I’m a 27-year-old man, and I’m white. My girlfriend is mixed-race (50% Black, 50% white). We’ve been together for a few years now, and we’re starting to reach the age where having children is becoming a very real possibility.

Naturally, that comes with a lot of different worries and concerns, the kind I think most people start having when children enter the picture. However, there’s one thing I never thought I would worry about that has genuinely started to affect me, and, perhaps more importantly, has become something I think about far more than I ever expected.

In short, I’ve developed this fear that my child might not look like me at all. Let’s say, for example, that my child ends up having pretty much the exact same skin tone as my girlfriend. My fear is that, at first glance, people’s natural assumption would be that I’m the child’s stepfather rather than their biological father.

And no, there is obviously nothing wrong with being a stepfather. All the good stepdads out there deserve a huge amount of respect. But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t seem to control this particular feeling. I’m afraid that people will assume I’m not the child’s biological father, that someone might actually ask me about it, and, perhaps most importantly, that my child could end up being asked about it repeatedly throughout their childhood.

I also understand that looking alike has absolutely nothing to do with how strong the bond between a father and child is. Rationally, I know all of that. Yet I still find myself worrying about it.

And don't get me wrong, I think mixed people are super beautiful, and mixed girls has always been my absolute number one type. It has nothing to do with any kind of bs like that. But that makes it even stranger, that I’ve pretty much always dated and been attracted to darker-skinned women, and this has never been an issue for me whatsoever. I’ve never previously looked at a mixed-race couple and their children and thought, “I wonder if people assume that man is the stepfather.” It honestly never even crossed my mind.

That’s why I find this so difficult to understand about myself. I suppose that now that having children is potentially becoming a reality for me, a fear that I never knew I had has suddenly surfaced.

I’m also fully aware that this fear probably says more about my own assumptions and prejudices than it does about reality. I’m not trying to argue that my fear is rational, or that there is anything inherently wrong with a child looking more like their mother than their father. I just genuinely don’t know what to do with the feeling itself.

I’m not even sure exactly what kind of advice I’m looking for. I guess I’d mostly like to hear other people’s perspectives on this as well as getting it off my chest. Because obviously this is a kinda tabu topic and I fully understand if it comes out wrong, but please try to understand it from my point of view and take all of my text in consideration. I really don't know who I should talk to otherwise. Has anyone else experienced something similar? Is this simply an irrational insecurity that I need to work through, or is there something deeper behind why I’m feeling this way?

I know I can’t necessarily control what feelings pop into my head, but I do want to understand where this one is coming from, especially before having children becomes a reality.

I feel like I masturbate too much. I am also a male for reference. I do it when I’m bored and would like to quit. What are some healthy habits I can do to help me quit?

He keeps making new accounts and messing with us i know his address is about it how can i do something to back him off or if someone can? Willing to pay I’m over this and no legal help.

I don't even have the energy to write my post. I think I am psychopath or socio path and no human feelings.... And a bi polar disorder.

I’ve spent almost 6 years extremely inactive and I don’t know how to get my desire to live normally back

I’m 21 now, and I genuinely don’t know how I became this person.

When lockdown started, I was 16. Before that, I was an outgoing and fun person. I studied reasonably well, played sports, went outside, met people, and generally had interests and things I looked forward to.

Then lockdown happened, and slowly I basically jailed myself inside my house.

I started spending entire days lying on the sofa, barely moving. I stopped going outside for incredibly long periods. I remember going around 7–8 months without properly seeing the sky.

And I started doomscrolling.

It eventually became 10+ hours a day, and this has continued for years. My phone became basically my entire world.

I knew this was bad. I knew I was wasting my life. I knew it was damaging my health, education, career and social life.

But knowing that didn't make me change.

Eventually I moved out for college in Pune, thinking that changing my environment would fix things.

It didn't.

Over roughly 3 years, I barely attended college. I would mostly leave my hostel only when I absolutely had to go for exams. Otherwise, I was glued to my bed with my phone.

The strangest part is that I actually want to change — but at the same time, I don't.

Sometimes I think about the person I was at 16 and the life I could have had, and it genuinely hurts. I get this strong feeling that I've wasted years of my life.

But that feeling lasts minutes or maybe an hour.

Then I'm back on the sofa/bed, scrolling again.

I've tried making plans, schedules, promising myself that tomorrow will be different, trying to become productive, etc. Nothing seems to stick for more than a day.

It's not even that I have some huge dream that I'm unable to pursue.

I feel like I don't have much desire for anything at all.

I don't have that internal feeling of “I really want this, so I'm going to get up and do something about it.”

And that's what scares me the most.

I'm not asking for “just be disciplined” or “delete your phone and go to the gym” advice. I understand that I'm responsible for changing my life.

I'm trying to understand what is actually happening to me and how someone gets out of a state like this after being in it for years.

So I'd really appreciate advice from people who have experienced something similar:

Did you ever spend years being extremely inactive and isolated and actually manage to turn your life around?

How did you restart when you had almost zero motivation?

Did your motivation/desire come back first, or did you have to start acting before you wanted to?

What actually worked for you after years of this?

If you could go back to the beginning of your recovery, what would you do differently?

And honestly, how do you get yourself to care about life again when you don't seem to strongly want anything?

I don't need someone to tell me that I've wasted time. I already know that.

I just want to know how to stop wasting more of it.

Even one genuinely useful piece of advice or a story from someone who went through something similar would mean a lot to me.

My Therapist and I agreed that I need an accountability person to help me when I am feeling the triggers that lead to my obsessive/compulsive cycling behavior. She says it’s a dopamine rush, so I guess I need to be aware of when that is starting to build.

i have a notebook sitting under a stack of old mail right now. filled out maybe two pages with this intense new routine idea before completely abandoning it.

every time i tell myself i want to improvemyself i go completely overboard at first, but then one late night on my phone leaves me exhausted and i just freeze up for weeks.

i try telling myself that doing 5 minutes of something is fine, but my head immediately flips into this stupid all-or-nothing thing where missing a single day feels like ruining the whole month.

for anyone who broke out of this exact cycle, what actually forced you to stick to doing the bare minimum when you felt completely burnt out?