How to make friendship braclets

So, me and my boyfriend (M23 and M19) have been in a relationship for a few months. We took the time to get to know each other and experiment with our relationship situation before we committed. As soon as we made it official, we decided on an open-relationship and after a bit of trial and error, we ended up setting a few rules (only making out with others is allowed, no sex and no dating).
I was the one who proposed the OR because I am a bit in the asexual spectrum (my sex-drive is very low and I have little interest in doing the act itself), and he's a very sexual person, and we both wanted to be able to be able to experiment - he's a bit on the younger side and, even though he's much more experienced than me, I think he still should have fun and shouldn't be denied sex just because I don't like it that much, and as for me, I've had one boyfriend before him and only a few hookups, so I wanted to be able to explore a bit more as well. But after a few I soon realized that I didn't feel comfortable with him having sex with strangers, so we set on the "making out only" rule.
Okay, context given, now the main story: he has this one friend I haven't met yet, and he told me that they already hooked up a few times because me and my BF talk about everything, even our hookups. He even proposed a threesome with me and his friends (jokingly, but I think he would go for it). My boyfriend goes to his house from time to time (as he usually does with some of his friends, be they straight, lesbian, etc.) and they get high together, talk about stuff and do whatever else, I never question him too much.
The thing is, I have been feeling a little jealous about this friend for a while. I keep this to myself because I don't want to come of as possessive and I absolutely don't want to alienate him from his friendships, especially because of something as trivial as jealousy. But we were talking earlier and it dawned on me that my boyfriend goes to his house at least twice a month or something like that, but keeps postponing coming here again.
Granted, the trip to his friend's house is way simpler (apx. 1 hour, as opposed to 2~2-and-a-half to my house) and my house is not at all welcoming (it is quite messy, I rarely have the time to clean it and when I do, I usually don't have the energy to do so, and we have no activities here, there's no TV or anything fun to do). I try to take into account that he might just not like coming here and doesn't want to hurt my feelings which is ok. But it does upset me that he can make time for his friend and not for me.
Well, I brought this up earlier while we were texting (in a jokingly manner) and he hasn't replied since. I hate the way I'm thinking because, quite frankly, I'm feeling very paranoid. And I hate that I'm feeling jealous because he has been super-understanding about me and my limitations. And he has been super-open continuously. I know it's probably nothing, but every hour he doesn't respond, I just think he's talking to his friend about this and they're setting a make-out date or something, even though I know he's probably just busy. It's stupid. How can I deal with this?
TL;DR: Boyfriend has a friend (with benefits? information pending on the current status) and spends a lot of time with him. My house is a bit far and a bit filthy and it's okay to me that he doesn't come here much, but he goes to his friend's often. I'm jealous and I don't wanna be.

Hello! This is my first time posting on this sub!
For starters let me introduce myself. I am a 20M living in the United states on the east coast. I'm about 6’3” Tall Blonde Blue eyes. I Work in a trades job that takes up most of my week. Normally after work you can find me in the gym for a while then home playing some video games Some weekends you can find me out with friends, working on my car or my friends cars, playing video games ( My game variety is limited in what i play, grayzone is my go to game right now, but i enjoy r6, some occasional val, csgo, minecraft, you know the video game starter pack but im also open to suggestions ) i also love working, i can never sit still so some weekends you'll def find me working . I enjoy my job and I have goals on what I'd like to do in said job in the future.
I came here in hopes to find someone for me. In a world of non-love (it won’t let me say Hook**s) I'm looking for something different , I've never done long distance dating but am not opposed to it. I'm def an introvert looking for his other introvert half. I'm only an introvert till you get to know me, then ill never shut up lol. I love to give affection, I also like to take care of people and make sure their needs are met. Communication is a big thing for me especially if we are long distance. I do understand that alone time is important for all people or time with people in their life and that's perfectly okay. Just be opne with how you feel and we can work it out! If I enjoy the person I talk to, I definitely make time for them within my day.
I'm really looking for someone my age (20-24) but not opposed to anything slightly out of range. Relationship dynamics is something we can definitely discuss if things move forward. i'm open to anything and everything. Also taking it slow and forming a friendship before a relationship is definitely something up there for me as well. Looks don’t mater to me either
I'm not sure what else to put but if you think we would be a good couple, feel free to DM me!

We've been friends for 4 years now (super close), at our sleepover last week we talked about our past friendships and I mentioned how I miss some friends I recently grew apart with. She told me that she wouldn't miss our friendship if we were to argue or stop talking. Somehow, it made me feel as if we don't view our friendship the same. She reassured me she's like that with every friendship, and that whenever her friendships would fall out she never felt any lingering guilt and never missed that person no matter how close she was with them. I don't know who to turn to so I'm seeking advice on here:) Is this behavior normal? Am I even allowed to feel hurt by someone's emotions or lack there of? I might be riding the dramatic emotion wave here but it makes me feel as if she'd be ready to cut me off and replace me over the smallest disagreement :/ Any thoughts, advice/experience is appreciated <3

Understand, I don't believe it is depression I suffer from. I simply see the world for what it is, and that may not be what it is, bad to everyone's perception.
Some people see family as a good thing. Good for them, but not to me. Some people see nature as a good thing, same problem. It's just not in my nature to aspire to care about such things.
(I apologize if this comes off as disturbing). I don't suffer from depression, though sometimes I wonder if i did, would be easier if I did. If you think it's anhedonia I suffer from, perhaps. But I know what would make me happy if i could have it. It is something that no one should ever have, so I don't allow myself to have it.
You want to know what I truly suffer from? They call it ASPD. That's the polite way of putting it. And it's as good as a death sentence in this life. You know what it means? It means never having any true allies and only enemies. It means no true friendships. It's a lifetime of pretending to be something that I hate and that's fake, pretending to understand and relate. A constant effort to remind myself that other people hurt, too. And that I must always be mindful of my actions no matter how right they feel.
Because I can hurt people and forget that I did so. I can use people and not even notice the damage I left behind. I can only make sense of my own pleasure and displeasure and that's what I live by. "Other people?" They feel like a dream to me, mannequins wearing a mask as they scream at me. Unless I see something of myself in them, something I can understand, I forget to see them at all.
I've tried teaching myself to understand and failed. I tried teaching myself to change and failed. I tried teaching myself to see the importance of changing and failed. I'm just a failure.
I know I should not live, but I'm too proud to simply end it. I hate life with all of my being, but I try to trick myself into believing otherwise. I guess this is what life is, an endless battle with yourself.
If you're at all like me, I feel sorry for you. Depressed people at least relate to each other. What do we have?

i’m so sorry to bother if this info is already there, but i just turned 17 and am about to graduate HS. i had a pretty mediocre GPA of 2.98 and only participated in my schools arts and music clubs, and a job. i’m going to community college so i can find what i want and save money for university, and im feeling pretty lost right now. age-wise i’m not supposed to be a senior rn, so naturally i made friends with a lot of underclassmen, of which i most likely won’t see until my sophomore year of college or ever again. so my main questions are:
-how do you make friends in community college?
-how do you manage expectations that the friendship will probably only last two or less years?
-looking back for those that have successfully transferred, is there anything you would recommend doing to help my chances?
where can you find things like volunteer work?
-how should you best schedule classes so you have time to study and work?
-last but not least, is there any kind of guide to all of this?
i feel really lost and insecure in my life, and don’t know who to go to. thanks to anyone who gives advice or has read all the way though!

The most responses I got from a post was 3 people…….. so I just don’t post
I always see a lot of posts but somehow I feel like no one’s here
Whenever I respond to someone I just get ignored so I’m gonna try posting again and maybe I’d get better luck from that
Since leaving high school I’ve kinda been out of friends and have become so lonely like… I might actually loose it if I go another day without speaking
Id really love to make long term friends
Id put my hobbies down but I’m not sure that helps friendships as it’s just small talk and I don’t really have in-depth convos about my hobbies or about others it’s kinda just useless info in my opinion but if u want to know anything about me you could ask
I like texting but I like calling more but it really depends on the person like… if they know how to talk on a call
So yeahhh let’s become friends :)

A lot has progressed in the past couple of days and it would be only right to update you guys on what happened and get some advice from you guys regarding everything. but to answer multiple questions I received from my last post about why hasn’t maya been further punished. to put it quite simply Maya was arrested the night of Lia’s attack. She was charged with felony child endangerment & 2 misdemeanors. The judge was very nice to her and made her pay a 2,000$ fine, 60 hours of community service & 3 years probation. plus I took her car but after this update, I maybe should have given her a harsher punishment. but back to the update. TL;DR at the bottom.
On Thursday afternoon, me and maya got into a fight. The dispute happened because Lia came to me virtually upset and on the verge of tears. because 5 people messaged her that day, expressing condolences about her attack. Lia has been very clear she doesn’t want anyone that she knows to know that she was the victim of the attack. upon further investigation it turns out Maya told a group chat of 27 people that Lia was the victim. Lia vocalized to me how humiliated she feels and that she can’t ever go back to school next year. I of course then go confront Maya about it. she kept saying I was overacting and that Lia was being dramatic. I tried to reason with her to see how she hurt her sister and she did not see the issue. She stopped me off mid-lecture from me and said, “ jesus christ Mom, you need to let her deal with this shit instead of always rushing to her defense, lia is not different from other women in the world that deal with rape, at least they don’t make it their entire personality like she does. also, she’s fine I literally overheard her talk to a boy on the phone last night.” It just clicked for me at that moment that she was not actually remorseful at all and that I just witnessed her mask slip. I just responded with pack your shit up and that she will be staying with my parents until I allow her back. That’s exactly what she did.
but the next morning I got a text from Maya to meet her at her therapist appointment that was later that day. looking back I wish I had never gone because her therapist majority of the visit only saw her POV, But At the start of the appointment, it opened up with Maya apologizing and explaining her thought process of why she told her friends and it was because she was venting, plus she didn’t think of it as a big deal because its public case that was on the news and lia seems fine these days… (Lia is listed as a Jane Doe and not named nowhere but I digress. )
we then get into the nitty-gritty of it all, Maya then tells me in front of the therapist that she feels emotionally neglected by me and that I never seem to care about her trauma when it came to the situation. which is for her is having to stay in jail for a weekend and loosing one of her friends ( which is one of Lia’s literal rapist. ) I wish I can say I’m joking but I’m dead serious. we were talking about that for the first 30 minutes. her therapist was guilt-tripping me for not being more emotionally there for Maya and that I should try to see as her mom since their father is no longer with us. But Call me an awful parent but I don’t want to be emotionally there for Maya if it involves me having to help her mourn the friendship of the person that ruined her sister’s life. The therapist was on one especially since she kept referring to what happened to Lia as an accident or that Lia seems happier these days because that’s what Maya has been telling her, when Lia is quite literally high off antidepressants and still scores extremely low on the mental health evaluation…but I finally just had an outburst, (feel free to skip over the next paragraph, because there is a massive trigger warning, I get very graphic here. But I’m just reiterating what I said. )
what I said to both Maya and her therapist was, “ I think it’s kinda disgusting that the two of you are refusing to acknowledge Lia’s trauma in this and keep referring to it as an accident. You spent a weekend in jail, while your sister was in the hospital suffering from something YOUR friend did to her. Ironically enough if you ever listened to Lia, she has said that friend of yours was the most violent towards her during the attack and was the catalyst for the majority of injuries she sustained including strangling her. So for you guys to sit here and berate me for not caring that you lost your friend because of something terrible your friend did to your sister is absolutely disgusting. My biggest regret right now is helping you obtain a lawyer I should have let you rot in that cell and let you figure it out yourself. “
Maya started sobbing in the office at this point and saying it wasn’t fair that I blamed her for what happened to Lia, she told me the only thing she was trying to do was have Lia come out of her shell because she kept hovering next to her at the party. The therapist then interjects and asks Maya how did Lia respond to her when she apologized. Maya in such a defensive manner says, “apologize for what? I didn’t rape her”. Even the therapist was shocked when she said that and at that point, I heard enough and l stood up, threw my hands up, and left. I haven’t spoken to Maya since then and this was Friday afternoon.
Maya has been texting me and calling me begging to come home so she can apologize to both me and Lia. But I don’t know at this point, I never thought I would be that parent that will have to go no contact with my daughter. But I don’t know if I can stomach being around her, I can’t trust her and she’s not remorseful whatsoever about what happened. A part of me wants to try to make it work for the sake of Lia because she asked yesterday if she ruined our family. And that broke my heart. Lia loves and looks up to Maya and I don’t think she can comprehend at this time that Maya also failed her. I’m just stuck or tell me if I’m wrong for not understanding maya I’m sorry for the not-so-happy update..
TL;DR: Maya got kicked out from the house after she exposed Lia for being a victim in her group chat with friends and we then went to her therapist appointment together, where it was just a lot of gaslighting and them trying to hold me accountable for not being emotionally there for maya which involves me not feeling bad that she lost her friend that was one of Lia’s rapist or didn’t care enough she went to jail. By the end of the session, Maya vocalized she didn’t think she needed to apologize to Lia and showed zero remorse. I’m on the verge of going no contact with her.

Long text warning: I tried to have a phone call about it.but she started crying and deflecting the situation. I have to say I haven't felt super valued in this friendship for years. I feel like I'm the side friend, but not the main friend for her. I am learning how to communicate my feelings and understand my needs in friendships and life in general. I come from an unhealthy family where we never talked about how we felt. I was hoping by addressing this I could understand my friend better but also share how I felt. Here is the email:
I'm writing this email to follow up on our conversation. I think email may be better because it gives me more time to gather my thoughts and express them. I also hope it's easier to read and take time to respond as you see fit. I want to take my time to put my thoughts together because I do value our friendship and I don't want to say something hurtful, however I do need to express my side of things so I think it still may come across as hurtful even though I don't intend it to.
I thought after our conversation about the unfolding of last year helped me understand your end better, but I don't think I was able to fully express why I felt as I did and I don't feel like you understood where I was coming from so I still feel uneasy about the whole thing.
My intention was not to hurt you by expressing how I feel and I could see during our conversation you did feel hurt and I feel terrible about that. I'm sorry for that because I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I do feel I need to express how I feel because I feel hurt as well. It has made me feel less valued in our friendship and my trust in our friendship has also come into question.
I was thinking about why I feel this way and I think it comes down to my expectations of our friendship. I thought we were closer, but I felt after these experiences that we aren't as close as I thought. There are also a few instances where I felt a bit disrespected or undervalued. Since coming back to the U.S. I've had different jobs and when I got my teaching and program job I thought you would be happy for me and you did say you were, but I was really shocked when you said I was secretive about my job. This shocked me because I actually recall you saying you want to hear how things go with my job and I sent you a video and didn't get a response.
I remember messaging you for us to chat about it since you didn't respond and even still I don't recall you asking many questions about my job. It wasn't until I mentioned I would travel to DC for work that you asked any questions about it. This stood out to me because I was sharing some challenges I was experiencing with the job and I found it confusing that that was the only thing that grabbed your attention. It's a bit weird in that I didn't feel you really were happy for me for my new opportunities but then also when I was facing some challenges I didn't feel like you really cared to hear those.
I have to say what I have appreciated about our friendship is that all this time we do always talk about all kinds of things. I also appreciate how you have been there for me and that we make time to have phone calls even though we are so far apart and life has taken us in different directions. It's been hard to actually be there for each other in ways we might have if we lived in the same place. So, I do value that and I also want to say I understand you have a lot of different things on your end.
I know you have your own job, you're a mom, wife, photographer, and have other friendships and relationships to tend to so I really do appreciate and value that we've been in touch and do our best to be there for each other as we can. So, I don't want to share this as criticisms it's just from my point of view how things came across and why I didn't feel very valued in these situations. I know I've probably come short in many ways over the years as well. I also know we usually talk about pretty deep things and I know we've talked about you feeling like you need to have an answer or solution for certain things and I've felt this way sometimes as well because we do want to help our friends solve things, but often I just want to be able to express what I'm going through to get it out and then figure out a solution.
I think it's great to hear your perspective and point of view on things because it does help to look at things from another angle but I hope you know my expectations of our friendship is not for you to solve any of my problems and not to burden you with anything I'm experiencing but to just talk and share as things happen. I value our friendship because we've been there for each other for so long and have grown through our adult years together so I really do value that. I love that we can talk about so many different things and are still connected even though we're so far apart.
I can also understand sometimes it can feel like too much when someone shares difficulties and challenges. My life hasn't been easy and it's been a real struggle navigating life without my family and it's still something I deal with so I think the reason I feel really hurt by this situation is because you are one of the closest people in my life. When you said I was secretive about my job after I was sharing that I wasn't feeling heard felt very hurtful to me because I felt like I had been trying to talk to you about it so it went against how I experienced the situation.
I also recall when I shared my job opportunities you sharing that I would make a good coach which confused me because even though these new jobs had some drawbacks for me they were still great opportunities so I wasn't sure why you'd suggest being a coach when I never expressed interest in that. There are also a few comments that stood out to me where I felt disrespected or that they were slights and this when you referred to my office as "small" and looking at the hotel I was staying at with work and commenting how it "only three stars." I hadn't even looked at the star rating of the hotel until you pointed it out and I don't even get why that would matter or why that needed to be pointed out.
I'm not sure what your intentions were with those comments but they did feel like little jabs. What really put in question the trust in our friendship is when I shared I was going to go on a trip to DC with my work. I don't recall you asking much about my trip but you did go into detail how your boss asked you to go on a trip and you were so persistent that you didn't want to go. When you said it would be in DC I suggested it'd be great for us to meet up and then soon after you said you were going so I was happy because I thought it would be for us to meet up but then you talked about how your boss looks out for you and how he's so great. I was left wondering like this is a bit strange you were just sharing how you didn't want to go and all this stuff and I thought the reason you changed your mind was so we could meet up.
There was not much talk about us getting to spend time together which made me feel undervalued and like I was caring more about our potential meetup. I know you shared it was the cost afterwards and that initially your trip wasn't going to be covered by work, but what made me feel we are not as close as I thought is that you didn't share that during that initial conversation. You just shared how you didn't want to go so it did make me question if you felt close to me to share the real reason you didn't want to go and that you would just flip your decision like that was surprising.
I guess after all these years I thought we were close where we could be that honest with each other and I wasn't sure why you didn't share the cost thing with me and why after deciding to go on the trip you made it all about your boss wanting you to go instead of you sharing that you actually wanted to go on it. I understand afterwards you were trying to find ways for us to meet up, but it did feel like a bit of an after thought. It seemed like you were valuing more your boss, your other colleagues, and the photography you would do and of course I understand the value of those and their importance so I'm not saying I should matter more than that, but it just felt odd to me how you had no interest in the trip and then all of the sudden you did after I mentioned it, but then there was no much mention of us but rather about your work and these other things. This made me feel undervalued and given that you changed your mind so drastically about it.
I wasn't sure what to make of this to be honest and it felt a bit like you were only going because I shared I was going but then you didn't really acknowledge that. This is hard to write because I don't want it to come off the wrong way, but I also do feel I need to share how and why I feel this situation has created distance in our friendship from my end.
I know I'm not perfect either and I've made mistakes in our friendship too and haven't always been there in the ways you needed. I don't want this to come off as me just saying all that's wrong because I value how we have been able to stay friends for so long and talk about all kinds of things and respect each other, but this has raised doubts for me that I'd like to address. I also understand with time and distance things to do change and our needs for friendships evolve as well. I do worry that sharing this will impact our friendship and dynamic.
I'm not sure what will happen, but I also do want to be honest and it's hard for me to pretend things are all good if I don't think they are. My intention is to express myself honestly and to understand where you are coming from. I don't want to make assumptions or think I know what you were thinking or going through. I know you have your own priorities in life so I can understand we may not come off in the way we intend.
We've also grown and changed over the years so it may be that our friendship is changing too. This has been hard for me to share and I've thought about whether I should or not, but the reason I decided to share it is because not addressing it would just keep me distant from our friendship. I worry sharing it would cause the same from your end. I wanted to be careful with how I expressed myself, but I can only express things from my point of view which I realize may come across as self-indulgent so I'd just really like to understand your end better and why things came about as they did. I do hope it allows us to understand each other in a deeper way. Ultimately, I just want both of us to feel like we can openly and honestly express ourselves and to feel heard and respected.
After reading it again I realize I could have been more concise and to the point.

and i do too, as a result i guess. (this is gonna be a long one, sorry guys.)
growing up, and still now, i’ve always been the ugly younger sister to my older sister. in middle/ highschool, guys would come up to me telling ME to tell my sister that they thought she looked beautiful that day. i also got asked out as a joke up even in my SENIOR YEAR of highschool bruh 😭. everyone around us would constantly compare me to her, since we’re only a year and a half apart and had the same neighborhood friend group. i’ve had multiple guys tell me that they would like me better if i were more like my sister (and i obviously know it’s because of our looks), point out my flaws, and call me ugly to my face. she constantly gets compliments from family and strangers coming up to talk to her while i’m just…there lol. she was also my dad’s favorite child so she got better treatment too, so i’ve just always felt incompetent compared to her since its all anyone has ever made me feel (i always felt like he only liked her better since she looked better too bc she got into a lot more bs than i did 🫢…yet i was the one always getting punished). my mom and my sister bond over how many guys want them and try to talk to them and i just feel so out of place. overall, people are just naturally drawn to her and deter from me and it makes me just want to hide and honestly kms.
everyone thinks highly of her even though she really isn’t that great of a person. i don’t mean to get too bitter but she’s really judgmental and rude, even to me as her younger sister. she would make fun of my looks just as those kids at school would, so i’ve never been secure in my looks or felt pretty. and because everyone around us was so receptive to her, they would tag along and do it too (especially my cousins). its one thing to be made fun of by dumb kids at school, and a complete other thing when its your family members that you have to go home to—i never had an escape and still deal w this when i come home from college breaks. i dont know why she STILL does it, i guess to reinforce that she’s better than me since everyone puts her on a high horse?? i never felt like she was there for me as an older sister should be, but that’s another story.
anyway, i’m just so tired of everything. i hate being the way that i am. all my parents ask about is my love life since, in their eyes, i guess i’ve satisfied them in every other way. i don’t drink or party or have sex (obviously) or fool around with guys— i just focus on school while i’m away at college. i’m ‘pure’ but not voluntarily. i’ve just never had any opportunities to really do these things bc of my looks and mental illness. the only thing i have going for me is my smarts ngl i am very proud of that 💪🏽💪🏽. i graduated highschool 2 years early and have always been pretty good at school without rlly trying? i just have good memory i think, which is probably trauma induced.
all anyone asks me about is if i have a bf and it just seems like they’re mocking me. and they just try to make it seem like i’m turning down guys and that i actually have ppl interested in me and that i just have high standards. but when i say nobody wants me, i mean NOBODY. i’ve never been approached or anything, only made fun of and laughed at. and they try to bring up that bs abt being ‘intimidating’.
i’ve gone through phases of hyperfocusing on my looks and trying hyperfemme styles to appeal to men, trying to have a bubblie extroverted personality, or even dumbing myself down and it has never worked. no matter what i do, nobody will love me in a romantic sense (or even a friendship sense, i’ve been feeling lately), so now i just dress in a more masc/ tomboy-esque style so i feel more comfortable, but my mom tells me that i probably wont get a bf dressing like a boy lol.
nobody could ever love me as i am, nobody could ever be interested in me truly without just settling for me. i naturally isolate myself bc i love alone time, but also bc i just don’t deserve to take up space and nobody cares about me anyways. its already difficult for me to make friends, so a bf just seems out of the equation for me.
i’m trying to learn to be okay with my looks and the fact that i am not appealing to men, but it’s so hard when everyone only cares about how you look and how you’re with. all i’ve ever wanted was to be like my sister. the only thing ppl compliment me on is my smarts and i’m only used for my assignment answers, but really none of that matters if you’re pretty. ppl will naturally listen to you and pay attention to you and treat you decently if you’re pretty— they don’t even care if you’re insufferable as a person or anything.
and i hate it when ppl who have only ever felt loved and appreciated their whole lives try to tell those of us who’ve been less lucky that we should just love ourselves and not speak down to ourselves by calling ourselves undesirable or unattractive. like of course its going to be easy for you to understand and believe that you’re lovable and attractive and desirable when you have had proof of it— we can’t just get rid of the things we’ve heard growing up and forget them, they literally shape how we think about ourselves naturally. and i think it’s better to just be honest about the way that i look and the way that i am, i am just never going to be that pretty girl like my sister. i’m never going to have that coming-of-age movie life. it hurts but i can learn to live with it.
i hate this so much i don’t know how much longer i can keep doing this. but imma thug this shit out and embrace my strangeness and peculiarity 🙂‍↕️.
so sorry for this gargantuan passage and i hope it actually makes sense.
TLDR: i’m angry and bitter

I'm procrastinating and am in a storytelling mood, so here is one full of teenage stupidity.
Part one: The crush that only lasted two weeks : D
I was 16 (F) at the time and decided to dual enroll in a community college to take French, so I could knock out the two years of foreign language requirement in one semester. I had never taken French before, so jumping right into the college level was tough, but luckily the college provided peer tutors.
There was only one French tutor. He was 23, spoke three languages, was well-traveled, had dark curly hair, etc. I thought he was very attractive.....for about two weeks. I got to know him and discovered he hated any disagreement. If we had different opinions on food, he'd shut the conversation down. If we had different tastes in art, he'd shut the conversation down. This was very annoying and made me lose attraction to him, so we were just friends.
Part two: The promptly ignored red flags
I was very shy, so for a while, he was my only friend. We hung out all the time. He'd help me with my French and I'd help him with English. He'd walk me to my high school. It was a good system in my mind, but here were all the things in our friendship that I ignored:

• Constant touching. We'd be in the middle of a tutoring session, and he'd playfully kick me under the table. I'd tell him to stop, and he wouldn't. Other examples: If I wasn't paying attention to him, he'd touch my ear or jaw. If I was walking faster than him, he'd grab my arm to force me to slow down. It never mattered if I asked him not to touch me.
• Taking pictures of me without my knowledge. He asked me once if we could take a picture together, and I explained that I don't like being in pictures. So he started taking pictures of me when I wasn't looking.
• Constantly commenting on how I looked. "You're so pretty." "Dang those eyes." "I like it better when you wear red." "I like that you don't wear makeup." "You're like a pretty bird. I think that's what I'll call you from now on." "I like that you're slim."
• Making me feel bad for not talking to him. If I took too long to respond to his texts he'd sometimes send messages like, "I get the feeling that one day you're never going to talk to me again." To which my bumb butt would respond with, "What?! No, I love talking to you! Why would you think that?"

Why did I ignore my discomfort with him touching me, taking pictures, etc.? Because I sincerely thought I was the problem. I thought he was being a normal friend and I was in the wrong for being too insecure to like that stuff.
Part three: The confession
He told me he loved me in a text. Two weeks before my French final I woke up to this:
Him: "I'm in love with you, but I think you only see me as a friend. Is this true?"
Me: "Yes. I'm sorry..."
Him: "I'm dead. You killed me."
Part Four: The falling out
He started posting passive-aggressive things on Instagram about me and also ignored me in person until after finals. Luckily, I was able to work up the courage to ask a classmate to be my study buddy, so I wasn't screwed for the final.
I tried to still be his friend after, but then COVID happened. From 2020-2022 he would send me a simple "Are you still alive?" message for every birthday and major holiday. I responded to them at first but got frustrated with him blaming his loneliness on me. I blocked him after I found out he was flirting with my friend, who was younger than me. She was 16, and he was 25 at the time....
Oh boy does being an adult now put the past in an interesting perspective...

The code must be redeemed BEFORE paying for the subscription, but AFTER you have bought the game.
How to redeem the code:
Login to your Mog Station account
Go to the "Registration Codes" category
Click on "Enter Recruitment Code"
Enter code: 23QYR7CG
When you purchase a subscription for the first time, with this code, you will get:
Friendship Circlet: When worn, increases EXP earned by 20% up to level 25 on every job/class. Makes trying out different classes when you haven't made your mind up easier!
Aetheryte Ticket x 99: FFXIV uses a fast travel system that costs gil (the in-game currency) to teleport between Aetheryte crystals around the world. 99 free teleports will let you use your hard-earned gil for more important things!
Ballroom Etiquette - Improper Greetings: Use to learn an exclusive emote, Fist Bump! (/fistbump or /brofist)
10 Silver Chocobo Feathers: Trade to the Calamity Salvager NPC in one of the 3 starting cities (Limsa Lominsa, Gridania, and Ul'dah) for some pretty cool stuff.

Hello! I am new to this reddit community although I discovered Healthygamergg's videos around a year ago.
I have moved around a number of times in my life, but this year I moved from a school I had been at for eight years back to a school district I lived in before those eight years.
Anyways, I feel like at this school I am unhappy because I feel like I don't have the same deep friendships that other seniors have, and I don't feel any true connection to the friends I do have here. Perhaps this is because I simply haven't been here for long enough to form those connections. I also am upset at the fact that it's hard to find friends who I share similar interests to. For example, I really like basketball, and at my old school I knew many kids with whom I would play with. Here, I did find a friend and we did play basketball, but it was only a few times and I never quite found a group of friends who share similar interests to me.
Also, I have developed quite a bit of social anxiety, and I am constantly worried that people will judge me for all kinds of things like how I dress and how I look and who I am friends with and what I say. It makes me exhausted, and because of this very often I dread going to school, which is foreign to me because at my old school I actually liked going to school.
And I feel like to some extent people are actually judging me, and it's not all in my head. Let me explain:
I have always been someone who likes to talk, and I would consider myself a really witty person who when they are comfortable. I approached this year with a lot of optimism, and I did meet a lot of people through activities and sports and classes with whom I am now friends. But I feel like when I do make jokes and get too comfortable, people stop taking me seriously, or sort of see me as the clown who is the person to be laughed at. I don't like that. Don't get me wrong, I feel like people still respect me and I have made friends through my humor, but sometimes I feel like people are laughing at me rather than with me
It might also be helpful to mention that although I moved to this school for senior year, I lived in this school district around 10 years ago, so in early elementary school. Because of this, a lot of kids still knew me and I knew them, which is a good thing I guess, but I also was a kind of weird kid back in the day, and maybe I still am. It's just that I feel like here I am treated like I am more weird, whereas at my old school people treated me with respect and I felt like I was appreciated as a person.
Maybe this is bias, but I feel like I have reason to believe that in this school district I have just been treated worse. For example, when I was here, I was always put in either the normal or "special" classes and was never a smart kid. Then I moved to what is now my old school and I feel like I was given another chance to prove my academic ability and since then I have been a straight A student taking all the hardest classes. Also, in this school district, I used to have few friends, and I knew that people would talk behind my back or judge me for how loud I could be, or for I don't even know what just people would judge me. But at my old school, sure people initially made fun of me or judged me, but I feel like I slowly built respect and made a lot of friends who actually cared about me and thought I was a cool and normal person. Something I want to have here, which I feel I don't.
Anyways, I hope this makes any sense (my brain is fried since I have an AP tomorrow) and I know that all of this won't really matter because my school ends next week and I graduate in a few weeks, but I do worry that this year my self esteem has gotten a lot lower, and I know that this can do a lot of harm when I try to build relationships after highschool.

I'm the one who has a musician SO that doesn't pull his own weight and that recently used my hand inappropriately in my sleep. I delete the most juicy posts because I am scared of my story ending up in YouTube or a Tiktok somewhere.
I'm updating because you all have been very supportive and I just wanted to say it somewhere.
Yesterday we had a fight because I asked him to look into couple's therapy, but he would have to make the appointments and pay for them because I'm done with trying to solve things. So he collapsed and it got ugly. He ripped his clothes off himself, broke stuff, drank beer, threatened to hurt himself, and it was really, really ugly. It's not the first time this happens, so I more or less knew how it would evolve. The problem is that it was during my work hours (I worked from home yesterday). I just got his mother involved. I hate to bring other people into our business, but I'm done with this being my responsibility. I wanted her to know. But he can't know she knows because he would get angrier at me. Also, he was grabbing a small knife that he was using to try to hurt himself, so I tried to take it away, but he had it pointed at me and I got a super bad feeling and ran away. I don't know if he's capable of harming me, but I was not going to find out. His mother has no clue of how bad it can get, but I am attempting to set a precedent and have someone close to him aware of his issues.
If you're wondering why I didn't call the cops or the ambulance, we don't really have those kinds of interventions for mental health in my country. Also, it's not the first time and I know he won't follow through with harming himself. I think he's just deflecting blame.
I swear that I would have left our place if I had somewhere to go. The lease is on my name, I pay 100% of the rent, and we have a cat that I would never leave. Also, TBH I'm scared of leaving him in our place alone because I don't want him to destroy it. But the most important thing is that I have nowhere to go. I'm considering on getting a pet-friendly AirBnB for a week or so as one of my options , but I would have to ask for some permissions at my work, so it's not very immediate and is just a Plan B for now. I also have a Plan C which is borrowing a house. Plan A is not going anywhere and getting him to leave somehow.
I am seriously scared of ending the relationship right now or asking him to move out, so I'm playing it safe.
He finally scheduled therapy for himself on Thursday after I insisted a lot. I scheduled for myself on Friday. I really want him to get better, for himself. Not for the relationship. I don't think there's anything left here. Everything has been fundamentally broken.
I love him and I feel really bad for him. He's seriously ill.
But I feel liberated, because he confessed that he "hates" everyone and that every single day he fights himself because he wants to love me, and does love me, but at the same time he hates me, and he wants not to hate me. Same thing with his mother. Not his abusers, though, those he doesn't hate. Just us, the ones who love him.
So, all this time I thought I was the problem, and that I was wrong for expecting more love than he is capable of showing. But no wonder why this is the shitshow it is. He is not capable of loving at all. So it's not my fault, there's nothing I can do, he's too damaged, and I can't fix it.
Also, I've been reaching out to acquaintances (old friends in some cases), trying to build or rebuild friendships. One of them knows about this.
I don't know how I will get out of this, but I do need to get out and I will be working on it.

I’ve been typed in MBTI but as a multitude of different types, and only once by Socionicists before (is that a word?), but was in a very unhealthy mental place then and I’m not sure it was accurate. I've filled out the questionnaire and tried to be thorough, although I think it comes across as rather muddled in some points, so I'm happy to clarify any bits. Thanks in advance for any help or input!
What do you study or do for a living? How did you come to do that? What do you like or dislike about it?

• I study medieval languages and literature and folklore at a PhD level. I came into this somewhat accidentally - I’ve always been interested in history (not solely medieval), but began to specialise a bit more and found I had a knack for picking up several dead languages quite quickly. I always say I came to it by accident, but that sort of downplays how much I love it, and how I’ve been obsessed with history since I was a child.
• I love getting perspectives from the past and thinking about different belief systems, how perspectives on the world have changed diachronically and vary geographically. I want to understand the people of the past, sort of as an example of innate archetypical humanity in incredibly varied contexts. Reading these texts helps me understand people I know, myself, and humanity as a whole better. I also love how varied my day can be - I go to new places each year, I work on different projects each month, and I solve different problems each day.
• I dislike some of the instability surrounding future jobs - although I’m in one of the best departments in the world for this topic, it can be very difficult to get a job post-PhD in academia, something that remains a worry despite not being an imminent problem to solve.

What else do you do on a daily basis? What are your interests and hobbies? Why do you do them?

• I work a lot and my partner says I don’t know how to relax. So a lot of my “hobbies” are doing things like learning extra languages (I recently started German), specifically languages that will be useful for my future studies/work.
• I work out pretty consistently, a mix of strength-training and cardio. I try to keep it even (although I read somewhere that a 60/40 split is optimal, 50/50 is close enough). I do this for a mix of health benefits, stress-relief (possibly could be considered a health benefit) and vanity. I will drop workouts when work becomes too busy though (it’s not priority number one)
• I like rock-climbing and hiking when I can, but I don’t do this daily.
• I plan future travels and work, and I also really like organising social events, but most of that is centred around organising and helping run departmental events at the moment. Despite this, I can be a bit of a shut-in on a day-to-day basis.
• I also play video games as stress relief, if I’ve completed enough stuff in the day. Games like Skyrim, Ghost of Tsushima, etc.
• I also spend a lot of time on reddit reading about various topics related to fantasy novels or videogames, mythology, psychology and psychiatry, various personality-typing systems, true crime (although less into this one than the others) also watch youtube videos about such things.

What are your values, and why?

• I value determination, grit, and intelligence in friends quite a bit, and a sort of “can-do” optimism
• I value inclusivity, I dislike cliquish behaviour.
• I sort of don’t know how to describe this, but I find it annoying when people try to interfere in my work to suit their agenda - I value a sort of friendly “live and let live” mentality.
• Following on that, I value approaching people with an understanding rather than judgmental mindset

Describe your relationships with family and friends. What do you like and dislike about them?

• I am not super hands on with my family - I live on the other side of the world from them - but I do like them, and keep connected electronically and through weekly or fortnightly Skype calls. I sometimes feel that they don’t really understand my interests, but they do care and try to pay attention regardless, and I know they see me as somewhat distant, but they see that as a personality quirk rather than indicative of lack of affection.
• I don’t have a super large friend group at the moment but have in the past. I’m focussing on quality over quantity at the moment, after spending a lot of time working in nightlife earlier in my life and having the massive social circles.
• I appreciate that my friends are intelligent, passionate, well-travelled and ambitious people.
• I struggle sometimes when friends don’t take me into account when I have done so for them, and I also sometimes find people a bit too caught up in their own worldviews and concerns without seeing what (to me) is the bigger community picture. I also really dislike when people try to apply moral pressure on me (that I have to care about a cause or I’m a bad person, etc.). I also find it frustrating when I’m the sole organiser of events or meet-ups.

What do you look for in friends? In romantic relationships?

• This was somewhat answered above, but I also enjoy outgoing and warm people, and people who I think I can rely upon. I try to take people as they come, though, and have had all sorts of friends.
• In romantic relationships, I like when people are ambitious, determined, and intelligent but also kind and passionate people. I like them to have a level of overlapping interests with me (my partner is also a medieval scholar, but works more with artefacts and museum work).

What conflicts have you encountered recently with other people? Why did they happen? Which kinds seem to happen on a regular basis?

• I can be accidentally rude at times without realising, and also can be a bit dismissive of views I think are dumb, sometimes hastily so.
• I can over-explain or simply talk too much or over-theorise
• I can be a bit of a people-pleaser
• A recent conflict was my trying to organise a departmental event and the other graduate students not contributing or seeing the larger picture of how that would help our department as a community, which I got very frustrated by.

What are your strengths? What do people like about you? What do you like about yourself?

• I work really hard
• I try to create opportunities not just for myself but for those around me. I think we (not the whole world, obviously, but those around me) can all succeed.
• I am thorough in everything and don’t really half-ass stuff.
• I am pretty friendly and always up for a chat or to be a shoulder to cry on, and am pretty nonjudgmental (one friend says I always try to attribute other’s actions to a positive motive)

What are your weaknesses? What criticism do you often face from others? What do you dislike about yourself?

• I can be impatient and don’t know how to relax/wait for things.
• Sometimes I can come across as weird or intense, and I wish I was better at toning that down and relating to people
• I get pretty insecure about what people think of me at times, and wish I was a little better or more confident there.
• I take on too much work - I have been called an “arbeidsoptimist” before
• Sometimes I can be overly conflict-avoidant - I’ll get frustrated by people, but try to work around that.
• I can be a bit hesitant about making decisions
• I have a moderately murky sense of self - hence the need for a typing questionnaire and struggles with self-typing
• When stressed, I catastrophise a lot, and can have quite a lot of anxiety about not living up to my potential or failing at the things I am working on.

In what areas of life can you manage well on your own? In what areas of your life would you like help?

• I am good at keeping myself on task and working towards goals, I don’t really struggle with motivation or such.
• I’m pretty good at building connections and friendships with professors and other people and maintaining a sort of warm, friendly atmosphere in workplaces.
• I need help at times figuring which information is important and which can be left out. My work tends to spiral outwards and things like page-counts in papers or time-limits in presentations seem horrendously oppressive.
• I need help with taxes.
• I sometimes need help figuring out why I’m upset about things.
• I would like help figuring out my socionics type ;)

What things do you dislike doing? What things do you enjoy more than others?

• I dislike cooking (it just doesn’t interest me, although I enjoy tasting different kinds of food, I am also happy eating the same thing everyday, which I do when I live on my own).
• I dislike things like taxes.
• I am struggling with this question. I guess I dislike when I cannot plan and have to wait and see about more information (not strictly a “dislike doing” answer). Unresolved problems or conflicts give me a lot of anxiety.
• I enjoy going to museums, climbing, exercise (while listening to a podcast about an interest, preferably in another language), analysing medieval literature, planning initiatives, theorising and brainstorming with professors and some friends.

What goals, aspirations, or plans do you have for the future, and why?

• I want to publish more articles in and outside of my field. I have a couple I’m working on now, which range from 19th century literature (recently accepted as a journal article!) to niche folklore topics (recently presented at a conference) to medieval travel literature (readying for publication), so that is my immediate term, along with some travel for language-study later in the summer.
• Long term, I want to finish my PhD and become a professor in my field at a research-heavy (R1 or the equivalent) university
• I hope to master more languages (I need working competency in 5 to even pass my PhD qualifying exams), and to do so, I plan to travel (and acquire funding for that).
• I also want to be a little closer to my family, and take care of my partner and eventually marry.

What kinds of things do you do to manage and/or beautify your environment (your room, your house, etc.)?

• I have a lot of trinkets, artifacts, candles, and pieces of artwork up in my room. They are pretty varied, from statues (a bronze buddha from Sri Lanka, a basalt Horus from Egypt, and so forth) to artwork (Dante’s inferno by Botticelli, a Dali painting is up too at the moment), to some tibetan prayer flags, etc. Basically just stuff I’ve gotten from travels or as gifts.
• I’m pretty clean, in all honesty. I don’t mind clutter, but I don’t like when things are dirty.

If you won the lottery and didn't have to work anymore, what would you do?

• Exactly what I am doing, but I’d have a nicer place to live and worry a little less. I acquire external funding for a lot of my travels, etc., so that stuff wouldn’t really change.

What traits do you find endearing that others might dislike? What traits are considered positive/neutral by others but tend to annoy you?

• I find it somewhat endearing when people talk a lot about their own interests. I can usually relate it to things I am interested in without needing them to do that for me, and I also usually just find those things interesting.
• I find it endearing when
• I sometimes find it difficult when people leave all decision-making up to me, even if they’re trying to be flexible/easy. I can make the decisions, but don’t always like to.

How do you behave around strangers?

• I am very polite, but don’t really engage with strangers that often. I can be a bit shy, and used to have a decent amount of social anxiety, but lately I’m just not interested in interacting with strangers.

How do you react to conflict? What do you do if somebody insults or attacks you?

• Conflict really causes me a lot of anxiety if it’s with someone I know or have to see in the future. In those instances, I usually just don’t end up in conflict with them: I’m pretty friendly and try to see people’s perspectives.
• If not, and it’s with a stranger, I kind of just ignore them.

Would you ever be interested in starting a business? Why or why not? What role would you play in it? What kind of business would it be?

• Not sure. I kind of prefer doing what I’m doing now - the research and teaching aspects. I don’t really know what sort of value I’d be adding to the world with a business, but I suppose if I could find something that was both interesting for me and seemed to fill a needed niche, sure.
• I like the business Facsimile finder, they make medieval manuscript reproductions. Perhaps something like that, or creating a sort of community centre/third place (I used to think about owning a pub, back in my bartending days).

How do you dress or manage your appearance?

• I keep things pretty simple, and try to stick to classic clothes (rather than trendy). Timeless and simple, more or less. That being said, I enjoy colours, and try to model my wardrobe a bit off of an autumnal palate (I got really into colour season theory a couple of months ago briefly, and was “typing” all of my friends and myself, now I just use it when thrifting for new clothes).
• I pretty much exclusively get clothes either as gifts or through thrift stores. I sort of really dislike shopping otherwise.
• I take care of myself physically, and keep a simple but effective skincare routine and eat moderately healthy. It stresses me out when things like skincare have too many steps, though.

Do you like kids? Why or why not?

• Yeah, I think kids are nice. I appreciate how much potential they have and how good-hearted and imaginative they usually are. That being said, I don’t always find them particularly interesting, so I guess more of a generally benevolent ambivalence from my end.

In what situations or times in your life did you feel most fulfilled, and why?

• I’m pretty fulfilled right now, in all honesty. I have work that challenges me but is super interesting and allows (and pays) for lots of travel, I have a loving partner, I have a relatively secure future for the remainder of my PhD programme (minimum four more years).
• I do wish I had a better social circle right now though, but I honestly haven’t put enough effort in to build one (I have two social circles but we’re all busy/inconsistent).

Hi everyone! I'm 19, female, from the US. I just recently came back home after finishing my sophomore year in college out of state, which I'm so happy about!! So much growth and things I learned, not just within the educational realm but within myself also. I'm a journalism major, so I loveeee writing long messages, and you will see it eventually when I warm up to people. I'm so passionate about a lot of topics and things, but I love communicating with others about a lot of things. Most of all, I love to understand what makes a person who they are and what their interests are.
Now, let's talk about why I chose penpaling: I love getting to know people. I remember my freshman year in college when I was going through a hard time finding myself and connecting with others on campus. I was homesick, and it was a hard adjustment... although my grades were excelling. I was very lonely at the time, and I always thought about doing penpaling, but I was very reluctant to do so because I was kind of scared of putting myself out there and potentially messaging other people.
I remember making a post on needafriend and penpal, and I made so many connections. Although some were short-term and some were long-term, and some just fizzled out, I'm so grateful to have met a lot of people because it really helped me during a rough point in my life.
Being able to talk to someone all day or twice a week, I just love having a lot of connections. But more than anything, I do want long-term penpalships, and I've had the luxury to have some, but it's understandable for friendships and, most importantly, penpalships to grow apart when it's not constant communication or just simply being busy with life. It's hard to check up, but I say all that to say I'm not shying away from short-term connections or just short convos. But I am looking for long-term penpalships.
A little about me: I love music, I mean all types of music, and writing (hence this longggg post). I love reading; I need to be consistent because I really love reading, but I haven't been as consistent since I have been busy wrapping up my sophomore year. But I have so much more to say about myself and my interests and my life, but I'll save that for a few future penpals :)
To conclude my post, I'm looking for a penpal to talk about anything, but most of all, be each other's diary, give each other advice, talk about life! Possible topics that can consist of anything or whichever we are most comfortable with, and we can talk every day to check in or once or twice a week, it doesn't matter.
But I would love to have many connections and have daily conversations when available. Anyways, if you have gotten this far to read it, thank you! I just realized I wrote a lot mid-post 😂... but I'm throwing myself back out there again because, although I'm doing great and not lonely anymore, well at least for now, I just miss having internet friends and pen pals.
I feel like I've made actual meaningful connections more than I have in the real world, and in a way, it might be odd, but I think it's beautiful in a way. I love how in penpalships you can get as personal or surface-level as you want. It all depends on the comfort and connection, but I look forward to getting to know my new potential long term friend’s :) Byeee!
Also, when messaging please introduce yourself!

I thought I would share my story here, because reading about everyone’s experiences has been so incredibly validating. So firstly; from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU everyone- in turn, I hope this helps someone, or that someone resonates with an experience, or adds to the collective consciousness of healing and realising that we deserve better. Because I need to believe that, I need to know this has been bad. I feel completely mental.
I’d like to start by saying this may not make sense and I’m a bit all over the shop rn and I apologise. And there are many, many things I could add to this that have added to the growing sadness and eggshell walking as the relationship went on, but I’ve tried to keep it small. I also want to say that you may be screaming at the screen wondering how I could be so stupid. And to that I say, me too. I am screaming at myself as well. As a 30-something year old woman, I acknowledge I was not the person I wanted to be in this situation. I wanted to be stronger.
I’m currently a couple of weeks out of my break up (or break up attempt 1 as I should probably put it, I’m still sending angry texts, receiving proclamations of love, wondering what if). I was with my nex (narcissistic ex) for nearly 7 years. We were meant to be getting married a week ago. For the last six months, my intuition had been telling me that a “friendship” he had with a coworker wasn’t right. This coworker was going through some stuff, and leant heavily on nex probably because he portrayed himself as a powerhouse at work who said whatever was on his mind and was always, always, always always right (newsflash he wasn’t). Nex has a saviour complex x1000 that I’d never let myself really think too hard about so he went hardcore “supporting her” and I sat on the sidelines thinking she needed that support. I won’t say anything about this girl but she’s not a girl’s girl. She’s a pick me. It kind of felt to me like- of course he’s not going to choose her, why would I worry about it. It’s too OBVIOUS. Like of course not? Look what we have.
Before this and during, Nex and I were planning on buying a house and were getting married (I was doing all the house saving, he had no idea about money but pretended he did, spent impulsively but was on a great salary, and I was doing all the wedding planning) and were planning on having a baby next year-ish. I had reached a point in my career that I was finally happy with, a career he said many shitty things about over our time together but it was the first thing he mentioned when talking to others and trying to impress. He had proposed at year 4 of the relationship (he always said he wouldn’t propose before 3 years because that’s how long his longest relationship was with his ex who he also cheated on). Red flag that yet again I ignored because I was different and this was different and I could change him and blah fucking blah.
Our relationship looked perfect. It really fucking did. I thought it was for a long time. I refused to think it wouldn’t be forever and wasn’t written in the stars. Behind the scenes, now I look back(ish) I realise I was struggling. I had raging PMS each month, often had depressive episodes that he would virtually ignore. I often struggled to watch movies where women had kind, funny and non reactive partners, I secretly envied my friends and their partners because they wouldn’t have to worry about what came out of their partner’s or their mouth next, or who their partner would fight with in the room, or how I would handle a public put down if he was in that mood or if I wasn’t handling myself perfectly. I walked on eggshells for years. I took his self aggrandising every day after work or sport as healthy self confidence. I was being slowly removed from my family as he argued with each one. He bragged about me and I felt like his trophy which I took as love and it gave me a false confidence I’d never had before when I was with him. When I spoke about him my inner voice said ‘wow, he really does sound great.’ His sister would often look at me and I felt like she always wanted to ask if I was really okay but I never let her. I had supported nex through addiction to weed/alcohol/substances of every kind (something I struggled to do because they have never been on my radar, just uninterested, and I was the bad person for that, I was the ‘child’ who wouldn’t immerse herself in the wonderful world of drugs), countless interpersonal issues at work and with his family, trying to support all sides, I had organised every home we had lived in, I organised cooking, cleaning, fun weekends, it was my goal to get him the most thoughtful and lovely presents I could find whenever I could. It was like it was my goal to be a fabulous girlfriend. I’m really not trying to pretend I’m perfect, but I can say 100% honestly that I put all I could into making him feel loved. He used to call me a unicorn, I guess because I just did whatever he wanted. However, I felt like I was going to bed in tears more often than anyone should. I got to the point where I wouldn’t put eye cream on because I knew I was just going to cry it off. Every Sunday morning I got a bit triggered by our local coffee shop because I always felt like that was where we were trying to pick up the pieces emotionally after fighting the night before over absolutely anything. I found this taxing, because never had I had such a tumultuous relationship with anyone before and I was wondering wtf was happening. He, on the other hand, often said how much he enjoyed conflict and he loved the feeling of anger. He said it to everyone and I always laughed it off. He said he was so good at handling people and he charmed so well, as he is incredibly good looking. He had issues with everyone - his bosses, his friends, his coworkers, his neighbours. We were in couples counselling after I couldn’t be yelled at anymore, and he had told a friend of ours that it was for me and not for him. I chose not to believe he said that because this friend had had issues with him too and I thought it might’ve been an attempt from them of triangulation. I believe them now. I’m so sorry to that friend. Two of his friends sent me messages on seperate occasions asking me if I was okay, that I didn’t have to put up with this.
Something I am proud of is that I, often, when I felt strong, and my brain worked, didn’t play along with his ego without a fight. I DID play devils advocate for the other person when he had yet another interpersonal issue. I DID call out his dogmatism. I DID expect more from him, that he didn’t have to yell CUNT or WHORE every time something went mildly wrong. However, there are times when I didn’t. And it was because I was just fucking exhausted.
Two/three months ago, and after I found a deleted phone call from the other woman that he lied to my face about, I started watching his find my iPhone which we had turned on when I went overseas a couple of years earlier but I’d forgotten about. It felt gross doing, I didn’t want to, but I also tried to justify it to myself by saying it’s my future, damn it, let’s see if I really am being ridiculous. One early morning while it was still dark, I felt him kiss me and say he was going to the gym. An hour later I woke up with an EERIE AS FUCK feeling and checked FMI. He was at her address. I called him and he didn’t pick up. I watched his car drive on FMI back to the gym and he conveniently called. I asked where he had been and he immediately gaslit me, said he was at the gym, FACETIMED ME TO SHOW ME and said that he couldn’t do my “jealousy” anymore. I broke down and told him I knew he had been at hers through FMI. He then started crying and said he visited her to call the friendship off “the right way” and that he told her that he cared for her but he had to stop because I couldn’t take it anymore and was too jealous. I bought it, as he never ever cried. I apologised. But from then on, my body was full of anxiety and pain. Life was on autopilot.
This happened a few other times. I had a weird feeling one afternoon on a Saturday when he said he was at the gym and had to pop into work to do some printing (not unusual). On autopilot, unable to feel emotions and probably looking completely mental, I got in my car, drove to the workplace, and saw both their cars outside. As I turned the corner to drive away, realising it HAD to be over now, you stupid bitch Charlie0987 it HAD to be over, I immediately got a call from him explaining away, can’t even remember what he said now. It’s not what you think, we have some important work to do that she can’t do alone, you’re jealous, she’s (the other woman) is angry that you even think anything is going on. I ended up apologising that night. Yep. However, at that point I did call off the wedding. I thought the wedding stress and money (literally, me fucking planning it, most of MY money) was the problem. I thought if we just eloped, we’d be okay. Calling everyone to call off the wedding while pretending to them and myself that it was all okay was fucked. I have no other way to describe it than completely and utterly fucked. He was then nice for a few days. I was heartbroken I couldn’t have the wedding I has envisioned, I didn’t let myself think of the love that was crashing down around me. Everyone asked me how the wedding planning was going, every day it was someone new. I had to pretend it was all fine and that we cancelled for financial reasons. It was hell. I will never again ask someone planning a wedding how the wedding planning is going until they bring it up with me.
All through this, I was supporting my friend with a very rare form of cancer (it doesn’t feel real typing this out, feels like some kind of shitty movie). I remember crying about it once on the couch and he said that my crying annoyed him, and that what the other woman had gone through was bad too. He said he didn’t want to have sex with me because I was too skinny (I was depressed and not eating) and cried too much and because I didn’t exercise and he was attracted to people that exercised (fair enough, but also fuck you). Still, through all this, I loved him, tried to be what he had loved about me for six years (compassionate and quiet) and told myself it was okay and it was a rough patch.
All through this, our couples counsellor was saying my attachment issue and abandonment issues was what was a huge part of the problem and that males and females have friendships and I needed to gtfo it. Like every human being I’m sure I have had fears of abandonment, and I do acknowledge I have relied on the safe feeling of men in the past. However, I NOW don’t think it was the main issue here. I don’t blame this counsellor if I’m honest, he was eating what was being fed to him by nex. And I wanted to believe it too. I was willing to work on myself and I was trying to see my anxiety for what I thought, and what I was being told, it was. Nex told me regularly when I asked him not to yell at me that I just didn’t understand real men.
A couple of weeks before D Day, nex asked for space to “miss me”. I went to my family, pretended he’d gone on a trip so I wouldn’t get asked why I was there, tried to show up for work, tried to be strong. I slept next to my wedding dress, still boxed. Those weeks were probably the worst weeks of my life. I didn’t know where he was, didn’t know who he was with, but we were still together, I didn’t eat, got medication to sleep, mindlessly partook in my hobbies to try to do the right thing and be the person he loved. He treated me like I was an annoying fly and either didn’t reply to messages or sent a few and then nothing. After four days of me barely eating and sleeping and looking like an emaciated ghost, I asked if I could come home (I loved our rental, it was such a safe space for me with my garden and my animals). He replied basically fine, and then for the rest of the week I was chastised for not giving enough space and that it wasn’t proper space. Couples counsellor agreed with him. A week later I said fuck it and went again, feeling a bit stronger this time. On day 3, I felt sick all day. I had a nap in the afternoon and felt dread. I had received no messages, but I messaged that I loved him that night. He love hearted it. I found out later he had been with her all day, but don’t worry, it was for a good reason he said. Intuition yet again picked that one up.
The next morning I got up, packed, and went home as it was our agreed upon day that I’d return. I said to him this is actually it, I can’t take this anymore. I am physically and mentally wrecked. It’s been six years. You’re a big boy. You’re either in it or you’re not. It was a big conversation, and we agreed that we would be in it together, the relationship was worth saving, and I would step back and agree to believe in his supportive friendship with this girl and no longer worry. He also agreed to tell me if he didn’t want to be together anymore, or if anything came up regarding this relationship with the girl. We set a date to elope for end of year. He went to the gym, and I remember saying to him I was so happy we’re choosing us. He kissed me and said me too. I felt elated and safe. I then re packed my bag, as I was taking my friend to her first cancer treatment the day after.
When he got back from the gym, he went to the shower. Now we had agreed with the couples counsellor not to check each others phones for a while. I had been okay with it, and didn’t have an issue leaving his phone. But once he got into the shower, my intuition, my chest, my body, SCREAMED at me to check his notes in his phone for the first time in weeks. I went into notes and found a text drafted to the other woman. It said something along the lines of “X and I have agreed to a break when she takes her friend to cancer treatment. I told her I wasn’t sexually attracted to her anymore but I was to you. I’m feeling so over it now she’s home, I want more space” plus some other awful stuff that I’ve buried down and can’t quite remember. At no point, ever, did we agree to a break. I dropped his phone, went into the bathroom, and told him I was leaving. I can’t remember much of the next few moments. I do remember he turned it on me for looking at his phone, then him crying. I remember screaming, screaming screaming at him. I had raised my voice hardly ever in our entire relationship so I can imagine that was a moment for him. But I just screamed. I asked if he was planning on trying to sleep with her when I was with my friend for radiation. He nodded. He blocked me from the door to “talk” and tried to grab me into a hug. I screamed and screamed. I put (the most random shit btw, a dress, some acne cream, a book??) some things into a bag and I got into the car, howling. And I sat there a moment and I STILL WONDERED IF I SHOULD LEAVE.
I STILL WONDERED IF I SHOULD LEAVE.
And I did. I drove away from our beautiful little secluded rental that I had poured my love into and was hoping to raise a baby in. I knew I couldn’t afford the rent alone but he can even with his pathetic spending habits and I can’t live in the place of our memories. I went to my family and fell apart. I’m not going to disclose further about my mental state or what happened but I got sent to be with other family for a couple of weeks in another state. He has been messaging me ever since. Promises of change, of moving away, of starting again, of selling a property that he bought before us and has sat doing nothing our entire relationship and was the reason we couldn’t buy our home, (frustrating that he reaps the reward of that now), saying he has blocked this other woman from his life (he still works with her and I refuse to believe he hasn’t had ongoing contact). Oh and on the day I drove to be with my family in another state, the universe decided to let my car meet her car, with him in it, at an intersection. He crouched down like the coward he is. She looked like a stunned mullet. I waved at her. I was hysterical. Can’t even remember it fully but I remember the feeling. That’s the love of my life in there with another woman. It. Was. Fucking. Hell. On. Earth. I still can’t believe that happened. What were actually the odds of that happening?
I’ve gone through so much anger towards her but I KNOW it’s misdirected. I’m slowly moving towards anger towards him. I haven’t messaged her telling her how my life has been destroyed and I won’t. I think she will thrive on it and she has a young kid who my heart bleeds for. And I have so much anger towards the series of events that had to happen in the first place and what feels like the wasted last 7 years of the best years of my life. I miss my home and my non-existent child and I miss arms around me. I miss him when he was nice. I hate that I don’t have what everyone else around me seems to have at this age, what I want so desperately. Please, please let me know I can get through this. Let me know I can’t go back. Please tell me this is abuse and it won’t get better because I am struggling to believe it. I’m also super fragile right now so if you want to say anything mean, just hold it for now and bring it to me later.
Love to you all. X

Hey all, I'm new to this sub but I've been ex-muslim for a number of years. I feel I've outgrown my friends who are all religious and, quite frankly, intellectually stunted and incurious to say the least. I was wondering how you've all gone about meeting new friends? It feels daunting making new friendships as an adult, they don't come as easily as they did in childhood.
A bit of background on me. I first left Islam when I was in grade 9 because I couldn't reconcile the texts with basic human decency, philosophical questions about determinism/ethics, or just all the evidence it's a man-made hodgepodge ripoff of other religions.
However, a few years ago my mother passed away and for a time I converted back to Islam out of despair and a desperate longing to feel a connection with her again. You see, despite my atheism, I have been fortunate enough to come from an educated and tolerant family. While my parents were saddened by my renunciation of Islam they never chastised me or made me feel bad, we all just carried on as usual. I'm very close to my family, and was especially close to my mother.
Fast forward a few years after that though, and I once again realized I couldn't reconcile my beliefs with Islam. The only reason I had reverted was because of my mother, she was a wise, kind and loving soul, and I felt that if Islam brought her peace I must be missing something. But again, I was forced to realize that I'm just incompatible with religious thinking.
In the process I also realized that I'm incompatible with my lifelong friends. I find my political and ethical beliefs increasingly at odds with theirs. I also think they're too stupid to grasp the nuances of the arguments I make whenever we have a debate about these topics. These are friends I've known since childhood and our group is very insular, everyone is Muslim, most are of the same culture/ethnicity.
I just can't carry on with them anymore though. I feel like I'm hiding my true self from them and have to censor my speech and behavior in their presence. Sometimes I feel like just ditching them all at once, but then I'd be totally friendless. I'd like to make friends with some free-thinkers first before leaving my old childhood friends behind, but I find it's very difficult to do that now. The only place I really meet new people is at work and that's not an ideal environment IMO. I also have a hard time making small talk with strangers, I feel like conversation needs to flow naturally and I'm not great at forcing it.
I'm sure others here have gone through something similar, I was wondering if and how you managed to find new friend groups?

So, I've kind of posted about this in other threads, specifically on askreddit, but by some users request, I will do my best to fully relay this entire tale up to the current point, as well as provide as much context I am able (and will provide missing context if asked in comments).
TL;DR
A friend of mine of 4 years drank himself into liver failure and his wife cheated on him, so I offered him a free room to try and put his life back together, and I was repaid for the thought with a divorce of my own, but honestly, it's probably not that bad.
Part 1: CONTEXT
Me and my wife have been together since early 2014, and married in late 2017. We have been through much together, including two extended deployments, one of which was 10 and a half months long. We have traveled the world together, lived on both coasts of the US, and despite much of our struggles and how things eventually went down, I was always convinced we would work as a team to overcome any issues.
The friend in question was, largely, an online friend. We met playing an MMO during covid and we quickly formed a very tight knit, but small, community that were very close that included me, my wife, my friend, his wife, and 4 other friends. Covid was a wild time and I was surprised how easy it was to form friends in this group and we kept in touch, as a whole, even once quarantine had ended and most of us had moved on from that particular game. This was a group that, while it started online, we have met most of these people several times IRL and had vacations to spend time together and just hang out.
Part 2: His Problems
Fast forward to about January of 2024. My buddy, from here on out I will refer to as Z (and for a quick add, I will refer to my wife as D), contacts us to tell us his condition is dire and he has been diagnosed with stage 4 cirrhosis of the liver as a consequence of his extensive drinking. Shaken, we quickly charter a flight out to visit. Within a week, we're staying with him and his wife and his roommate and a couple members of his family who are taking care of him. This man is bloated, yellow, and probably about 350lbs now. We are worried, but stay supportive and positive that help can be found, especially since he seems keen on changing his lifestyle for the better. Some of his family start a gofundme that we donate to, and many of the people in our gaming circle who have grown close also donate several thousand dollars (One member of our raid team donated 10k. You never know who is stealth rich on the internet I guess). Me and several other friends discuss the possibilities of helping him get on disability and even getting ourselves tested as compatible living donors. Sad, but hopeful, we depart about a week later, and stay in constant touch.
About a month later, I'm getting a call from one of our mutuals letting me know that "Hey, so I may have goofed up." and tells me how Z's wife had visited him and had a 3 way with him and his wife. I am obviously irate at this and turn to back Z up with comments like "So much for in sickness and in health, huh?" I do what I can to stay supportive, and my wife, D, also makes it a point to stay in touch with him as he has found himself banished to the couch of his apartment. Not even allowed to sleep in his own bed and frequently uncomfortable even being in his bedroom to use the PC.
I'm not particularly rich, but I am not poor either. I served in the military and have a high VA rating which means a constant income and have a steady job and a couple side gigs that pay well enough. My love language, in many ways, is gift giving. I pride myself on being able to pick a good gift, even if it's a little early for an occasion such as a bday or christmas, and will often pull the trigger on something if it means a lot or I think it will help. In this case, my brother was selling an old steam deck because he wanted a new OLED model, so I figured "two birds, one stone", and buy the steam deck off him and send it to Z so we can still game together.
In the intervening months, Z and D start playing games that I have no interest in (Disney Dreamlight Valley), but I am happy to play other games and hang out and chat. Really, nothing seems amiss, but since his banishment, me and my wife are both pushing for him to come and take up the spare bedroom we have in our home. Soon enough, I buy him a plane ticket and he arrives with little more than the clothes on his back and we take him in, no cost other than the expectation that he might help around the house a bit (he was a chef, so having a cook and someone to help clean was ideal for me who often did not have the time or energy to handle these tasks as thoroughly as I would like).
Part 3: The Incident
Now, I am skipping ahead a little bit here, but there's not much to be said about the time between. My wife worked part time hours, and when she did go to work, she'd have him tag along just so he wouldn't "Sit and stew with bad thoughts" at the house alone. I will admit that throughout this entire ordeal, I have had several, several times where my brain tried to warn me, but I ignored ALL of those signs because I trusted him, but more importantly, I trusted her with my life.
One new, frequent argument I found myself having with her was she would fall asleep on the couch, and when I finally tried to go to bed, I'd do my best to wake her and drag her upstairs. These became extremely frequent occurrences and I expressed to her how frustrated I was that I had to fight with her just to come to bed so we could sleep (mind you, this is not even about sex. Often I'm taking her to bed at like, 1am and I work at 7, so I really just wanted her to be sleeping in the bed). Hell, one time, I started catching the vibes that the longer I sat and waited for her to be ready to go upstairs, she just never would be, because they were waiting for me to leave so they could talk in hushed tones. On THAT particular night, I went upstairs alone with her finally awake, and she did not join me for another half hour.
Finally, the day arrives. Its Sunday. We are all downstairs hanging out. One of their newest habits I can't really stand but just dealt with is that she'd sit and crochet while he doomscrolled or strummed on a guitar I bought him and listen to music videos on youtube endlessly. Eventually, I grow weary and give my wife a kiss and tell her I'm gonna go upstairs and play some GW2 for a bit.
About an hour passes, and she enters the game room and tells me "I am uncomfortable. I really need to talk to you. Oh, you're dying!" (As she entered the room, I immediately turn face to talk to her and disregard the game, but she decided that my Charr was more important that what was about to happen, so she of course warns me.) We step into the bedroom and close the door.
"You're going to hate me," she says through tears, "me and Z kissed!" At this point, my brain short circuits and I recall one of my first thoughts being "Oh lord, here we go." and just a general desire to not be a part of this conversation. Shock sets in almost immediately. Still with a healthy dose of denial, I talk to her about what had happened and told her that it needed to end. Even at this point, I did not want to send this man home. Was it shock? Denial? Probably a mixture of the two, or some other additional emotional responses. She gets up after some discussion and goes downstairs, promising to shut him down, but comes back about 15 minutes later sobbing "I couldn't do it! I couldn't end it..." (Side note: In my confused haze of a mind, I feel personally threatened, and after she leaves the bedroom, I lock the door and grab a metal water cub I keep at my side and prepare to actually fight if it comes to it, but once she returns, I back off that idea again.)
Talking with her more, I present her with two options; Couple's therapy, or divorce. BOTH of these options are world ending to her, and she even goes so far as to suggest that just because I said the "D word" that it was what I wanted, which was objectively untrue. We talk back and forth about things I don't quite recall at this point, aside from one point where she comes back and locks herself in the master bath and tells me to call 911, she doesn't care, because she's going to take a bunch of pills, but after a couple of hours, Z shows up to the door and knocks and asks if he can come in. I tell him he may enter, and we talk for a bit. After about 5ish minutes, we decide to go downstairs to the living room and continue the discussion.
Once I sit down on the sofa, I immediately feel like I'm being positioned as the bad guy. I'm in the corner of our sectional, and she's on my left, he's on my right. She tells him "He said it's either a divorce or couple's therapy." "Oh, so he gave you an ultimatum?" I continue to argue that yes, those are the two only options. Z tells me "You're not being fair to her emotions. She is telling you there is another option." I am thoroughly baffled at this statement.
D: I didn't think it was possible and I didn't mean for it to happen, but I have fallen in love with another man. My heart has room for two. I truly have two soulmates. I have never been happier than sleeping on the couch next to my two boys.
Z: There is no reason you guys can't stay married, and we can explore what we've found. I mean, look at how happy she has been since I have been here!
Sick to my stomach, I get up to go vomit in the toilet. Now, I wore a silicone wedding ring, and often find even with a hand wash, a little water tends to get trapped under it. After I finish and wash myself up, I come back and am playing with my ring to dry it. She sees this as a sign that I am uncomfortable again wearing my ring, and takes off her ring as I sit back down and hands me her wedding ring.
Me: Uh, excuse me?
D: This is what you want, I can tell.
Me: No? I was washing my hands and water gets stuck under my ring...
D: Oh... I thought... okay. (And she takes back her ring from me)
I tell her, very clearly, the options are to either end things with him, or end things with me. At this point, I'm still in shock, but sober in mind enough to decide that this is not worth fighting over. I will not argue with my own wife my merits or why she shouldn't just pack up and leave with a jobless, now essentially homeless man, and if she cannot figure that out herself then I will eventually move on.
Crying, sobbing, she sits down in front of him and says, "I'm so sorry, I fought for you. I really did. I told you I'd fight for you and I failed. I loved being your girlfriend, but I need to be a good wife and stay."
Z says "Alright." and starts to go gather his things to leave. As he does, she grabs him and says "No, wait! Please don't go. I don't know what I want."
Z: Ok, well if we're getting all this out in the open, I want to say this. I love this girl. I love her with my whole heart, and without her, life is not worth living. I will not leave this house if you (me) tell me to. Only her. You are taking this very well right now, I can tell you want to hit me (Still in shock, no, I can genuinely say that emotion or thought had not actually registered outside of the event upstairs earlier), but this is my stand.
D: OP, we had a good run. I'm sorry.
And with that, I get up and go to get my sandals and leave the house to get some air. As I try to go, she runs to the door and he follows her. She pushes the door closed and says "No wait, please!"
Me: No, this is the deal. I'm going out to get some fresh air. I am not threatening self harm to "win you back".
D: Will you be back?
Me: I don't know.
Z: Man, I'm telling you, you don't understand, you think I am your enemy, but I am not.
And with that, I leave and shut the door.
In the about, hour, I am gone, I drive around near the house and I call my supervisor who I have a very good relationship with (and I did not want to involve direct friends or family yet because I'm afraid it's too early to start spreading this news). I go over to her house nearby and we chat shortly. After our talk, I have at least something of a clear head and go home, with words for both of them.
As I arrive home, there is no one downstairs. I go upstairs. His door is closed. I knock on the door.
Z: Uh, one second.
I wait for about 5 agonizing seconds, but I refuse to be shut out of rooms in my own home and open the door. He is shirtless, and she is hiding in the corner just out of sight of me. I look him in the eye.
Me: Really?
Z: Yep.
Me: Get out of my house.
And with that, they both silently pack their things and leave.
The second I hear the front door close, I start calling people. I am not above pettiness, and the first person I call is her mom, whom I have a good relationship with. She is SHAKEN and immediately calls her. (I find out later that it was a particularly harsh verbal beating by her, but it really doesn't change anything.)
When I come downstairs to check the state of the house, I see her wedding ring on the counter. I call out of work the next day and lay down and hope I die.
Part 4: Her Problems
So, there is some additional context that I did not add in part 1 because a lot of it is red flags I ignored over the course of our relationship that, in the days following, started to become more and more obvious. There are many that I spent much effort playing off or covering her for, but I will try to briefly list much of what I see as glaring issues in the relationship that were never remedied.
This woman is 30 years old and cannot drive. She can drive and HAS driven my vehicle at the start of the relationship (albeit illegally), but after one tiny little accident where she hit a pole and knocked my side mirror off (which she paid for and fixed before telling me, it really wasn't a big deal. I was on deployment), she never drove again. Attempts to get her behind the wheel would end very quickly after they started, and the conditions to get her in the seat were often extremely time limited, scheduled, or something would come up, and every time I told her "okay, this month we're getting your license for sure" it just wouldn't happen and I'd end up feeling like the one who was at fault.
She does not have her Bachelor's degree because she did not turn in her final project for one single class. Not only that, but she has never truly pursued a career with the things she learned from the coursework, or even used her AA.
For half of the relationship, she did not work at all. When she did, it was often part time work, and if she was saddled with full time hours or, god forbid, overtime, it was a world-ending affair. She would come home and constantly be tired from her few hours at work and would do little more than sit around and crochet.
Our agreement when we bought our house was that she was going to work full time and we were going to split household duties, but I would definitely scoop the cat box because she was allergic (but she wanted cats) and wash dishes (because she hated them), and she would do laundry (because I hated it). In practice, all her version of laundry turned out to be was to throw loads in when one of us was out of clothes and just hit wash and then rotate, and then leave all the clothes in a pile on the bed. EVERYONE KNOWS folding the laundry is the worst part! Come on! Men's clothes are easy! I don't wear that much! (When we would fold, I often finished in a third of her time and would just hang out and chat until she was done)
Ultimately, this meant that for many years now, she was working barely more than part time if she was working at all, and would sort-of do laundry. Meanwhile, I am scooping litter, folding laundry, doing dishes, doing all related yard work, doing all the household cleaning, handling all the finances, I did MOST of the cooking, and all of the grocery shopping (often going alone), driving her from work if I could (she'd uber it if not) and picking her up and driving her home, as well as just generally being a chauffeur for her for 10 years, while working a full time job and a side gig online. Many nights I'd have to stop what I was doing to pick her up at closing hours, and then would sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes while she did tasks like vacuum her little crystal shop that she definitely could have done before close so I didn't end up waiting so damn long. Then we'd come home hang out and eat while we watched TV, and then if I wanted to try and go upstairs to do another hobby, I'd be silently guilted about it because she wanted to sit on the couch and crochet.
Part 5: My Problems
I am not perfect, and admit I have flaws. One of her favorite things to claim to our friends now is that I was "emotionally neglectful", and if there is truth to it, I think I can pin down the day. Before I started working full time again, I was going to school on the 9/11 GI bill. I was not a good student in my younger years, but in time, I have become rather good at school. My first two semesters back I easily maintained a 4.0 GPA. Over the summer in 2022, I, woefully, decided to take a Calc 2 class online because I could not find one in person and wanted to be ready for Calc 3 in the Fall to fill a prereq for my bachelor's, and I really liked the instructor for that Calc 3 class. This calc 2 class was painful. The instructor had clearly recorded all his lectures during Covid and we were simply given the full course of videos and given work assignments and said "Email me if you have questions." This is not how I learn, but I figured, hey, it's one class. I'm working again, but one class isn't a huge deal. I can knock this out.
I was wrong.
After the second exam, I had a low C in the class and I knew I couldn't keep up. I withdrew from the class feeling no other option. I tend to be pretty good at math, and ultimately my dream was to work with 3d printing on an industrial scale with a Mechanical Engineering degree- and if that failed I had my military history (which is engineering relevant) and a degree to fall back on and work should come easily. After clicking that withdraw button, I saw those dreams vaporize. After that, I threw myself into my government civilian job full time and slowly fell into depression. By the end of our relationship, with the toll of doing 99% of the work around the house and for her and with my dreams dead and buried, at age 33, I would wake up and pray I died. I would never kill myself, but I wanted to just die. I felt backed into a corner. I still did everything I could to support her and hoped that one day, she would pick up some of the load and maybe, just maybe, I could go back, but that day did not come (At least not in the way I expected).
Part 6: The Aftermath
This post is already too long, and if I include every single detail that has come to light since, I might actually hit the post cap, but I will go over at least some of it here.
I have had my friends come out in droves. Both of them have been effectively exiled, at least from what I can see, from every friend circle we have. After a couple of days, they flew back to live with, I guess, his parents in Vegas while they sorted shit out, because after I spoke with Z's previous roommate, he adamantly explained he was tired of all the "fucking drama" that Z had been bringing into the house and was just done with it.
I have spoken with many, many people and gotten even more context and even receipts of some of each of their conversations to our mutual friends, and some of the shit I read is just hilarious. He is "not ashamed of pursuing happiness, he is just sad that people got hurt". She is "coming to terms with emotional neglect and felt trapped, but now, yes now, she is free."
I got my neighbors to watch the cats, and took my dog up to visit my closest friend of 20 years and spent about a week and a half drinking, smoking, and talking about all this while surrounded by some of the most beautiful nature the US has to offer. Truly, without this man, I don't think I'd have gotten this far as quickly as I have. He really has been a lifesaver and I truly, to my dying day, will always appreciate him.
Paperwork has been filed, we wish to remain on good terms, and one day I still do hope I can be a friend to her, but she is woefully immature and incapable of adequately performing in an adult society. I have quit my job and am returning to school with a much lighter budget and will be getting that degree I desperately need.
It's been hard, real hard. I have put every ounce of my being into this relationship, and I truly felt like she was part of me, and nothing like this could ever happen. But it's that trust that allowed this to happen. I do not hate her, I'm just disappointed. I will pick up my pieces and, hopefully, find myself whole again soon.
Part 7: Rambling anecdotes
These are some stories I wanted to include in the previous body of text but didn't feel like it kept the same flow (if there even is any at all, I'm not proofreading this). If I remember any others after I post, Ill just toss them in the comments.
Early after Z came to live with us, my mother came to the house to drop off a package. I am pretty sure I was at work, but when my mother came to the door, both of them answered the door and the way my mom describes it "First of all, do you answer the door at your friends house? Also, the way he hovered over her made me uncomfortable. They were in the doorway and he was right up behind her poking his head out." She said my wife had told her that I was feeling unwell and was upstairs sleeping. I can't even be sure at this point.
Shortly before all the things happened, my parents were going out of town to celebrate their own anniversary, and I had agreed to dog-sit their 5 month old puppy (who, while cute, has WAY too much energy and was EXTREMELY difficult to handle, and I have raised several dogs at this point). We met up and took the dog, and then ALL of us (including Z) went to dinner. At dinner, my mother looked at my wife and asked, directly "And so how long have you been married? 6, almost 7 years? Well at least you missed that 7 year itch, huh" and my wife shortly followed with a comment about how she was not hungry and did not eat dinner that night.
All of this happened WHILE THIS CRAZY PUPPY was running around the house, and part of me thinks he pushed this to happen when it did because he could not stand having to help take care of this dog any longer (2 days).
About a week after all this happened, my wife did not text or call me, or respond to any messages or emails I sent her (I didn't send many, but they exist). Frustrated, I text her and tell her I need to talk to her about logistics moving forward, specifically about her belongings. She told me "I will talk to you when I am ready." We did not talk for another week. Also, she told me to stop talking to her mom. (I have a good relationship with both of my in-laws and while her step-father tried to remain impartial to the best of his abilities, he gave me some of the best advice I could possibly have gotten at that time, mostly about how to move forward and cope, as he has personally dealt with this with smaller relationships 3 separate times in his life which he gave me details on, and we are still on good terms.)
Their favorite TV show to watch together was Outlander, which, if you aren't aware, is basically a story about a woman who time travels and has two men in her life.
One of our biggest constant points of contention was my friendship with an old high school buddy (who I spent much of the time in the aftermath hanging out with while healing). We believe, with good reason, that she hated this man because after I had almost been hospitalized for psych reasons due to stress, he had told me I needed to talk to her about working again and doing more to help around the house. She figured out, obviously, who was telling me to say these things, and sent a very, very angry text to his wife. They all apparently made up, but I know she never let that grudge go.
One of the fairly recent hobbies I got into was D&D. It seemed like a good fit for all of us. She loved fantasy and gaming, I enjoyed 3d printing and story telling. She needed friends, and a party of people hangin out would give her at least a few connections to start. Every night she "participated" in D&D, she mostly sat quiet and did not do anything. Hell, I tried to get her to participate in 2 different games, and after she left the first one, she asked to just sit quietly in the discord call (This first one was online only, second was in person) and listen, which was super awkward. In the in person game, after 3 months of playing, she did not know how to play her character at all, and mostly spent her time at the table crocheting. (My buddy even made a comment about how at one point, he was proud of how good I was getting at DMing and I was giving particularly good exposition, and she interrupted me to hand another player at the table a dice bag she made. I don't remember it, but I absolutely believe this happened.)
The day of "the incident", she had a meltdown about how a friend of hers had ghosted her. I told her it was okay, she was much younger anyway and people grow apart. She's probably going through stuff and we should respect that path she's on. She cried about how she has no friends.
Also the day of "the incident", we were in the shower together and she told me she had met her sister's new BF on facetime. I asked "why did she break up with her old one?" "Well... she cheated on him." "Oh, that's a shame. Cheating is probably the most cowardly act a person can do to another. If you're going to start a new relationship, you need to grow a pair and end it before starting a new one." She clearly took my words to heart.
One of my biggest pet peeves about cleaning the house is our dog sheds, a lot. If I see a hairball roll through the house it immediately drains me a bit. We had a roomba. She would send that thing home when it started and never start it again. It barely ran. She would not vacuum.
One of the most common descriptors of her I've heard used by many people now that they're "allowed to" is "She was there, doing the thing with us, but it was like she wasn't there."
Something she thought that I apparently hadn't figured out by the time we talked after everything happened was that they had been talking since February. I told her I wasn't stupid and had figured it out already that this wasn't out of the blue.
Z's wife is currently pregnant with the baby of the man she cheated on him with. (And he is also married)
Anything else I remember Ill leave for comments, I know there is much, much more.

A few months ago during winter break of my 3rd year, my friend's ex cheated on him with another guy. My friend was destroyed and he was depressed for weeks after this happened. Despite all of this, he never fully cut her off. Now they are on strong talking terms again and are even back to being friends. I was also friends with his ex before this all happened but since then I sort of tapped out of the friendship because I lost all respect for this woman. There is nothing I hate more than people who cheat, in my opinion its one of the most disgusting things someone can do. This means that as a third party to this rekindled friendship between my friend and his ex, it has been a weird and conflicting experience. Even though she is still actively with this other guy, she is still extremely intimate with my friend, touching him and using pet names. I have made sure that he is comfortable with this numerous times and every single time he says that while he doesn't love it, it makes his ex happy so he doesn't mind. I kind of understand this because the guy she is currently with is quite toxic but that also isn’t his problem. This dynamic has gone on for months at this point and I have been bottling up more and more resentment towards this woman. I hate how she is using my friend as nothing but a comfort toy and I hate how he is just letting this happen to him. It got to the point where I couldn't hold it in anymore and I snapped. She was doing her usual stuff with my friend being intimate, saying I love you when I just flat out told her that she was lying. I told her that this whole dynamic was really annoying and that I hated her presence, I hated how she was using and treating my friend. She got defensive and tried to say that my friend was completely fine with what was happening and regardless of whether or not he was I didn't care. I was so done with her bullshit.
She stopped talking to me after that which doesn't bother me but what has me concerned is that my friend has also changed his behaviour towards me. Lately, he has seemed a lot more cold and distant and I feel it has to do with what I said. His ex thinks that it's stupid that I'm still so mad at her because this happened so long ago and that she didn't cheat on me. She doesn't think I should be so angry and that it's not my place to "forgive" in this situation.
Maybe its not my place to forgive, but thinking about what she did to him and how it made my friend feel makes me furious. I can't be friends with someone who has done something like that. Despite being his ride or die, it almost feels as though he's about to choose being friends with his ex over me. I really don't want to lose this guy but it really seems like he's about to choose her over me. I still want to maintain the close bond I have with my friend but I feel like I won't be able to do that unless I move on and make up with this girl. I’m not gonna make him pick and choose but I will never forgive this girl for what she did.

***I posted this originally in raisedbynarcissists but think this might be a better place for it
TLDR: I'm struggling to understand if my relationship issues are genuine concerns or my past influencing my perception. My boyfriend (29M) and I (25F) have been dating long-distance for 10 months. He initially talked a lot about our future, including plans to get a place together, but has since become non-committal and distant. Given my history with a narcissistic parent, I'm unsure if these are red flags or typical relationship hurdles. I'm worried he's "future faking" me. Any advice on discerning these issues would be appreciated. ___________________________
Sorry this is so long - It's clearly weighing heavy on my mind and I also have a habit of overexplaining myself due to my past. Believe it or not, this was my attempt to keep it short.
As someone raised by a single narcissistic parent, I (25F) have a lot of difficulty in figuring out if my perception is accurate or if I'm misinterpreting things. I've spent years working on this in therapy and have made progress in figuring out when I'm being treated poorly, specifically in platonic relationships, but have still a ways to go.
Recently, I've gotten into a relationship with my bf (29M) after having been single for 5 years. The person I've started dating proactively chased me during this time and I was clear that I wanted to be just friends due to concerns about long-distance, feeling overwhelmed with the interest they had in me without knowing me super well, and feeling like my boundaries weren't being respected. Over those 5 years, we developed a strong friendship/relationship and these issues resolved (except for the long-distance). I had a major life event happen in 2023 that had me questioning how much of my life I had lived in fear and avoidance. Simultaneously, this person was a huge support to me while I went through this difficult moment. I decided I was ready to pursue a romance with him and he agreed he wanted to too. So we started officially dating roughly 10 months ago.
In the beginning of our relationship, he would make tons of comments about our future together, talking about our kids, what life would be like when we're married, trips that we would take, etc. I was hesitant in the beginning to believe this, but slowly started to imagine this future too and would join in these conversations. I had never dated someone who so openly talked about a future with me and while it felt scary in the beginning, I started to feel like it was a beautiful thing and I was experiencing healthy love.
Back in January, he started to talking to me about getting a place in my city. Although we're long distance, he has to come to my city fairly often for business reasons and likes to extend his stays to spend time with me. I initially thought he just meant something for himself that he would stay in when he was in my city. This wasn't super surprising since he has an apartment in another city sitting completely empty and he was talking about getting a place in another city for when he'd visit before we started dating. To be clear, he has vast financial resources. Like hundreds of millions.
I was excited that he was going to get a place in my city, because I knew it would make him more comfortable when he'd visit and therefore make his visits more likely. However, he clarified to me a week later that he actually wanted to get a place for the both of us - where I would stay full time and he would stay when he was visiting. He was surprised that I thought this would just be his place. I thought about it and got excited at the idea (although I had some concerns about living alone for those periods he wasn't there - I've always had roommates and have loved it honestly).
Once I agreed, he said he wanted to start looking at places when he was visiting my city for a few weeks that February. I started to look at places online and have conversations with him about what we'd both want. February came, he didn't make any effort or mention of seeing places in person. My roommates started to ask me if I'd be renewing the lease with them or not and I told them I wasn't sure. I'd periodically bring it up to him and emphasize that we probably need to start looking and make serious progress on it. He would agree, but I wouldn't hear anything more about it. Finally, I told him I needed to give my roommates a final answer about it. He said that I should renew the lease with them so that we're not rushed into finding something and can find the perfect place. He said it was okay if the leases overlapped, assuring me that it wouldn't be a problem and he'd cover it financially. I was hesitant, but given his vast wealth, I figured this was just one of those rich people things where comfort is prioritized over wastefulness.
He has not brought it up since. Recently, I had felt some distance from him. He wasn't as communicative. He flaked on a vacation we were supposed to go on during my spring break at the last minute due to a conference he wanted to attend. He was vague about when he would be able to visit next, saying that I could visit him whenever even though he knew I was in school until May. He invited me to go to a friend's wedding in a far away state in late April, but said he figured I wouldn't be able to go because he knew I had finals. I decided to make it work by flying in for 48 hours despite having finals. While we were together in person, it didn't seem like anything was wrong at all. I decided to talk to him about some of these concerns and mentioned the apartment. He said that he wanted to find the perfect place for us and not stress about it. I told him that I get that, but we need to take action in order to find the perfect place. He said that there's no rush. I pointed out he said he wanted to start looking at places in February, so it seemed like he wanted to get a place fairly soon, but I was feeling confused because since those early talks, I've been the only one to talk to him about it. I told him that it felt like he didn't want to get a place with me anymore. He said that he does want to still but when he brought it up to me, he meant he wanted to get a place in the future and there's no timeline. In his head, it will happen eventually and I shouldn't be worried (????? WTF). Anyways, I decided to drop it and give him the benefit of the doubt.
He also early on told me how excited he was for when we go to his home country, how we'll go in the next year, how he needs to take me there. A week or two ago, an opportunity came up where he would be in a nearby country for business and I would be on a break from school. We talked about me going with him and then going to his home country after for a bit. Yesterday, I asked him about it and he started to express doubts, saying he's never taken a girl home before... Keep in mind: 1) I have already met his parents and brothers more than once. 2) This man has only dated one other person, and it was in high school. 3) This man has been talking about taking me there as soon as its convenient since we started dating.
I'm worried given my past with parental narcissistic abuse and having my perception constantly questioned/invalidated that I'm not able to identify red flags unless they're really severe or different from what I experienced growing up. Prior to this relationship, I always pursued men that were emotionally distant and whose love I had to earn because it felt safer (and mirrored my relationship with my absent parent). This is the first time I've dated someone who consistently showed interest in me. I thought this was healthier and that I was recalibrating my dating patterns, but now I'm starting to have doubts. I'm feeling like I can't trust his word anymore. I'm starting to wonder if he's been future faking me.
What do you guys think? Any tips on what I should be looking out for in the future? Or how you can know with certainty that there might be love bombing/future faking before things get worse? I don't want to find myself in a position years down the line in an abusive or toxic relationship and realize that there were signs I missed/ignored earlier on. I also don't want to ruin a happy and healthy relationship because I'm making mountains out of mole hills.

https://preview.redd.it/4xrzwkgrih0d1.png?width=1292&format=png&auto=webp&s=27e7572a064e0ac1bde57fd9425d373cd0f4ec32
Cameron is back in the game in a 6-1-1 vote, and Scott and Anne Maria have gained immunity in a 7-5-2-1-1 vote.
Blaineley announces that Cameron has won the second chance challenge and is now back in the game. Cameron is incredulous, and Beardo, Ella, & Harold cheer for him, and Blaineley asks if she will get her money. Geoff laughs & says that they just barely went over time, which very much pisses off Blaineley, causing her to charge at Geoff. Security comes & captures her, and Geoff says that the next Aftermath will be at the secret finale location. As Blaineley is getting dragged away by security, Geoff signs off the episode, saying that he’ll see everyone next time.
Niagara Brawls
The episode opens with the Max clone scurrying around, playing with a sharp rock, and subsequently hiding when he sees the interns dragging the contestants to the cargo hold. The scene then cuts to a sleeping Max, who is having a dream about inventing things with Owen & Izzy. Scott, Sugar, & Topher then show up on hoverboards, destroying their work with lightning bolts. Max is thrown in the air, subsequently waking up & realizing that he and the other contestants have been thrown out of the plane.
Max promptly screams, waking everyone else up. While falling, two swan pedal boats are also falling with them. The contestants cling onto the boats as they fall and land in the water, making Anne Maria yell at Chris, as Staci shouts “Water!” This annoys Scott, but he & everyone else then see that they’re all heading toward a massive waterfall. Sugar laments about how she can’t win any more pageants when she dies, Dawn wishes her families good will, & Topher says that he fully doesn’t like Chris now. With Zoey though, she has turned into Commando Zoey, and uses her strength to throw Sugar into the other boat as an anchor, before furiously paddling both boats to safety. On the shore, Anne Maria compliments Zoey’s quick thinking & skills, and Scott is thinking. In the confessional, Scott says that Zoey must go ASAP, as she seems to be a big physical threat.
On shore, Chris reveals their location by telling the contestants that Niagara Falls is awesome, explaining that it is the jewel in Canada's crown and one of the top ten natural wonders in the world, also known for its fabulous casino, the place where they will head for the next part of the challenge, only to find themselves in the concert theater because all of them are underage. Topher asks if anyone will perform here, and Chris says that it’ll happen, as the last Aftermath episode has returned a contestant back to the game. Scott & Sugar are praying that it’s Sierra who returns, Max & Staci want Owen & Sadie respectively, and Chris then announces that it’s in fact Cameron who’s back in the game. Dawn is belated about this, and Cameron sings a song about Dawn & his friends, which is positively met.
Cameron asks Chris which team he’s on, and that he hopes it to be Team Amazon. Chris says that as of now it’s every man, woman, & Cameron for themselves, due to the teams being disbanded. Besides Scott, Sugar, & Topher, everyone is happy about this and is leering angrily at the villains. In the confessional, Sugar asks why everyone else is acting like they’re all friends, as this is Total Drama, not Total Friendship. With Zoey, she’s saying that she is excited at the chance of eliminating Scott or Sugar
Chris then announces that, since they are in the honeymoon capital of the world, they will be in pairs for "arranged marriages." The boys are placed in a giant casino machine, while the girls will pull the lever to see who their husband will be to team up for today's challenge and for Chris' own amusement, adding Bacon the bear in the slot machine, too.
Dawn pulls first, getting Scott, to which she slams the door on, crushing Scott’s arm. Dawn says that she’d prefer Bacon to Scott, making Chris give Bacon to Dawn. Sugar pulls next, getting Topher. Topher looks mostly indifferent to this, and Sugar suggests sabotaging everyone to gain victory, which Topher agrees with. Topher then asks what they should do with Scott, and Sugar says to treat him just like the others, as Sugar is in grave danger of being kicked if she loses.
Zoey pulls, hoping it’s not Scott, and gets Cameron. When Cameron sees this, he says that while he would rather have Dawn, Zoey is cool. Staci gets Max and they fist-bump, and this leaves Anne Maria with Scott, much to their dismay.
In part one of the challenge, the grooms must guide their blindfolded brides to a wedding dress while avoiding several obstacles in the first part of the competition, and if they don't get a dress, they can't move on to the next challenge. Topher tells Sugar not to worry about this, as he is amazing at this. Scott initially messes with Anne Maria, sending her into a pool of pudding, and Anne Maria says that he better stop it, unless he wants to be eliminated.
With Sugar & Topher, Sugar has found the first dress. Sugar suggests sabotaging the other teams, so they can automatically get immunity, which Topher agrees with. Staci & Max are trying to get to a dress, and Max is constantly changing his instructions, as Topher ais moving stuff around to confuse them. Cameron is guiding Zoey when Sugar steals his glasses, which causes him to accidentally send Zoey into a giant cake. Zoey groans at this and asks Cameron what happened. Cameron apologizes and says that it happened because Sugar stole his glasses, which Zoey forcibly takes back.
With Dawn & Bacon, the bear has successfully taken Dawn to the wedding dresses, clinching Dawn’s spot in the next challenge. Scott gets Anne Maria to the wedding dresses successfully, and so does Cameron with Zoey. As Chris says that the first challenge is over, Staci is able to get her wedding dress, annoying Topher & Sugar.
For the second part of the challenge, Chris explains that the grooms must hold their brides on a tightrope as they walk through Niagara Falls — which is packed with hungry sharks below because Chris thought they weren't quite unpleasant enough — and then they must successfully clear customs, saying that the first pair to do so wins invincibility. The mere idea of sharks is making Scott quiver, along with Max & Topher as well. As Sugar & Topher got to the dresses first, they get a head start. As they go by, Sugar trips Zoey for no apparent reason. Topher asks why, and Sugar says that she’s simply trying to get a rise out of Zoey.
Up next is Staci & Max, and the latter is staring at the falls below. Staci asks if he’s alright, and Max says that he feels psyched out by the challenge, as it seems really easy to fall to your death with one misstep. He then regains his breath and Staci starts to carry him on the rope.
Back with Topher & Sugar, Sugar tells Topher to hold on tight. Topher asks what this means, and Sugar slightly shakes the rope from side-to-side, making Staci & Max fall off. Cameron is bewildered by this, as they were just walking fine before. Zoey & Cameron get onto the tightrope next, speeding after the villains while being very wary of the looming threat of the falls.
Dawn & Bacon are next, with the Bear upright, carrying Dawn in her arms. Chris is surprised that anyone could actually find a grizzly bear that would be a good teammate. Bacon walks onto the tightrope, which causes a significant dip that nearly knocks off Scott, Sugar, Cameron, and Dawn. Zoey angrily asks who did this, and Cameron tells her to calm down, as it was just Dawn & the bear, which makes Zoey feel sheepish.
At the front, Sugar & Topher are discussing how they should sabotage everybody else once again when they reach customs. Chef starts to ask the duo some questions, and they are turned back when Chef asks them in which state is it illegal to have a donkey sleep in your bathtub after 7 P.M. Sugar said Texas, but the answer was Oklahoma.
Zoey & Cameron run into Sugar & Topher, and neither side is willing to move. In a bout of anger, Zoey violently shakes the rope, sending Dawn, the bear, Cameron, Topher, & Sugar into the falls. Zoey is mortified at what she has done, and dives in as well, looking for Cameron & Dawn. Scott & Anne Maria are the last ones standing, and carefully cross the rope to customs, where they answer all the questions correctly. Chef asks if they have anything else to say, and Anne Maria says that she’s just glad to be done with the challenge. The contestants in the water are now thankfully in a motorboat that is being driven by the interns, as Chris begrudgingly realizes that the contestants can't die.
Vote anyone sans Scott or Anne Maria, vote somebody for immunity, and feel free to come up with any plot points!