good faith you can practice strategic diplomacy by masking your feelings, and practice mindfulness by recognizing those feelings when they occur and confronting them internally. in doing so, you can improve your relationship with others by reducing the social impact of your present feelings, and, eventually, the sense weirdness will be replaced by a sense of normalcy as the foreign sensations you're working through become more and more familiar, and through that familiarity your perspective gradually shifts, ultimately allowing you to perceive and conceive of the situation with a fuller understanding. just because your feelings are relatively valid and persuasive doesn't mean that the object of their ire is wrong. sometimes it just means that there's an opportunity for you to change and grow. hope this helps :thumbsup:

one practical step you can take to help yourself work through these circumstances is to speak openly about it with your friend. "pull the band-aid" off and mention how weird it is for you. by "breaking the ice" in a friendly way you can make it a safe subject for yourself, which will help you cope with and accept the situation.

- traverseanus

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TraverseAnus 9 days ago

Person A — Evaluation

Strengths:

Clarity of emotional expression: Person A expresses strong feelings (shock, disgust, betrayal) in a vivid and emotionally raw way, making their distress easy to understand.

Contextual detail: They supply specific background—shared upbringing, age proximity, comments from childhood—that construct a psychologically coherent case for discomfort.

Moral intuition: Their moral unease is grounded in lived experience and family dynamics, not abstract norms. This grants some legitimacy to their revulsion, even if it isn’t logically universal.

Weaknesses:

Limited differentiation between social discomfort and ethical violation: Person A seems to conflate emotional disgust with objective moral wrong, implying that because it feels "fucked up" to them, it is fucked up. But this leans heavily on pathos rather than reason.

Possible confirmation bias: The recall of prior “creepy” comments by the father could be subject to motivated reinterpretation. It’s emotionally plausible, but not verifiable, and is used to support a retroactive suspicion.

Assertion of universal wrongness without accountability: The closing question (“so if it’s so normal, why don’t they know?”) is rhetorical but self-defeating—it implies secrecy is wrong because it feels wrong, not because there’s clear wrongdoing.

Overall: Emotionally valid but not philosophically rigorous. Strong in pathos, weak in logos. Understandable but limited in critical distance.

Person B — Evaluation

Strengths:

Empathetic framing without capitulation: Person B acknowledges Person A’s emotional reaction as valid without affirming that the situation itself is objectively wrong. This demonstrates a high degree of emotional intelligence.

Structural reasoning: The core of Person B’s argument is that the uniqueness of Person A’s perspective creates unique emotional difficulty, and that others’ lack of discomfort isn’t evidence of wrongdoing. That’s a strong, subtle insight.

Constructive practical advice: Person B suggests both inward reflection (mindfulness) and outward action (talking to the woman involved). These are psychologically sound coping strategies.

Weaknesses:

Tone drift and unsolicited depth: The use of terms like “strategic diplomacy” and “filial good faith” borders on pompous in this context. This risks alienating the emotionally vulnerable speaker.

Undercuts own clarity with verbosity: The otherwise strong core message—your emotions are real, but don’t make them everyone else’s problem—gets diluted by a long-winded delivery.

Opening joke ("does she look like you"): This risks being read as flippant or even creepy, especially given the gravity of the situation. It may be intended to disarm or provoke perspective-shift humorously, but it’s a tonal misstep.

Overall: High in logos and moderately high in ethos. Emotionally perceptive but a bit condescending in language. The position is nuanced, challenging, and therapeutically useful, though it could have been delivered more tactfully.

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