Vijay yesudas wedding snaps

I (29F) am disabled. I have a genetic condition that causes neuropathy which means I am in pain constantly and am very fatigued quite easily. I was finally diagnosed 4 years ago.
I am completely independent from my parents and have been since I was a teenager. I own my house, pay all my bills, and am getting married here in a few weeks. I work full time. As far as I am concerned, I’m doing all of the “expected” things in life even though I am disabled and it certainly hasn’t been easy. I’m making it work for me and my partner.
My parents live in a different state from me and came to help with last wedding details. While here, they kept commenting on things that didn’t live up to their “expectations” for me.
Some examples include:

1. My house is a little messy. Not dirty, mind you. Just messy. We have a ton of boxes in the garage that we need to bring to the recycling plant, we have a table that tends to collect clutter, my office regularly looks like a hurricane hit a stack of papers.

My response: I get fatigued extremely easily. Cleaning can take me out of commission for a full day. My partner does a wonderful job of stepping up but also works a demanding job.

1. We are having a very small wedding (less than 50) and they can’t understand why I’m not inviting all of my aunts and uncles and cousins.

I am sad we won’t do a huge blow out but we just can’t consider spending the money when I have some medical debt from trying treatments not covered by insurance, surgeries, etc. I asked my parents for help with this and they were not willing to but they are willing to gift money towards the wedding. Priorities seem a little off to me but I digress.

1. I mentioned that we will NOT be having kids. This one made my mom cry about how she’d never get the chance to experience the birth of her grandchild (I have an older brother who has a kid so I think she was lamenting that my sister in law didn’t let her in the room while my niece was born? And would expect me to have her there which I never would even consider it anyway). I told her I have a genetic condition that I would NEVER consider risking passing down to a child. Plus I am disabled. I wouldn’t be able to pick up or hold my child for very long and being pregnant would be a risk for me.

There were more little jabs throughout their visit and towards the end I got fed up and told them that they need to adjust their expectations for having a healthy kid because I am not healthy. This sent my mom into hysterical crying and my dad ranted about how I was just lazy and didn’t want to do anything hard and was using it as an excuse.
I can’t help but wonder if they have a point in any of this and if I’m an ah for snapping. I think I’m doing fine with the life I have but it stings a little to be told I’m not living up to my parents’ expectations.

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. I'm a longtime lurker here but I created this account because I badly need advice or else, I'm going to snap.
Husband (31M) and I (30F) got married last year. We live far away from our families and we were in a long distance relationship for awhile before getting married. I'm saying this as context. Husband and I planned our wedding for two years, mostly because we wanted to keep it within a budget and because we live far away from each other.
We really loved our wedding and we were very proud of how it went. It was lovely and we didn't go over our budget. But it was absolutely wonderful, intimate, and extremely personal and sentimental to us. We had a thing for small details and our wedding was peppered with those tiny details.
Months after husband and I got married, husband's brother (HB) got engaged to his long-time partner (LP). I offered help with planning or anything else they might need. They thanked us and said they would be fine.
3 months ago, HB and LP asked me to be part of their entourage and I accepted, happy to be included in the wedding.
Then we started to notice some things. They booked the same hotel as us for the wedding preparations. They also booked the same band, photography and video team, and the mobile bar.
At first it was understandable, they only had a year to plan. They might have liked our wedding too and that's why they wanted the same suppliers. Then it became annoying.
My husband wasn't expressly told what his role in the entourage was. Culture and family dynamics prevented him from asking outright so he asked for the formal invitation. This is 2 months before the the wedding, just two weeks ago. We then realized that we haven't received a formal wedding invitation (they were giving out digital invites).
Then it dawned on us why we haven't been given the invitation. It was a copy of ours. They had the same theme and color motif as us. But the thing that hurt me the most was that the invitation's contents were the exact same as ours. Obviously the names are different. But the headings, the paragraphs, the drawing, the phrases that we wrote to make it personal for us - all of those were in that same invitation.
My husband and I feel so disrespected. I feel as if this is a petty and minor thing. But whenever I think about having worked hard for our wedding to be so personal and then for them to just copy everything, I feel extremely upset.
Just today, HB is asking if he could get the contact number for one of our food stall suppliers. We got that food stall because it was a favorite of ours. To my knowledge, they don't even like that kind of food.
I have half a mind to not attend the wedding. My husband and I are travelling far away to go. We have paid for airfare and planned everything else. So I don't know exactly what to do. Idk how to attend the wedding pretending to be happy when I am not exactly happy.
I am not going to confront them before the wedding because that will upset everybody. I have an extremely close relationship with the in-laws and I'm afraid that me bringing it up will put a damper on that.
Husband and I talked about this. We agreed that he CAN'T NOT go. But he said he understands if I can't. AITAH if I don't attend? If I do, how do I do it without looking so upset?
TLDR, husband's brother and fiancée copied our wedding down to the motif and invitation contents. How to attend without looking so upset?

I've just come out of an 8+ year long friendship with a person with BPD and wow, this subreddit has been clarifying. For context said person has been homeless on and off for 3 years - he got kicked out of his family home, moved in with his boyfriend, got kicked out after a year or so, moved back home, then in October he got kicked out again which is when I took him in and let him sleep on my couch. I didn't even think twice about it, he had nowhere else to go and we'd been good friends for so long.
I will spare the details but we had an argument about a month ago. I definitely snapped, after 6 months of him bumming around not helping with the housework, not looking for work, blaming every little problem on him being homeless, and rotting on the couch getting stoned, I was done giving him leeway.
The jist of it is, I needed a break from living with him and his two flying monkeys, so I went to stay at my mam's for a night. But! I left the toilet clogged (genuinely just forgot, I had been dealing with it the night before and needed to go out to buy things to fix it, then some petty fight happened between me and him which was what made me decide to go stay with my mam for a night. My bad, but I told him I would fix it once I got home and that he could use the ensuite in my flatmates' room until then. Not ideal, but shit happens (literally!).) He lost his shit, saying this was "typical" (it wasn't, this had never happened before) and so I was just at the end of my rope. I told him to get a grip and that this has never been an issue before in the 6 months I'd been kindly sharing my bathroom with him. This was on Saturday afternoon.
That was too much for him, and then within 3 days he'd left and took his monkeys with him. I left them to clear out, my landlord texted me telling me they were gonna be out by the end of the week so I just let them do that while I stayed at my mam's. He bombarded me with vicious texts, I realised things could get unsafe so I went back on Monday to collect my cat and checked her into a cat hotel. When I did that I found a note pinned to my bedroom wall detailing all the ways in which I'm a shitty cat owner and friend. Apparently he's been running his mouth about me on twitter, has a pinned tweet in which he's namedropping me and badmouthing me, and has posted a private discord message I sent him that was taken out of context.
He has everyone fooled. My exflatmate's gf had an Xbox we all used for Youtube in the living room, I left my account logged in and one night she deleted all of my subscriptions, watch history, etc. Real petty shit.
I'm glad to be rid of all of them. I know the love I deserve, I have incredible friends and family and a wonderful partner. If anything this has given me more motivation to work on my own mental health recovery - I have cPTSD (ontop of auDHD, fun and games /s) and have made incredible strides over the past year, I still have my moments but I realised that I don't want to be like him. At all. So truly, this is the best thing that could've happened.
Thanks for giving me a space to share this 🫶
edit - phrasing

Hi! I apologize in advance for the long post. Trigger warnings for mentions of suicide, abuse, and eating disorders (the latter will be very mild).
I (19NB) have been with my girlfriend (20F) for about two and a half years; the relationship started out really well, both of us have prior trauma and struggle with mental health but we were kind of building off of each other for a long time. I went into it very emotionally constipated and as a horrific people pleaser; she went into it very insecure and super scared of me cheating. For the first year to year and a half it was a lot of lifting each other up, she'd reassure me that she'd listen to anything I needed and I reassured her that she would never have to worry about me cheating. There was more to it as well; at least on my side, I had a really bad eating disorder and she was the driving force for me to recover (she always reassured me that she liked my body, preferred for me to be healthy and that it didn't affect her perception of me, etc), was generally really sweet to me in the day-to-day, and was honestly everything I was looking for in a partner up until that point- I'm not someone that is attracted to people based on looks at all (either asexual spectrum or due to sexual trauma when I was a child- I'm also pretty sure I'm neurodivergent but never had the ability to get diagnosed; this will be important later) but she has been the one person I can really say I find attractive. I can think people look "cool" or "interesting" but she's genuinely so beautiful to me in a way that I've never felt for anyone else before. Personality-wise as well, she seemed perfect from the get-go- we always clicked in interactions, she'd reassure me without me asking for it and was interested in everything I had to say, etc. One big thing for me in the beginning was kind of silly but I feel like it's important for me to say; she plays games a lot, and every time we'd call each other and she'd get mad at whatever she was playing she would specifically lower her voice to talk to me. She could be halfway through yelling "what the fuck" at her computer but as soon as I said something to her she'd make herself sound as comforting as possible. This was a really big thing for me; my upbringing was very rough and both of my parents are prone to fits of anger (to the point of it getting physical very often) so I get very uncomfortable when people are visibly angry towards me. This is a big reason why I struggled with people-pleasing; as soon as someone gets upset with me I feel genuine terror, so I would try to avoid it as much as possible. I brought it up once and she said she didn't even realize she did it; the fact that she knew that about me and subconsciously made sure to try not to scare me was such a huge thing I loved about her. I was very used to people taking advantage of the fact that I was bad with boundaries, etc so having her act so comforting towards me with seemingly no ill intentions made me fall really deeply for her.
All of this changed last year- mostly in the summer but it kind of all started with her sleeping through our Valentines Day date. I couldn't even name everything she did but the main theme is that she let her insecurities get ahold of her. She would get upset with me over my clothing choices (stuff like shorts and a t-shirt in summer; it felt really reminiscent to victim blaming, like I must want sex if I wear shorts), literally just having friends, she'd snap at me all the time when she was slightly frustrated over her games (remember what I said earlier), literally anything became a reason for her to get horrifically angry at me. It was around this time that I decided to look into her prior dating history more and I learned pretty quickly that she used to be a serial cheater in different relationships (although her partners were really badly abusive and they cheated first, so I didn't think of it as a dealbreaker). She stopped reassuring me or speaking to me nicely, and also had a really big issue of doing things "back" (if I did anything that made her insecure, she'd do it 10x worse instead of talking to me about it). I mentioned having a side Reddit account once (this one) and she made a private Twitter and added all of her friends onto it except for me, and didn't tell me about it, just posted screenshots of it until I put 2 and 2 together. She also got upset after finding out that the person that groomed me is a trans girl (she's a trans girl too) and would ask me questions about whether I liked her (MY GROOMER!!!!!!!!) better. She'd do this stuff and then, when questioned about it, start agreeing with me and calling herself "undateable", etc, so I'd reassure her that she wasn't and ask her to "carry" the relationship for a bit since I thought she understood my side; by this I just meant being extra nice to me for a week or so (like when dudes get in a fight with their girlfriend and buy them flowers and talk to them more sweetly for awhile, not anything crazy), but I never really got that from her. Everything came to a head when she texted me saying she "couldn't do this anymore" and sent me a bunch of screenshots of her friendgroup telling her I was "just like her exes", "a master manipulator" etc. Their main reasons for the accusations were that I was "too secretive" (which I really don't think is true; I tend to want some baseline privacy in a relationship but she didn't even allow me that much- she'd join any public Discord servers I mentioned being in and told her I'd rather she didn't join on alts, etc, and even told me the stuff she'd find me saying wasn't bad and she was happy about it) and "accuse her of cheating too much", which.. Really. My side was honestly mostly just asking for reassurance since she completely stopped giving me it, her side was literally driving me to cut off all of my friends other than four people because I was scared she'd get upset with me again and also led to feel intense guilt for talking to. This whole thing also happened within a month of both my most recent suicide attempt (I had been going through a lot) and my parents wanting to kick me out (my mom is very mentally unwell and convinced herself that I had been prostituting myself- definitely not true to any degree. It got to the point where I had someone I decided to stay with and all my bags were packed). We didn't end up breaking up at this point.
So, fast forward to this year. She stopped doing a lot of the worse behaviors directly but we've still been fighting. My dad had been getting sicker and sicker- he already was pretty bad but he refused to see a doctor because my mom convinced him doctors are evil, the government made COVID in a lab!!!!, etc. It got to the point where he was slurring all his words, hallucinating, and unable to stand, and my mom called my out-of-state uncle who called an ambulance. I was, obviously, on my uncle's side, my mom was hysterical saying that the hospital is going to kill him and I'm with them, but my dad was stable at least. It turned out he had multiple small strokes. They did bloodwork and he's HIV+. They ended up diagnosing him with AIDs and dementia.
My relationship with my dad is very, very, very complicated. He was always the "better" parent but a horrible parent on his own. He'd agree with me in private but defend my mom whenever she was in the room, and as her mental health got worse he believed everything she told him. He used to tell me he'd leave her and take me with him, that he knew she was horrible and he never wanted her to do what she did to me, etc, but he still supported her. When things got bad between us he was a perpetrator as well. More recently he stopped trying to appeal to me at all and just entirely took her side on everything. I couldn't deal with any of it- I didn't have a room for a long, long time (I think until I was 15 or 16?) but as soon as I got one I just started locking myself in all day. I love my dad, but all he ever did was disappoint me. I couldn't bear to see him let himself get destroyed by my mom, and I just kind of decided not to- so this situation has been fucking me UP. He's currently fully conscious, my uncle flew over for a bit and had to fly back since he has kids but my dad fully took my mom's side, is refusing medications, etc. My mom and my uncle have been fighting over me constantly. I don't really want to do any of this shit but I have to, because as much as my dad let me down I don't want him to die. I was in the hospital all day and night for the first few days, I had to sleep on the benches in the emergency room waiting room since my dad was in a male room and they wouldn't allow me to stay past visiting hours. I was constantly pulling aside doctors and nurses and telling them to listen to me because my mom was trying to convince them he was just in there because he was "exhausted" or "wouldn't eat enough" and constantly lying about his condition. My uncle has good intentions but he's kind of heavy handed with certain stuff; he wants me to move in with him (I want to as well but you can imagine it's a tricky situation) and he always asks me to choose a side when they fight. My mom has been trying to convince me he's a rapist- I usually try to believe victims, but she also tried to tell me that I'm a prostitute, and she's definitely not a reliable person to listen to. I'm kind of just at an in-between where I don't believe her but I can't feel fully comfortable around him either since I have some bad past experiences surrounding that kind of thing.
About four days after my dad got hospitalized (?) and about a week and a half before my 19th birthday, my girlfriend texts me to tell me she's too exhausted to be with me anymore. The main reason was that I was constantly upset between the way the relationship was going and my dad being in the hospital. We worked something out but it's just been downhill since then, I can't be upset around her over anything without her turning it into a fight (literally while I am in the middle of crying, about how I get upset too much). As for the more recent weeks, she has completely stopped giving me ANYTHING- forget reassurance, she barely says I love you anymore, responds to long text messages with one sentence, etc. Her justification for this is that she feels unsafe with me. Her reasoning for this is:

1. I have had a habit of liking posts that made her insecure. This is where the lack of looks-based attraction comes in. I tend to like posts without really thinking about it too much, and sometimes I like thirst traps without realizing, since I'm not someone that thirsts after people like that. If I see someone in a cool outfit dancing it's going to be hard for me to say "this is a thirst trap" because I'm not thinking about it like that, I'm just going to see it and think "wow, cool outfit" and like the post. Then she'll see it and get upset with me. This is something I've been working on and cut down to a large degree, but certain stuff gets past me (photoshoots with a set concept, etc). She has tried to tell me that I DO actually experience looks-based attraction, which is kind of crazy because I know what I experience so she can't convince me otherwise ??? I don't know. I've also told her to send me any post that I liked that makes her insecure so I can learn what I have to look out for better, but she doesn't really do that, and I can't really know what'll make her upset unless she tells me. This is also an issue that SHE HAS AS WELL
   
2. She looked through one of my friend's followings and found a bunch of model's accounts, and says it's disrespectful that I "hang out with porn addicts". She plays Osu and is active in the community. Also has an issue with another one of my friends that I met on a Roblox bar game (she has worded it like I was literally giving out my contact at a real life bar, which I would understand being uncomfortable with, but dude it's literally Roblox). Also considers it a huge breach of trust that I mentioned getting gender envy from a Twitter mutual (I know how chronically online all of this sounds and I'm sorry). She'll ask me "isn't that a trans girl", "are they assigned male at birth" about my friends which is kind of just crazy? I don't know. I don't have a history of serially dating trans women or anything like that other than the groomer (which I don't think should count??????????) and I used to identify as lesbian for years- most of my exes are FTM and transitioned after dating me, which also shouldn't really matter??? I just think her fixation on me cheating on her with someone that's AMAB is kind of weird and unprompted
   

So I'm at a point where any time I ask her for ANYTHING it's just met with the response of her not being comfortable with me anymore. I can't hang out with any of my friends without her looking through their whole history and finding something about them that makes me "basically a cheater" for befriending them. I had to distance myself from a very close friend because of her once because he said "it's like we're one and the same" to me, and that if we went to a shitty hangout spot he'd still enjoy it "because it's me". She tells me to this day that remembering this stuff makes her physically sick but it truly was just innocent friendly conversation- we're both South Asian, like a lot of the same games, and have issues with abusive parents so we got along really well, and that was also why he said the thing about us being similar. I've been asking her over and over what I can do to make her feel better but she won't give me an answer.
She also told me today that I was bringing up her sexual trauma and that she's currently repulsed by the idea of sex altogether- I asked her why and she said it was because of the reasons I gave above. I'm at a loss. I'm clearly very fed up with this whole thing but I still am attached to her and love her a lot, and I definitely don't think I can go through a breakup right now with everything else going on in my life, even though you could argue it's like we already broke up. I really just don't know. It's been horrible watching her go from the perfect partner to this huge ball of insecurity and I don't know how to fix it nor how to let go. I don't have a lot of options, either- I've been almost completely socially isolated since I was a middle schooler, my parents pulled me out of public school and had me doing dual enrollment community college/homeschool. I don't have a strong support system at all, I can't get a therapist, I'm not allowed to get a job, the list just goes on and on and everything kind of just points to me being fucked

So this is probably going to be long but i’m going to try and give as much info as possible because im at a loss and need advice. my fiancé (28M) and i (25F) have been together going on 7 years. we have had a rocky couple of years together due to substance abuse issues on his end. i spent about 2 years of our relationship fighting with him and pleading with him to get help and to please be better. i spent countless nights crying myself to sleep, driving around trying to find him, fighting with him till all hours of the night,verbal and mental abuse, fighting with other people to protect him, etc. it got to the point where i was not taking care of my health (T1D) and i was losing a lot of weight (20 ish pounds maybe more) and i was not doing well at work, i hadn’t seen my family or friends, i was dying. i made excuses for him because he had lost his dad recently and i knew he was hurting. i made excuses bc i had lost a previous long term boyfriend before him to an OD, i felt like i couldn’t give up on him. fast forward he got better. he got sobered up and now doesn’t hardly drink besides socially or on occasion. he has been apologetic about the way he was before and he has treated me better. he takes care of me and helps me in ways no one else ever has. since things were going so well and i finally felt like our lives were back to where they should be we decided to start planning our wedding. our wedding is in 5 months and i’m panicking and debating on calling it off. we’ve spent well over 15k on this wedding though and it is my dream to spend my life with him but i don’t know if it’s truly the right thing to do. my heart says he’s the one and i love him but my brain is telling me to run. as fast as i fucking can. we’ve gotten into a few tiffs but nothing really as bad as this recently. monday night i came home and he was shit faced. i had an awful day at work and was exhusted and realized that since he had been home from work for 4 hours before me he didn’t do a single thing, not any dishes, put away laundry, make the bed, nothing at all. i don’t expect him to do these things all the time but i do expect a helping hand during the week since i work 2 jobs to support us and he just recently went back to work after losing several jobs due to his attendance. i have spent since last september being the bread winner while he jumped from job to job. anyway, when i got home i snapped at him and asked what on earth has he been doing for hours that he couldn’t just help me out a little bit with things in the house? i know i shouldn’t have snapped but i didn’t yell or swear i was just clearly angry and had a negstive angry tone. but he just looked at me and said “after everything i fucking do for you you want to act like this? fuck u” and slammed the door and left. i could then hear him on the phone with his friend talking badly about me. he went to our basement and played video games and continued to drink. me being the moron i am went down there to see what he was doing and we just ended up going back and forth because the second i opened my mouth to ask him why he was drinking and what is going on he started SCREAMING at me to get the fuck away from him annd then asking his friend if he could hear how fucking crazy i was. i eventually left. he stayed up too late and was clearly hung over so he couldn’t work his full shift, mind you this is his 3rd day at his new job. he claims it’s bc he rolled his ankle at work… he was walking fine and i didn’t see a single bruise or swelling on his ankle but ok. so the next day i texted him while he was home and i was at work basically saying i cannot do this shit again and i will not stay with him if i have to come home to him drunk again like i did for so long and i lost myself doing so. he pretty much just focused on the fact that it was my fault it escalated bc i came home and was being mean. i just feel like he could have just apologized for not helping out and just comforted me so i could calm down and maybe we could have put the laundry away together? he didn’t have to scream at me and say hurtful things right? idk. so i get home from work that day and he pretty much didn’t want to talk bc he was tired so he went to sleep and i cried myself to sleep lol. he did tell me i was immature for acting like this and im an adult and i need to get it together. so today is now wednesday. i text him while he is at work and so am i, expressing how i feel and that im really hurt. i also told him what my expectations are and if he can’t meet them then we need to call off the wedding. he responded with one word answers and then told me that our relationship is not to be talked about over text so he wasn’t going to read it and i should know that he hates reading long messages. in the past i’ve tried to call him about stuff to talk and work out and he screams so loud i either have to hang up or he just hangs up on me. so i came home today and tried to talk to him in person about all this. i wanted him to know that bc of my mental health issues (BPD, PTSD, and OCD) that i know im difficult sometimes but i am very sensitive so i really need him to try harder to not do and say the things he knows trigger me. 5 minutes into the convo he tried to turn the tv on while i was talking and told me he didn’t want to talk and he was done and i need to let it go. i was talking calmly and nice the entire time. i just wanted to feel heard. he started to scream at this point and cry like actually cry and jumped up and started to walk away and i just lost it and told him i wanted to break up. i said a lot of mean things to him that’s crossed a lot of lines and i shouldn’t have said but he just kept calling me crazy and dismissing me and it made me feel so small my reaction is to be as mean as i can to him so he hurts the way i am hurting . of course now i am the bad guy. the conversation got no where and i wasn’t able to even get to what the main topic was, before he started freaking out. Also he was screaming the entire time. which is one of my triggers due to childhood abuse. i feel so unloved right now and i don’t see a way out. i feel hopeless. should i have not brought it up and just stopped talking when he asked? please be kind i really need help and im embarrassed and ashamed of the situation.

I held the package close, its precious contents pressed against my spine. The steady beeps that communicated life drove my exhausted legs forward. Even with the combat stimulants running rampant through my blood, my nervous system bringing fibrous polymer muscles to their brink, and a set of assisting servos practically tripling my stride speed, I was exhausted. The sun and its rays bared down on me like a predatory dragon, each ray a fang made of flame, ready to tear open my suit and scorch my skin…but not today.
“Not today!”
I picked my stride up and sent every muscle in my body past overdrive, I tore stone and sand as I sprinted farther forward and collapsed. I had finally made it to one of the only rations of shade on the desolate moon surface. As I hit the ground and retreated into the shade, I removed the pack from my shoulders and gently laid the box down. I opened the zipper that held the sunshade on and looked at the pale figure inside.
“Hello my love, I hope you’re resting well, we finally made it, now just time to wait…and you'll be better again”
I took my helmet off and took a deep breath before beginning to set up camp. I thought back to the mission room, where I was nearly denied entry to Io
“You understand the journey you’re undertaking has never been completed before? This is a mission that as of this moment has a 100% rate of failure. Do you not think it would be wiser to simply say your goodbyes and prepare for a life without her?”
I shook my head as the council stared at me with tired expressions and pained eyes
“I am three times decorated am I not?”
The head minister nodded and shuffled her papers, reading slowly from the top page
“Argon Lethius, 12 tours, 7 rotations, 153 confirmed neutralizations, 3000 pending, strength record unmatched, augmentations class S granted. You’re also the sole surviving candidate of the sky petal program”
The sky petal program, an experimental research project I had taken part in to pay for my wedding. The core concept was simple: graft photovoltaic cells onto our skin and use nanotechnology to create a bio-mechanical ecosystem within the dermis.
The result was going to be humans capable of photosynthesis, making us less susceptible to nutrition based disaster. Rejection however was high in the program and when your body is trying to fight its skin, things get ugly quickly. A dormant gene I had passed on from my mother allowed my body to accept the prosthesis but at great cost, I was now essentially allergic to solar radiation. When I'm planetside I'm just fine, but if I was in an area devoid of atmosphere, the nanotech would go overkill, usually producing energy akin to solar flares from my skin.
“Mr. Lethius, your feats and skills are unmatched, your circumstances are impossible to reproduce and the dedication you’ve shown to this coalition has been unwavering. Which is why we sympathize with your loss, and grieve with you. Crystal was-”
I snapped at her
“Is…she’s still alive”
The minister nodded and corrected herself
“I'm sorry, Crystal is an incredible addition to this council, and we are deeply sorry both internally and externally. But the dragons of Io have no official record, and the sunlight alone could overcharge you in a day, leaving not only our best military asset but also his sick wife stranded without hope of rescue”
I nodded and spoke solemnly
“3 days supply, and a ship to drop me off, if I don't respond in 4 days, come get my body and bury her where we fall. She loves it there. Even if I can't save her, I want her to rest somewhere she would be happy”
I snapped back to the present and finished setting up camp. Unpacking our supplies and connecting a set of solar panels to her cryo-chamber. I watched her take deep breaths through the ventilator as I threw a tarp overhead and began digging into the rockface.
“You’ll be ok my love, by this time tomorrow you’ll be your old self again”
I dug for hours, tearing holes in my suit and flaying the skin from my fingers. As my blood hit the white dirt and stained the cracked surface, I felt a degree of nausea rise up from my stomach. Saliva filled my dry mouth and I bit down on my tongue to prevent the vomit. Bile reached the back of my throat and I dug my fingers into the dirt, searching for the Will to resist my body’s urges. The sun couldn’t take me, my mind couldn’t shake me, I would not buckle before saving her. Before long I couldn't go on, and I needed to rest.
I swallowed hard and sat back, laying down and looking up at the harsh sky.
“Hindsight is 20/20, we can keep trying new things but sometimes this is just how things work out, I’m sorry”
I nodded as the doctor left the room and she sat motionless in her gown.
“That guy didn’t know what he was talking about, there’s so many treatments, we’ll just go to another doctor”
She brushed a strand of hair out of her face and looked up at me
“I’m tired of my love, can we go home?”
I nodded without speaking and embraced her, feeling her slow and weakened heartbeat against my chest, its rhythm in sync with my own.
“Sure, We’ll go home”
That was the last time I saw her awake, she fell asleep on the car ride home…and never woke up. I was able to bring her to the hospital where they revived her, but she was comatose, most likely asleep till the cancer kills her.
“I’m sorry my love”
I looked over at her chamber before bringing my hand up to my face and staring at the mangled flesh of my palms.
“A drop of blood for a question, a thousand heartbeats for an answer”
I heard the voice in my head as if it was a thought I had formulated all on my own, but the voice was different, it didn’t belong to me nor anyone I had ever heard before.
“A single tear for a favor, an entire ocean for its completion”
I crawled to the spot where my blood had dripped into the ground, the sand was stained red but almost completely dry. I leaned over it and thought about my honeymoon, I thought about vacations and work, time together and apart, moments where she was everything. I thought about the idea of my life without her, and then it came like a flood. Tears flowed freely from my eyes and drenched the ground, the first falling square on the red stain in the sand. The liquid pooled on top and a small ribbon of crimson fluid flowed upward into the tear drop. The ribbon danced and waved in a thin line through the microscopic ocean.
“What is your question?”
The voice came from above me now, and as I slowly looked upward, a loomed overhead, blocking the sun from view, and causing my heart to skip a beat.
“What…is your question”
Before me now stood a massive beast, speaking in the voice I had heard in my mind and digging his gargantuan claws into the sand. The tip of each toe ended in a blade that was crystalline and almost translucent. Each blade too had a glowing orange stripe that when shifted, turned the sand underneath him to panes of glass. His arms were broad and powerful, covered in green scales and his maw hung open with a light blue mist emanating from his teeth. He was the dragon, the one from Io who space gods told legends about.
“I…I want to know something about my wife”
He knelt down on his two front arms and brought his eyes to my level, a kindness flowing between his seemingly infinite pupils.
“Your wife. She is a story I myself cannot seem to get over. What do you wish to know?”
I looked up at him and let out a deep breath before gesturing to her
“Can- can she be saved”
His gaze snapped to her case and he slowly moved over to where she slept
“You brought her with you, of course you did, you could never leave her behind.
I crawled over and knelt next to him, tears still flowing from my eyes.
“Please tell me, can she make it?”
He turned around and knelt next to me, putting a massive hand gently on my shoulder and speaking softly.
“My boy, She’s already made it, just not in the direction…you were hoping”
He tapped the monitor screen and it stopped showing vitals, instead displaying a digital sign in dark red letters. I read them aloud to myself.
“Subject deceased, time since last recorded activity. 37 hours 22 minutes 48-49 seconds”
He nodded and spoke calmly
“You wanted to badly for her to live, you saw her living, even when she wasn’t”
I slammed my hand on the crate and opened the lid, picking her up in my arms and putting my ear to her chest.
“Come on, come on. You’re ok, you’re ok”
I clutched her in my arms as silence arrived to my ears. I rocked her and cried into her soft silken hair. Her pale skin had lost its glimmer and I pressed my forehead against her own. I spoke through tears and a tightened throat
‘No, she cant die, I found you! I finally found you! Come on sweetheart you’re ok right? Just wake up. He's here baby we made it, please just wake up, please”
The dragon loomed over head and let out a deep breath, speaking gently, so as not to disturb the silence
“She is gone, and even I cannot save her”
I felt my skin begin flaming as I turned my head back up toward him
“Then what can you do? What can you do if you can’t bring her back to me? Why are you a legend if you cant make her breath again?!?”
He whispered softly into her ears and I felt the wind of the world around me change
“Because I can send you to her”
The planet fell silent and she disappeared along with the dragon. The camp was gone, my hand had been healed, my suit was gone and instead I wore a thin white shirt and loose cotton shorts. I was comfortable, and as I stood to my feet I felt as if my thirst had been quenched, my hunger satiated, I was…ok.
“Hello?”
I called to the emptiness, and before long a soft sullen voice spoke back.
“Hello darling”
She took my face in her hands and turned me around, holding my cheek as my whole body shook
“Hi beautiful”
I brought my hand up to her own and felt her soft warm skin against mine, I pressed my head into her hand and leapt forward, bringing her close and up into the air as I spun her around. She laughed as I gently set her down and wrapped my arms around her.
“I’m sorry you can’t stay”
I looked at her and spoke quickly
“What do you mean I can’t stay? The dragon sent me to you, he sent me to see you, so we can be together again”
She shook her head and kissed my softly, as she pulled away she put her hand on my chest
“It’s not your time hero, I’ll see you eventually, but this is goodbye for now”
I woke up on the sand, the dragon standing over me, holding her body as she began to slowly turn to dust. His tears fell on her degrading body as he handed her to me, and lowered his head.
“I'm sorry, it’s never permanent, did she tell you goodbye?”
I took a deep breath and held her in my arms before walking a few paces forward, and laying her down on the sand. I spoke calmly as tears streamed down my face.
“Yea…she did”
He nodded
“That is more than most get, was she smiling?’
I wiped my eyes and laughed
“Yea…she was”
He fluffed his wings and let the world around us grow heavy with winds
“Then your mission is complete”
I continued to cry as I looked back at him and spoke in a wavering tone
“Did you know I was a general?”
He strolled over and sat next to me, watching her particles flow away with the storm
“You were the most powerful general of all time, incapacitating but never killing, for a man with your rank one must usually commit vast atrocities but you…you never took one life”
I nodded and watched the wind whip and carry sand alongside her body
“I didn’t want to take life, I was reprimanded over and over but I always knew there was a better way, she wanted me to try, to make it so at every opportunity we could fight without ending lives…she hated senseless death…and I think I see why now”
He spoke calmly, wiping his eyes as the last of her bones turned to crystalline dust in the wind
“Her death was not senseless, in fact you'll find that when something as beautiful as her dies, it becomes impossible to make sense of it. That does not mean it happened without sense, and it does not mean her death must be for nothing. When men first meet me, they offer a drop of blood, and that is all I require for the question, but to gain my favor, they must give up a piece of themselves”
I sighed and looked up at him
“What do you need from me then?”
He gestured to where her body had sat moments ago
“You just let the biggest piece of yourself go without a fight. You have paid for more than enough trips to see her”
I nodded and spoke without waiver
“I'm not supposed to keep visiting her though, am I? She won’t be happy till we see eachother again permanently, and if I show up prematurely…she would probably be pissed. So ,I guess now I just live?”
He laid down in the sand and let out a deep groan
“I don’t think I’ve lived in quite some time, I’ve been stranded here for so long, evading capture to exist within my freedom, too afraid to face the cosmos again”
I patted his side and gripped what was essentially his ankle
“You shouldn’t be afraid, fear doesn’t do anything for men like us. Maybe we should sit a while, and see if your fear doesn’t go away”
He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes, laying down as I watched the sun rise over the horizon. My heartbeat continued, but as I watched the last of her ashes swirl through the air, I found a modicum of peace, and I thought about her.

Discussion prompts:

1. Any thoughts on Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross’ back and forth?
2. Were you satisfied with the description on the wedding scene? Were there any details missing that you would’ve liked to have known?
3. Dr. Manette has relapsed back to his former prisoner self. Any idea what’s going on with him?
4. How do you get yourself out of a funk?
5. Will Pross and Lorry snap the doctor out of it before Lucie returns, or is she the only antidote for him?
6. Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?

Links:
Project Gutenberg
Standard eBook
Librivox Audiobook
Last Line:

but he could not fail to observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening.

My husband and I were at a hotel with our (late, R.I.P.) cocker spaniel. He wasn't that big, just a foot high at the withers and about 20 pounds but stocky AF. 😂 We also know our dog. For whatever effed up reason people like to pet a strange dog by reaching with their hand, palm side down, to pet their forehead. While SOME dogs are amendable to that, not ALL dogs are, and our dog was one of them. If you did that to him he'd snap at you. He's got trauma from his puppyhood and is not at all trusting, certainly not from folks he doesn't know and are essentially "swatting" him with their "paw" when they reach out that way.
I don't remember why, but I was carrying our dog as we exited our hotel room to leave, either maybe take the dog out, go for a walk, whatever, that's not important. What is important is what happened next.
I step out onto the hallway of the hotel and my husband is right behind me, I'm carrying our dog. A boomer couple was walking down the hallway when they saw our dog. Now, he was a real cutie. (Dog tax.) I'm a dog lover and I want to pet ALL the dogs but I don't just do so without asking permission first.
So the boomer wife squeals, "Awww! What a cute dog!" She moves forward with her hand out (palm down as described above, reaching to pet his forehead). My husband quickly says, "Please don't touch our dog." Our fear was that he'd bite someone and we'd have real issues on our .. "paws."
Do you think the boomer wife listened? No.
She moves even fucking faster towards our dog and right before she actually gets to him, and since I'm carrying him I can hear his low growl in his chest, I turn my whole body so my back is to her and she doesn't get to pet my dog.
Boomer husband decides to go to her defense and say angrily, "She's just being friendly!" referring to his wife. My husband piped up and said, "We told you NOT to pet OUR dog." (emphasizing these words)
Right as boomer husband was about to say anything I piped up, "Didn't your parents teach you any manners about NOT touching things that aren't yours?"
This stunned them both, boomer husband was literally left speechless with his mouth agape. She muttered something about "rude millennials" (ha! We're Gen-Xers) when I muttered loudly, "The ENTITLEMENT of some people towards other people's property is fucking rude AF" to my husband.
The five of us ended up at the elevator. 😂 I was still carrying my dog when it was obvious boomer husband was trying to get the elevator to leave us when I held out an arm to hold the door and my husband and I both stepped in. Fuck them if they think they can intimidate us.
And no, she never got to pet our dog. Because fuck her. Had she asked NICELY we would have taught her how to approach our dog.
I FUCKING SWEAR boomers have ZERO boundaries when it comes to their entitlement.

Thank you for reading my post. I made a throwaway account to write it for obvious reasons.
My husband has treated me a certain way for a very long time. I've struggled with it and brought it up in the past but he's never changed. We are in a stretch where this behavior has been more frequent and I'm trying so hard to get it to stop. I classified it as abusive recently and he got so mad at me about it and is telling me it has all been my fault. I need some help. I just need someone impartial to share their input on the situation and help me understand if I'm right or wrong.
The behavior itself is common amongst all the various incidents. It includes yelling and name calling, saying all the worst possible things about me that he can come up with, following me around the house continuing after I've asked him to stop and getting more and more aggressive the more I try to run away or get him to stop. There is typically no physical threats or physical contact except in a few circumstances.
We've been together 7 years, married 2 and this behavior has been prevalent the entire time.
The incidents are all different but result in this exact same behavior. I'm going to list some of the premises below and then some things that may have been unique about that specific outburst.
After we had been in a relationship for a little there was a time we went to a going away party for a work friend of mine and there were a lot of guys there. He started acting a little different, drinking heavy and when we got home the first outburst started. He had me on the couch and was standing over me screaming incessantly with what basically became jibberish, screaming for screaming's sake. He wouldn't stop, would listen to me just screamed.
Another was after a work party of mine, black tie event fun night he drank a lot and then it was the same thing when we got home, yelling and refusing to stop.
At a friend of mine's wedding I was a bridesmaid in he got really bad. Again a lot of drinking and a huge group of us ended up at a bar. I was at the bar getting drinks and a random guy probably said a total of 5 words to me while I was standing there. I get back to him with his drink and he looked mad. He snapped at me and then spend the rest of the evening out drunkenly telling all my friends about how he would hurt that random guy if he saw him again. Get back to the hotel room and this was the worst one by far. He was standing over me on the bed yelling and pushing me, not letting me get up and pushing more when I curled up into a ball. It went on and on and on, I left the room at one point to let him cool and came back later and it started right back up to the point someone in the room next door was banging on the wall.
On an international vacation we were at a bar on our last day sitting together just he and I. A guy sat down next to me and just started chatting up idle conversation. I look over and my husband is staring at his plate of food in dead silence. His attitude changed that moment and he was laxidasical leaving the bar and on the way to the airbnb and then the yelling and anger started. Again he wouldn't stop, I ended up locked in the 2nd bedroom to stay away from him.
On another vacation he acted the same way and I ended up locking myself in the 2nd room again although this time what upset him was that I went to the beach without him while he was out shopping.
We bought a house together and moved in at some point during all of this and the times it happened at home are too many to count but I'm going to list a few more.
One time he was mad I wasn't in the mood for sex and he stormed around the bedroom yelling, stood over me in bed pushing me, followed me around the house yelling when I got up to get away from him. There were a lot of similar incidents that seemed to be about sex or him telling me he felt like I rejected him.
One time he was mad I was reading my kindle instead of spending time with him and went off on me the same way, yelling non stop, saying the worst things he could think of, chasing me around the house when I tried to get away, getting more aggressive the harder I tried to get away. There were a lot of other similar times where I'd be doing a hobby and he would act this way.
One time I went on a weekend trip with my sister, he told me to text him when I got there and I forgot to and he spent the entire weekend sending me angry texts even though I kept asking him to stop. This wasn't the exact same as the rest, but the unwillingness to stop and aggressiveness were similar and it stuck out in my mind.
Recently we were out watching his uncles band with his family having a good night, drinking, even had a good ride home together singing songs and then he just flipped. Same stuff with the yelling and following me around the house refusing to stop. This time I grabbed his lapel and screamed at him to stop. He let me walk away then came down to the basement where I went to get away from him and told me that if I touched him in anger like that again he'd kill me. I took this one hard but he keeps telling me it was my fault because I touched him, but I only grabbed on to his shirt and yelled for him to stop.
A couple weeks later he was working and the neighbors invited me over for a bonfire. I let him know where I was, invited him to come over and told him I didn't know when I'd be home. He was tired from work and didn't want to come. I got home around 2am, sat on the couch and ended up falling asleep there. In the morning I woke up to him screaming at me, calling me names and then storming out the door. I come to find out he had called all the neighbors in the middle of the night to see where I was but never came to look on the couch. He spent the rest of the morning sending me angry texts.
I went to go see my nephew's concert and was hanging out in the audience with my brother and SIL. SIL and I made plans for a girls day at our house that weekend because my husband was going fishing. I told my brother if he came over he could go fishing with my husband (my brother wasn't going to actually come). I text my husband about it before the concert started to let him know what I told my brother and he sent me angry texts during the concert and then when I got home he was immediately yelling. Again chasing me around the house, again not stopping when I begged, standing over me in bed while trying to sleep yelling and yelling.
This is just some of them but the theme of the yelling and not stopping and chasing me around is the same. We are generally happy outside of these outbursts and sometimes they just come out of left field like the night he threatened to kill me. He blames them all on me, something I did wrong or a way I acted that caused it. But they are all different things, and his reaction is the same thing and all I ever ask him to do is stop and to not act like that again but he never stops and it always happens again. I told him it was almost like abuse and he's been mad at me about it for a week straight now.
Can all of you impartial people out there just let me know if I'm right in calling this abuse?

Chapter CC
​
Trout's Landing.
​
Ruby stretched with a contented sigh. She turned her head over to where Jeb slept beside her. Or where he was when she fell asleep. She sat up and looked around the dark underground room but he wasn't here either.
"Wonder where he went."
​
Oh well, she thought as she stretched a few stiff muscles before hopping up and collecting their eggs. As nice as it was to sleep with them, they needed more consistent warmth. So she sat them to the side, bundled up in the still warm blanket, and departed to secure a source of fire for their eggs.
​
Which wasn't all that hard, she realized as her dark vision faded as the blue glow from the torches up ahead illuminated the main gathering area for the burrows. She smiled as she saw the tribe return to something familiar that she missed seeing for a while.
​
Several tunnels branched off towards the other cabins and already kobolds came and went from them as they began to migrate away from the chill air above for the, still cool but more comfortable, air below. As they did she could see the collections they brought back and forth. Animals, alive and dressed, were being moved down here and out of the elements for better care. As well as an easier time keeping the ever gluttonous salamanders from sneaking another meal. Scraps and salvage collected from around the lodge or while out exploring being brought down and being traded or even used to furnish the space.
​
Bits of wood with simple carvings were lodged into the dirt along side scraps of metal or rock with soot, mud, or crushed flower pigment to paint symbols or words on them for decoration or directions. While it wasn't the bustling forum that they once had, it gladdened her to see her tribe returning to normalcy once again.
​
She shook away the distracting thoughts and set her sights on some scrap of wood nearby. She darted over to the vendor, deftly avoiding a section of the ground being dug up as the kobolds dug ever deeper as they sought to expand their burrows ever more. It was in their nature to dig and burrow. While they no longer had a draconic master to excavate massive caverns and tunnels for, she wouldn't be surprised if kobold tunnels ended up expanding far past the border of the lodge itself and going far into the wild where they knew nothing about save for what little Jeb has told them.
​
Eventually, even this gathering area will be abandoned as the tribe moved deeper down, putting as much dirt and rock between them and whatever threats laid above. The only thing that would remain would be an assortment of traps to keep any invaders wary of going deeper than the kobolds wanted. Even then, many of the tunnels that would lead deeper would be dead-ends meant to slow or hinder any invader. Some would even be traps in and of themselves, collapsing the "tunnel" on top of even the most cautious of invader or even just blocking their escape and leaving them to die before the kobolds eventually dug out their remains and collected their gear with no trouble.
​
She stood before the assortment of wood and looked over the scrap. Some of it was processed lumber that looked to be from the buildings above, most was collected bits of wood from the forest though. Which was fine, she didn't need anything too big. No bartering took place. She was a leader of the tribe and it was assumed whatever she wanted was for the good of the tribe.
​
Even starting a warming fire for her eggs was good enough for the tribe to skip bartering and simply give her what she needed. So she collected enough wood for a nice fire and returned to her home. She sorted it into the indent in the ground that Jeb had placed their eggs in before. It would be a good place to start a heating fire for them, she thought as she finished arranging them.
​
She left and collected some tinder made of dried moss and grass before looking around for some stone or flint to start the fire with. But no such luck. All the stone was deeply imbedded in the dirt or was too large. She once more returned to the gathering area in search of fire. Which she quickly found in the form of the glowing blue fire that Jeb had created for the kobolds.
​
She shuffled a little as she stared at the dancing flame. She knew Jeb didn't like the idea of the kobolds using the blue fire. He probably wouldn't like the idea of heating their eggs with it either. She should be worried as well, she thought. But she wasn't. Staring at the flame reminded her of the vision that The Crone showed her. Of her and Jeb within a ring of flaming blue orbs. They were happy. The tribe was happy.
​
"He'll understand." She said as she darted and collected a piece of wood to transfer a spark from a nearby torch.
​
Ember in hand, she rushed back to her home. She gently eased the flame towards the bundle of wood. She yipped in shock when the flame leapt from her temporary torch and engulfed the pile! Their room burst into dancing shadows as the flames danced from their new home. So pretty, she thought as she stared at the fire. She had seen it when she would come out of their room in the old building for a break. But it seemed so mesmerizing now that it was right in front of her.
​
She widened the indent in the ground a little so that the eggs could receive the warmth from the fire without being too close. They might be mildly resistant to fire, but not enough to throw their eggs in a fire! Then again, she thought with worry as she held her claw out at the fire. The warmth from it isn't as strong as a normal fire it seemed. Like it was contained.
​
She clicked her claws in worry. She didn't want to push them too close, but they wouldn't get enough heat if they remained where they were. It would only get worse as it got colder and the cold seeped into the ground. Maybe just a little closer, she thought as she nudged the eggs closer to the fire.
​
The flames sputtered at the movement of air, but nothing more. She held out her claw to gauge the temperature once again. But it still wasn't enough, she thought as she clicked her claws against a nearby stone in thought. She cast a glance towards the tunnel. She could maybe see if one of the others have something to make a proper fire, she thought.
​
She put a claw on the eggs.
"No. That'll take too long."
​
She looked worryingly at the tunnel as if Jeb would appear and lambast her for even thinking what she was. She held her breath and pushed the eggs forwards. Then more. Then even more. The flames sputtered and danced as the eggs were pushed closer and closer. She could only just feel the heat as she did so. Why did the fire seem so weak, she thought as she pushed the eggs right up beside the bundle of burning wood.
​
Yet the fire seemed to move around the eggs, like they were doing their best to avoid touching them. Even the heat from the fire seemed to be avoiding them! Ruby growled in frustration and pushed the eggs right into the fire!
"Can you just keep them warm?!"
​
The fire stilled and froze as the eggs were pushed into it. As if it didn't know what to do. Then the flame roared to life once again. The balefire caressed the onyx shells as it seemed to dance across the smooth black surface of the shells. As if a barrier broke, the heat from the flame radiated outwards now. Ruby could now feel the warmth from the fire where seconds ago she felt nothing.
​
Ruby blinked at the eldritch flame and moved her claw to touch her eggs. She instinctively pulled back as a tongue of balefire arced in her direction. She whined in worry at possibly making a terrible mistake. She held her breath and once more reached out to caress her eggs. She bit her tongue and shut her eyes when the fire arced towards her once more.
​
But she didn't feel pain. No burning sensation one would get when normally sticking an appendage into a roaring fire. Instead she felt a comforting warmth. Like she felt when close to Jeb as they slept together. She cracked open an eye and found the baleful flame caressing her claw. She experimented a little by pulling her claw back, feeling as the flame seemed to latch on like it didn't want her to leave, before snapping back to its "body". She pushed her claw into the fire, further this time, all the way up to her elbow. The fire latched onto her once again and flooded her with a comforting warmth that shot straight to her core!
​
She turned her claw upwards and pulled back once more. She watched as the flame held on as she did so, once more refusing to leave her scales. She watched as the flame snapped once again, but this time, it broke! Instead of snapping back towards its body, she now held a burning ball of balefire in her claw!
​
She couldn't do magic. There were few of the tribe that could before they fled to this world. The Chief was the last among them that had any ability to harness it. Yet here she was, holding a magical fire within her claw! She watched as the flame danced and twisted in her grasp. She sucked in a breath when she watched it start to diffuse INTO her scales! The flame lessened and lessened as if it were dying, but instead the fire seeped between the cracks of her scales. She could feel it racing through her body, flooding it once more with a wave of comforting warmth.
​
"Den Mother?" A voice asked from the tunnel nearby.
​
Ruby yelped in surprise and turned towards the voice. She saw the Chief standing there watching her with a curious and amazed expression on his snout.
"Having fun?"
​
"Chief!? I was-"
​
"Playing with fire?" The Chief asked playfully as he stared at the blue fire.
​
She shuffled nervously as he did so. Eventually he chuckled and she began to relax.
"It's alright Den Mother. You're not the only one that Master Jeb's flame as entranced among the tribe."
​
"Why do you think it acts so different from normal fire?" She asked.
​
The Chief shrugged.
"Who knows. Perhaps it is how magic works in this world. Perhaps it is something on Master Jeb's part. Perhaps it is because our former- Kortaza, was the Keeper of Flame."
​
"But we never had much protection from fire before. And not any way to manipulate it." Ruby said.
​
The Chief sighed.
"True. I truly do not know why it is so different than normal fire. Fire is alive, yes. But this one seems almost..."
​
"Living?" Ruby suggested.
​
"Yes. Like it has a mind of its own. Though I doubt that much, perhaps it merely follows the will of Master Jeb, knowingly or not on his part." The Chief continued as he walked closer and sat down beside Ruby and watched the eggs glimmer and shine within the fire where they remained quiet for some peaceful moments.
​
The Chief then perked up.
"Oh! Master Jeb returned!"
​
"He did?! Where is he?" Ruby asked and looked around expecting to see him coming down the tunnel.
​
"Well, he did return. Rushed around and collected an assortment of food, and then he vanished away again. Something about a trade?" The Chief explained a little unsure.
​
She frowned, wonder what he was trading, she thought. Though, with the eggs now taken care of, and Jeb away for a moment. Perhaps now was the time she could see about doing something special for him. She turned to the Chief, he was more knowledgeable when it came to humans and their customs.
​
"Chief?" She asked.
​
"Yes? What is it?" He asked at the tone of her voice.
​
"What do you know of this world's humans?"
​
"Oh? What would you like to know?" He asked a little excited in being able to use his collected knowledge.
​
"What do humans do with those they care about?" She asked a little uncertainly.
​
The Chief hummed in thought and tapped his claws.
"It depends. Humans are as diverse in this world as ours. Many customs I've read about belong to different groups."
​
"What about the tribe that Jeb belongs to?"
​
The Chief hummed once more in thought and got up before darting away while calling back.
"I will check! I'm sure I have something!"
​
While she waited, she continued to play with fire and tend to her eggs. Since they were in the flame, they didn't need quite so studious attention as they did before. She could probably just leave them and go tend to her normal duties and not have to worry about them anymore.
​
Who was she fooling, she thought. Even if there was a way to hatch and tend to the eggs completely without her, she'd still want to look after them. She thought she heard Jeb mentioning something about an "electrical egg incubator" once upon a time. Whatever that was.
​
The Chief returned, huffing from being out of breath and holding a thickly bound tome with pages of different sizes and colors poking out of the patched bindings. He placed the heavy tome on the ground with a huff.
"This is my collection of this world's customs and knowledge. If there is something that will assist you it will be in here somewhere!"
​
Ruby oohed and awed as the Chief flipped open the tome and leafed through page after page of information. Some were pages from magazines, others were snippets and clippings from books, there was a few pages that contained pressed cuttings of local flora as well as a collection of small animal bones among the bindings.
​
They stopped on a page that read MODERN COURTING FOR THE MODERN WOMAN in bold letters on a page that felt smooth to the touch. On the cover was a gorgeous human woman wearing a sleek beautiful dress and jewelry. Ruby pointed towards the page.
"Oh this one!"
​
They thumbed through the pages looking for information. Most neither one of them got as it talked about stuff like make-up, libido, popular fashion, and other things that they didn't either understand or see the appeal of. Then they found a page that described how a modern woman should act. Though this seemed to confuse the both of them even more.
​
"Be 'dem-or' and assertive? What does 'dem-or' mean?" Ruby asked the Chief.
​
"I'm not sure. There are many words within that don't seem to fit." He explained.
​
A pattern they soon found to be common among the pages of information, much of the words would make sense but spread out among them were these spots of words that seemed just out of place. What they COULD understand still didn't make any sense either.
​
"Be soft yet firm? How does that work?" The Chief asked.
​
"If you like a potential mate why make him keep trying to win your heart?" Ruby asked equally confused.
​
"Modern" humans were just as confusing to them it seemed. However, among the pages of contradictory information, they were able to get SOMETHING of value! Humans like gifts. Though they both knew that and didn't really feel like these pages of "modern courting" did anything more than confuse them.
​
"What kind of gifts?" The Chief asked as he and Ruby tried to decipher the mess of flowery wording and nonsense.
​
"Jewelry, clothes, food." Ruby read off as they got the general gist of the overly convoluted wording. The pictures helped more though.
​
"Well! At least we found something... I think?" The Chief declared at least with a little uncertainty.
​
"Why did you collect all this?" Ruby asked.
​
"It was in a book, so I thought it was important. But it would seem that not everything in this world's books are worth keeping." The Chief stated before retrieving the tome and departing.
​
"Where are you going?"
​
"To go through my collection. It would seem that some of it is not as important as I first thought." He called out as he left.
​
She could hear him mumbling to himself and heard the occasional tearing as he did. Well, at least they found something, she thought as she turned towards the eggs once more. She placed a claw on the onyx shells and felt the comforting warmth of the fire as well as the warmth of the eggs. They'll be fine for now, she thought as she got up and left.
​
"Jewelry, clothes, and food." Ruby murmured as she went down the tunnel once again.
​
He was getting low on clothes, she thought. But there wasn't much around here to make some with. Though perhaps some animal hides would work? But much of what they've collected was too small for clothes of Jeb's size. Getting him food seemed redundant too. He could make his own food whenever he wished. Which left jewelry.
​
It was the better of the options, but they didn't have much in the way of jewelry either. No raids means no loot and the piles of treasure back in their former home wasn't exactly a priority at the time of their exodus. But then she spied the copper wire the kobolds had collected while scavenging. A copper band would be nice, she thought as she was given the piece of wiring from the scavenger.
​
But what else, she thought as she looked around some more. The pictures in the magazine showed jewelry that glittered with gold and diamonds and so much more that they no longer had. Nothing around here could compare, she thought dejectedly. But then she saw a group of kobolds coming down a tunnel with a collection of shells and waterlogged timber.
​
"What is this?" She asked them.
​
"Salvage from the camps up river." The kobold replied as he and the others began to sift and sort the mess.
​
She watched as they distributed everything they collected to the tribe that came over. Some took the waterlogged wood, others took polished stones, and others took the collection of shells. She eyed the shells. Back home, alot of the fishfolk in the rivers and around the sea collected pearls from the water. Perhaps the ones upriver also had some?
​
She followed after the group of kobolds that had collected the shells and assisted them in opening a few. Mussels were what was mainly here, no surprise though since it seemed they were far from this world's ocean. What was a surprise was how many pearls they actually managed to find among the mussels!
​
It was rare for the kobolds to find one during their fishing trips by the sea. Even among the rivers pearls were not much more common. So it surprised them that several mussels had multiple pearls within them! She was going to actually barter for potentially the single one they found, but with there being so many the shuckers didn't mind at all and gave Ruby a small handful for her project.
​
They weren't all that big, but that was fine by her. They'd do for what she had in mind. She borrowed a small thin metal needle from a scavenger and retreated back to her room. Copper wire and freshwater pearls in claw.
​
-----
​
Well, that's taken care of, Jeb thought as he appeared in the open air of the lodge. He flicked the gold and garnet band into the air and got it with a spring in his step and a tune on his lips as he made his way over to the Trap Master who stood near the river where he received reports from the salvagers.
​
"How's things?" He asked when he got close.
​
"Good. Strange. But good." The Trap Master stated as he dismissed the salvagers.
​
"How so?"
​
"The 'murlocs' you called them? Haven't returned to their former homes." He explained.
​
"And? Wasn't that kinda the point?"
​
"It was. But there isn't any sign of anything else other than birds flocking to the area."
​
"Again, wasn't that the point?"
​
"Only if something worse didn't move in." The Trap Master explained further.
​
Jeb groaned.
"What moved in?"
​
"Nothing."
​
"Nothin'?"
​
"That we can see. No new tracks, no scents, nothing."
​
"So what's the problem?"
​
"The problem is that much carrion should've drawn every scavenger and hungry animal for miles."
​
"But it hasn't." Jeb finished.
​
"No. The birds infest the area but largely leave us alone. Though some get a little territorial over their spots of carrion. But nothing else has moved into the area."
​
Jeb groaned again.
"So what do you wanna do?"
​
"Nothing."
​
"Really?" Jeb asked in surprise.
​
"Yes. If the other animals and creatures nearby are giving the place a wide berth then we'll exploit it as long as we can. We'll send some scouts to keep an eye on the place though."
​
"Perhaps the smell of death is what's doin' it?" Jeb suggested.
​
"Maybe. Would explain the large number of birds. But nothing else?"
​
"Yeah, you're right. Well let me know if you need help with it." Jeb said.
​
"Will do."
​
"Oh! Before I forget, I made a trade agreement with the dwarves."
​
The Trap Master cocked a scaled brow.
"Oh?"
​
"Yeah. Food for tools. We'll need to set aside five crates twice a week, but we'll get some decent tools to help speed up excavation." Jeb explained.
​
The Trap Master tapped his claws against his scales in thought.
"That's doable."
​
"You sure? Cuz I'm more than happy to do it all myself." Jeb said and conjured an apple to make his point.
​
"No. The tools are for us, we should assist. Besides, we gathered more for our former master. Five crates twice a week will be easy enough to do." The Trap Master stated in a relaxed tone.
​
"Alright, if you're certain." Jeb said.
​
"I am. We'll let you know if anything changes." The Trap Master replied.
​
"Alright, have it your way." Jeb returned and departed while tossing the conjured apple towards the lazing salamanders nearby.
​
Jeb ported down to the main gathering area. The place was just as busy as when he left as the kobolds went about their duties and tasks with vigor and joy that he's only really seen when they were staying in his basement. Guess he was the one living in their basement now, he thought with a chuckle.
​
He played with the gold and garnet band as he shuffled nervously. Wasn't sure why he was so nervous, he thought. She already had his kids, kinda, sorta. They were already living together. This would just be the natural progression of things. Kinda, sorta. He heaved in a big gulp of air to steady his nerves.
​
"Alright. Quite procrastinatin' Jeb." He muttered to himself and started down the tunnel towards his home.
​
He stopped when his boot stepped on something different. He looked down and picked up a magazine page.
"Modern courtin' for the modern woman? Where the hell did this come from?"
​
Probably Sammy's, Jeb thought as he tossed aside the girly garbage. Not sure what it was doing out here though. Maybe she brought it for Thanksgiving and forgot it? Or maybe the kobolds swiped it when they raided her hairspray? Or maybe she just left it among his other articles one of the times she and his pa would go over to his place.
​
"Oh well." He said as he continued on.
​
He could hear humming as he got closer, and saw a familiar pale blue light. He walked into his room and saw Ruby humming as she tinkered with something. Nearby was their eggs, sitting in the balefire. He should've panicked. He should've dropped everything and ran over trying to save his kids. That's what a father would do right?
​
But he didn't have that gut wrenching feeling of seeing your kids in danger he thought he would. Still, he walked over beside Ruby. She yelped in surprise and fumbled with what she was working on as Jeb reached out a hand and touched their onyx colored eggs.
​
"Jeb?! I was- They were-" Ruby tried to explain while also trying to gather her things.
​
"It's alright." Jeb said.
​
"It is?" She asked with concern.
​
"Yeah. They're not hot." He said as he stroked the shells through the fire that did nothing to him.
​
"Are you sure?" She asked with worry and concern.
​
"Yeah. Doubt it'll do anythin' more to 'em." Jeb said with a bit more bitterness in his voice than he wanted there to be.
​
He saw Ruby's face fall at his words. Nice job dickhead, Jeb thought to himself. He sighed and turned towards Ruby.
"I'm sorry. I'm just nervous 'bout everythin' happenin'."
​
"I'm nervous too." She stated and leaned into him for a hug, which he eagerly returned.
​
They held each other for a long moment before Ruby perked up and scrambled away.
"Hold on! Don't look!"
​
"Look at what?" Jeb asked with a cocked brow as he did his best to hide his own gift.
​
"I said don't look!" She chided.
​
"Alright!" He said with a laugh.
​
He turned away as he heard her grumbling and fumbling with whatever she was working on when he walked in on her. While he waited, he stretched out his hand and caressed their eggs. Please don't get any weirder, he pleaded mentally while he waited.
​
"Ok! You can look now!" Ruby called at last.
​
Jeb turned back around and saw Ruby holding a ring towards him. It was some braided copper wire with a couple of small pearls threaded on. She held it up to him.
"What do you think?"
​
Wait, was this a gift or was she asking him to marry her, Jeb thought. He had to say something though, the look of confusion on his face was making Ruby sad.
"I love it! What's it for exactly?"
​
"Well, I'm courting you!" She said as Jeb accepted the copper and pearl braided band.
​
"Courtin' me? What does that-" Jeb started when he noticed a rustle from his left boot.
​
He looked down and pulled off a piece of paper that had stuck to it. MODERN COURTING FOR THE MODERN WOMAN, it said in bold on the paper. He turned it around towards Ruby.
"Did you read this?"
​
She shuffled.
"Yes? I wasn't sure how you court a human in this world! But the words were confusing and didn't make any sense and- why are you laughing?"
​
"I'm laughin' because this is trash! None of the stuff in here is how you should court someone!" Jeb said with a laugh.
​
"But it says-" Ruby started when Jeb tossed the magazine paper into the nearby fire, which ate it instantly.
​
"It's just somethin' that girls read to pass the time. Nothin' in there is worth the paper it's printed on." Jeb declared.
​
"Oh. So?" Ruby asked dejectedly as she gestured to the ring she made for Jeb.
​
"This is just fine. Though do you know what it means to get a ring for someone?" Jeb asked.
​
"That they love one another?" Ruby said a little unsure now.
​
"Yeah. I guess it does. But the act of givin' someone you love a ring is a symbol that you want to be together." Jeb explained and produced his own gift for Ruby.
​
Her eyes went wide as she grasped the gold and garnet band.
"But we're already together."
​
"Yeah. We are."
​
"So what does the rings mean?" Ruby asked as she examined the band.
​
"Well, it's more religious really."
​
"Oh?"
​
"Yeah. It's supposed to mean... somethin'." Jeb started as he realized he didn't entirely recall what the meaning of the ring was supposed to mean.
​
"Mean what?" Ruby pressed as she tried to fit the band on her arm and then her tail.
​
"Well. It generally means being together forever."
​
"But why the ring?"
​
"It means a sort of exclusivity for folk." Jeb explained.
​
"Why? What about the rest of the tribe? Does that mean you won't help them?" She asked.
​
"No! I can, or will, or... this is harder than I thought it'd be." Jeb said with a sigh.
​
Ruby cocked a brow as well.
"So what happens?"
​
"Well, we exchange rings and promise to love one another forever. In sickness and health and yada yada. Then we're husband and wife." Jeb explained.
​
"Why? We're already mates and we love one another. What does our health have to do with it? And what is a 'husband and wife'?"
​
"Well... You know what? Forget it. Do you promise to love me?"
​
"Yes! Do you?"
​
"Yup!"
​
"Yay!" Ruby cried and hugged Jeb.
​
"And I now pronounce you man and wife." Jeb muttered as he kissed Ruby.
​
Ruby giggled and pulled away.
"So what happens now?"
​
"Now... I don't know. Usually there would also be paper work, but given... us, it prob'bly wouldn't matter."
​
"So what changes?" Ruby asked as she affixed the gold and garnet band to one of her horns with a smile.
​
"Uhm... nothin'? We're already together, we already live together, we already have kids... kinda." Jeb listed off.
​
"So what's the rings supposed to mean?"
​
"It means... I love you." Jeb replied at last, giving up on trying to explain something he himself wasn't entirely informed of.
​
"I love you too!" Ruby cried and kissed him.
​
He returned the kiss. Not like this would've been an official wedding anyway, Jeb thought. They don't exactly have a licensed priest to officiate it. Or witnesses. He doubt their still shelled eggs would count. He could ask the Chief to oversee it. But he already got a headache trying to explain marriage to Ruby, he didn't really want to explain it to the Chief, or any other kobolds that might be interested.
​
Not like it made anything different, Jeb thought. Ruby was right. They loved one another. They lived together. They had kids together. For all intense and purpose, they were mates. Sure if he was particularly religious he could insist on going to a church and doing things official. But given how things have turned out for them lately, he wouldn't be surprised if he burst into flames stepping inside a church.
​
Well, there was ONE tradition that they could still do, Jeb thought with a smirk as he picked up Ruby bridal style.
"Wanna consummate our marriage?"
​
"What does that mean?" She asked.
​
"Don't worry. You'll like it." Jeb said as he led her over to their moss bed.
​
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Throwaway
I (29M) have been with my fiance (28F) for about a year and we have a strong relationship outside of this one issue. She's an absolutely terrible sleeper. She sleeps a lot, she sleeps heavily, and she has a hard time waking up even after sleeping for 8+ hours. She'll set 5+ alarms and turn them off as they ring, or wake up and turn them all off just to accidentally fall back asleep.
Early in our relationship she would ask me to make sure she wakes up for certain things, which I begrudgingly did for a time. However, there was one instance where she got nasty and snapped at me while I was trying to make sure she stayed awake (which is completely out of character for her in any other context) and I told her that I would no longer be responsible for waking her up ever again because she gets nasty and I really don't feel like it should be my responsibility. Apparently she thought I wasn't serious or would relent because she will still sometimes ask me to make sure she wakes up, but I have stuck to refusing to do it.
This past weekend one of her friends was throwing a baby shower several hours away and she asked me to make sure she woke up for it, which I refused. True to form she slept through all of her alarms in the morning while I showered and had my coffee, and we ended up 2 hours late to the event. She got frustrated at me for not making sure she stayed up, and I got frustrated back at her. To illustrate how serious I am about this I reiterated that I would never wake her up for anything, even if it means she loses her job or misses our wedding because she overslept. I don't think she liked hearing that, as she has been moody with me for the last few days since I said that.
She says that she never had this problem with sleep until about 2 years ago and she thinks there's something medically wrong with her. I think it could be due to undertreated depression or the medical marijuana she uses all the time. I've encouraged her to talk to a doctor about her sleep issues and/or get back into therapy multiple times and it either gets brushed off or I get a "yes" with no follow-through, so even if she does have a medical issue I just have a hard time sympathizing. I'm not her dad, she is a grown adult, and we've been over this several times. I don't feel like this should be my problem.
AITAH?

I, F27, come from a family of white-collar career people. My Dad 60M owns his own business and my mom 57F is a pediatric surgeon. My older brother M30 is a lawyer and loves to boast about how much money he makes. He is always buying new watches and expensive suits. He also drives a Porsche and is engaged to who will be his third wife.
I've always been more introverted than my brother and I tend to fade into the background. I created and operate my own business and make a more than decent living. My husband is a master electrician, and he owns a very successful business, he makes more than 3x what I do. We are a DINK couple (Double Income, No Kids); however, we keep our income very lowkey and don't spend money like my brother does. My parents are aware of how much my husband makes because we paid for their 35th wedding anniversary getaway and my dad saw the price tag.
We were at Mother's Day on Sunday, and both my brother and I bought nice things for our mother as gifts. He bought her jewelry and I got her a certificate for several hand massages at a spa near the hospital she works at. My mother thanked us, and my brother decided that it would be a good time to brag about how much the necklace cost, looking at my husband and joking about how he could never afford to buy a necklace like the one he got my mother. How my husband could never afford anything on an electrician's wage. He carried on like that until I had enough of him insulting my partner, who worked harder than my brother to get where he's at.
I yelled at my brother to shut up, and that my husband easily makes twice what he does and that he should sit his ass down and be more respectful. "Mother's Day is about mom, not you." were my exact words. After my brother left, soon after I snapped at him, I apologized to my mom, and we went on to have a wonderful dinner, where mom told my husband embarrassing stories about me when I was little.
My husband thanked me for standing up for him and my mom told me she had a lovely night while we were on the phone yesterday and told me she used some of the money on the certificate to get her wrists and fingers massaged after a 10 hour surgery, she told me she was very happy with my gift. My brother's fiancee sent me a tirade of texts blasting me for embarrassing him in front of our parents and calling me an asshole. I feel bad for causing drama but happy I stood up for my husband. AITA?

Okay, so, I'm still kinda in shock at what happened. A little bit of context- I'm trans, and the only other time I've dated/made out with someone was before my egg cracked (that relationship was not great to say the least, I wasn't comfy with a lot of what happened, we really weren't on the same page, she lied about some stuff etc.).
This time was totally different, it felt super natural, we'd been flirting on snap and they came over to my house while they were on lunch (we're both in high school, I'm 18 and graduating and they're 17 and have one more year). We lay on my bed and cuddled and kind of slowly leaned into each other and I slowly went in for a kiss and they (I should probably mention this person uses she/they pronouns and is genderfluid) kind of slowly leaned in AND THEN WE KISSED and we kept kissing and things got a bit more steamy (no clothes removed just lots of touching) and it was SO GOOD!!!
Being with someone like that in a sapphic way felt so much better then when I was trying to be a dude in a straight relationship, everything felt natural, I was so much more comfy with them and it felt like a dream the whole time.
And one of the best parts is how much easier communication is with them! I felt like I was scared or nervous to talk about how I felt in my last relationship but this is the complete opposite, I want to tell this person everything about myself and all of my feelings and just lay myself bare before them (emotionally and physically hehe). They make me feel so freaking good about myself and I wish I could spend more time with them.
That's all I just wanted to gush about how over the moon I am. We aren't official yet, still in the flirty getting to know each other phase but I'm already so happy I decided to shoot my shot with them. Being gay is so freaking amazing.

This will be a bit lengthy, so I apologize in advance. I just need to get it out there because I can't talk to anyone in my life about it without them turning on my ex, which I don't want. I'll put a TL;DR at the bottom.
Some background. My ex-fiancee and I were together for a total of 12 years and we have a five year old daughter together. About four or five years ago, I bought a small home with her. She doesn't work, so I paid 100% of the bills, debts, etc. When I bought the place, I was still rebuilding my credit due to being out of work prior to that and I had to move quickly because my previous landlord defaulted on the building I was living in and all the tenants got notified the new owner wanted the place vacated. Ended up buying a mobile/modular home in a pretty quiet little area. I lived in a mobile home as a kid and I hated it - still do now, but it's what I've got and I have it completely paid off. I have a degree and work a good job with decent pay, but it's tough to make ends meet on a single income these days.
My ex cheated on me a few times and left me for another guy. I allowed her to continue living in the house with me for a while until she could find other living arrangements and I slept on the couch. Eventually she moved in with her mom. Now that my credit is in great shape and I'm moving to a new project at work with a very sizable pay increase, I'm looking for an actual house to buy. Unfortunately the housing market is really tough right now and anything within my price range gets snapped up immediately, often over the asking price. The plan is (and has been since she moved out), that once I find another place to live, I'm going to straight up give her this place I'm in now - sign the title over to her and everything. It's by far her cheapest option to live on her own. I've been telling her all along, she needs some form of stable income, because while I will continue helping out financially, I won't be able to pay all the bills on two separate homes. She agreed.
She and her mom do not get along well. Her mom is pretty religious and very Conservative and she isn't. I've repeatedly urged them not to discuss politics and things like that. This morning, apparently they got into an argument about that stuff and my ex called her mom a very obscene name in front of our daughter. Then she called me and started demanding I move back in with my parents (I'm 38 years old) so she and my daughter can move into my house while I continue paying all the bills.
In all the time we'd been together, and even still, I almost never say no to her. She calls me asking for money for food, gas, clothes for our daughter, etc., and I give it to her no questions asked. If she needs help with pretty much anything, I help her. I always made/make her problems my problems for our daughter's sake. My ex has some diagnosed mental health issues (diagnosed with Bipolar I and BPD separately) she struggles with and has a really hard time controlling herself when she gets upset. I told her I was not going to give up pretty much the only thing I had, my home, just because she can't control herself and not escalate disagreements into a screaming match. She immediately started screaming at me, swearing at me, telling me I didn't care about our daughter, etc. and even brought up our breakup, which she blamed 100% all on me.
I did not engage in the hostility and just ignored it. I told her the best I could do was give her some money to get a hotel room for the night and cool off and that I would pause house hunting and look for an apartment to rent. I told her she needed to find some way to make peace with her mom in the meantime and start looking for a way to get some stable income. She's got a hearing for her disability case (for her mental health issues) on the 20th, but who knows how that'll go.
My house is small and not great, but it's my sanctuary. Coming home to a quiet house and relaxing after work is literally all I have that allows me to sort of recharge my batteries and de-stress enough to face the following day. I'm essentially a shell of a man at this point. I'm under a lot of stress between work and dealing with my ex, and my anxiety has been through the roof. I feel it spike every time my phone rings, even more when I see it's my ex calling. All I want is some peace and quiet so that I can focus on my own healing and move on with my life. I feel like I'm stuck in limbo, hiding out and hoping for a night here and there where everyone just leaves me alone. I joined some dating apps to see if I was even still capable of meeting someone new, but can't even bring myself to respond to them when they message me. I probably have too many trust issues and too much baggage with the living situation right now anyway.
I'm just tired of everything turning into a crisis and then having that crisis land squarely in my lap to fix. I work hard, bend over backwards to help out and get them everything they want/need, and I don't bother anyone. I don't even buy things for myself that I want anymore. I pay my bills and hoard the rest in case I need to send some to my ex to get our daughter some clothes or shoes or groceries. On average, I spend less than $100 a month on myself for non-essentials.
I'm nowhere close to perfect, but I've had pretty much endless patience over the years - constantly criticized/put down, verbally attacked, cheated on, and ultimately dumped for a guy she just met. By the end of our relationship, I was already empty inside, so yeah, I can see how she might think I wasn't there emotionally - but I was always patient, kind, and provided for both her and my daughter.
I'm absolutely in shock that she thinks I don't care about our daughter because I won't give into her demands to just hand her my home without anywhere to go. Even if I did want to move back in with my parents, they're smokers and my daughter can't stay with me there on the weekends. She essentially demands that I give up what little bit I have left to salvage my own mental well-being because she can't control herself and decide to simply not respond to touchy subjects between them.
My daughter is my world and I'm truly conflicted about this. I don't want her witnessing my ex screaming obscenities at her mother. I just feel like I have to draw the line somewhere. Maybe it's my own fault for walking on eggshells for so long and bending over backwards to give her everything she asked for. The one time I stand my ground, I'm treated like the most selfish man alive and have to listen to her screaming insults at me on the phone while I'm at work. Am I really being that selfish here?
She pushed back on my offer to get her a hotel room for the night so she could get a break from her mom, but I was eventually able to calm her down for now by suggesting I'd call off my desire to be an actual homeowner so that I can more quickly just find a place to rent and move into - provided she gets some source of steady income to pay for her utilities and groceries.
I think I need to get myself into therapy. At this point, I'm tired of bending over backwards all the time, sacrificing my dignity, self-worth, and happiness, only to get treated like a monster the first time I say no. I want some peace. I've never minded helping out as much as possible and did not want to get lawyers involved because I truly wanted to help whenever it was needed rather than giving a flat amount every month, but I feel like my own humanity is being taken for granted with demands like this. Maybe it's time to set up something official so I can stop taking calls from her 4-5 times a day, just send out a flat amount every month, and finally just be left alone.
If you read this far, I appreciate it. I'm just worn out and empty inside. I'm even ignoring my own friends because I just want to be left alone. Thankfully they're understanding of my situation without me giving specifics and are giving me space. I genuinely don't think my ex is a bad person, but her Bipolar disorder can be very challenging to deal with. I just hope my severe anxiety and my desire to be completely alone goes away once I get into a better place.
TL;DR - ex-fiancee lives with her mom but doesn't get along. They had a fight this morning and she called me, demanding I move back in with my parents and let her live in my home while I continue paying all the bills. I feel it is an unreasonable request and told her no. She did not take it well.

Thank you to Space paladin for the canvas and u/Acceptable_Egg5560 for proofreading and critique
Content warning; Educator abuse and syrupy love
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Memory transcript: Maarchal , MESEA Astronomers. Date: [Standard Farsul calendar ] January 26th, 3667
PLUNCK
Ponthyts blue stick clattered on the board, rolling around in a circle. Before settling on three. He then pumps his paw and moves to move a soldier that many paces.
“Well, I got you cornered now, whatcha going to do about it?” I smirk at Ponthyts soon to be dashed confidence as I take out my red stick and flip in the air much higher than he did with his own.
It hits the board with a loud clatter, bouncing on each end before settling on rolling. To which it landed on seven. I move my last interceptor through his ranks and take his general. The gobsmacked look on his features was evident, with his previously wagging tail so still it made stone seem fluid.
“I win.”
“How did you do that?”
I rolled my shoulders and readjusted my legs underneath. “Well, you left a clear path for my interceptor.” I pointed to the gaps in his remaining pieces.
“I know that! I mean how did you know you'd get a high enough number to do that? Your interceptor was all the way back here and it's your last red piece!!!”
I lean my head back and lean against the wall behind me. “I didn't, I just saw an opportunity and took it.”
He pointed a digit at me “ Mershit, that was some grandmaster trap!”
I give him the ear position of resignation with a mirthful little grin. “I promise you it was just luck.”
He waves his paw dismissively. “I don't believe you.”
“Well believe it, because I don't plan ahead like that. Want to play another game?”
He shakes his head. “Nah I think four games is enough for one night.” He begins moving the pieces into their containers and folds up the board and places it on top of them. Closing the box. He then stands up and offers me his paw, I use it to pull myself up off the floor.“Well Maarchal, I’ll see you tomorrow at the observatory. I’ll bring the set if you want to play it during lunch if you want.”
I froze, “what! What time is it? He turns over to look at the clock above his strove.
“Ahh about Fifteen minutes past 18.”
“Uh, that's not that late! We could play another game! C’mon let's have a tie breaker!”
He rubs his eyes, “I’m tired and we have work in the morning. Is there something you're avoiding?”
I rub my upper right arm and look off into the corner. “...”
He took on a worried look, “Why don't you want to go home Maarchal?”
I sighed and took a seat at his dining room table. “I… I don't like that house, I’ve lived there since I moved to LIghra six years ago but it's not a… home like here.”
I looked around at the messy abode. Dirty cloaks were strewn about on the back of chairs and the rubbish trough was just barely not overflowing. Paintings either from family or Ponthyts own paw were hanged up in the hallways, and the lightbulbs cast a warm orangish light. While the dishes from our dinner were placed in the sink, covered with animal gravy slathered all over them. It was tidy yet just barely so. A place filled with all the markers of being lived in.
“You've lived here less than a year but it feels like it's always had you in it. I feel … so comfortable here. My own home is so… cold and sterile. I Worked a lot the first few months I moved here. I just never got around to making it a home. It feels so bare, I started to work overtime just to avoid it. Which just made the problem worse.”
He sat down across from me, He put his head in his paws and looked at the scratched wood of his table. He held that position for a minute or two before breaking it and placing his paw on my own. “Maarchal, you are my best friend, I want you to feel comfortable. So if you want you can sleep on my coach, I can also help you make your home feel like one."
​
I shake my head, “no no, I shouldnt of imposed on you. Making myself feel at home is a job I need to do and have been avoiding for far too long. It's just… it's just so much easier to avoid you know?” I grabbed his paw and squeezed it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
​
I stand up and make my way to his front door before he speaks up.
​
“Uh hey Maarchal?”
​
I turn to address him “yeah?”
​
He shifts in his seat and fidgets with his fingers. “I’m uh, going to Ootra lake next week. I was wondering If you'd like… to come with me? I promise if you don't have a tent I’ll bring you one. We could have a fire, roast some meat on it and share ghost stories and stargaze… if you want?”
​
“ What about work?”
​
He rocks in his chair. “We'd have to call in for a day or so.”
​
I contemplated his words and mulled them over. It would be the first time I’ve ever willingly taken off a day, tarnishing my perfect attendance. But the prospect of spending more one on one time with Ponthyt was overwhelmingly tempting.
​
“Sure, I’d love to go. But I haven't gone camping for years so you will need to bring me a tent.”
​
He leapt from his chair, launching it backwards, before calming himself down. “I’ll take care of all the prep. You just have to come along. I promise it’ll be loads of fun!”
​
I chuckled while I watched his clearly restrained display as I slowly closed the door.
​
I could hear him howl with enjoyment as I turned into the driveway to get to my auto.
​
**\*
​
“Huff, Huff, you doin alright there Ponthyt?” I turned back to see him walking behind me.
​
“Yeah, oof I haven't walked this much in years!”
​
I waited for him to catch up, we sat together when he did and we caught our breath before tuning to make our way back up the bluff. When we reached it there was a stone gazebo made of limestone. The angle of the sun let it shine into it. We walked into it and sat down on the stone benches. I looked around at the lake.
​
It was surrounded by steep hills with many rock faces visible, the layered stone was clearly visible. The topography of the area around the bluffs was shaped like a bowl, with the sight of land of higher elevation faintly visible in the distance despite its gradual slope. Giving a scene of depth that was not as extreme then in more mountainous areas. This view was normally hidden by the trees below.
​
“Well isn't this view alone worth the trip?” Ponthyt proclaimed.
​
I looked around letting the mid morning sun warm my back, I stretched my arms and breathed deeply. Taking in all the wonderful scents of nature.
​
“Yeah, it's beautiful.” I let myself relax, just letting the sounds and scents of nature calm me like I have never been since I was a pup on an archeological trip with mom and dad.
​
“Hmm, I've missed this.”
​
I don't know for how long I had been like this, but Ponthyt broke the silence “Ahhem, so, you've gone camping before?”
​
I nodded, “yeah when I was a pup my parents would sometimes go off to a site for a couple of weeks and we would come with them. We would have to get homeschooled then. But we would always have to camp and I and my siblings would go off exploring while they worked during the day.”
​
He smiled and his tail was wagging.” That sounds wonderful. I only got to camp for a couple days a year. It was always so hectic. Me and my siblings would just muck around the camp and eat, sometimes hiking around. Heh” Ponthyt looked towards the ground and held his paws together, rubbing his digits together.
​
“What's wrong Ponthyt?”
​
“Oh it's nothing it's-” I put my paw on his shoulder which drew his attention towards me.
​
“I know that's not true, you can trust me. Just tell me what's wrong ok?”
​
He gave a look of reluctance before caving to my request “… sigh… I grew up in a big family, and I love them all but… I was born at a strange time. I was second to last of my parents pups. Which meant they were busy with the older ones' events and taking care of the youngest. I kind of got mixed up and forgotten. My interests rarely lined up with the others and I often messed up tasks that my sibling would just fix or do for me. It got to the point that I… didn't really do anything. They will never say this but… I don't think my parents ever expected anything of me.”
​
I rub his shoulder,” well… I know that you have amounted to something. I mean, you're an astronomer! You work to understand the nature of reality. You're also so… kind and patient. I tried to scare you off but you weren't deterred at my standoffish behavior.”
​
He turned his head and gave me a shallow but joyous expression. “Heh well living in a house that's rarely quiet leaves you with a high tolerance for stubbornness. '' he wipes away a single tear “Sniff well… should we make our way back to camp? Or can I take out my stuff?”
​
I shake my head. ”Nah, you can paint. I’ll just sit here and let this place wash over me.”
​
He smiles and gets up and sets up his easel, taking out his supplies from his bag and gets to work painting the landscape ahead of him. He was slow and each brushstroke was as deliberate as he could manage. He… wasn't very good, only starting out when he moved here. But his drive to get better was admirable. Even in adulthood he tried to learn, to grow, to become more than he was yesterday.
​
I kept staring at him. Feeling something warm in my gut, something an academic wasn't supposed to feel. Shame overwhelmed me and I quickly turned away. Cursing myself for having those accursed feelings.
​
​
**\*
​
Ponthyt, returned from his cauto (Cargo auto -> pickup truck) with an armful of wood he brought with us. He set most of it aside and threw a piece onto the fire he had started, causing a cascade of embers to fly into the late evening air. The dull purple of the sky cast overhead between the canopy of the trees as the chill of the night began to come in. A pleasant coolness that most would take advantage of to seek the comfort of warming oneself close to a fire.
​
Not me, I paced to a fro as Ponthyt set up our campsite. He had placed his painting for the day inside the cabin of his cautoa and was now seasoning some raw meat strips to cook on the open fire. Snacking on one or two as he did so. He hung them on the tripod to roast, the fat that dripped off them as they were cooking sizzled as they burned on the coals below.
​
“I’ll have these done as soon as I can, please sit down Maarchal. Walking like that is only going to make the wait worse.” He says as he prods the suspended meat with a claw like utensil.
​
“Hmm, ok I’ll just sit and wait. Waste my time. Make a waste of the whole evening!!!” I snapped back at him, throwing my paws into the air.
​
Ponthyt recoils from my outburst with his ears pinned back. “ We’re camping, there is no way to waste it.”
​
I turned to address him, “we shouldn't be here! This trip means nothing and we are just wasting our TIME!!!” I cross my arms and scratch at the biceps. Rufflying the fur and making a mess of myself.
​
Ponthyt drops his utensil and walks over to me. “ We’re together and we spent the whole day just mucking about. How is this any more of a waste than that?” He says as he looks at me with eyes full of worry.
​
“We’re scientists, academics!!! We don't waste time like the ignorant masses! We should spend our time wisely!!! Every action of connection is just another moment we waste that could be spent to advance our field.” I had tears forming in the corners of my eyes. Scratching at my fur until I felt a wetness on my arms and paws.
​
“We’re supposed to sharpen our minds! No-not seek pointless relationships! ” I said as I bared my teeth and began growling at him.
​
The look of betrayal and abject worry he had on his face was overwhelming. I didn't want to hurt him. What am I doing? He doesn't deserve my ire. My legs gave out and I cried into my hands.
​
Ponthyt walked over to his cauto and brought out a cover. He wrapped it around me and rubbed my arms through it. He rested his head on top of mine while I sobbed. I couldn't take this anymore. Repressing and lashing out at any attempt to connect. Ponthyt hugged me and rocked back and forth. Humming and rubbing on the cover. He was warm and soft. I don't know how long we had been like this but by the time my sobs turned to a faint whine the meat over the fire was well done and the sky was pure black and the stars were out.
​
“I-I think i’m good no-now.” I choked out. Ponthyt grabbed my hand and helped me stand up. We didn't say another word. He collects the meat and places it on two plates. I stare at my portion for some time, Ponthyt doesn't eat any of his either.
​
“Sigh… I know you might not want to but… Could you tell me why you said those things earlier?” He says with trepidation clearly miring his words.
​
“Yeah, it's just… When I entered college It was… not what I was expecting… I was sort of a hyper teen. Always going off about some book I read. Drawing pictures of stars, space stations or colonies we would make on inhospitable planets.”
​
He sits up and places his plate by his side. “You draw? I’d love to see some of them.”
​
“I used to. But I haven't since that first year of college.” I turned to stare at the dying inferno warming us. I pull the cover around me tighter.
​
“When I was doodling before class one day the professor walked by me. He noticed what I was doing and grabbed my paper. I objected but he just stared at me. When he started to address the class he showed it off and mocked me for wasting my time.” Ponthyt turns his head to look at me.
​
“That's a dick move, But at least he couldn't do the same when you did it in your free time right?” I turned to him with a somber expression. He seemed to understand the implications though he seemed to be confused as to how.
​
“He couldn't have gotten into your room right? That'd be a huge breach of privacy!!!”
​
I grabbed the poker and stirred the coals of the fire. “You're right, he couldn't. But he didn't need to, my roommate would take them with her to class and he’d pin them up on the board to mock. I called the staff but since she was my roommate she didn't break any privacy laws and since my art was only ever worth the paper it was on it wasn't even enough to get a misdemeanor theft charge. I tried to hide it but she would always find them. I tried to get another roommate but he stonewalled my attempts and I couldn't afford to rent a place in town. ”
​
He took on a look of absolute despair. “... How… how could he be so aggressively intolerant of such an innocent hobby?”
​
I chuckled “It wasn't just mine, a few others had made the mistake of having a roommate with the same professor. I remembered one who loved going out in the woods for hikes. When he found out about that he mocked him for “Pointless exercise and admiring a random assemble of dead and dying shit””. I waved my arms about to emphasize how he inflicted his words.
​
Ponthyt stared at the ground between us with a look of utter confusion.” … He mocked someone for appreciating nature and being healthy?”
​
I nodded, “if you were not engaging with study of his topic you were wasting his and everyone else's time.”
​
Ponthyt looks at me with concern and shared pain. “Why, why didn't you go to a different school?”
​
I stared at him in his eyes. A scene of shame overtook me. “It was the top class in the country. My family was so proud of me. I was so proud of myself, I didn't want to disappoint them and me. Looking back on it, I realize my own pride was something I rarely contended with until then. It didn't help when he found out who my family was.”
​
Ponthyt recoiled and waved his arms in a “what” fashion. “Wait, what does your family have to do with this?”
​
I poked at a log to knock off the charcoal to expose the untouched wood underneath. “They were happy. He spent a lot of time in academic circles so naturally he met people who knew my parents. And the way they described this happy family irritated him something fierce. He gave me such a hard time with it. Mocking me for being a lazy nepotism pick who didn't deserve her seat in his class. He mocked anyone for having any kind of non professional relationship, we never spoke to each other outside of class. We never left or met with friends or family. If we tried too he’d find out and call the one in question a “Lazy sentimental idiot.””
​
I breathed in deeply, “... that hurt my pride so severely that I just stopped seeing them or any of my friends. I always said I was busy or had a field study, but I was just reading and rereading his lectures. I didn't even go home for the summer breaks, I just apprenticeshiped at his museum to study even more. At graduation he looked so… proud, I only realized he was proud of what he turned me into and not what I did a few weeks after I met you. How I let him turn me into an angry starile shell of a person.”
​
Ponthyt turned his head towards the fire. His ears straight up and a soft growl in his throat. “... If I ever meet that piece of.. nuclear waste, I’ll kill him.”
​
He turns to me and his features soften immediately. “Anyone capable of manipulating someone as passionate and creative as you... I can't even imagine the kind of living hell he made you seek…”
​
I chucked and a slight wag entered my tail.” I’m responsible for my life. MY pride kept me there for him to mold. I hate him, but I hate myself for it too.”
​
Ponthyt shoots up and screams at me “MERSHIT, Maarchal, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You had a right to expect your teachers to be respectable people. Not abusive and manipulative Sherkires (Ambush insect. Commonly seen as sneaky and unhonorable due to making pheromones and calls imitating other insects mating signals). He starts to speak softer as he turners to address me.
​
“Even this version of you, so cut off of why you love space in the first place is just.. You are one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. So humble with addressing yourself. You inspire me to be a tenth of the person you are.” He kneels in front of me and grabs my paws in his own.
​
“You are… you are so passionate, so creative. Even with being a self described shell. I can't even imagine how you will be when you open up again and explore your creativity in full and banish that monster's influence for good.”
​
I turn and I can't help but smile at his words.”... I haven't been in practice in years. But … I’m willing to relearn it with you.” I stared deeply in his eyes and that feeling again bubbles within me. The feeling of never wanting to leave his side, the feeling as though I found a piece I had been missing. Before I knew it I bit on his snout, recoiling when I realized what I had done.
​
‘I-I’m so sorry!!! You were just so close and and I felt something and before I knew it-” I was caught off guard when he bit my snout, holding my top jaw between his own set. I bit down on his lower jaw and we locked together. He tried to let go after a while. But I growled to let him know I wasn't ready yet and I used my leverage to lead him into my tent.
​
**\*
​
I got up and exited my tent. I stood up and stretched and twisted my back around. Lifting my arms above my head and pulling them as far out as I could. I looked at the coals still burning in our firepit, I could only tell they were burning from the heat going off of them as the glow was hidden by the sun's light. Before noticing the meat Ponthyt prepared last night still on the plates on the log we sat on.
​
“Pff, hey Ponthyt. Come out here!!!” I said behind me. He crawled out my tent with a head of messy fur.
​
“Wut ?” He said with half closed eyes and a disposition of utter exhaustion . I pointed to the cold meat. He still had a look of drowsiness before he realized what the significance of the strange strips were.
​
“Heh, I guess we won't need to make breakfast?” I chuckled as I sat down and hugged his head. I groomed his messy fur as I absorbed the morning sun. I don't know what the future of my career looked like anymore. But it was no longer the most important thing in my life. I loved space, I loved to learn. But In these years I had lost track of what was truly important. As I groomed him Ponthyt fell asleep with his head in my lap.
​
As I felt the joy of reciprocal love again for the first time in years I leaned back and watched the sunrise, caressing my love's head and breathing in the fresh air.
[First]-[Prev]-[Next]

Warning: profanity and descriptions of verbal abuse.
About five days ago now I (33F) made the decision to go no contact with my younger sister (30F). For the sake of this post, I’ll call her Amy.
Our parents say that Amy and I were really close when we were little. That it was common for them to go wake us up and find that Amy had snuck into my room and into my bed to snuggle with me at some point in the night. They said she looked up to me and that when our youngest sister (currently 27) was born that she was always at my elbow watching how I did things with the baby and then copying it. This is how things went for years.
Sometime around when I was 10, and Amy was 7, things started to change. She’d get mouthy and act out with any provocation or none at all. To the rest of the world she was a nice, normal kid but at home the mask came off. What started as annoying became a hassle became a nightmare as the years went by. My parents tried to address and correct her behavior at first but got worn down over time until my dad just avoided involvement whenever possible and my mom leaned more toward pacifying and damage control.
It’s no surprise that Amy and I’s relationship changed with me not really wanting to spend time with her that wasn’t mandated by our mom and things got worse as I entered my teen years and didn’t wanna play and hang out with my kid sisters, in general. I think it was around that time that she started getting mean and nasty. It wasn’t unusual for her to say things like “I hate you”, “I don’t love you” and whatever but she started getting cutthroat. She’d aim for whatever she thought would hurt you the most. She’d call you a bitch, a cunt (still one of her favs), say you’re stupid, worthless, a piece of shit, that no one likes you that they’re lying to you, that you’ll die miserable and alone, etc etc etc. She’d rant on and on for as long as she could keep the insults flowing. She’d also twist her version of events just enough to make herself look the victim. She had her door taken away several times cuz she kept slamming it. My poor mom took the brunt of Amy for years as that’s where she tended to point her poison and is still the one Amy targets the most.
Thankfully college brought me new friends, some of which also had complicated family relationships, and they helped me grow a back bone and taught me about boundaries and more. Amy was always nice when she wanted things from you but would turn ugly if you said no. Even if you agreed to help her, it wouldn’t stop her being nasty for some other reason. That behavior was where I drew my first boundary. “You can’t ask me for help and then be a dick to me. Do that and my help ends immediately.” Took a few times for the message to sink in, but it did. It was business as usual any normal time but she learned to be on good behavior while she was receiving help from me.
This pattern of verbal abuse, her blocking people for however long until she needed something, and her general unpleasantness pretty much continued as we went into our adult lives and she moved a few hundred miles away. When she was planning her wedding, we were threatened with having our invites rescinded constantly no matter if the topic had to do with the wedding or not. Now that she had a kid, continued access to said kid is the go-to ultimatum criteria for every occasion. Our parents have said that they’re afraid of letting themselves be too open to bond with her kid out of fear that they would grow that bond and then Amy would one day make good on her threats.
The kid is actually what brings us around to the breaking point. I had a kid of my own not long before she did so she bombarded me with questions and wants for advice all through her pregnancy. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was damn near daily. It got to the point I snapped at her that Google is a thing that exists and so is her doctor. Ask them. That got me yelled at and blocked for a while but silence was sweet. The questions continued after her kid was born but at least not as goddamned always.
A couple days ago, Amy started drama with the whole family centered around a crib our parents had set up for whenever the grandbabies come over. Amy demanded that our parents buy a brand new crib and that they had to do it by a certain date or she was never coming to visit and our parents would never see her kid again. She tried getting me on her side about it, tried to say she wasn’t demanding or giving ultimatums, and tried to read me the text she sent that started all this but I’d already seen the text and knew she was lying. She unleashed at me when I called her out before hanging up on me and sending a text saying that I was an “ignorant bitch” and “a shit fucking mother” and somehow there it was, the last straw.
I’m a shit mother? So that’s why my child is consistently meeting and even exceeding developmental milestones? Why the child care staff gush and say what a joy my child is? I’m so shit at being a mother that she made me her nearly exclusive source of parenting info?
After venting to my husband for a bit, I called my parents and youngest sister and told them what happened and what I’d decided to do about it. My mom tried to talk me out of it, saying it was just gonna set her off, but I reminded her that it’s not our responsibility to manage Amy’s actions and emotions. That’s her job and the entire reason why we are where we’re at.
I waited until the next day to write my response and then sent this:
“Amy,
I didn’t respond last night because I was tired of dealing with everything and wanted to make sure I did respond from a place that was more clear headed. I’m not surprised that you lashed out at me last night. It’s expected, it’s what you do. I don’t care that you called me a bitch. I don’t even care that you called me ignorant. What crossed the line for me was your attack on my motherhood. You aimed to hurt, as you always do with these attacks, so you went for what you thought would cut the deepest. Unfortunately for you, I know I’m a good mom. I see that truth in the beautiful, confident, intelligent, loving little kid I’m raising. I’ve seen it in the months of your pregnancy when you came to me with questions almost daily and in the months that followed when you’d have a question about once a week. I know I’m a good mom, and so do you, which is why your attack missed its target and hit an entirely different one. This behavior of lashing out at the smallest provocation and in the harshest most cutting way you can devise will not be something I continue to tolerate. It was unacceptable when we were kids and it’s even more unacceptable now as a grown adult. I don’t know why you think its ok to act this way. I don’t speak for the whole family, but for me and my family, there’s now going to be changes where you’re concerned. For the foreseeable future, you’re blocked. I will not give you the privilege of being in my life when you can’t be respectful. If you would like that privilege restored, and to have the opportunity for us to have a relationship again, then I need to see evidence that you are making the effort to manage negative emotions in a healthy and mature manner. How you go about that is your choice. My personal recommendation is that you start with how you treat the rest of our family.”
She’s been surprisingly quiet since then and my youngest sister says it might be that Amy blocked me and my message wasn’t delivered, but that’ll change at some point and I’ve told them they can forward my message along if it comes up.
I’m very much enjoying my new peace even if I also feel like I’m mourning the loss of my sister. I do love her. We were close once and she could actually be pretty caring and decent when she wasn’t being a raging bitch. I can only hope this is a wake up call for her.

TW: Brief mention of a suicide attempt
For the sake of privacy we'll call the friend that is getting married, Sofie and the ex friend, Alice.
This is a long one so I apologize but context it needed to fully understand why I did this. And to be fair, this is an insane experience all together so buckle up. This may be the only unique experience I have and I wish I didn't.
Alice and I have known each other all of our lives. Our parents were close so we grew up together. I saw her much more like a sister to me than a friend and we always looked out for one another. Alice struggled in her teen years with alcohol and getting in to the wrong crowd but she did her best to clean up and change things. In our early twenties we decided to move out together and become roomates. It was me, her, and her longtime boyfriend who I also had a friendship with. We'll call him Nathan. Things were great the first few months. But as time went on we started butting heads. Alice didn't have a job at the time (she did at the time of us signing the lease. I also lost my job before moving in but quickly found whatever I could) Alice kept saying she'd find another job but she never did. Nathan only worked part time at minium wage and out apartment was 1200 a months. So he couldn't afford to pay her half of the rent so I started taking it on and she would pay me back a few weeks later after she managed to sell some clothes or whatever. It got to the point where I was struggling and pulling extra hours of work to keep up. I would come home in the middle of summer where it's 104 out and they have the thermostat at 62 and would get mad at me if I turned it up to 72 because 'it was unbearably hot' our ac bill for our small apartment was insane because of this and granted, I'm the one pretty much paying for most of it.
They would get mad at me for the smallest thing. Guilt me and saying I treated them like children when they were adults. But yeah, I'm gonna be mad if I come home and you left our electric fire place on in the summer because you like the aesthetic and our ac is blasting.
Now, here is where things take a turn and get Weird. Both me and alice are Hispanic and we were both raised religious. Due to our heritage and background, we have both experienced paranormal stuff growing up and within our families. It's not uncommon in Mexican culture to deal with the paranormal. I have some severe ptsd thanks to several past experiences I had as a child that I won't get into. When we moved out we were both religious people. Over the next few months Alice began to deconstruct her faith and wanted to find what she believed which I supported her on that. The one rule I had was not to bring anything or interact with anything paranormal. I did not want that in my apartment and she knows and has witnessed my recovery from my trauma with certain things. She completely agreed. She started exploring things with crystals, Tarot, all of that stuff and I gave her space and let her do her thing.
This is when Sofie came in to our lives. She was an old friend from HS that wanted to reconnect with us and we began hanging out. All of three of us were friends but me and Sofie hung out more. Over the course of the next few months things got weird in our apartment. Lights would flicker occasionally, their cat would meow and hiss at seemingly nothing. We would make jokes and move on. And Because I was working so much and I also had health issues, my mental health began to decline. I have severe depression and have been able to maintain it but due to the stress and my own isolation, It began to worse. Also they never cleaned the apartment unless asked (even tho Alice was home nearly every day) their cat would tear up the carpet. They'd leave dirty dishes all over the kitchen and internet would shut off because they'd forget to pay the internet bill (the only bill they managed on their own) because Nathan didn't believe in checking mail even if they were late notices. He'd toss them all. We'd get into fights and they would tell me how horrible of a friend I was because I had to 'constantly nag them' when they were behind on rent or reminding them we could not afford to have our ac at 62 in the summer.
7 months in and I made the decision to not renew our least together. We both wanted to try and save our friendship in anyway we could so as soon as it was up, we would part ways and I would move in with my brother and SIL and help them out for a bit until I found another place to stay.
Month 10. I was so physically sick, the doctors wasn't sure what was wrong with me. My mental health declined so bad that I began contemplating suicide. I was under so much stress and in debt. They were nearly 2 months behind on rent. But I didn't want us to get evicted and I'm a people pleaser and I wanted these last few months just to get over with. They left for a trip to see a family member for 2 weeks. Taking the cat and leaving me alone in the apartment. I was so happy for the first day. And then that's when everything happened.
Whispers were coming from their room. Like someone was having a conversation. I could never hear what was being said but as soon as I'd get close enough, it would stop. Their lights and lamps would turn on at night. On day 3 I went in and unplugged EVERYTHING to make sure it wasn't on some sort of timer. I guess it didn't like that because at night, the door would open and slam shut, repeatedly. It would do it so hard it shook the walls. Because of my own depression I literally thought I was losing my mind and it was in my head. No way this was happening. Things began to rearrange themselves. I could hear it. Furniture moving, jewelry being moved around, all of it, in their room. I texted Alice making a joke about how her room may be haunted. She replied with "familiar spirits get curious when their owners leave. It's fine"
I asked her to clarify. She pretty much told me she was in contact with something and since they were gone it was just curious and exploring.
I... I really had no words. I felt betrayed and lied too. How hard was it to not bring something into this apartment? To not communicate with things in our house? I should have left then. I didn't. While it stayed in the room, I could feel it. Like it was watching me. I grew paranoid. I didn't tell anyone. Didn't want to make a big fuss I just wanted to leave so I made plans to move out sooner then later.
One day. I just snapped. I don't put blame on her. I should have reached out, let people in and not isolate. I don't think she even knew how bad it was for me. I text my best friend, the one friend I knew doesn't text back for HOURS if not a day before my attempt. (different best friend, not sofie) She made it in time and stopped me mid attempt. Her and her husband came into my apartment. And as I was saying I felt like I was going crazy and having a psychotic break, the door opened on its own and slammed shut. They witnessed it and I cried because I honestly thought I was losing my mind despite the texts.
They tried to get me to leave then and I said no. They told my brother who called me and demanded I pack my things immediately and so my sister came over the next day while I went to work (just one day after the attempt) she didn't tell me until years later but she experienced everything I had. Which now makes sense as to why she helped me pack so freaking fast. I didn't tell her anything, just that I needed to leave and weird things had happened. I packed my things, I left. My parents found out and my dad went into the apartment (he grew up in the thick if it with his grandmother being in the occult) and my dad knew something bad was in that apartment and helped me get everything else out.
My friend came back livid. Our parents are close and her parents were upset with her. Asking why she was messing around with these things. I sat down and had a talk with her. Telling her I was sorry for how things came to light but I didn't really have a say in the matter. I said I'd be dead if my friend hadn't shown up and saved me from my attempt which was what started our family finding out. She looked me in the eye and said "im sorry. But you lived. And now thanks to you, I have to deal with my family finding out." I have never seen her be so emotionless or cold like she was when she said those words to me. I realized then, she did not care.
She blamed it on me. Telling my parents and her parents I was messing with stuff. We are grown adults. Act like it. If this is what you want to do with your life own it. Don't blame it on me as an escape goat because you didn't want to tell you parents you no longer believe in a religion. No one believed her anyway. But still, it hurt. I realized our friendship could never be salvaged. Sofie witnessed this all and cut ties with Alice. Alice bad mouthed me and blamed me. She also forced me to pay for the last months rent because I apparently owed her. (it was that or give it to her mom who didn't have the money) And left with a 10k cleaning and damage fee that I thankfully got the apartment to pin on them. I tried so hard to make Alice see my perspective and how I wasn't blaming her for my attempt or anything but she would shut me out and ignore me. I kept things quiet, tried not to tell our mutual friends what went on. But I found out from them that she blamed me for it all. Told them it was all my fault. That I was controlling and horrible to her when I have text message proof of how abusive she was too me and manipulative. There is so much more, I could make a list of all the things she and her bf did and lied about but for the sake of time, just know, as a people pleaser, this experience killed that. It lefted me jaded and Cynical of everyone. She was like a sister to me... I never thought we would end this way.
So..to the actual point of this post...
2 years have gone by Alice has no contact with me nor I, with her. Me and sofie are best friends. She's heard everything, she's seen the text and been my shoulder to cry on. She decided to move to a bigger city which is far from me but I promise to stay in touch. We do and she gets proposed to by her long term bf and I'm excited for her. We're on the phone talking about dates and dresses when she drops a bombshell on me. She said Alice had moved to Seattle a few months back and reached out to her. They began to hang out and now are close friends. She wants a super small wedding with like 50 people and Alice and Nathan will be coming. If she maintained a friendship with them, I don't think this would have hurt so bad. It's the fact that she cut ties with them on her own terms and told me she never wanted to see Alice's face again. She'd go out if her way to talk crap about them. So I was shocked when she said this.
I immediately began to cry. I didn't mean to. I'm in therapy, I'm doing so much better but the flood of emotions came back and I broke down crying. I felt like Alice got to get away scot free. She didn't have debt, she didn't have trauma from the event, she kept all her friends while I lost some. And now she gained another. I apologized and said it was her day and it was about her, she could do whatever she wanted. But the thing that made me cut ties was when she told me that I almost didn't make the cut to the wedding. Alice did. But she wasn't sure if she would have room for me, her best friend. She then said if I wasn't comfortable I could stay home for the wedding and not come. I realized we weren't as close as we were use to and that hurt. She also told me I should forgive Alice for what she did and Alice has no issues with me. I told her no. Alice never apologized, Alice wasn't the one traumatized, and Alice still believed she did nothing wrong. I apologized for my part and in turn she dragged my name through the mud. I would never treat any of my friends how she treated me. She has not changed, I know that for SURE. So no, I won't.
Sofie responded that there are two sides to every story and she could remain friends with us both. But I feel like she already made her choice. I told her I wasn't coming to the wedding and cut ties. That was in January.
So yeah... AITA for cutting ties with Sofie because she invited Alice to her wedding? Should I try to reach out? Or just let it be.
Part of me feels bad. But the amount of abuse Alice put me through... I feel like there has to be some sort of line. I would never be friends with sofie's ex friend who abused her. And she even told me if I did, she wouldn't be friends with me. I use to thing that was petty but somethings... Somethings you can't move past.

MAIN ISSUE IS GIVEN WITH "‼️‼️" BELOW AND THE FIRST CHEATING EVENT IS GIVEN BELOW IN 🚩🚩🚩
THIS IS JUST BACKGROUND Hi guys, I am going through a dilemma. I (25 F) and my husband (30 M) are both Pakistani and live in the Gulf. We had our paper marriage, aka Nikkah, in 2017 and got married, i.e., moved into his house, in 2019. We've known each other since 2016, and this was a love marriage. My husband went against his parents' wishes to get married to me, whereas my family is very supportive of whatever choices I make.
During COVID, I moved into my parents' house because of my two younger brothers, 15 and 12 at that time, as my parents got stuck in our home country for six months. My husband would spend four days with me and four days with his parents, i.e., peak COVID lockdown in 2020. Since I've known my husband, this is the first time I accidentally found out his phone password, whereas he always insisted on having all of my social media passcodes in the past.
🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 Anyways, I opened up his Snapchat without any malicious intent to check out his phone to get a few couple photos that we took on his phone, and Snapchat showed memories of last year of the same date. It was with some Filipinos (nothing against them, but where I live, they are usually considered as sex workers). I went and checked the old photos, and I saw that he had pictures with a lot of random women and specifically with his ex-girlfriend in the year 2018. They both had taken a lot of selfies from his sitting very close to each other in bars and even alone in the car, again very close to each other in his arms. I also found out he was asking Filipino their rates for sex work,and he also met one of them in his car and went to meet one in a mall during peak COVID lockdown.
Anyways, I didn't plan to talk to him about it because I was newly wed and didn't want to face consequences, and I thought he might stop on his own. Fast forward a few months later, my parents came back safely, and I moved back into my husband's house with his parents, and this is the time when I first actually started living with them, and within a few weeks, my FIL came to hit me with a shoe when I refused to give him my phone as a punishment for using it so often.
Anyways, things started escalating a lot, and my husband and I were having regular fights because of his parents always crossing boundaries. Then one day, we had a fight, and in the heat of the moment, I accidentally said out about his affairs. So we talked about it, and he said that he met his ex-girlfriend just like a friend as she came back from her home country after a long time, and he was asking for rates of Filipinos for his single friend. When I asked about what did you do with the Filipino you picked up in the car, he said that they just ate shawarmas by the seaside. I was naive and I bought into his narrative, even though I agreed to believe in his story,the uneasy feeling never left to the point where I refuse to have a child with him as I don't think I have a secure future with him.
Due to his parents bickering all the time, I finally snapped back at them, and they made a huge deal out of it and threw me out of the house, and my husband and I both went no contact for one whole year as I demanded a separate house even if I have to face hunger. When we did finally talk again, he convinced me that this won't happen again from his parents' side, and he will start fulfilling my basic rights as a wife, i.e., fulfilling my basic needs, maintaining peace, and protecting.
During this whole time, my father was the one who fulfilled all my basic needs. Anyways, I moved back in with him at the end of 2021, and he did not stay true to his word. He still picks out fights, his parents still shout, scream at me occasionally, and he only gives me a bare minimum monthly allowance, which is not enough for me, and I still have to end up asking my father for money. Please keep in mind I am a university student, and my father pays for all car maintenance, university fees, and essential needs, and the amount that my husband gives me usually goes out in just fuel and a few meals in university.
Anyways, the point is that coming back to his house in 2021 till the end of 2023, we used to constant fights mostly because of his anger issues and just generally being rude and in a bad mood all the time. I had to beg him crying to change his behavior towards me and to be nicer to me when talks, or else I will have no other option than to leave him. He did become nicer for three months until he started being rude again for over daily routine issues until his family was hit by a huge crisis due to his younger brother's fault. That's when he became polite to me again.
‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ THE MAIN ISSUE My main dilemma, after all of these ups downs, I really thought I was seeing some improvement in him, and I was finally feeling optimistic about my future with him, but I guess God has some other plans. He accidentally forgot to lock his phone last month, and I found out he had been texting sex workers again and asking their prices. He was also in contact with a girl, let's call her J, via Snapchat since 2021 till now, and only a few chats were saved in one which he was begging to convince her that I am not his wife rather his sister. Apparently, J saw me and husband out somewhere. I let all of this go again since I thought it's pointless bringing this up as things are now improving. Two weeks after me finding out, I randomly get a dick pic from my husband at 4 am when I was sleeping next to him, and he was awake and came back from a night out with his friends. When I woke up, my husband was asleep; I found it very suspicious since we don't get these kinds of pictures anymore. He forgot to lock his phone again and LO AND BEHOLD he sent the same dick pic to her with me literally sleeping next to him. What fathoms me the most is that how could he not feel any shame with me laying next to him.
Anyways, I talked about it a few days later, and he basically told me that he was trying to check J's loyalty for his friend. Please keep in mind his friend is also married and has 3-4 kids. I asked my husband why did you do it for your friend when you should have understood it the first time I caught you and made an issue out of it, and he said I thought that I would understand him doing all this for a friend, and I should've specifically asked him to stop doing it for his friends if I have such issues. Anyways, a part of me wants to believe his bullshit story, but a part of me knows that he is trying to manipulate me again as I can't even why a person who went against his parents' wishes would literally go out of his way to ruin his marriage. Does he want me to initiate the divorce so that he doesn't get the blame? WTF is it I am so confused, and I would most definitely will never have a child with a person who cheats.

I 24 Female have been with my 24 Male husband for a total of 5 years and married for 6 months. I moved in with him and his mother and step father in law about 1 to 2 years into the relationship. My relationship with his mother was really pleasant at first, we used to enjoy each others company and spent a lot of time outside in the morning drinking coffee. Our relationship didn’t start to sour until after I had my son two years ago, at first it started with small things such as crossing boundaries with how I wanted to raise my son or telling me how to do things the “right” way. I’ll admit I should have spoken to her from the beginning to let her know how much I didn’t appreciate the constant tweaking of my parenting style. At the same time I was a new mother and I was trying to fit into the role of mother hood and I wanted to figure things out as I go along. About two months after having my son, his father and I decided to get married and my mil was the first person we told before telling everyone else the news and diving into wedding planning. After about a few weeks into planning out the wedding, she had sat us down and said if we went through with it that she would kick us out on the street and she doubt anyone would take us in, especially with a newborn. At that moment all of my respect for her vanished, and I never completely got over it. I have so much resentment for her even now. From that moment on there was a shift in our relationship, the house was so tense and I knew it was because of mainly how I felt about everything. I couldn’t be a mother to my son while my mil played helicopter mom with my son and criticized every little thing I did, I couldn’t make the decision with my partner to finally seal the deal and become husband and wife. It felt she had completely taken over everything and I couldn’t escape any of it and my husband felt just as trapped as me. At the same time he would let anything she said get under his skin, like saying our son probably has autism, or that he is definitely on the spectrum. My son is talking and not showing any signs of that. I believe she was projecting her past relationship with my husbands father onto me because she left him before they could get married. After that it was little stupid things such as snapping at me over certain diapers, or snapping at me on my wedding night (a story for another time). When my husband and I finally got married, my sister in law told me that night that my mil didn’t even want us to get married and accused me of being ungrateful, disrespectful, lazy, and went as far to say that I treat mil and step fil like slaves. Later on I found out my mil would spend her time over at her house amongst other family to get drunk and just talk crap about me. My husband started calling her out on her insanity and then he started to realize just how crazy she really was. A week ago my son was sick and had woken us up in the middle of the night and just like always, mil came out to take control of everything and she was asking about a water bottle, to see what was in it. Mind you, during this time I was already under a lot of stress, I go to school and take care of my son, and on top of that my great gramps was dieing and my nana just found out she has a cancerous tumor. My mil was aware of everything, I told her there was nothing in it and she snapped. She asked again what the hell was in it and I told her it was just water, I corrected myself. My husband was trying to calm mil down but like always, it fell on deaf ears and she had a complete meltdown. She shouted how ungrateful we were for everything she has done for us and how she wanted us out by the end of the month along with all of our shit. I snapped because during this whole piss match, my son was sobbing in my arms because she couldn’t try to stay calm. I told her fuck that, we are getting the fuck out of here right now and you better say goodbye to “my sons name”. She left to go outside before saying how she is going to sue and get her lawyer involved. Which is not ganna happen because of how much debt they are in and besides, she would have to prove abuse or neglect which are not happening to my son. We packed up and left for my parents while she just continued her rant with my husband, and when I got to my parents I was a complete mess because I had so much respect and love for this woman and now I absolutely hate her. I wasn’t going to block her until I saw a post she had put on fb with the caption “what I’ll do to my kids place”, it was a video of a guy literally pissing all over the house. On that note I completely blocked her on everything and told my husband that I never want to see her again and that when we have our own place that she will never be welcomed there. I want to let my husband take our son over there to visit but it’s only been a week and I don’t think I’m ready to let our son go over there. Especially with how she acted, knowing our son was sick and he was sobbing the whole time. So AITA at all? Need some advice on how to move forward from this.

So I've been pondering our favorite psychotic gothGF and what kind of person would be a potential SO for her. Not exactly an enviable position given Curze's general hatred of everything and fundamental trust issues given her visions. My gut reactoon to that quandry was more or less "What if the SO is a Blank?". It would serve to remove a bane of Curze's existance and from what I recall from the OG timeline Big E's presence caused the visions to cease which in turn brought the Night Haunter a rare moment of peace. Now there'd be the little issue of Blanks causing Psykers wizhing range accute pain but then again that seemd proportionate with the Psyker's power and given that Curze is "only"a Precog and resilient enough to burrow thtough a planets crust as an INFANT I image it eouldn't be a deal breaker. For the SO's personality I'd see them as kind and hopeful, the ray of light and human goodness in a pit of filth.
Another point to touch upon is the question of when and how they'd meet given that her mental state would suffer more the longer she'd be on Nostramo on her lonesome. I'd set their meeting at a couple of years after Curze's emergence on the benighted world but still well before Big E's arrival. My reasoning there being that I struggle to believe that anyone sound of mind would stick with her at the "Flaying people alive and tailoring sweaters out of their skin while they watch" stage of savagery that we see in the OG timeline. If we were to intercept her downward spiral before we engage advanced cruelty with a sabilizing influence and a little bit of love we could end up with a degree of "I can fix/help her" that doesn't look as hopeless as the Haunter herself.
With all that preamble taken care of my headcanon would see them meet as the SO was being targeted by gangers in equal parts because of thery status as a Blank and as a social pariah. Curze would do to the lot what Curze tends to do until she'd get into the blank-range and subsequently caught off guard by the sudden lack of visions and (presumably) migrane caused by the SO's presence. The assailants would see their opportunity to strike the befuddled Haunter but be distracted by a suprise tackle from the SO. They are used to the beatings themselves but aren't gonna let the first person to stick up for them regret it, even if its someone as notorious as the Night Haunter. This brief respite would be all that Curze needs to snap back to reality and end the encounter in equal measure. Given the regularity of violence on the Planet the SO (probably) wouldn't be all that horrified by the (comparatively) swift deaths but be unable to engage their savior in conversation due to Curze fleeing the scene to gather themselves. The sudden blinding of the visions snd atypical behavior of that particularly scrawny one being enough to shake even her superhuman composure. With a couple more encounters like that and attempts by the to-be-SO to find and thank their unlikely hero (with some delectable rat kebap or whatever nostrsman destitutes eat) and we'd have a bond between the two.
Mayhap Curze would learn to immitate "normal" human behavior with the SO's voice acting as her surrogate moral compass.
Well that got bigger than I imagined. Regardless I'd greatly appreciate any and all feedback you might have for me.

Im little new here if there's problem in my post or anthing i should change or add new info pls tell.
Hello I need help my morality and ethics are at stake. I'm 20 year old boy currently giving my entrance exam for college. She is my younger cousin about 17. She is taller I'm 158 cm She is 162 or less She is living for about 1 week here in my home she came to celebrate my parents wedding anniversary but everybody left but she remain, she said she will go after this month I'm not sure. Now she is living with us family of four me my brother my mom and dad and she(my cousin)
Everything was normal when she came but when everyone left ( guest) she started more talking to me and smiling to me she started giving more and more attention to me she started coming closer to me holding my hands like all her fingers into mine.
All this while I honestly had little unconscious thoughts about her and as I'm little introvert I gave her attention too not because I want something just casual talk to understand her more. (At this point I want to say that I'm not able explain myself clearly I will edit this and write more later with time)
She started looking at me and I felt something wrong and some point later when I was watching my phone for checking schedule while I was lying on bed to my side she lying beside me reading someone she came closer and hugged me from behind almost cuddling me and I couldn't do anything while my bro was in next room watching TV. ( I will write more here)
When nobody was home in the evening I came from a walk and she asked me to lye on bed and she closed all doors and windows she turnoff the lights and started cuddling me all while she was smiling and yes I was lying in the bed, she tried and successfully able to kiss me on my cheeks, it was fast, And then ALSO ASKED IF I (ME) COULD LYI OVER HER!!! I was just going to do but something snapped and I got into senses.
And then I Seated myself on bed In crosslegged position and tried to explain myself (in my mind) and her what's going on and why its wrong (here I shall strongly tell you that I strongly believe her intention isn't for Intercourse she want cuddle while being really close (she also somtime said you can do anything and also a lot of stuff gibberish but i know she dont mean it)
Ok so after that or even before I dint touch her but you my mind is going wild I also feel like im being harrased or something.
Although I tell you that I'm not using victim card here I'm an adult and more responsible for anything happening btw us I'm not able to say no(idk why?) And want it to be stopped and I want us to go back to our usual self as normal cousins. I don't know what I did and what signs I gave maybe I shouldn't be friendly and never smiled at her while talking. ( I try to smile when I talk to new people or ppl thar I not know much about)
Pls help what should I do I think when she will go everything will be fine and I have no bad intentions neither I will try myself but my mental health I'd not good I don't want to make her uncomfortable by being rude. I think I cab Handel the situation but pls give me some advice . I'm not feeling good rn.