Hey everyone! I 20 F, and my BF 20 M have been together for about 6 years and are in a very serious relationship. My only issue is his mom. My bf was raised in a strict Cuban household with a divorced mother and 2 older siblings. When we first started dating in high school MIL was VERY strict and would always try and prevent my bf from seeing me. After numerous arguments, my bf and his mom began to develop a very toxic relationship. MIL was not happy with my bf always defending me and my family. Throughout the years MIL has done some HORRIBLE things to both me and my bf. She has emotionally strained my bf to the point where he had to seek therapy, she has tried "cuddling" with him after he has stated tons of times how uncomfortable that made him feel, she has faked passing out to get him to stay at home, and has made a very traumatic impact on his life. She continuously says she is a "cool mom" however, expected my bf to be celibate, invaded privacy in regards to my bf showering, and has put up several cameras in their house to see what my bf and I do when we are together (it feels like im in a live stream). MIL has made fun of my weight, and has made rude comments about my family not being able to help me (my mother has been struggling with brain cancer for the past 7 years), has told my bf to reconsider other options with girls, and much more. This list can go on for both my bf and me however it's way too long. At times, my bf wished me and his mom would have a good connection, but after the 2023-2024 year, he truly gave up because he despised his mother. Recently, my life has taken an unexpected turn. My mother has not been doing well and being home from college has made me see how hard cancer has been for my mother. My bf, also being back from college (we attend the same university), has been there to help my family and me. The other night, I was venting to my bf about being anxious about how much time I have left with my mother. Suddenly, my bf got a call from his 2 sisters stating that their mom fell and hit her head (they sounded horrific, yelling that their mom's head was bleeding out). My bf asked if he could head out and I told him to please get home and help (which I understood due to one of my close family friends passing away from falling and hitting their head (truly traumatic for me and my bf's family knew about that)). I texted my bf about 10 minutes later asking if he needed help getting his mother to the hospital, etc. I got a FaceTime a minute later and it was his best friend who had just arrived back from college to surprise my bf. MIL grabbed the phone LAUGHING saying it was a joke. My face had a look of disgust. MIL KNEW why my bf was at my house and how hard I had been struggling mentally about my mom. Bf was in utter disgust and took his friend home while explaining the entire situation to his friend. His friend was also very weirded out because MIL INSISTED that they did that surprise THAT night and MIL also INSISTED that they say she fell and hit her head. The friend had said that he tried to plan another surprise that would not require something this intense and when my bf was not busy helping me or my family. When my bf arrived back at his house his mother tried talking to my bf but he ignored her. She repeatedly stated that "that was the only way I could get you back home" (which is not true). We are both furious. We went to a huge family dinner last night, and she tried to speak to both of us as if nothing happened, however, my bf and I both acted off towards her. I am so confused because all of my friends and their MIL are so close. I just don't think I can forgive the damage she did these past years. Any advice?

A little background: I turned 17 last month, me and two of my siblings were all adopted together, and our adoptive parents have 2 kids as well. I also took a bunch of extra classes so I could graduate this year rather then next.
I know that other people have a lot more to complain about but I am pissed and I need someone to talk to. On Friday, I went over to a friend's house and spent the night (both parents and younger siblings are out of state so it's just me here) and we stayed up until 2 in the morning (no big deal). On Saturday, I got home from work and went to play Xbox, and played until 10:00 the time I was told to go to bed, then my alarm clock unplugged overnight so i missed my alarm amd slept through church. Because of this my mom told me to put my phone in front of the camera and took all my tech away for Sunday(she didn't get here till Monday at like 5:30). Then she told me that I had to keep my door open until she got back(I was in here cleaning but according to her I was clearly messing around) so that the camera could see in here. (We have cameras all over our house) My response to that text was "Im actually in here cleaning but whatever". After that she takes all my shit for another day, so all of Monday. Monday was my last day of school so I had a couple of finals left, but I couldn't do them until about 730 pm so she could "monitor me on my school laptop" because in the last week I had opened insta for about 4.5 seconds to enter a giveaway. Me not being able to start on school until then caused me to have to stay up past my school bedtime (9:30) by about 45 minutes. Now, because "I procrastinated on my school work so I could play Xbox instead" she's taking my Xbox until the end of the summer, which fucking sucks because I start my full time job at the end of this month and that would mean that I have pretty much nothing to do here on my days off. (She doesn't like my other main hobby either which is Legos, so all of my Legos are locked in a shipping container on our property to "protect them from my siblings" which is ridiculous since none of them ever go in my room) And I'm also mad because she shows blatant favoritism to my younger siblings. One pretty easy way to see this is that me, the 17 who is graduating high school has a bedtime of 9:30, yet my nine year old sister gets to go to bed whenever she wants, and gets to keep her iPad in her room with her at night. My phone that I bought has to sit upstairs Infront of a security camera every night, and that's while its restricted after 9 pm so it can't do shit.
Another way is that they don't ever take anything from her when she gets in trouble,yet for literally no reason the minute I do something like saying "yeah let me double check real quick" while already playing after I finished some chores I had, I get the Xbox taken for a month because "I should know for sure that it's done before I even look at the Xbox"
Sorry about the ranting and poor grammar I just needed to get this all off my chest.

So I am only halfway through season 4 but it seems Kristen is on her redemption arc, or is at least significantly less insufferable for the moment. Its clear she working on herself and she is successfully mending her relationships. I am actually starting to like her a bit more. She handled things with James (he turned out to be a POS as well) about as well as can be expected and is mending her relationships with Scheana and Katie rather well. I think its obvious she had some mental health stuff going on that she is actively working on now, which is so incredibly hard and I respect those efforts.
So when she goes to apologize to Ariana I was kind of surprised at Ariana's reaction. Like I didn't expect them to be best friends or even for her to immediately forgive Kristen, but the blatant unkindness??? She is literally hurling insults at Kristen left and right?? Like for someone who's main thing was the fact that she was always the "bigger person" it seems like such a 180 that she is now readily willing to actively dump on someone trying to apologize. Then she talks to Sandoval's mom and saying that its "annoying that her friends think she's being petty". Honey...YOU ARE. You don't have to like Kristen, but you don't need to be actively mean either.
That plus the birthday thing.... Like I get where she's coming from and it was kind of a bad move on Sandoval to go anyway but her teary breakdown about her dad's birthday traditions as a reason that Tom shouldn't go on a trip the day AFTER her birthday...just seemed a bit....manipulative. Like I get the girls not wanting them to go, especially with that group of boys track records with cheating. So in my mind Katie's tears make a lot more sense to me. But crying about your dad being dead on your birthday as a reason your bf shouldn't go on a trip with his friend the day AFTER your perfect birthday party? It just seems a bit flimsy to me. Not to mention her whole little tantrum when she found out, the passive aggressiveness and throwing a fit that she wasn't invited on a boys trip.... I don't know, I see the merit in the fact that there's no reason the girlfriends couldn't have come along. But she didn't seem upset on behalf of all the girls, she was upset for herself..
Then when Tom came home with a terrible tattoo of her initial on his butt she doesn't even find the humor in it and just hates it and presses for him to get it removed. In like again, super passive aggressive, hinting ways.
OH and the slumber party Lala thing, Scheana goes to invite her and Ariana says "well I'm not going to tell you not to" Like its clear she has some off-camera problem with Lala that she isn't owning up to. Like she's threatened by her somehow.
TBH I never really liked Ariana all that much, cause even though it was clear in season one that Tom and Kristen were toxic and miserable together Ariana did come off as kind of a pick-me that was a little too ready to move in on the relationship. But she was chill, and I felt for her in later seasons when Kristen was determined to break them up. I appreciated her efforts to keep the peace and remain the bigger person. And I even thought that it was cute that she said she could see herself marrying Tom.
But in this season all of that is gone, Kristen show up uninvited to Scheana's party and Ariana calls Scheana a "fake friend", the birthday thing, the tattoo... then this whole thing with Kristen?
I feel like these are her true colors and the "emotionally evolved cool-girl" thing was all just an act.

I (33f) am raising two boys (15 and 7) on my own. They are complete opposites. Their temperments are nearly opposite. Both pretty good kids. In order to maintain my bills and fit a schedule where I can work, make more money, and be available during daytime for sick days, Dr appts, etc, I work third shift. My 15yo is self sufficient. He knows how to cook. He knows safety and into survival stuff. Not so much book smart but otherwise yes. He has a good heart and cares about me and his brother but these teen years are really wearing me down. I just don't know what to do. I don't want the issues changing my youngest son to think it's okay to be the same way.
I've tried getting him involved and talked to by some male relatives of mine but it's intermittent and they don't live with us obviously so I just feel like I have no support.
He's failing everything but weightlifting. Purposefully gets iss. Regularly gives me attitude. I ask the bare minimum of chores because I can't get him to do them anyways (trash and dishes) and I have to repeat myself constantly. Simple conversations such as why do I come home from work and every light is on in the house and outside while they're sleeping gets me an attitude because "I've got an attitude". Or 2 hours into me catching some sleep after my 10 hour shifts and lacking sleep because I also take my grandma to chemo he wakes me up to tell me I need to take him to get gas so he can cut grass. No consideration for my efforts. I cook, clean, do laundry, drive them to and from school, pay all the bills, try to take them out a couple times a month, I do it all with no respect from him. He might buy me a drink or snack here and there. I've refused to pay his cell phone bill anymore. Yesterday while I was napping, he made his brother stay inside and apparently took off walking a few miles up the road with friends without even telling me because he "didn't want to wake me up".....
I guess I'm ranting but I don't know where to turn or what to do. I don't want to get physical. And some things I do or consider like getting rid of his things, I still have to deal with the slamming doors and attitude. I'm just tired. I just almost wish I could send him to the Marines like he wants already... Idk if I can wait two more years ...
Trying to stop him from doing things like hanging with friends makes me not be able to do anything grown up. And I also worry he will be sneaking out while I work third. (I'm installing a new camera in the house just waiting on it to arrive).
TLDR... single mom who does everything to provide gets no respect from 15yo and no matter what I do I'm stressed with no support and at a loss where to turn anymore. Please give any and all advice. I've tried and failed at some routes and maybe someone out there can help...

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temporary, ten, tend, tendency, tennis, tension, tent, term, terms, terrible, territory, terror, terrorist, test, testimony, testing, text, than, thank, thanks, that, the, theater, their, them, theme, themselves, then, theory, therapy, there, therefore, these, they, thick, thin, thing, think, thinking, third, thirty, this, those, though, thought, thousand, threat, threaten, three, throat, through, throughout, throw, thus, ticket, tie, tight, time, tiny, tip, tire, tissue, title, to, tobacco, today, toe, together, toilet, token, tolerate, tomato, tomorrow, tone, tongue, tonight, too, tool, tooth, top, topic, toss, total, totally, touch, tough, tour, tourist, tournament, toward, towards, tower, town, toy, trace, track, trade, tradition, traditional, traffic, tragedy, trail, train, training, transfer, transform, transformation, transition, translate, translation, transmission, transmit, transport, transportation, travel, treat, treatment, treaty, tree, tremendous, trend, trial, tribe, trick, trip, troop, trouble, truck, true, truly, trust, truth, try, tube, tunnel, turn, TV, twelve, twenty, twice, twin, two, type, typical, typically, ugly, ultimate, ultimately, unable, uncle, undergo, understand, understanding, unfortunately, uniform, union, unique, unit, United, universal, universe, university, unknown, unless, unlike, until, unusual, up, upon, upper, urban, urge, us, use, used, useful, user, usual, usually, utility, utilize, vacation, valley, valuable, value, variable, variation, variety, various, vary, vast, vegetable, vehicle, venture, version, versus, very, vessel, veteran, via, victim, victory, video, view, viewer, village, violate, violation, violence, violent, virtually, virtue, virus, visibility, visible, vision, visit, visitor, visual, vital, voice, volume, voluntary, volunteer, vote, voter, voting, wage, wait, wake, walk, wall, wander, want, war, warm, warn, warning, wash, waste, watch, water, wave, way, we, weak, weakness, wealth, wealthy, weapon, wear, weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.

It was a winter morning, and I was standing on the railway station of Adityapur, one of Asia’s largest industrial hubs in the outskirts of Jamshedpur, formally known as TATANAGAR, the city known for TATAs & their steel. I updated my current whereabouts to my mother just before boarding the Tata-Gua passenger train, sounding her on my expected time to reach home. I was visiting home after 2 months, the longest interval in the 3.5 years at NIT Jamshedpur due to my business around hosting the first alumni meet of NIT Jamshedpur and a 15-day train travel across India through Jagriti Yatra. I was just carrying my laptop bag as it was a usual 2/3-day trip and I just had my Compaq laptop, a change of clothes & charger to be precise beside my small blue denim wallet & a Samsung smart phone. In 2012, smart phones were just stepping in and my brother-in law was generous enough to lend it to me to take pictures of the places I visit & the events I attend during Jagriti Yatra. Jagriti Yatra is a train ride across India with 600 yatris from different countries, different walks of life who embark on this journey to learn about various social & business enterprise. In that day’s train journey, I was travelling with a batchmate who would get down 2 stations before mine. We’d travel together many times during the four years, and we’d always take the morning train instead of the evening one. It was a passenger train which was always very crowded, and it passed through many small stations in that belt which were dimly lit, these stations were primarily existing to connect industries to the mining towns of Noamundi, Barbil, Jhinkpani and had goods trains plying with iron ore, limestone, cement, so evening trains seemed unsafe for girls travelling alone. Jhinkpani was a small town in that belt with a cement factory, ACC Cements, and a residential township for it. My dad had booked the station trip which was a Maruti Van to ply the resident of the colony from station to the colony which was around 3 kms away & there was no public transport available in this route. I was waiting to board the train all excited to show my parents the pictures of the Yatra clicked on the borrowed smart phone, I’d also met my sister and niece at Visakhapatnam while we visited Akshaya Patra mega kitchen and I remember getting clicked a cute photo of me holding my niece at the station but my excitement was short lived as soon as I kept the phone in the small zipper pocket of my laptop bag. I was modestly dressed in a kurta and leggings, without pockets of-course, pockets are a recent phenomenon in women’s Indian clothing. So, my phone and wallet were always kept in the bag.
As I boarded the train along with around 20 other people from that gate, I felt a sudden force pulling me back, but I managed to steer my way inside but with an eerie feeling, I quickly reached out to check the tiny pocket immediately only to find that both the wallet & the borrowed phone were gone. A shiver ran up my spine and I started to feel numb. There was Rs 200 in cash in that wallet which was a month of pocket money, my SBI ATM card and college i-card. Now, having zero cash, no phone I went about near the gate to see if I can find it, I spoke to couple of people but barely anyone knew Hindi, and it struck me real hard that reaching home was my single motto now. Although scared that I would be scolded by parents for being reckless, I had a sinking feeling as to how would I break this news to my sister & my brother-in-law whose smart phone I’d lost, what would I do about all the lost contacts that I’d woven so meticulously while organizing the alumni meet, what of the memories that I’d captured during the Yatra. My brain started to fizzle with all these entrapping thoughts when my friend shook me to bring me back to the dreaded train which was my reality then and I started planning my next course of action. I first called my mother from my friend’s phone to tell her about the loss, she comforted me and then she informed my dad to arrange a vehicle from the station, the trip was booked but it’d sometimes leave passengers if there are more people than capacity or not turn up due to technical glitch in the age old van that was used. My friend got down at Chaibasa and my heart started racing more as people around me in the train knew my situation and vulnerability and I tried to pose a strong and confident front. The train took more than 20 minutes to travel 17 kms but for me it seemed like ages, the sight of Jhinkpani station never made me so relieved. I quickly deboarded the train, holding on to my bag tightly this time and found a friend waiting there in his Maruti 800. He happened to have met my dad while coming to the station for a personal work and my dad asked him to pick me as well. I finally reached home travelling without a phone and a penny in pocket, my mom was so glad to see me safe and sound. I was taken aback a little to see her overtly calm demeanor at the face of such an adversary and having no concern whatsoever for my lost phone or the wallet. She prayed and thanked God for my safe return and narrated about her dream which she saw about me the previous night. She was very disturbed by it, and she’d been praying from dawn that day for my well-being as the dream was a very bad omen for me. She felt relieved that it was only few items that were lost, and I was completely unharmed. Mother’s love manifests in mysterious ways I thought while gobbling on my favorite sambar, rice that afternoon. Meanwhile, my dad deactivated my ATM card and arranged an old makeshift phone for me to be used in the remaining two months of college. When I sit back to think, I always think about my mother’s reaction and feel relieved that it happened, may be a way to appease myself of the guilt of not thinking through that somebody must have noticed me putting the phone in the small pocket and chanced upon it in the crowd while boarding. To compensate for the loss of phone, I gifted my sister with a digital camera after I started earning 4 months down from this incident. From then on, I never kept anything valuable in such obvious places in public while I maneuvered my ways in Delhi’s metro or the local trains of Mumbai, in the buses of Visakhapatnam or in the streets of Paris. I hold my wallet tight and my phone close.

It was a winter morning, and I was standing on the railway station of Adityapur, one of Asia’s largest industrial hubs in the outskirts of Jamshedpur, formally known as TATANAGAR, the city known for TATAs & their steel. I updated my current whereabouts to my mother just before boarding the Tata-Gua passenger train, sounding her on my expected time to reach home. I was visiting home after 2 months, the longest interval in the 3.5 years at NIT Jamshedpur due to my business around hosting the first alumni meet of NIT Jamshedpur and a 15-day train travel across India through Jagriti Yatra. I was just carrying my laptop bag as it was a usual 2/3-day trip and I just had my Compaq laptop, a change of clothes & charger to be precise beside my small blue denim wallet & a Samsung smart phone. In 2012, smart phones were just stepping in and my brother-in law was generous enough to lend it to me to take pictures of the places I visit & the events I attend during Jagriti Yatra. Jagriti Yatra is a train ride across India with 600 yatris from different countries, different walks of life who embark on this journey to learn about various social & business enterprise. In that day’s train journey, I was travelling with a batchmate who would get down 2 stations before mine. We’d travel together many times during the four years, and we’d always take the morning train instead of the evening one. It was a passenger train which was always very crowded, and it passed through many small stations in that belt which were dimly lit, these stations were primarily existing to connect industries to the mining towns of Noamundi, Barbil, Jhinkpani and had goods trains plying with iron ore, limestone, cement, so evening trains seemed unsafe for girls travelling alone. Jhinkpani was a small town in that belt with a cement factory, ACC Cements, and a residential township for it. My dad had booked the station trip which was a Maruti Van to ply the resident of the colony from station to the colony which was around 3 kms away & there was no public transport available in this route. I was waiting to board the train all excited to show my parents the pictures of the Yatra clicked on the borrowed smart phone, I’d also met my sister and niece at Visakhapatnam while we visited Akshaya Patra mega kitchen and I remember getting clicked a cute photo of me holding my niece at the station but my excitement was short lived as soon as I kept the phone in the small zipper pocket of my laptop bag. I was modestly dressed in a kurta and leggings, without pockets of-course, pockets are a recent phenomenon in women’s Indian clothing. So, my phone and wallet were always kept in the bag.
As I boarded the train along with around 20 other people from that gate, I felt a sudden force pulling me back, but I managed to steer my way inside but with an eerie feeling, I quickly reached out to check the tiny pocket immediately only to find that both the wallet & the borrowed phone were gone. A shiver ran up my spine and I started to feel numb. There was Rs 200 in cash in that wallet which was a month of pocket money, my SBI ATM card and college i-card. Now, having zero cash, no phone I went about near the gate to see if I can find it, I spoke to couple of people but barely anyone knew Hindi, and it struck me real hard that reaching home was my single motto now. Although scared that I would be scolded by parents for being reckless, I had a sinking feeling as to how would I break this news to my sister & my brother-in-law whose smart phone I’d lost, what would I do about all the lost contacts that I’d woven so meticulously while organizing the alumni meet, what of the memories that I’d captured during the Yatra. My brain started to fizzle with all these entrapping thoughts when my friend shook me to bring me back to the dreaded train which was my reality then and I started planning my next course of action. I first called my mother from my friend’s phone to tell her about the loss, she comforted me and then she informed my dad to arrange a vehicle from the station, the trip was booked but it’d sometimes leave passengers if there are more people than capacity or not turn up due to technical glitch in the age old van that was used. My friend got down at Chaibasa and my heart started racing more as people around me in the train knew my situation and vulnerability and I tried to pose a strong and confident front. The train took more than 20 minutes to travel 17 kms but for me it seemed like ages, the sight of Jhinkpani station never made me so relieved. I quickly deboarded the train, holding on to my bag tightly this time and found a friend waiting there in his Maruti 800. He happened to have met my dad while coming to the station for a personal work and my dad asked him to pick me as well. I finally reached home travelling without a phone and a penny in pocket, my mom was so glad to see me safe and sound. I was taken aback a little to see her overtly calm demeanor at the face of such an adversary and having no concern whatsoever for my lost phone or the wallet. She prayed and thanked God for my safe return and narrated about her dream which she saw about me the previous night. She was very disturbed by it, and she’d been praying from dawn that day for my well-being as the dream was a very bad omen for me. She felt relieved that it was only few items that were lost, and I was completely unharmed. Mother’s love manifests in mysterious ways I thought while gobbling on my favorite sambar, rice that afternoon. Meanwhile, my dad deactivated my ATM card and arranged an old makeshift phone for me to be used in the remaining two months of college. When I sit back to think, I always think about my mother’s reaction and feel relieved that it happened, may be a way to appease myself of the guilt of not thinking through that somebody must have noticed me putting the phone in the small pocket and chanced upon it in the crowd while boarding. To compensate for the loss of phone, I gifted my sister with a digital camera after I started earning 4 months down from this incident. From then on, I never kept anything valuable in such obvious places in public while I maneuvered my ways in Delhi’s metro or the local trains of Mumbai, in the buses of Visakhapatnam or in the streets of Paris. I hold my wallet tight and my phone close.

This is a really long story with lots of context so I'll do my best to organize it into current situation, then his backstory and hers. I'm also not using real names or specific locations for any of this to try and keep this private. This also has some contradicting stories and because of how their relationship is structured relies mostly on information I have gotten from my sister, so I'm telling you the story I got from her first and then adding in what I've found out. I'll try to tell this as unbiased as I can but it's been a huge issue in my family for a long time now and that's a little difficult for me to do.
My (20F) sister (Olivia, 24F) has been dating this guy (Trevor, 25M) since 2021. When they started dating, she talked about him fairly often, sent a few pictures of them, ect., but then after a month she stopped mentioning him/ was cagey when we (me and my mom mostly) asked how he was so we assumed it just hadn't worked out. Then two months later she insisted that my parents (54F and 56M) and I all come to visit her college to meet Trevor before he went into the Army (she lived several hours away from my parents and several hours from my college, so I had to get a bus ticket and my parents had to get a hotel room to do this. We only met him once for dinner). Now they've been dating long distance for three years after a three month in-person relationship. She is in nursing school and is planning on moving across the country (literally opposite corners of the map) to live with him and is not applying to any residency programs outside of the Army base area (limiting her choices a LOT from her original goals and narrowing employment opportunities).
Olivia met Trevor on several dating apps, matched with him, but didn't really want to go out with him. He was really persistent, so her friend convinced her to go out with him. She lied about the way they met to our parents and told them they met at the gym through a mutual friend (she lied to me about this at first too and told me the truth about 3 months after they started dating). At the time, Trevor was working as a used car salesman and living at home (~45 min. away from Olivia's school in a rural area) because his sports scholarship had been dropped before his Senior year due to covid at the college he had been attending out of state. The university was unaccredited (I later did some internet stalking and found out it was accredited), so his credits would not transfer and he would have to start over. He was saving up money to attend school in state at the large college Olivia attended so he could go back to school. **Our state has crazy low tuition costs in-state and a full-tuition scholarship program for good high school GPA and SAT scores. There was also a "feeder" community college that had half the cost per credit hour that a lot of people would go to before the larger university if they didn't get in straight out of high school.**
Olivia told me that Trevor had applied to her college and not gotten in (she later told me he HAD gotten in but been unable to afford tuition). Either way, he decided to join the Army because his father had been in the Army. The Army would take his credit hours and he would be able to finish his degree during his 5 year contract or use the GI bill once he got out. **She is comparing the situation to our father, who joined the Army directly out of high school and used the GI bill to go to college after his 2 year contract because his parents wouldn't pay for school. He was a medic in the military, worked as an EMT through college, and then went to nursing school.** The original plan was that Trevor would be a Green Beret (special forces), he completed basic training and and got several months through training and moved to the secondary base in NC before failing the running portion of a physical by about 10 seconds and being dropped from the selection process. He then decided that he wanted to be a Ranger (another elite position). He got sent back to GA, then to the Ranger school base in WA (it took a couple of months before he was sent to WA). Again, he got partway through the training before failing the running portion of a physical by a few seconds. He is now not sure if he will be continuing Ranger school (failing the physical means no, but commanders may pass him anyways if they think he should continue). For a while, Trevor told Olivia that he might not stay at the base in WA if he wasn't in Ranger school and there were a variety of different bases he could be sent to, including somewhere in Italy, so she wasn't sure where to look for jobs. In the past month, Trevor told Olivia that he would likely stay in WA regardless of the Ranger school results.
Through this all, Olivia has visited Trevor at the different military bases countless times, driving from as far as south FL to NC and putting over 30,000 miles on a brand new car over the course of the 1.5 years she's owned it. Before she had the car, she paid for plane tickets to see him and hotels whenever she visited. At the time, she told me that he was paying for all of these trips because he was unable to visit her, was making an income that wasn't being spent, and she was working to save for nursing school and later was living off of student loans and savings during nursing school. She later admitted to me that she had paid for almost all of the expenses except for food when they ate out together and part of a hotel room one weekend.
A few odd things (to me) between Olivia and Trevor over the course of their relationship:
About a month into their relationship, Trevor got Olivia an over $300 christmas gift. He has not gotten her anything nearly that expensive since, and hasn't sent flowers for things like her college graduation or a severe emergency surgery she had last year. I don't care about monetary value or sending flowers, but I do think it is odd that he spent so much before moving away when he ostensibly didn't have much money, but now that he has an income and military sign-on bonus, he has not spent that much again.
Trevor's father left Trevor, his siblings, and his mother, but Trevor has a hat that his father gave him that he wore often. The hat says "Red Man" across the top of a picture of a Native American man wearing a feathered headdress. He has worn this hat several times around Olivia's friends and they told him they didn't like it and that it was racist. They also asked him to not wear it when he was with them and he refused because it was special to him and his father gave it to him. Olivia then told him to stop wearing it and he eventually agreed (Olivia told me that he stopped wearing the hat after this). A few weeks after this, I facetimed Olivia and Trevor was with her. She turned the camera so I could say hello to him, and he was wearing the hat. I talked to Olivia about this later and she told me that that was the first time he'd worn the hat in a while and it wasn't a big deal. Olivia has always been liberal and never racist, and I am uncomfortable that she was okay with him not only wearing the hat, but being with him while he had it on.
They dated for a little over 3 months in person before he joined the military (recently, Olivia told me that they actually met several months before she told everyone about him and that they actually dated for 6 months before he left). For the next two months in basic training, he was only able to use the phone for 15 minutes total once a week to talk to family and her. Throughout the different training programs he has completed he had sporadic and limited access to phones to communicate, and only in the past 6 months he has had access to his phone to facetime, text, and call (but sometimes he goes for a week or two without phone access). Olivia told me that they wrote letters during the time he didn't have consistent phone access. **I don't think that this is odd, I understand the military limits phone usage, etc., but I don't think they have been able to have an "average" long-distance relationship**
Last year, Olivia drove to GA to visit Trevor the weekend before Valentine's day. He had plans for them to take a pottery class, go on a hike, and have dinner at a nice restaurant. The day she got there, Trevor's barracks had their off-base privileges revoked because one of the guys had contraband. She would still be able to visit him on base though. Somehow, Trevor was able to get off base for long periods of time to her hotel, but unable to do the other activities he had planned for them.
In the past year, Olivia told me that she and Trevor were going to immediately marry when she got to WA so that they could move in together because they had to be married to live together anywhere. I and our dad- who was in the military- told her several times that this was not true, but she insisted it was. Then, his barracks were given an allowance to live off base in apartments because the barracks were being renovated/ rebuilt, so she backed off on the idea of getting married immediately after several long conversations with me. She is still insistent on moving in with Trevor, who lives with a roommate, when she moves to WA.
Some background on Olivia:
Olivia has ADHD and anxiety, and struggled particularly badly with the anxiety/ some depression after being broken up with by the boyfriend she dated before Trevor (he broke it off very abruptly, told her he just didn't love her anymore with no previous indications). Olivia is very pretty (objectively, not just because she's my sister), but had bad acne that she ended up going on accutane for at the time she started dating Trevor and was very insecure about it. She had also decided to not go to medical school, and pursue nursing instead around the same time she met Trevor. This was a very upsetting decision for her because she had been taking very hard courses and was burnt out but had told everyone she was going to be a doctor and thought that she would be letting us down by switching paths. Also around the time she started seeing Trevor, Olivia began being very cruel towards our mother (our mother had been borderline emotionally abusive in the past, but Olivia and I were both in college by then and fixing our relationships with her. She has been much better recently and Olivia and I believe that she had some mental health struggles that went unchecked that contributed). Now, several years later, Olivia told our family that she had acted like that because she was rpd by a friend of her ex-boyfriend's after her ex broke up with her. This person also gave her an STD.
I always believe people who say they have been S A'd, and we believed Olivia when she first told us, but some things have come to light that make me and my family question that. Right after Olivia and her ex broke up, Olivia told our cousin that she had gone out with one of his friends and had revenge/ breakup sex with him because he had also been dumped recently. Once my cousin told me this, I remembered that Olivia had told me about a guy she had a one night stand with after she was dumped. She showed me a picture of him, talked about how cute he was, etc. (no distress whatsoever). I know sometimes people behave in ways you wouldn't expect when a traumatic event occurs to them, but I really don't understand how or why Olivia would brag about this guy if he really did S A her.
Three months ago, Olivia was arrested for stealing a set of sheets from Walmart (incidentally, right before Trevor came to visit her on leave). She used the self check-out and only bought a small $5 item and the sheets. She held both in one hand and scanned each side because she had a cut on the other hand and was holding her wallet with it. She saw a 5 in front of the total number and thought it looked right because the total should have been about $50, paid, didn't get a receipt, and walked out. An employee at the door asked to see a receipt, which Olivia didn't have, so she pulled up her transaction history on her phone to show she had paid. At this point, the employee called the police and took Olivia into an office, where she was questioned and charged with shoplifting. (Olivia can get very emotional and probably got upset when the police questioned her, which may have led them to believe she was lying). Luckily, Olivia has managed to get the charges expunged, but the process is still ongoing. Because of her ADHD, if anyone genuinely made this mistake, I would believe it from her, but Olivia has been improving a lot on organization and being more attentive recently. It is extremely uncharacteristic of her to steal- she was honest to a fault as kids- she would break down from guilt and admit things to our parents that we would have gotten away with if she hadn't said anything.
Right now, my parents have met Trevor twice in person, and I've met him once in person and several times in passing over facetime. I personally don't think that Trevor seems to keep up with my sister or that they make each other shine, and that opinion is shared with family friends and family that have met Trevor. Olivia doesn't mention Trevor in front of our parents often because his name has become a topic of contention and argument between them. My parents don't think Trevor is right for Olivia. She has almost 2 college degrees and plans to become a nurse practitioner in the future, and he hasn't finished college and doesn't seem to have any drive to do so. Olivia is also well traveled and enjoys going to museums, concerts, etc., while Trevor has lived in rural FL his whole life (this is not Trevor's fault, and I don't think he is a lesser person because of it, but I don't see a lot of common ground between them). Trevor has not seemed very well spoken when I have talked to him and I just don't see a lot of qualities in him that Olivia values.
If you've gotten this far, I just don't know what to do. Olivia and my parents have a huge rift in their relationship right now and any mention of Trevor, with her around or not, explodes into a huge argument, discussion, or just icy silence. I want Olivia to be able to talk to me about him, and we are able to discuss things much better than she is with our parents. My parents have also started asking me about Olivia and Trevor because they know Olivia shares more with me, and it makes me uncomfortable because I don't want to betray Olivia's trust, but I'm also very worried about her. I know I can't control her actions and I'm having a really hard time trying to balance supporting Olivia but not supporting the relationship (I'm not going to lie to her about how I feel, but I don't want her to feel alienated or unloved by our family, because that is NOT the case). I also think that Olivia is romanticizing the fact that our parents don't like him because my father's parents had a rift with him over our mother when we were very young (this is a whole other story, but basically, his parents always favored his sister, his sister got (I think) jealous when he did well for himself and married my mother, who his parents initially likes, and she made up rumors/lies about my mother that turned his parents against her (this was way before our mother's suspected mental health struggles, which occured when Olivia and I were in middle/high school).
Please share any thoughts you have on the situation (am I reading too into things, is this not as bad as I think it is?), and any advice you have on navigating the relationships.
Tl;dr My sister's boyfriend lied about the circumstances of him dropping out of college and joining the military. Now I think he's lying about not making it through training for two different special/ elite forces. My sister has significantly changed her behavior and I think she may have lied about a significant traumatic event to our family. Now she is planning on moving across the country to him and moving in immediately. Our entire family doesn't like him and we're worried about her. How do I support her but not her relationship?

This is a really long story with lots of context so I'll do my best to organize it into current situation, then his backstory and hers. I'm also not using real names or specific locations for any of this to try and keep this private. This also has some contradicting stories and because of how their relationship is structured relies mostly on information I have gotten from my sister, so I'm telling you the story I got from her first and then adding in what I've found out. I'll try to tell this as unbiased as I can but it's been a huge issue in my family for a long time now and that's a little difficult for me to do.
My(20F) sister (Olivia, 24F) has been dating this guy (Trevor, 25M) since 2021. When they started dating, she talked about him fairly often, sent a few pictures of them, ect., but then after a month she stopped mentioning him/ was cagey when we (me and my mom mostly) asked how he was so we assumed it just hadn't worked out. Then two months later she insisted that my parents (54F and 56M) and I all come to visit her college to meet Trevor before he went into the Army (she lived several hours away from my parents and several hours from my college, so I had to get a bus ticket and my parents had to get a hotel room to do this. We only met him once for dinner). Now they've been dating long distance for three years after a three month in-person relationship. She is in nursing school and is planning on moving across the country (literally opposite corners of the map) to live with him and is not applying to any residency programs outside of the Army base area (limiting her choices a LOT from her original goals and narrowing employment opportunities).
Olivia met Trevor on several dating apps, matched with him, but didn't really want to go out with him. He was really persistent, so her friend convinced her to go out with him. She lied about the way they met to our parents and told them they met at the gym through a mutual friend (she lied to me about this at first too and told me the truth about 3 months after they started dating). At the time, Trevor was working as a used car salesman and living at home (~45 min. away from Olivia's school in a rural area) because his sports scholarship had been dropped before his Senior year due to covid at the college he had been attending out of state. The university was unaccredited (I later did some internet stalking and found out it was accredited), so his credits would not transfer and he would have to start over. He was saving up money to attend school in state at the large college Olivia attended so he could go back to school. **Our state has crazy low tuition costs in-state and a full-tuition scholarship program for good high school GPA and SAT scores. There was also a "feeder" community college that had half the cost per credit hour that a lot of people would go to before the larger university if they didn't get in straight out of high school.**
Olivia told me that Trevor had applied to her college and not gotten in (she later told me he HAD gotten in but been unable to afford tuition). Either way, he decided to join the Army because his father had been in the Army. The Army would take his credit hours and he would be able to finish his degree during his 5 year contract or use the GI bill once he got out. **She is comparing the situation to our father, who joined the Army directly out of high school and used the GI bill to go to college after his 2 year contract because his parents wouldn't pay for school. He was a medic in the military, worked as an EMT through college, and then went to nursing school.** The original plan was that Trevor would be a Green Beret (special forces, linking the training pipeline here: https://www.reddit.com/greenberets/comments/xwdbta/current_sf_pipeline_correct_me_if_im_wrong/ ), he completed basic training and and got several months through the NC training before failing the running portion of a physical by about 10 seconds and being dropped from the selection process. He then decided that he wanted to be a Ranger (another elite position). He got sent back to GA, then to the Ranger school base in WA (it took a couple of months before he was sent to WA). Again, he got partway through the training before failing the running portion of a physical by a few seconds. He is now not sure if he will be continuing Ranger school (failing the physical means no, but commanders may pass him anyways if they think he should continue). For a while, Trevor told Olivia that he might not stay at the base in WA if he wasn't in Ranger school and there were a variety of different bases he could be sent to, including somewhere in Italy, so she wasn't sure where to look for jobs. In the past month, Trevor told Olivia that he would likely stay in WA regardless of the Ranger school results.
Through this all, Olivia has visited Trevor at the different military bases countless times, driving from as far as south FL to NC and putting over 30,000 miles on a brand new car over the course of the 1.5 years she's owned it. Before she had the car, she paid for plane tickets to see him and hotels whenever she visited. At the time, she told me that he was paying for all of these trips because he was unable to visit her, was making an income that wasn't being spent, and she was working to save for nursing school and later was living off of student loans and savings during nursing school. She later admitted to me that she had paid for almost all of the expenses except for food when they ate out together and part of a hotel room one weekend.
A few odd things (to me) between Olivia and Trevor over the course of their relationship:
About a month into their relationship, Trevor got Olivia an over $300 christmas gift. He has not gotten her anything nearly that expensive since, and hasn't sent flowers for things like her college graduation or a severe emergency surgery she had last year. I don't care about monetary value or sending flowers, but I do think it is odd that he spent so much before moving away when he ostensibly didn't have much money, but now that he has an income and military sign-on bonus, he has not spent that much again.
Trevor's father left Trevor, his siblings, and his mother, but Trevor has a hat that his father gave him that he wore often. The hat says "Red Man" across the top of a picture of a Native American man wearing a feathered headdress. He has worn this hat several times around Olivia's friends and they told him they didn't like it and that it was racist. They also asked him to not wear it when he was with them and he refused because it was special to him and his father gave it to him. Olivia then told him to stop wearing it and he eventually agreed (Olivia told me that he stopped wearing the hat after this). A few weeks after this, I facetimed Olivia and Trevor was with her. She turned the camera so I could say hello to him, and he was wearing the hat. I talked to Olivia about this later and she told me that that was the first time he'd worn the hat in a while and it wasn't a big deal. Olivia has always been liberal and never racist, and I am uncomfortable that she was okay with him not only wearing the hat, but being with him while he had it on.
They dated for a little over 3 months in person before he joined the military (recently, Olivia told me that they actually met several months before she told everyone about him and that they actually dated for 6 months before he left). For the next two months in basic training, he was only able to use the phone for 15 minutes total once a week to talk to family and her. Throughout the different training programs he has completed he had sporadic and limited access to phones to communicate, and only in the past 6 months he has had access to his phone to facetime, text, and call (but sometimes he goes for a week or two without phone access). Olivia told me that they wrote letters during the time he didn't have consistent phone access. **I don't think that this is odd, I understand the military limits phone usage, etc., but I don't think they have been able to have an "average" long-distance relationship**
Last year, Olivia drove to GA to visit Trevor the weekend before Valentine's day. He had plans for them to take a pottery class, go on a hike, and have dinner at a nice restaurant. The day she got there, Trevor's barracks had their off-base privileges revoked because one of the guys had contraband. She would still be able to visit him on base though. Somehow, Trevor was able to get off base for long periods of time to her hotel, but unable to do the other activities he had planned for them.
In the past year, Olivia told me that she and Trevor were going to immediately marry when she got to WA so that they could move in together because they had to be married to live together anywhere. I and our dad- who was in the military- told her several times that this was not true, but she insisted it was. Then, his barracks were given an allowance to live off base in apartments because the barracks were being renovated/ rebuilt, so she backed off on the idea of getting married immediately after several long conversations with me. She is still insistent on moving in with Trevor, who lives with a roommate, when she moves to WA.
Some background on Olivia:
Olivia has ADHD and anxiety, and struggled particularly badly with the anxiety/ some depression after being broken up with by the boyfriend she dated before Trevor (he broke it off very abruptly, told her he just didn't love her anymore with no previous indications). Olivia is very pretty (objectively, not just because she's my sister), but had bad acne that she ended up going on accutane for at the time she started dating Trevor and was very insecure about it. She had also decided to not go to medical school, and pursue nursing instead around the same time she met Trevor. This was a very upsetting decision for her because she had been taking very hard courses and was burnt out but had told everyone she was going to be a doctor and thought that she would be letting us down by switching paths. Also around the time she started seeing Trevor, Olivia began being very cruel towards our mother (our mother had been borderline emotionally abusive in the past, but Olivia and I were both in college by then and fixing our relationships with her. She has been much better recently and Olivia and I believe that she had some mental health struggles that went unchecked that contributed). Now, several years later, Olivia told our family that she had acted like that because she was rpd by a friend of her ex-boyfriend's after her ex broke up with her. This person also gave her an STD.
I always believe people who say they have been S A'd, and we believed Olivia when she first told us, but some things have come to light that make me and my family question that. Right after Olivia and her ex broke up, Olivia told our cousin that she had gone out with one of his friends and had revenge/ breakup sex with him because he had also been dumped recently. Once my cousin told me this, I remembered that Olivia had told me about a guy she had a one night stand with after she was dumped. She showed me a picture of him, talked about how cute he was, etc. (no distress whatsoever). I know sometimes people behave in ways you wouldn't expect when a traumatic event occurs to them, but I really don't understand how or why Olivia would brag about this guy if he really did S A her.
Three months ago, Olivia was arrested for stealing a set of sheets from Walmart (incidentally, right before Trevor came to visit her on leave). She used the self check-out and only bought a small $5 item and the sheets. She held both in one hand and scanned each side because she had a cut on the other hand and was holding her wallet with it. She saw a 5 in front of the total number and thought it looked right because the total should have been about $50, paid, didn't get a receipt, and walked out. An employee at the door asked to see a receipt, which Olivia didn't have, so she pulled up her transaction history on her phone to show she had paid. At this point, the employee called the police and took Olivia into an office, where she was questioned and charged with shoplifting. (Olivia can get very emotional and probably got upset when the police questioned her, which may have led them to believe she was lying). Luckily, Olivia has managed to get the charges expunged, but the process is still ongoing. Because of her ADHD, if anyone genuinely made this mistake, I would believe it from her, but Olivia has been improving a lot on organization and being more attentive recently. It is extremely uncharacteristic of her to steal- she was honest to a fault as kids- she would break down from guilt and admit things to our parents that we would have gotten away with if she hadn't said anything.
Right now, my parents have met Trevor twice in person, and I've met him once in person and several times in passing over facetime. I personally don't think that Trevor seems to keep up with my sister or that they make each other shine, and that opinion is shared with family friends and family that have met Trevor. Olivia doesn't mention Trevor in front of our parents often because his name has become a topic of contention and argument between them. My parents don't think Trevor is right for Olivia. She has almost 2 college degrees and plans to become a nurse practitioner in the future, and he hasn't finished college and doesn't seem to have any drive to do so. Olivia is also well traveled and enjoys going to museums, concerts, etc., while Trevor has lived in rural FL his whole life (this is not Trevor's fault, and I don't think he is a lesser person because of it, but I don't see a lot of common ground between them). Trevor has not seemed very well spoken when I have talked to him and I just don't see a lot of qualities in him that Olivia values.
If you've gotten this far, I just don't know what to do. Olivia and my parents have a huge rift in their relationship right now and any mention of Trevor, with her around or not, explodes into a huge argument, discussion, or just icy silence. I want Olivia to be able to talk to me about him, and we are able to discuss things much better than she is with our parents. My parents have also started asking me about Olivia and Trevor because they know Olivia shares more with me, and it makes me uncomfortable because I don't want to betray Olivia's trust, but I'm also very worried about her. I know I can't control her actions and I'm having a really hard time trying to balance supporting Olivia but not supporting the relationship (I'm not going to lie to her about how I feel, but I don't want her to feel alienated or unloved by our family, because that is NOT the case). I also think that Olivia is romanticizing the fact that our parents don't like him because my father's parents had a rift with him over our mother when we were very young (this is a whole other story, but basically, his parents always favored his sister, his sister got (I think) jealous when he did well for himself and married my mother, who his parents initially likes, and she made up rumors/lies about my mother that turned his parents against her (this was way before our mother's suspected mental health struggles, which occured when Olivia and I were in middle/high school).
Please share any thoughts you have on the situation (am I reading too into things, is this not as bad as I think it is?), and any advice you have on navigating the relationships.

This is a really long story with lots of context so I'll do my best to organize it into current situation, then his backstory and hers. I'm also not using real names or specific locations for any of this to try and keep this private. This also has some contradicting stories and because of how their relationship is structured relies mostly on information I have gotten from my sister, so I'm telling you the story I got from her first and then adding in what I've found out. I'll try to tell this as unbiased as I can but it's been a huge issue in my family for a long time now and that's a little difficult for me to do.
My sister (Olivia, 24F) has been dating this guy (Trevor, 25M) since 2021. When they started dating, she talked about him fairly often, sent a few pictures of them, ect., but then after a month she stopped mentioning him/ was cagey when we (me and my mom mostly) asked how he was so we assumed it just hadn't worked out. Then two months later she insisted that my parents and I all come to visit her college to meet Trevor before he went into the Army (she lived several hours away from my parents and several hours from my college, so I had to get a bus ticket and my parents had to get a hotel room to do this. We only met him once for dinner). Now they've been dating long distance for three years after a three month in-person relationship. She is in nursing school and is planning on moving across the country (literally opposite corners of the map) to live with him and is not applying to any residency programs outside of the Army base area (limiting her choices a LOT from her original goals and narrowing employment opportunities).
Olivia met Trevor on several dating apps, matched with him, but didn't really want to go out with him. He was really persistent, so her friend convinced her to go out with him. She lied about the way they met to our parents and told them they met at the gym through a mutual friend (she lied to me about this at first too and told me the truth about 3 months after they started dating). At the time, Trevor was working as a used car salesman and living at home (~45 min. away from Olivia's school in a rural area) because his sports scholarship had been dropped before his Senior year due to covid at the college he had been attending out of state. The university was unaccredited (I later did some internet stalking and found out it was accredited), so his credits would not transfer and he would have to start over. He was saving up money to attend school in state at the large college Olivia attended so he could go back to school. **Our state has crazy low tuition costs in-state and a full-tuition scholarship program for good high school GPA and SAT scores. There was also a "feeder" community college that had half the cost per credit hour that a lot of people would go to before the larger university if they didn't get in straight out of high school.**
Olivia told me that Trevor had applied to her college and not gotten in (she later told me he HAD gotten in but been unable to afford tuition). Either way, he decided to join the Army because his father had been in the Army. The Army would take his credit hours and he would be able to finish his degree during his 5 year contract or use the GI bill once he got out. **She is comparing the situation to our father, who joined the Army directly out of high school and used the GI bill to go to college after his 2 year contract because his parents wouldn't pay for school. He was a medic in the military, worked as an EMT through college, and then went to nursing school.** The original plan was that Trevor would be a Green Beret (special forces, linking the training pipeline here: https://www.reddit.com/greenberets/comments/xwdbta/current_sf_pipeline_correct_me_if_im_wrong/ ), he completed basic training and and got several months through the NC training before failing the running portion of a physical by about 10 seconds and being dropped from the selection process. He then decided that he wanted to be a Ranger (another elite position). He got sent back to GA, then to the Ranger school base in WA (it took a couple of months before he was sent to WA). Again, he got partway through the training before failing the running portion of a physical by a few seconds. He is now not sure if he will be continuing Ranger school (failing the physical means no, but commanders may pass him anyways if they think he should continue). For a while, Trevor told Olivia that he might not stay at the base in WA if he wasn't in Ranger school and there were a variety of different bases he could be sent to, including somewhere in Italy, so she wasn't sure where to look for jobs. In the past month, Trevor told Olivia that he would likely stay in WA regardless of the Ranger school results.
Through this all, Olivia has visited Trevor at the different military bases countless times, driving from as far as south FL to NC and putting over 30,000 miles on a brand new car over the course of the 1.5 years she's owned it. Before she had the car, she paid for plane tickets to see him and hotels whenever she visited. At the time, she told me that he was paying for all of these trips because he was unable to visit her, was making an income that wasn't being spent, and she was working to save for nursing school and later was living off of student loans and savings during nursing school. She later admitted to me that she had paid for almost all of the expenses except for food when they ate out together and part of a hotel room one weekend.
A few odd things (to me) between Olivia and Trevor over the course of their relationship:
About a month into their relationship, Trevor got Olivia an over $300 christmas gift. He has not gotten her anything nearly that expensive since, and hasn't sent flowers for things like her college graduation or a severe emergency surgery she had last year. I don't care about monetary value or sending flowers, but I do think it is odd that he spent so much before moving away when he ostensibly didn't have much money, but now that he has an income and military sign-on bonus, he has not spent that much again.
Trevor's father left Trevor, his siblings, and his mother, but Trevor has a hat that his father gave him that he wore often. The hat says "Red Man" across the top of a picture of a Native American man wearing a feathered headdress. He has worn this hat several times around Olivia's friends and they told him they didn't like it and that it was racist. They also asked him to not wear it when he was with them and he refused because it was special to him and his father gave it to him. Olivia then told him to stop wearing it and he eventually agreed (Olivia told me that he stopped wearing the hat after this). A few weeks after this, I facetimed Olivia and Trevor was with her. She turned the camera so I could say hello to him, and he was wearing the hat. I talked to Olivia about this later and she told me that that was the first time he'd worn the hat in a while and it wasn't a big deal. Olivia has always been liberal and never racist, and I am uncomfortable that she was okay with him not only wearing the hat, but being with him while he had it on.
They dated for a little over 3 months in person before he joined the military (recently, Olivia told me that they actually met several months before she told everyone about him and that they actually dated for 6 months before he left). For the next two months in basic training, he was only able to use the phone for 15 minutes total once a week to talk to family and her. Throughout the different training programs he has completed he had sporadic and limited access to phones to communicate, and only in the past 6 months he has had access to his phone to facetime, text, and call (but sometimes he goes for a week or two without phone access). Olivia told me that they wrote letters during the time he didn't have consistent phone access. **I don't think that this is odd, I understand the military limits phone usage, etc., but I don't think they have been able to have an "average" long-distance relationship**
Last year, Olivia drove to GA to visit Trevor the weekend before Valentine's day. He had plans for them to take a pottery class, go on a hike, and have dinner at a nice restaurant. The day she got there, Trevor's barracks had their off-base privileges revoked because one of the guys had contraband. She would still be able to visit him on base though. Somehow, Trevor was able to get off base for long periods of time to her hotel, but unable to do the other activities he had planned for them.
In the past year, Olivia told me that she and Trevor were going to immediately marry when she got to WA so that they could move in together because they had to be married to live together anywhere. I and our dad- who was in the military- told her several times that this was not true, but she insisted it was. Then, his barracks were given an allowance to live off base in apartments because the barracks were being renovated/ rebuilt, so she backed off on the idea of getting married immediately after several long conversations with me. She is still insistent on moving in with Trevor, who lives with a roommate, when she moves to WA.
Some background on Olivia:
Olivia has ADHD and anxiety, and struggled particularly badly with the anxiety/ some depression after being broken up with by the boyfriend she dated before Trevor (he broke it off very abruptly, told her he just didn't love her anymore with no previous indications). Olivia is very pretty (objectively, not just because she's my sister), but had bad acne that she ended up going on accutane for at the time she started dating Trevor and was very insecure about it. She had also decided to not go to medical school, and pursue nursing instead around the same time she met Trevor. This was a very upsetting decision for her because she had been taking very hard courses and was burnt out but had told everyone she was going to be a doctor and thought that she would be letting us down by switching paths. Also around the time she started seeing Trevor, Olivia began being very cruel towards our mother (our mother had been borderline emotionally abusive in the past, but Olivia and I were both in college by then and fixing our relationships with her. She has been much better recently and Olivia and I believe that she had some mental health struggles that went unchecked that contributed). Now, several years later, Olivia told our family that she had acted like that because she was raped by a friend of her ex-boyfriend's after her ex broke up with her. This person also gave her an STD.
I always believe people who say they have been sexually assaulted, abused, or harassed, and we believed Olivia when she first told us, but some things have come to light that make me and my family question that. Right after Olivia and her ex broke up, Olivia told our cousin that she had gone out with one of his friends and had revenge/ breakup sex with him because he had also been dumped recently. Once my cousin told me this, I remembered that Olivia had told me about a guy she had a one night stand with after she was dumped. She showed me a picture of him, talked about how cute he was, etc. (no distress whatsoever). I know sometimes people behave in ways you wouldn't expect when a traumatic event occurs to them, but I really don't understand how or why Olivia would brag about this guy if he really did sexually assault her.
Three months ago, Olivia was arrested for stealing a set of sheets from Walmart. She used the self check-out and only bought a small $5 item and the sheets. She held both in one hand and scanned each side because she had a cut on the other hand and was holding her wallet with it. She saw a 5 in front of the total number and thought it looked right because the total should have been about $50, paid, didn't get a receipt, and walked out. An employee at the door asked to see a receipt, which Olivia didn't have, so she pulled up her transaction history on her phone to show she had paid. At this point, the employee called the police and took Olivia into an office, where she was questioned and charged with shoplifting. (Olivia can get very emotional and probably got upset when the police questioned her, which may have led them to believe she was lying). Luckily, Olivia has managed to get the charges expunged, but the process is still ongoing. Because of her ADHD, if anyone genuinely made this mistake, I would believe it from her, but Olivia has been improving a lot on organization and being more attentive recently. It is extremely uncharacteristic of her to steal- she was honest to a fault as kids- she would break down from guilt and admit things to our parents that we would have gotten away with if she hadn't said anything.
Right now, my parents have met Trevor twice in person, and I've met him once in person and several times in passing over facetime. I personally don't think that Trevor seems to keep up with my sister or that they make each other shine, and that opinion is shared with family friends and family that have met Trevor. Olivia doesn't mention Trevor in front of our parents often because his name has become a topic of contention and argument between them. My parents don't think Trevor is right for Olivia. She has almost 2 college degrees and plans to become a nurse practitioner in the future, and he hasn't finished college and doesn't seem to have any drive to do so. Olivia is also well traveled and enjoys going to museums, concerts, etc., while Trevor has lived in rural FL his whole life (this is not Trevor's fault, and I don't think he is a lesser person because of it, but I don't see a lot of common ground between them). Trevor has not seemed very well spoken when I have talked to him and I just don't see a lot of qualities in him that Olivia values.
If you've gotten this far, I just don't know what to do. Olivia and my parents have a huge rift in their relationship right now and any mention of Trevor, with her around or not, explodes into a huge argument, discussion, or just icy silence. I want Olivia to be able to talk to me about him, and we are able to discuss things much better than she is with our parents. My parents have also started asking me about Olivia and Trevor because they know Olivia shares more with me, and it makes me uncomfortable because I don't want to betray Olivia's trust, but I'm also very worried about her. I know I can't control her actions and I'm having a really hard time trying to balance supporting Olivia but not supporting the relationship (I'm not going to lie to her about how I feel, but I don't want her to feel alienated or unloved by our family, because that is NOT the case). I also think that Olivia is romanticizing the fact that our parents don't like him because my father's parents had a rift with him over our mother when we were very young (this is a whole other story, but basically, his parents always favored his sister, his sister got (I think) jealous when he did well for himself and married my mother, who his parents initially likes, and she made up rumors/lies about my mother that turned his parents against her (this was way before our mother's suspected mental health struggles, which occured when Olivia and I were in middle/high school).
Please share any thoughts you have on the situation (am I reading too into things, is this not as bad as I think it is?), and any advice you have on navigating the relationships.

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641
Originally posted to TwoHotTakes + her own page
Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, BoRU #3, BoRU #4, BoRU #5, BoRU 6
Editor’s Note: removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older relevant comments, check out the previous BoRUs above
NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----
[New Update]: My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there.
Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment
RECAP
Original Post: November 14, 2023**
I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group.
Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility.
Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021.
Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”.
Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down.
Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to.
I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season.
Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.  
Update #1: November 27, 2023
Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think?
It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses.
We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.  
Update #2: December 12, 2023
So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know?
Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that.
Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well.
And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties.
On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it.
Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.  
Inheritance: December 16, 2023
I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know?
No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active.
The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.  
Christmas: December 25, 2023
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect.
Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer.
Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls.
We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time.
As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.  
Brother’s call: December 26, 2023
Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning.
For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back.
Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth:
Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me.
The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people.
4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home.
8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there.
And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me".
But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral.
That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember?
I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed.
The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them.
My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it".
He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives.
On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.  
Brother's Here: December 27, 2023
My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped.
This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right.
Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!  
Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024
I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness!
Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely.
Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home.
Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space.  
Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024
My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys.
This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression.
Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly.
My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined.
Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone.  
Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024
Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care.
Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them.
We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office.
Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
fractal_frog I hope your dad can outsmart the hawks!

OOP: He'll be able to, I just know it. He's used to dealing with the wildlife and having hawks about, but he just wasn't expecting one to snag a meal right from his new feeder.
I told him it was "technically" still a bird feeder. Just....for bigger birds. Which he thought was funny. He said he might make a little "no hawks allowed" sign to put up next to it.

MissOP: keep the updates coming. the moms are so close to folding it's just a little bit more. LMAO also, the bro mance between your husband and brother is so cute. lol Honestly, I think your husband making sure he has a side piece of Sebastian is absolutely the play.

OOP: So far still no word from the moms, but I hope you're right. I would love an apology and for us to begin moving past this. But I NEED that apology. I feel selfish saying that, but I refuse to "be the bigger person" on this. I just won't.
As for my brother and husband, yeah, they're basically soul mates. The two hit it off immediately when they first met, and they've been thick as thieves for years.  

Update: February 27, 2024
My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits.
Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it.
Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her.
There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet.
Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game!  
Update 4/1 - Final one I think - April 1, 2024
Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you all check your caramel apples for stray onions before taking a bite! I also hope your Easter weekend was a delightful one.
It is with great joy that I tell you all about our most recent update! Possibly even a conclusion to this whole ordeal.
The entire family (aunt, uncle, moms, dads, brother, me, husband) and pastor met at my dad's house and we all sat down to hash the situation out. As expected from what my dad said, my aunt and uncle greeted us all with apologies and hugs, which was nice. My uncle usually helps host the Easter egg hunts with the church and he brought our Easter baskets to give to us in case us kids weren't sticking around the for the weekend. I'm not sure why but seeing it made me tear up and feel stupid, because it was just a basket of candy but it meant a lot to me for some reason.
The pastor led us in a prayer and talked about forgiveness and such. He then asked us all to talk one at a time about how we're feeling and what we want the end result of today to be. No one was allowed to interrupt so everyone got to talk. It was nice. The consensus for the group was that most everyone wanted things to go back to "normal". The only ones who had any variance off this was my mom and step dad. They both wanted all us kids to move back to the area.
The pastor asked them why they wanted us back, and neither could give a good reason other than "because family", and the pastor asked us if we were thriving where we were. And we said we were. He asked if we were happy there. Which we were. He then asked my mom and step dad if they wanted us to give up our happiness to make them happy.
And Mom broke down and said no. We all had a good cry. The pastor then asked about the funeral and lies that led up to it and followed it and how it made us all feel and what we wished we'd done differently if we had the chance. It was all very emotional, but in a good way, you know? Everyone apologized and admitted they f-ed up and did a really crappy thing.
We all talked for a long, long time and the pastor was a great mediator. Eventually we all reached some sort of resolution and I think we're good now. Emotions are still high and a little raw in areas, but we stayed for Easter weekend and had a nice time. We're going to keep moving forward slowly and try to repair the relationship, but I believe we're well and truly out of the woods.
As for my brother, he's still staying with us, and mom will stop trying to guilt trip him back home. He's thinking about renting a small apartment in our area but we're not pushing him to make a decision. He knows he's welcome to stay as long as he wants. I think he wants to try dating (he's had a few girlfriends but never anything serious) and is embarrassed to bring any girls around our place, lol. He's been going to a few random classes/bookclubs at the local library for something free to do and hitting it off with all the little old ladies who attend, and they keep trying to hook him up with girls his age who they know. He has been on a few lunches/coffee dates with a couple girls, but I think he's too embarrassed by the attention to give it a real try at "dating" any of them. He's happy, though, which is all I could ask for.
I'm not sure if there will be any more updates, as I think it's all be resolved about as much as it can be at the moment. I wanted to thank you all for your words of advice and giving me a place to vent and scream into the void. Please be kind to one another and to yourselves. Thank you.
Relevant Comments
emjkr: What a nice and hopeful update, I’m really glad you stuck to your guns when everyone threw sanity out the window!
But, could your mother explain how she thought this would work out in her favour?

OOP: I don't think mom thought too far ahead. I believe she assumed it would all just magically work out the way she wanted it to. She said she wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen (which I think was a lie, but I wasn't going to push it).

mak_zaddy: This was a great update! But ummmmmm no stardew valley update? What gives? Has Sebastian been woo’ed? How’s Leah? What’s happening?

OOP: Sebastian has indeed been wooed (and whoohooed) There's kids and cows and chickens. The two are still having a wonderful time at the game. They're working on completing the community center but it's slow going as they aren't trying to speedrun and just doing things as they want. I believe they're thinking about going into the desert mines once they complete that bundle, but they're both super chicken shit about it!

-my-cabbages: I don't really understand what you had to apologize for ... but I'm glad you're happy and the situation seems to be settling down

OOP: There wasn't much of an apology on my end, as everyone agreed I had done nothing wrong. Mine was more of a "I'm sorry you didn't feel as though I would listen." Type apology, which I don't really believe is a proper apology because apologies like that push the blame back on another. I mostly expressed my feelings and the shock of it all, and how betrayed I felt.  

----NEW UPDATE----

Small, happy update: May 7, 2024 (1 month later)
Things as wonderful as the moment. Still doing baby steps with The Moms. We're texting and talking on the phones more, which is nice. Very civil.
Dad "accidentally" bought a bunch of hand crafted bird feeders at a craft fair. By accidentally, I mean: he had a little too much fun in the beer tent, went for a stroll while step mom wasn't looking, and stumbled upon a guy's booth and bought "one of each". He wouldn't tell me how MANY "one of each" was, but he cackled like a witch when I asked. Step mom said she's forcing him to give a few to me, so I'm expecting a delivery or a Dad-visit any day now.
My brother is officially "going steady" with a girl. We've met her a few times and she seems like a real sweetheart. She's our age and has a little boy (5-6 years old, I haven't asked) from a previous relationship (The dad's not in the picture from what I can gather). She's the granddaughter of one of his Book Club members, so the old ladies made good match makers in the end. The relationship is still very new and I'm routing for them.
No new Stardew Valley updates. Work has been a little crazy lately and I haven't been able to play much of anything, and brother has been distracted by his new lady friend. So, husband finally started Baldur's Gate 3, and fell for Gale's "magic trick" so now those two are a thing. I expect him to be sufficiently distracted from reality for the next few weeks.
 

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

At least I certainly hope so for my mom, my MIL, and my sister. They all seemed very happy & pleased with the day.
My mom & dad were absolute rock stars for hosting & fixing all kinds of delicious food for dinner yesterday, and I am truly so very grateful for them. They are the kind of selfless people that truly always do more for others than they receive, willingly and lovingly.
Yesterday made me even more glad that I went over to their house on Saturday & helped my mom with some technological stuff + spent several hours with her. We “chased” the northern lights, though frankly we didn’t see much. Apparently they were much more magnificent the night before; I didn’t really have any luck then either. Some of the folks around this area captured some rather unbelievable photos — that’s not to say that I’m calling it nonsense. However I do know for a fact that some of those photos were heavily edited/adjusted. I know what I saw with my eyes, and what I was able to get with my camera… those things were not in alignment whatsoever. But anyway Saturday night was really enjoyable, mostly because I was with my mom.
My parents & family have really welcomed in my MIL with open arms ever since my FIL passed away. She has expressed gratitude for this many times. Yesterday was no exception, and to my husband’s credit, he made sure his mom knew everything we did & all that she got was thanks to me (and my parents, of course).
My sister came out to my parents an hour or so later than she planned, which pushed dinner back a bit, but no one seemed to mind. It was delicious all the same, and my kids loved playing with their amazing cousins.
Unfortunately that put us getting back home about an hour & a half later than I’d expected. My husband & oldest daughter didn’t stay long out at my parents, but MIL stayed with us all day. So I dropped her off before I could get home with my Littles.
On the way back home, I found out that my MIL is somehow back in contact with the MEGAbitch (aka Barbie). The slutty, disgusting Rush-loving racist who is unfortunately my husband’s brother’s w___e. Feel free to fill that word however you deem fit. I truly don’t give a shit that she’s as pure as the driven snow (but she’s a “Christian”, so that’s ok!) or that her moral compass is nonfunctional/nonexistent. What really pisses me off about this bitch is the fact that she *used** an innocent-ish POC to cheat on her [possibly even more] racist partner. And she decided to cOnfEsS that shit to me right before we were to celebrate Christmas w my husband’s parents. (Sadly one of the very last Christmases of my FIL’s life. Also my son’s first Christmas. What a peach, eh?) Prior to that shitstorm, the ONLY thing this bitch said to me about her “indiscretion” was I’m not innocent.
Unfortunately her “confession” text was extremely elusive, and I idiotically thought, “omg, she kissed someone else!” HA. Oh, sweet summerchild self of years ago, you wish that’s all she had done. It wasn’t until the next morning — 3 HOURS before we did Christmas w my husband’s parents that the whole truth came out. After a very long phone call, my hunky but shell-shocked hubby [henceforth called G.I. Joe* — Joe for short] said “we have to talk.” Just then, I received a text from the Barbie MEGAbitch…
“im sure you know that Ken* spoke with Joe today. you may already know, but I def want to tell you that the guy I slept with was black. I know that's the worst offense. I know how Ken feels about that. I just wanted you to know. like I said, I am not innocent. im so sorry.”
Ken had obviously called Joe & word-vomited the whole sordid fiasco, including the fact that Ken knew exactly who the AP was.. one of Barbie’s younger coworkers (huge shocker, sarcastically speaking). I don’t know if this fella was partially or completely duped, but I’m willing to bet my left boob that he did not know he was being used as a pawn. It came as a tremendous shock (and relief) to Joe & me that Ken hadn’t committed an unspeakable act of violence on that guy.
And this is where I need to throw in the caveat that Joe & I were never super close to Barbie & Ken. Our values & beliefs didn’t align in many if any ways; we lived in a very big, diverse area for 10 years; they’ve lived their whole lives in a small, backwards area (save for Barbie’s one failing attempt at a local-ish party college for almost a whole semester — until she got knocked up). And from the outside we were flip-flopped in earnings & appearances. I’m just not a huge spender and I’ll use something until it completely wears out.. I don’t need a new fill-in-the-blank every season, nor do I need flashy name brands. I’m just not into splurgy bs.
But Ken is Joe’s brother. And no matter how big a tool that schmuck is, my husband (bless his heart) will always love Ken. May not always like him, and he straight-up hates aspects of him — but Joe cares about his brother, and he’s never been the biggest fan of Barbie.
I thought Barbie & I were “sorta friends” for the longest time. But after our falling out, I realized she was way more fiend than ally. Yes, my husband’s normal-meter is straight-up-busted (and so is Ken’s) and there was a lot of messed up stuff in the past that made me cling to the hope & illusion of what “could” be. I was always the one who made all the efforts & gave all the favors. I bent over backwards for her, and I regret it all.
After the Christmas debacle & following days, Barbie realized that she didn’t have my undying support / approval of her recent life-choices. She came over to my house & ambushed me while my husband was at his parents doing his best to explain the terrible situation to them & why Christmas was even more solemn than expected. (They knew part of the story but not all of it — and not all of which I’m divulging here). That megabitch said and later texted some of the most VILE, horrible things to me that I’ve ever heard or read. Things that were on par with what she said & texted to our MIL.
But somehow.. my MIL is apparently back on cordial terms with that piece of trash. Joe & I know that she’s been desperate to be back in communication with Ken… but at what cost? I love my MIL (even if I don’t always like her or her decisions), and she’s still very new to being a widow. So she still gets unlimited grace as far as I’m concerned.
That said, it still sucks.
Thank you, void for letting me vent into you.
[* = names changed, duh.]

AITA for being Jealous of Lesbians?
I've only ever read these but feeling crazy right now so figured I'd go to the internet. Sorry this is probably going to be long.
Slight backstory. I've been in a very complicated non relationship with S(47M) for over a decade. We met when I(33F) wasn't ready for a relationship working multiple jobs barely had time for sleep. So we were just a regular hookup and that worked for both of us. After about a year he got back with his ex that hated me so he wasn't allowed to talk to me which I respected. It sucked cause we were friends but I would never disrespect their relationship. I won't lie it hurt a little but I moved on with my life. But we are in a itty bitty town so a lot of mutual friends and I ended up being in the same place a lot. Now they didn't last very long maybe 4months. The day before they broke up we were both at the bar having a smoke at the same time. He started talking to me and tried to kiss me but I stopped him and pointed out that his girlfriend already hated me enough. They broke up within a month we were spending almost all my free time together. I don't like who I was in my previous serious relationships so casual was fine with both of us we were FWBs. Now when I say FWB I mean we were constantly together everyone thought we were together just never put a label on it. That's how it has been for the majority of the decade which was fine with both of us. Now periodically I'd want more and we'd talk and he made it clear he didn't want that and that I should move on and I did try. He never slept with anyone but I did trying to move on and it never worked out. I wanted him and I really don't need a label as long as we were honest with each other. The pandemic hit and we basically lived together. We were us and it still had no label and was great. Fast forward to 2years ago. A mutual friend ended up dating his friend so we were basically double dating constantly. He needed to get out of his apartment so he moved in with me. Now everyone kept saying we were together and I'd tell them no and we were out and I just asked him and he said ya and it was really uncomfortable for me. Well that lasted 3months. Before I got to see him on my camera packup his stuff and move out of my house without talking to me and his friend called and asked if I was okay. Again small town everyone knows everyone been forever so all our friends are the same. So there was no avoiding. My friends said they'd exclude him but that didn't seem fair to him to be outcast. So we still spent a lot of time together. He left a week before my birthday which they had already planned and asked if he could go and I agreed. He came home with me and we both broke down and there was a lot of alcohol and a lot of black outs of the conversation. But just was he freaked out and we both love each other and I deserve better. We stayed split but anytime we'd end up out together drinking we'd end up together. We did eventually have a sober talk that broke me. But in the end we went back to how we were. Now he moved around to a few place but ended up back living with me. In the beginning it was amazing. Having someone live with me really helps my ADHD I had a schedule and stuck to it hell I was putting laundry away right out of the dryer. Including his laundry and mess.
Side Note. I'm not dirty but I'm super messy. I know where everything is but generally looks like a bomb went off. My dad raised me to be a strong independent woman that can fix her own car house basically anything I would need a man for. My mom taught me how to be a good house wife that also brought home the bacon.
Now this was fine for 6months. It's not like he didn't do anything to help. He did his share. But something changed about 2months ago.
He started spending a lot of time with these two girls that are in a relationship lets call the T & K. They were around before but it was all good we were all new friends. But when the previously mentioned 2 friends broke up even though I let him move into my house I was still really good friends with his ex. Which apparently they needed to stick their nose into and were very rude to her new guy and her. So they put a bad taste in my mouth so I pulled away from spending time with them.
But S didn't spends a lot of time with them. Looks after their cat does favors for them. Texts everyday. Which I don't think would bother me as much if he didn't stop doing anything for me. Everything I do just became expected. Hell he can't even change a toilet paper roll. I'm currently renovating my house and he'll sleep in till 2pm after spending the night drinking with them and coming in and waking me up. While I try not to be too loud trying to get things done and when he does wake up will just watch or get in the way. I know I don't ask for help but he generally doesn't either but I always help him.
So at this point I can feel the girl I hate being come out. I want to do crazy things like change their numbers in his phone and block their actual numbers. (His phone tells you when they're blocked). I want to send them nasty messages or just yell at them when I see them. I don't like this feeling. Logically I know that even if something was happening it's not their fault it's his. I have no right to be jealous because we aren't together. I need to cut him out of my life.
Problem is, I love him, I've spent so long in my life in love with him I don't know how not to be in love with him. I'm fine if it was what we've always been but he's pulling away from me and it's to them. I'm never going to be able to avoid him everyone we know and go are mutal and basically the only places to go. I do know I win the friend group that was made clear when he left me. But that's not fair to him. I can't just hermit because my depression will win. The only thing that's ever been able to stop it when it gets to the end it all has been him. I have lots of people in my life that love me and I would fight to survive for but I don't think I can win that fight without him.
So atih for being crazy and jealous of these lesbians. Honestly it's more of just the one not the other she seems pure women

This is going to be a long post about my sister. For the past 2 years my sister has been ruining her life. When she turned 16 she started dating this guy we'll call Caleb. Caleb was a toxic piece of shit and put his hands on her, gave her bruises etc. We told her to break up with him and press charges she did break up with him but did not press charges.
About 2 months pass and she says she's dating a new guy which is funny enough also named Caleb. We didn't think anything of it really. But she never really brings him around, shows us pictures anything. Well eventually she gets in a little fender bender with another car on the road, and on the insurance has the last name of her first toxic piece of boyfriend, she lied and said she wanted us to give him another chance and that there's good in him, well considering she had been lying to us for 10 months while also having a huge attitude the entire time, anytime anyone asks her to do anything or even interact with her she just goes off the handle for no reason.
Anyway, my Mom BLEW up. This was 2 weeks before she turned 18 and she had been talking alot of shit up to it saying how when she turns 18 she's gonna be outta here, that she can't wait to leave this household where we never support her (for dating Caleb) and that she can make it on her own and have her own apartment etc. My mom told her to pack her shit and leave then, and she left and moved in with Caleb's mother.
This is where she just went downhill, she started hanging out with people that ran car takeovers, caught multiple charges for speeding, alcohol possession, disturbing the peace etc. She was hanging out with people that were doing meth, coke and popping pills and apparently gangs, though I don't believe that. She got random tattoos just because someone asked her to, maxed out credit cards and eventually lost her car when it stopped working. This is when its shown that Caleb never even wanted her and has been cheating on her with another girl, and now that her car is gone he doesn't want my sister around. So she ended up moving back in home but we told her this shit can NOT follow you and that lifestyle ends if she comes back, she said ok.
Well she still had her nasty attitude, if you talked to her she would just blow up because she was busy, or she'll do it when she feels like it or she doesn't care how you feel about how she does something etc. Just being a general unpleasant person. We told her nope you need to go to therapy or figure out something to work on your anger issues and mental issues, cause she's diagnosed bipolar and with bpd. Well she did get into therapy but did not want to take medicine. She ended up a few months later having a mental breakdown where I ended up taking her to the mental health emergency room.
It. Was. Miserable. Anytime a nurse talked to her she would try to tell them how to do their job, was harrassing them saying she's been here for 30 minutes and she feels like she's not prioritizing her etc. When the psychiatrist finally comes and gets her, she comes back immediately 2 minutes later saying that the psychiatrist is a bitch and she's not going to let her speak to her like that and I need to come in there right now or she's going to go off. So I go in there and she's saying the psychiatrist is saying that she can't have her phone back in voluntary confinement and she's saying that it's illegal to take my phone and that I need it as an anxiety tool and the psychiatrist was explaining hippa and stuff and she was trying to explain how hippa works to the doctor!! So she ended up declining voluntary confinement because she couldn't keep her phone. We ended up just getting prescribed Remeron and Ativan as a rescue.
We ended up going home and I made sure she took the medicine for the first 3 days, but then after that she stopped. Just stopped taking it and this is how she always is with any medicine, any medicine she gets prescribed she either doesn't take it, looks up the side effects and convinces herself she is feeling it, literally psyching herself out. She told me multiple times how she just doesn't take medicine she gets prescribed because she doesn't trust whats in it, but she'll go to a smoke shop and buy any random non regulated pre roll right off the shelf and put that in her body no problem.
Well she started complaining that Caleb was trying to contact her again through abunch of random phone numbers, making new numbers or emails whatever just to contact her. This was because she was talking to the person Caleb was cheating on her with talking shit about him and she was telling him. She called the cops the first time because he said he was outside the house. She called them again because she said he was outside her bedroom window with a weapon looking in at her window (checked the cameras, nothing). She ended up going to get a restraining order took out on him
We told her either stop talking to this person, or move out. She said okay she'll stop... but a week and a half later she comes in my room panicing saying call the cops that Caleb is threatening her and she can't because she's ON THE PHONE WITH HIM, AND ON A FACETIME CALL WITH THE EX AND SOME RANDOM PERSON. I called the police for her, and they showed up. This whole time my sister is egging him on, saying she doesn't care and that she can do what she wants because freedom of speech. He says gonna come to our house and get us (Me and my Mother) to tell us what's going on then. She says no you won't and surprise surprise, the crazy dude shows. About 10 minutes after the cops did, my sister was talking to them this entire time and when he rolled up, she ran inside crying saying he was gonna kill her.
Well the cops just ended up talking to him for a little bit and he ended up leaving, but me and my mom are so done. She won't get help, she won't take medicine, she can't hold down a job because of her attitude, she's gone through 7 jobs since she was 16, and it's always because her managers supposedly target her, even though the things she tells us are very.. normal workplace things. She lies about everything, she lied and told us she would stop talking to Caleb, she lied and said she would stop talking to her ex, she lied and said she would take her medicine this time (stopped after day 3), she lies and lies and lies.
What can I do to help her at this point? She ended up leaving to calm down at a friends and came back for a bit to get come stuff and we ended up arguing. She saying she wishes she never met caleb, all her problems are because of him, and that we never support her through it. I told her I literally took her to mental health emergency 2 weeks ago, she says that doesn't have to do with Caleb. She just said all her problems are because of him? I said we told you to stop talking to Tiffany and you didn't. "Well, it's because me and her were both abused by Caleb, she's the only person in the world that knows my Trauma I need her", so she admits to her lying. She went to the magistrates office after the cops left and had her friends clip together audio recording of Caleb saying he was going to kill her or harm her in some way and put out charges on him, so she falsified charges.
I don't know how else to help her. We told her we're evicting her but I really want to believe there's some other way. Because of her lifestyle, I've fully accepted that I'm probably going to get a call within the next 10 years saying she died in some way. But I don't want my sister to die, I want to help her in some way. What should I do?

If so, under what terms?
TL;DR: Friend is 19 days away from an uncontested divorce being final, but soon to be ex-husband is threatening to get an attorney for, idk why, but technically they're both at fault by adultery because she's gone on 2 dates & hangs out at friends houses who are guys and her ex-husband has a girl who is a "friend" that is around constantly. So neither if them have actual proof of any sexual intercourse, but both of them have had the opportunity because people live in houses. No fault becomes an at fault, so what happens in these circumstances when both parties are at fault.
My best friend lives in TN and she has 19 days until it's final. However, her soon to be ex-husband has been continually harassing her, her friends, and doing a lot of things that it's to the point her attorney suggested this is sounding like he's spinning out because he can't control her anymore and she needs a TRO.
Her soon to be ex-husband, who has a woman "friend", is now threatening to hire an attorney after he has accused her of things that could turn this contested divorce into an uncontested divorce. From my understanding from Google would be adultery and addiction to drugs and or alcohol, both of which he claims he has evidence of (we're thinking her Mom hired a private investigator and he snapped photos of her sitting in a restaurant at a bar with a guy next to her that she either knew or a stranger she struck up a conversation with), but she did go on 2 dates with someone and he ghosted her after the 2nd date. Somehow her ex-husband knew this guys first and last name because he sent her a text asking if she knew him, said he heard she was dating him and was told he was a good guy. Now, they did kiss, but nothing else because she came to my house after the date and she was gushing over him. Afawk, he doesn't know they kissed and he's accused her of sleeping with 11 men. Besides our mutual male friends, we can't come up with 11 people and I know nothing has happened.
So, from what I also understand is apparently you don't need evidence of sexual intercourse, just the opportunity. Which would apply to both of them since she hangs out at our friend's house, or goes to hang out with an old friend, but not at their house. Her soon to be ex-husband is living in their house and she's renting a house next to me. No man has been in that house except one time to look for cameras in the bathroom because the landlord is twisted and we don't trust him, but I was there in the same room with them.
My question is if he gets an attorney, and turns the uncontested divorce into a contested divorce, then I guess they're both seen as committing adultery...so what happens if both parties are found to be at fault? Will the judge be like, "OMG, you two are ridiculous, grow up." and the original, uncontested agreement still stand or will this start the process all over again with a new agreement involving custody agreements, financial agreements, assets, etc.?
He's psychologically compromised and the post is already long enough and even the attorney is concerned enough to tell her to get a TRO then it's pretty bad.

Hello!
TLDR Just kind of curious on if people would stay with grandma watching the kids or consider transitioning to daycare
I know there have been posts similar to this before but I think everyone likes to have things more specific to their situation LOL
So my mom has been coming to watch our son since he was 5 months old and he's 14 months now . I would LOVE to be a stay at home mom but unfortunately our finances do not allow this to happen.
We had initially planned for LO to go to daycare at 5 months but it was really hard on him. We picked a nicer facility and they had cameras and we could just see him crying on camera and them stepping over him. I know there are so many kids and they can't hold all the babies at once but my husband and I decided that it was best for our LO to be with my mom rather than daycare. This was initially going to be very temporary and then became ok until he's crawling, ok till he's walking and now it's like ok maybe when he starts to talk we will send him.
This was a hard decision as my mom and I used to be very close when I was younger (she was a young single mom, had me at 18) and then as I got older we didn't get along really. About 6 years ago she quit her job saying she was burnt out and has been living off her boyfriend (who doesn't work either and is a trust fund kid but doesn't get his own money, it all comes through his mom) since and they live with his mom. She has no car (she borrows his car everyday to come watch the baby) and no source of income on her own. And it was hard for me (and stressful as I am in no financial position to support her should he dump her) as her daughter to watch her be in this precarious situation dependent upon this guy who she complains about all the time and says she doesn't even like him. The way she paints the picture is not sugar daddy, more like controlling/ she has no money of her own or anything like that. There have been other things but too much to try and go into detail here. As I got older and was able to process things from my childhood I also realized she wasn't really the best mom, more of a friend most of the time and I really lacked structure.
So we went through a few years of not talking really and then when I had my baby we kind of reconciled a little (prior to her watching him) and she started watching him at 5 months which was originally going to be very temporary until we found another daycare and then turned into more long term.
Well I'm now pregnant again with baby 2 due in Aug and have just been having so many feelings about her watching our current son and the next one.
As our son gets older I worry about the impact in his development she has watching him all day. I have a lot of resentment with how lax she was with me as a child and I worry about her giving that to him also. He's so young though I wonder if that is truly something to be concerned with??
She also will push back on parenting choices we make and it's like she does it because she thinks she knows best. So I don't always feel listened to or respected as his parent which really bothers me. We've had several blow out arguments during these last 9 months she's been coming that are just kind of swept under the rug and she continues to come watch him. She says this has given her a new purpose in life to watch him.
It's also really hard for me for her to have all this time with him and I'm at work all day. But I wonder if that is part of why I want him in daycare when that's not really what is best for HIM right now.
There's also the fact that we do not pay her to watch him. Trust fund boyfriend (his mom really) supports her and gives her the car, but she does have to drive 1.5 each way to watch him everyday. So we have saved a lot of money and save money every week she watches him. She wants to move closer but has no way of doing that and trust fund boyfriend doesn't want to leave mom's house. We are in no position to have her move in with us and honestly that's not anything I would want either as I don't think she'd ever leave.
I don't mean to sound ungrateful to all she does for watching him, I just have a lot of childhood/young adult resentment against her as well as resentment against the state of things in the US where there is not more support for families/mothers. Also, regardless of any ill feelings I have with her I know she loves my son and truly cares for him while she watches him.
Thank you!

Hello!
TLDR Just kind of curious on if people would stay with grandma watching the kids or consider transitioning to daycare
I know there have been posts similar to this before but I think everyone likes to have things more specific to their situation LOL
So my mom has been coming to watch our son since he was 5 months old and he's 14 months now . I would LOVE to be a stay at home mom but unfortunately our finances do not allow this to happen.
We had initially planned for LO to go to daycare at 5 months but it was really hard on him. We picked a nicer facility and they had cameras and we could just see him crying on camera and them stepping over him. I know there are so many kids and they can't hold all the babies at once but my husband and I decided that it was best for our LO to be with my mom rather than daycare. This was initially going to be very temporary and then became ok until he's crawling, ok till he's walking and now it's like ok maybe when he starts to talk we will send him.
This was a hard decision as my mom and I used to be very close when I was younger (she was a young single mom, had me at 18) and then as I got older we didn't get along really. About 6 years ago she quit her job saying she was burnt out and has been living off her boyfriend (who doesn't work either and is a trust fund kid but doesn't get his own money, it all comes through his mom) since and they live with his mom. She has no car (she borrows his car everyday to come watch the baby) and no source of income on her own. And it was hard for me (and stressful as I am in no financial position to support her should he dump her) as her daughter to watch her be in this precarious situation dependent upon this guy who she complains about all the time and says she doesn't even like him. The way she paints the picture is not sugar daddy, more like controlling/ she has no money of her own or anything like that. There have been other things but too much to try and go into detail here. As I got older and was able to process things from my childhood I also realized she wasn't really the best mom, more of a friend most of the time and I really lacked structure.
So we went through a few years of not talking really and then when I had my baby we kind of reconciled a little (prior to her watching him) and she started watching him at 5 months which was originally going to be very temporary until we found another daycare and then turned into more long term.
Well I'm now pregnant again with baby 2 due in Aug and have just been having so many feelings about her watching our current son and the next one.
As our son gets older I worry about the impact in his development she has watching him all day. I have a lot of resentment with how lax she was with me as a child and I worry about her giving that to him also. He's so young though I wonder if that is truly something to be concerned with??
She also will push back on parenting choices we make and it's like she does it because she thinks she knows best. So I don't always feel listened to or respected as his parent which really bothers me. We've had several blow out arguments during these last 9 months she's been coming that are just kind of swept under the rug and she continues to come watch him. She says this has given her a new purpose in life to watch him.
It's also really hard for me for her to have all this time with him and I'm at work all day. But I wonder if that is part of why I want him in daycare when that's not really what is best for HIM right now.
There's also the fact that we do not pay her to watch him. Trust fund boyfriend (his mom really) supports her and gives her the car, but she does have to drive 1.5 each way to watch him everyday. So we have saved a lot of money and save money every week she watches him. She wants to move closer but has no way of doing that and trust fund boyfriend doesn't want to leave mom's house. We are in no position to have her move in with us and honestly that's not anything I would want either as I don't think she'd ever leave.
I don't mean to sound ungrateful to all she does for watching him, I just have a lot of childhood/young adult resentment against her as well as resentment against the state of things in the US where there is not more support for families/mothers. Also, regardless of any ill feelings I have with her I know she loves my son and truly cares for him while she watches him.
Thank you!

Read this first,this describes Reece.
From Previous stories,I mentioned my friend,Alex. Alex has been a terrible friend recently,and I'm thinking about ditching him or ghosting him for awhile.
As for Reece,she has been on my nerves for SO LONG. It's to the point where I want to rip her beanie off her head and smack her. This girl got me so pissed off,but luckily,I went to the principal first.
Anyways,Alex is friends with Reece,which I'm fine with. Who am I to tell him who to be friends with? Alex is the type of friend to vent to me,and I vent to him about school,life,all of that. I listen to him,and he listens to me. From past and personal things,we don't really trust our ES teacher and adults.
One day,I vented to Alex about Reece talking shit about me behind my back to my best friend (Who obviously told me) and calling me a dislikable,dirty bitch and said "Everyone knows she's like that." and all of that. And I can say I've been nice to her. After I saw her crying one day,I asked her if she was okay and hoped she felt better.
Alex replied with things along the lines of "IDC" or "Who cares," which is different from his normal responses. He says he doesn't like his friend getting talked about,and just says "She's just like that,you'll get used to it" and everytime I said ANYTHING about Reece,he would ghost me. It would be fine if he would just say "I respectfully don't want to be involved" but the fact that he is defending her and justifying her treating me like a dog makes me mad,because I'm there for him,and I want him to do the same.
Today,I finally had enough. I went up to my best friend and hugged her (She is also friend's with Reece,but she is mad at her) and said "Hi bestie." And Reece came up to me,pushed me off my best friend and kicked me in my leg TWICE with those hard plastic,high boot and said "You wanna try again?" It has been bruised and sore ever since,and I have been very quiet. But let me tell you,I've wanted to smack the attitude off her,but I told the principal,which is rare,because as I said before,I don't trust adults.
During the meeting he had with Reece,he told me she said "She stole my Raybands!" Which are a type of sunglasses I think. I told him he can check the cameras,my bag,call my mom,and do whatever,and he'll see I never touched her sunglasses. I once again,tried to vent to Alex and my ES teacher,and All Alex said was "Dude,Chill." Which set me OFF. I turned to him and shouted "No,this is bullshit,Alex! I listen to you and support you all the time,I care! What have you done for me?! Tell Reece to shut up like you tell me to shut up,or shut up yourself,and if you think it's okay to defend her,what the fuck?!" and he got real silent,but didn't look remorseful after I yelled at him.
People have been calling me insensitive and too dramatic/sensitive and said Reece was joking around when she kicked me,but I said there's a fine line and she crossed it. So,AITJ for reporting Reece and reconsidering my friendship with Alex? In the middle? Why or why not?
Edit: Reece is Lesbian and Alex has a Girlfriend. Me and Reece are 16,and Alex is 15. I'd know if they were dating,because Reece treats her lover's like SHIT,she is toxic. Her now ex girlfriend was one of my friends (I'm a straight female with a partner of 3 years) and let me say,I could NEVER even hug her without Reece getting mad and thinking I was trying to steal her partner despite knowing my orientation and relationship status. We're all in the same Gym class,and each time she'd see me and her talking,she'd get butthurt and sit out because she'd think we're talking about her. I couldn't hug her without Reece pushing me off and saying "You fucking know better,MY girlfriend." And got toxic to the point her partner felt like she couldn't leave or say no to her. I convinced her to break up with Reece. Alex loves his girlfriend and their relationship is 100% genuine.

Hi all! I think I am just looking for mostly reassurance at this point regarding taking care of my grandma. Here is my situation (buckle up, this is a long one):
I was estranged from my biological father and his family from my teen years until about 2 years ago. Long story short, my parents got divorced when I was 2, my mom moved me out of state when she married my stepfather and I spent every summer in childhood visiting my father's family. For context, I am the only child of my father (my mom had other children from a later marriage, my half siblings, my father never had any more kids). Around my teen years, those visits stopped and I just kept in contact with my biological grandmother on my dad's side through the occasional letters over the years. I have a lot of resentment toward my parents for their poor decision making and how it's affected so much of how I act in my relationships as an adult. I have sought out therapy and am doing my best to recover.
In May of 2022, I received a phone call from my paternal grandma (who was 97 at the time), which was so unusual and very nerve-wracking because she never called me, we only communicated through letters. She told me that my father was very sick but couldn't give me many details. She was very hard of hearing and knew nothing about his illness except that it was a "blood disease." My father had been divorced 3 times and after the 3rd one, he moved in with my grandma and they were great friends. I think it was a good arrangement for them both. After that phone call, I did a lot of thinking and soul searching and decided that I should visit my father.
My husband (who never met this side of my family) and I visited my father and grandma later that month. I was shocked at their condition. My father never got up from his chair and looked so frail and sick. My grandma was actually in better health than him despite her age, but she still obviously couldn't care for him in his sickness. She could barely get up from her chair and was very unsteady walking around. I tried to get details from my father about his health but he was confused and unable to tell me anything concrete. But he did tell me that hospice was coming to see him the next day. So we came back the next day to be there when the hospice intake nurse came. He was even more confused the next day, couldn't spell his middle name or answer questions clearly. I did my best to answer questions (even though I barely knew him since we had been estranged for so long) and provided my phone number as a contact for them. It was all incredibly overwhelming. That meeting ended with my father wanting a little more time to think about it before being officially admitted to hospice. My husband and I went back home and I was overwhelmed about everything.
A few days later, I got a phone call from hospice. My father had reached a point where he was incontinent and belligerent and my grandma called the phone number on the card the hospice worker had left from her visit because she was desperate for help. I was suddenly thrust into a situation of trying to make decisions for a man I barely knew states away. It was obvious my 97 year old grandmother could no longer care for him at home, so he was taken to the hospital. I was able to talk with his doctor over the phone who told me that he had leukemia. The treatment he had been receiving was not working and he estimated that my father had 6 weeks to live. He would be admitted to an inpatient hospice facility until he died. I barely was able to process that because there was another huge issue: who is going to look after my grandma after he dies?
(A little more family background here: my father has an older brother who lives out of state. The two brothers never got along and from what I hear, my uncle had the tendency to rub people the wrong way. My uncle only communicated with his mother - my grandma - through the occasional birthday and Christmas card. That uncle has 2 kids, my cousins, who live in the same state as my uncle. The older cousin calls my grandma once in a while. My grandma has distant relatives who live about 45 minutes away and visit very occasionally.)
My husband and I talked a lot and I decided that I needed to go and stay with my grandma while my dad was in hospice. I was able to work remotely and so was my husband, so we made the drive back to my grandma's house and stayed with her, taking her to visit my dad every day, cooking, cleaning, etc.
My dad died on May 31, 2022, only about a week after he was admitted to hospice. I handled all the logistics and planning of the funeral. My grandma, who was totally competent mentally, was stone cold deaf and emotionally unable to handle any of it, so I was left to do everything, despite barely knowing him and not really having the chance to process my own very complicated grief at losing an estranged parent. Fortunately he had the wisdom to take out a life insurance policy years before with me as the beneficiary and I was able to pay for the funeral with that money.
And instead of his death being the end of something, it was the beginning of the most stressful time in my adult life. I spent day and night looking into care options for my grandma. We finally got her some hearing aides (something my father never thought to do for her I guess) and I spent hours on the internet, researching what is covered by Medicare, if she was eligible for Medicaid, etc. I called her state's agency for aging, multiple home health aide companies, the works. We had to go back to our home state to resume our lives, and all the while, my mental energy was spent on worrying about her and running through every option for care over and over again.
And here we are, TWO YEARS LATER. My grandma is now 99 years old at the end of this month. In May of last year, my husband very unexpectedly and heartbreakingly lost his job of 12 years. After that happened, we decided it was time to pick up our lives and move in with our grandma. While we were living in our state and she alone in hers after my dad died, I called her pretty much every day to check on her. I was constantly anxious and on edge. We visited her as much as we could but it is a long drive and we couldn't always put our lives on hold to visit her.
We moved in in December. And it has absolutely been one of the hardest times of my life. My husband and I are in dire straits financially (he is still struggling to find consistent work and my work is seasonal, we're just getting into my busy season but honestly, I don't make a lot of money). My grandma can still barely hear with her hearing aides in so I always have to raise my voice to talk to her and repeat myself multiple times. I spend hours of my time taking her to doctor's appointments (which is not an easy feat because she is wheelchair bound outside of the home), on the phone with doctors, picking up medicine, etc. I feel constant pressure to make sure she cared for. Overall she is a pleasant person but she is also a master of Italian Catholic guilt and passive aggressiveness. There is no one else to help us. I feel like I am slowly dying inside little by little every day.
So if you've made it this far, here is where I am looking for reassurance. We have to go back to our home state multiple times this summer for family obligations and my work (I am a wedding photographer and contracted to photograph weddings this summer back home). For example, at the end of May, we have to be gone for over 2 weeks to go to multiple graduations of nieces and nephews, open houses, etc. And I feel extremely guilty for leaving.
Here is more about my grandma and her current status for context:

• She is perfectly coherent mentally. Totally capable of taking her own medicine (which is not too much considering her age).
• She has a shower aide come once a week to help her in the shower. She has a walk in shower with a chair and extendable shower head. She also had handles on the toilet we recently installed. She dresses herself every day.
• She is unsteady on her feet but relies on her walker in the house. She is good about using it and doesn't go without it.
• She still cooks a little, uses the stove to boil vegetables, etc. Uses the microwave for her instant coffee, soups and TV dinners. I cook dinners regularly and she will often eat what I make.
• She has Medicare and supplemental insurance. She is not eligible for Medicaid. She owns her house outright and has about $60,000 in savings. She is unwilling to pay for private home health aides to come in our absence and unfortunately, my husband and I cannot afford them.
• She was on hospice care after my dad died. Her PCP knew the situation, that she would be alone, so she referred to us to hospice so she would at least have a nurse check on her once a week. It was extremely hard to get her admitted and she was able to stay on their service up until a few weeks ago, when they booted her because she is not deteriorating. I understand that hospice is for end of life care and just because someone is 99 it doesn't mean they automatically qualify. But it's a little scary losing that safety net.
• I tried to enroll her in VA benefits because her husband was a veteran. They denied her because she makes too much in social security every month.
• She hates being alone and has brought up multiple times how worried she is to be alone while we're gone.

Here are the things we have set in place to help care for her in our absence:

• We have one camera set up in the living room where she spends most of her time. Only my husband and I can access the camera remotely via our phones when needed to check on her. I am going to talk to her about installing 2 more, one in the kitchen and one in her bedroom.
• She has a Life Alert that she wears around her neck. She very good about wearing it all the time.
• Her shower aide will be here once a week.
• She has 2 neighbors who are great about checking in on her when needed. They both have keys to the house. I also have a group text of a handful of people in the area she is friends with who have keys to the house and can come over in an emergency. I am going to text everyone to let them know the dates we will be gone and ask them to call and check on her regularly.

So my question is this: is this enough? Can I leave her and not feel guilty? I've spent countless hours and tears struggling with this question.
(Thank you to all of you who read all this and my prayers are with you on your own caregiving journeys!)

I'll try to keep the story as short as possible although it is long.
My friend, Becky, and her bf Ray (fake names) were at the library and they took my phone as a joke. He put my phone down his pants and farted on it (seriously) and I was upset so I took his phone and went to the bathroom. Long story short she thought I did something bad while I had his phone (I really didn't) she got mad and ran upstairs to where he was. I followed shortly after washing my hands and asked if he still had my phone. He said no, Becky took it. I said oh and went to her and asked for my phone back. She said I had to get it back from blood (fight her) and told me to get away or she would fight me. I followed anyway because I wasn't leaving without my phone. she called her mom to come and then she said she didn't take my phone. (her logic was since I was "lying" she'd lie too) she said I could ask Ray. Ray was silent but then she said " YOU WILL BE SINGLE" (threat) so of course he lied. She went to the bathroom and I followed and her bf was waiting outside. she stayed in the stall until her mom was outside and they both continued to lie to mom. since her mom was my ride especially now since I didn't have my phone, I sat in the car and she threatened to drag me out if I didn't get out. She screamed in my face multiple times and threatened to hit me and said my phone was still upstairs. I knew I shouldn't have believed her but a part of me was hoping she put it back or something. When I went up there they zoomed off and I went to findmyphone on Google. I saw it was 10 minutes away (they were driving) and I made the phone ring and it shortly stopped. she must have powered it off because the phone was on 50 percent. I was hoping once they figured out Becky and Ray were lying they'd turn around and give it back but nope they didn't. I waited 2 hours until the library closed.
I texted her the next day and told her I knew she had stolen it and I filed a police report. Since her mother has a paralegal degree she is sure she'd win the case. She changed the story to, she never took it to she did take it but exchanged it while we were in the bathroom (there's no cameras in the bathroom)
What I'm even more upset about is that the only witness (her bf) is taking her side now and her mother will protect her. She is trying to file a restraining order against me and trying to ruin my life by spilling my secrets to my friends.
Do you think it's possible to sue or at least put this on her record? I know the phone was cheap it was because my last one got broken so I got a temporary one until I got a job but it had my storage card in it, a sim card, photos, and memories too. I NEED that phone or at least the storage card. It has the last pics and videos of some of the people I miss on it.

I'll try to keep the story as short as possible although it is long.
My friend, Becky, and her bf Ray (fake names) were at the library and they took my phone as a joke. He put my phone down his pants and farted on it (seriously) and I was upset so I took his phone and went to the bathroom. Long story short she thought I did something bad while I had his phone (I really didn't) she got mad and ran upstairs to where he was. I followed shortly after washing my hands and asked if he still had my phone. He said no, Becky took it. I said oh and went to her and asked for my phone back. She said I had to get it back from blood (fight her) and told me to get away or she would fight me. I followed anyway because I wasn't leaving without my phone. she called her mom to come and then she said she didn't take my phone. (her logic was since I was "lying" she'd lie too) she said I could ask Ray. Ray was silent but then she said " YOU WILL BE SINGLE" (threat) so of course he lied. She went to the bathroom and I followed and her bf was waiting outside. she stayed in the stall until her mom was outside and they both continued to lie to mom. since her mom was my ride especially now since I didn't have my phone, I sat in the car and she threatened to drag me out if I didn't get out. She screamed in my face multiple times and threatened to hit me and said my phone was still upstairs. I knew I shouldn't have believed her but a part of me was hoping she put it back or something. When I went up there they zoomed off and I went to findmyphone on Google. I saw it was 10 minutes away (they were driving) and I made the phone ring and it shortly stopped. she must have powered it off because the phone was on 50 percent. I was hoping once they figured out Becky and Ray were lying they'd turn around and give it back but nope they didn't. I waited 2 hours until the library closed.
I texted her the next day and told her I knew she had stolen it and I filed a police report. Since her mother has a paralegal degree she is sure she'd win the case. She changed the story to, she never took it to she did take it but exchanged it while we were in the bathroom (there's no cameras in the bathroom)
What I'm even more upset about is that the only witness (her bf) is taking her side now and her mother will protect her. She is trying to file a restraining order against me and trying to ruin my life by spilling my secrets to my friends.
Do you think it's possible to sue or at least put this on her record? I know the phone was cheap it was because my last one got broken so I got a temporary one until I got a job but it had my storage card in it, a sim card, photos, and memories too. I NEED that phone or at least the storage card. It has the last pics and videos of some of the people I miss on it.
edit: today she is ruining my life. shes texting my friends with weird lies so they'd ghost me and filed a restraining order? she told me in text that I cant approach her or contact her or id go to jail. is this true? also shes calling cps on my mom for something that is true but i dont want to enforce.