Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 216] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 218 May 28 or see the next chapter now on Patreon]
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Frances and company catch up before the final battle.
***
“Hold on. How would he win this battle if we outnumber him and surround him?” Ginger asked.
“He could target our leadership. Focus on killing Titania, Antigones, you and Martin,” said Ayax.
“Only, he’d have to kill Sebastian and Megara, as well as Edana and you too, Frances, along with a whole list of targets. I’m not sure how he could pull that off,” said Elizabeth.
Ayax grimaced, brow furrowed, but Frances knew the answer to that question.
“Thorgoth doesn’t need to find half the targets he’s after. Myself, mom, Titania, our strongest mages and the rest of the people that will be on his list have leadership positions. Like it or not we’ll be involved in the battle and he just needs to find us on the battlefield. A well-placed spell and he’d snuff any non-magic person out,” Frances said.
“So what do we do then?” Martin asked.
Frances’ heart was pounding, for she knew the answer, but was afraid to give it life. Yet what could she do but tell what she knew was the truth?
“Take the battle to him. Thorgoth will have to operate by himself with maybe just his Royal Guards. We need to hold him and his escort and defeat him before he hurts everybody else.”
“So, all the Otherworlders, our best mages?” Ayax asked.
“Not all of them. But my mother and I, Jessica and Leila, Dwynalina and Jim and Nicole, with a few Otherworlders holding off his guards,” said Frances.
Elizabeth pursed her lips. “Ayax and I can go after Queen Berengaria. I can’t imagine her going far from her husband.”
“This is assuming we can at least split the attention of the dragons and keep them occupied of course,” said Martin. He touched Ginger’s elbow. “Not that I don’t trust you dear.”
“Oh I know, but it is a consideration.” She swirled the wine in her cup. “That means Martin and I will be directing the battle with Sebastian and Alexander.”
“It’s likely you’ll be the overall commander with Martin. Alexander and Sebastian would then take charge of their own contingents,” said Elizabeth. She bit her lip. “Do you feel up for it?”
Ginger shrugged. “I mean, we have to—”
Elizabeth reached out to pat her friend’s shoulder. “Martin, Ginger, you know we have every faith in both of you, but if you need help, there is no shame in asking for it.”
“Besides I think we’re all scared. I know I am,” Ayax said with a smile. Even so, they could all see how her tail looked like it was trying to twist itself into knots. Frances figured her cousin wasn’t trying to hide her fear, just trying not to alarm or panic them.
Martin sighed. “I think that’s the problem, Liz. Duty compels us. Love binds us. So I know no matter what happens, I know we’ll stand together to face him. Still, we are afraid and while I know I won’t run, I worry that fear may cloud my judgment at a crucial moment.”
Ginger wiped her eyes, but her tears now flowed freely down her cheeks. “How do I know I won’t panic, and make a bad call? How do we know we are all coming back? We can’t. I…I guess we have to accept that, but I don’t want to lose you. Any of you.”
Drawing her friend into a tight hug, Elizabeth gently patted Ginger’s back. “I don’t either. I suppose that for me, I’ve always looked to my faith in God, and in you all. Have we not triumphed in all we’ve faced?””
Frances found herself nodding, her throat unclenching and the tight nervousness in her shoulders and neck fading. What remained was a faint feeling of lightness that lifted her chin.
“You’re right. We should believe in ourselves, and hope. Hope for a future when we win this war. Hope that our good will triumph over Thorgoth’s evil. Hope that in a few days, we’ll be home with our family, and our friends.”
Martin gave Frances a wondering look. “How are you able to hope that?”
Frances smiled. “I think that I have always been good at having hope. I didn’t realize it until now, but even in my darkest moments, I always hoped that I would find a place where I could be me.”
Ayax stood up, raising her glass. “To faith, friendship and hope. May it see us all through our final trial.”
Rising to their feet, the five touched glasses and drank deep. They all were smiling. The pain and fear in their hearts soothed by the hope they held and the determination to see each other once again.
***
“Frances, can I walk with you?”
Frances would never have said no to her best friend, and she could tell that past Elizabeth’s bright smile, her friend was worried. There were just too many small signs learnt from years of friendship. She was scratching behind her ear, and her eyes were narrowed just slightly from the tension in her face.
“Of course,” said Frances, falling in beside the tall Otherworlder. “How are you and Ayax?”
Elizabeth giggled. “We’re great! Fantastic even. She and I are even talking about what we might do after the war. We have so many plans and well, I kind of wanted to talk to you about that.”
Frances waited as Elizabeth continued to walk beside her, lips pursed.
“I know that after the war, I’m choosing to stay here with Ayax, with all of you. I just…” her voice trailed off, and her walk slowed to a crawl.
Taking a slight breath, Frances touched her friend’s hand. “Liz, you know it’s okay for you to doubt that.”
Elizabeth stopped and shook her head. “Oh no, I don’t have any doubts about my decision. At the very least, I’m past the point where my doubts aren’t going to change my decision. I know I’ve changed too much in the past seven years. I’ve come to terms with my sexuality. I’ve fallen head over heels in love with a woman who loves me just as much. I’ve commanded armies, led soldiers into battle and helped to make decisions affecting hundreds of thousands of people. I can’t go back pretending I’m Grade 8 and neither do I want to.” She squeezed Frances’s hand. “My decision is the right one. I know it in my heart and I’ve prayed about it. I can do a lot of good here and me going back? That won’t just hurt the people I love here, but it’ll hurt me and my family at home. I can’t hide who I’ve become and I’m proud of what I’ve grown into.”
Frances closely studied her friend knowing Elizabeth wouldn’t mind her staring.
“So what are you feeling, Liz?”
Closing her eyes, Elizabeth sniffled. “Guilt. It’s stupid. I know I’m making the right choice. I’m sure in my heart that God is encouraging me to make this choice, but I still feel guilty.”
“How could you not? You know your family loves you.”
“And I’m abandoning them. I know I’m doing the right thing but I still feel like I’m doing something wrong,” said the Otherworlder.
Frances hugged her best friend, squeezing her tight, hoping that her warmth and touch could comfort the woman who she’d trusted as much as her own mother.
“Liz, if they are everything you told me, they’re going to be alright. Have faith in them, like your faith in me and your friends.”
Elizabeth let out a sigh, but returned the hug. “Thank you, Frances. If…if the worst comes and you are sent back without me, go to them. Tell them I love them.”
Tears in her eyes, Frances nodded. “I promise. If you are sent back, I will take care of Ayax.”
Elizabeth let out a gurgly hiccup. “Thank you. I know you will.”
***
The historic coronation of King Martin and Queen Ginger would found what would be known as the Congrey dynasty. Con for Conthwaite and Grey for King Jerome’s dynasty.
It was an unusual coronation as King Martin and Queen Ginger were long-betrothed but not married. Yet King Jerome and Queen Forowena’s wills had been clear. Apart from that, the coronation involved as many of Eridale's traditions as possible in light of the circumstances.
Down the parade route attended by all those that could be mustered, King and Queen marched in at the head of an honor guard composed of their closest companions. These included Frances, Elizabeth, and Ayax, who held three poles of a crimson banner that hung over the pair. The fourth corner was held by Martin’s sister Mara, who wore a slightly undignified grin. Yet, nobody could really blame her.
Martin wore a black-white checkered tunic with red-gold trimmings and shoulder epaulets. His trousers were dark gray with again red-gold tassels. Ginger did wear a dress. It was of a dark maroon with silver lacing. A bejeweled gorget studded with emeralds hung from her neck and her ears sparkled with dark blue sapphires.
There was one minor alteration. As the procession marched up to the entrance of the old Goblin Empire palace, on a raised wooden dais dressed with elaborately embroidered carpets stood the attending dignitaries. They included all the other Erisdalian lords and ladies such as Viscountess Katia and Lord Tarquin, dressed in all the finery they could muster. Other notables such as Prince Timur, representing the Kingdom of Alavaria, Grandmaster Edana of the White Order and Alexander and Eloise of Erlenberg stood proudly side by side.
Towards the center of the dais were three figures. King Sebastian and Queen-Consort Megara, and the former Queen Janize. Sebastian and Megara were standing, holding Queen Forowena’s crown, whilst the heavily pregnant Janize sat, holding King Jerome’s crown. Thorgoth may have taken their decorated helmets, but he did not have their ceremonial attire.
Martin and Ginger stepped out from under the awning, giving their bearers a brief nod, before taking the last steps up the dais.
Whistling a spell, Megara touched her throat with her wand. “Who stands before the crowns?”
Martin knelt to one knee. The bearers of the awning followed. “Sir Martin of Conthwaite. A Knight of Erisdale.”
Ginger curtsied low. Frances nearly split her lips as she grinned at her friend’s perfect form. “Ginger. Just Ginger of Erisdale.”
Janize’s expression was unreadable as she rose to her feet. There was a slight archness to her features, and yet that could just be how she lifted her haughty cheeks.
“As witnessed by all, and by the King and Queen of Lapanteria, do you swear to defend Erisdale with all means at your disposal including force of arms?”
“We do.”
“Do you swear to uphold the laws of the land and the rights of Erisdale’s citizens?”
“We do!”
“Do you swear that until your dying breaths, to govern and reign over Erisdale not for your benefit, but for the benefit of the people and for their future generations?”
From her kneeling position, Frances frowned. That wasn’t quite the right oath. The wording was “Do you swear to govern over Erisdale wisely and justly?” She supposed that she might have missed it, or maybe there was a variation.
Yet as she noted her fiance’s face, she noticed his eyes were wide and her mother’s eyebrow was arched.
Not skipping a beat, Martin and Ginger bellowed. “We do!”
“Do you swear that you will do your utmost not to make the same mistakes as your predecessors and do whatever it takes to preserve Erisdale’s peace, even if it may cost you your lives?”
Frances blinked. Janize had gone completely off script. There was no fourth oath.
However, Martin and Ginger only hesitated for a moment as they exchanged a glance and looked up to meet Janize’s gaze.
The blonde woman’s eyes were bright and the hands holding Jerome’s crown were trembling ever so slightly. Frances had wondered why she’d insisted on doing this. Martin and Ginger had wanted to approach her to ask if she was willing, but the enigmatic former queen had surprised them by demanding they allow her to crown them. She now had an idea as to why.
“We do,” said Martin, smiling.
Ginger returned that smile. Blinking back her own tears, she took a breath. “In the name of Queen-consort Forowena and your brother, King Jerome. We solemnly swear.”
Janize closed her eyes, a single tear running down her cheek.
“Then as the last heiress of House Grey, I pass the crown of Erisdale on forever. Long live the Congrey dynasty. Long live Martin the Hero of Erisdale and his queen to be Ginger, whom I dub Erisdale’s Burning Heart.”
Lifting Jerome’s crown high, she set it onto Martin’s head. Swiftly taking Queen Forowena’s crown from Sebastian, she set it on Ginger’s head.
“Hail King Martin and Queen Ginger!” Janize bellowed as Martin and Ginger rose to their feet.
The crowd chanted back, their voices filling the great cavern. “Hail King Martin and Queen Ginger! Hail King Martin and Queen Ginger!” Frances could barely hear her own voice over the crescendo. The call that they all raised. Like the sound carried up into the void, she could feel herself be carried up. It was like she was floating on the power of their united song.
Turning around, Martin and Ginger smiled at Frances. Their eyes were wide, and she could see them clasp each other’s hands tightly.
Frances found herself standing on her feet, the pole to her awning in her hand. Without a second thought, she stabbed the pole’s spike into the ground. As her hand dropped to Alanna, she paused for a moment before her mind caught up with her body, and she nodded as if to herself.
Drawing the estoc, Frances raised her blade high, saluting her two friends.
“Long may they reign! Long may they reign!”
Elizabeth was right behind her, hammer raised high. Ayax followed suit with her staff and Mara and the rest were soon drawing their weapons. From the corner of her eye, Frances even spotted Morgan and Hattie raising their wand and staff.
“Long may they reign! Long may they reign!”
***
Helias glanced over his shoulder toward the accursed city. Despite the distance, there was a tremble in the air of Kairoun-Aoun itself.
“Helias?” Sara asked.
“Sounds like they crowned Martin and Ginger. They’re going to attack soon,” he said.
Sara nodded, her tense jaw the only sign of the worry that had seized the harpy-orc. As gently as he could manage with his rough, scarred hands, he wrapped his arm around her waist.
“Sara. We’re going to be fine.”
“You’re lying,” she said with eyes fixed forward.
The general couldn’t help but wince. “Sorry.”
Slowing in her stride, Sara placed a hand over Helias’s. “I still appreciate you trying to comfort me but I would prefer you to tell me the truth. How bad is it?”
Helias looked around. “Thorgoth may pull off a miracle and get himself and Berengaria out. However, a lot of Alavari are going to die.”
“What are you going to do?” Sara asked.
“I’ll have to attend this meeting and see what Thorgoth is planning. We’ll make a plan after that.”
“You and I know it’s not going to change anything,” Sara said, looking up at her husband, who could not meet her gaze. Yet, she didn’t push him away. Instead put her hand around his waist, drawing him closer.
“I know, but I want to be sure,” said Helias in a low tone.
“I understand. See you soon,” said Sara.
***
Helias found himself exchanging side-long glances with Glowron. The pair sat, both leaning forward toward King Thorgoth and a pacing Queen Berengaria, who’d finished explaining tomorrow’s strategy.
“Do you have anything else to add, my good generals?” Thorgoth asked. The king still smiled easily as he swirled a cup of wine in his hands.
Glowron shook his head. His tone was short but he kept this expression neutral. “No sire.”
The goblin general was Helias’s superior in rank and social class. The fact of the matter was that if Glowron had no objections, then there was no way the tauroll could object.
And still, Helias felt bile rise in the back of his throat. He froze, ever so briefly. Closing his eyes, he shook his head. Nothing mattered, except for Sara and Gwendilia.
“No sir. I’ll have my troops ready for tomorrow.”
That should have been that. They would have been dismissed to prepare for tomorrow’s suicide mission, but the king’s whims had other plans.
King Thorgoth put his cup down and leaned forward. “Oh come on my good generals. Surely you have something to improve on this plan.”
Glowron’s expression remained blank, whilst Helias smiled. “Your Majesty, you were the one who taught me everything I know. I can think of nothing I can add to your strategy.”
Queen Berengaria strode toward him. “You’re usually so talkative, Helias. Are you sure you have no other thoughts?”
“I beg your apologies, but I do not have any further additions to your plan, Your Majesty. My lord Glowron?” Helias asked.
“I do not either, my liege—” Glowron fell silent and Helias’s tail stiffened.
Thorgoth and Berengaria were no longer smiling and with a few more steps, the harpy queen had put herself behind the two generals.
“Let me be plain, we are now not asking you about how to improve the plan. We are asking for your thoughts. Give them.”
The Demon King’s remaining dark eye was narrowed. The other was now covered with a black silk eyepatch, the remains of the scar that Queen Forowen had given him, a discoloration scouring a line along the side of his face and right over his ear. In spite of the king’s injury, Helias felt nothing but cold dread dry his mouth.
“Your Majesty, my only thought is that we have no option but to follow your plan. No matter how we got into this situation, the only thing we can do is go forward and try to win this day,” Glowron said.
“And do you blame me, Glowron?”
Helias watched, eyes wide as somehow the much smaller goblin general continued to meet the king’s eyes. “I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t assign some responsibility to you at all, but I believe we ought to have thought of the possibility of such a trap. So the responsibility is mine as well.”
Thorgoth nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, Helias saw the slightest of nods that Berengaria gave to her husband. Alarm shooting his gaze back toward the Demon King, Helias found the full attention of his sovereign and sometimes uncle directed right at him.
“And you, General Helias?”
Lie and he might not be able to make it convincing enough. Tell the truth about what he thought about this war and he was never seeing Sara and Gwendilia again. Thorgoth hadn’t just been hurt, his pride had been wounded and he was now backed into a corner. It would be unwise to anger him, but what to say? What could he say?
All he could think of, and see was his child and her adoring gaze. All he could feel was the touch of Sara’s hand against his. They’d become closer than he could have imagined and were more than just companions with mutual goals now.
If he was to die, then maybe he could tell this truth.
“I am mostly thinking of my wife and my child, my king. The coming battle has me greatly concerned with how dangerous it shall be.”
Thorgoth narrowed his eyes at Helias for a brief moment. The tauroll, staying very still, waited for the presumed reaction by Berengaria.
Whatever Berengaria did made Thorgoth arch an eyebrow.
“I thought you didn’t consider your wife to be worth much,” said the king in a mild tone.
His mind racing, Helias ran with the idea. “She has responded well to the constraints and discipline I’ve enforced on her. She does nothing but facilitate all my needs and has served me well.”
He could feel Berengaria’s eyes narrow, but Thorgoth was already leaning back onto his chair. “Good for you. You are dismissed.”
“Thank you, sire,” said Helias, almost unable to hide his sigh of relief.
***
Author’s Note: While I wish I could have spent more quality time with Martin, Elizabeth, Ginger and Ayax, I do love the best-friend/team that I created for Frances. This chapter and the last was my little way of giving each of them a bit of time with Frances before the final battle.

Hi Dr. K, I am a 22-year-old Indian male, and lately, I have been facing a lot of issues in my life. Even though I have not sought any diagnosis for depression, I often feel depressed and even question the point of my existence. I hope you can help me with my situation.
Some background on myself: I was a confident kid growing up, and I was happy most of the time. But as I grew up, I started facing issues in my family. My father is a bit of a narcissist, and he was kind of abusive to me, both physically and mentally. He is a bit of a manipulative person, and his behavior often mirrors that of other family members in their treatment of me. He often compares me to others and puts me down whenever he can. This has made me less confident in life and has affected my ability to maintain relationships with others. I am always concerned about what others are thinking about me, and I have lost my ability to make meaningful conversations with others. People often run all over me, which makes me angry as it makes me feel small and, in some way, inferior to others. I lose arguments most of the time, and that makes me feel more stupid. Most of the friends that I made lately don't care about me, and they end up taking advantage of me and making fun of me. Naturally, these friendships did not last for a long time.
I am trying many things to improve myself, like going to the gym regularly, reading various self-help books, practicing focusing on one thing, but these don't seem to help me much. I may feel good for about a day or two but end up in the same depressed state. It sometimes feels that I can't fall any lower in life, and sometimes I cannot fathom if I can get better again. I sometimes envy my childhood self when I was confident and happy and wish I could be like that.
Please tell me what I can try to get better at living. Thank you.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/WholePomegranate5342
Originally posted to TrueOffMyChest
My Parents Tried to Screw Over My Dying StepMother, Blew Up All Of Our Lives Instead
Trigger Warnings: infidelity, imminent death, terminal illness, financial exploitation, physical assault, emotional abuse and manipulation
Original Post: February 13, 2024
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
My (17F) stepmother "Jane" is a wonderful, wonderful woman. She and my father got married when I was 4, and she's been a rock in my life ever since. My mother was always my primary caregiver, but up until that point her relationship with my father was acrimonious and I basically never saw him. Jane was the reason they developed a stable co-parenting relationship, she encouraged everyone having a good relationship with each other and was always there to support me and my mom when things got rough.
Jane was always a really hard worker. When she met my dad, he was living out of a hotel and my mother was doing everything in her power to keep me away from him because she was petty and angry that their relationship didn't work out. Meanwhile Jane had a great job, a nice house, helped my dad get back on his feet, negotiated a visitation schedule with my mom (who hated her for a long time), and made sure my dad sent us money every week because neither one of them could afford an attorney to negotiate child support payments. Jane had no reason to do any of these things but as I got older she made it clear that she loved me as much as she loved my (half) brothers who were born a few years later. I even have my own room in her house because at the time we lived with my grandparents / various boyfriends of my mom and Jane felt that I needed a more stable environment than that. She's like the opposite of the evil stepmom.
When I was 15, Jane won a big lawsuit against an airline company and got awarded upwards of a million dollars. She used the money to build sizable trust funds for me and my brothers so that we would be taken care of later in life. Despite having a lot more money she still wanted to live a fairly modest life, so she paid off the house she has and has been living there ever since with my dad. Sure she bought a new car and they went on a few nice vacations but she didn't blow all her money on stupid things, which I respected.
About a year ago, things started getting really weird. Whenever I saw Jane she seemed to look sicker and sicker, but no one would tell me or my brothers why even though I know they knew. All we knew is that she was at the hospital a lot. Around the same time, my mom has been coming around my dad a lot more and acting really strange, basically like she was trying to romance him. Whenever Jane was in the hospital my mother would insist on spending the night at their house and playing mom to my brothers, which was so weird to me because she never liked them or Jane. She'd be the perfect little housewife and my mom is NOT like that at all. It was super fake.
Worst of all, my dad started falling for it. I'm not stupid - I'm pretty sure they were sleeping together. I tried to shield my brothers from it but they're not dumb either. I tried talking to my dad too but he insisted it wasn't like that.
Then a few weeks ago, my mom started talking about all the places she'd like to visit, how she wanted a new car and was looking to invest... which is weird because my mom has been a bartender her whole life and has lived paycheck to paycheck since before I was born. She was acting like she was about to get a lot of money, which started to make me really suspicious. Between Jane being sick and my mom acting all nouveau riche, I had a lot of questions.
Finally I decided to visit Jane in the hospital and ask her about my trust fund. I found out that if anything happened to her, that my dad would inherit all the money including full control of the trusts for me and my brothers. She asked me why I was so interested in the trust fund so I told her what's going on with my parents and how my mom has been acting with my dad. I didn't want to but after everything she did for me, she deserved the truth. It really hurt me to break her heart like that, especially once I found out that she was basically in hospice at this point because of irreversible kidney failure. She's only got a few more months. We both cried so much.
Then, two days ago everything came to a head. My mom stormed in furious and started arguing with my dad. Apparently Jane met with her lawyer and changed the trust so that my dad would get nothing and all of the trusts would be controlled by my step-aunt. She demanded to know how Jane found out about their relationship and I came out and told them that I told Jane everything. I told them that if they wanted to play stupid games they would win stupid prizes and that I wasn't going to let them screw Jane over after all the help she gave my family when she didn't have to.
My mom slapped me and my dad just looked so defeated. Then my mom told my dad that she didn't really love him, that she was just pretending to so he would marry her and she could get all of the money. The worst part about it is that my brothers witnessed the whole thing and now on top of their mom dying they have to deal with a cheating dad and his vindictive ex. Our whole family is in ruins and I feel like it's my fault even though I know it's not.
Yesterday I visited Jane again and told her about the fallout. She apologized and said that she had to dissolve my trust fund to make sure my mother didn't get a hold of the money, but that as "her oldest" I will inherit the house/property after she is gone and that's worth more than the other two trust funds combined. My father won't get anything because she's going to divorce him before she dies, and honestly I'm happy for her. She made me promise to take care of my brothers and told me that once I turn 18 this summer I can kick my dad out of the house if I want to. And I FULLY plan to do that btw.
I haven't talked to my dad since and I can't even look at my mom. I can't believe they would conspire to do this to Jane after all this time. Just proof that they deserve each other and I'm embarrassed that they're my parents. Once I turn 18 I'm going to cut my dad out as much as I can and cut my mom out completely. I hope she rots. Meanwhile I'm going to try and be at the hospital as much as I can until Jane passes away.
Anyways. I just needed to vent. I'm really messed up about the whole thing and I feel super betrayed, although I can't even begin to imagine how Jane feels. I'm gonna be so f-ed up when she dies. I can't even think about that right now. But at least she's not surrounded by people who just want to bring her down.
Thanks for reading.
Edit: Some people are asking a lot of the same stuff so I'll just clarify here --
My brothers - My plan is to use some of the estate money fight for guardianship for my twin brothers so that they can live in the house while I kick my dad out. If I can't get guardianship then I will have to let my dad stay in the house. However once I turn 18 I will technically be an adult so even if my dad leaves I'm still legally able to be responsible for them. The only thing I won't be able to do is stop him from taking them if he leaves. But they will be 18 in six years so even if they do have to leave they will always be able to come back whenever they want. In a perfect world my dad would just leave and let my brothers stay with me which I'm sure my bio-mom would be very supportive of because right now she hates all of us and I doubt that will change anytime soon.
The trust - from what I understand, my brothers will inherit 1/3 each of the estate and the remaining 1/3 will be used to keep the house running until they turn 18. After that it will be up to me if I want to keep the house or sell it. At that point my brothers will still have money left in the trust so they can branch out or do whatever they want, otherwise I will not sell the house and just pass it on to them or keep it and maintain it myself and they can just stay with me as long as they need to.
(Edit to the edit) So I just spoke to Jane and she told me that the reason she dissolved the trust is because originally it was going to be split 3x between us kids and my dad would inherit the house. She dissolved my 3rd and switched it over to make it to take care of the house maintenance, and instead put the house in my name so my dad wouldn't get it. Plus by doing that at least financially I would be getting a much bigger share (the house is worth about 1.5x the amount of my brothers trusts) I just wouldn't be able to do anything with it until my brothers are 18, which I'm totally cool with. Sorry if I don't have a better answer but I'm just trying to translate what she told me.
My parents - The big fight happened on Sunday and I haven't spoken to either of my parents since, I think they're both at my mom's place right now but that's fine with us because we're all still mad at them so they can stay gone for all we care. I know technically that's not legal to just leave us alone but I've been taking care of my brothers for over a year I can handle a few days while he gets his shit together. Screw both of them.
Hope that clears some stuff up.
TLDR; My bio parents tried to screw my terminally ill stepmother out of trust fund money, but she caught on and now no one on my side of the family gets anything.
Additional Information from OOP on her parents, stepmom’s health, trust funds

OOP: (Why isn't Jane on dialysis) - I don't remember the exact details but Jane has a genetic condition where she gets cysts on her kidney. She already had a transplant a few years ago but now she developed problems with her arteries or something in her legs so she doesn't qualify for dialysis. She could get another transplant but she doesn't want to because the last time was so traumatic (rejections, etc). So she decided to just let herself go onto maintenance medications to prolong her death until she gets her affairs in order. She has a few other health problems that make the typical treatments really dangerous and according to her she'd rather die surrounded by loved ones than on an operating table.
(Dissolving the trust fund) - Jane told me she didn't technically have to do it, but she didn't trust my bio parents not to do something shady and get a hold of the money before I turn 18. Even if my aunt controlled the fund my dad would still be able to collect if something happened to Jane before I turn 18. Her lawyer suggested it's better safe than sorry and I agreed that it was the best option. I'm not an expert tho I don't know the details.
(How my mom knew) - Like I said before I'm pretty sure Jane told my dad, who then told my mom and that's how the argument started. I can't think of any other way and I didn't really care enough to ask.
(Jane's thoughts on my mom) - she didn't know my mom was doing all of that. My mom has her own place and would only come over whenever Jane was in the hospital for a few days at a time. I've been living with my dad for a little over a year so he probably told Jane that my mom was there to spend time with me, if he told her at all. Besides she didn't "move in" until a few months ago, which I guess is when they started hatching their plan. Jane never outright banned my mom from visiting so there really wasn't anything she could do.
Hope that helps.
Edit for the last part: The remainder of the money belonging to the estate that hasn't been put into trusts for my brothers is going to be used to maintain the house (utilities, taxes, etc) until my brothers are 18 and then I can either choose to sell the house or keep it and maintain it myself if I'm able to. I plan to go to school in that time and get a better job with the goal of keeping the house, but if I can't then I have the option to sell it. Not that I will but that's how it was explained to me.

OOP on her stepmom and their relationship, provides thoughts on her bio mom

OOP: Honestly it's because she's more of a "real" mom than my actual mom.
My bio mom is kind of ambiguous about my existence but Jane was always extra involved, sending me to sports teams and paying for dance classes and just showing interest in my hobbies as I got older. Plus as the only girl I think we bonded on a level she can't with my brothers so she always made sure to let me know I was on equal terms with them. When I was younger we would watch movies and have girl time where it was just us 1:1 and those are some of my best memories with her.
Jane is also really mature and someone I wanna be like when I get older whereas it feels like my mom is a teenager in an adult's body. She was constantly picking fights with my dad about dumb things and Jane was always there to smooth things over and keep my best interest at heart over her own feelings. I know my mom made Jane's life really difficult for a long time but Jane never complained or said anything to me about it whereas my mom CONSTANTLY complained about Jane. As I got older I just always felt more at peace when I was around Jane than when I was around my mom.
If you want your step kids to love you just be there for them and treat them like your own. Ignore whatever drama you have with your husbands ex and just love your kids. Trust me if you really care about them they will know.

Relevant Comments
mattdvs1979: My only advice is make sure you work with a lawyer once she passes so you get your inheritance and your parents can’t try to intervene, and then you keep your promise to use that money for you and your brothers’ welfare.

OOP: Oh absolutely, Jane already gave me the lawyer's info and between him and my step-aunt I'm sure I will be able to do what I need to do for them. I don't even care about the money, most people don't have trust funds and turn out just fine. I'm actually more glad that she gave me the house because you can be damn sure it's going to be a safe space for my brothers whether I end up getting custody of them or not. My brothers are basically Jane's legacy so my goal is to give them the life and guidance that I got from her, and that they won't get because she'll be gone.

OOP on the relationship between her father and her stepmom before they got exposed

OOP: Honestly it hurts a lot because before Jane got sick they seemed to have the perfect relationship. Until my birthgiver (I like that) came in and fucked everything up with her toxic personality. Honestly in a perfect world my mom will end up broke and alone and in a shitty nursing home with bed sores. And when she calls me and begs me for a relationship (because she needs the attention) it'll feel so good to hang up on her over and over again.

OOP on Jane (stepmom)’s health and if Jane is mentally okay on the whole situation

OOP: I think so. Apparently it's a genetic disease so she always knew she was going to get sick she just didn't know when so mentally I think she was prepared for it. I just hope that she can find peace knowing the truth and knowing that I'll be there to make sure her sons don't grow up all fucked up.

OOP on her brothers getting therapy to deal with their mom/step-mom’s health and her imminent death

OOP: Yeah. I've already sat them down and talked to them about what's going on, they seem to understand but they're understandably really sad about the whole thing. I told them that when they go to school they should ask about a grief counselor and I'm trying to get their health insurance info from Jane so I can find them a therapist for kids. As much as all of this sucks I think it's brought the three of us a lot closer together.
Thanks a lot. I really love my brothers and I know it's my job to take care of them properly now that they won't have a mom around. Jane did so much to raise me and my brothers won't have the opportunity so it's only right that I help them.
Since finding all of this out my plan has always been to have my brothers live with me, I'm already in charge of taking care of them and the house for the most part the only thing my dad does is help pay the bills. Unfortunately I won't be able to kick my dad out as long as he's their legal guardian which is why I'm trying to find some other solution to that. But if/when that gets resolved he can live under a bridge for all I care.

 
Update: May 8, 2024 (3 months later)
Please check my profile for my previous post. :)
Hi guys it’s me again, a lot of you asked me for an update on my situation with Jane and my family so I’ve come back with a few things that have happened since I initially posted. I will try to organize this in a way that addresses the major points of last time.
Jane is still alive and doing surprisingly well considering the circumstances. She’s always been a fighter and although her disease has been progressing she’s keeping a positive attitude with everything that is going on. She says she’s grateful that she was able to see everyone’s true colors before she passed so she could go into the next life knowing the truth. We have become so unbelievably close in the past few months and it’s getting harder and harder to know that she’s getting close to the end. She doesn’t ever talk about it though and I know it’s because she doesn’t want to hurt me but we both know the situation so we’re just making the best of our time. I'm also not being completely transparent about all of the drama at home but tbh I don't think she needs to hear all of that.
We did end up having that surprise celebration of life that I planned, a lot more people showed up than I thought but they all got an airbnb near the hospital where Jane is and we were able to take her out and spend some time at the lake near the facility. It was super lowkey which I know Jane preferred and I was even able to get her old college friend to come after I found him on Linkedin lol. We had food and there was music and we played games and it was overall a really great time, except Jane started crying at the end but she promised me it was just because she was grateful.
My brothers are also doing okay, my aunt (Jane's sister) is currently paying for them to go to therapy and they've become a lot more open about talking about the situation. They just turned 13 but a lot of the time it feels like I'm talking to actual adults lol. They've become really independent lately (in a good way) and aside from me driving them places I don't really have to do much for them anymore. Their grades aren't super great but they're not failing and considering the circumstances it could be a lot worse. They still hang out with friends and I'm keeping an eye out for like depression symptoms and stuff.
The situation with my mom is as funny as it is embarrassing tbh. She spent a few weeks ignoring us and then she tried to crawl back into my life basically begging me to let her move in because her lease is about to expire and she has nowhere to go. That convo went about as well as you'd think and she ended up calling me an ungrateful b**** and that I couldn't just ignore her because she's my mom. I told her to get out of the house before I call the cops and to go back to my dad (who at that point was only coming home every few days to "check on us" and grab some clothes.)
After that she tried coming by a few times and when I wouldn't open the door she would lose her mind and start yelling through the neighborhood. After three instances of this I finally called the cops but because I'm 17 they told me there's a possibility that I would have to go home with her since technically I'm a minor and need to be with the custodial parent. I told them no way because I was the only one watching my brothers atm. That led to a whole thing where after a few hours my dad basically showed up and I was allowed to stay there because there was finally an adult present and I'd basically lived there for over a year.
After that the cops firmly told my mom that if she keeps showing up and causing drama (my neighbors confirmed that she'd been there a few times screaming) that they would arrest her for trespassing since technically it was Jane's house and not hers. She left and hasn't tried coming to the house anymore but for a while she would call me constantly telling me I owed her and all kinds of stuff. She's now blocked on everything and anything she needs to say to me gets filtered through my dad.
As for my dad... well, since he's basically required to be here for another 2 months until I turn 18 we've basically just avoided each other. It's not too bad though because I've been heavily relying on guilting him for everything to get my way. For example he was going to contest the divorce but I threatened to kick him out when I turn 18 if he does that so he just signed all the paperwork for a "quickie divorce" and is basically doing whatever Jane tells him to do. I don't openly disrespect him or anything (he's still my dad) but I've made it clear that I have no intentions on doing anything he says ever again and he doesn't fight me on it. Most of the time he's just in his room and sometimes he'll go back to my mom's but only for a day or two before they argue and she kicks him out again lol. I haven't decided whether or not I'll kick him out yet and we haven't talked about it either so I'm kind of playing it by ear.
As for me, I'm handling everything as good as I can. I found a new job where I make a little more money so I've been focusing on saving as much as I can and just being there for my brothers. Between working and school and visiting Jane I've been so busy I haven't really had time to really stop and think about everything, but I know it'll come. One of my friends has really stepped up and helped me manage everything and I'm super grateful to him for being there for me and my brothers so we'll see how that goes.
Anyways I wish I had something more exciting to share but that's what's happened since my last post :) Thanks again for all the support on my last post.
Relevant Comments
OOP on the possibility of her stepmom being poisoned from her parents to get Jane’s money

OOP: Hi there,
A few people have mentioned this and yes we are absolutely certain she is not being poisoned, it’s a genetic disease causing her kidney failure and we have known about it for a long time but she shielded us from the worst of it hence why her “sudden” decline in health was such a shock to us, we thought she had more time.
My brothers have also been screened for this disease and thankfully neither of them have it.
Edit to add: I’m turning 18 in a few weeks so I don’t need to get emancipated and my dad has already agreed that my brothers will stay in the house with me because they have nowhere else to go.

OOP on Jane making video clips for her brothers

OOP: Yes actually a few people suggested this on my last post and we have been doing this for a few weeks now. Jane has a little digital recorder that she’s been putting her thoughts down on and she’s also written a few letters to us for major milestones. My brothers do not know about this as we want to surprise them but that said they have been coming to the hospital more now that they’re in therapy and able to deal with it. I know they do not want to have any regrets even though it’s a difficult situation.

OOP on her father after being exposed and her bio mom trying to manipulate him

OOP: I do think he’s remorseful, he hasn’t said it but the way he’s acting is telling me that, he’s being really passive when normally he gets a little belligerent if he really feels like he didn’t do anything wrong. Also I know I have every reason to kick him out but he’s still my dad even tho what he did to Jane was terrible. He’s just kind of a weak minded person and my bio mom really manipulated the crap out of him and continues to manipulate him but I can tell he’s getting tired of her BS because he’s spending less time with her.
He didn’t know she was showing up at the house and when he found out he was super pissed at her, they’ve been fighting nonstop and I can tell he’s not as much under her spell anymore because he’s at home more but who knows.

 

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I noticed that when I was petting him he was uncomfortable and then i noticed he had an abscess that looks like it popped. We were able to trim the fur around it and put a warm compress on for a couple of minutes.
We plan to take him to the vet tomorrow, but in the meantime I’m very worried about it and wanted to get an opinion on how bad this looks as far as abscesses go. I know that vets may recommend sedation to be able to do this without causing more pain as well as being able to determine how deep the wounds are. And Sometimes wounds require stitches, staples, or drains placed to prevent infection as well as antibiotics. I have insurance (I don’t think this would cover) and can and am more than willing to pay for any of the recommendations, but just wanted to get thoughts on based on the photo how severe this is and the treatment that may be necessary when I go in tomorrow to be prepared.
Spoke to an advice vet tech and they said just to keep him quiet and comfortable tonight and away from the other cats.
He’s an indoor only cat with two other cats at home. He got out for a couple hours when he pushed our window screen out a couple of weeks ago and hoping this is not from that.
Thanks in advance.

I apologize in advance, it's a long read. I will add a TL;DR at the end.
I (31M) have been seeing someone (33F) for a little over a month. When we first started seeing each other, she explained that she had left an abusive relationship a few months prior. I was also in an abusive situation that I escaped a few month before her.I was not the first person she has gone out with since her separation and she has been very forthcoming about her dating history, sometimes a little too much, but it generally doesn't bother me as I had been on a few dates too (although none of mine became physical in any way). I think she is stunning and I know that I can't be the only one to think that, so obviously she is going to have people trying to slide into her DMs. She says she tells them that she is seeing someone and they apparently continue to message her. I do not even try to understand the horror show women put up with online, so I could imagine many women get this treatment.
My big red flag right now, that I don't know if it's even really a red flag, is that she claims that if her ex and family knew about me that it would be a big issue. She finally told her ex she was seeing someone yesterday, but she only did it after her ex brought up that he was seeing a much younger woman. I feel like it was purely retaliation because she still hides my identity. I feel like it is maybe in my head a bit because she has introduced me to friends and her kids, but the fact that she seems almost ashamed that she is dating me towards the rest of her people.
I keep going back and forth on where I stand. One moment things are good and I have full trust that I am not being lied to or led on. The next moment I am feeling dirty because my mere existence seems to cause her life to be harder. I am stuck in a space where I feel like it's only a matter of time before the other shoe falls and she says that I/the relationship are not worth it anymore. I also am able to acknowledge that I have abandonment and trust issues stemming from C-PTSD so my ability to remain objective is tricky.
Am I being an idiot (either for trusting her or for doubting) or am I just being jaded and letting past traumas prevent me from being happy. Be as critical as you want; I have already played out some pretty bad scenarios in my head
TL;DR: I can't tell if me being kept a secret from family and her ex is bothering me because of past abuse/neglect or because of something more legitimate/tangible

I wanted to express my gratitude to this community for all the helpful insights and information I've gained from your posts. I'm happy to share that I've just received my Green Card approval without an interview and RFE in just 4.5 months! Here's a detailed timeline of my process:

Background: F1 student married to a USC.
Jan 1, 2024: PD I-130 Applied Online (California Service Center). Receipt Block: IOE93778
Jan 4, 2024: PD I-485, I-765 (NBC). Receipt Block: IOE09238
Jan 6, 2024: I-130 status changed to "Actively Reviewing".
Jan 13, 2024: Biometric Scheduled.
Jan 31, 2024: Biometric Appointment, I-485 and I-765 status changed to "Actively Reviewing".
Feb 1, 2024: I-765 Standalone Approval.
Feb 10, 2024: SSN Received.
Feb 16, 2024: EAD Card Received.
May 5, 2024: Email Notification: "We have taken action on your case."
May 6, 2024: Email Notification: "We have taken action on your case." Contacted USCIS via Emma; representative noted both cases transferred to the Local Field Office.
May 10, 2024: Uploaded additional unsolicited evidence (Cover letter, additional pics (10), 2023 tax transcript, car insurance with both names, joint checking account statements).
May 13, 2024: Email Notification for I-130: "We have taken action on your case." Found approval letters in the document tab.
May 14, 2024: Email Notification for I-485: "We have taken action on your case." Found approval letters in the document tabs.

Evidence of Bona Fide Marriage Submitted:
Marriage certificate
25 pictures with family and friends
Travel boarding passes from 2 trips
Shared phone and utility bills
Costco membership
Beneficiary designation on life insurance
Emergency contact in my health portal
Gym memberships in both names
Tax transcripts
Car insurance in both names
Joint driver's licenses with same address
Joint bank account statements from the last 3 months

This timeline might give hope to those in a similar situation. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about the process!
Thank you all once again for the invaluable support!

I’m sorry, it’s a been a rough ride. After becoming homeless due to substance abuse issues, his mom and aunt departed for a small town where they were able to rent a room for $150 a week. They both had income. His mom worked for city hall and had a small pension. The aunt has been collecting SSDI for 30 years and has had a doctor that was prescribing fentanyl, OxyContin, Klonopin and many, many others. My bf grew up in this environment and was only a couple of years sober. I refused to allow them to stay here. They secured an apartment once getting settled, halfway across the country, that they lived in for a bit until his mom collapsed and was rushed to a hospital and died. She had been told that the lump would be removed and she would be fine, 3 weeks prior. She was 58! The aunt has the emotional capacity of an 8 year old and the woman who had hosted them was called by the police when the aunt called 911. Aunt was sent off to a psychiatric hospital and this woman became her caregiver and took her home. It was later discovered that the pharmacist had refused to refill any more medication as the prescriptions were from a doctor in her home state. Fentanyl. Bad back. Okie dokie. The woman said that she found FedEx packages that had been shipped from the prescribing doctor. The aunt stayed with this woman who was adamant that she was substance free. The hospital was apprehensive to release the aunt into her care as she had spent 3 decades on heavy duty medication and was physically and mentally unstable. The woman is a nurse who works for the state. The aunt continued to complain of gastrointestinal problems and was seen by a doctor who said “it’s all in her head, there is nothing wrong with her” OK. Aunt was recently admitted in January to the hospital after becoming unresponsive and was sent from a hospital to a psychiatric facility and released several days later. (The details are fuzzy when dealing with a game of telephone and alcohol) She was sent home with the woman who continued to seek medical attention for her sudden incontinence and described fecal matter all throughout the house. Again last week, aunt collapsed and was rushed to the hospital covered in feces and a bedsheet. She was transported to ANOTHER hospital where she was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. She is currently in hospice care at the woman’s home. The whole situation is astonishingly complicated and bizarre as well as emotional. I understand that small town doctors are not always as esteemed as big city doctors, but seriously?! 2 women, 58 and 63 in 2 years..? The aunt had a CAT scan in 2023 when she was dismissed as delusional. The hospital that diagnosed her said she had pancreatic cancer for at least 14 months. I am getting the details together as I write this. All information is coming from a woman I don’t know and clearly has financial motives. The family had been in a house that was passed down through 4 generations that burned down when the mom nodded off with a cigarette. 250K for the land was gone in 6 months and off they went. A side note, the brother had gone to another state and died at just 25 after the house burned down and the cause is still unclear. The brother and the house are unrelated to the issues with the mom and aunt, but are relevant background.
In my non lawyer opinion, malpractice by negligence is quite clear but I needed to spill it out.

Backstory: I was raised in an abusive household where my mom physically and verbally abused my brother and I. My mom refused to financially support me, there was never food in the house, she strangled me, slapped me, called me lazy, etc etc. My dad did nothing to stop her and played the good guy. We had a good relationship but as I became an adult our relationship has changed. I left home at 17 and supported myself through college. I have since moved across the country and am getting married. I have spoken to my parents several times about my upbringing which has gotten me some excuses and some half assed apologies.
My dad is becoming quite politically incorrect as he gets older and also manipulative. Lots of guilt tripping, lying. My mom and I have managed to have an ok relationship where she comes across as pretty loving to me despite the past. My dad pulls a lot of "she's your mom she loves you, you are making her upset" if anything happens between her and I. My mom and my dad's parents do not get along. We were estranged from my dad's family for most of my life given my dad's father being an abusive alcoholic. His dad is very sexist, racist, homophobic every time I see him and has gone so far as to grab my ass. He also apparently wished I was stillborn.
My dad has been claiming his mother is about to die for the past 5 years and is always telling me I need to go see her when I am home before she dies and so I felt guilted into inviting his parents to my wedding. A few months ago, she needed surgery and we were all certain she would not make it to the wedding. Since this, we found out my dad's father has been taking her Dilaudid and drinking and he was taken to emerg. I asked my father to speak to his parents about maybe it being best they do not come. He said he would. He then called me later to say they are coming. I told my parents they would have to sit with them and my mom got very angry and refused. I said I would call and uninvite them if it was going to turn into a big issue. My dad then got very angry and said "how would you like to uninvite your parents" and my mom accused me of being dramatic. I hung up at this point.
More backstory, my parents have never given me money for anything up until this point but my father upon our engagement had insisted on giving us a small amount of money for the wedding which I said I did not need and he didn't need to do but he e- transfered it to me anyway. My parents have also bought decorations and when I have said I am unsure about some of the decorations they bring up the money.
So back to this fight, I called my fiance to tell him my grandparents were coming, my mom was refusing to sit with them and I didn't know what I was going to do. Our wedding is very small, 40 people and I can't realistically sit my ill demented grandmother and substance abusing nasty grandfather with random friends. My fiance called my dad to try to work something out and my dad told him he didn't know what he was talking about. I then called my dad back and said if this is how things were going to be I would feel more comfortable transferring the money back because I felt I had to do things exactly the way they wanted and it was making me uncomfortable. My dad then told me if I did this, my fiance would be dead to him. I apologized for having offended him and said I wouldnt give the money back and conceded on having my grandparents come and having the decorations and seating arrangement my parents want.
Obviously this is super fucked up. I thought more about it over the next few weeks and I talked to my dad and I told him if that's the case then I'm dead to him as well. My dad then admitted he just said that to manipulate me into not sending the money back. He also claimed it was a joke and I should've known not to take it seriously. At this point with him admitting the manipulation I'm so angry. Since then he's also texted me asking me why my fiance isn't responding to his texts and accusing me of telling my fiance what he said, and saying I don't need to be starting drama in the family.
I am absolutely dreading the wedding and want to uninvite him entirely but I know if I do it will destroy the relationship with my mom and probably my brother as well. I also want to uninvite my grandparents on his side but I feel bad as they are kind of just collateral damage.
WIBTA here? Should I just concede and shut up and get on with the day?
Edit: I should add the wedding is next month. My fiance is supportive of whatever I want to do. We are both 30 and my parents and in their 50s. My brother agrees the way we were raised is fucked up and I have talked to him about everything and he is of the mindset that because they are family we have to keep them in our lives. He lives near them and keeps up a relationship with them. The amount of money is $5000. It is sitting untouched in an account. We have already paid for the wedding without it.

The rift between them has caused a lot of tension in my family and now my mom wants to be in the life of her newborn grandson but refuses to address or try to mend things with my wife.
Little history: I probably introduced them too quickly. My grandmother was in town in south Florida about to move here from Illinois for a retirement community. My wife, girlfriend at the time, came with cookies or some form of baked goods like she usually does when visiting someone as a sign of affection and respect. Where it went wrong from here I have no idea. I suppose the initial crack was when wife scheduled a skitrip for her and I to have as a 1 year of dating anniversary present. We are not rich, this is a huge gift that made sense to her since I refused to let her pay rent. Our combines salaries are barely over 120k. So wife calls mom 6 months in advance because she is a planner for the sole purpose of asking my mom to watch one of our four dogs. Wife has already paid in full for the trip. Yet Mom decides it is a great idea to instead use the opportunity to hop on and take a family trip because it is the last time the family will have for a family vacation - I am the oldest of two boys and two stepsisters, my mom married the guy she left my father for who has twin girls of his own that were in the womb during the infidelity. Anyway mom completely takes over and decides to make our one year gift a family vacation, so she books tickets for a hotel nearby. Wife is bold but at the time not bold enough to stop my mom in her tracks for overstepping a boundary. At this time she still respected my mother and kind of let herself get steamrolled.
Probably skippable Family history: Now I have always had issues with my mother, resentment for leaving my father for my stepdad behind my own fathers back and constantly trying to keep brother and I from seeing “Disneyland dad who doesn’t do any of the work but gets all the fun.” my mother was very strict growing up, always bringing us to church and making my father feel guilty for not bringing brother and I on his weekend. So mom marries stepdad age 11, divorces him around 13 after asking me advice for her relationship and i encourage her to move out. Then remarries him and moves us back into his house age 15. Here I begin rebellion and normal teeenager stuff but stepdad won’t butt in because he isn’t my “biological father” so would have my mom intervene brother and i from behind the scenes. For example, I am young and messing around on the piano because music is important and I never had any formal training and mom comes in to tell me stepdad “wants to know when the concert is going to end because it is a little annoying.” Anyway, they have me prescribed adderall at 16 and in the parking lot holding my first prescription I am told that they would like me to move out and in with my father, who had chased us every time mom and stepdad moved several miles away (5 moves from age 5-15 all in one county). Anyway, brother and I are recovering alcoholics with (my) slipups triggered from interactions or visiting my mom, which mom claims is genetics from my father alone and has nothing to do with her. Maternal grandfather, mother, and I have some nasty temper problems which certainly are exacerbated by drinking (at least mine and moms).
Skitrip revelations: Wife and I are on the way to brothers graduation in Chicago, and wife has yet to reveal to me that my mother has taken over her massive investment of a couples ski vacation and it will now be a family vacation for mom, stepdad, brother, two stepsisters who are all getting out of gradschool. On the way to the airport I am told the news by future wife of my one year surprise. So I get upset and call my mom to call it off. She obliges my request and now holds resentment against me and now wife for “ruining her last family vacation.” Fine, whatever. Mother never says a word about it for months until we are out for a distant family members birthday dinner and at a table of about 8-10 people that are having a group conversation and gets real close to my wife’s ear and tells her privately along the lines of “you deprived our family of our last family vacation.” During this time my wife is frantically tapping my leg under the table because my mom can get a little aggressive. My mom saw this and later (privately to me) mocked her for doing it to my leg under the table.
Christmas blessings: Closer to Christmas maybe 2/3 weeks later we went to go see my mom and my mom had a couple drinks in her (not an alcoholic like brother and I just very sensitive to a couple glasses of wine and occasionally some hidden sips of wine or something) and invites my wife to Christmas church and out to dinner after because the family needs photos for a Christmas card and future wife “will be the photographer for it.” Now this can easily be a nothing comment but given the way my mom had been making future wife feel, it was taken as an insult. So wife declined church and showed up to family dinner just in time for photography session to be over.
The distance: Then mom moves to a fancy house up the coast and invites us up to visit. At first it is ok to bring the 4 dogs then the day before she says they will not have dogs at the house and we can easily find a sitter. 2 Dogs don’t get along, they need to be separated always as there has been two attacks on one from the other, so we can’t trust someone to come to the house and keep them separate and we won’t board 4 dogs it’s too expensive for us. Anyway we go back and forth being invited with the dogs then they retract the offer and say pick one dog to bring and leave the others and it’s just annoying, so we say forget it and don’t go. But my brother becomes engaged and decides to throw his engagement party at my mom’s new place near the beach. Great. First all the dogs are welcome, then day before they say it is too chaotic and she will pay for a small hotel room for one night for future wife and her dogs and my one (the attack dog) can stay in a crate at the house with me but I may not leave the dog to stay with her. And no reasonable cheap hotel in the area is going to accommodate 4 dogs. Anyway wife is stressed but feels obligated to come because I am the best man and I stay at the house while she checks her dogs into the hotel. Wife had made a cheesecake and brought it up in a separate car from me, 4 hour drive by the way, and night of.. my mom says no desserts for engagement party dinner, the dessert is themed or some crazy stuff. Wife shows up to dinner a little later and very flustered because of the situation plus I had relapsed on a bottle of whiskey a couple days prior to seeing my mom. Related, I don’t know. Anyway. Mom has had a couple drinks and future wife and I are talking about having children and religion comes up. Mom asks what we were thinking of doing about baptism or not and I jokingly said (guiltily to get on my moms nerves a bit) that he would have a bris and would love it if she would come to the bar mitzvah. now my wife’s mom was forced to convert from Catholicism to Judaism for her own mother in laws acceptance for a failed marriage so wife is not religious, but it hurt my wife and reasonably so when my mom replied “oh, son, I raised you better than that.” Still no acknowlegement of fault from that comment and mom thinks wife is “overly sensitive, dramatic, and childish” for wanting an apology for it.
Weddings: Future wife becomes current wife. We had gotten engaged on our next anniversary trip she planned for us. I proposed on our bike and barge through tulip season in holland with our feet in the water of the North Sea after a picnic in the dunes. her family business manufactures photo albums for professional photographers, so aside from our families all being divorced, estranged, difficult, and us trying to save money, we did not have a wedding, we just did the paperwork within a month of the proposal. I had already decided to have a baby with her before the trip so we were trying. 2 weeks before brothers wedding in Tennessee we become pregnant, so we break news immediately as to not steal limelight from brothers expensive wedding. Mom says she will cover cost of rental car so we can save money. Ok great. She books the tiny car and we pack it and head up the Smokey mountains to the cabins we are staying at. Two cabins for grooms family, one for his mother and one for his father, ten paces from each other: they havnt spoken but twice im since divorce in 1995 but through lawyers. Grandmother, mother, stepdad, 2 stepsisters and one boyfriend stayed in mom’s side. Wife and I stay at father’s side cabin with just his wife. His Wife’s 3 daughters and family’s stayed a town away down the mountain among extended family. Anyway, beautiful wedding takes place. My wife is sent into town to collect flowers and run errands for my mom which she happily obliged to since she is a solitary person and did not want wedding day drama. Day after, we are loading our rental sedan with our bags. Mom and grandma need a ride to the airport and our flight is before theirs so they will drop off the car for us 4 hours or so after we go to the airport 5 hours from current time. We’re loading the car. Stepcousin passed out in mother’s cabin night before and needed a ride. Disorganized brunch for 20 people is trying to be made. Father’s wife’s daughter books a reservation for 10 people which include her family, her sisters, me, my wife, dad, and their mom. My stepdad had left for home at this point as he had taken his own suv instead of flying with my mom and 90 year old grandma. So mom is trying to pack grandma in the car with bags and my wife and stepcousin. At this point mother asks stepmother if she and grandma are on reservation for the brunch. Stepmom says no they are not, she wasn’t sure of their plans. Mom says under her breath “fucking assholes, so typical,” and she goes into a bit of a rage to which my stepmom says here “it’s ok I will call and add you two it’s no big deal.” So we continue packing the car and realize we won’t all fit. So my wife tells my stepcousin to go ride with my father to the restaurant 10 minutes away we will meet you there. Mom says to wife, “no you go with the father.” Wife says “no I am going to ride with my husband” mom gets close to her face with her finger and says “this is my car, you can fucking Uber!” Wife is 6 weeks pregnant at this point and it all escalated from here. wife and mother start yelling at each other swearing at each other and we get into the car, mom behind wife who was in shotgun. 2 occasions on the trip I had to stop the car because mom had taken off her seatbelt to stand over the seat and scream in my wife’s face with so much vigor that spit came on to her face multiple times. I’m trying to tell them both to behave and mom sit down shut the f up. Mom is telling wife to get the f out of the car and find a ride, she has no right to speak because she’s “new here” (dating and living together for 3 years at this point). The following brunch she apologized in a crowd with a hushed voice at a table of 20 people trying to have a group conversation again privately to my wife “I’m sorry you get so upset” and my wife told her “that is not an apology.” The following several hours in the car with grandma and stepcousin and wife were some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. At a gas station I pulled my mom aside and said I need ther to give a huge apology, that it was so nasty and inappropriate, my brother and I are used to abusive language and aggressive behavior but to my pregnant wife and any other human being it is disgusting and unacceptable. Sitting in the car was quiet for many hours until we got to the airport. No speaking about what happened just mom happy go lucky about Tennessee and Dollywood and wife and I in shock, cousin still half in the bag from a fun wedding, grandma 90 years old probably confused about what happened.
The family groupchat: Im waiting on an apology from my mother to my wife who is extremely hurt and expressed to my mom loads of time she needs to reach out and apologize. We’re not talking until she will do so. It is bugging me and keeping me up at night. My appendix flares up and I am admitted to the hospital with emergency appendectomy. Still pregnant Wife suggests I reach out to mom to let her know what’s going on. So I text mom I’m at the hospital and will have surgery. I send a pic or something that on my end says hasn’t gone through. Mom group texts our family group with stepdad, his daughters, brother and his wife, and grandma that I am in the hospital and attaches the pic I sent of me in there. Then she continues to rave about the success of her startup company and how they got FDA approved clinical trials finally completed or some pivotal moment that made the text about her. Wife and I are in a hospital so the picture comes up on moms end as unable to have been sent. Mom assumes that my wife has blocked her phone, so mom removes my wife from the chat. Wife is rushing home to take care of the dogs at this point and is not alerted on her phone, but on everyone else’s phone it clearly reads “(mom) has removed (wife) from the chat.” Immediately I text my mom and basically say how dare you do that to her she is the one who insisted I let you know out of respect and mom responds with blah blah she did this she did that I will not have it. So I go back to the family chat and remove mother. At this point I let everyone in the chat know what my mother has done and how she refuses to take responsibility for how she made my wife feel, address her feelings, apologize or do anything at all to reach out about the wedding incident or even inquire about the wellbeing of the pregnancy for her first grandchild. Stepdad finally steps in and tells me “enough.” Grandma says “shame on you.” I am dumbfounded. This is a hush hush family that hates to have anything out in the open and likes to maintain a picture perfect image. For examples; 1) I and wife were on the family Christmas card of a photo taken at the wedding that the whole world received except for wife and I. 2)brothers alcoholism was to remain hidden from the family as was his rehab treatment and how it affected his career. Now understand that they like to keep things quiet but that is not how I want to handle my problems, these things trigger alcohol use and violent outbursts on my part that I no longer wish to live through. Now appendectomy’s are pretty simple so I recovered quickly (it don’t rupture we just took it out). But during the time I was scheduled to be under anesthesia, stepdad reaches out to wife to have a chat and clear the air. Wife waits until I come to so i can be there and I hear the conversation. He claims to be here as a middleman like a business meeting to fix things once and for all. Wife and I are like wow great. He then proceeds to double down on my moms behalf that they will not be apologizing or meet any of her demands as she had already apologized as confirmed by 90yo grandma who was in the car and my mother herself. The term he used was stalemate to describe the situation. Wife and I are shocked but she has me keep quiet to show me what he will say. He proceeds to yell at her and they were screaming at each other, again steamrolling the conversation assuring us that he was down the middle yet maintains that mom has made a sufficient apology that needs to be accepted and wife needs to grow up and move on, then wishing her luck with the baby and a nice life. Next day I call stepdad to see how it went. He reassures me that he has done all he can and everything is back to normal. At this point I call him out and tell him I was conscious and explain to him what an apology is. But there is no dialogue with this guy like there is no dialogue with my mother. He proceeds to talk loudly over me like she does and basically call me a piece of shit for the amount he and mother have done for me. I speak to him first time like I never have before by calling him a hands off father and a pussy of a man who finally reaches out while he thinks I am under anesthesia to yell at my wife then pretend it’s cool, and I basically tell him he has never done a single thing for me to try and develop me into a man or nurture me as a child into an adult, but he thinks taking me on fishing trips and ski vacations are equivalent to love and nurturing growth and development just like my mom does. I reassure him that he has no right to talk about family being that he ruined his own as well as mine and couldn’t even tell my dad to his face that it was him who was sleeping with my mom behind his back when my dad came to him very upset as a friend when he got an anonymous phone tip at work one day. Then him and my mom laughed about it in court when my dad brought it up during the divorce. We ended with swearing and I felt very happy for finally giving my true feelings to him.
The birth: Months go by and nobody has said a thing. I can’t sleep at night seeing how much love I am getting from my father and his side for the baby, and my wife’s family, then thinking about how my own mother hasn’t reached out a single time. I’m dreaming about beating up my stepdad and it’s driving me mad. So weeks before the due date I reach out to my mom begging her to clear things up and apologize to my wife. Nothing. A week later i tell her how disappointed and abandoned I feel and want her in the family. Nothing. Baby comes a couple days early. Everyone is excited. Mom texts me begging for photos and to let everyone know. I tell her my brother and two stepsisters have received photos. I ask her to please reach out to wife she still needs to make amends for what’s happened between them and all she needs to do is reach out. Mom’s responses have been defensive, derisive, projecting, playing victim and referring to herself as a kicked puppy. Telling me my wife needs to apologize to her and making the conversation about mother son instead. She is beating around the bush. And she is sending me photos of my own baby that I did not send her. Her friends are congratulating me that I did not tell. Again she is pretending that everything is ok and it is not. She asked me to apologize to her husband for what I said on the phone that day. I said ok, watch this. So I sent the guy a message that was very apologetic and not passive aggressive or backhanded comments in any way. Still my mom won’t say anything.
Now: Baby is 6 days old. He is the best thing in my life and I wish my family were involved but it seems like I am living in a fantasy world where everyone can be happy together. I can be a jerk and have a terrible relationship with my mom, but I want more than anything to just feel loved enough where she can swallow her pride and make amends with my wife. Thats it. And she asked the other day to put a family group chat so everyone can be involved… for real? I know she is stressed with a high pressure job, but it seems heartless to me. She asks what big items she can get for the baby. Mom, baby is here we have everything for a couple months already. I said the biggest thing you can do is reach out and have a heart to heart with my wife so this rift can end and we can at least be cordial if you two can’t get along. I don’t think it will happen.
How do I mend this relationship between my wife and my mother?

Genuinely I was concerned about Chloe the whole time. From the moment I picked her up she seemed like she was annoyed and didn’t really want to be there. I knew she was tired and needed food, she gets visibly hangry. When we went out later that night, I could feel her being closed off not really engaging with us. She is recently sober again but the plan was always to go out. My other friend Lia who came to visit and I would have some drinks and I would introduce them to friends I’ve made in town saying goodbye to them. I understood that may have been triggering and hard for her. So I didn’t push her to be energetic and gave her space to feel her feelings. By the time we went to see my bf at his work she was checking her boyfriend’s location and saying she felt like he was lying to her about what he was doing. He didn’t answer her call so I figured that would be a thing for the rest of the night as she doesn’t let things go like that. I thought she was worrying about him since that’s the only thing she mentioned. I wanted to distract her from that, get her to dance, and asked my local friend Izzy to help me get her out of her head. I was asking Lia how she was cause she was hardly engaging with me. Lia said she’s okay there’s just a lot going on. I knew she wasn’t having a fantastic time but I thought she was trying to or would tell me she’s not. I thought she was out on the phone with her bf when I didn’t see her. I wish she would’ve used her words to tell me how she was feeling instead of her demeanor. If she wanted to leave I would’ve said of course. I was anxious since the moment she asked for my keys. I was like what for? She said she just wanted to sit in my car. I tried to ask her what was going on but she was already on the way out. Again I assumed it was her mood in general and her bf cause never said anything else to me. She was mad at me for doing something I didn’t know she thought I was doing. She is a grown woman who can advocate for herself and what she needs. She was mad at me for not focusing on her. She can tell me what’s bothering her. We were supposed to be celebrating a huge accomplishment in my life and it feels like she made herself the center of attention. I may have been a little selfish to want to enjoy our time and try to distract Chloe from what was bothering her instead of confronting her. But she didn’t seem to want to talk about it.
I wanted to go to a certain bar solely because Ben and his sister were there. I told Ben that Chloe would be in town and he said he and his sister were super excited to see her. I figured she would like to see a friendly face but she said she didn’t care to see him. Ben and his sister love her and since she didn’t want to speak to them I did.
I was very hurt by her words and how she was avoiding everyone all day after my graduation ceremony. Even after I graduated I didn’t really hear her say a word. My mom just told me she wasn’t even sitting with my family and other friend at the ceremony. She had left and gone somewhere else and never came back to her seat. No wonder I felt anxious instead of happy at my own graduation. I would have loved to spend time with her but she didn’t seem to want to or talk to me. I didn’t really want to be around her after feeling her anger towards me. So I didn’t push her, she could come to me when she was ready. I can’t be responsible for her happiness. I can’t read her mind or know what she’s feeling if she doesn’t make it clear. I’m not used to having to prod people for answers. If I feel something I’ll say it.
I only went out on Saturday for two hours after dinner because Lia said I should enjoy my last night here. She asked me if I was going to and I said I didn’t want to just leave you at my house. Chloe said she was going to nap and Lia said she wanted to relax and get ready to leave. If I had stayed I would’ve just been sitting on the floor of my room. She said I should go and I was encouraged to enjoy myself but I promised to come back when the ride was arriving. I did so to make sure they got their ride and if they didn’t show I would’ve driven them down to the airport myself. I wanted to say goodbye and thank them for supporting me on an important day in my life. I suppose I shouldn’t have came back. Maybe that blow up could have been avoided, if I didn’t come back when no one was getting back to me after I asked if they were getting ready. I said I would so wouldn’t that be mean to not come back? Even if Chloe hardly said a word to me the whole day. I don’t even remember how her yelling started. I just remember she was being brutally mean but I wasn’t really surprised. I was hoping she would have just talked to me but yelling and threatening me is more common with her than it should be. I just remember snippets and her telling me to shut up, that she was going to punch me in my face and lunging towards me. She pushed her chair back and walked away until the car came. I was bawling my eyes out after. I stand by what I said to Lia, why would I want a friend who threatens to punch me. Lia started crying saying I didn’t deserve that and she was sorry that just happened. That she loved me and was proud of me. I was crying for hours and shaking. I had a horrible day the next day as well and will probably continue to for a while.
This is not the first time Chloe has made me think she would hurt me physically. She threatened me during our roadtrip around 4 years ago when she was drunk. She yelled said something along the lines of me being spoiled and dependent. She accused me of having sex with the Europeans in the tents near us after I was on the phone with my parents crying. I came back and she told me she’d hurt me if I tried to get in the tent. I didn’t want to sleep next to her after that so I snuck in the tent after she went to sleep and cried sleeping as close to the edge of the tent as I could.
She said a lot of horrible things to me and her blow up was disproportionate to what she perceived happened. What she thought happened was not intentional but her reaction was. If she sees me as spoiled then so be it. I know many people who have it better than me and those who don’t. But if I didn’t have the support and love from my family that I have, then she wouldn’t either. She was my foster sister at one point in our teens. My dad has been the kindest father figure in her life and always considered her a daughter along with our other friend. I’ve been fortunate to have the family I have and I wish I could change her circumstances. Saying she didn’t recognize me? I’m glad she doesn’t, since moving away has helped me grow. I was timid for years when we were friends and would cater to her and let her be the center of attention. I’ve since become a strong, confident woman who has the bravery to live my life the way I want to and not be afraid to take space in the world. I feel mentally well and happy with who I am which has taken me some time. I’ve been enjoying my years in college and making new friendships. This ‘new me’ that she said she doesn’t respect is a better me. A more comfortable and complete me. Someone extroverted and kind, loved and enjoyable to be around.
It was my graduation weekend and it was known that we would go out and I would be saying goodbye to my friends. I have made a lot so I was constantly being distracted. If that makes me a party girl, weird but okay. I can party and be responsible. She can’t put me down for that when I haven’t done anything worse than she has. Feels like as soon as she gets sober she looks down on people who don’t choose to be. So what if I was a little drunk, I have every right to be. We might’ve been out later than expected but most people wouldn’t hold that against someone if they didn’t speak up to wanting to leave. Telling me you want to sit in my car and not hey I’m not feeling great let’s go makes me confused. That’s not something I deal with, where I have to guess someone’s meaning.
This weekend was going to be a big party whether or not she was sober as the visit was planned before that. The whole graduating class seemed to be out and celebrating. If she didn’t want to be around drinking, I would have understood. In that case maybe she shouldn’t have come. I didn’t technically invite her, she planned to come on her own. I appreciate that but this weekend was going to happen as any graduate would have celebrated it. I would have been sad to not see the people I’ve actually spent time with over the past two years. She has visited over spring break so she knew what my town could be like. I can’t change my plans for her when it was my last chance to see my friends. Considering I would be back in home in a week I thought it was understood that I would be spending time with people other than her and having some drinks to celebrate. I was excited that my best friends would get to meet people I’ve connected with and see the downtown life that I had experienced since working at a bar there. I spent as much time as I could with my best friends but I’ve made more friends since who I had to say goodbye to. I thought that celebrating meant helping me have a fun time on my last weekend in a place that I didn’t really want to leave yet. We weren’t always alone but that can’t be expected. We would have alone time when I came home.
In her text on Tuesday, she accuses me of needing help for ‘my substance abuse.’ Where she got that from considering I was being responsible, not overdoing it, and not blacking out which is her issue with alcohol (which I’ve never done) I have no idea. I guess I’m not allowed to have the ability to drink when I’m celebrating or any other time. She’s really reaching especially since our experiences with her vs how we have been. I’ve never judged her for getting as drunk as she gets which has sometimes been very uncomfortable and night ruining. When I came to visit in January, I was happy to drive and be responsible, let my friends get drunk as they want. No judgement. It’s a problem when I drink but fine when she does? She did not have a good experience in college because she was being in her interpretation a ‘party girl.’ Still no judgement when she had to drop out and come home to leave the coke and drinking behind there. But judge me on my graduation weekend okay. I should’ve been more drunk.
Essentially how could she react like that? Blow up because she felt like I hurt her feelings when she didn’t tell me what was wrong. Feelings I didn’t know I was hurting by trying to celebrate my graduation. Well she really hurt my feelings on the very day of the biggest accomplishment of my life - intentionally. I know she’s going through a lot but that’s no reason to yell and threaten someone with violence before even talking to them.
I apologize if some of this is rambling or me being harsh towards her. I sympathize with her struggles and always have. It’s very fresh and it hurt me more than any other incident with her. I was excited to have my best friends with me on my graduation day but I felt no love from her.

I just am confused I guess. I feel like I want to reach out to my ex we were together for 6 years but he was addicted to drugs bad for majority of it. It was a fucked up time together. A lot of traumic events that led to me leaving. I ended up leaving 2x because of it all. We have been broked up for 4 years but havent talked in like 3 years. I was gaslight and emotionally abused throughout the relationship. He is with someone else about to get married. I feel duped in a sense because everyone says me leaving was the best thing for him. Apparently he's sober and doing amazing and living the life I wanted with him but here I am filled with so much trauma that has resurfaced recently. I feel like I'm left to deal with the shit show emotional end of the rollercoaster. I know you can't judge a book by it's cover and what you hear from others but damn it just sucks!
I am currently with someone and have a baby. That in itself has been a journey and I feel like being sleep deprived is not helping with these feelings.
I want to reach out for whatever fucked up reason my brain is telling me too. I know I need therapy didn't realize how much so till now. Do you eventually break the trauma bond? This has been hard for me working through these emotions.

I was involved in a car accident a year ago. I have completed all my medical treatments. I have already consulted with a lawyer, trying to settle without a lawyer. I'm aware of the statue of limitations. The property damage claim has been settled, the insurance company totaled my car and I have been paid out.
Car Accident

• I was sole occupant of my vehicle, I was t-boned (side impact, passenger side with airbag deployment) at an intersection by a red light runner. The driver was found guilty by a judge due to no contest for failure to stop at the red light.
• The driver at fault was driving for Lyft, on duty with passenger.
• No ambulance at scene.
• Missed two days of work.
• I was in pain for about 60-90 days limiting my activities I enjoyed. Also limiting me from career advancement, the advancement required more physical labor I was not willing to put my body through due to the injuries from the accident.
• I was a prick to my significant other due to the embarrassment of the accident, not having an operable vehicle (The insurance company didn't respond for 25 days, to cover a rental vehicle.) I was stressed out. Not in a position for a loss suffered.
• I only received Chiropractic Care and Physical Therapy, deemed by medical professionals Soft Tissue Damage of my back and neck. I went to seek medical treatment 31 different occasions.
  The insurance adjuster offered total value of $9,680.
  

1. Pain and Suffering - $1,200
2. Lost Wages - $480 (accurate, covers 100%)
3. Specials Considered - $8,000 (for completed medical expenses, covers 100% of received treatment.)

Should I challenge the adjuster and seek more for Pain and Suffering/Inconvenience due to the missed social and career opportunities and other issues highlighted? If so, if you were a jury of peers, how much would you award in court?

I was recently served papers from my son’s biological donor that he is taking me to court for joint legal and physical custody. Him and I were never married, and separated during my pregnancy due to his chronic substance abuse problems. My son was born and the donor (for lack of a better term) was never listed on his birth certificate. He was as arrested and incarcerated for multiple DUI charges when my son was less than a year old. He served 3 years and was then released on parole 2 years ago. He has never had any relationship with my son. He’s never given support to him. Emotionally, physically, or financially. My son is almost 7 and does not even know that this man exists. He only knows my husband as his father.
What kind of case does he have?
*I have no intention of forever keeping this secret from my son, but I do want to make sure he is old enough to understand before I tell him

As the title states, (and despite the existential risk to myself - as I am disabled, impoverished, and my survival is reliant on the room I rent in her attic - given her recent threat to have have me thrown out by the police because she could not handle the feelings she had during the argument that she initiated), I have finally drawn a bright red line in the metaphorical sand regarding her treatment of me. This is the culmination of 8+ years of sustained, one-sided, unreciprocated, and unsuccessful effort on my part to sustain, salvage, repair, or improve our "relationship"
 
I've learned a lot from the stories and people on this subreddit, and I know if anyone can understand the way that I'm feeling about this it's you guys.
 
Any input, commentary, criticism, insight, commiseration, etc, is very welcome, and I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it.
 
Anyways, enough preamble, here's the letter in all of my ridiculously-verbose inglory (the square-bracketed disclaimers, etc, were part of the letter as delivered to her, since she is selective illiterate whenever there's something she doesn't like):
 
[START]
 
[This document begins with a 382 word AI-generated summary (titled "AI- GENERATED SUMMARY:" below the square-bracketed opening remarks), estimated at 1m23s time required to read. If you are unable or unwilling to make it through even this brief summary, then there is literally nothing else I could possibly do to assist in your comprehension of my positions. The full message following the summary is approximately 2100 words, estimated at approximately 8 minutes to read.]
 
[If you would like assistance in understanding things I've written that you're struggling to interpret or comprehend, you can go to chatgpt.com (no account necessary), or download the ChatGPT app from the Google Play Store on your phone. You can simply interact with the chat in natural language (in other words, type as though you were texting another person) and it will understand what you are saying. If you are struggling to understand how to interact with it effectively, you can simply inform it of that (in any wording you choose) and it will assist you with altering your approach to receive more effective results.]
 
AI-GENERATED SUMMARY:
 
Your son's message is a powerful declaration of his boundaries, grievances, and intentions within your relationship. Here's a breakdown to help you understand:
 
Preface: He advises you to read with an open mind and, if needed, with assistance due to the emotional complexity.
 
Declaration of Disengagement: He firmly states his decision to disengage from any form of interaction or acknowledgment outside of essential landlord-tenant matters.
 
Condemnation of Abuse: He accuses you of perpetuating a cycle of abuse that has deeply impacted his health and stability.
 
Rejection of Coercion: He dismisses the idea that being evicted is a viable solution to the abuse, highlighting the coercive nature of such a choice, and how it leaves him vulnerable to further harm.
 
Criticism of Your Behavior: He unreservedly condemns your actions, particularly your exploitation and manipulation, emphasizing the gravity and effects of your conduct.
 
Challenges to Your Claims: He directly confronts your claims regarding his efforts in the relationship, asserting that he has consistently made extensive attempts to maintain it, despite your accusations to the contrary.
 
Commitment to Compliance: He unequivocally affirms his commitment to compliance with all landlord-related demands, demonstrating his unwavering respect for your authority as the homeowner.
 
Demand for Clarity: He demands clear and unambiguous knowledge of the requisite terms when any changes to living arrangement paradigms are demanded, underscoring his willingness to comply with any directives you may issue.
 
Defense Against Gaslighting: He firmly asserts his unwavering commitment to respecting your property and authority, preemptively refuting any attempts to accuse him otherwise.
 
Insights into Your Behaviour: He offers insights into patterns in your behaviour, linking them to moments of vulnerability or distress in your life.
 
Call for Self-Reflection: He urges you to seek professional help for your narcissism and unresolved childhood traumas.
 
Caution Regarding Gravity: He states that failing to address your responsibilities would be a missed opportunity for both of you to salvage the relationship and resolve underlying issues.
 
Reiteration of Hope: Despite his current stance, he leaves the door open for reconciliation if you undergo necessary personal growth.
 
Closure on Unequal Effort: He firmly states that he can no longer sustain the one-sided effort in the relationship and won't continue to do so.
 
It's evident that he's deeply hurt and demanding acknowledgment, change, and resolution in your relationship.
 
[end of AI-generated summary; my full, non-AI-generated message follows below]
 
[I recommend that you read this in its entirety at a time and capacity level where your literacy and comprehension are at their highest level, and preferably with the interpretational assistance of a knowledgeable and competent support person or technological assistant.]
 
[Presumably, after reading a few sentences or less, your defense mechanisms will be activated and you will eject. However, as with the vast majority of the things I have said to you that have gone unacknowledged, I am completely certain that the contents are cogent and comprehensible, and I believe that with competent support and vulnerable effort you undoubtedly have the raw cognitive capacity necessary for comprehension if you are able to stabilize your emotional reactions and put real effort into the actions necessary for you to understand my words.]
 
I will not talk to you.
I will not look at you.
I will not approach you.
I will not acknowledge you.
 
If you attempt to interact with me on any interpersonal level not related to your role as a landlord, I will reserve the right to express just how fucking despicable it is to treat such a vulnerable person with such utter disregard and abuse for so fucking long.
 
The cycle of abuse you have maintained to destabilize me for your own pathological reasons has caused - and continues to cause - extensive damage to my health, stability, and existence. However, since I know your response to this would likely be some variation of "you're not a victim here [my name], so if I treat you so bad, just leave", I'll preemptively and unequivocally condemn such coercive and abusive tactics, and state again (as I did the other day), that the forced choice between your abuse and life-threatening-homelessness is obviously no choice at all, and leaves me perpetually subject to your coercion and abusive control.
 
Such exploitation by you is absolutely disgusting, and honestly I understand why you run away from yourself at every single instance where you're in danger of having your lifelong house-of-cards ego even slightly threatened. I know if I treated another human being the way you treat me for even a moment, let alone for the literal years you have done so, I would not be able to face myself in the mirror either. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.
 
You say I "don't want to be your son anymore", as though it has been someone other than me making hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of efforts and attempts in order to try and single-handedly keep our relationship alive, and as though it has been someone other than you who has stonewalled me for years about every single legitimate and valid time I attempted to gain even the slightest foothold as a full human being in the owner-pet relationship you have fought so hard to maintain. You siphon, in fact demand, emotional supply whenever you so choose, and then fucking discard me as soon as it appears that I might do anything that would result in you losing even a fraction of a percent of the 99% to 1% imbalance you believe is an immutable part of our "relationship".
 
I will do my absolute best to be in my room as much as physically possible when you are home, so as to minimize the need to be physically adjacent to you in the course of our respective activities of daily living.
 
I, again, remain unequivocally committed to my position of deference and compliance towards any rules/demands related to my existence, presence, or activities as your tenant.
 
As you refuse to provide any sort of unambiguous guidance or clarification whatsoever regarding your shifting demands affecting my ability to access/perform basic activities of daily living, I will continue to act in good faith with respect to my adherence to all previously-established arrangements and protocols (whether codified or de facto) regarding such activities. To the full extent of my abilities, and to the extent that it is physically possible, I will immediately and unequivocally comply with any alterations, additions, or excisions you choose to impose regarding the nature of our physical coexistence as landlord and tenant, regardless of your disregard or intent for any harm to my stability that will ensue as a result.
 
If you intend to attempt to manipulate or threaten or gaslight me to illegitimately and dishonestly accuse me of failing to comply with your rights and demands as the homeownelandlord, then I can assure you that such efforts will be ineffective and inadvisable. The extensive history of my genuine, documented, and unwavering commitment to absolute respect of your home, property, and landlord-tenant authority is unassailable, and nothing has or will change about the good faith nature of my efforts to simply live peacefully and work on stabilizing my health and continuing to attempt to develop basic protocols that offer me the opportunity to seek the ways and means required to sustainably exist, survive, and seek meaning and fulfilment as a human being.
 
To try and make it a bit more bite-sized (without warranty as to the efficacy of said efforts), since I know when your ego is threatened you conveniently - and dishonestly - become completely unable to read a couple thousand words:
 

• I have never been more disgusted by the actions of anyone or anything more in my entire fucking existence.

 

• I will continue to be an absolute model tenant, despite the harmful effects of your constant abuse, and I will unequivocally comply with any demands you make with your authority as my landlord. I will explicitly and aggressively defend against any attempts to gaslight me, or attempt to dishonestly accuse me of failing to comply with any such demands.

 

• Feel free at anytime in your life to decide that maybe it might be time to face the fact that - though skillful in your delusion - you are the same scared child you were 40 years ago, and if you ever want to truly and meaningfully experience what it's like to be secure with yourself beneath the false veneer of superficial and ego-protecting interactions you surround yourself with at the exclusion of true and honest existential vulnerability, then you need to seek, engage with, and be honest and vulnerable with, professional clinical care for your intractable narcissism and the lifelong effects and deficits associated with same. In other words, to reductively and rhetorically restate what you disgustingly told me the other day as a means of deflecting from the fact that you couldn't go more than two seconds without contradicting yourself, “get your fucking meds adjusted”.

 

• When faced with any sort of challenge to your control or authority, your lifelong fear of abandonment has caused you to push people away before they have the opportunity to leave you, resulting in premature, self-created, and misdirected sabotage of significant relationships at the first sign of disturbance or genuine vulnerability. I know you're terrible at recognizing or interpreting patterns or facts, but think, for example, about when your efforts to remove me from your life and/or house have been at their most intense:

 

• (a) in 2016(ish) when conflicts about my role in helping with the [redacted address][job of cleaning out my grandpa's apartment after Alzheimer's took hold] triggered feelings of grief and fear in you at the decline of your father's health and the inevitability of his then-upcoming death,

 

• (b) in late 2019 through 2020ish, in the leadup to and aftermath of your father's death, where you threatened or demanded my removal from your house during damn-near every single minor conflict about utterly insignificant household disputes. The vulnerability and grief you felt surrounding his death triggered the core-level unresolved sense of abandonment you carry as a result of the lack of parental affection you received because of, inter alia, the level of care required by your [editor's note: dying of CF as a teenager] sister and resultant lack of parental support available to you as a result,

 

• (c) in 2021ish, surrounding your mother's acute medical events and her subsequent death, where your treatment of me followed effectively the same patterns and underlying causes as the item above (sans explicit threats of eviction, opting instead for the more oblique and covert references that have been your MO until the recent regression to explicit threats within the past few days).

 

• (d) in 2024, surrounding the final decline and subsequent death of [dog], where all of the same behaviours described above returned and steadily escalated, culminating in telling me to get the fuck out of your house because I wouldn't stop moving some boxes for 30 minutes, and then telling me that you were going to call the police to have me removed from your house as a result of your inability to force me to stop making accurate statements that damaged your ego and need for unquestioned interpersonal control in your self-appointed role as the sole ruler of the relational hierarchy you fought so hard to maintain.

 

• You need to actively and vulnerably seek and participate in professional clinical treatment for the lifelong effects of the hollow narcissism that has maladaptively protected you from your deepest childhood injuries and vulnerabilities, at the expense of truly genuine connection with, at the very least, your firstborn and only son.

 

• [note that the contents of this bullet point are neither a threat of suicide, nor an indication of any intent whatsoever to harm myself or others. I am including this disclaimer to preemptively remove your ability to selectively manipulate my words in order to further gaslight me]
  If you want me gone from your house, and life (and possibly my own life, given the extreme existential risk posed by homelessness for a vulnerable person with the significant disabilities I am faced with), then you will have to have me physically removed from your house in cold blood, and until the day you (or I, depending on the order) die you will live with that being the last time you ever saw the son that you took for granted and abused for 32 fucking years while he groveled at your feet begging for even scraps of affection or humanity from the person who constantly love-bombed and discarded him at her convenience to serve her own narcissistic desires worth no regard for the whole entire person she was subjugating to the role of, barely, a pet.
  

 

• Be aware that if you choose to remove me from your life as a pathological and assuredly-ineffective avoidance mechanism to try and preemptively shield yourself from the fear of abandonment that is triggered in you as a result of my overwhelmingly valid and necessary actions to demand that you cease your lifelong efforts to subjugate me in your self-created hierarchical position at the top of our unequal relationship, then you will be doing yourself an irreparable disservice by extinguishing whatever sliver of opportunity might remain for you to get the help you need to allow you to finally see me as a real person and begin making real decisions and changes and efforts to participate in efforts to salvage whatever scraps of hope might remain for us to have a relationship before both/either of us die.

 

• Feel free to ignore and/or conceal the tens of thousands of words of documented history in order to share contextless excerpts of this text within your self-serving echo chambers in your efforts to receive false validation of your delusional victimhood. Or, alternatively, feel free to vulnerably share this in its entirety - along with the full corpus of my messaging regarding the severity of the harms caused by your behaviours - with a competent and knowledgeable mental health professional(s) for the purposes of seeking treatment for your underlying pathologies and working towards genuine growth.

 

• In the unlikely (though incomprehensibly-or-perhaps-delusionally-still-hopeful) event that you are still reading, I will conclude by saying that the possibility for any hope of salvaging our relationship lies firmly and solely within your control.

 

• After over 8 years of significant, relentless, documented, often-vilified, and absolutely unreciprocated efforts to single-handedly to put 100% of the effort into a relationship that you reaped the benefits of while remaining unwavering in your abdication of even the slightest of responsibilities, I have run out of ways, means, ideas, and capacity to continue unsuccessfully trying to do both of our parts.

 

• I am not closing the door to the possibility of reconciliation if/once you have undertaken the extensive individual work you need to do if you are ever going to be able and willing to put the necessary effort into repairing our relationship. But neither am I continuing to continue working outside your closed door hoping that one day I might be able to do enough to influence you to treat me like a full, real, EQUAL, human being.

 
I love you, and goodbye for now. I hope to see you on the other side, but I cannot force you to undertake the journey.
 
- [name]
 
[/END]
(any edits are fixing formatting/copy&paste errors)

I'm a 20 year old and I live with my mother. My parents are divorced and I know nothing about my father's side of family as I was very young when it happened. My father is from a "low caste" (as they call it) and my family had not approved the marriage but my mom still got married and lived separately for sometime. My father was abusive towards my mother and was a drunkard. He had a wife about whom he had not told my mother. My mother stayed there for a while and then eventually decided to leave. My mother's family gave their reaction.. they said things like, "we told her and she didn't listen. She deserves that." My mother took me and we lived in a rented place for years. It was just me and her. There was no one to take care of me while she was in office and so she would leave me at my friend's place. I would stay there as soon as I got back from school or when I had holidays. Finally years later, when I was 7 or 8, my mother took me to see her family. I remember the look in their eyes. They didn't even bother if I was there (they = my mother's 1st younger sister. She had 3 sisters). I could not understand what they were talking about so I don't remember. I was very naughty and stubborn back then. I was a revolting kind of kid and I did receive some lessons from my mother to make things straight. But as time went by, I went to visit the grandparents and my uncles. They were nice. I had one more aunt (my mother's youngest sister) who lived abroad, I met her as well. Now idk why but whenever I made a mistake or something they would indirect bring up my father. They would say things like "you are his daughter afterall." Even if I had just made a small mistake. At first I didn't feel anything but looking at my other cousin brother, they didn't say anything to him even if he made a mistake. I used to envy him and kind of felt left out. I used to go to a boarding school and so I only came back home for my vacation. There were no phones allowed there so when I got home, I would listen to music, dance, watch movies and videos. My family members would give me a "you are too much. What is she even doing her" kind of look to me every single time. I would visit my grandparents place and I would always feel left out. Maybe I was just expecting too much from them. Now I was a teenager when things got worse. I had an argument with my mother once and my first aunt (let's call her aunt A) Aunt A called my other aunt (the abroad one.. let's call her aunt B) aunt B and told her all nonsense. You know when you tend to make things bigger, you mix up all kinds of spices and what not just to make that a big issue.. that is what my aunt did. Aunt B called me and scolded me for no reason because of all the other additional things Aunt A had told her. This happened a couple of times. My mother got sick and had to go to Delhi for treatment and Aunt A went with her. The other family members took me in that time and would help me get to my hostel, bring me home for holidays and took care of me. My cousin brother's mother was also sick a few months earlier but she had returned home. One morning I told my grandmother that I wanted to talk to my mother but she refused so I took the phone secretly and called my mom. She said she had reached and told me not to worry. But when my other family members found out that I had called my mom, they all started scolding me. "Your cousin brother is a god-like kid. He never called or asked for his mother. While you, you have the behaviour of your father. You will eat your mother alive someday." I was 9 or 10 years old then.
I got into high school and the same thing happened. I would have a little argument, Aunt A would eavesdrop our conversation and add things up and say it to Aunt B. Aunt B would come home for festivals and would scold the hell out of me. She would compare me with all the other kids in the area and especially my cousin brother. One time I had opened a Facebook account and they found out. They literally stalked me account and called my mother and told her that I had only men in my friend list. She said, "Your daughter does not have a pure blood. She is her father's daughter afterall. She is impure and I know she is up yo something bad." (Basically she tried to tell my mom that I would hook up with boys just like my father had married his wives). Time went on and they said what not. "We are your family only till your mother is alive. After that you go do whatever you want." "If you do this, if you do that, remember we are not your family. Don't call us that time." If they heard me sharing my problems with my mother, they would say "You are going to kill your mother. She is sick because of you." One time I was separating my old and new clothes and my mother was also there sitting in the sofa near me. I was tossing of my old clothes near the door so that it would be easier but then the next day after my classes I got a call from Aunt B. She told me that I had done the most terrible thing ever. Someone told her that I threw my clothes at my mother's face. She said "I love my sister (my mom) but seems like you will never love her." I was so done. She also blamed me for talking bad about my other cousins when I hadn't even done that. I used to joke with my mom saying that she cares for my younger cousins way more when I am away in hostel. But that thing took a turn. Still they tell me a lot of things. "You are showing your father's behaviour" this one is the most common one. I am a short-tempered, stubborn kid and I accept it. I could be at fault, too (and I do apologise for that). They call me "Kami", this might be a very communal thing to bring out, but yeah, it's basically what you call a SC if you are in a Nepali community. They sometimes use it to mock people as well. My family does that. I don't want to feel like way and try to be as optimistic as possible, but it is like that because for the same mistakes that are made by my other cousins, they never said anything. Every mistake, every situation, every argument, I am the bad guy. Why? Because my father who left years ago, when I couldn't even remember his face, was a drunkard, cheated on my mom and hated my mom's family because they did not like him and I am his daughter. The only person with a different title/surname in the family. What should I believe? Is it verbal abuse? Or? Please, someone tell me.

I'm a 20 year old and I live with my mother. My parents are divorced and I know nothing about my father's side of family as I was very young when it happened. My father is from a "low caste" (as they call it) and my family had not approved the marriage but my mom still got married and lived separately for sometime. My father was abusive towards my mother and was a drunkard. He had a wife about whom he had not told my mother. My mother stayed there for a while and then eventually decided to leave. My mother's family gave their reaction.. they said things like, "we told her and she didn't listen. She deserves that." My mother took me and we lived in a rented place for years. It was just me and her. There was no one to take care of me while she was in office and so she would leave me at my friend's place. I would stay there as soon as I got back from school or when I had holidays. Finally years later, when I was 7 or 8, my mother took me to see her family. I remember the look in their eyes. They didn't even bother if I was there (they = my mother's 1st younger sister. She had 3 sisters). I could not understand what they were talking about so I don't remember. I was very naughty and stubborn back then. I was a revolting kind of kid and I did receive some lessons from my mother to make things straight. But as time went by, I went to visit the grandparents and my uncles. They were nice. I had one more aunt (my mother's youngest sister) who lived abroad, I met her as well. Now idk why but whenever I made a mistake or something they would indirect bring up my father. They would say things like "you are his daughter afterall." Even if I had just made a small mistake. At first I didn't feel anything but looking at my other cousin brother, they didn't say anything to him even if he made a mistake. I used to envy him and kind of felt left out. I used to go to a boarding school and so I only came back home for my vacation. There were no phones allowed there so when I got home, I would listen to music, dance, watch movies and videos. My family members would give me a "you are too much. What is she even doing her" kind of look to me every single time. I would visit my grandparents place and I would always feel left out. Maybe I was just expecting too much from them. Now I was a teenager when things got worse. I had an argument with my mother once and my first aunt (let's call her aunt A) Aunt A called my other aunt (the abroad one.. let's call her aunt B) aunt B and told her all nonsense. You know when you tend to make things bigger, you mix up all kinds of spices and what not just to make that a big issue.. that is what my aunt did. Aunt B called me and scolded me for no reason because of all the other additional things Aunt A had told her. This happened a couple of times. My mother got sick and had to go to Delhi for treatment and Aunt A went with her. The other family members took me in that time and would help me get to my hostel, bring me home for holidays and took care of me. My cousin brother's mother was also sick a few months earlier but she had returned home. One morning I told my grandmother that I wanted to talk to my mother but she refused so I took the phone secretly and called my mom. She said she had reached and told me not to worry. But when my other family members found out that I had called my mom, they all started scolding me. "Your cousin brother is a god-like kid. He never called or asked for his mother. While you, you have the behaviour of your father. You will eat your mother alive someday." I was 9 or 10 years old then.
I got into high school and the same thing happened. I would have a little argument, Aunt A would eavesdrop our conversation and add things up and say it to Aunt B. Aunt B would come home for festivals and would scold the hell out of me. She would compare me with all the other kids in the area and especially my cousin brother. One time I had opened a Facebook account and they found out. They literally stalked me account and called my mother and told her that I had only men in my friend list. She said, "Your daughter does not have a pure blood. She is her father's daughter afterall. She is impure and I know she is up yo something bad." (Basically she tried to tell my mom that I would hook up with boys just like my father had married his wives). Time went on and they said what not. "We are your family only till your mother is alive. After that you go do whatever you want." "If you do this, if you do that, remember we are not your family. Don't call us that time." If they heard me sharing my problems with my mother, they would say "You are going to kill your mother. She is sick because of you." One time I was separating my old and new clothes and my mother was also there sitting in the sofa near me. I was tossing of my old clothes near the door so that it would be easier but then the next day after my classes I got a call from Aunt B. She told me that I had done the most terrible thing ever. Someone told her that I threw my clothes at my mother's face. She said "I love my sister (my mom) but seems like you will never love her." I was so done. She also blamed me for talking bad about my other cousins when I hadn't even done that. I used to joke with my mom saying that she cares for my younger cousins way more when I am away in hostel. But that thing took a turn. Still they tell me a lot of things. "You are showing your father's behaviour" this one is the most common one. I am a short-tempered, stubborn kid and I accept it. I could be at fault, too (and I do apologise for that). They call me "Kami", this might be a very communal thing to bring out, but yeah, it's basically what you call a SC if you are in a Nepali community. They sometimes use it to mock people as well. My family does that. I don't want to feel like way and try to be as optimistic as possible, but it is like that because for the same mistakes that are made by my other cousins, they never said anything. Every mistake, every situation, every argument, I am the bad guy. Why? Because my father who left years ago, when I couldn't even remember his face, was a drunkard, cheated on my mom and hated my mom's family because they did not like him and I am his daughter. The only person with a different title/surname in the family. What should I believe? Is it verbal abuse? Or? Please, someone tell me.

I met this 15 years older guy when I was 20, in a workplace environment. Basically we had an emotional affair and when I decided to move on and let go, he declared and cried and told me he wanted to date me.
We dated for 6 months and things didn’t work out so I end the relationship and left. He spent two years sending gifts and letters to my place so I finally decided to talk to him, we dated again for 6 months. He started to turn abusive, left me and I found out later he cheated on me.
The end of everything was when I was 26 years old.
I can see how power dynamics were very imbalanced and I honestly feel very used and I got into a deep depression because I was psychologically abused. He basically gave me all I wanted in a man, and once he finally slept with me, he changed.
But people kept saying I was an adult and knew what I was doing. I feel I’m being punished for believing somebody wasn’t going to harm me and loving them.
Was I groomed or not?

I met this 15 years older guy when I was 20, in a workplace environment. Basically we had an emotional affair and when I decided to move on and let go, he declared and cried and told me he wanted to date me.
We dated for 6 months and things didn’t work out so I end the relationship and left. He spent two years sending gifts and letters to my place so I finally decided to talk to him, we dated again for 6 months. He started to turn abusive, left me and I found out later he cheated on me.
The end of everything was when I was 26 years old.
I can see how power dynamics were very imbalanced and I honestly feel very used and I got into a deep depression because I was psychologically abused. He basically gave me all I wanted in a man, and once he finally slept with me, he changed.
But people kept saying I was an adult and knew what I was doing. I feel I’m being punished for believing somebody wasn’t going to harm me and loving them.
Was I groomed or not?