I went to bed last night at 1:30ish am (today technically), I slept until 8am or so then woke up and scrolled on my phone and made breakfast for about an hour. I then proceeded to pick up my art stuff and start drawing where I left off yesterday. I have endless creativity and this is VERY NEW. I started taking Zoloft a month and a half ago for depression (due to suicidality) and so far it has worked amazing.
That being said, about a week and a half ago I started to get this strong urge to create. I dont know how to feel, I ordered art supplies last weekend and all week I couldn’t stop thinking about them arriving. I have no art experience and I have no idea why this sudden strong urge is occurring.
Originally I expected Bipolar disorder (Mania) but my sleep has been fine which would say otherwise. I do get tired and my sleeps have been shorter but not short by any means….
Is this concerning? Or is this somewhat typical behaviour? The reason I’ve been able to draw constantly is I haven’t had work for a couple of days. However my creative energy doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon. Im even thinking about becoming a professional artist and quit my retail job (if this stays).
I have no idea what to do or if I should be concerned or not. Is this just normal creativity? I just need some advice, reassurance and someone to tell. My doctor isn’t opened until tomorrow afternoon, so I cant call until then…

I (17 f) met my ex-boyfriend in fifth grade. We went to the same church and started to become friends. The summer before sixth grade is when everything started. We went to hike for our youth group and he was walking with me the whole way up, and this wasn't a small hike it was a lonngggg and hard hike. So, that was a long time. Finally when we reached the top of the mountain there was a lake. I didn't bring a swimsuit so I wasn't going to swim. But my ex was trying to get me to swim so finally I got in and swam with him. On the way back he switched with my best friend to ride in the car with me back to the church. On the way back to the church he stole my phone and put his number in my phone and texted himself. After that he started to text me a lot more.
A week after this he sent me a text that said "I really like her though dude. I just don't know how to tell her." I naturally asked him about who he liked. He said that he didn't mean to send that to me, but he told me that he had a crush on me. But then a couple days later he stopped texting me back and he told my best friend (the one he switched cars with) that he had a crush on her. He went back and forth between us for a while doing the same thing (pretending to text his friends that he has a crush on someone). The last time he told me he liked me he told me that he decided he would like me because my best friend would never like him...so he was settling for me. I naturally stopped talking to him romantically (i guess you could say) after that. But I never really stopped liking him.
Then a little after he told me he was settling for me he got a girl friend (at this point we were in 8th grade). Not going to lie I was a little jealous because I did like him. But a couple days later she broke up with him. A couple days after this he started texting me again. We talked from 8th grade to spring break of freshman year. In the beginning it was because we both weren't ready and we couldn't drive so we didn't see the point of dating when you can't go on dates. However, we were seeing each other every weekend freshman year. AND he kissed me before spring break. I thought this meant we should put a label on it because it was both of our first kisses and it meant a big deal to me. And we were basically dating anyways. He didn't feel the same way. We hung out the next weekend after we had our first kiss and he started making out with me the second we were alone. I told him I wasn't comfortable with it and it was moving way too fast for me. He replied with practice will make you comfortable with it so you should just do it so it becomes comfortable...WHAT. I thought oh yeah that makes sense (in my defense I was 15). then it was spring break so we hung out the next day and he asked me to be his girlfriend, I said yes.
In the beginning our relationship was mostly okay. But as the relationship he continued to push my boundaries more and more. I was extremely innocent I thought there was only kissing and the nasty, I had no idea there was grey area in between. He knew this and definitely used this to his advantage during our relationship. Whenever he would try anything new I told him I was not comfortable with this, he never listened to me. Whenever I would have a serious conversation with him about how I felt used in our relationship and felt like he didn't love me for me he would say he would fix it. News flash he wouldn't and would ignore me for weeks. He started to ignore me for longer periods of time. He would only stop ignoring me if I did what he wanted. And when I refused to do something he would say things like "but you did it before I don't see why you can't do it again" or "the Bible doesn't specifically say that it is bad" and other things along that line.
I started to stand up for myself more and refuse him more, however this resulted in him ignoring me A LOT more. He would text me only to ask weird questions like "what would it take for you to break up with me?" What kind of boyfriend asks that. Then the month leading up to our one year anniversary he ignored me...for a month straight. We then went out on a date for our one year anniversary. After we went to dinner we decided to go for a movie

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/ThrowRA-lanadelcray posting in relationship_advice
Inconclusive
**Mood Spoiler -*\*shes is now single
1 update - Medium
Original - 21st April 2024
Update1 - 22nd April 2024
​
1 New Update
Thanks to u/Various_Possible_527, u/-trout, u/keiciii and u/TeddyBearT800
for pointing out the new update
​
Update2 in the same post - 27th April 2024
​
I (25f) kissed another man when I was drunk. Should I tell my boyfriend? (28m)
​
This past Friday my friend threw a huge party for her 26th birthday, it wasn't a particularly significant birthday but her father always indulges all her requests and her parties are always one of the highlights of the year.
This year she was inspired after watching The Fall of the House of Usher on Netlfix and wanted to throw a party in an abandoned building and her father made it happen. I wasn't too involved with the planning this year because work kept me busy so when I first heard the idea I was skeptical but she pulled it off spectacularly.
A little backstory on my boyfriend and I, we met at uni when I was 18 and had been close friends, slightly lost contact when we graduated and I got engaged, my fiance died when I was 22 and he was great support to me during that time and after that since he moved to a city 4 hours away we'd only exchange the occasional text. Well, until Feb of this year when we both got slightly pissed at a another party and slept together. He asked me out after that and we slowly transitioned into a relationship.
Anyway moving on, I woke up today with vague memories of what had happened the night before but my body felt...wrong. I know I got insanely drunk and stupidly said yes when I was offered ecstasy. I've only ever smoked weed in the past and that was during uni, the UK is very strict about drug usage and my job requires a pretty intense background check, even being in the vicinity of substances might get me fired.
At the party I hung about with my friends towards the beginning of the night but I turn into a social butterfly when I'm drunk and I wandered off and ended up chatting to a friend of a friend I barely knew. He was quite flirty and I remember mentioning pretty early on that I had a boyfriend and he said he was just 'bantering', now I can't remember who initiated it but I remember kissing him. I don't for how long but it felt pretty intense.
After beating myself up and having a shower I asked any of friends if they had witnessed anything and one of them said she was the one who has dragged me away from the other guy after seeing me making out with him. She said as she grabbed me she could tell I was ridiculously drunk and had no idea what I was doing and took care of me the rest of the night.
She had chosen not to say anything to me if I didn't remember since it was just a drunken mistake and my other friends agree with her. They said it's not worth blowing up my relationship with something like this since it doesn't mean anything and I barely remember what happened. She told me nobody else saw since we were in quite a secluded corner and this secret would stay in between us but I'm not sure how to proceed.
He texted me this morning asking how I was and hoping I had a nice time and if my friend liked her present since he helped me shop for it and I haven't been able to reply to him. I've got no words until I sort out what I'm going to do.
I know these girls would never tell a soul what happened but the guilt is killing me. I don't know how I'm going to face my boyfriend the next time I see him even if I choose not tell him.
And if I do then how do I deal with everything if he chooses to leave? I know I'll never do anything like this again because I'll never let myself be put in such a mindless state but would it be absolutely horrible of me if I choose to just move on from this without telling him? I need objective advice because I know my friends are always going to try and protect and help me. I know I exhibited supreme lack of judgement and would not mind any criticism but don't slutshame please.
​
Comments
​
OperatorValueson
Tell him and accept the repercussions as the cost of this mistake. There is no way out of it. Learn from this and grow as a person.

OOP: I think this was definitely the wake-up call I needed about how I'm living my life

​
Gatorman042755
You think your secret will be safe with your friends, but this kind of thing always gets out eventually. So, you have a choice between the following:
Coming clean with your bf now, confessing your mistake and promising never to get that sh\t faced again, and because you're being forthcoming, honest, and regretful, having the possibility that he will eventually forgive you, and maybe save your relationship.*
Having him find out a month, 6 months, or a year down the road. At that point he will know that you hid it from him, lied by omission, and have a hard time proving and documenting what actually happened. He will never forgive you or trust you again if he finds out about it this way, and it is almost certainly a death knell for your relationship.

OOP: The possibility of him not forgiving me is what is terrifying to me but you're completely right about it being worse if he finds out down the road. I don't think there's going to be a magical perfect outcome for me here

​
​
Update - 1 day later
​
Thank you everyone for the advice left, especially the comments calling out my behaviour. While they initially stung, you made me see the way I was trying to justify what I did instead of taking accountability. I got a dozen messages from people who had been in my boyfriend's position before and I want to apologise if my post was triggering in any way. So I listened to the majority and told my boyfriend.
I texted my boyfriend that I missed him a lot and he said that he could drive down and stay for a couple of days since he could work remotely if he wanted to but I don't have that option. He basically left as soon as I asked him to and it takes him about four hours to reach my city in which I had enough time to get the full story of that night.
I asked a friend of mine if he could find out from the guy what happened without making it obvious I was asking and he agreed, I asked him to call me when he did so me and my friends could listen in. I wanted to know exactly what he said so I knew what to tell my boyfriend.
My friend is closer to the guy than I am and they game together so him going over to his flat wasn't an uncommon occurrence. Initially he was worried that he wasn't a 'good actor' but I told him exactly how to bring it up and he did pretty well tbf.
He said he had seen me and him kissing and asked what was going on. The other guy laughed the whole thing off, saying he didn't think I'd be such a slag and that my friend was a 'c*nt' for dragging me away. My friend said the situation was pretty fucked now since I had a boyfriend and the other guy said if I didn't want him to kiss me then I shouldn't have hung around him all night but my friends told me I wasn't around him for more than 20 minutes in total.
At least now I know I'm not the one who initiated the kiss and he was much more sober than me since he recalled things I had no recollection of saying. In my previous post I said I remembered mentioning my boyfriend and he said that too so I am trusting the little memories I have of that night. A couple people messaged me saying I had been taken advantage of but I honestly can't say that since I did kiss him back. That is a huge accusation to make and I can't remember enough even say that.
Everything that guy said just confirmed to me that I needed to tell my boyfriend. I am furious with him for the way he talked about my friend and I but I'm not going to waste anymore time on him.
While my boyfriend was driving down I texted him that I needed to talk to him about something important as soon as he got here so I wouldn't chicken out. I live with two of my girlfriends and they cleared out until I had talked to him so I had no excuses. He looked so worried when he arrived, I think he thought I was going to break up with him since I was crying as well. He was being so unbelievably sweet and hugged me tightly and said he wanted to work it out and just wanted me to talk to him.
So I sat him down and told him not to interrupt me and to let me finish. I told him everything, taking ecstasy, kissing another guy and waking up not remembering anything, I even told him that I contemplated not telling him anything, what the guy said on the phone. Absolutely everything.
He was holding my hand tightly in the beginning and by the end of it he had his head in his hands as he listened to me finish. He just sat there in the end and stared at the floor. I knew I needed to give him time but I don't know how long we both just stared into space. I had no clue what he was thinking. I would've preferred if he just yelled so we could atleast talk, I wanted to shake him into saying anything.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded soft and hurt. He asked me if I actually did want to see him or if I made him drive four hours just so I could tell him I kissed someone else. I said I did miss him but knew I needed to tell him what had happened and didn't want to do it on the phone.
I told him that I wanted to take full accountability and that as drunk or high as I was that was no excuse and I was so very sorry for hurting him this way. After this I know I can't trust myself to drink in a responsible way and that I'm going to cut back on it. I've planned to go fully sober for one month just so I know I can and that nothing like this happens again.
He replied that this had just confirmed every insecure thought he had about our relationship. He said he always felt like I had one foot out the door and that he had pressured me into this relationship and maybe what I did was a way getting out of it. I said it was a drunken mistake and it didn't mean anything further. He said it meant he loved me but I didn't love him and had this been any other girl in his past he would've been out the door but he couldn't do that with me just yet.
And I couldn't fight him on that. I couldn't say I loved him right now, I cared for him alot and I could see myself being in love with him in the future but I'm not there right now. I haven't been in a relationship since my fiance and it's been difficult for me to open up my heart to someone else. I'm terrified of being left by someone else I love.
I asked him if he could see himself ever forgiving me and he said that he didn't know right now. I know I'm not the victim here but hearing that was so painful I just started sobbing and being the amazing man that he is, he comforted me and I felt so disgusted with myself for hurting him. He held me against his chest, stroked my hair and let me cry it out.
And then he left, saying he was going to get a hotel and come back tomorrow so we could talk when we're not so emotional and after he decided what he wanted moving forward. I told him he could stay in my room and I'd sleep on the sofa but he said he didn't think he could be around me right now and make a rational decision.
Right now I'm fighting to urge to go to him and make him stay any way I can. I know there's no magical words that'll fix this. Also has anyone ever been through anything like this and how did you and your partner worked past it?
​
Comments
​
Independent-Library6
Had him drive 4 hours so you could tell him you cheated, lol. Jesus, you're insufferable.
lookingforpc
Harsh, you know she did it in goodwill in a panicked state, but I'll admit it must not have helped the situation
​
WominjekatoNaarm
Guess who is currently on his way home right now. OP. It'll be a miracle if you ever hear from him again. You might want to check your socials and see if he is still on there. If he isn't, he won't be coming back.
​
Update 2
Sorry I forgot to update this but this past week has been pretty shit. I wrote down everything that happened but wasn't in the mood to post it until today.
My boyfriend came back the next day and his demeanour had completely changed. I tried to hug him and he side stepped me and asked if we could go on a walk to talk since he didn't need my friends as an audience.
Before he could speak I apologised again and promised to do whatever to make it up to him and he said I didn't need to do that. He said he thought about it all night and came to the conclusion that we never should've started dating no matter how in love he was. That the conception of our relationship was from me being drunk and sleeping with him and that he should've treated it like a mistake rather than the start of a relationship. He said he was tired of feeling like a second thought and apparently I made him feel that way.
I kept on saying I wanted to be with him even though I know he deserves better and that I knew what I was doing when we got together and in what circumstances did I make him feel like he didn't matter? He said he's seen me in relationships when I care and love the person and he didn't get any of that.
After my fiance died, he was the one that pushed me to go to therapy and I always refused since I didn't think I needed it and he brought that up as well and said my life would continue to be a mess and I would continue to hurt other people until I broke my destructive patterns and actually dealt with my emotions.
I just had no clue what to say. I admit I'm the one that fucked up but it's one fuck up, it's not always indicative of some larger problem. A mistake is a mistake sometimes.
He said he still loved me but knew carrying on with a relationship right now would cause more problems between us later down the line and he didn't want that. I told him I didn't understand, if he loved me how could he leave me? I still don't understand. He said just because we wouldn't be together didn't mean he'd disappear from my life. He said anything that happened between us right now would be tarnished and he wanted a relationship without guilt and that wouldn't be possible right now. I saw how painful it was for him to say all of that to me, I'd never seen him cry before.
He left after that since I couldn't talk to him anymore. I just felt so hurt and abandoned and then felt guilty for feeling like that since I was the one who fucked up and it was just a vicious cycle. He kissed me when he said goodbye and said he'll check up on me soon.
He texted me the next day, just asking how I was and I didn't know how to reply so I didn't. He still messages everyday, asking how I am and that he really wishes I would text back since he's worried about me. I cant find it in me to reply. I know he's asked my friends about me but they said he just seemed concerned about me.
I still can't believe he ended it.
The only positive is that I've not drank any alcohol in about a week and it's much more difficult than I initially anticipated but I'm going to carry on and try and finish a month.
I'll update if anything else changes but it probably won't
​
Comments
​
Longnumber (before the update)

Also has anyone ever been through anything like this and how did you and your partner worked past it?

Yeah, I'll share, but I don't think it will help you get back together.
I'm now mid 30s. I've been with my wife since we were 20. We were long distance off and on for the first years. We never really set clear boundaries on what was and wasn't over the line. Dancing with other people when we went out was never discussed although making out/anything approaching sex obviously was off limits. I would wingman with friends and talk/dance with girls but never let anything escalate. Felt like it was harmless fun.
One night 2 years into the relationship, I was very drunk and essentially got ditched at a party where I knew no one and with no way home except to wait for a ride that wouldn't be for over an hour. I thought, "fuck it, I'll meet people and dance". I ended up dancing with a girl which escalated into making out. She was talking about getting me back to her place. When we split to go to the bathroom, I sobered up, realized what I was doing and went outside and waited for my ride.
There were no witnesses, no way for me to ever get caught. But, I felt guilty. And, I knew with roles reversed, I would want my girlfriend to tell me. So, I told her. And said I realized that it was easy for dancing with other people to escalate so I'd cut it off.
She didn't like it, duh, but it wasn't even a fight. She asked for reassurance it wouldn't happen again and I gave it. Then we said "I love you" and had sex. We moved on. And, over a decade later, I haven't done anything else that approached cheating.
Factors that i think worked in our favor for getting over this that you may be :
​

• I didn't blame being fucked up and gave a concrete plan for never repeating the mistake.
• it was clear there was no way she could have found out without me telling her. No friends around.
• we are both rational people and knew and had discussed being in love and getting together didn't mean no one else could be attractive
• I gave verbal and physical reassurance and did not give "space" unless it was asked for.
• I told her at a convenient time and did not make her drive 4 hours to hear my confession.
• I didn't make her comfort me
• we had already discussed being committed to each other and planning to spend our lives together. There was no question about whether I actually loved her or had "a foot out the door". I was able to tell her I loved her and mean it.

​
All in all, I think this is something you could get over if you were otherwise committed to this guy and if the story here is really the whole thing. But, bottom line, you couldn't tell him you loved him and mean it. I think it's over.
​
I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Weird situation, can we get past this?
Me(18f) and my fiance(19M) have been together for around 2 years. We have a babytogether she's a couple months old and he's recently joined in the marines. He's been away for training these last 4 months. He's already gone to basic just doing his job school. Everything has been great we FaceTime all the time, text through out the day, snap here and there. And he's due to come home in less than 2 weeks. Here comes the problem. I had a weird feeling about a semi recent girl friend he made. He was super weird about her. He followed her on Instagram(He's never done that with any of his marine buddies), he hung out with her all the time, and started talking to me less. I followed her on Instagram back and made him introduce her to me on facetime. Suddenly they're not really friends anymore and they don't talk much anymore. Now today i made a post to my friends like "they're a 10 but" and they could send tbe messages anonymously. So i was going throught them and someone messaged me on Instagram saying "he cheated on me at the school house" I immediately knew it was that girl friend he had. No one talks about the school as schoolhouse except for the marines. Just in my experience. So I freaked out a bit asked if he had anything to tell me he said no. So I messaged her and she very quickly became reluctant to answer me. Saying she didn't owe me anything and to just talk to my fiance.
It was weird how she was talking to me...it felt like she was talking down to me. Asking like why would she lie to try and break us up? And she never backed off him even knowing he was engaged and had a kid. She had her boyfriend text me? From her phone idk it's all very confusing and felt like middle school drama.
So I was a bit snippy with her and asked her what he did. She said he just had a flirty personality, flirted with her and made comments on her body. Quickly switched up to he was touchy with her. Switched into he made her uncomfortable. Switched to I never backed off from flirting(even tho she has a boyfriend) however she still texted him asking to hangout or eat lunch in the chowhall and stuff.
He admitted he flirted with her a bit and hung out with her a lot but never went any further than that. And has since stopped hanging around her and talking to her as often.
I literally just found this out tonight. I don't know what to do. My fiance has agreed on all faults admits he was at fault and kept asking what I want from him or want him to do to make this better. I honestly don't know. I thought we were fine and maybe it's just being away for so long made him want to wander or something. I'm supposed to be moving with him on base at the end of May but idk if I can. On one hand it could be a fresh start we've had a lot of bad things happen to us in this small town. And on one hand idk if this is the only time or just the only time I've caught him. Any advice? How do I forgive him? It's not technically cheating in some peoples books but it kinda is in in mine.

Hi everyone!
I am a 24-year-old who will be moving to Germany from the US this year. Luckily I do not have to search for an apartment yet. My mother purchased an apartment and is moving as well so I will be staying with her for at least the first year so I can settle in and save up money. However, I am the type of person who likes to have a 5-year plan set up and start looking into things in advance so I can be prepared and set things up for myself. So, to get to the actual questions: I am looking for advice and info on finding apartments in Germany and what all I should prepare for when the time goes. Apologies for the long post, I'd like to any info that could potentially be relevant.
A little about myself and my situation: I will be living near but outside of Bonn to start and when I can move out I will be looking for apartments in both Bonn and Köln. Ideally close to a bus or train station as I do not intend on owning a car.
I am a freelance illustrator, about to graduate from school in commercial art. While I currently I am not working full time I doubt I will have any issue finding enough work to support myself within the next 1-2 years.
I do not have my own rental history or credit history(I did not take out loans for my schooling), but will be paying my own insurances, phone plan, and likely covering the internet bill for my mothers' apartment while I live with her so I'm assuming that will help with my Schufa score.
Also I do have a German Passport so I luckily won't have to worry about any extra issues with visas.
I don't have any pets or kids(and don't plan on it). I play the violin (but also if that becomes an issue I do have practice mutes which make it so the violin can not be heard through walls). And as long as I find a decent apartment with the space that I need I will likely be renting long term with no intention to move for a minimum of 5 years(likely longer).
​
My main questions are: First of all, how difficult is it currently to find apartments in these cities? What should I prepare for when searching and applying for apartments? How difficult is it to get approved without previous rental history? What are the general requirements for applicants? And in general, what are things I can do to raise my chances of finding an apartment, as well as any general advice you would give to someone in my situation?
Thank you in advance for any advice or information.
​
​

This evening me (24F) and my husband (25M) were in our bedroom both playing games on our laptops when I noticed our portable bedroom fan was making a clicking noise, I asked him if he heard anything and usually when he’s about to respond to something I’ve asked that he thinks is ridiculous or is immediately ready to write off, he takes this big pause before he answers, and then answers with a mocking tone and smirk. Like clockwork, I got the same response and he told me he couldn’t hear anything. I’m a very light sleeper and sensitive to sound and I knew the change in sound was 100% going to affect my quality of sleep. So I did what anyone would do and grabbed a screwdriver to take it apart and figure out what was up (it was dust, the fan is irrelevant, hold on). While I’m sitting in the floor taking apart this fan, I’m noticing our floor lamp flicker every couple minutes, just once, but it was a consistent 2-3 minutes apart each time. I mentioned it to my husband and this time he just laughed to himself and said that he doesn’t notice all the small things my brain pays so much attention to. At this point I knew he was already in his traditional “this girl is hysteric” defense mode so I ended the conversation there. The longer I paid attention to every flick of the lights I noticed our AC would come on. I got up to check the thermostat that had been set to 69° auto cool since this afternoon, and our house was 76°. I called my dad and messed around with the thermostat to let him hear the noises it was making and he said best thing to do would be to turn it off and open some windows and he would call a guy. After I got off the phone I went into our bedroom and told my husband the AC wasn’t working and our house was 76°. He grew that stupid sarcastic smirk and shook his head and said “I had the heat on this morning”, all while holding eye contact with the laptop screen. I had to walk away. I felt crazy. Especially since this is not the first time I’ve been written off. When I came back to the bedroom I sat down on the bed and continued my on game play through in silence until he picks up an earbud and puts it in his ear closest to me. Considering I had been dismissed and now tuned out, I got up and left and went to the living room and turned on a movie. After about 10 minutes of being by myself he comes out of the bedroom and says that “Every time he’s feeling good I have to go and ruin it with my attitude.” and verbatim some mess about me not being a supportive wife. I didn’t respond and continued about my business.
Here’s my dilemma: going to bed angry will solve nothing and he will wake me up with harsh words regardless, and going to him with my emotions will do nothing because in his mind I’ve wronged him (even though I literally did nothing. I discovered our AC was broken…how dare I?) A lot of times with him it’s hit or miss, if I really watch my words and come to him sooner rather than later he can respond well, but it is beyond that point now and every outcome I can think of will just make me feel worse. I’ve just never met someone so ready to write my feelings off, it heavily affects his empathy, and he’s only recently gotten to this point.
How do I even go about this?

A few weeks ago, I received an unexpected text from a classmate. We barely know each other, but he said it's a thing he does where he goes through his phone every so often and tells people why he appreciates them. It was a very long and thought-out message telling me how he's thought a lot about how I show humility through not being afraid to share my struggles and how I refuse to judge myself based on anyone else's metrics but my own.
A few weeks prior to this, I had a significant depressive episode. I was still recovering from it when he sent this message. It touched me deeply and I ended up crying a few times. Someone who barely knows me had noticed something good about me and took the time to reflect about it and then tell me. It struck a chord as I was in a very vulnerable emotional state.
I responded with a medium-length message thanking him and saying it's very thoughtful of him to do this for people, send messages telling why he appreciates them. The conversation ended there. Class hasn't been awkward or anything, it's almost like it never even happened. But his message resonated with me so deeply that I've been thinking about it ever since. When things get hard I remind myself of that message and that people really can be that kind and caring. It truly made a significant impact on me.
I feel things very deeply and like to share my emotions with people. My question is, do I bring it back up and let him know how much it's meant to me that he sent that message? Or, is it enough that I thanked him and I should just leave it as is?

*TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF DEATH AND SEXUAL ASSAULT*
Hey all,
I'm not sure how to even begin this. Most of what I am saying is from what I was told by my brother, so I've done my best to get as much perspective on it as possible.
Almost three years ago my mother passed away during the height of one of the COVID variants. My dad was utterly devastated by this, and he almost lost his life due to complications from COVID a few days after my mom's passing. Needless to say, it was an incredibly difficult and tragic time for us. For my brother and I, we were saddened by Mom's passing, but also grateful to still have Dad alive.
Unfortunately, things went downhill from there and had been for a couple years. My dad and I didn't have a good relationship after my mom passed. For starters, my brother and I thought that it was a priority for him to take as much time as he can to grieve mom. This of course was a suggestion to him and we thought it was important to care for his mental health during this. Instead, he insisted that he didn't have much time left on this Earth and made it his mission to start talking to and dating other women.
Well, five weeks after my mom passed, he tell me he gets with a woman that he previously had attempted to have an affair with while married to my mom. I was pissed at him to the point where we went to long periods of little contact. When we did have contact, it was ultimately fighting. Well, things didn't work out for them and they moved on from each other.
March of last year my dad gets with another woman and then a week after, gets married to her. In hindsight, I should have fought back against it but at the time our relationship was eroded that I was complacent and didn't argue. Little did I know this woman is who I would consider to be one of the most dangerous, scummiest and most disgusting individuals I've had the displeasure of meeting. I believe she is wholly responsible for the situation my dad and brother are in.
Fast forward to March of this year, and my brother, dad and stepmother became homeless. My dad gets arrested for failure to appear in court because of a prior DUI offense that he got this year, which required him to appear in court. He goes to jail as a result. My brother is put in a vulnerable position with my stepmom at this point because the stepmom tried hitting on him and coercing my brother for sex. I brought this up to my dad while he was in jail and he was committed on divorcing her after he got out of jail.
This woman is absolutely vile. She has a history of animal neglect and abuse. She lived in a trailer where she had at least 40 cats at once, all of them picked up off the streets. Animal control had to intervene and they found at least a couple of dead cats in her closet. This was before she met my dad. And while dad was in jail, she was brought in to a women's shelter. She had my dad's car in her possession. Animal control was ultimately called and she was put in jail on animal cruelty charges because it turned out that she was keeping two stray cats in the vehicle. To make matters worse, she defecated in the car with the cats in the vehicle, windows rolled up and everything. This is in rural North Carolina, so while it is still chilly during that time of year, it's absolutely unacceptable to have pets unoccupied in the vehicles at all times.
She gets arrested and processed the same day that my dad has his scheduled court hearing and he was supposed to get out after the conclusion of the hearing. Needless to say, after the court hearing, my dad was brought new charges against him, this time being charges of animal cruelty. For what? Well, in addition to association (i.e: he is married to her), it was alleged he neglected his own dogs while they were in his possession. In my experience with my dad, I found this odd because while my dad didn't live in the best of conditions (it is a rural area with a large percentage of the population in poverty), my dad did everything to care for his two dogs; he thought the world of them. So to get charged with animal cruelty shocked my brother and I both.
During the time my dad was in jail, the step mom 'gave away' my dad's two dogs. When I say 'gave away', what I am understanding is that the dogs were kidnapped and found with injuries. Well, animal control found my dad's dogs. One of the dogs died from complications, the other dog has or is going to be put down. It was surprising the animal cruelty charges were brought against my dad because its been our (my brother and me) collective experience that he treated those dogs well. So brother and I talked it over, and my brother decides to bail my dad out because it didn't seem the charges were justified. My dad is out about the first or second week in April.
So during this time, my dad is trying to do everything in his power to seek divorce from my step mom. From our (my brother and I) perspective, there was enough grounds to divorce her. Aside from her cruelty to animals, she is also responsible for the homeless situation they're in. They were two months behind on rent before they were given the boot. For two of those months, she was handed $700 a month to pay for rent to the landlord. She would pretend to pay the landlord but instead pocket the money and use it to buy her own personal wants. She would do this whether it was grocery money or rent money or money for bills.
The amount of shit she did while dad was in jail is astounding. She would go around to several of the restaurants in town with her former room mate, they would order food and drink, and put the bill under a tab in Dad's name. The car that she defecated in? My dad called a towing company to grab it and store it for a few days until it can be decided what to do with it. She is banned from the restaurant establishment that my brother works in because she would harass and harangue the staff and customers for free food, and to also harass my brother.
A couple days after my dad was bailed, SHE makes bail. And she has been harassing and stalking them since. She went back to jail for missing court last week, but she was shortly bailed out after, and she had been hanging around them since. It was getting bad that when dad had an opportunity to be free, he got with his lawyer to file a protective order which is pending the yay or nay.
Everything about her from the start of when Dad married her screamed giant red flag. Last October, my dad, brother and step mom were in the hospital because they felt sick to their stomach. Doctors noticed symptoms of poisoning and drew blood from all three of them. Turns out they had traces of thallium in their systems. My knowledge of thallium is limited, but it's my understanding it was used in rodenticides and insecticides and was prohibited in the US in the 70s due to its toxicity. But with all of the recent stuff unfolding, it really makes me suspect she had something to do with that.
Additionally, she mentioned that her ex-husband had forced himself upon her (the ex-husband, for context, also was living with them along with the landlord and two other individuals) one night when dad wasn't around and committed sexual assault against her. A sexual assault forensic exam was performed on her, and they did not find any traces of the ex-husband's semen, nor did they find signs that he was forceful against her. Additionally, the ex-husband took a polygraph at least 3 times and the polygraph concluded that he was being truthful.
This isn't to say that something didn't happen to her - it is possible. However, the way she conveyed the sexual assault over the phone seemed more indicative of a ploy to defame her ex-husband. Having been a victim of sexual abuse and assault as a child, I hyperventilate and panic cry whenever I start having flashbacks of the incident. I can not stand to think about or talk about it with people, and I refuse to talk about it with anyone after I told an ex-girlfriend of mine in grade school and she decided to tell everyone about it. But my stepmom was so nonchalant and cheerful mentioning it, that alarm bells started to go off in my head. The mentioned evidence and my experience as a sexual assault survivor makes me believe in this circumstance, she was being deceitful and was spiting her ex-husband.
Oh, and during this time leading up to now, my dad and brother have had to replace a total of 10 tires because they would be slashed out. It can't be proven, but I suspect that my stepmom slashed them.
Everything about this woman just screams red flag. At this point, I don't want her near my dad and brother, and I definitely don't want her near my son. On top of this, my dad is also flip-flopping on divorcing this woman. We suspect her of doing all of this shit, and yet my dad is showing signs of wanting to do the exact opposite of divorcing her. This woman is absolutely unhinged to the point I'm concerned that she is going to ruin my dad and my brother with allegations and she would be walking away with it. A part of why I think he is flip-flopping is due to a recent discovery. Dad uncovered that this woman has $600,000+ in her bank account, and he's like 'Why is she homeless? She could be buying a property or two, have enough money for property taxes for the rest of her life, and be okay.' It makes me think he is flip-flopping because of this discovery, when I think he should do the right thing and get as far away from her as possible. He did try to do the right thing and give her card back, that said. But I don't think she has a comprehension of how much that is worth, because she has effectively been on the streets since being out of jail recently.
The worst thing about all of this unfolding, is knowing that I am not in a position to be in person to help them. I'm all the way on the other side of the US. My dad and my brother tell me not to intervene; that it isn't my circus to be involved in. The advice I try to give my dad and brother seems to fall on deaf ears. It feels like it's going to get to a point where I'm going to have to fly down to intervene and figure something out. Knowing I fly down there means I will need a police escort for when I do see my dad and stepmom, because I do not want my step mom around my son, and I already know that my wife is going to be on guard the moment my step mom decides to put hands on my son. I apologize if this is rambling and incoherent, I'm doing my best to tell the story as best as possible. This will likely need a couple edits to lay it down completely.
TL;DR: My stepmom is absolutely batshit insane and is responsible for the homeless situation my dad and brother are in. Everything about her is a giant red flag from the beginning of when dad married her. She has done absolutely vile and reprehensible things. My dad initially committed to divorcing her, but now is on the fence about it. I really think it's the fact he uncovered she has six figures in her checking account, but she doesn't believe it and she has no comprehension of money given her history of poor spending habits.

It was a beautifull morning in ethe Village of mutter. it was cold and and Misty as usual . Mutter was a village in the middle of the kanthan forest . Even though mutter is a small village and there is only a small number of residents .the village is mostly crowded because of the large amount of tourist that comes here to enjoy the beauty of kanthan forest and the climate of mutter . For outsiders mutter is a beautifull place with excellent climate and beauty but mutter has a dark secret that only the residents of mutter knows about .
In a house in the northeast part of mutter a large no of people are gathering around. it seem there is a girl crying she's in her 30 s . It seems that her husband is missing . Their is fear in everyones eyes . Because they know this is not the first time some one has gone missing in mutter. And they also know the people that has gone missing has never been found . it all started two years ago at first the missing cases where random here and there cases . But in time it increased . Locals say this is a curse some say it is a demon for there local urben legend wendigo .It is said to cause its victims a feeling of insatiable hunger, the desire to eat other humans, and the propensity to commit murder.
Some elders and the chief of the village announce a gathering in a groups in the middle of the village. Everyone was their early .even though every single resident of mutter was their but the place was silent like never before. Then all of a sudden the chief spoke . I don't think I can take this anymore .how many people need to die in the cursed village. one year before my son went missing in this same village but I stayed strong till now . But It's hopeless . the police investigation is going nowhere .i don't think it's humans doing it . it's the demon .we are helpless we need to get out of here now . Many agreed with him but there where still few people who opposed him . One of them was a man named Rony . Who was completely against it .he didn't believed in this demon bullshit . He stood up and said my dear resident of mutter village I know this is hard for you all but we can't just leave this village and move on just like that . We waited this long because we put our faith in the investigation team but it was going nowhere . Give me one last chance to fix this in one week time I'll find a way . After his speech the croud started chattering to each other . After a few moments the cheaf decided to give Rony one week like he asked .
At that night Rony went to see the chief and the village elders . He showed them a news paper article In it was a man named ADAM . They looked at each other .they all knew this was their last attempt to save mutter . After few minutes of chattering they agreed to bring adam to the village .
Jan 15 Three mysterious man walked into the village Who was clearly outsides one of them was a boy he was short but we'll built. another one was a tall but skinny guy who was clearly holding a book in his hand and the one leading the two was the man named ADAM . ADAM is a strong and athletic looking guy .with strong facial features like he has an aura around him . Usually getting in contact with him is extremely hard and even if you get in speak with him .he turns down almost every case the he think is not worth his time but for some reason when he accepted this case . Which makes this case even more serious . It was a miracle that he himself came here to investigate .usually he senta his subordinate if it's some small case
As soon as they entered the village there was some one waiting for them . It's the people the chief sent to escort them . As soon as the entered the chiefs house he felt a powerfull aura coming from adam everyone was staring at him . Then Adam and his gang introduced themselves to the chief . The two people who was with Adam was joy and Rony .both of them where standing behind adam like two body guards with a blank expression in their face . The chief asked them to rest for the day and begin their investigation tomorrow . The chief asked two of his men to escort adam and his subordinates to a house nearby . It was a small but comfortable house .
Next morning the chief and some of his men went to the house where adam and his men where staying but they couldn't find adam anywhere . So they start searching the nearby place . It was almost noon the chief was sitting outside his house and he saw someone coming towards him . When he looked closely he found out it was adam . The chief asked adam where he went . Without even answering to the chief adam told the chief to bring all of the villagers to his house so that he can intarogate them . After the information no new leads where found so he asked everyone to leave Except few of the villagers that adam has recruited to join him in his plan . Fore days has passed and nothing changed .no new leads .people where loosing hope .
It was a sunny day. extra humid than usual . Adam was sitting in a chair inside his room . He was doing something in his laptop . Suddenly some one burst through the door . It was kid he was shaking and sweating like crazy . Adam stood up . He leaned a little bit and looked outside throught the door . The whole village was outside his house . The boy took a huge breath and said . Adam it's boka he is missing we looked every where he is no where to be found . What now ? Adam smirked . Everyone was furious to the fact that adam was smirking while hearing about a person going missing . The adam Spock . Don't worry everything is going according to the plan . Everyones anger changes into total confussion . The started asking what he was saying and to explain . They where basically begging . Adam raised his hands . Everything went silent .after a moment of silence adam spoke
The moment I heard about this case I know there was something weared about this case .the police or the investigation team where actually doing nathing . As if like they don't want it to be solved . So I got even more curious .
The day we came to this village we decided to check the village for any evidence . We searched the whole village till morning but we found nathing . So we decided to put cameras in the village . For the past for days we where busy monitoring the village at night to see if we could find some unusual activity .and as usual we found nathing .
But it all change yesterday when I was checking the footage I saw a police car roming around the village at noon . I checked all previous footage and I asked around the village about this mysterious police car and then i found out that this police car would usually Rome around the village at noon . It mysterious part is many people has seen this car in the village but no one has ever seen the people that is inside the car . so I sent boka to find out about the people inside the car . And now he is missing .now we know who ever was that was inside that car was the once who are responsible for the people being missing . If we managed to catch them we can bring the missing people back. After a moment of silence everyone started chearing and crying . People where on there knees .
But adam knew this was not the end and it's not as easy like he said to everyone . He went inside his house and closed the door behind him . He was waiting for a phone call from boka . He has give a cell phone to contact him to find out about the location of the kidnappers hideout .
The suddenly his phone rang his couldn't speak normal because if the kidnappers found out he has a phone it's all over so in a low voice boka said burned car and mud road adam wrote it down . After some time the phone rang again . And boka said warehouse but this time the kidnappers saw his phone and snatched it out if his hand in a desperat attempt boka yelled underground and I am not here alone. Then the phone hung up . Adam ran out of his house he went to see the chief and explained everything one of the chiefs men knew where the burnes car and mud road was . They wasted no time adam took a bike and drove it to the location . It was a few kilometres away from the village . Adam saw the burned car and like boka sai there was a mud road near it . It was getting dark adam was alone . Even so he drove through the mud road as . He couldn't see much ahed .he could only see a few meters ahed by the head light of his bike . After half an hour Of driving through the mud road he didn't see the warehouse .suddenly this uneasiness came to him .like someone was watching him . The air around him went cold . He stoped his bike there and looked around . Then this unbearable paie hit his neck he was feeling dizzy his eyes where shutting .for a moment he was going to give up but then this adrenaline rush came to him giving him the boost he neede . he got on his bike and drove back to the village . When he got home his subordinates knew something was off they checked his neck and found this small needle pocking out of his neck . Someone had used a blow gun on his . The needle from the blow gun poisoned him .his neck was turning blue . They wasted no time and started treating him immediately .
Bright ray of the sun hit Adams face suddenly he woke up . Joy was nere him .Adam asked how many hour was I been sleeping .joy replied it's been three day and you need to rest some more to completely heal.
Adam ignored it and went outside and removed the sheet from his car .the car was loaded with all the equipments they need for this job. He called joy and Rony . As they where about to leave to find the warehouse some of the villages asked them if they could join them . There where more than fifty people . Who was armed with swords knife and bats followed adam and gang . They entered through the mud road and went deep inside the forest . They saw a huge building that was far from the road on the other side of a small canal . Adam didn't spot it yesterday because of the lack of light . That place was surrounded with barbed wire . that fifty people along with Adam and his gang marched into the warehouse .they saw some care leaving that place from the distance. As they went closer they saw that this place was locked with some huge lock so they began to break the giant door with the swords and bats they had . As soon as they break open the door they where struck with this strong stench of smell like there was something rotting in there . They searched the place and found people's cloths , some shoe , and jewelry and stuff . They started breaking the door of the second room and got inside . At first they didn't know what they where seeing there was a big slab in the middle of the room and there was a small crack in the floor that started from the slab all the way out of the warehouse and some storage liquid was flowing through the small crack .there was chains hanging from the walls . bones with small amount of meat sticking from them where all over the floor And when they scanned the full room they knew exactly what they where looking at . This was a human butchering room . After realising this most of the people who where following Adam ran out of the building in panic and fear . But adam went forword because he need to find the underground room where boka was in . Adam went to the third room where he found some people chaned up to the wall some of them where already dead . And the once who where alive is missing some of limps . All of them had stich marks all over their body .Adam asked joy to take the people who are alive to the hospital .
After some time the police arrived . Instead of investigating about this case with this clear evidence . The police was in hurry destroying the place . The people tried revolting but the police used bruit strength to stop it . The people also tried saying that there are still people trapped somewhere underground near the factory but the police sealed the place and told everyone not to go near the warehouse .even so many of the people came back to find the underground room but didn't find anything . After few weeks adam investigated some of the survivers and found out the dark secret behind the warehouse. To confirm his theory of what was happening there adam investigated some other village which was near this warehouse .some of the villagers from a village near the warehouse said that thay have seen a black car constantly visiting the warehouse but they where scared to check it out because they constantly her screams from that place . The villagers also believed that place was haunded. Before leaving the place joy asked adam what was really happening in the village . Then Adam spoke that . if you need to understand what was happening . you need to hear from the start . So these misterious individuals used this police car to kidnapp people in broad daylight . The method they where using was they act as police and arrest thes innocent people from their houses or outside and handcuffs them .by the time they realise these guys are fake police . it's already too late . After that they take them to this warehouse where the put them in chains and when its time they cut them open to take their organs . Human organs can be soled for millions in the black market . The black truck that constantly comes to the warehouse is the organ collecter and they also use it to transport human remains . And the main part is who is behind all this .whoever he is . He is powerfull enough to cuntrol the countries police force . And that is the person we need to find
Another case solved andam and gang left the village . Who knows what othe problems adam and his crew will face next

It's a long one. Grab snacks.
I used to get along with my MIL. I've been with my husband for over 6.5 years, married for almost 2 months, and we have a 10 month old baby boy. I used to see her regularly as I have a beauty business and she would get one of my services every fortnight. We would talk and talk and have many things in common. She would tell me about the drama with her oldest son (I've never met him) and how his SO didn't like her and the family and always had an "issue." He hasn't been in contact with them for 10 years now since he got married and has 3 children now that his mother and siblings (besides 1 who he shares a father with) haven't met. My MIL says she doesn't acknowledge he's her son anymore.
Since we started trying for a baby in mid 2021, I started noticing the little comments here and there. Maybe it was myself being sensitive, but she would say things such as "don't have kids, they ruin your life". She has 5 kids (4 technically since oldest isn't her son apparently anymore). I don't think she's a maternal person - she's not nurturing or kind or empathetic. We struggled to fall pregnant. It took 1.5 years with medical issues between. When we finally announced I was pregnant, I was met with "See, I told you to relax!!" It didn't sit well with me since this was never the issue of why I couldn't fall pregnant, but I never said anything because I pick my battles and always was conscious of her saying this other DIL of hers had an issue with things they said and "she always complained." My MIL also invalidated the longevity of us trying to conceive: "It wasn't that long".
There were a few things my FIL said here and there, such as implying a caesarean isn't giving birth and it's the "easy way out". I find his views on many things to be from the 1950's, but tbh they're both like that. If I'm not cleaning or cooking everyday, I feel incredibly judged by them.
They also have issues with my BIL's fiancée. We get along great, we have similar parenting styles and a lot of things in common. Since I came into the family, I always heard them making fun of her for her parenting which I always found odd since I always thought the way she did things was normal... which always made me feel that if I were to have a child with their son, I'd be their next target.
Examples of what they would mock her out would be if they could only come before or after their daughter's nap time, that would be mocked "wE cAn OnLy CoMe AfTeR nAp TiMe". Or when my BIL's fiancée was standing next to the spa watching her daughter, they would speak about it like she's being too much watching her daughter in water. Little things like that. Also my husband's ex-girlfriend told my BIL and his fiancée about all the things the family had said about them (after my husband broke up with her, she liked her so she obviously felt a sense of loyalty to let her know what had been happening), so they have always known from early on they've been bitched about.
Since we had our son:
- I gave birth in a private hospital and they made comments about that
- when they came to visit us in hospital to meet our son, my MIL commented about the windows that didn't open: "it's so women can't jump out after having a baby" and kept implying ?joking? a baby is awful
- I had a pretty traumatic birth and my husband was definitely affected by it as he had to press the emergency button for my OB. When he was retelling the story to his family, my MIL said "really? Birth is easy" .. she loves to invalidate me
- they don't like they weren't able to kiss him when he was a newborn up until recently when we let them know they had permission but they are not allowed to kiss him on the mouth (I'm sure they don't like this either)
- FIL complained to BIL and his fiancee "I can't even kiss my F'ing grandson".. these two words should never be in the same sentence and I'm grossed out by his attitude
- MIL likes to make comments such as "we didn't do this and my kids are fine" (ok but are they?), "we just let babies sleep", "we just put the baby in their room and walked out and listened for them" .. I have access to the baby camera I bring over for my MIL on my phone and she does not watch nor listen out for him as I've seen him crying and standing in the cot for ages while she's doing god knows what..
- SIL was holding our son and put his rude finger up, to which I told her off and she said "it's a rite of passage"
- SIL and her husband smoke and I let them know they can't hold our son after smoking and must put a new top on and basic hygiene to which my FIL called my husband up disagreeing with it and my SIL said it's "preposterous"
- in laws booked a trip to a different state the same weekend as our wedding, assuming the wedding was a month later. They just never bothered to check the date before booking. Lucky they had booked it the day after. MIL said she would've still gone (apparently joking?)
- I told my MIL my husband was sad his father refused to say a speech at our wedding. He finally ended up doing one, telling my husband I "bullied him into it" which I did not.... and then in the speech they have pen edits of adding me into it and my BIL's fiancée told me later that they were asking around for a pen during my parents speech
- we visited my BIL, his fiancée and daughter for Christmas under the notion that only my parent in laws were also attending. 2 x SIL's and kids also rocked up without saying anything, so my BIL's fiancée ran around quickly sorting their Christmas presents out. At this wonderful family visit, smoking SIL held our son after I had seen her plain as day smoke outside before coming inside, to which my husband asked her if she had smoked, she said no, I told her I saw it, she shoved my son at me saying "alright then" with attitude, and the family left the house 10 minutes later apparently "angry"
- my MIL takes care of our son weekly (at the time was looking after him at our house because her aircon wasn't working in the summer) and I saw on the cameras out the front of our house my SIL had stopped by and was holding him, so it was safe to assume she had smoked already that morning and disregarded our boundary once again. I asked my husband to say something to which he called my MIL??? and asked her if SIL smoked, she said "She didn't smell like it but she wouldn't be disrespectful"... YES she would?
- my family have been very nice to my in laws, but in laws still liked to mention to my BIL and his fiancée they "can't keep up with her family" ... not sure what this means but my family are normal and undramatic and kind so they're probably insecure my husband loves my family
- my sister invited them to her son's 1st birthday party as a gesture of "we are all family since we share a family member" and my FIL never said hello to her or her partner.. none of them said hello to my sister's partner which I think could be racism since he's of a different ethnicity and I always hear them saying racist "jokes" (not about him, in general, but I tell them off - I haven't heard one for a while so probably behind my back now)
- MIL looked after our son at our house. When I came home, she made a point of telling me "I changed his clothes because they were dirty from CRAWLING around on the floor"
- telling our son who was in his playroom that's fenced in and trying to escape "don't worry, at NANNY'S house you can go WHEREVER you want to"
- my in laws went on a small overseas trip the past week, I had to ask my MIL about a month ago when were the dates so I could sort my son out with someone else or daycare. Her response "Oh I didn't even think of that". I understand her life doesn't revolve around looking after her grandson but damn what about if the day before she still hadn't told me
The reason why they tell my BIL and his fiancée their issues and not me or my husband is because they avoid confrontation for the longest time until they decide to blow it all up. That is why they're telling my BIL and his fiancée these things because they've been holding back for YEARS and had a long conversation with them late last year. Nothing got fixed, they were nasty to my BIL's fiancée, such as my FIL yelling at her, both gaslighting her, bringing up irrelevant things, getting mad because she doesn't parent her child the way they like.
They got annoyed at her for "bringing up the past, stop dwelling on it", but then they would bring up the past? BIL's fiancée's past issues were "my family member overheard MIL and SIL speaking shit about me at our daughter's 2nd birthday party at my house" whilst my in laws past issues were "You took our son away to live in your hometown which is an hour away and frankly too far for us to drive and not worth to see our granddaughter who doesn't even know us because we only see her for birthdays/Christmas/Easter".
My sister is happy to have my son every fortnight so he can also spend time with his cousin whilst I'm at work, so my MIL will only have him every fortnight. I see MIL on Wednesday when I drop him off so I'm going to let her know and see if she complains to my FIL and then will see if he calls my husband up. If anything happens, I'll just put him in daycare because my sister can't take him weekly. I don't think they will say anything though because my husband is a lot more defensive than my BIL, he's their golden child and they wouldn't want to ruin their relationship with him. I don't want my FIL near my child unless I'm present. The way he spoke to BIL's fiancée disgusted me and if he can yell at her, he can yell at me and I don't know what he would do in front of my child.
My husband's stance on everything?
"She was just joking"
"You don't know my mother's humor"
"Why don't you say something?"
"I don't know what annoys you"
I'm very aware this is a husband issue. Working on it. BIL's fiancée said BIL used to be the exact same, until he realised what his family are really like. He is LC now. Older brother and his wife are NC. It's nice because BIL and older brother are now back in contact, but in laws hate this and feel betrayed. How dare BIL see his brother? Appalling. My husband refuses to get back into contact with his older brother because he doesn't want to hurt his parents feelings, and only will see him if they see him. Sigh. Enmeshed feels like an understatement.
​

I am from Bangladesh, English is not my first language so apologize in advance if i failed to make you guys understand something. Also our culture is quite different than rest of the worlds....so anyway here it goes.
I must warn you guys, this is going to be a very long one. To those who actually might read through the whole thing, I really appreciate it guys. God Bless you all My wife and I got married two years ago, after being in a relationship for about a year. I'm currently 32, and she's 25. The first six months were amazing, but then things started falling apart. She couldn't adjust to living with my parents and wanted us to live separately. However, due to my limited earnings, it wasn't feasible for us to rent a house just for the two of us. Additionally, I have no siblings who could help take care of my parents (though I do have a sister who lives abroad with her husband). I tried discussing the situation with her to help her understand, but the main problem is that once she decides on something, it must be done her way, regardless of anyone else's opinion. (Later I realized this isn't her fault; she was raised like that.) And if I can’t fulfill these wishes, I faced severe verbal abuse (which became common later on, so I won't go into the details, trying to keep it brief).Things continued to worsen day by day. We regularly had fights about small things, which eventually led to the matter of living separately with her. She made up things about how my parents treated her all day and complained about it to her parents (which showed her immaturity, sadly, because ultimately it's disrespectful for me and herself too). Anyway, I'll give you guys one or two examples to help you understand how poorly my parents treated her.
She usually woke up late, around 1 p.m., which was her routine even before our marriage. My parents and I never had any issues with this; we all treated her as if she were still a child, thinking there was plenty of time for her to adapt to her role as a wife, especially after she finished her studies. I think this was a mistake on our part. Because she woke up so late, my mom ended up doing all the household chores, including tidying our bedroom while she freshened up. My mom never complained about this, obviously, because we were treating my wife like a child. One day, my wife woke up and drank some leftover Coke from the night before to help take a gas tablet. My mom saw this and commented, 'You just woke up; you shouldn’t be drinking Coke with your gas tablet.' My wife didn’t respond to my mom directly but called me to express that she couldn't stay here anymore, claiming our home felt like a prison to her. So yeah, there's more stuff like that, things like “mom wants less rice cooked to make me hungry” and she always used to complain about us about these things to her parents. And her parents, specifically her mom, used to charge my mom about how badly we were treating her daughter, yeah, things like that. Now imagine as a guy, as a son, how long you are able to take such BS against your parents, against your mom, from the love of your life? Every single day, countless times?! Sigh…
So, anyway, small things like that kept happening, and she moved back to her parents' house. She doesn’t listen to me and definitely not to my parents. What's worse is that when she lives with her parents, she exaggerates stories about how my parents treated her, like the example I gave earlier. Instead of offering guidance, her parents simply tell her, 'You don’t need to go back to that house.' She has no desire to stay at my place and keeps leaving to live with her parents, who don’t seem to care at all about the situation. Whenever I tried to talk to them, all they would say was, ‘’you guys got married, it’s your matter.’’ I was completely lost, not knowing what to do or which way to go. We had long fights to the point where we wouldn’t talk to each other for days, even weeks. She stopped coming to my place altogether. Last year, we had some fights about these issues and ended up not communicating for three months, which felt like it could be the end of our marriage. Later, we patched things up, but we didn’t find a proper solution. Also, when we reconciled, she mentioned she had gotten a job, which was good news. However, I was concerned about how she would manage it since it’s a night job, and she has classes during the day. She misunderstood my concern and reverted to her usual abusive behavior with me, saying everyone else supports her, but I just want to suppress her. That’s how she was with me most of the time. It's like I would try to say something nice to comfort her, but she would take it completely the wrong way, which would backfire with verbally abusive words from her. It hurts so badly…
Later, when we patched things up, she told me that people at work know she is not married. So I got upset and said, "Since we patched up now, shouldn't you let them know?" But she said she can't do that; she needs time, and I understand that because she has colleagues and all. So I gave her time.
Meanwhile, I noticed that she acts differently around me now, especially when using her phone. Before I continue, I must emphasize that I have always respected her privacy. I'm not like those typical husbands or boyfriends who insist on knowing their partner’s phone passwords or go through their texts to see who they are talking to, and so on. Something felt off, but I never really bothered with it because I believed that despite all our differences and complications, we had a strong trust for each other.
On August 29th last year, my phone was out of battery, and she was heading to the shower. I asked to use her phone to watch YouTube and stuff. She hesitated for a split second, seemed to quickly text someone, and then handed it over to me. That action triggered my suspicions to an extreme level. Right after she entered the bathroom, I checked her phone and found some photos of her with her best friend from university (you know, the guy she told you not to worry about. I laughed at such memes too until it happened to me). There were four photos. In two of them, she was laying her head on his shoulder, taking a selfie. The other two showed them holding each other’s arms or palms, surrounded by lots of love emojis. My world fell apart. I quickly went through that guy’s texts. With limited time, I searched for 'sex' in his inbox and discovered they had been sexting. I didn’t know what to say. Later when she came back from the washroom and figured something went wrong, so I confronted her and asked her about the photos. She said, “Don’t worry, we're just having fun; we're just friends.” I yelled, “What kind of friends take photos like that?” Things went nuts after that; she kept denying there was anything between them. Then I told her I found out about the sexting too, and she told me it happened when I was away for 3 months. If I wasn’t away, this wouldn’t have happened, and also there’s nothing going on between them; it was just a one-time thing & nothing happened in real life either. So I thought okay fine then let me go through the text I need to know what kind of friend he is, I am your husband for fuck’s sake. but after that, she never let me touch her phone ever. We fought for the whole night; it was the worst night of my life. Still to this day, I don’t know what they had….
In the morning, I took her to their place and told her mom about this, and she said [drum roll, guys], “Wasn’t this a problem between you two from the beginning? aint that obvious?” I was left speechless. Forget about a mother-in-law saying such things to a son-in-law; how could a mother say that about her own daughter? They had insulted me before in various ways, countless times, but at this point, those aren't even worth mentioning.
I didn’t know what to do, so I talked to my parents; they said in our religion, there's an opportunity for reconciliation. But I don’t want to give her a chance just like that. It has to be done with some conditions. So I told her I will forgive you and forget everything that happened if you live with me permanently and transfer credit to a different university near my home. Obviously, I wasn't going to allow her to go to the same university with the same guy she had those incidents with. However, she completely disagreed with me. She argued that love shouldn’t be bound by conditions and that she couldn’t accept them. So, what choice did we have left? It seemed we were heading for divorce. But then, I couldn’t divorce her yet because I hadn’t paid the 'kabin' money yet (its a money that the groom have to give to the bride) (it has to be paid if before they gets divorced), and it’s a substantial amount. Moreover, she didn’t want to divorce me. To be honest, I was too scared to take legal action; I didn’t want to go through all the trouble. So, things didn’t progress after that, and we began to live separately without any communication. Those four months were the worst days of my life.
After four months, this January, she texted me agreeing to my conditions. I asked her, 'It took you four months to decide that?' She said she needed time. By this point, she had removed all our marriage photos and any photos with me from all her social media. People at her work still don't know she is married. I didn’t want to give her a chance so easily, but she forcefully returned to my place, cried, and asked for forgiveness from my parents, who eventually accepted her. However, she hasn’t changed at all. She still refuses to change universities since this is her last year. She even went to Cox's Bazar (12 hours journey by bus and its quite far from where we live, its the beach of our ocean) with the same friends from her university, and I had to agree to it because, as I said before, everything has to go according to what she wants, or else I will have to face her verbal abuse, countless fights, and arguments. It was a living hell for me, guys, when she was in Cox’s Bazar with the same guy and her friends for 7 days........ Nearly two months later, it feels like the same issues are recurring. She doesn’t live with me consistently. Whenever we have a disagreement, she goes back to her own place. Her parents haven't taken any serious steps regarding our situation in this whole time. Moreover, she still refuses to disclose our marriage on her social media or at her workplace. Look, guys, I understand social media is absolutely nothing when it comes to real life. But I have trust issues now, and I need some reassurance. So I talked to her, reminded her about the conditions that she agreed to. She said she can't change and at least not yet; she needs time. I told her I gave you time. So she said then I can't do anything about that either. After that, we finally both agreed to divorce; she said she doesn’t need the 'kabin' money, but when she is angry, she said she doesn’t want to let me go easily, etc., etc.
Since then, we've been living separately again. Honestly, I don’t want to divorce her, and she doesn’t want to divorce me either. She still wants to be with me. However, it feels like we won’t be able to adjust in the future, and it will never be easy for me since I'll always have to compromise to maintain peace between us. But for a reality check, it seems like we might eventually have to divorce anyway, so perhaps it's better to end it sooner rather than later. But then again, I miss her a lot; we've had some amazing moments. We click on many things. I’ve put my heart into this relationship. Mentally, I'm not doing well at all. I'm constantly frustrated and depressed, watching all my friends move forward with their families and children, while I feel stuck. It sucks, man, it sucks. My sister, her husband, and my dad, nobody wants this relationship to continue except me and my mom. Ultimately, it's my decision, I know. But I'm not sure what's right or wrong anymore. However, I do know it feels like I’m blinded by the moments we shared. I gave her everything, and she knows all my secrets. We were like partners in crime. All my friends say the same thing: to leave her and move on. Talk to other women. I've tried; I even made an account on Tinder to talk to different women, DMing strangers on Facebook like a creep, just to find someone to talk to and forget her... but nothing is helping. You guys might laugh at me, but at the age of 32, it's difficult…
I'm not a religious person, but since last Ramadan, I've done everything possible to seek guidance from our Almighty, and I’m still continuing... But nothing seems to help. You know, guys, it feels like I'm going crazy at this point. Whenever I watch something amazing, listen to something, or eat something good that reminds me of her, I roleplay as both of us. I talk to myself as she would talk to me, and then I respond, and then I reply back to myself again as my wife xD yah i am done for xD I would truly appreciate and listen to any advice or thoughts you all might have. Thanks

hello
i, (20f) have been with t (21m) i suppose my now ex bf, came into my life late november and we started talking in december and i found it entertaining but we ended up moving fast and dating.
he got out of victorville prison in october after 3 and a half years for smuggling meth and immigrants across the border in arizona. i have never been with a felon or even knew one, but i did not judge him for that.
fast forward to like january things went downhill so quickly. he stole $400 cash from my mother and i defended him so much because my mother and i have a terribly strained relationship. my mom got a peace order on him, rightfully so, but i have had him come into ours and of course we get caught. then, he put his hands on me. we started to argue a lot and i was becoming aware of who he really is and his manipulative, gaslighting traits. he’s on probation and in february after a rave he decided to steal drugs from my friends. they wanted me to stay with them at their apartment because he’s so shitty but i chose to leave with him because i am attached to him. he stole $24,000 cash from another friend of mine. he had charges pressed against him of course.
he drives me fucking crazy because everything is a god damn lie and he just sounds so stupid oh my god. it has been hell. there’s too much to include. but the thing is when it’s good, it feels so good. i feel such a strong bond with him. he makes me feel so loved. the intimacy when it comes to sex is through the roof, it’s great. but he’s so terrible. a few weeks ago we went to hampton, va for a 2 day zeds dead event (edm) and it was freaking awesome. after night 2, he started tweaking because i still have pictures with my ex on my phone. understandable. though, i have over 140k photos in my camera roll and don’t feel the need to take the time to delete every single photo with someone who is no longer significant. he gave me 2 black eyes. he wrecked the airbnb and now i owe $630 to the hosts, i don’t have that.
all the times he’s good it feels so god damn good.
he is a criminal and i have let myself go through all this. there’s so much more to it.
friday night we went out to a little live music bar and he was driving back to mine to drop me off but i still wanted to be out so we were just driving around some more. he starts speeding down the pike and sees a cop. instead of slowing the fuck down or pulling over because they started following with their lights on, he continued to floor it in his black dodge charger (typical) as i’m begging him “please don’t do this to me, please don’t do this to me.” my life flashed right before my eyes when there was a car coming from the opposite direction making a turn and we slammed into them and it was over. it was terrifying, the car flipped over and i just made sure to protect my head the entire time with my hands. i was upside down and my legs were stuck and i was screaming and crying in pain. he LEFT ME. he FLED THE SCENE. the 25 year old girl in the other car was immediately dead and just leaving work, just got out of the parking lot. i was stuck freaking out and it took what felt like a while for me to be extricated out of the car. my right leg is broken and one of my ribs is broken and i was taken to the er. i had surgery yesterday and everything is so painful and when i move the slightest bit, i can’t help but start crying because of WHY i’m in this situation.
i know that he’s in custody right now and he has a bond hearing tomorrow. i’m so distraught. he killed someones daughter. i could get past me being in the car like that but he killed someone. he has so many charges i don’t know how many years he’s going to get. i wish this wasn’t real. i loved him so much and everyone was telling me to leave him. i can’t believe he left me to literally die. he makes me feel so loved i don’t understand how he can be so cruel and selfish.
i’m so fucking torn and sick of being in the hospital. i have NO idea how i’m supposed to move forward. i want to be dead. i am extremely lucky for surviving that crash. i am so, so hurt and confused. it is breaking me that i may never see him again. and i shouldn’t want to. but i can’t help but feel. i don’t even know what i’m feeling or what to feel.
here’s a link of the accident. look at that bs… i don’t know how the f*** he got out or how i lived, i’m not paralyzed and i didn’t lose consciousness either.
https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2024/04/1-woman-dead-another-in-critical-condition-after-rockville-pike-crash-that-shutdown-roadway/

Hey everyone! Throwaway account here. I am also on mobile so I apologize for the formatting. I would like some perspective on my feelings because I’m driving myself crazy, thinking that something is wrong with me to feel this way. This isn’t a rant, I just would like help in what to make of my feelings.
I (27F) am uncomfortable with my significant other’s online friend for what I deem superficial reasons and I’m truly lost. We’ve been together for 5 years now and we are doing very well. We are mostly long distance but have incredible trust in one another. We want to spend our lives together and are working diligently to close the distance.
So my SO made an internet friend whose company he enjoys greatly. This is due to the fact that her presence expanded our pretty niche group of internet friends with more people, which he greatly appreciates. I am made uncomfortable by her and want nothing to do with her even though she’s keen on messaging me and hanging out with me in voice calls. I want to state I do not suspect cheating in any way. She is happily married and my SO is good friends with her husband.
Here are a few reasons why I’m not keen on her:
-It feels like he “bought” her friendship. He supported her online presence and artistry by spending money on her and that’s how their friendship started. He admitted he was “star struck” by her. This has put me off because I found it to be sort of parasocial and lacking in boundaries? But they are very good friends now but it’s something I can’t seem to get over, no matter how hard I try.
-I’m not giving too many details but something devastating occurred and instead of talking to me about it, he went to her to pour it all out and get comfort from her. His reasoning is because he wanted someone completely removed from the situation to comfort him so it wouldn’t hurt as much. How one handles their grief I am not one to judge. But I found that this occurring with a friendship I perceived as “bought” wasn’t appropriate and I still can’t get over it either.
-We had a massive argument at one point wherein he wanted to leave our conversation to drink alcohol and talk over the phone with her, a predetermined event because she was going through a hard time and he set the date to hang out with her prior to our fight. And I was upset because I wanted to sort out what was happening and I perceived it as him falling into bad habits with her instead of handling our fight. We’ve resolved it now and have moved past it.
-I had to travel home for a few months where we had a 13 hour time difference. And during that time I had a health issue where I was in the hospital. I found that my SO didn’t check up on me and was in voice call with her and her friends. He didn’t check up on me for hours even though I texted to talk and was waiting by the phone. It left a bad taste in my mouth. My SO apologized for this.
-when celebrating a holiday that isn’t present in my SO and our friends’ country, my friends made an attempt to pronounce the holiday whilst she dismissed as “what he said”. Perhaps she was trying to be funny but I thought it was very rude since I am a POC and she is white. My SO told me not to hold it against her and it was out of context.
-Lastly, on the day I returned back where I was in the same timezone as my partner, I expected us to have a nice phone call together to reunite after months of not talking. Instead he was in a call with her for many hours where we didn’t talk that night. He actually invited me to join their call but I declined with excuses because I was uncomfortable. At this point SO, didn’t know about it. I was upset because I put off house chores just so I could fully catch up with him alone and he didn’t seem to want to put in the same effort. My SO apologized for this the next day. I thought it was a shallow apology. Only then did I reveal that I felt uncomfortable by her and gave all the reasons listed above. He gave me a more heartfelt apology after.
I have communicated that I am made uncomfortable by this friend because I have bad associations about her and my SO has been incredibly kind. He has not discounted my feelings at all. But he told me it was a balancing act where I couldn’t avoid her forever without catching on. And I learned that our friend community enjoys her company greatly and have meshed well with her in my absence. She also has enriched the community greatly by introducing folks who know her from her artistry. Him being associated with her has great benefits that I know my needs truly do not match up in any way. He also does not want to cut her off and does not believe a significant other controlling who they’re friends with is healthy.
As a result, because I couldn’t let his friendship with her and his other friends suffer, I decided to step back from our group of friends not to hurt them. Stepping back meant sacrificing the ability to group activities that I wanted greatly to do as well as practically disappearing from my community of friends who I adore and adore me in turn. But they have survived without me for many months and I don’t think they’ll miss or need me.
I know I could suck it up and just engage with her and just “meet her”. But there’s something that is holding me back from associating with her. I truly don’t know if my reasons have any merit or if I’m over exaggerating but I am truly lost and confused. I feel so irrational and that I am creating a problem over nothing. I would like some perspective as to whether or not my feelings are justified. But I’m also not open to the suggestion of just meeting her because I genuinely want nothing to do with her.
I’m also not going to break up with my partner. He’s been nothing but kind to me about this and apologetic about how he neglected me and my needs when I should’ve been prioritized. We have a fantastic relationship and this isn’t worth ending on. Again, I know he’s not cheating on me. He’s not that kind of person and we have a great, working and loving relationship outside of this. His internet friend also has a loving relationship with her husband.
But I still am doubting the validity of how I feel. I know I don’t have to like every person in the world but I feel like I’m sacrificing a lot just so I don’t cause conflict. And that I’m causing trouble because I’m irrational. My partner has validated my feelings and hasn’t called me any of these things. My brain is telling me this.
Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment if you do.
Edit: I changed the word “dislike” to “uncomfortable”. I feel that suits my feelings more. Also I changed my wording here and there for clarity purposes.

This was 2 months ago but the shame finally went away so I can talk about it now. I've always silently taken pride in my strength and height (6’2) but never really fought many people because they were afraid of me possibly hurting them even though never would even provoked I try to find humor in it before I choose violence. I've been called waste potential because I have the strength but choose to use it to open pickle jars and carry water jugs or any heavy things into my mom's house because she has a bad back. I know my limits most of the time and I know I run out of steam quickly if I'm not careful. My mom recently started dating someone who we will call John.
At the time we had just gotten back from a trip because of my grandmother's 62nd birthday, I had no contact with my grandmother because of her mistreatment towards me which left me traumatized and didn't go to the party, and my mom argued for the first time in years (normally just listen and don't say anything back, she's in the military and is strong). I stayed in the hotel and did an essay I had, But my not going ruined the event essentially. From what my sister and aunts said, the main topic was my absence and my mom's boyfriend felt I was being very disrespectful during the whole ordeal, which I'd admit I was. Did I call her out of her name? No, but I did damage our relationship at the time by not going and standing firm in my decision. I insulted my grandmother for her actions twaords me and said how I'm not going to act fake so she can be happy and I hate being sucked up too and sucking up to people. This by accusation disrespected my mother because I won't even say hi to my grandmother when she's on the phone with my mom and if she calls me I act like I am listening to someone or pretend to focus on something else. We made up but when I tried to give her a fist bump she punched my fist and said we are even now and we laughed. I'm saying this to explain why John did what he did, he saw our argument from start to finish and felt we were both out of line but I was worse. Anyway, time for the funny part.
John felt like I hadn't been punished for my behavior and wanted to get me back without going too far because I wasn't grounded or anything that shocked even me. He asked, “OP Have you ever fought before?” I said “A few times but it's been a while and I'm rusty, I had a friend practice with me so I can punch and block properly but that's about it”. He then asked “You want to fight me?” and laughed, I said “Sure” and he started backtracking hard. He asked me several times if I was sure and asked my mom if she was ok with this, she happily let me fight. I took off my socks so I wouldn't slip on the wooden floor and took off my glasses. He asked me one last time if I was sure and I agreed. This man then rushed at me, I never went from being ok to having my whole body hurt in such a short amount of time. Man did a combo on me and put me in a chokehold, I had rarely been choked properly so this was new. Every time I breathed out I instinctively breathed in but I couldn't get any air and I got light-headed, I was seconds away from passing out before he let go, I got a few punches in while I was on the floor but the lack of air made them weak. After I got up I had a headache and started laughing but my body seriously hurt. My mom said I deserved it for what I put her through last week. John started apologizing but saying he did warn me. I gave them my blessing for they wanted to date officially that day for an unrelated reason.
I have been good about not swearing around my mother, she knows I cuss outside of the house but she's ok with it as long as I don't do it around her. When John ran at me all I could say was “Oh fuck” and before I almost passed out I said “shit” My mom was laughing at me while it happened.
I cannot emphasize enough how fast he pinned me down, I got humbled quickly. My main issue about fighting is I forgot my foot placement and I fall quickly if in the right position. I know this so that's why I rarely fight unless it's for fun. Turns out he rough houses with his entire family and this was just how he acts, she said it's not uncommon for some family members to bleed after and I got it easy. I said he was a supervillain
TLDR My mom's boyfriend joked about fighting me because of an argument I had with my mom and I accepted, then when we fought before I could react he put me in a chokehold and left me with hurt pride and a headache, he had me gasping like a fish.

currently contemplating who i am and trying to psychoanalyze all my past choices. just a perfect way to start the night.
but besides that, im just looking for someone to talk to. so maybe you can tell me about your flaws, mistakes, and why you're so alone. you know, nothing too personal.
but a little bit about me
• im a girl, a real one! a normal one in fact
• im a student in college
• i enjoy reading and writing and reading some more
• i like daydreaming and having vivid thoughts. so i can mask my mundane life
• i like watching indie films but not niche nuance ones, sorry. maybe you can help me get into them
• i love fashion and clothes. ladies, im your gal
• im an enfp who likes to go out! never been one to be inside all the time.
• i like using reddit as an outlet for all of the things i dont know how to express
lastly, i like talking on the phone! so if you're ever up for it, lets call. please message me with some sort of introduction and express some enthusiasm. i don't really have an age limit but just be over 18!

Yes, the title sounds harsh but hear me out. I(14, female) used to have a great relationship with my mom(45, female). At first the relationship with my dad(47, male), who worked nightshifts at the time(which is vital to the story) was rocky but got better after his and my mom's divorce 2 years ago, which is also when he met my step-mom(45, female) but that's not when it started. It was the summer I was going into 7th grade and it was all going well till my mom started telling me how she cheating on my dad and how they were so much "bigger" than him. I never enjoyed listening to her rants but I never been one to speak up about something so I stayed silent, one of them being her now boyfriend, who(for privacy purposes) we'll call James. He always talked to much, was a show-off, weird, especially to me, and just annoying in general. At this time I was about 12. Then at the last month of the summer, my mom talked to my dad, kicking him out, and moving James in the same day. I hated it and cried in my dad's arms before he went upstairs to pack some clothes and his medication, which me needed. While he packed, my mom manipulated me into staying with her and going to my dad's every Wednesday and every other weekend. When my dad is done, he walked down the stairs on the phone with my cheer coach, letting her know what's going on. Than after they hung up, he hugged me and told me bye, he loves me, and to call and text him whenever before he left to his truck and left. After he left, I went up to my room and cried. At first, my mom was always going out to bars and smoking marijuana(which is legal in my state), and they(my mom and James) never fought. Then they started fighting. Over the course of about six or seven months, they started fighing, going from once a month, to every other week, to every week, to evey other day, then every day. I would always try to defend my mom but I would just get cussed out with my mom only defending me by saying not to talk to me(her daughter) like that, threatening to kill me, my dad and grandpa several times too. At this point I turned I'm 14. Then we got evicted. We packed as much as we could before moving out to my grandpa's out in the country. Then the fighing got worse. Every day when I got off the bus, I would hear them yelling and screaming at each other from inside and I wouldn't even be to the ramp(roughly 15-20 feet long) that led to the porch. I would never sleep peacefully, falling asleep at about 5:30 AM every morning, which I got up at 6AM every morning. Then they got violent with eath other, mainly him(my mom always defended herself). I eventually moved in with my dad back in the town we live in. Over time I eventually told him and my step-mom everything that happened and we got me a restraining order against him. My mom was beyond livid when they got the paper work in the mail, calling my dad, screaming at him whey would he let his daughter do this. I went to to my mom's every other weekend and every Wednesday, like I did with my dad. Eventually James got arrested for driving a mini bike on a highway with a gun, which as an ex-felon he couldn't have one. They would always call around me and my mom would tell him everything about me. All this leading up to this month(April 2024), a month after the restraining order ended. He got out earlier this month and my mom recently had to take me somewhere to hang out with my sister(23, female) but had to drop stuff off at the motel her and James were staying at. We got there and I sat in the car as she unloaded it, refusing to see him. She put it all in front on the door of the motel room before she unlocked and opened the door. She talked to him, which at this time was out of my view, before grabbing stuff and going inside. Than he came out. He was apologizing to me endlessly but I ignored him. He went inside after several endless minutes and then came back out, approached the car, then got in. Now, for clarification, I never SAW him get in, but I felt the van shift at his weight and smelled his cologne strongly in the car, causing me want to throw up cause it was so strong. I ignored him and he got out a minute later. Eventually, after a blur of me going in and out of the motel apartment, trying to avoid him, they left, leaving me at the motel apartment alone for my sister to come pick me up. We went put foe dinner then she brought me back to my grandpa's where I stayed cause I refuse to be around James. I told my aunt, who lives with my grandpa, and she was livid then we told my dad. That weekend, my mom spent almost no time with me. I went that Wednesday and the same thing happened. Thursday, I sent a paragraph explaining why I'm blocking her, then blocked her. Am I the asshole for blocking her?

My step-dad has been in my life since I was a few months old & though my mom left him when I was 7, he & my mom split custody of my brother & I. As a teenager they rekindled their romance. Also, my parents don’t know I was sexually abused as a child.
I have a lot of hurt from my childhood that stems from molestation (if I can even categorize as that), an emotionally & verbally abusive stepfather, a mother who was basically anti affection, a psycho bio dad, & being bullied by my classmates. You all should know that I’m a Black female in my late 20’s & I am from the south. My mom & step-dad were born in the 70’s & raised in two different, but very rural towns & moved to the city once they were married & raised my brother & I in a medium sized town/city. They were never really affectionate people, though they could muster up a hug before bedtime. The reason I mention our ages & race is because I need to know from you all, if their thinking is because of who they are or are they actually not just small town/minded people who were raised in a backwards way & they have treated me in a way I deserve.
Since having to move back “home” in late 2023, this subject has weighed heavily on my brain because of their constant criticism of me giving my daughter daily affection. They love to claim I am making her weak & spoiled & when she gets older she will be difficult to be around. Although their comments annoy me in the deepest sense, I will not stop loving on my almost 2 year old. I’ve been through a lot of twisted pain but the simplest form of it impacted me the most & that is, not getting enough love as a child from my mom. I personally believe a child can’t be spoiled with hugs & kisses. I believe children are spoiled by always hearing yes, parents figuring out all their issues for them, & so on & so forth but yeah, definitely not by hugs & kisses.
Anyways, let me get to the meat of this shit. As a child I made so many mistakes all in the name of wanting more attention/love from my mom & really anyone who would give it to me. After she left my step-dad when I was 7, she was always, always, always on the fucking phone. Albeit, she was hurting & getting comfort from whoever was on the other end of the line (her mom/friends), I felt so deeply alone & I was hurting from her leaving him too. One day I came up with a plan to gain her attention & for the next 2 years or less, I stuck my hand down my throat NIGHTLY, so that I’d puke & she’d give me attention. I felt so guilty but it worked because she was more affectionate/attentive & she spent time taking me to various doctors, praying over me, asking people for help regarding my “severe acid reflux” issue. This was just one of several ways I quenched my thirst for attention.
My mom never found out that I was faking. Fast forward a few years & I’m 10 & I ask a boy in my class why his hand are all cut up & he proceeded to tell me that cutting his hand helps him not to feel the pain he goes through on the inside. When he said that I instantly wanted to try it too because I had a lot of unspoken/ unacknowledged pain. I know it sounds completely stupid, but I was a hurting child & at the time, what my classmate said sounded like I hit a pot of gold. So what did I do? I started to cut my hand but that only lasted a week before I got caught by my mom. She was angry & she told my step-dad & he was angry & they (especially him) sat me down & CHEWED ME OUT. He asked me what others who knew me would think, he told me if I did it again I’d get whooped, he & my mom told me I couldn’t have pain inside of me because I had never gone through anything (a sentiment that to this day is occasionally thrown at me). I can’t recall all the details of the convo but damnit if I didn’t see walk away defeated.
Recently, I told someone that story & I told him how insanely gross I thought my parent’s response to that incident was. He laughed & told me in a joking manner,that I deserved it & I shouldn’t have done some stupid shit like that. Hey, I’m not arguing that it WASN’T stupid but it hurt that the way my parents reacted is apparently normal. Since moving back in with them, resentment that I thought I had long buried, is resurfacing & doing so with a vengeance. I am finding myself once again, bitter & angry because I love my daughter so much & I can’t see myself reacting to her self harm in that way. Again, up until my friend (he’s 6 yrs older than me) agreed with them, I just wrote my parents off as a product of everything that went into their upbringing (black close minded Southerners from the 70’s). I thought surely this wasn’t how I was supposed to have been treated but that’s why I’m here to ask y’all, have I really been fucking wrong this whole time? If so…FUCK I really am weak. Also, I apologize for rambling or maybe adding unnecessary details but I just wanted to paint a bit of the scene. Thanks for reading all this & I guess I’m ready to get flamed! lol

I (25F) recently reconnected with my ex-fwb (28M) just a few weeks ago (we haven't even kissed/did anything physical, we got dinner a couple times so we literally just sat and talked at the restaurant). I'm fine with just being platonic and it seemed like he was cool with that too initially, but he's been sorta weird these past several days. We talked on the phone 5 nights ago and he made a few dirty jokes here and there (like when I asked him if he could bring me some chocolate next time, he said 'If I put it somewhere else, you'll lick it off'). And then even several days before the phone call, he texted something like "I wonder how much the neighbors probably heard" (like when we used to do sexual stuff).
After the phone call 5 days ago, I called him the next night and he said he was on video call with someone and I asked if I can call later and he said he was knocking out. I hearted his messages and politely let it be, I assumed he didn't wanna talk much anymore or something. 2 days go by, the both of us are silent and then he texts me yesterday morning at like 7:40 a.m. and all it says is "Fortnite?" (we used to occasionally game together LOL) and I replied back later saying just "Sure". He didn't reply to this for hours so at night, I text him again and all I say is "I'm ready". He gets back to me 20 mins later and texts that he raged and ended up deleting the game. I called him almost immediately after to ask what's up and he declines my call and I text him saying "You're being weird". It's the next afternoon now and he still hasn't replied back.
Isn't he being weird?? I can't tell if he's even being honest or what he wants. If he doesn't wanna engage with me in any sort of way anymore, platonic or not, then damn just leave me alone. What was the point of even texting me yesterday morning asking about Fortnite?? I'm chatting with others and I've still been treating him normally and respectfully, I don't like the hot and cold crap. I even texted him again a few hours ago asking "You good?" and seemed like he ignored that. Thoughts?? He used to be A LOT more nicer and communicative with me in the past, I don't know what's happened to him once we reconnected.

The question id like insight on, if you ever get to the bottom of all this text, is would you consider spending the night with someone who you just started dating (no sex just cuddling) progressing forward or slowing it down.
Brand new non monogamous person here. My partner(m41) and I (f36) have been together for 15 years. We've had issues in the past with accountability, ie there is a problem with our relationship, I think this is why, and here's the work we need to do. I do the work, look into things, make suggestions on what he can do and usually it feels like pulling teeth to get him to do this part. That's been the pattern for about the last 5 or so years.
I tend to pathologize myself in these situations too. One issue was our mismatched libido. I had been trying everything, looking into health issues, reading articles and books, taking suppliments and asking my partner to do the same with not much effort on his side.
My partner and I know that I am bisexual and this winter after doing some deep digging, I thought for sure the answer to our libido issue was that I was a lesbian. I had started taking new libido supplements and it increased my libido, but only for women. It felt like AHA! Finally we've found the answer to our libido issues. It was absolutely devastating for my partner as we thought about how to end our marriage. I stopped taking the pills and over the next few months we talked alot, about EVERYTHING. My libido went back to my baseline and I realized I was just bisexual and that I had been feeling alot of resentment for many things and that was the libido killer. The biggest issues were that I was trying to make our relationship work and my husband would promise to do better for us but he did not put in the effort. After this realization we knew we needed time away from each other to process and see how to be better for each other. He is now currently about 10 hours away and our time apart will be until fall.
During this shit storm we decided that this could be a good time to try ENM. I encouraged my partner to date and he also wanted me to explore my sexuality. One big thing for me, was that we needed to read books or at the very least become familiar with ENM by reading articles and spending time on these Reddit groups so we are informed on best practices and we are prepared for when the big feels come on.
So far I've gone on a date and he's gone on a couple. I felt happy for him with the first one and encouraged him in all the ways.
The second person he began to see is where things have started falling apart. He didn't tell me he was seeing someone until a week after but told me they were just looking to be friends. He told me he wanted to tell me when I was less stressed. I don't believe I was stressed but we were just having some heavy convos about our relationship. I told him that I would like to know if he's talking to someone new and I would like to know if he plans on going on dates with them.
Ultimately I was very happy for him. I told him I would prefer if he told me about these dates before, like 'hey I'm thinking about asking this person to hang, or we are having another date. I also asked him in the past to put ENM on his dating profile and he said he would, and when I asked him recently he told me it wasn't on there. I told him that I was of the opinion that in order for us to do this right, he should have a better handle on best practices, and he should have known that ENM should be in his profile. He didn't agree and it was because he thought he was going to get less matches this way. This felt icky to me and I communicated it to him. He could not see my point of view so I pointed him in the direction of some posts on Reddit about why it's a good idea. He was very reluctant but he did change it in the end. We ended up having a good discussion about it on the phone and about him seeing this person, and how I would love a heads up about how things are going and if he plans on dating people. That same evening he went on a date with this same person and they cuddled. I felt many things at once and one was, why didn't he tell me on the phone that he had a date planned for that evening. Especially since I just told him and he withheld that info. He told me he hesitated to tell me because he didn't want to hurt me. I felt so frustrated because I had clearly communicated that what's frustrating me isn't him seeing people but him saying one thing and doing another. I was able to get over it quickly and we talked about how at first he told me they just want to be friends and now things are progressing which is fine but I feel like he's leaving alot of stuff out, cause of guilt and not wanted to hurt me. I realized too in these conversations that he hadn't really looked too much into polyamory like he said he would. We did manage to end the call on a good note and I knew they were going on a date that night.
I felt good about it and it made me happy that he was happy. I told him that I felt like things are going very fast because he hasn't done the work to know all the intricacies that come with this lifestyle and I would really love it if they slow things down a bit, just until he catches up with the info. I feel I was very clear in my communication. This morning I called because we are getting some work done on the house I needed to know where some tools were. I noticed he saw my messages and didn't answer my call. I called again and I realized that he had stayed the night. He said nothing sexual happened but I am feeling so crushed right now. I felt that I communicated clearly that I needed him to do his homework and to slow things down until he does, but to me, staying the night, even if nothing sexual happened felt like speeding thing up, not slowing down. I wanna know if I am being rational in my feelings. Did I communicate properly? Should I have said I would feel uncomfortable with you staying the night at this point or was it implied?
I had a quick convo with him and he says absolutely he thought he was taking things slow because he is not ready to be intimate, and doesn't see staying the night as a step forward. I feel like I feel confident and then when I hear him talk everything doesn't make sense anymore.
Tldr asked partner to slow things down, I feel like they sped em up.

Hello!!! This is my first time posting on this platform so bear with me here :) Also please let me know if I need to do anything differently regarding post format or making the reading experience better. This is partially me asking for advice and partially me getting a lot of long term anxiety inducing stuff off my chest <3.
Anyways, I think it would be good to start with some background information. My Gf and her ex were together for a year and a half from our freshman year of highschool to about halfway through our sophomore year. (Almost done Junior year now) These two were very very in love and had every intention of being together for life (Yes I know that's just how highschool love is). He was her first everything, first 'real' love, first long term relationship, etc. Following their breakup up, her and I became very close, but very mutually platonic friends, and at that point I could tell just how badly the breakup was affecting her. She had this undeniable and extreme attachment to him, often crying, even at school, extremely depressed, constantly looking at old texts. You get it.
Over the next 4-5 months, her and I started getting very close. We were without a doubt the closest friends I've ever witnessed, like we were literally made to be besties. Every single day we would talk constantly, playing videogames, consoling her about the break-up. And it quickly became apparent we were falling for each other, and falling very hard. I assume you can probably see where this is going. In June of last year I told her my feelings, and we instantly got together. This lasted all of 2-3 weeks before she revealed to me she still loved her ex. It was completely and utterly devastated, she was my very first relationship, my very first everything. There's many parallels. I foolishly stayed with her as long as I could manage, but it became clear she was using me as a rebound, and spent the entire summer emotionally cheating on me with the ex she could never get back. Oftentimes being completely dry with me whenever I attempted to revive whatever love there may have been. I don't blame her for this, I don't hold this over her head, I love her.
We broke everything off before our Junior year started for a variety of reasons, mainly for me I was simply too traumatized and needed time to grieve the loss of the girl I thought was my soulmate, who told me I was her soulmate. November 25th last year, following a very tumultuous period of trying to rebuild our friendship, and rediscovering our love for each other, we got back together. We've been together for over five months now, and it's truly been incredible. All of my dreams have really come true, everything I dreamt of over that horrible summer are here. We're going to prom together soon, we just had an amazing anniversary, everything is going so amazing. She's really my best friend in the entire world, and she really does feel the same about me. She's taken responsibility for everything she did to hurt me, she's shown me her love in more ways than I ever could've asked of her, all of our mutual friends often tell us how perfect of a couple we are. I'm saying all this as a way to ward off anybody saying we should simply break up, this is a complicated situation and it requires more than a simple solution. Among other things which she also painfully regrets, she has completely made up for everything.
I forgive her, she was just a kid, and she still is, which brings us to today. Over the past couple months she's made infrequent remarks about wanting some kind of closure regarding her ex, and how they broke up. It hasn't bothered me, but I've been keeping wary it, especially since we both started becoming better friends with her ex again. He is genuinely a really cool guy, and I trust him very much, but even so I've made some boundaries very clear regarding my girlfriend talking/hanging out with him. The reason I decided to post tonight is because just earlier on the phone with her she mentioned wanting closure with him again, and more specifically, wanting to know if he regrets breaking up. This concerned me a small bit, but I trust her so much, and she's made it clear she's actually uncomfortable even being at his house (we went there once together to hang out). I just need some advice or consolation. Or someone to tell me I'm overreacting. Or literally anything.
I have so much more I could've talked about, other shitty behaviors she's done, I could make two more posts just about those, however they didn't seem relevant to this specific problem.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/LimpCrazy1824
Originally posted to amiwrong
Previous BoRU
[New Update] - Am I wrong for ultimately wanting a divorce even after my wife has showed much more effort into our relationship?
NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----
Trigger Warnings: possible infidelity, emotional abuse and manipulation, mentions of addictions, emotional affair, mentions of invasions of privacy, verbal abuse
RECAP
Original Post: March 21, 2024
For context. Coming into the new year I had no idea my wife had been at the bare minimum having an emotional affair with a coworker.
On New Year’s Eve before I found out about this she came home and acted extremely cold toward me and our kids. She was angry.
Earlier on that evening she asked if she could go out to have 1 drink with a female coworker (whom I knew and trusted) I told her that was cool but that the kids were staying up for the ball drop so as long as she could be back to celebrate with them I was fine with it.
Well. She ended up getting off of work at 11:30 and barely had enough time to get home.
After the ball drop she cried and cried. I asked her what was wrong and she said she got invited to a her friends house to have drinks with them. (All 3 of them women, all married, I had no issue)
I said “look. I’m not sure what’s wrong and why you’re crying about this. That’s fine. You deserve a girls night out every once in a while I don’t mind watching the kids. Just go”
I put the kids to bed, she left and then about 3 hours later. So 3 a.m. I tried to contact her. No answer. I wait about 15 minutes. Call her again. No answer.
I call her friend who she’s supposed to be with. No answer.
She then texts me back 5 minutes later and says “yeah. I’m still coming home tonight. We’re still drinking”
Never in our 6 years of marriage had I felt a gut feeling that something else was going on but that night it all hit me. I went through our phone records and found another number I was unfamiliar with that she had been in contact with all night.
Ignoring my calls, texting that number in between. Etc.
She had also been texting this number for a 3 month period daily. I never suspected that she would be texting another dude while right beside me watching family movies either. As times had shown. How I didn’t see this I have no idea. Maybe she had this individual listed as mom in her phone. I don’t know. I had never gotten this vibe or feeling our entire marriage. I was blindsided by it.
Anyway. I confront her about it through text with the proof like an idiot. She speeds home, deletes everything on her phone. No way of getting the back ups restored. No way of ever knowing she did not meet up with this guy.
Upon finding this out I immediately told her i wanted a divorce. It was at this point she began getting violent with me. Talking shit about everything I had been doing to keep us financially stable. The 18 hour work days that kept a roof over our heads. She told me that I needed to leave even though I pay rent and both our kids are asleep.
I refused
We slept in separate rooms that night and the next day she tried to act like nothing even happened. Claiming that she remembered we’d fought but couldn’t remember what it was about. So I show her the phone records even though I’m positive she was just trying to pull some crap.
She confesses who the individual was and says they flirted a lot but never met up.
I told her if that was true she’d have no issues restoring the text messages she deleted at which point it was confirmed she deleted everything and deleted her last back up. She also saved a back up after they were deleted the night everything went to shit.
Since then she’s tried hard to convince me they never did anything and never saw eachother aside from work. I keep finding bits and pieces of things that don’t make since.
Chunks of texts deleted from her friends messages around that time. Pictures on her Google drive from that night (where she was with who she said she was) deleted from her phone for what reason?
The most damming evidence I have is for a 2 hour period on New Year’s Eve. They stopped texting each other then randomly started texting again at around 3 a.m. when I started calling and got that feeling.
My gut tells me she left her friends place, went to his place and went back. Or. She went straight to his place from our place then went to her friends when she found out I was calling them.
There are revealing pictures of herself she never sent me also on her Google drive taken on Snapchat.
She’s since given me her all her attention. She initiates intimacy 10 fold. The texting stopped. She shows me everything on her snap chat and even downloads her data to show me she’s not hitting other people up.
I’m seeing the side of her I haven’t seen since we were married all those years ago.
But I can’t help but trust my gut in demanding a divorce. I feel like she’s kept things from me. Not knowing for sure is killing me inside.
My parents know all of this and keep pressuring me to work it out and not dwell. My brothers are saying fuck that get a divorce. Am I wrong in getting a divorce?
Keep in mind the dates. It’s now been over four months since this occurred. I’m positive she cut the individual completely out. But I still can’t get over the not 100 percent knowing and my gut tells me she’s still lying.
Edit: if some of this is confusing ask and I will clarify. I will also give context where needed.
Also. Sorry for the way this was written. I’m aware there is some jumping back and forth. Etc. I’m just scatterbrained right now. It’s honestly getting to me more now than the night I found out. It just keeps building. I feel stupid.
Edit 2: Also. Forgot to add this the individual in question is an employee she manages. As in. She is his direct supervisor. I’ve heard there are greater legal consequences for this but I have no idea.
For clarification. The individual in question is actually morbidly obese. I’m by no means “fit” fit. But I’m not fat either.

• went back and looked at the time stamps for the pictures that were deleted of her and her friends that night. (On Google drive) before that 2 hour period of no texting, during, and after there were several pictures taken with verified time stamps on them. As in they can not be changed on Google drive. Whether or not she has a friend that’s tech saavy and was able to do that within the 10 minutes it took her to get home upon confronting I don’t know. Is this possible?

It’s also worth adding i come from a family that has thoroughly convinced one of my cousins that she needs to stay in her marriage even when her husband became solely reliant on her, got addicted to coke. Is still addicted to coke and physically abused her. All because “by golly no one in this family has ever gotten a divorce” so essentially doing so I would get disowned by my parents, my sister, all my cousins, all my aunts all m uncles. But would still have the support of my 2 brothers.
Update 1: currently on morning break at work. Been reading through the comments. I have off tomorrow all day so I will be heavily weighing my options when I get some time to myself tomorrow. May not update tomorrow. But I’ll update ya’ll when I can. Thank you for all the input positive and negative. The best thing I can do right now is just get through the work week. Get my kids from daycare and be mentally present for them.
I’ve been ignoring her since last night and she’s been snapping and calling me all morning to see what’s wrong.
Relevant Comments
OOP on his wife lying to him and the family telling him to reconsider divorcing

OOP: I’ll be honest with you. The two main reasons I’ve tried to tuff it out are 1) the kids. Even though she pretty much said fuck all of us on New Year’s Eve.
And 2) for some reason my parents have really been pressuring me to stay. (It’s fucking with me and I don’t know why)
They keep reminding me that (no one in this family has ever gotten a divorce. Blah blah blah) they said I’ll most likely never end up seeing my children again even though in my state if a spouse is found to have cheated, this essentially gives up their rights to children if a divorce is filed
I really don’t understand how my own parents can sit there and feed me bull crap stories about people they know that went through it and came out a better couple. (Really feels like they’re taking her side in everything that happened while ignoring every truth)

InevitableTrue7223: Did she come home acting extremely cold or did she work until 11?

OOP: Silence. Our daughter ran up to her for a hug and she started crying. She then got really irritated when our daughter asked her for a drink. Something that still doesn’t sit right with me. She started yelling at her saying “mommy needs some fucking space”
When I tell ya’ll there was literally no sign of all this crap until that. She hid everything extremely well.
Also. For everyone saying what they are about the 2 hour period. Yes. That was my thought. I went back through the Google drive at everything that was removed from her phone. There were pictures and selfies taken with her friends at the place she was “supposed to be” during that time period before it and after it. I doubt she’s tech Saavy enough to edit time stamps on Google drive once everything’s backed up. This isn’t to say they never met up. This isn’t to say she doesn’t know how to do that. And it still doesn’t make a difference with everything she did. Like I said. Weighing options tomorrow. Reaching out to a lawyer tomorrow.

 
Update #1: March 25, 2024
Those of you who saw https://www.reddit.com/amiwrong/s/HcnwYkadEt
My wife had an emotional affair at the bare minimum and may have cheated. (Probably did but will never admit it)
Here is the update:
I sit here typing this out on my morning break while listening Tuesday’s gone by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
After a long day of considering my options on Friday I sat my wife down on Friday evening when she got off work and I had out the kids to bed.
As soon as I brought up that my trust in her was completely gone she immediately became argumentative and essentially stated “I thought we had left this in the past. You never trusted me did you?.
I responded with: even if you didn’t do anything physical or met up with him outside of work, you’ll never let me see those text messages. You’ll never pull the snap chat data
She responded with: you’re right!! Marriage is based off trust and if you don’t trust me then maybe we ought to call it quits”
The irony in this is that I worked 18-19 hour days for the past few years barely being able to do anything I wanted to do in my life because I was supporting our children, getting them to bed, cleaning the house all the time, doing all the cooking, barely even getting enough sleep. Probably took years off my life just from the stress.
She on New Year’s Eve said fuck the kids, fuck you, and essentially went out to party with her friends all the while ignoring calls from me and our daughter asking where she was while also responding to her bare minimum emotional affair partner.
Not getting into all the details so as to not repeat myself between this and the update.
Long story short. In my state we have to be separated for a year before a divorce can be finalized.
When I agreed with her that we should start separating and that I had already been in contact with a lawyer she freaked the fuck out on me. She begged me not to go through with it. But alas.
Next Friday I will be dropping her off at her parents a few hours away. The kids will be staying with me for now with the help of one of my brothers.
I told her there was only one way I would put this off for now. That was pull the data, pull the texts. Prove your case.
She looked down at the ground. One more time. And told me that’s a violation of her privacy.
We haven’t spoken since.
For now For my kids
I godda keep on keeping on.
Update: trickle truth:
1st it was a guy in a different state. 2nd it was a coworker 3rd it was someone underneath her. that she supervises 4th and just now - Randomly got a text from her stating she may have told him she loves him. But instantly regretted it. And that’s it”
“Riiiiiiggght” - Dr. Evil.
Also let me reiterate: the process of separation starts this coming Friday. In my state you cannot divorce immediately. It takes a full year. (I say this because of all the people stating “just divorce and be done with it, and also those stating “stop giving second chances.”
Relevant Comments
Scruffersdad: Op, you do realize that your attorney can subpoena her phone records and texts, right? If you believe there was cheating have your lawyer get all those messages. Then you’ll know and she’ll be out of luck.

OOP: Definitely going to happen. I’ve already been in contact with one and in the state I live in if there was infidelity she essentially loses any choice in the matter of where the kids stay.

tab1234566788: Oh gosh I'm so sorry. I've been in a similar situation, he wouldn't show me the texts. Spent about a half hour clearing then and then let me see his phone. Lol.

OOP: For me it’s pretty black and white. I’m 99.99999 percent sure she physically cheated. I’d love to just believe her and move on but I can’t.
Not only did she delete all texts between them. She deleted all texts from multiple friends and coworkers from that same time as well.
But left the ones from prior and after. As far as I’m concerned her friends were in on it and so was anyone else she deleted texts from.

 

----NEW UPDATE----

Update #2: April 22, 2024
Last update: https://www.reddit.com/amiwrong/s/cN3wYuy7W0
Original post linked in previous update.
Long story short I found out my wife had been having an affair on New Year’s Eve as Ali sat at home with our children. After ignoring calls from not only me but our daughter asking where she was I went through our phone records to see that while she ignored our calls she was accepting calls and texting another number quite frequently.
(For the record it was the first time in over 12 years of being together that I’d ever gotten a gut feeling to do so) never checked them prior to that night.
Called the friends who she was supppsed to be with and they ignored my calls as well.
After confronting her through text at around 4 or 5 a.m. she was home within 5 minutes screaming at me and yelling at me as I tried to sleep. Got blamed for everything even though I’d been loyal and the financial bread winner our entire marriage.
She ended up gaslighting me and trickle truthing as I tried to keep things together for our children.
I’ll spare you all the details as they can be found in previous update and original post.
Fast forward to today: I filed for divorce against my families wishes. (Whole other story also answered in previous update)
We are seperated but the divorce can’t be finalized until next year. (1 year of being seperated is required) She begged and begged for me not to go through with it begged me to stay. Not to toss everything out over “1 little mistake”
Funny how she sees infidelity as “a mistake” that lasted 3 months…. Yeah…
Regardless. I’ve spent a lot of time with my kids. She sees them on weekends if she chooses. (Has only been a couple of times)
I’d love to say that I’m over it all. But I’m still healing. I really did love her and I wish things worked out different. But I can never trust her again.
She tried everything she could sexually to get me to stay. Hell, the day she finally confessed everything I came home to her dressed up like never before ready to go. I declined.
She went as far as offering me head every day for the rest of our lives if I stayed.
I’ve been working and taking care of the kids. It’s harder on them than it is me if i’m being honest. They still don’t understand. I’ve just been telling them mommy has some things she’s “working on” I don’t have the heart to tell them we won’t be a functional household anymore at this time.
Also. My parents haven’t one time talked to reached out to me since I told them I was filing for divorce. Not even to check on my kids or anything.
But I’ve been making this work with the help of my brother and a few good friends.
A few girlfriends from the past have hit me up to see if I want to catch up but. I need to focus on myself and my kids.
Thank you all for reaching out through dming and commenting. ✌️✌️✌️
Relevant Comment
OOP on if his wife has given an apology and if she helped with taking care of the kids

OOP: Ah. Sorry. Yes. She sent me a half assed confession while I was at work through snap chat one day. Bawling hysterically telling me she fucked up and kissed him “1 time” after he walked her to her car. I don’t believe that for one second. I said “if that’s all then prove it by providing me with the messages you deleted”
Once again I was met with “that’s an invasion of my privacy, plus if I was in your position I would just want to forgive, forget and move on”
Easy for the cheater to go ahead and say.
I pressed it a few more times and was met with “trust me you don’t want to read that shit!!!! Why would you want to read that!?!?!”
Case closed.
Edit: going to vent for a second. I’ll be honest with ya’ll. I tried to give her one final chance to talk things through. I told myself the minute she got hostile about it all I was done.
Within 5 minutes of “our final talk” I was being blamed for working too much. I quote “this isn’t a fucking trial. You weren’t perfect either. I was practically screaming for help and you let me drown”
I took the kids to daycare, cleaned the house all the time, picked them up after work, put them to bed, did all the cooking, did the dishes, took on a side hustle to give her a dream vacation which we went on just before her affair started. (Which is where a good few of ya’ll may know me from - the side hustle)
The real kicker I didn’t tell ya’ll about was when I went through her phone that first night I saw messages from her and her mom talking about how she felt a disconnect. That I wasn’t what she wanted anymore (months before her affair began) Her mom highly encouraged her to sit me down and explain the way she felt. She even told her mom that she did. (She never did)
Apparently sitting me down and having a talk was her going off and having an affair.
I gaurantee she’ll never find someone that will treat her the way I did. Breakfast in bed Saturday and Sunday. I woke up with the kids so she could sleep in for years. She gave it all up for someone who can’t even cover their own bills and still lives with mommy and daddy. The only thing he had that I didn’t was more time because of a part time job.

 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

Hi guys
I'm starting to think I may be asexual weirdly and really could use some advice.
I'm 29 years old male and have been with quite a few women. I love the connection and validation sex can give. I also love intimacy. Kissing. Cuddling. Ect.
After a recent breakup though I've questioned my relationship with sex. I've realized that I am quite a sexual person but my sex drive or horniness comes from the closeness and moments with someone OR from a few days break in masturbation or porn.
When having sex I often am enjoying the emotional connection or even situation I am in - and although I appreciate looking at a nice face or body - it never feels like the driving force or factor. It's not enough to 'get me off'.
So I guess at the moment im wondering if im asexual or not. Or if my porn addiction in the past or maybe erectile disfunctional issues are causing this.. I also had alot of phone sex my first long distnce partner (before experiencing penetrative sex) so I wonder if this rewired how my brain perceives sexOR if I simply have a lower libido. OR if im just asexual.
I don't feel some 'out of body rush' or 'urgency' to have sex even when a female presents themselves but i still enjoy the connection, visuals and experience enough to do it. I do enjoy having sex within a relationship but if I was with someone I loved and they said 'i don't want to have sex again but I'll give you oral or other methods of sex' id be completely fine.
I do like sex but I feel like half my enjoyment is seeing my partner horny or into me. If they weren't expressing this desire and were just a naked body in front of me - it wouldn't do much for me. I do need to feel a deeper connection to enjoy it. I also think masturbation to me feels very similar to sex. If in not in a specific mood to want sex - sometimes mutual masturbation actually is an easier method I'd prefer to do with my partner next to me (while they maybe suck my nipples during or get involved).
Does this sound like asexuality for me ? Is there any ways to identify what I'm describing is ? Can anyone relate ? Its hard to identity what 'normal' is and don't really want to continue to get into relationships and setting up false expectations before I truly understand myself.
My last relationship lasted 1 year and she never brought up any issues with sex - but I noticed that towards the end we were only having sex once a week. Initially it was up to 7 times a week but - when I started feeling more resentment towards my partner (due to other reasons) I found it hard to feel "sexual' without feeling a positive connection between us. And when we did have sex it felt empty to me as a naked body wasn't enough to truly make me feel fulfilled when our relationship was dying down. .
Thanks.