Did leah williams get divorced

My (29F) brother (26M) has no clear direction in life. He has blown through 4 college programs and has not completed any of them. If he lived in any other family, he would have racked up so much debt for education he is not using.
My brother works at a coffee shop making minimum wage, under 40 hours per week. He has been there for nearly 10 years. He has ADHD and is likely on the spectrum. Since childhood, he has always exhibited social difficulties, challenges with relationships, social awkwardness, social anxiety and vocal/body stimming. If he is not working, he is in his room gaming. It has been like this for years. He has no social life, no friends, no desire to get his driver’s licence, and no goals for himself. He is oblivious to his future and what it looks like. I have tried writing him a resume so he can look for an entry level jobs that only require a high school education. Getting relevant information is like pulling teeth. I keep asking him about some community work he did in his early twenties and he keeps saying he’ll send it over to me but he doesn’t.
My parents, who have been divorced since I was 10, should have sat down to talk about my brother years ago. But now shit is hitting the fan. My mom and stepdad are currently working with a contracting company to build a house that they will retire in. My stepdad does not want his stepson, my brother, to move in with them. He believes that if he moves in with them, my brother will never leave. This has brought up fights and talks about them breaking up. They have been together for over a decade.
We don’t see much of my dad, maybe birthdays and holidays, and I’m usually the one to reach out to him. He drives to our area all the time for his extracurriculars, but doesn’t really ask to see us. I don’t think he sees the gravity of my brother’s situation because he hardly asks how we’re doing. He cares much for the fun things in his life, and I guess considering my brother does the same, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I’m planning on moving out in early September with my boyfriend, at least that is the goal. I have already lived on my own for most of the pandemic. I moved back in late September 2023 because my ex left and I was in financial constraints due to a family member needing to borrow money.
I hate writing all this, but I am at an utter loss. I’ve watched both parents, with their own families, take on the burden of being the glue that holds everything together. I feel like that cycle is moving onto me as I overheard my stepdad suggest that my brother lives with me. I don’t know what he expects me to do. I have made suggestions to my dad about how to handle things, and it doesn’t get taken seriously. I feel like I have to be the bad guy and give them a harsh, overdue reality check.
I made a similar post about a year ago and had to delete it. So many people called my brother useless. Despite my frustrations, I still love my brother dearly. But I lose sleep over this. Is there even anything I can do?

My mom and dad moved into their home in California in 1979. They divorced in 1983. Mom got the house. She remarried in 1989. She divorced husband number two in 2002. She again got the house in the settlement. In 2007, ex-husband (Bill) moved back in. They never remarried and lived platonically. Around 2010, my sister paid off the remaining mortgage on the house and my mother made her half owner. Ex husband never paid rent, but did pay utilities and groceries. Utilities were in his name. He’s now 89 and infirm. My 81 year old mother can’t care for him anymore and has had a rough last few years trying. He has three sons. They hadn’t spoken to Bill in several years, but came back into the picture when palliative care asked them to become POA over Bill. They did so, and apparently thought he would have more money saved up (he only has about 20K from a 200K inheritance he got when his mom died 15 years ago) and are accusing my mom of stealing it. They also say the house is partially Bill’s and they will sue. They are also refusing to pay for housing for him, so he’s stuck in my mom’s house getting sicker and weaker. I’ve googled that there is no common law marriage in California. But do they have a case?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglxxyn04zno
First Minister Michelle O’Neill has apologised for attending the funeral of former Sinn Féin chairman Bobby Storey.
She has been giving evidence to the UK Covid Inquiry in Belfast.
Ms O'Neill was deputy first minister of Northern Ireland from 2020 to 2022, during which time the Covid pandemic began.
Alongside the then first minister, Arlene Foster, she was jointly responsible for leading the Northern Ireland Executive’s response.
However, Ms O’Neill had faced claims she broke coronavirus guidelines in March 2021 when she attended Mr Storey's funeral.
“My actions compounded the hurt, my actions also angered families I am sorry for going and I am sorry for the hurt that’s been caused."
When asked by the chair Baroness Hallett if she was aware of the hurt and anger at the time, Ms O’Neill replied: “I didn’t and I ought to have.”
Minutes of an executive meeting after the funeral reveal notes from Ms O’Neill, in which she asked her executive colleagues to “divorce their views of Mr Storey from her actions".
Ms O’Neill said she was invited by the family, that she was honoured to attend, that Mr Storey was a huge figure and thousands would wish to be there.
She said people vote with their feet there was no dilution of public message and no offence intended.
Within those minutes, her party colleague Conor Murphy said rules had been relaxed and that people were entitled to their opinion.
'Playing politics' The UK Covid Inquiry has been shown an exchange of messages where Baroness Foster accused Ms O'Neill of publicly undermining the health minister Robin Swann.
The messages were shared on 21 March 2020, when Baroness Foster said the deputy first minister was “playing politics when things are much too serious".
In her message, she added: "It is hugely disappointing but I am not surprised."
Ms O’Neill said the messages did not reflect any difference in how governments around the world were trying to “manage and get through it".
When lead counsel to the inquiry, Clair Dobbin, KC put it to Michelle O’Neill that her and other executive colleagues played politics, Ms O'Neill replied: “I absolutely refute that.”
Regarding school closures, Ms O’Neill said it “was too serious to sit back and do nothing”.
She said the exchange of WhatsApp messages expressed the difficulty they were having.
Counsel suggested it was hardly a “mature discussion” between two leaders. Ms O'Neill said it demonstrated one exchange at one point in time.
She added that it was about “saving lives".
On Monday, Health Minister Robin Swann told the inquiry that the attendance of senior Sinn Féin politicians at the funeral in June 2020 meant the executive lost the confidence of the public.
But he welcomed an acceptance from Sinn Féin assembly member Carál Ní Chuilín that she should not have attended the funeral in her capacity as a minister.
Speaking at an earlier sitting of the inquiry in September 2023, Ms O’Neill said an all-island approach to Covid should have been implemented with the Republic of Ireland.

The Great Depression had a significant and lasting impact on society, especially in the Dust Bowl states. Oklahoma suffered the worst and is still suffering from its effects. The stock market crashed in 1929. This was 11 years after the end of WWI when a lot of working age men were killed. My father was 19 years old. Children age 4 and older had to go to work in the fields harvesting and hoeing weeds. My maternal grandmother who was born in 1932 cut broomcorn and picked cotton by hand. The International Harvester for cotton was invented in 1940, but only came into widespread use by 1970. The broomcorn industry died out in 1980. Older boys age 11 and up went to work in sawmills and the trades. Watch the movie Walk the Line. Johnny Cash’s older brother of 14 was almost cut vertically in half when he slipped and was cut through the sternum by a large saw blade. Can you imagine being that young and handling dangerous machinery with no safety equipment? Safety equipment didn’t exist back then and neither did child labor laws. Those old Boomer children worked just as hard as adults to help feed their families. They were punished for playing. They had to suck it up and endure extreme hardship just to eat and they ate very little. Everyone was starving and filthy. There was as no indoor plumbing, no electricity and no air conditioning. I watched my grandmother work from sun up to exhaustion and she slept in her clothes. When she died, her bra strap hooks were rusted from sweat because she never removed it, meaning she hadn’t bathed in decades. She was 4-8” and wore a child size medium. She was conditioned to hard work and starvation. She and her family including my mother never overcame the effects of the Depression. She was functionally illiterate despite graduating high school in 1948.
Education stopped at third-fourth grade for the average child because parents were extremely poor and couldn’t afford to pay for schooling. School was different then. Teachers lived in a teacherage provided by the school district and earned a living stipend from the state to teach grades 1-4 how to read, write, sign their names, cipher, count money and read a watch. That was the extent of free education. Advanced learning after 4rth grade was taught by subscription very similar to private tutoring. Grades 5-7 were called grade school. Grades 7-12 were called high school. They didn’t have Junior High.
In 1935, the Second New Deal created the Works Progress / Projects Administration (WPA) to help people recover from the Depression. A lot of new schools were built during this period. Schools were funded with a combination of state aid and a tax levy called a mill collected from every resident in a school district. When Boomers say they shouldn’t have to pay a school tax because they don’t have children in school, this is what they’re referring to. They had the right to vote against a tax levy. These days, we call them temporary sales tax increases to fund things like new gym equipment. Everyone inside the school district votes on the increase and everyone inside and outside the district has to pay the sales tax if they shop at a store in the district. These no-voters will shop outside the district if the tax increase passes.
Fast forward to WWII (1939-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953) and we see a significant decrease in school attendance that results in the closure of many rural schools. Many of this second generation of Boomers grew up in boarding schools and orphanages because their mothers couldn’t afford to feed them. This period resulted in a high population of youth being institutionalized. One of my grandmother’s sisters was raped by her uncle at age 14 and was sent to an asylum for the mentally ill. My mother (born 1952) and her sisters were taken by DHS (called CPS today) and sent to a girl’s state school after their father died of cirrhosis at the age of 42. He was a bootlegger who literally drank himself to death. Prohibition (1920-1933) was another result of the Depression. It lasted until 1952 in Oklahoma. Forced sterilization in mental institutions was outlawed in 1951 for the sake of medical study. The practice began in 1931 because the state believed that mental illness/retardation was genetic and caused by incest/inbreeding. It runs in my mother’s family so I can confirm the state was right. Mutations in the brain can be passed from mother to child.
The third generation of Boomers was born during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). I was born in 1973, so I’m technically Gen X with Boomer influences but not to the point that I’m a raging psycho. I consider those born in the 60s to be the third Boomer generation. My town lost its high school in 1968 and stopped at the eighth grade. All those who graduated from the 60s-1980 are the anti education gatekeepers of the workforce that I’m personally struggling with. These are the people who hate anyone with an education level above theirs. They’re offended by education unless you’re a doctor or a lawyer and they can use you. They are also anti-technology and refuse to use it. They are bullies who are socially enmeshed and always in your business. This generation of women married older men because men their age were fighting in a war. Or, they married wealthy men. Those women didn’t have to work and became bored housewives. I blame daytime soap operas for teaching these idiots their horrible social skills. They stayed home almost 24/7 except for when they were at the hair salon or shopping. They wore a lot of makeup too and nail polish contained formaldehyde. The amount of lead and toxic chemicals they were exposed to was very high. My mother was in this category from 1970-1980 when she divorced my father. Men who came home from the war were addicted to heroin and may have turned to cocaine, crack or meth. Many ended up homeless or hooked up with women for the welfare benefits. They were insanely abusive. Very few were able to adjust. Women who did not marry well, had to work cash jobs to support themselves and they might have qualified for USDA commodities and food stamps under Johnson’s War on Poverty (1964). We didn’t have welfare reform until 1996. My mother became an alcoholic and was addicted to amphetamines sold as diet pills in the 80s. We had pure meth from 1980 that my stepdad was addicted to and an explosion of brown meth from 1994 to the present. Almost this entire generation and my own Gen X either experimented or became addicted to meth. It affected Millennials too.
Child prostitution as a means of survival and CSA were common during the Depression because there was no law against it and it’s something society has difficulty grappling with. Oklahoma passed its first anti-child molestation law in 1945 after the end of WWII. I remember those old Boomer women saying that talk about sex was vulgar and those matters weren’t discussed. It was swept under the rug until 1990 when teens finally began to speak out. We had an explosion of violent rape and domestic violence in the 90s by Boomers and chauvinists who couldn’t bear to give up their right to sex on demand and beating women.
We got the Department of Education and mandatory attendance in 1980 so Gen X was the first generation to have a well rounded education since 1929. All the generations that came before us are jealous because we also got child labor laws and the statutory rape law. We’re the first generation that didn’t have to endure backbreaking work as children. We got easy jobs like paper routes, babysitting and mowing. As teenagers, farm kids hauled hay but that’s about as strenuous as it got. Many Gen Xers got pregnant young and had to drop out of school or couldn’t go to college. They had to get married and raise a family. I’m struggling with this portion of my generation being jealous as well.
I think Gen Z is the best generation because they are so far removed from the absolute hell that previous generations went through. They have the best education, the best social skills and are the most well adjusted of all the generations that came before them. Gen X just needs to teach ya’ll life skills and survival skills that you can hand down to Gen Alpha.

I'm so tired. I'm 41. Chronic bladder infections as a baby, one that almost killed me. Started having lower back spasms at 11. Doctors were like, huh, that's weird, kid. Welp, enjoy your life.
Got very active and fit, that kept it mosty at bay during my teenage years. Back pain returned in young adulthood. Cried on the way to work every day on the bus, because sitting hurt. Knelt on the floor to type at work. Got a part time job so I didn't have to sit as much. Did PT, got massages.
Migraines slowly started over the years. Recurrent UTI and yeast infection. My back would go out 3 to 4 times a year, regularly, but I was very active after the 2-week recovery period. Kept asking doctors why do I get so much back pain, infections? They were like "Iunno, some people are more prone to it. Welp, enjoy your life!"

1. I don't know what the fuck happened but my neck did something bad when I was lifting a chair and it was months and months of uncontrollable spasms and complete trauma. Barely able to sleep for months. Poorly controlled pain, pain medicine-related trauma from doctors who are so afraid to give me five fucking hydrocodone at a time when I was almost at suicidal levels of pain.

Interstitial cystitis appeared a few months later just for kicks. Gastrointestinal pain started. My nervous system seemed to be jacked up after that. Super reactive to everything.
I pulled myself heroically back to some decent functionality after a few years of painful and exhausting experimentation.
Was getting back into enjoying life. Then new knee pain (chondromalacia) took away roller skating which was my favorite activity in life and probably the main thing that kept me strong and together. I've been working on my knee since 2020 and I still haven't made progress with all the PT. No one knows what to do for it. It's so incredibly frustrating and it's responsible for my slide into deep conditioning. I try to keep active with walking and PT exercises, but nothing equals skating for joy and for strengthening.
I finally piece together my own diagnosis through years of my own reading, brought it to my doctors, who confirmed. (Wish I could get paid for doing My own research). Was enjoying life as much as possible.
Then, one day, my seemingly loving husband of 12 years abandoned with no warning (He actually secretly moved out while I was gone for the weekend and let me know by email that he wanted a divorce, saying that my recent diagnosis made me a ticking time bomb waiting to ruin our lives)
The shock and pain and fear.
Fast forward 2 years through the trauma of utter blindsided betrayal by someone I thought was my best friend, and the mental trauma of being forced to do a whole divorce and fight for my future needs with someone who had suddenly, nonsensically become angry with ME, saying didn't deserve any alimony at all because I created all this chronic pain in my head to manipulate care out of him (Yes, that was his point of view. He believed that my pain was real but that it was mentally-caused. I can't explain it. It's nuts. I think it's basically his twisted rationale to make this my fault and to make abandoning a loving wife with chronic pain acceptable to assuage the guilt)
I haven't worked in years. I don't qualify for disability because I stopped working gradually, before I had a diagnosis, and I trusted my husband. So now I don't have enough recent work credits for disability.
Ironically I was doing relatively well physically when he left. I actually had some hope. Then, out of the blue a year after he left, I developed chronic tailbone pain. I haven't been able to sit down without pain for over a year. It's really a hard condition to treat, no solution in sight but strengthening, which I'm used to and I'm ready to do...
... but my hips have started possibly subluxing in the last few months? I've never had trouble there before because I've historically been very active. I don't drive. I walk everywhere, so those muscles get a lot of exercise.
But I got more deconditioned because JUST gotten over an exhausting trial of LDN which backfired on me (It caused completely new peripheral neuropathy to appear in my hands and feet and then set my migraines to become chronic, every day, for over a month)
Now it hurts to lift my leg when I lay on my side, feels like it gets stuck, like I have to rotate my leg in order to properly lift it. Sometimes I get a sharp pain in the back part where the top of the thigh bone is. Aching today. I know I have a labral tear in that leg, got to get it checked out
I'm suspecting this gradual deconditioning has finally weakened my hip/butt area, allowing my hips to sublux for the first time?
It's literally been 3 days since the amitriptyline has finally kicked in and I've gone a day or two without migraine. I just started to be able to think again.
But today's hip pain is taking me down mentally. It feels like the last straw.
How can I exercise to get better when despite my best efforts, I keep adding injury after injury? They're stacking up. They don't have solutions. I feel like I can't climb my way out.
And all the emotional trauma. I'm just tired. I've been so strong getting through the past 2 years. I don't know how much I have left.
I'm terrified because I can't sit. I can't even use a wheelchair if my hips give out. How the fuck am I supposed to live? Am I going to be bed bound? Thus far in my life it has taken me working at peak functionality to get enough exercise to keep my body together. Functionality has taken a nose dive for years now, despite my best efforts.
How much more can I fucking take?
I'm probably just having a little emotional breakdown. I hope I can improve things.
But I'm just so goddamn fucking tired.
I've tried so hard. Is this how the story ends with me? Alone, disabled, poor, and in more pain?
Thanks for listening to my novel of a rant.

For example, when they talk about how paternity works legally and the susposed acceptance of cheating
Legal Paternity
It's usually the case around the world that if a wife has a child during their marriage, the husband is legally assumed to be the father. Even if everyone involves knows he isn't, and all want to change this, they may still have to go to court.
This is somehow blamed on feminism. Never mind that depending on a guy who resents being a father for child support can be worse than just relying on welfare. And nevermind that all the women who fled their abusive husbands would love to not give him custody rights (because, many abusers see getting custody of their kids as a way to hurt their mother).
So why did it come from?
Firstly, law codes were mostly developed before paternity tests were a thing. This is just a guess, but at least in the West, where it was usually men who controlled the couple's money, lawmakers likely didn't want their sisters and daughters left destitute by false claims of infidelity.
And at least partially it comes from the fact that the state doesn't want to pay benefits it can get a way with. Which also explains why almost no politicians will advocate against the assumption of paternity for the husband. Just paying for a few weeks of welfare until paternity tests came back for every man, and then hoping the men will all pay the state back, would increase the cost of the social welfare budget for little, if any, community gain. And social welfare is often a large part of a state's budget.
And of course, modern DNA tests have their own problems, like the ethics around the use of DNA given for other purposes to catch criminals. And who would pay for them, and some others.
Cheating
Literally no popular feminist work advocates this. You could argue works like the Scarlet Letter are trying to cast sympathy on women seen as cheaters, but even those are asking why women are being punished much more harshly than men. And if cheating should be a purely social wrong, rather than a legal one. Some thing goes for the Handmaid's tale, particularly the series rather than the novel, where June is the other woman, rather than dating an already divorced man as she does in the novel.
You'll see cheating accepted in some film and TV shows, but I don't think feminist films are more guilty of this than any other genre. Those that do usually protray the women as a victim of abuse by her spouse, however Hollywood does like to sometimes show affairs as romantic simply because the other partner is kind of annoying and the main couple belong together. However, these nearly always have a man willingly a part of the affair. Hollywood is very happy to show men cheating too and protray it as a good or kinda bad thing when it wants too (eg. Oppenheimer).
Thinking about the major feminists I've heard of, I think their responses to having constant affairs would vary.

• Most common would be the third/fourth wave monogamous feminists who would say all marriages should equal and affairs are bad
  
• You also have the "free love"/polyamorous crowd who insist on honesty, not cheating
  
• In the past, there was the 60-70s Lesbian separtists who wouldn't understand why you'd want to sleep with more men anyway
  
• And early suffragists who often argued that women were different to men in that they were more caring and nurturing, so they probably wouldn't have approved cheating.
  

So yeah, feminism does not equal screwing over men. But AITA-land likes to insist it does

For context, my (13M) father (41M) is divorcing my mom (43F) because my father is a lying, manipulative, narcissistic, piece of shit. My parents were married for 16 years and my mom has been shielding him from any trouble his alcoholism caused. Going through the years my dad would frequently argue with my mom, sometimes getting physical, keep in mind that my mom is no heavier than 190lb and my dad is around 250lb, not to mention so much stronger than her. If we go back to June 2023 my dad and brother went out for Mexican ice cream (my dad was drunk at the time) and my mom, my sister and I were going to dollar tree. Right when we were about to arrive at dollar tree my mom got a call from my dad saying that she needed to come pick my brother up before it went worse. Apparently my brother was trying to hook his phones Bluetooth up to the car and my dad found out that he was labeled as “Mamafucker” in my brother’s phone. My dad being drunk was otherworldly pissed off and put my brother in a chokehold and threatened his life. We filed a police report but they couldn’t do anything. I have to see him again for the first time in almost a year and I want to go off on his ass over the damage he did not only to my mom and brother but to the family In general. I genuinely don’t want to see him until he can prove to me that he’s kicked alcohol to the curb. Sorry for the long story I just had to get it off my chest. I’m not on this site often so I won’t respond to all comments but I will respond to some.

I(26F) am in a polyamorous relationship with my partner (22F). We’ve been together for about 6 months now. She lived in Korea for a year and that’s how we got together, and now she went back to the US. Because of me being in Korea, and her America, we decided to get married for visa reason. That would be easier for us to not be separated longer and have prolonged long distance relationship. I agreed to it, she agreed to it, and now I’m preparing the process to move to America. So here comes my worries.
I’m quitting my current job, my future career that is kind of easier for me to plan for than in the US, my family and my friends, not solely because of her since I wanted to live abroad but also for stepping the step, a big chunk because of her. I had a boyfriend of 5 years and have broken up to be with her too. (She’s not aware I did this though I just did it because my ex was not open to polyamorous relationship) She’s the first woman I’ve ever slept with and been in relationship with.
Also, I’ve never been in polyamorous relationship before, (it’s her first too) even though I do have polyamorous ideologies and was and am open to the idea of polyamory. It was through her that I first knew and experienced about this concept thoroughly, and have kind of thrown into a throuple situation too. I was aware of the situation and in my mind was okay with it. However, whenever she tells me about the girls that she “gets” or had sex with or just won’t stop talking about them and the details about sex they had, I can’t help but feel like she’s trying to brag about her other partners, and I can’t tell her intentions of telling it to me. Sometimes I wonder if she enjoys seeing me being uncomfortable or jealous and hurt, and it gets me upset. Maybe she just wants to talk about things openly, maybe she has sadist tendencies who knows. But I just have this vibe that she’s flaunting about it (e.g. “She told me I make her feel like a highschool girly”) she does have a playboy vibe, and maybe it’s just that Idk.
Anyways, we have talked about it before that I don’t want to know much about her other partners, that seeing it in-person or hearing about it in details gets me uncomfortable, but whenever she gets with a girl she wants to talk about it. I just want to know the essential minimum, who is it and when they’re meeting. That’s it. I added another boundary today, being that when we finally live together, I don’t think I want her to bring other girls into our apartment. She can do whatever she wants outside, out of sight, but I don’t want her in sight with other people. I don’t think I can handle that far. She heard the boundaries and have respected partially, but also added that she would want to bring other people when I’m not at home. My point for telling her this boundary was that I want something at least sacred for just us. I also told her before that for me she is the primary partner, even if there are other people that I’m with. Emotionally. And it’s true. But I don’t think it is for her. Or that we have different type of polyamory. For me, I’d like to have a primary partner, which is her, and then comes other partners.
We have signed the paperwork and we are legally married through proxy marriage. Now that we’re married, I can’t help but feel unsure and a little anxious about my future. A little more now than before when we were just dating. Even if it’s just a paperwork for me to be together.
What if I go there, and she just finds someone that she wants to spend more time with and have deeper connection with than me, which it kind of feels like she already have someone in mind that she wants to do that in the future, and throw me off from the “primary partner position”. I’m going to feel like I’m stranded. She’s going to feel like I’m caging her or sth, but I would rly have no one there as I’m just moved in to a completely different country. I sound such a monogamous person but I do love the idea of having other partners. I have a few that I’m seeing rn as well. They are all wonderful people. Im just having a hard time finding the balance of respecting what she wants and what I want. She is a loving, caring person, and I love her a lot. But it just feels so unstable for me to move. I think I’m torn everyday feeling sure and unsure like on a seesaw. Knowing her and loving her I want to move right away, and also thinking of all the risks, I feel like I should pull away to protect myself. I feel like she’s going to want to keep push the limits. Adding another risk, if I petition for a marriage visa, and during the process if I get divorced, I won’t be able to sign for any type of marriage visa anymore.
Also, if we get divorced after the visa goes through and I’m the US, I can’t get remarried for another 2-5 years, depending on when the divorce happens. Im not saying I’m expecting a divorce, but considering it’s a polyamorous relationship, and considering my emotional rollercoaster, I feel like anything could happen.
I don’t know what to do or what to feel at the moment, but primarily I’m torn between moving to the US, or just stay in Korea cause if it happens, it has to happen within a month.
Sorry that it’s long and kind of everywhere, but this keeps me up at night these days and I needed to make decisions quick so I thought I should ask it here. Thank you for reading my long story!

I am so unsure about my wife.

Dear Reddit. I come to you with my hat in my hand as I do not know what to do. I am split down the middle in terms of self respect, love, and fear.

I 36(M) have known my wife 35(F), since we were 18, and have been married since 2016

We have 2 kids M(8), F(9), a house, jobs, cars, dogs.

But things from the past have now come back to haunt me, and I am unsure about everything, about respect, love, pride, attractiveness, safe to say my mind is in the biggest turmoil it has ever been. I’m going to cut straight to the chase, with a little about me in order to get my point across as clear as I can.

We met young, and I found my soulmate with no prior experience with woman. She was my first everything, while I know that she has had a few sexual partners. This didn’t bother me at first, but years down the line I found out that while I was head over heels for this girl, she met with a random guy and had sex. (We were not a couple then, but became a few weeks later) She has not had many sexual partners; from what I’ve been told I am her 7th partner.

I must admit still to this day that, this episode doesn’t affect me much anymore, but with all that has/is happening right now its re-surfaces and stings like a needle.

Throughout our relationship she has done things that crosses my boundaries. Let me come with the examples here:

1) We were at a party with mutual friends, and one of our friends was hooking up with a guy, we went into their room and started teasing them as they were making out. Out of the blue, my wife, then girlfriend, grabbed his crotch and said “It’s not even hard” right in front of me, I obviously got furious, and we had a fight but made up over a few days.

2) During her school year, she had to travel to Germany with her class, and be with a German family as part of her education, sort of like an exchange student. While she was in Germany she went out with her entire class for drinks, and from what she says there was a few guys that was making moves on her, and since she got drunk and had no way to figure out how to get home safe to her exchange family, she decided to head home with one of her male classmates to his exchange family and went to sleep in his room. As she put it, he slept on the floor, and she slept in the bed. And he was a friend, not one of those making moves.

3) We were once again with mutual friends at a BBQ and was later heading out into the cityLife to hit up bars and discos. Me and my best friend were on the toilet, putting wax in our hair, putting on fresh cologne and all that jazz. She the suddenly burst in, saying she really needs to pee, proceeds to pull down her pants and thong, honestly from what I remember you could see everything. We had a big fight about this again.


4) This episode was last summer during two mutual friends that got married. She was the toastmaster, and after all was done, she needed to do a wardrobe change. We went to our hotel room; she got changed to another more comfortable dress. While walking back, we could see some of our mutual friends with their husbands, and she decided to lift up her entire dress up to the start of her bra and do a silly side-to-side dance. Everyone saw it no questions asked. I again got furious, and I told her calmly, that I will not tolerate this, and be disrespected like this, there is other men seeing what only I should be seeing. She apologized immediately, and I said, I don’t want to talk more about this now, as I don’t want to ruin the night. We didn’t talk about it afterwards.

5) This is a month ago. She was celebrating her 35 birthday and went out with all her girls. One of her girlfriends is addicted to social media, and she must post everything. I have a very strict rule when it comes to nights out, this goes both ways.
Example 1 to 3 was when we were from the ages of 19 - 25

1. Don’t dance with other men!
2. Don’t go away from the venue alone!
3. Don’t take a pirate taxi, or a normal taxi home, call me instead!
4. Don’t flirt (This is a grey area, you cannot define flirting so if she flirts a little it’s fine, but don’t overdo it kind of way)
At this party I saw a video from the social media addicted girlfriend of hers on her snapchat story of my wife dancing and having a blast, she looked so good, and so happy, and I smiled when I saw it, quickly my smile faded away as a guy approached holding out both his hands towards my wife, and she looked different then, I can’t put it as to why, it’s like her personality changed, she looked very keen on going with this guy, to the dance floor, the exit, the toilets I don’t know because I could not see much from the video. What happened next is one of her other girlfriends grabbed her hard and pulled her away from the guy and the video ended.

I was the designated driver that night, so when she would call me in the night, I would come pick up her, and girlfriends and drive them home safely. But I got a call from one of her girlfriends that they could not find my wife anywhere and that she has been gone for like 30 minutes, they asked if I could track her from “Find my iPhone” but I have not saved her location so I could not. I got scared that she broke rule nr. 2 and that something bad might have happened.

Also in my mind, I thought about the video I saw, and then all else mentioned above. All the instances where she crossed my boundaries came flooding in. I am not proud of it. My first thought was her safety, the second thought was, did she envelope with this guy, and is doing something a married woman should not. Her girlfriend that called me, called me back 10 minutes later, saying they found her, and that she was just escorting the social media addicted girlfriend to her car, as she was not drinking, she basically broke rule nr. 2. I got relieved she was ok. But the pit in my stomach was still there.

I later picked them all up, and on the whole drive my wife obviously drunk, kept talking about nothing than men/boys “And then there was this guy” “And this guy looked like name of a friend we know” “and this guy reminded me so much of our boy” on and on, I was upset at this point, not showing it, but in my head I wanted to scream. All these emotions, all these times my line was crossed, the sex she had with another guy while I was in love with her. I know this is some sort of PTSD.

We got home, I put her to bed. And a few days went by, where I was silent, hurt, and went to the gym as much as I could as I could not look at her without being sad, hurt, angry. After about a week when we were lying in bed, I told her not to say anything but just to listen. It went something like this (it was not smooth at all, but I needed to get it out)

“In all our time together, you have touched a man’s crotch in front of me, went with another man and slept in the same room, not that I think anything happened between you two. You have basically shown your lady part, and butt to one of my best friends with me being present, at the wedding you decided to flash nearly your entire body to your girlfriends and their husbands in front of me, and lately at your birthday party (I explained the video) and then you were gone for like 40 minutes with no one knowing where you were. I’m not saying you did anything, but can you see how all of this puts a boulder in my stomach?”

She cried and said we have talked about this before, and we have, many times. I let say her piece. But in my mind, it went something like this:

“Yes we have talked about it many times before, but you keep triggering everything by crossing my boundaries, and you know it, so don’t cry and play the victim, this is your fault, and just because we have talked about it 2-4 times doesn’t mean that my feelings just disappear, feelings takes times, and when you constantly say sorry but then do it again, how am I suppose to heal?” I know I should have said this out loud, but I just got so small in the moment, as I opened up about some deep feelings.

This brings me to now. Why I am reaching out for external inputs on how to proceed.

I feel emasculated as a man, I feel disrespected, I do not feel like the most important person for her, I’m angry, hurt, and all of this has led me down following options none of which I want to do, but I feel like I must in order to respect myself, and say enough is enough.
1) I have been thinking of divorce.
2) Swallow my pride and move on, maybe talk it over with a professional.
3) Continue as always.
4) Give her an ultimatum, that if she crosses any of these in the future, I am gone for good.
It’s all very hard, because I love her so much, I love my kids, I don’t want to destroy everything. But I can’t handle being disrespected and emasculated any longer, and have my boundaries crossed again.

I trust her fully when she says nothing has ever happened, she is not that kind of girl, but you can always be surprised down the road.
Am I controlling, is this all justified in your eyes, am I wrong?
Any help, tips, how to proceed, personal opinions is welcome.
TL;DR Wife keeps crossing boundaries in the relationship, should I leave or stay?

Jokes aside, this is how 1 month ago my ex left me for my childhood friend, and i want to talk about it to see your opinions guys.
(This is more of a venting post)
So, i was having a really bad period already, my parents recently divorced and i wasn't already in a mentally good situation.
And after 3 months of relationship, i moticed how my at the time gf was a bit colder than usual, we would hang out rarely and would spend all her time with her "bff"...
Then she broke up with me. Now, im not the guy to get mad cuz "someone lost feelings", she had told me that and, even if i was heartbroken, i accepted t wnd we had talked about it, i wanted to be the best bf ever.
Then, not evem 2 weeks later, she was going around all alone with her bff (she did it probably even 1 week after we broke up), and then even less than 1 month aftwr our break up, i saw her kissing my childhood friend (her bff) in the dark.
I honestly suspect this had been going on for longer, when we were together she used to spend a lot of timw with him, way more than me, and she would say he was her bff.
I remember one day she had spent a whole day with him and afterwards had said she felt like a whore. I had some bad ideas then but i wanted to be positive.
Now i understand everything, and it hurts, i feel replaceable and my mental health and sh are getting worse.
I already tried suicide but im too much of a coward, plus my bff and family would be sad...so i can't do it...
So my omly option is to keep going, but now i don't want to hang out with my group of friends since my ex and her new toy are gonna hang out everyday too.
So i was thinking of maybe just leaving the group for a new one, but how can i? I can't just materialize in a group, i don't have much interests as for now and i don't want to end up in a group of hooligans.
Im good at making superficial friends but i honestly suck at getring close to ppl (the omly person i trust irl is my bff).
What should i do?
(Also i wanted to add, since i don't know this subreddit much, i won't tolerate any incel behavior, sinxe this kind of posts is "content" for them)
And lastly, sorry for the bad english, it's very late at night for me and im not a native speaker.
Thanks for everything you migt write guys! <3

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I’ve been with my husband for 10 years, married for 5. I’m (30F) and he is (41M). We have two children together. I’m filing for divorce tomorrow morning and my dad thinks I should also get a restraining order. I think that could be a little aggressive but I also don’t want to endanger my kids in any way. He has always been a good dad even though he has not been a good husband. The first years of our relationship, we were both deep into drinking and partying together. We got into trouble and our dating relationship was incredibly volatile and up and down. Then we got pregnant and I got sober and we got married and had our baby. We still fought and dealt with a lot of toxicity with each other the first couple of years. I relapsed into drinking again for about 6 months and 3 years ago, I finally got sober for real and got into AA. (Just celebrated my 3rd bday on the 10th, woo!) I went deep into step work, therapy, and working on myself. I’ve grown tremendously. So the last 3 years have been so much better between us. It actually felt like it might work. But my husband has not done any work. He’s in the same place, same job, drinking every night. Im not here to defend the reasons I’ve come to divorce. This has been the hardest decision of my life and I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t know it was right. Our children deserve a better example in marriage and partnership. As of now, I’ve been very vocal about keeping custody and parenting 50/50 because like I said, he’s a good dad and I’ll never weaponize the kids. Our children are handling this really really really well and I’ve been able to make this a positive experience so far, all things considered. I have the support of my family, staying back at home again now while I rebuild. All in all, my life is moving forward. But….my husband, while normally a happy drunk, not mean - is an extremely depressed person. I’ve tried every way you can imagine to encourage him to seek help, get into therapy, address his childhood trauma, heal. To no avail. I was ready to share custody with him when my dad said wait. He isn’t mentally well and my husband has a LOT of guns in the house. 12-15k worth of guns and ammunition. My dad wants me to keep the kids for now until we’re going through court which I’ve agreed to - he can FaceTime and call as much as he wants right now but me leaving the house with the kids just happened last Wednesday so it’s fresh enough I wanted to give him some time to let the dust settle. But my dad is saying I should go further with a restraining order. The final fight that brought me to this point, involved him breaking into a locked room where I was sleeping with our children while he was drunk and screaming at me. He did not physically hurt any of us but when he left the room I mistakenly made the choice to comment how he was giving “little dick energy” and he flew into a really scary vindictive rage. Again, nothing physical. But he was encouraging me to leave this world, that he and the kids would be better off without me, told me to get the weapon out of the safe . Etc. He has never been abusive to our children but he has always been emotionally and verbally abusive to me. Again, I have my reasons for leaving. That’s not why I’m here. So because of his abusive patterns toward me, his history with being unhinged emotionally, his untreated alcoholism and having lots of guns in the house - my dad thinks to keep the girls safe and to have more power in the divorce, I should get a RO against him, citing my fear for mine and our children’s safety.
But I’m not actually afraid of him? I really don’t think he would hurt our children. Yet I am not naive enough to think this doesn’t happen - I read the news. I know my dad does have a point - but I’m also not trying to be aggressive. I told my husband we could be a team and do this nicely. I wouldn’t start a war unless he made the first aggressive move. I wasn’t even going to hire a lawyer because I know my husband can’t but my dad is getting one. I don’t want my husband to think I am coming after him or trying to hurt him further. I genuinely love this man and I am praying for his recovery. I’m not leaving because I hate him. I see the broken man child he is and the potential he has to be and I pray through this he will grow and change for the sake of his children. I just have to move on with my life. But is my dad right? Should I go for an RO against this man?
TLDR: getting a divorce. Ex husband is an alcoholic with untreated mental health issues. Emotionally and mentally abusive to me but not our children. Good dad bad husband type. Has a lot of guns in the house. Very depressed and unhinged right now. Last fight included him bursting into a room where I was with our children sleeping, in a drunken rage. Encourages me to commit self harm. Should I file RO in order to protect them even though he has never given me reason to think he would hurt them?

HEADS UP POST HAS SOME BACKSTORY TO IT!!!!
My best friend of 10 years and girlfriend for 7 of those years recently rekindled our romance after not talking for 8 months she’s 23 and I’m 24. We are not official and keeping our options open so it was cool that we were talking to other people. I know she’s talking to one other guy. We ended things because of a night out drinking she got shit face drunk while I stayed sober because I was driving. Went back to her place to make sure she got home safe. She insisted on having sex with me even though I told her now and tried to leave multiple times because I didn’t want to take advantage of her in her intoxicated state. She told me to just lay with her until she fell asleep so I did. 5 mins later she gets on top of me and holds my hands down while putting her boobs against my lips. She then grabbed my hands to place on her butt while she twerked on me. We did some oral stuff but no penetration.
The day after she blocked me on everything and told me that she doesn’t remember that night and I took advantage of her which pissed me off because I would never do that to someone I deeply loved for the past decade even throughout high school when we started to date.
Now a week later she is in a relationship with the other guy which leads me to believe that I dodged a bullet with her.
NOW FOR THE RESON OF THIS POST Her new boyfriend is the guy she’s been talking to. The guy is 27 with two kids one is 6 and the other is 2. His ex wife (they are separated but still haven’t gotten a divorce and live together) cheated on him during marriage and he cheated back as revenge. She (my ex) has never dated anyone with kids. She has told me that she doesn’t want kids ever and doesn’t expect to be raising his kids ever or being a stepmom ever. She’s told me that her new “boyfriend” and her haven’t even gone on an official date like dinner type stuff just hanging out at night every now and then for an hour or two.
I definitely do not plan on getting back with my ex but I’m just curious how long do you think this little relationship between them will last???

I never knew this group existed and I'm really grateful I've found it. I could really use some help. My LO is 10 this year and their father and I have been separated since they were three months old. We were better as friends than partners...well at least I thought we were. I had people tell me they were jealous of our coparenting relationship and a judge in awe of how amicable we were with each other during the whole thing. Everything was so good and all of us clicked so well - we were there for my ex when their car croaked and sacrificed our second car to help them get around. Relatives helped them get a new car. We helped them countless times including trips to the hospital and support when a relative feel ill. I thought everything was good but now...
A month ago I learned they were dating someone. That's cool - everyone deserves love and they need it more than most. They told me they met on a dating website and have been talking about a month.before officially hooking up - lie number one. Turns out it was two months.
I argued that I need at least six months before any introductions and I laid down some decent ground rules about wanting to meet them first before LO is introduced. I just want to play it safe because I don't know them. You think I'd made them kill their puppy or something. I work in child protection, I want to foster a safe environment for my LO because I know what happens when it's not.
Two weeks ago on the Friday things start to blow up. I'm being accused of keeping our child from him - lie number two. I've always had an open and honest communication style with them - if they want extra time or whatever just call and we'll work it accordingly. The only time I've said no is when we had previous plans, medical appointments or illness.
They want to pull them out of certain aftershock activities that they pay half for, talking about money issues. That's fine whatever I'll carry the cost. I pay for LO's medication, their appointments, their vacation care, their haircuts 70% of the time, I have primary custody and they see them one night a week after it was their choice to cut back from two to one.
Now due to these money issues they're going to be moving in soon with this new partner after dating for two months. The house has no viable electricity, its a renovators dream or something so I can only imagine the state of the place. Their person has literally a dozen big dogs and none are disexed or vaccinated. My LO is scared of big dogs and is neaurodivergent on top of everything so the schedule blow out will cause issues. Of course I haven't been told this, I've read it after they unsuccessfully tried to force a relative to make me do something they wanted done.
Today I was running late home from work....I work in the city and finished at 5. It was unfortunate I got stuck but I did and I got home ASAP. Y'all I have been demoted down to The Ex. I don't even get a name anymore. I'm the Ex and apparently I'm deliberately causing him issues because I think their job is beneath them. Apparently I implied that several months ago and it's a grudge they are still holding and I don't even rememeber it.
I'm no angel and I will own up to it. I have my issues and my problems but I've never once made access to their kid an issue. I didn't want to have LO suffer the same shitty divorced household situation me and XH grew up in. Ever since they've been dating this new person everything had become a problem and it's all apparently my fault. I'm so angry and I'm so upset....we used to have a good relationship and would talk about games and stuff outside the kiddo. Now it's just tanked and I don't know what to do. I don't want to engage a lawyer but I don't feel like I have a choice.
Any advice here from those who have a difficult coparenting relationship would be super, super helpful.
I'm in Australia if that helps.
I really don't know what to do.

I've been solo (though didn't use the label) since I started dating. Never cohabitated, never merged finances. My relationships typically involved dating folks who were also 'single', setting clear boundaries about living together, money matters, and making it crystal clear that I wasn't signing up for exclusivity – they were free to see others too.
While I'd classify these relationships as polyamorous since there were no barriers to forming other connections, the truth is, I tend to stick to one main partner and have little inclination to seek out new relationships when I've got a solid one going. Sure, a few comets pass through, but that's about it.
Recently, for the past three and a half years, I (34F) found myself in a relationship with someone who's married (36NB). This brought up a slew of issues, exacerbated by the fact I really, *really* like them. Initially, we both thought it'd be casual, but as feelings deepened, so did the challenges of scheduling, hierarchy, and oversharing, making things extremely uncomfortable at times. We haven't called it quits over this, but we've come close more than once.
And now, the kicker – this partner is getting a divorce.
You'd think that'd be a relief, right? That it'd rid us of the worst parts and let the good parts flourish? Well, maybe. But there are tropes for a reason – married person meets someone new and exiting, neglects their marriage, divorces, then expects the new person to fill the void and step in as their de-facto replacement spouse.
Let me be clear: I logically don't think that's what's happening here. From the oversharing (yep), I know this isn't about me. The reasons for the divorce run deeper, and they're not looking to move in with me so I can take over domestic duties. In fact, they've already got their own place and seem to be relishing a more independent lifestyle.
So why the heck am I so anxious? I think it's because I'm unsure how to navigate this. How much support is appropriate? I want to be there for them, but as I mentioned, this isn't about me. They have friends and family supporting them, but when we're together, I can see they're still wrestling with a whirlwind of emotions, and I want to help without overstepping.
I guess what I'm getting at is, now that they're no longer tied down, there's suddenly a lot more time for us to spend together if we choose. I could easily spend every night with them, but then it feels like I'd be falling into the trope of becoming a replacement spouse. But the alternative (which is what I'm doing now), is actively limiting the support I offer to someone I genuinely care for, which feels pretty crappy.
I've rambled on enough, but feel free to ask questions or make assumptions, and I'll clear things up in the comments if they're off-base.
(Changed some details and using a throwaway since my partner's a Reddit user, though I'm not sure if they frequent this sub.)

The story about me (36f) and my sister (38f) is long and complicated, so I’ll try to summarise as short as possible, which is long anyway. (English is not my first language - sorry for grammar!)
Sister has some kind of psychological issues she refuse to deal with properly. I suspect BPD, but I may be very wrong. Mom mentioned she may have gotten a diagnosis lately, but didn’t remember if it’s ADHD or Autism. She’s a very extrovert person who thrives when being around people. She only has two moods: ecstatic or depressed. She absolutely worships people, until one day when she cast them down to the status of a devil. Nothing in between.
Her life is cyclical. It starts with finding a new area of interest that she dives head first into. She meets people doing this thing she’s interested in and idolise them. She says it’s her calling in life, and credits her new-found mental wellbeing to this new calling. She invests everything she has into the new thing - time and money, even starts working in the field. Then comes the depression. Every time she claims she has never felt like this before. The people she worshipped are discarded and branded “bad” or “crazy”. She relies on family to get her back on her feet, then find a new area of interest that “saves her”, and the cycle starts anew. Over and over again.
I broke with her almost 5 years ago. She was depressed and lived with our parents again at that time. I was back to school to get a new career after first being burnt out, then losing my job. My daughter was 3 years old. At that time, I realised my marriage was a huge cause of my own depression and that he was cruel to out child and decided to get a divorce. My ex was very abusive, so I was facing the threat of being homeless, jobless and lose custody. My sister ripped me to shreds and told me that my problems were nothing compared to hers, and that my situation did not excuse not being there for her. For context - she called me every day while I was in school and made me “talk her out of” doing things to herself for 2 hours - every day for weeks while refusing therapy or medication. I lost it.
We went NC about 1 year, then to very LC the last 3 years. It’s working kinda good! As long as I don’t get close to her, we can even see each other without drama. The times I’ve slipped up and allowed too much contact has been a disaster, she becomes possessive straight away and demand I apologise to her for what I did.
My daughter (8f) is the only child in the family. Thank goodness my sister hasn’t had any, and doesn’t plan to either. My sister instantly fell in love with her, before she was even born. While she seems to forget daughter’s existence from time to time, she also adores her from time to time. She showers daughter in gifts and attention. When they last hung out, Sister even pretended to love the very same things as Daughter, which at the time was rainbows and unicorns.
Since I broke with Sister, she has met Daughter 3 times. Once overnight 3 years ago, the other 2 times just a couple of hours outside of home. I do invite her here from time to time and say she’s always welcome, but she never does. She doesn’t bother coming here even if she’s in the area. She lives 4 hours away with car, and now claims she can’t travel here because her horse needs her. Good for us, I thought. Less drama.
But last week I found a package in the mail, addressed to Daughter. In it were the gifts Sister missed giving her - Christmas, Birthday and Easter. There was also a card, in which Sister writes how much she loves Daughter. Boxed in with a green marker, she writes that it’s her biggest dream to have Daughter visiting her for a weekend, and that she’s willing to meet us halfway to pick her up. She asked me a year or so ago, but I haven’t heard a word from her this year.
Yesterday, my mom said Sister has been in touch with her too, asking her to bring Daughter to her. No one asked me. Sister still sends Daughter unicorns and rainbows, even though Daughter hasn’t been into them for more than two years. She does not know my Daughter anymore.
Daughter loves her aunt, and often talk about her and makes her drawings and jewelary. She doesn’t know the issues my Sister has. She does not know she is forgotten for weeks, maybe months at a time. I’m scared my Sister will break her heart, or mess her up. I have not asked Daughter if she wants to go, and she didn’t say anything when reading the card either.
I told mom that Sister is always welcome to come here, and that I want her to come and see Daughter at least twice before I’m ok with Daughter going there (with my parents - not alone. Even mom agrees whole heartedly that Daughter should not go there alone). Mom thinks it’s unreasonable, because Sister is afraid of me and won’t come. I have never raised my voice to her. Never said harsh words. Just refused to do what she wants, so I feel it’s unfair to blame me.
What is your take on this? Am I being unreasonable to “force” my sister to come visit us in order to see my daughter?

This is long, sorry.
My wife cheated on me 14 years ago while we dated. We were in our mid twenties and had been dating for several years. She was seeing a man from work that was almost 40 years old at the time, so nearly a 15 year age difference. I found out while I was using her laptop to help her with a project for school (she was finishing her degree) and found an email she sent to this guy with a picture of her boobs with the words “do my boobs look good today?”
I remember I was shaking and blew up at her immediately. She denied it was anything and she strung me along for a few months before we got back together. I knew she was still seeing this guy while we were trying to fix our relationship. I remember the anxiety and depression like it was yesterday.
Shortly after we got back together, she found out she was pregnant. She assured me it was my child and I believed her. I remember the possible night of conception when she told me to cum inside of her. We were always careful and never did that before for obvious reasons. We moved in together and got married 2 years later. We now have 3 kids together. I didn’t bring it up at the time because she was pregnant and I didn’t want to cause her stress.
This has always bothered me as we never discussed the cheating. I finally brought it up 3 years ago and told her I needed closer and have always thought it was possible our oldest was not my child. I needed details on the extent of her relationship with this guy. The conversation did not go well. She was so cold and seemed like she wanted to avoid any conversation about the subject. She does not do well with communicating so I admit it was probably tough for her.
I needed more answers so I brought this up again recently. She admitted that he kissed her and that it was more of an emotional affair. She claims they did not sex and he never touched her. She said she didn’t feel right when they kissed so she told him to stop and he never did it again. They went to a movie together, walks at the park, coffee dates, late night dinner. She said that she liked the attention and that was it.
The problem, she claims to not remember any details. She doesn’t know the name of the movie, when or where they kissed, when she officially broke it off with him. To top it off this guy was married and his wife was pregnant, but claimed he was separated. I asked if he told her about his wife and she said yes but again can’t remember when he told her about his wife’s pregnancy.
She has zero fucking details other than she realized she loved me and broke it off with him. I don’t know what to do here. I’m tired of brushing this under the rug. I love her and want to believe her but I can’t without details.
I think she might be afraid to admit the truth because we have a nice life together. She doesn’t work and I make enough money to support us and not worry financially. We are very grateful for that. She did tell me that she regrets this every day and always feared I would divorce her over this.
I told her I want a paternity test for our oldest and she agreed. She said she know with 100% certainty our oldest is mine and nothing else is possible”. I think that a paternity test will strain our marriage if she is telling the truth. Now what? I can’t figure out if she’s telling the truth, lying because she fucked him and was scared she was pregnant so she had sex with me to say I got her pregnant, or just horrible timing around when we had sex and when the cheating occurred.
I have no idea how to get past not knowing what she did with this guy.

Bought a house in my hometown. Day before I do my home inspection, a family member of mine walked to a family grave of ours in town and was accosted by a soon to be neighbor ( old dude a few houses down, not next to me ) acusing him of peepin in windows in houses in town, took cell phone pictures etc.. It's a very small rural town. Dude has legal walking streets/paths on front and back of his .2 acre looking property. His house is shit (apparently sold it but still lives there idk). My mom (in her 60s, double knee replacemens, hardly a threat to anyone), trying to defend my family member when they returned home to tell her the story, returned to the old dudes house to inquire about the treatment of my family member. He apparently knew who she was and told her to "get the fuck off of his property". She said "well fuck you too" as she turned around promptly and went off of his porch to return to her vehicle. He sprung from his house (was talking through a screen door the whole time apparently) and proceeds to kick my mom in her back (because she was walking away already). Dude has a no trespassing sign. Cops said they both could be at fault. No one thought to record the altercation. Nothing happened. I wasn't present for any of it.There is no dad figure, it's kind of me as the male role model.
If it matters, I learned Dude got divorced and had a stoke. But apparently also always been an asshole (but hasn't been the same since the stroke)....small town...everyone knows each other so it wasn't hard to learn about him. The nights are pretty dark in this town, and idk if the old dude has the brains or money for cameras, but motion lights might be a thing. He's probably always paranoid.
I'm pretty sure he doesn't know who I am (yet) or what I look like. He might just leave eventually if I wait long enough if he really did sell the house idk. But If I was to say, get a unethical pro life tip that would make me feel better about the situation, what could be done without painting a target on myself since I live just down the street?
Tldr: old dude kicked my elderly mom who was leaving his property on request and was only there trying to defend a family members right to walk to the local graveyard to visit a family grave. I havent even moved in yet down the street from the old dude.

My poor sister. She's my half sister, and she was unfortunately raised by nMom/egg donor. I was raised by my father and learned to spot egg donor's crap early in life. My sister was not as lucky. nMom had a solid 20 years to fully brainwash her and control the narrative and she's only just coming out of it now.
I was forced to move in with nMom, her husband, and their two kids when I was a teenager and my sister and I really bonded. I started "pranking" her by picking up her phone whenever she put it down and changing the language to one we don't speak, then putting it back. nMom thought it was funny until sister successfully used my "prank" as a reason to keep her phone locked, and not share the passcode with anyone as I proved I could watch over their shoulders and get the code that way. I was kicked out shortly after sis started questioning egg donor on some things, I went NC, and the world went back to how nMom wanted it. Sis and I lost touch.
Fast forward to now and sis is also NC with our egg donor and in a very healthy relationship with a nice man who convinced her to go to therapy. We reconnected. And started talking about the lies, specifically the ones nMom told sis and others that are so easily disproved.
nMom lied about her blood type. Who does that? She desperately wants to be or have a special medical case and told my sister she was AB- because she heard somewhere it was the rarest type. Sis and both have health problems, so between the info our doctors got from us and us knowing our own blood types and our fathers' blood types, nMom couldn't have AB- blood, unless she adopted or stole us. Since we both look identical to her and each other, we're pretty confident she just lied to sis. For some fucking reason. (We also called her father to confirm. She's O+)
Sis was told that my father cheated on nMom and that caused their divorce. They split because my father caught her cheating, which resulted in a child. The date (and result) of the paternity test and their divorce pretty clearly states what happened.
nMom tried to spin a story about her not getting custody of me because everyone ganged up on her and she had no choice. I showed Sis how to find court records from my hometown online and she found the dates nMom was in jail for kidnapping me and neglecting the affair baby, who was later taken away by the state and adopted out. The custody case for me ended with nMom voluntarily signing away all rights to me to avoid more jail time.
Apparently nMom also tried to claim that she voluntarily gave up Affair Baby as a teen mom and then got pregnant with me and married my father. I'm a little speechless at this one, but I guess she wanted to paint herself as a tragic victim who did the right thing for her daughters by giving one up and letting my dad take me. The truth is I'm the baby she got pregnant with as a teen, and she and my dad divorced because of Affair Baby, who was born 18 months after me. Affair Baby was removed from her custody due to neglect. I'm not sure how she hoped to keep this lie up.
Sis wasn't even told about Affair Baby until nMom randomly mentioned it to a friend in front of Sis and tried to spin the above story. Sis was 12 at the time and shocked. nMom fed her a ton of lies about the situation. I've put her in contact with the woman Affair Baby grew into via social media (she has a lovely family; we chat once or twice a year) so that's getting worked through.
When sis started dating, nMom's version of a sex talk was to horrify her with tales of nMom being bullied in school because she was pregnant. She persevered and graduated just in time to have me and/or Affair Baby, but it was hard and sis should learn from her mistakes and be smarter. I don't talk to our grandmother, but sis was able to reach out and grandma confirmed nMom dropped out of high school to marry my father and have me.
There's a lot more, but one that was really hard for us both to get through was The Night I Left. nMom told Sis I just left for no reason and they didn't hear from me again for years. Truth is, nMom kicked me out on my birthday because I caught her in a lie and called her out on it. And, as I later found out, she'd heard Sis asking me if she could go with me when I moved out. nMom convinced Sis I just didn't want Sis moving in with me so I'd moved out and ghosted them all. I was homeless for 2 months.
It was a very long, exhausting conversation to have with my sister. In the end she burst into tears and said "Sis... I think my whole life has been a lie."
She's got a hard journey ahead of her, and helping her through it is stirring up some stuff I thought I'd gotten over by now. Thanks for letting me vent.

My dad (M47) and I (F16) have always had a decent relationship. Atleast compared to other dads, he was good. He was a good dad, or so I thought. He was always cool, never got too mad when it came to things like grades or sports. I wasn't good at either and he was fine with it. And then there was my mom who always made it feel like everything from me not being good at school or sport or not being the height I want or not being able to be good at the things I like was my fault.
Last year my perception of my parents completely changed and I don't know how to feel about them anymore. My mother has always had a rocky relationship with my dad's family. We kept our distance and things worked out. Despite all that my parents' relationship as a married couple having been married for almost 20 years was really great. Until january 29 2021. My grandpa (dad's dad) died. My father was distraught, we flew out for the funeral and being that my grandma was now alone living in a relatively unsafe neighbourhood, we had to move in with her. "We" being my mother, sister and I since my dad's job would've forced him to stay back at home for another year or so. That's when the issues began. My grandma spent no time in making my mother's life hell and soon ours as well. Mom was gone for most of the day but when she would come back she'd have to face my geandma berrating her. I'm ashamed to admit that I was of no help. I had started a new school and had become severely depressed ( not trying to justify it ). My grandma used to go to do insane things like purposely messing with the washing machine to make sure my mother had to call someone in to fix it? Or telling her daughter that my mother threw her clothes out? Throughout all this my dad tried to be the voice of reason with his family or so I thought.
Although he did not give into my grandma's lies he did not do anything to try diffuse the situation or try and make it better for my mother trying to survive in that godforsacken house. Things kept getting worse the extent of which I'm not even aware of but she would accuse my mother of stealing, my parents of trying to take over her house and it just seemed like she wanted us out of there. So we left.
Then we moved here. My dad started talking shit about my mom (something he would never do before) and at first I didn't think too much of it then they started fighting all the time. It really messed with my sister who's still very young. My mother confessed to me that he had been terrible towards her since they moved here. The worst of which included him accusing her of TRYING TO KILL HIM??? He would also constantly make jokes at her expense about her appearance. I was under the impression that he was not a bad guy that he would never do things like this but he had resented my mother since we came here. He believed that she was the reason his mother didn't talk to him anymore or that his sister didn't want to visit. The worst part is my mother had no one. She has very few friends she still talks to on a regular basis, her parents are very traditional in the sense that they do not support her in supposedly divorcing this man or even staying away from his family.
I really don't know what to do, my relationship with the both of them has changed so much over the last year and I sometimes feel guilty when my dad and I share a laugh together. He had been trying to (compete?) with my mother in this weird way for me and my sister's approval. My mother is not very understanding or kind and I just feel so guilty that I don't like her. I don't like her at all. But she's in such a difficult situation. I have been trying my hardest to be kind towards her and try and defend her from my dad and my dad has been awful he's just awful. And I hate that sometimes he's understanding and kind and a good parent all the things that my mother isn't.

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF ABUSE, CHILD S*XUAL ABUSE, S*ICIDE
tl;dr: I'm trying to figure out if my husband could be a narcissist, or emotionally immature, or some mashup of both. Could someone explain this to me like I'm five?
(If this isn’t the right group, please point me in the right direction)
I tried my best to condense, but it’s a really long one. I’m sorry.
A breakdown of the pertinent info:

Me: F, mid-fifties, just returned to PT work outside of home Husband: M, mid-fifties, always worked a regular job, main wage earner Married: 30+ years w/adult kids (no longer at home)

For a while, I've thought my husband has definitely shown signs of narcissistic behavior. I won't list everything, but a few things are that he is definitely argumentative (over seemingly insignificant issues), jealous, needy for my attention and flies off the handle if he feels ignored, his only "love language" seems to be sex (and any lack of it means I don't love him), he loves the silent treatment which is always followed by a huge blowup and then love-bombing, he always one-ups me (he works harder, he feels worse, he is more tired, etc). There's more, but I'm trying to keep this short. I will say that he has never physically hurt me, but he has spent a lot of energy being emotionally abusive.
I would say that is his main thing; constantly saying how much I don't love him and how much I don't care about him if he feels the least little bit ignored or has to spend any time alone. My going back to work at a PT job has just turned that fire into an inferno because I've gone from a SAHM/SAHW to working PT, and sometimes just by necessity he is by himself (I want to say that, in the thirty years he has worked his job, I have been by myself more times than I can count because he has worked scheduled/unscheduled/spur-of-the-moment overtime, and I just rolled with it because, really, what other choice was there? Unemployment for the main breadwinner?). He absolutely cannot handle being alone, while I find being alone refreshing and rejuvenating. In fact, I'm the opposite; I'm like, "Do you love me? Then go away and leave me alone for a while!"
But here's where I have been doing some thinking. I know that many of you are going to say that there is no way, but I do believe he loves me. I've seen the man behind all that. And I do love him, despite all of the problems and issues, and I believe as much as he understands it, he loves me too. I am determined to work on this marriage. It occurred to me the other day, when he was mad and throwing a fit about something; I thought; "He's acting like a toddler who needs a snack and a nap." And so my mind started wandering along those lines for a bit.
You see, my husband has had a hard life. Both of us grew up in dysfunctional families with abusive parents. His father was definitely a narcissist, and physically abusive to his wife and at least to my husband (the GC sibling seems to have escaped most of it) and I've heard was sexually abusive to family members as well. He put his wife in the hospital more than once because of severe beatings. He threatened to drive off a bridge with the whole family in the car. He threatened all of them with a gun and a family friend had to come over and save them. He regularly beat my husband for the crime of not eating his vegetables at dinner. When my husband was 22, and I was pregnant, his father tried to hit him over the head with a huge wrench. (My husband is a strong man; that was a dumb idea.) There’s apparently a lot more my husband won’t talk about and/or doesn't remember.
But his mother wasn't an angel, either (let's be clear, SHE DID NOT DESERVE SPOUSAL ABUSE OF ANY KIND. NO PERSON DESERVES ABUSE. However, you can not deserve abuse and, at the same time, not be a nice person). She believed the world revolved around her, she was never wrong and the smartest person in the room, and my husband was expected to be at her beck and call whenever she wanted him for whatever reason. She abused him in her own way. Hurting people hurt people. When I came along, he was nineteen, and I treated him like an adult; that went over like a lead balloon because she treated him like a child.
Shortly after we got married and had our first child, she purposefully ceased to live, which threw my husband into a deep, deep depression for a few years. It was rough. I tried to get him to go to therapy, but he flat refused. We worked through it and eventually had another child, and he can finally talk about it now, thirty-some years later. But he rarely visits her grave, and I’ve never forced him to go if he doesn’t want to.
At very significant points in his emotional development, my husband had some major life crises happen:

He had to retake first grade because his mother was put in the hospital by his father's abuse; he shut down to the point he wouldn't do his homework and had to be held back (which is hard enough); he would have been around 7 years old He spent his childhood dealing with an abusive father and wondering if he was going to literally not be alive His parents finally divorced when he was around 14 years old After that, he and his mother and sibling were constantly financially insecure His mother purposefully ceased to live when he was twenty-three, after we had just had our first child He has told me that he doesn’t remember large chunks of his childhood (which I understand is a trauma response)

As he was being 'constructed', there was built a severely flawed frame structure around these emotionally damaged areas; the ability in his ‘frame’ to withstand a structural state of stress is severely defective. He never really learned how to regulate his emotions, how to work through them or deal with them in a healthy way. His mother never got him therapy for the abuse he had endured since birth; if anything, she compounded it (that’s a whole post in itself because, wait for it, she was a counselor). The only relationship he had modeled on a consistent basis was a dysfunctional, abusive, unhealthy one. (He did have maternal grandparents who were loving and kind, but they couldn't be there 24/7.) His aunts and uncles were all also in dysfunctional marriages/divorces, so no help or escape there. As a result, he has nothing to draw from when he feels stress, irritation, anger, sadness, irritation, loneliness; he struggles to even identify the differences between all of those emotions. He is extremely simplistic in his thought processes when it comes to emotions: He feels good/bad, energetic/tired, loved/unloved, happy/sad, full/starving; sometimes he’s capable of mildly annoyed if he's in a really good mood, but mostly his emotions are one extreme or the other (they do not change wildly; he picks one and usually sticks with it for a while).
If he feels stressed in one area of his life, then EVERY area of his life, in his mind, sucks. Very black/white. No grey at all. I’m not sure he knows grey exists. He thinks life should ALWAYS be a happy feeling, and if there is any bad/sad/stress/negative emotion, then that ruins it all and he can only concentrate on that, like a pebble in his shoe.
It’s like if someone gave each of us an oatmeal raisin cookie (mine has my allergens/intolerances removed):
Neither of us are big fans of raisins, but we both like oatmeal cookies. I will just eat around the raisins, or I will pick them out. If that is impossible, I’ll just eat the raisins, even though they aren’t my favorites, because I like oatmeal cookies and I try to look at the positive. “A minute ago I didn’t have a cookie, but now I do have a cookie, even though it has raisins that I don’t like, so life is pretty okay at this moment.” (I try to find something positive, even if it’s just a little thing, and focus on that.)
He will spend his time bitching that his cookie has raisins. He doesn’t like raisins. Don’t they know he doesn’t like raisins? How is he supposed to eat this cookie with raisins? And if I point out that he can make the best of it and just try to pick out the raisins, then he gets all upset. “But I should have got a cookie with no raisins. I shouldn’t have to pick out the raisins. Even if I pick them out, I can still taste them. Life sucks all the time.” (He finds something negative in everything, even if it’s a little thing, and builds it up to overshadow all the good things.)
So, I’m thinking that he has probably inherited some narcissistic tendencies from his father (and some not-so-pleasant stuff from his mother as well), and then he’s added emotional trauma to this, which makes me think emotional immaturity has been stirred into this particular pie (or cookie, if you will). Could this be so?
Here’s a very recent case in point. He works nights. I mostly work days, but my job is such that I sometimes need to be ‘on-call’, and so occasionally I need to go in at weird hours/times. It’s a great job and I love it, and it’s a perfect fit for me and my skill-set, but he’s having a hard time adjusting to me not always being around like I have been for most of our marriage. (Remember, to him not being around=not loving him.) He feels like he’s not the center of attention any more, even though I’ve tried to make up for it.
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are temporarily sharing a car. We're making the best of it, but it’s a hassle and we are both tired of it (using public transportation is not an option in our rural area and neither of us have coworkers who live close to us). His shifts can be 8-12 hours, depending. Well, on certain days of the month, he works mandatory 12-hour shifts. They are always on specific days. I made work plans based on that schedule, which never changes. But yep, you guessed it…this past Saturday, it changed. He told me that I didn’t need to take him to work that night since he was only working 8 hours, and I was all, “What? No, I really need the car because I already told my boss I would work tonight because I know you always work 12 hours on this day.”
Just how I was supposed to know the schedule changed, I’m not sure, but he completely lost the plot. He started yelling at me while we were still home and it didn’t stop until I dropped him off at work an hour later. I just shut down. He covered every subject; I didn’t love him, I didn’t care about his feelings, nobody EVER cares about his feelings, I always leave him alone, I never have sex with him so that PROVES I don’t love him (I have sat him down and told him, repeatedly, about some physical issues I am having at the moment that really don’t make sex much fun for me which I am under a doctor’s care for, and I have reassured him that I love him very much and I want to have sex with him but I need to get these physical things under control; to his credit, he has never forced me to have sex), I work too much, I shouldn’t have taken the stupid job anyway (he is the one who told me I should probably get a PT job), I don’t get paid enough (I make the going rate for what I do), I don’t clean the house enough, the dishes need washed, I don’t feed him properly, I’ll probably spend all day Sunday running errands for my mother (who is eighty, a manipulative narcissist herself, has health issues, I’m an only child, I have had to step up and help her) and not be home with him, and why am I so upset, what am I starting to cry about now???
Then Sunday, Mother’s Day, he must have felt guilty because he helped me carry in groceries and was nice to me all day. Not in a love-bombing way, not over-the-top or weird, just nice. He’s been nice to me today as well. He did mention in passing that on these scheduled 12-hour shifts that the crew on the other shift always leaves extra work for him to do, and then denies it, and he knows he’s going in to a mess and a ton of extra work (he has a hard, physically demanding job), so that puts him in a bad mood. I don’t know if that was his round-about way of apologizing or what. Yes, he probably was stressed out about going in to a mess at work, and my taking the car didn’t help, and he didn’t handle the stress/anger in a healthy way (to put it mildly). We both could have communicated better about work schedules, but I was just basing my decision to work on his never-changing schedule. It was frustrating, but it wasn’t the end of the world, and it all worked out. His reaction was totally out of proportion to the event.
So is that narcissistic behavior or immature behavior? It’s like he gets mad, he blows up, he comes to himself, he apologizes/acts sorry, loves on me, treats me good, sloooowly builds up anger again, gets silent silenter silentest…blows up again and the whole thing starts over. Why is this still happening? Shouldn’t we be past this by now? It’s hard to explain, and I know some of you won’t understand (and nor should you, based on what you have been through, which is truly horrific, and I am so sorry), but it’s like he comes to himself and realizes how he is acting, but later the hurt and anger take over again. And the cyclic pattern in his life continues.
Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about whether he might be more emotionally immature than narcissistic, or more narcissistic than emotionally immature, or some combo of both, and what I could do to help him and strategies to deal with it myself. NGL, it is really taking a toll on me emotionally. I feel like I have been run through the wringer every day. Some days I cry and cry (when I’m alone, never when he is here, he gets mad when I cry because he can’t handle negative emotions and he would never acknowledge he caused the negative emotion), some days I just shut down and sleep for 12 hours. I have a couple of mental health apps on my phone that I use.
We are at a time in our marriage when I feel like we should be enjoying ourselves (our adult children have moved out and we are a little more financially stable than we were the last time we had no kids at home), but it feels like everything is just falling apart. I feel like we shouldn’t be arguing about this same stuff after thirty-plus years, but here we are, still arguing about whether I love him or not.
Thank you for reading my long and boring post. Just typing it all out helped.