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PaperclipPerfector  21hr ago (text post)   629 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 28, 2025

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I'm not in the habit of asking the internet for advice but my wife and I have stumbled into something that has put us way out of our element and quite frankly the nature of the question severely limits even the number of people in our lives we can solicit advice from so You get to weigh in.

For whatever reason, my wife is a magnet for LGBTQ+ people. Roughly half of her friends fall into this category. I have theories as to why this is the case but they are unimportant. One such couple is a married lesbian/bisexual pair who we have been good friends with since college. There's a running joke about us having a threesome with the bisexual, who is really quite fetching. It works as a joke for us because my public stance on group sex is "Dear Lord spare me from that awful group sex. All that commotion."

Well it looks like the chickens have come home to roost. They invited us to dinner last night, which they hardly ever do, and asked us if we would be cool with me fathering a child with the bisexual. My wife choked on her drink and I made a joke that I'd only agree if we did it the old-fashioned way rather than IVF which didn't land because that was, in fact, their plan. My wife understandably rejected that idea outright and couldn't even be mollified by a promise that it only be missionary with the lights off and I'd try super-hard to think of her, so now the question is do I contribute genetic material into a plastic cup some time in the near future.

I'm willing (and kinda want) to do this. We have a gaggle of kids of our own so it's not like I'm going to run off to play dad. We also have come to the conclusion that lawyers are going to be heavily involved beforehand to keep us free of financial obligation and limit any parental rights my wife and I may have claim with the possible exception of the couples' untimely death.

But even so, this seems like a big ask from them, and kind of risky w/r/t our marriage. The couple is pretty enthusiastic about my involvement though, so my wife is quite concerned that a "no" from us will damage the friendship irreparably. Why me specifically? I'm well-liked, have a family history of longevity, I'm smart and conscientious enough to be a physician (at least by training), and (perhaps somewhat cynically) a 6'4" formerly muscle-bound football player. Like Sydney Sweeny I've got good genes even if I'm a 4/10 in the face with abnormally long alien limbs. Plus we live in the same area so we'd have the chance to be involved at least somewhat. We see these two semi-regularly. That may be a downside though! We do have a plausible out that could spare us in that I'm over the age of 40, which I think is when most sperm banks won't take donations.

Thoughts? It hasn't even been 24 hours since we've been thinking about potential problems so I'm sure you guys could come up with new ones to think about. We're kinda Christian but this kinda stretches the whole "love thy neighbor" thing a bit.

... I philosophically prefer surrogacy where the donors stay in the picture, so caveat that I'm going to be biased in favor of donation, here. That said, potential problems:

  • You've already discussed your side of the relationship woes and you've got a much better idea of what they look like than I can guess, but they are a pretty important thing.
  • There's a lot of messiness with lesbian/bisexual woman politics, because there's such extreme potential for jealousy, and because a non-trivial number of bi women do either get out of college or just randomly sort into het relationships. Unless she's routinely seeing a guy on the side before you, I'd honestly say you've dodged a bullet not getting your dick wet, here, but if you do this, you can never be just that friend she'd never consider again, either to your own wife, to her wife, or to her. Doesn't matter if the only thing involved was a jar and a turkey baster. You don't have to and probably shouldn't go full Pence rule, but you still should be aware there will be new eggshells around.
  • You can't really sign away parental rights/responsibilities; courts routinely compare a child's interests against contractual statements and throw the paper away. That's unlikely to come up, given the background you've mentioned here, but it's potentially very expensive -- and worse, may be something you'll constantly be weighing when considering things like offering to babysit the kid even if you ultimately decide to help out. Informal donation provides less protection, to my frustration. Divorce or death are the 'obvious' sources of problems here, but even something like a surprise illness can end up a big question mark pointed your way.
  • ... but you can kinda sign away parental rights, and the couple really should insist on you doing it, and there's a point where that's gonna hurt and you're gonna have to bite your tongue. Maybe the breadwinner of this couple gets a job in another state or country and you go from seeing the kid once-a-season to once-a-year, maybe once a teenager the kid gets into hobbies the parents are okay with and you aren't (or vice versa!), there's a hundred different possibilities. You will be, at absolute best, Uncle Guy. Some guys can handle that perfectly fine, some guys can handle it for daughters but not sons, some guys don't even see how it could be a problem, but it's not an obvious problem until years down the line.
  • Conversely, if you do become Uncle Guy, you might find that people you're fine seeing once-a-season are really obnoxious to see once-a-week. (Or even really obnoxious to your wife for them to be good friends with her, and nearly-family with you.)
  • It's harder, though not impossible, to get genetic screening done through informal donation. That may or may not matter to you, or to the couple; it can even matter for different reasons for each side of the equation.

All of that said, I've seen it work out perfectly fine for a good few people, and not in the porn premise (or polyamory) sorta way. The problems are downstream of you not just getting a kid, but a whole set of informal relationships, but those relationships remain when good things are happening, too.

You can't really sign away parental rights/responsibilities; courts routinely compare a child's interests against contractual statements and throw the paper away. That's unlikely to come up, given the background you've mentioned here, but it's potentially very expensive -- and worse, may be something you'll constantly be weighing when considering things like offering to babysit the kid even if you ultimately decide to help out.

Oh yeah. Eighteen years down the line, Baby is now old enough for college, "well seeing as how you're the dad and we're all such close friends, of course you'll help out, right?" and that's just if nothing else crops up (such as medical expenses) in the interval.

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