What to write in boyfriend birthday card

Am I crazy? I'm writing this drunk and high. At 12:34 on a Saturday night. Probably because I wouldn't write it at any other time. I think I'm forever single. I've been in a relationship before. One. It started when I was 17 and ended when I was 19. I'm not sure if it was love or puppy love. I almost entered a relationship a few months after that with this gorgeous guy, but I wanted to be single and wasn't interested in being smothered anymore. Flashforward to 2024, a week after my 25th birthday, I haven't been in a relationship since. Hell, I haven't even been close to being in a relationship since. I haven't spoken to a boy/guy/man for more than 12 hours since. (I say 'boy/guy/man' because I feel like at my age, that's what you've gone through. When you're a teen, you date boys. In college, guys. When you've been contributing to a 403b for almost 4 years? Men? Right?? Men. I do looooove men. Anyway...) I am/I've been on the apps. I've had hot Grindr hookups. I've had horrible, terrible Grindr hookups. I go to gay bars in NYC, Fire Island, Florida, Vegas, PTown. No one seems to be interested in me. I dont have abs. My weight flucuates often. I suffer from anxiety and I love smoking weed. I've been really focused on work and starting my career. But, surely, many gay men who would say all of the above are in happy, committed relationships. But I'm not even sure that's what I want. A (straight) couple that I haven't seen in months caught up with me tonight and, of course, one of the first questions they asked was my relationship status. "Oh dont worry, I didn't find him until I was 38!," the woman exclaimed. When speaking to an acquaintance tonight, she brought up a guy that we both mutually know. "He's 30 and has never seriously dated anyone or brought anyone around," she remarked. As a put-down. As evidence to prove how immature this guy is.
Huh.
Does this mean I'm immature? Is this what people say about me? It's not that I dont want a relationship. It'd be cool, I guess. I'm not asexual. In fact, I'm like the horniest person I know. Except after college, I've barely had sex with anyone. Being in a relationship that guarantees regular sex would be awesome. Maybe it's a confidence issue? When my weight flucuates, I get really self-concious. When I'm anorexic and draw attention to myself, I grow confident. I guess I dont outwardly seek relationships, like a lot of the people around me. I'm cool with staying home. I'm not necessarily a relationship person, like a lot of the people around me, either. I work hard and enjoy being self-depedent. I like smoking and watching a movie by myself. I'm cool eating alone at a restaurant. I love treating myself to a Broadway show. I guess, after writing this all out, I'm wondering if anyone can relate? Is this normal? Is a relationship the end goal? Is that what I should strive for? I'm so young, I know, but I feel like an old fucking maid. I'm not sure what I want. But I've seen some single, lonely old men that are just so sad. And I think to myself, "Is that what I want to be?" I'd like to say that, 'I'm just meant to live the Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle!' But Carrie dated and actually slept with people (sometimes regularly too)! Then, she ended up with the guy. I guess I'm just looking for clarity and thoughts. Thanks guys ❤️

Using a throwaway account for reasons. There are also some details whether seemingly important or not that I am omitting for brevity--this is strictly about the subject and the future.
To begin, and to drive right into the complications, I am currently going through a divorce. I was married for 3.5 years or so after being with stbxw for 9 years. We grew through our 20s together and while things were fine in our early 20s we had a lot of issues as we started transitioning into adults. I started a new job last fall and my past relationship with soon to be ex wife was already falling apart and we were also attempting to recover from an affair she had with our old neighbor, she was still having the affair after promising and lying. I am quickly moving on and deserve better. I always was loyal to my wife. Though, we have a 4 year old daughter and spontaneous triplet boys who are about a year old together to boot which is crazy. We started the divorce this past winter.
To back-track, within a month of my new job, which started last summer working as a project manager, a new project coordinator I was partnered with joined the company. We will call her Elle. This woman is insanely out of my league. She is insanely beautiful, smart, kind, mature, etc. and we quickly bonded over the fact that we both lost a parent in the past, my mom in 2014 and her father in 2015. Elle and I formed a strong friendship within our team and I started observing that she cared about my issues quickly.
She is from Chicago and kind of moved out here (AZ) to be with her boyfriend of 2 years or so whom she has a weird broken relationship with. Elle and I quickly got along, we shared similar senses of humor, some similar interests, I found that we had a growing chemistry throughout the fall. Around Thanksgiving and throughout December I started missing her quite a bit--I started noticing within myself that emotional and physical feelings were growing for her. I noticed that we were flirtatious at work quite often and that we had this insane connection when we locked eyes with each other. We were incredibly professional, always were, however it was becoming obvious in the office that we liked each other. A lot.
It was obvious what we were feeling for each other, so in December I confessed to her about how I was feeling and we quickly found that it was very mutual. Obviously there are complications here--I was starting a divorce and she lives and has a relationship with her boyfriend, and he tracks her.
Stbxw is a bit crazy to boot, and the fact that I have children with her is also complicated. However, for the past 4-5 months, Elle and I have kind of ignored our issues. We started coming in earlier and staying later together, getting coffee all the time together. We started hanging out after work parked in the garage and I would buy a bottle of wine and we'd hang out for hours drinking together. Getting really physical at job sites if we were alone. Things were escalating quickly. We started getting physical, making out, tried sex once but the issue for both of us is that she is essentially cheating on her boyfriend no matter how desperately we wanted it. Which is ironically what happened to me with my past relationship. I was just on the other side of it now.
We couldnt help it, our chemistry is really strong and I found myself thinking about her all the time, missing her, wanting to be with her. Same with her. We were sexting a lot and insanely flirtatious. We fell in love with each other. It kept getting stronger. We started talking about actually being in a relationship, hell, even talking about marriage and kids and shit. It was really intense and escalating quickly. She started asking for me to "be patient with her" and that "soon" we would be able to actually start dating, that she "needed to get out and deal with her situation on her own". We were constantly talking about a future together--things were getting serious. Hell, I even bought a nice ring for her as a token of my promise that I am hers. She wasnt, so she says, sleeping with her boyfriend, something I was getting a lot of intrusive thoughts about, we were waiting for each other. I toured an apartment with her as she was planning to move out, i could tell she didnt like it though, was homesick, and i talked to her about moving in with me which at one point was agreed on. But again, complicated.
Early March was the first "real" discussion we had about things though, as January and February were filled with those moments above. It was serious--she felt incredibly guilty for cheating on her boyfriend, saying she was a bad person, confused why she was doing what she was doing and I obviously felt it was wrong as I went through it myself previously and just as well a red flag for myself even if we became a couple I was running the risk of being with somebody capable of that, and we talked about that many times. But there was something obviously missing about her relationship with her boyfriend--they didnt get along and he treated her poorly in the beginning of their relationship that may or may not be a contributing factor to whats going on. She said we should stop, she mentioned she could be going back to Chicago and is seriously confused about her life and us being together, while we feel what we do, was a big step for both of us and I couldnt help but agree. It isnt a simple relationship approach given our "situations", a word that was used frequently between us.
Since then we have tried putting up walls with each other several times--it was and has been very difficult, no matter what we do, we know how we feel about each other and continued--though now we do not hang out in the garage, the sexting stopped a couple weeks ago or so--and now she truly is moving back to Chicago this summer which has put a timer and damper of sadness on this all. She also is moving back there with her boyfriend which is pretty disheartening as some would agree however she doesn't have much money so is kind of using him to get back there and she wants to be with her family and friends. Complicated. I dont know. I dont like it obviously. We attempted to come up with a game plan to mitigate this situation--no matter what we do, we end up getting coffee, spending time talking and seeing each other as much as we can at the office and enjoying our prescences with one another. She didnt request for me to wait for her, but she told me not to forget about her. There have been a couple times she said "who knows, maybe ill move back there and Ill just end up regretting it" and still have that strong feeling of a future together even though this is happening currently. We also need time for ourselves honestly--my divorce and her situation with her family/friends and her boyfriend thing, maybe she needs to re-discover herself in a way. Or she may end up settling with him. Ugh. Any possibility exists.
We still feel the way we do. We love each other and she says no man has ever treated her the way I do, looked at her the way i do--and mutually myself I feel like I have found the woman of my dreams. We honestly are like a power couple together. A true match in personality and looks. It just sucks, we see each other every day, I was semi-promoted so i have a different position now but still work closely together so its very hard and the undeniable chemistry is still there. The way we lock eyes is still there. She comes into my office often and talks to me, spends time with me and we make excuses to be around each other. We just know now that her moving back to her home in Chicago is a reality and WILL be happening now--so we arent talking as often as we used to. It definitely is deflating in a way--though the mutual feelings exist. We both have the feeling that once we "figure out our lives" maybe its something we can revisit. The future can be weird, and even when she leaves this summer I will have that hopeful "someday, one day" feeling about us.
Not really looking for advice, it is what it all is. Just sharing a relationship story.
TL;DR: coworker and I fell in love but things are complicated. we both have messy situations that need to be individually addressed-trying to write more bc post was removed for not having a tldr when it did. Anyway yeah our lives while we have strong feelings arent aligning at the moment

My (ex)fiancé and I had been together for almost 6.5 years, engaged for almost 2.5. Over the last several months, my (ex)fiancé has sat me down to talk about our relationship about once a month. Before these conversations, he would shut down and barely speak to me for several days even when I would ask what was wrong. Then he would finally tell me he was ready to have a conversation and would express his frustrations with the relationship. By the time of our conversations, I would already be on the defensive from his recent behavior. I also generally do not receive feedback well. When he would try to tell me that he was unhappy in our relationship because I didn't compliment him enough, flirt with him enough, or tell him I loved him enough, I would shut down. I was not able to hear what he was really trying to tell me. Instead, I put up a wall and told him to love me for who I am. I basically asked him "If I'm happy in our relationship despite my frustrations, why can't you be?" I now realize that is not an appropriate or healthy response when your partner is trying to communicate with you.
I did try to hear him. I gifted him some lingerie for the first time and let him take a boudoir photo shoot of me wearing it. I started sending a few more cute messages. I tried to make more time to cuddle with him when he would ask. I tried to give him more hugs. I tried to thank him more for picking up around the house. I wrote him a cute letter and surprised him with a few gifts for Easter. However, about a month ago, we had another one of those conversations. Except this time the first things he brought up were 'wondering what else is out there' and talking about how other girls are always complimenting him. Again came the walls and extra defensiveness. I ended up writing him a letter talking about how I didn't know if I could ever be what he wanted me to be and that maybe he should think about calling things off. This was obviously a defense mechanism to try to beat him to the punch line and talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Three weeks later he would sit me down and tell me he wanted to know what else was out there again and that he didn't know if he could go through with marrying me. My efforts did not feel like enough for him and I understand why. I was having a hard time connecting my emotions with my actions which made my actions seem reactionary and not genuine or provoked by love.
I have been through a lot more trauma in my life than I realized. My dad was in the Navy while I was growing up. We had to move every three years. A very pivotal point in my life was when we moved when I was in the 6th grade. I lived right next door to my best friend. I was finding my love for math and theater. I also played soccer and was a Girl Scout. When we moved, I became very depressed, though I didn't understand that's what it was at the time. I stopped all of my extracurricular activities. I stopped getting too close to people because I knew I would have to move or they would have to move eventually. I mostly stayed in my room and kept to myself, even from my family. I also have struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. Then, in my senior year of high school, I got my first-ever boyfriend. We were in a relationship for over 4 years. In that relationship, I would always be the one to try to talk about our problems. I would be the one who would always want longer hugs and more cuddles. But it was not a healthy relationship. We broke up and got back together many times. I found several illicit texts to other girls on multiple occasions and he would always gaslight me by saying his younger brother stole his phone or I misinterpreted the messages. I think this caused me not to want to show my emotions because it wasn't reciprocated and resulted in heartache. Then, three years ago my younger brother died in a tragic car accident at the age of 17.
When I realized I could lose the love of my life, I realized that he was right about me not being affectionate enough. I had built up walls to protect myself. I thought I had made progress on my anxiety and depression, but I realized I was wrong. I also realized that I have issues with communication, trust, and vulnerability. I was a great partner in other ways and I did express my love in other ways. I moved across the country, coast to coast, with him to a state where I didn't know anyone so that he could attend his dream school. I take care of the household. I get the majority of the groceries. I do all of the cooking. I do all of the maintenance cleaning. I take care of our 2 cats and 1 dog. I say all of those in the present tense because we currently still live together but are sleeping in separate rooms. I also financially supported him by lending him money and letting him pay less of the rent because I made more money. I accept all of him including that he has terrible time management skills, he can have a hard time controlling his emotions at times, and he is disorganized and messy. I also accepted that I would have to wait for marriage and children because of his school and accepted that he did not have a lot of free time between school, work, and his hobbies. I supported his love for his hobbies by accepting his purchasing of expensive equipment even when he owed me money, traveling to watch several events that were important to him, and traveling to see him win an award from his job. I would write heartfelt cards for every holiday. I also bought him dozens of children's books about love that I wanted us to read to our children one day.
When I realized I could lose him, I felt something change inside me. It was like I could feel a hole being blown in the wall I had built up. I felt all my love for him overwhelm me. I couldn't hug him, kiss him, or tell him I love him enough. I tried to talk to him to apologize for my behavior and how badly I'd hurt him. I tried to explain how I felt like a different person and how I really wanted to work hard on improving myself as a partner to make our relationship work. I tried to prove my words with actions. I wrote a list of things I needed to work on including communication and being more affectionate. I also wrote out a list of ways to work on those things and actually started doing the things on the list. Some of the items I had already begun to do like hug and kiss him more and tell him I love him more. I also tried to ask more questions about his interests/hobbies/day. I was more vulnerable and talked with him about my feelings more. I even initiated intimacy, something I had really only done once in a blue moon when I was intoxicated.
Despite all of my efforts, over the next two weeks, he continued to say he did not know if he could be with me and wanted to know what else was out there. He was very wavering and said multiple times "I don't know what the right decision is." He said he could not trust that my changes would last and that it was probably too late. I begged him to try couples therapy, but he refused and said "Therapy takes too long" and basically said it wasn't worth the time. He finally broke up with me after 2 weeks of going back and forth and I was devastated. He later talked to a mutual friend of ours and changed his mind about therapy. I was so happy to hear that he had changed his mind. However, now I feel like I can't even trust him anymore. He's turning into a person I don't recognize and I don't know what he's capable of anymore. I don't know if the man I love still exists. When he told me he was now agreeable to try therapy he said "We're still broken up, but I won't talk to any other girls." and then promptly said "And it will give me more time to find a place to live if things don't work out." He deleted several Instagram posts that had photos of me after he agreed to try therapy which makes me think he's not actually that open to healing our relationship. He complained to me about how he might have to take out student loans after I told him he needed to pay me for half of the rent while we're broken up and not decreased rate he had been paying me. He also "checked on me" on the night of the 3rd year anniversary of my brother's death when he heard me crying. Then he just sat on the end of the bed scrolling his phone while I cried as if he was checking on me because he felt like he had to and not because he wanted to. When I asked him if he had some sort of deadline in mind for the therapy, because he had previously mentioned that it takes too long, he said July or August and I have a suspicion that is because a girl he likes is leaving for summer break but will be back at the end of August for the next semester.
I just feel like the way he has been acting is not how you act towards someone you were in a relationship with for almost 6.5 years. Especially after saying you still love them and have no negative feelings towards them. That means even though you don't think you are a good relationship match, you should still want to treat them with respect. You should care that they are hurting during this time. You should want to comfort them in their grief of a separate event. You should mean it if you say you want to try therapy.
TL; DR : Do you think therapy will help?

Don't get distracted by the shiny objects in this fortnight's challenge!
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Your optional weekly writing prompt to write about in your card: What are your top 3 shiny and sparkly things?
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**Remember, all cards are welcome be they homemade (any skill level), store-bought (with or without your own personalization), or cards you have received from other users.**
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*Please make sure to share a picture of your card(s) as well!*
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You may post your card(s) in this thread at any time, however, if you wish to be matched with other participants for exchange you need to have posted before June 2. If you want to be matched, please note where you are sending from and to (ex: From UK to WW or US to US). Please remember that you can only exchange a maximum of 3 cards a week - but feel free to post more just to share!
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If you want to know more about card challenges or see the future themes for this year, this post is the place for you:
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[https://www.reddit.com/RAoC\_meta/comments/191194s/2024\_raoc\_meta\_card\_challenges\_are\_here/](https://www.reddit.com/RAoC_meta/comments/191194s/2024_raoc_meta_card_challenges_are_here/)

My Advice As a 2024 High school Graduate
My last day of Senior year is tomorrow and I have a few things I wanna say to those of you still in middle school/ high school.
Things I believe I did well - and things I believe you should do well too :)
• Push yourself out of your comfort zone - whether that be by taking a hard class or doing that activity you’re iffy about. You can always drop something if it’s too hard but it’s better to start and fail than never try. I took AP Chem my junior year and it kicked my ass, but in the end it was my favorite class in high school and I passed the exam :) Science rocks.
• This is SOOOOO cliche, but please, do something you actually like in high school. I participated in activities I actually cared deeply about and was able to talk about to other people as well as write about in college/ scholarship applications. I got into a top university and a bunch of scholarships. Just make it a priority to do things you like - no matter what it is - and be a leader in it.
• Be friendly to everyone, yes, even the people you despise. Honestly, you never know who will be able to help you down the line. The treasurer at my school is notoriously mean and I actually made the effort to get to know her and speak to her kindly. She then waived all of my school fees so I didn’t have to pay anything. And not just because they can do something for you but because being kind is just what’s right.
Things I wish I did/ did better - don’t be like me!
• Tell my best friend about my feelings for him. I’ve loved him for 4 years and have always been too shy/insecure to say anything about it. And now he’s going away for university, we’ll never be together like we were in high school again. Just bite the bullet and move on, not worth the tears lol. But oddly I don’t necessarily regret this decision. (Wish I would’ve had just ONE boyfriend at least lmao)
• I wish I was less insecure. People do not care about you like you think they do. This sounds harsh but there’s freedom in this truth. Wear what you want, don’t cover your smile when you laugh, take that picture (because when you graduate - or in 20 years - you’ll wish you had that stupid photo of you from Freshman year)
• Fixed this cursed sleep schedule and formed better habits. I have an abomination of a sleep Schedule. I get 4 hours on average and have no idea what it’s like to feel well rested. Since I’m always tired I don’t go to the gym and yeah - downward spiral. Health is the most valuable thing you can possess, treat yourself kindly.
Good luck everyone!

Hello and greetings once again my fellow CUEnthusiasts!
This post is going to be different from the usual ones you may be accustomed to because I feel I should have done this first lol.
To some, I just kinda popped up here and started posting these Coaches Corners without providing anything about myself or my back story. Like, who’s this guy?
I feel like a bit of a proper introduction and a brief digital card collecting history may help. Even most of the folks on discord don’t know this lol.
To keep it CUE, I will not name/mention or describe in detail other apps at all, just some general info that helps to understand my history and why I know the stuff I do and am now sharing it with all of you. To be honest, my CUE adventure started, in part, due to these apps :)
I started trading and collecting digital cards in 2016. But don’t worry, like I said I’ll be brief lol. The apps I was on were all individual but also kind of connected, and it’s wasn’t a game, just collecting and trading. I’ll give some insight to what they were like, as it’s kinda relevant but won’t be too detailed or revealing.
The majority of people traded within an individual app, accounts could span all the apps, but cards never transferred across apps. There was a method to trade between apps we called cross trading. I want to note, this was all ok and approved by the apps devs, but we did so at our own risk. Again, I won’t go into detail and this is as specific as I’ll get.
The reason I mention this is because in order to do this well, I had to know values for cards across quite a few apps and be able convert values amongst them. In order to do so effectively and accurately I studied and worked hard and learned all I could because that was the game.
I was selected for and assigned a trade evaluator role on one of their larger discord servers where players could ping us and get a quick evaluation. If needed, I was required to explain as briefly and as detailed as possible, a breakdown of a trade if needed and do so without bias. I did this until about 2021/2022. I was fairly well known and regarded as one of the better traders on each app I was on. But that comes second hand when you learn to play the collecting and trading game fairly and well. And that’s as far as I’ll go with that. Because next comes my CUE story.
It’s was actually a good friend from those previous apps that introduced me to CUE back in 2020, as my cake day indicates lol. However I was pretty casual on cue as my time was invested elsewhere for a number of reasons that I won’t get into.
I got into and went full time with CUE as my main app in around 2021/2022, and it has been my only card app since. I do want to describe my earlier, cue focused days a bit because it lends a bit to my back story and why I’ve been enjoying making these posts.
When I started, like many, I didn’t use any social platform. I had no idea as to the values other than what I knew from my past as a trader and collector. I also didn’t really play the game, so I never grasped the playability aspect of cards until later.
I managed to apply what I knew and successfully complete the app without ever knowing there was a value systems in place and readily available. I was able to figure which cards were hot, in demand and had value, what to pull (I wasn’t spending much back then, I was grinding trades), and when i found out there were hoarders (one card collectors), I had a good idea of to how to trade with them and, for the most part, any level of player. Little by little I was able to eventually piece together the basic trade economy. I can promise, like most players new to a card app, I sent some bad offers, and accepted them too. It happens lol.
All this means is, I write these posts because I’ve experienced what I’ve written about. I’ve learned the trading game, and applied and integrated what I knew successfully. And if I can help some people skip the years it took me, why not?
I’ve been a member on the CUE official discord for maybe a year, maybe a bit more lol it’s a blur. I can say though, it was just like home. Information readily available, a value system in place, trade evals, hoarders(one card collectors), the players who trade heavily. I made it a priority right then and there to learn the value system there in and out. This didn’t require me to be on discord all the time but I made it on as often as I could, and I took it all in and applied it. I knew how important this was going to be, especially when directly working out deals with people live. I had done this before, and was about to again lol.
My years on CUE have been an amazing and incredibly fun experience. And the people I’ve met along the way have become some great friends. Some of my favorite times are on discord talking digital cards and stuff. Makes the game that much more special and enjoyable.
My journey with cue is far from over, although I’m busy with life and that’s my main focus, I feel a deeper connection to that game and a bit of a different appreciation for it. Sorry, it may not make sense to you, but it does to me xD
Doing these segments have been extremely enjoyable and rewarding for me. It’s been a joy to look back and rememberelive times when I was just in my collecting infancy.
I feel like and hope what I’m writing about and passing on is both helpful and useful, as I may have said before. I’ve seen guides and strategies for playing the card game and deck building that go into great depth. I just hope I’m filling, what to me seemed like a gap. And that’s the trading and collecting aspect of the game.
I’ll be posting the next segment of Coaches Corner very shortly, so please, stay tuned :)
As always, Happy Trading and keep it Cue, see you in game!

Hey reddit bit of a weird/sad one for ya today. Just a throwaway account and I might end up deleting all this within the week.
Sorry if I get ramble-y and all over the place I'm just shooting off my stream of consciousness. Sorry for the trauma/info dump and any grammaspelling errors.
I've been going out with my boyfriend for almost 5 months now and we've just started getting more touchy and intimate over the past month or so.We've talked a bit about intimacy the past few months but I have a few personal issues with it.When I dated my ex of 4 years he was pretty pushy about sexual stuff cause we were in a long distance relationship and he was just a touchy physical guy in general, and I've been a good little church girl all my life with no experience.
We did a lot of stuff I probably wasn't ready for. When we first met in person we just went right to making out and oral but no intercourse. This was consensual but looking back I was probably too shy to say no...I haven't been in the best mind space anyway the past few months I guess and haven't been turned on by anything me and my partner have done. I feel more romantic attraction than sexual, but lately there has been a lack of emotion on my side of things. I don't feel anything when we kiss, i just feel like im there, kissing him. As sad as that is to say. It hurts writing that out because i desperately want to feel something, anything. When I'm alone I have no problem getting myself off, I probably prefer it. I like the fantasy of it more than the physicalness. But I just shut down when I get with a partner.
I have a lot of brain blocks from religion (the classic repressed church girl saving herself for marriage blah) I'm still a virgin. I highly doubt I'm ever going to have sex with him honestly... it's not even a marriage thing, at this point I don't care if I get married or not. I'm not sure if I trust anyone enough with my body to feel good or get over the mental barrier that keep me from enjoying sexual things with a partner.
Which brings me to two questions.
Am I some kind of asexual?
Or just low-key traumatized from past pushy experiences?
Or both? (probably :/ )
Well... I mean I definitely don't feel asexual... I believe I have a fearful avoidant/disorganized attachment style. (Self diagnosed)
Fast forward to now with my current boyfriend, he's very kind, sweet and all around gentlemen. He makes me feel safe and happy. I haven't told him much about my ex cause I just want to leave the past in the past.
But I guess over this past month I've just been like low-key triggered when he asks me to touch him?Which brings me to tonight. We were making out for a while and he asks me to touch him and I just can't get into it. I didn't want to say no to him and ruin the mood, I want him to be happy.
Now that im thinking about it I'm started to repeat some of the behaviour I did with my ex... but im more aware of what im doing now... I am a people pleaser, but it's also just a hand job right? Big whoop. The first time I did it I felt a little grossed out when he finished... and the same thing happened tonight when he finished but I felt disgusted and almost gagged by the feeling and texture of it all... I cant get into it mentally. But hey he thanked me and was satisfied right?
No he hasn't asked to make me feel good or anything, I wouldn't ask that of him because it's too embarrassing and I don't think I could get into it... I don't understand why I would be so disgusted enough to hold back and almost gag.
I don't have a strong gag reflex, I had a dog before and never minded picking up after him or cleaning up my baby cousins vomit.
So am I just doomed and ruined to never enjoy sexual stuff reddit? I want to make my partner happy but it shouldn't come of the cost of me feeling the need to push past what I think and feel and need in that moment.
I said yes to a lot of things in the past with my ex because that's what girlfriends do yadda yadda and I'm gonna have to deal with this real soon and have a talk with my boyfriend about why this is a problem for me...
I uh realize this is probably a good talk to have with a therapist about "sexual trauma" and "repression/suppression" and all that fun stuff but that's not really an option at the moment, so I turn to you reddit experts for advice haha. (Yes I realize yall aren't trained professionals but the only people i can turn to atm)
I probably know the answers to what yall are gonna say but any advice would be cool I guess. I can reply to comments below and might update and edit within the week

I'm the oldest in all my friend groups so a lot of my friends turn 18 much later in the year and I've been having a crisis about my age everyday since my birthday.
It's like I'm suddenly hyper aware of everybody's age and what they've achieved. Almost anybody famous will have some anecdote about how at 15/16 they made or did something cool. All the news articles will be about some 13-16 year old changing the world or achieving the impossible.
Every competition I come across, there's an under 18 category and an over 18 category, I thought about participating in this essay writing competition after I was done with school but got freaked out when I saw I no longer fit in the "13-17" category but instead the "18 and above" category, and so I let the deadline pass. It's like suddenly I'm supposed to be that good, no longer do I have the "oh look at this cool high school kid doing this cool thing to do at their age" cushion.
I read all these reddit posts where everybody says things like "he/she is 18, they're responsible for what they say/do, hence they deserve xyz consequence" and it just always gets me thinking about how I don't feel like a mature person- I'm incredibly impulsive and irresponsible, I feel like I've been the same person since 13, I get jealous and petty and lazy and stupid: how can I possibly be someone who can be held accountable?
I feel like I'm becoming every older kid my parents would talk to me about in disgust, "oh she's in this mediocre college, she didn't do very well in school", "oh he's in some stupid job, he's just wasting his time there", "oh he's been sitting unemployed for months after graduating, all that money they invested in him for his education, all for nothing".
It's like turning 18 takes everything you hate about yourself and anxieties you have about the future- and multiplies it tenfold.

My (ex)fiancé and I had been together for almost 6.5 years, engaged for almost 2.5. Over the last several months, my (ex)fiancé has sat me down to talk about our relationship about once a month. Before these conversations, he would shut down and barely speak to me for several days even when I would ask what was wrong. Then he would finally tell me he was ready to have a conversation and would express his frustrations with the relationship. By the time of our conversations, I would already be on the defensive from his recent behavior. I also generally do not receive feedback well. When he would try to tell me that he was unhappy in our relationship because I didn't compliment him enough, flirt with him enough, or tell him I loved him enough, I would shut down. I was not able to hear what he was really trying to tell me. Instead, I put up a wall and told him to love me for who I am. I basically asked him "If I'm happy in our relationship despite my frustrations, why can't you be?" I now realize that is not an appropriate or healthy response when your partner is trying to communicate with you.
I did try to hear him. I gifted him some lingerie for the first time and let him take a boudoir photo shoot of me wearing it. I started sending a few more cute messages. I tried to make more time to cuddle with him when he would ask. I tried to give him more hugs. I tried to thank him more for picking up around the house. I wrote him a cute letter and surprised him with a few gifts for Easter. However, about a month ago, we had another one of those conversations. Except this time the first things he brought up were 'wondering what else is out there' and talking about how other girls are always complimenting him. Again came the walls and extra defensiveness. I ended up writing him a letter talking about how I didn't know if I could ever be what he wanted me to be and that maybe he should think about calling things off. This was obviously a defense mechanism to try to beat him to the punch line and talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Three weeks later he would sit me down and tell me he wanted to know what else was out there again and that he didn't know if he could go through with marrying me. My efforts did not feel like enough for him and I understand why. I was having a hard time connecting my emotions with my actions which made my actions seem reactionary and not genuine or provoked by love.
I have been through a lot more trauma in my life than I realized. My dad was in the Navy while I was growing up. We had to move every three years. A very pivotal point in my life was when we moved when I was in the 6th grade. I lived right next door to my best friend. I was finding my love for math and theater. I also played soccer and was a Girl Scout. When we moved, I became very depressed, though I didn't understand that's what it was at the time. I stopped all of my extracurricular activities. I stopped getting too close to people because I knew I would have to move or they would have to move eventually. I mostly stayed in my room and kept to myself, even from my family. I also have struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. Then, in my senior year of high school, I got my first-ever boyfriend. We were in a relationship for over 4 years. In that relationship, I would always be the one to try to talk about our problems. I would be the one who would always want longer hugs and more cuddles. But it was not a healthy relationship. We broke up and got back together many times. I found several illicit texts to other girls on multiple occasions and he would always gaslight me by saying his younger brother stole his phone or I misinterpreted the messages. I think this caused me not to want to show my emotions because it wasn't reciprocated and resulted in heartache. Then, three years ago my younger brother died in a tragic car accident at the age of 17.
When I realized I could lose the love of my life, I realized that he was right about me not being affectionate enough. I had built up walls to protect myself. I thought I had made progress on my anxiety and depression, but I realized I was wrong. I also realized that I have issues with communication, trust, and vulnerability. I was a great partner in other ways and I did express my love in other ways. I moved across the country, coast to coast, with him to a state where I didn't know anyone so that he could attend his dream school. I take care of the household. I get the majority of the groceries. I do all of the cooking. I do all of the maintenance cleaning. I take care of our 2 cats and 1 dog. I say all of those in the present tense because we currently still live together but are sleeping in separate rooms. I also financially supported him by lending him money and letting him pay less of the rent because I made more money. I accept all of him including that he has terrible time management skills, he can have a hard time controlling his emotions at times, and he is disorganized and messy. I also accepted that I would have to wait for marriage and children because of his school and accepted that he did not have a lot of free time between school, work, and his hobbies. I supported his love for his hobbies by accepting his purchasing of expensive equipment even when he owed me money, traveling to watch several events that were important to him, and traveling to see him win an award from his job. I would write heartfelt cards for every holiday. I also bought him dozens of children's books about love that I wanted us to read to our children one day.
When I realized I could lose him, I felt something change inside me. It was like I could feel a hole being blown in the wall I had built up. I felt all my love for him overwhelm me. I couldn't hug him, kiss him, or tell him I love him enough. I tried to talk to him to apologize for my behavior and how badly I'd hurt him. I tried to explain how I felt like a different person and how I really wanted to work hard on improving myself as a partner to make our relationship work. I tried to prove my words with actions. I wrote a list of things I needed to work on including communication and being more affectionate. I also wrote out a list of ways to work on those things and actually started doing the things on the list. Some of the items I had already begun to do like hug and kiss him more and tell him I love him more. I also tried to ask more questions about his interests/hobbies/day. I was more vulnerable and talked with him about my feelings more. I even initiated intimacy, something I had really only done once in a blue moon when I was intoxicated.
Despite all of my efforts, over the next two weeks, he continued to say he did not know if he could be with me and wanted to know what else was out there. He was very wavering and said multiple times "I don't know what the right decision is." He said he could not trust that my changes would last and that it was probably too late. I begged him to try couples therapy, but he refused and said "Therapy takes too long" and basically said it wasn't worth the time. He finally broke up with me after 2 weeks of going back and forth and I was devastated. He later talked to a mutual friend of ours and changed his mind about therapy. I was so happy to hear that he had changed his mind. However, now I feel like I can't even trust him anymore. He's turning into a person I don't recognize and I don't know what he's capable of anymore. I don't know if the man I love still exists. When he told me he was now agreeable to try therapy he said "We're still broken up, but I won't talk to any other girls." and then promptly said "And it will give me more time to find a place to live if things don't work out." He deleted several Instagram posts that had photos of me after he agreed to try therapy which makes me think he's not actually that open to healing our relationship. He complained to me about how he might have to take out student loans after I told him he needed to pay me for half of the rent while we're broken up and not decreased rate he had been paying me. He also "checked on me" on the night of the 3rd year anniversary of my brother's death when he heard me crying. Then he just sat on the end of the bed scrolling his phone while I cried as if he was checking on me because he felt like he had to and not because he wanted to. When I asked him if he had some sort of deadline in mind for the therapy, because he had previously mentioned that it takes too long, he said July or August and I have a suspicion that is because a girl he likes is leaving for summer break but will be back at the end of August for the next semester.
I just feel like the way he has been acting is not how you act towards someone you were in a relationship with for almost 6.5 years. Especially after saying you still love them and have no negative feelings towards them. That means even though you don't think you are a good relationship match, you should still want to treat them with respect. You should care that they are hurting during this time. You should want to comfort them in their grief of a separate event. You should mean it if you say you want to try therapy.
TL;DR : So should I break up with my ex-fiancé or should I keep fighting to get back the man I love?

both of us (18F and 19M) are hispanic living in the US and i want to introduce him to my dad soon but i feel as though everything has to be perfect for them to meet. i know how my dad is and if he even says something wrong it might make the wrong impression in a way. i'm not saying i want to change him or anything drastic i just don't want us to feel embarrassed or him get made fun of.
i feel like actually knowing and speaking good Spanish is an important part of our culture. he's almost a no sabo and i'm not... so i'd really appreciate if he was better at it. i had an ex who was reallyyyy a no sabo kid and my mom and sister would always laugh at him or joke at how he said things, mostly behind his back of course. i don't know how he'd react if i asked him to practice his Spanish some more :/ i don't want him to know that i feel kind of embarrassed of his level of Spanish or like that i'm saying he really sucks at it
like the other day he was writing a mother's day card for my mom and drafting what he'd write in his notes app. i had to basically take over for him because of how bad his grammar and everything was. this was a really important card not only because of the holiday but because their relationship wasn't good... so you know it meant a lot to me that he spell everything and come across well to her or i'm not sure how she would've taken it

I guess I'll start off by giving backstory. I am a (18F) college student in a relationship with my boyfriend (18M) who is about to graduate highschool next week. We originally met back in February on a dating app, and we are long distance (of an hour away from each other), and our relationship is a secret from my dad (strict parent). My mom is aware of the relationship however because she is concerned for me getting found out, she limits my hangouts with my boyfriend. My boyfriend and I try to see each other every week, sometimes every other week.
I just want to make it clear: from the beginning of our relationship I have been the one to mess things up. Or that is how (him and me) mostly see it. I think I've come to realize it's because I have a lot of mental immaturity. From what I recall, one of the first arguments we had was my inability to communicate properly with my boyfriend. Such as: texting him small updates or, checking things he would send me on social media and not reply to his iMessage back. Very minor communication. The others were a bit more extreme. One of the more extreme ones stemmed from the whole strict parent thing. See, originally my boyfriend asked me out the first month in which we met. However, I turned him down because although I wanted to say yes, I didn't want to lie about the status of my relationship to my parents. Eventually, I wanted the two of us to become official after a few months of us talking, so I can then introduce him as my boyfriend to my parents. This created a big issue between us, in which he started developing a sense of not having security in the relationship. This would be the cause of many arguments. I think my fault in this was instead of reassuring him and making him feel heard; I would apologize over and over again trying to offer solutions. On his birthday I wrote him a long love letter and I told him I wanted to make things official, the truth is I felt pressured because a week before his birthday we had the same reoccurring argument. We've had a lot of arguments piling since then, many of them having to with me such as: making conversations about his feelings about myself, in which then he feels pressured to comfort me. Our most recent argument was completely my mistake and I recognize this.
About three weeks ago, one of my friends was preforming at my former highschool. It was going to be a concert like event in which students and their rock bands would preform. So I invited my Best Friend (18M) and my Boyfriend. (To clarify, my best friend has been my friend for 7 years and he is gay, this doesn't have to do with my best friend being a man; my boyfriend himself is comfortable with our relationship.) I had not seen my boyfriend for a week or so prior to this event and so I would constantly tell him about how I miss him and how I was looking forward to see him, hence why I invited him. Before the event started, the three of us (me, Boyfriend, and Best friend) decided to go to a cafe to get a drink since it was a 5min walk from my former highschool (where the event was being held). I thought I was giving him attention by being affectionate in holding his hand, trying to include him in conversation, and clinging to his arm would be enough: showing my boyfriend that I missed him. However, when we walked back from the cafe to line up outside the event, I noticed he was going quiet and even got out of line to sit down at a nearby bench. When we entered the event, us three sat down and my Boyfriend put his head down immediately. I knew from that, that this wasn't his vibe. After the first two songs, he got up and left (with letting me know) and went back to his car. I asked him if he was okay, and he just told me he wanted to lay down. The event was three hours, I stayed for the first hour almost two, before receiving a text from my boyfriend. In which he said "should I just leave", so I left the event and went to his car to talk to him. He told me that he felt unappreciated especially because I said I had missed him so much, that I didn't even say "thank you baby for driving an hour to be here". We ended up talking this out and we went to dinner after. The reason why I am bringing this up is because my best friend was actually quite annoyed at this. This week, me and my best friend went out to Koreatown which we were talking about my boyfriend. My best friend brought up his behavior from the event, and demonstrated the way my boyfriend had his head down expressing how annoyed it made him feel that I left early, and even missed some of my friend performance which was the reason why I went. I made the mistake of mentioning this to my boyfriend. He got extremely upset, and took my best friend as mocking him and disrespecting him, he got mad at me for not defending him. This was a very big argument. My boyfriend has expressed and even shown throughout the arguements we've had, that he is losing his patience and feels as though I am abusing him ;"Let me continue to beat you mentally and ask for forgiveness with no promise of a promising future for myself in change (he told me this)". Lately, although I should have been doing this from the beginning have been trying to put my best foot forward in changing attitude, I've been trying to be more supportive and not making conversations about myself, in making sure that he knows that I understand him, however I keep messing up and its very frustrating to me.
I've talked to my therapist and my own mom about my problems, because I really want to stay with my boyfriend and I really want to change. My last relationship I was sexually and verbally abused, and although me and my boyfriend have a lot of problems he really is the best and the first person I have seen a future with. I sometimes struggle with the trauma from my last relationship, which is why sometimes I get scared of expressing myself (my ex would call me stupid or a manipulator when I expressed myself so I get scared of retaliation). My boyfriend gets sometimes frustrated when I explain this because he tells me "well I'm not him and you know that".
Although I love this person, I don't know whether to break up with him or not. We have both stayed with each other because we want to work things out, however as he has expressed to me and I have noticed: this creating an unhealthy environment and he feels like he is in an unhealthy environment. I never want to keep my boyfriend in an environment in which he feels unsafe and not happy. To clarify, I am willing to work things out with him through and through. But, lot of the time I worry because of the several arguements we have had, that he is not happy but yet he stays. I cry a lot and I feel terrible. I never open to my mom about things ever but, I did the last argument because of how terrible I feel about it all. I feel like I'm not enough. I find myself trying but even I know my efforts aren't enough for this relationship. Any advice will help which is why I've taken it to here. I can't fully explain my whole relationship and timeline of events but hopefully this was enough information (if not I will try to update this) thank you if you read this.

Salutations and greetings brothers and sisters in Christ.
Having posted last week about the current situation and end state/long term objectives, I would like to identity what the current state of the country is in relative openness to meeting our criteria. A lot of what I write comes from research sources from government websites (such as the US Census Data), research websites from trusted sources (such as the PRRI), or good primary source content from creators or first-person perspectives. Today I want to share a report from PRRI that I references previously in my post about end state and objectives. This will lay out what states have the highest concentrations of support for Christian Nationalism based on research, large groups/concentrations of Orthodox Churches, Large groups/Concentrations of Mainline Protestant churches, and then large groups/concentrations of Evangelical concentrations/groups. Using this data we can distil down to the various different states that would have the highest success rate for growing support for our objectives and end states.

• Large groups of mainline protestants function as a potential recruiting opprotunity. As these churches become liberalized and lose membership/die out, it allows for those aligned with our values to recruit and convert these individuals co-oping them into the cause.
• Large congregations of Orthodox Churches can be used as a staging ground for the Neo-Orthodoxy revival within America and support the conversion of these churches into an Autocephalous Western Right Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America. Our objective number 1 for achieving our end state.
• Large support for Christian Nationalism already exists within Evangelical Christianity. This means while conversion to the Neo-Orthodoxy movement to achieve our first objective, it is not strictly necessary if individuals join Evangelical Christian groups which support Christian Nationalism.
• These three sources of Christian believers to support the desired end state for Christian Nationalism is essential.

If you recall from my previous post Objective 2 to meet our end state for the Nation is as follows: "38 out of 50 states within the United States must have greater than 50% Christian Nationalists adherents living within them by 2058. (creates super majority)." In this post I identified that we have to focus on 38 states to build up a primary base for changing the geo-political landscape by altering the socio-cultural landscape via Western Anglosphere focus Christian values. Specifically, I call out for a Western Right Orthodox Church of America but any congregation which aligns with Christian Nationalism would suffice. Just that Western Right Orthodoxy would be a solid cornerstone/foundation which would have the structure and adherence rate to survive greater than 80+ years rather than the mercurial protestants denominations which shift like sand. However, if those denominations can stand firm long enough to enact true political reform, amending the constitution, then it is worth to bring those denominations into the fold and act as one body of Christ.
Looking at the data from PRRI: Data Here You can see the breakdown of the different states which have high or higher percentage of support to the cause of Christian Nationalism. What this means for us, is it allows us to narrow down to our targeted 38 states we need to achieve our objectives. While we want to be advancing on all fronts, these 38 will have the highest chance of making mounting or achievable impact on Christendom at large.

• As previously stated: "New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois, California, Washington, Connecticut, and New Jersey are below the 25% general support for Christian Nationalism." What this means is that while we should try and spread the cause in all directions to all different states, these states have the lowest chance of it catching flame or finding a foundation.
• Interestingly enough however, many of these states have large concentrations of old Orthodoxy residing within them: California, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey all have large amounts of Orthodox Concentrations. Data Here Sadly they are drowned out by large amounts of non-Christians within these locations. New York, Illinois, and California have large amounts of Mainline Protestant which have the highest amounts of potential pickups of those leaving the denominations after becoming super liberalized towards Orthodox/Christian Nationalists sympathetic groups. Data Here
• What this means is that while growth opportunity exists in New York, California, and Illinois we will struggle to gain and maintain a majority within the state just do to the demographic nature and the percentage game. Not that it is not worth our time, but we cannot rely on it. That said we could focus efforts in select swing districts at the local/congressional level in New York, California, and Illinois to possibly bring about pushing them towards the bubble and eroding hyper liberal power bases.

With the date for mentioned, we would have to conclude that these 11 states are not reliable for our growth and target objectives. Again, as with the case of New York, Illinois, and California, growth opportunity exists but not enough to justify targeting those states. Our focus now shifts to the bubble/swing states that we can make a difference to bring to the fold.

• As previously stated: "Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Arizona, Utah, Rhode Island, Delaware, Colorado, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are on the 25-29% cusp of supporting Christian Nationalism. Growth opportunity exists but could easily swing the other way.". What this means is that we would need to focus on these swing states and select at least one to focus our attention to bring it above the 30% thresh-hold for sustained and consistent push towards the cause to for fill our objectives.
• The largest concentrations of Mainline Protestant denominations and Orthodoxy residing within them is Pennsylvania, with Michigan and Wisconsin in solid second place leading the others. Arizona and Colorado are behind Michigan and Wisconsin but hold a solid base in both Mainline and Orthodoxy. Meaning it would not take much to swing Colorado and Arizona to be more inline with our stated goals that we need to achieve.
• Out of the rest, Hawaii might be the biggest outlier and most difficult to change do to geographic reasons. While a solid base for what we wish to accomplish exists, the demographics of such a place are working against us in % of population vs base. I would advocate for throwing out Hawaii and placing it into the below general support category.
• Utah is a special case. Mormons, which would best be classified as a wild card, dominate Utah politics along with other Christian denominations. Forward progress will be difficult in Utah, but it might be more of a dialogue than a genuine need for conversion/bringing Utah into alignment.
• What this means is that Delaware, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine will be the long haul in this process to round out our 38 required states to align with the Anglosphere Western Right Orthodoxy / support for Christian nationalism. Naturally Vermont and Delaware will present interesting challenges. It would require demographic changes and construction of large amounts of mission work and proselytizing. Alternatives would have to be sought for these two otherwise if needed: Viriginia and New Jersey are likely candidates given the high number of Orthodoxy or Mainline protestants vs Delaware and Vermont.

This leaves us to the 38 states that we have to focus on to achieve our objectives on the strategic level for the United States to regain the conceptualization of Christian nationalism dominated by our Western Right Orthodox Church of America focused on preserving the ideals of Anglosphere cultural and societal roots forward for the next 80-120 years.

• Alabama, Alaksa, Arizonia, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware*, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey*, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah**, Vermont*, Virgina*, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
• Delaware and Vermont can be changed for New Jersey and Virgina respectively which is the reason for the call out. Utah is also a special case given its high Mormon population.
• Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona have unique opportunities with the largest growing non-white Christian Nationalists groups: Hispanics who are Evangelicals. Continued growth in this area can eventually turn all four corners into solid supporters for our socio-cultural fabric which we wish to layout. Of them, Colorado faces the most pushback but growing areas of support.
• Different regions within the 38 states are going to have to move/work in different ways to achieve our objectives. Just because a state has +30% of Christian Nationalists support already AND might traditionally thought politically as a "red" state, that does not mean they align with our core values or end state. New Mexico and Arizona are wildly different than Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Requiring different approaches to changing the views on a local level.
• The flexibility of Mainline and Evangelical Protestantism is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. The common faith shared across state borders and regions does not always align culturally or politically. One socio-cultural norm must exist. While sub-cultures are welcome, they cannot deviate from the overarching Anglosphere cultural norm which must dominate to align the whole country with our values and preserve the Republic.

This goes into the objective number 1 to meet our end state for the United States and Christian Nationalism. As stated previously: "Establish one Autocephalous Western Right Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America with Romanian, Russian, and Antiochian ceding to this new Orthodox Church with establishment of a Patriarch of America." This will create a large common Holy and Orthodox Church of America that will allow for Anglosphere dominate cultural to thrive from the local/micro level all the way to the macro-country wide level. The church will function both culturally and religiously to preserve our common Anglosphere dominated values and Western conceptualizations of rights within our Republic.
As always, please let me know what you think and what can be done to improve. Is this too wordy? Is everyone able to follow along fairly well? Let me know or join the conversation!

My boyfriend of 4 year’s birthday is coming up soon, and he really wants a racing sim setup to go with his pc but I have no idea what to get him he said he wants pedals and a shifter along with a wheel and stuff. I was originally against getting him a racing sim given we live in a small apartment and wouldn’t have room but I realize this is something he really wants and I want to get it for him. Just would like something that fits within the budget and is small space friendly like you can fold it up and put it away or sumthin any help or suggestions is appreciated.

Apologies in advance for any spelling errors emotions are running high as I’m writing this.
Edit: added paragraphs
For context this happened a few days ago.
I, M 24 have been in a relationship with my boyfriend who I’ll call Red (Not his real name), M 23 for around 4 years now after we met at our mutual friends house. We had hit it off after a few drinks and I ended the night with his number and 3 months later we started chatting exclusively and 6 months later we started dating. (At this point in time we hadn’t met each other’s families and he hadn’t mentioned them during the whole 9 month period.) When we first started dating Ill admit I was head over heels and wanted him to meet my family (I have a rather large family) right away and was quite pushy about them meeting although we hadn’t been dating for 5 months at that point. But he talked me out of it saying I was “Moving too fast.” I dont know if that was a red flag or not but I don’t think it was.
Anyways, around 1.5-2 years ago I learned that Red had a little brother 23 M (they are twins, Red was just born first by a little over 5 hours.) which came as a shock to me because during our entire relationship Red had never mentioned his brother and was every adamant that not only did he and his family weren’t close but that he had cut them all off. I which was a major red flag for me because for starters I had only met his brother because I had a package delivered to his house and need to pick it up. I have a key to his house but I have a habit of knocking because I OCD. So imagine my shock when the door is opened by not Red but someone who looked suspiciously like him who immediately asked me who I was. When I told him I was asking for Red (MY boyfriend) he said he wasn’t home and that he was at the store and he’ll tell him that someone came to the door to ask for him. At which I told him that I was his boyfriend and that I needed to pick up a package.
He looked a little suspicious but let me in regardless and we sat in the living room and talked till red came home. I was really curious about who these mystery person was and for a while thought Red was cheating on me until his brother who I’ll call Jane (Not his real name) informed me that he was reds twin brother. I was in shock because for two years Red had told me that he had not relationship with any of his family and here’s his twin brother in his house. (I’ve been to his house before and at not pint in time did he ever have any roommates or other people living in his apartment. So it was shocking and I felt really betrayed because at that point he had already met my family.)
Me and Jane made more small talk till Red came home 20 something minutes later and was shocked to see both me and Jane sitting on the couch. I was gonna stay for longer after red came home but the moment I saw his face I just couldn’t and ended up leaving shortly after. I couldn’t stop thinking about how he never told me he had a brother and later that night at like 8 pm I texted him and asked him why he never told me he had a brother nonetheless a TWIN brother and why he lied about cutting off all his family. He responded 2 hours later at 10 and asked me to call him which I did and I he told me that the reason he never told me about Jane was because although he actually didn’t cut all his family off but those he did still talk too he didn’t tell other people about too which I asked why?
Only to be met with him avoiding the question and trying to steer the conversation away from his family and more to about my day which was the next red flag. We got into an argument and he walked away from the phone but didn’t hang up so I did and I ended up blocking him for 2 days before he showed up at my door apologizing up and down and swearing to never keep a secret from me again which I had believed. For the next 2 years that wasn’t the last I’d seen of Jane and I learned that Red and Jane were extremely close. (Idk if it’s a twin thing but they are just really close) But at multiple points in our relationship I thought they’ve been too close if that’s even possible. For example when we had planned an anniversary trip together and went we started discussing locations he wouldn’t agree to certain places because “Jane wouldn’t be comfortable with him going there.” Or “Jane wouldn’t like that.”
When I asked why it mattered what jane liked because it’s not like he was going, he said something along the lines of. “Just let it go.” Or would just ignore me till I started talking about a different place which threw off my flow for the rest of the planning. Or when he pushed back out trip for almost a month because he didn’t want to leave Jane alone. (Jane is autistic and possibly physically disabled which I swear is important but he’s not low functioning and even lives in his own with a job.) When I brought this up Red glared at me without saying anything but let it go after a while. This is only one example of their relationship coming between things we had planned but there are plenty more examples of them being physically close as well. (Cuddling togethe sitting extremely close to each other, Jane following Red around to the point something’s they walk in sync, feeding one another,hugging for extended periods of time, playing with each other’s hands/hair ext.)
I swear if they didn’t look so similar you’d think they were the ones dating. I won’t lie I’ve found myself being jealous/ disgusted at the way they treat each other but I had pushed it aside because I convinced myself that Red was just looking out for Jane. (Before you question that like I said while Jane isn’t behind mentally or anything you can see he struggles with a lot things like standing for long periods of time and often goes non verbal or only makes illegible noise that Red understands.) So I truly pushed my thoughts aside because I didn’t want to be seen as an overprotective or anything and it’s not like I have anything against Jane or anything but sometimes it’s just really fucking weird. But recently I’ve reached my limit when I went to Reds apartment and when I opened the door I saw janes phone on the counter. Which is really at weird because at the end of the day theyre family and that’s not weird but what was weird was that Jane nor Red were anywhere to be found.
I had walked around the apartment for a while till I got Reds bedroom and saw both of them laying in bed together (They weren’t naked or anything but they were like laying ontop on one another, like cuddling skin to skin whilst clothed from what I could see.) When I walked in a saw them next to each other all the memories of the way they had acted with eachother rushed into my head and I just assumed the worst and started screaming and cursing which got Reds attention and he immediately sat up and started screaming back at me asking me what I was scream about and we started a screaming match and I told him off about his weird behaviour with Jane and how brothers don’t act that way with each other until they are getting with eachother and he froze and just started at me and before he could say anything else I left his apartment and drove back home. (If jane had said anything I didn’t hear it over the screaming but idk)
I ended up telling my parents and they said that Im not overreacting but that something in there childhood definitely caused them to be so touchy but don’t believe that and I don’t know who the tell this to or what to do because I’m well aware that siblings don’t act that way and that something has to be going on but I don’t know how to talk to Red about it. I know my parents said otherwise but I can’t help but think im AH because I don’t let red explain. I don’t think I should bring this up to anyone close friends because of bias so I’m asking Reddit. What do I do???

AITA for being upset that my friend didn’t get me a bday present
We got in a fight for a year , I didn’t wish her happy birthday during that year . It started with her not putting any effort into talking to me and I was always texting her first and once i stopped putting in effort to see if she would initiate conversations it took her a month to even realize that we stopped talking . Normally , I would always stay up late to wish her happy birthday and I would get her something.
We recently became friends again and I forgave her for the past . Later I found out that she kind of switched up the story of why we’re not friends anymore and shit talked me to all her friends and to this day her friends still shit talk me and she’ll watch them do it but she won’t defend me. I still got her something for her birthday and stayed up until 12 am to wish her .
Today was my bday and she sent me this message about how she’s happy that we’re friends again but she didn’t offer to get me anything back or even ask me what I wanted. She didn’t even have to get me anything just something small or even just a card would’ve been nice . But no nothing . I don’t want to have to feel like I’m watering a dead plant all over again .

My (18m) mom is psychotic, but for whatever reason nobody in my family gives a shit. She has always been a little crazy (she believes in every conspiracy theory in the book), but she didn’t really go off the deep end until my dad divorced her when I was 4. Since then, she has gotten progressively crazier to an unmanageable level. I could write an epic just filled with everything she’s done that’s crazy, but I will just hit the highlights.

• when I was in kindergarten, she told me on the way home from school that Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and everything in between were not real.
• when I was a child, she constantly filled my head with the idea that I was going to be tortured and killed in the future for being a Christian. She also made it seem like I was going to go to hell if I sinned at all. I used to shower and bathe at the hottest temperature possible as a kid because i wanted to get prepared for hell.
• when I was 8 years old, she joined a cult (or pseudo religion, or whatever you want to call it) called Hebrew Roots. The basic premise was Judaism plus Jesus, but with no grace. From 8 years old and on she had me follow the rules of Judaism (rest on Friday and Saturday, don’t eat certain foods, etc,) even though I am not Jewish.
• since I was 8, she has taken me on numerous “vacations” which mostly consisted of visiting a friend in her religion (most notably a Native American chief) and studying the Old Testament for 10-12 hours a day.
• my sister used to live with my mom. For her 21st birthday, she “wore a revealing dress and went to the club on a Friday night (sabbath)” my mom kicked her out of the house for this, and she was homeless for some time.
• she said to me “where did we go wrong with you?” Because I said I didn’t like to cook (not in a joking way)
• she constantly pitted me against my dad when I was a kid, from sending him an email to “not persecute my religion”, to telling me my brother chose my dad and my sister chose her, and I would have to choose a side
• she constantly has childlike temper tantrums and meltdowns for no reason. I always have to comfort her, and most of my life I have felt like I had to be a parent to her instead of the other way around -she gets upset at anything and everything “non-biblical”
• one time, I wasn’t showing just enough excitement about what she was talking about (I think Old Testament numerals) and she started to sob and recount everything bad that has ever happened to her (everything from my dad divorcing her to her high school boyfriend cheating on her)
• one time, she saw MF DOOM rings I had put in the Amazon shopping cart, and said that I was “opening a portal to the spirit world”
• I started seeing a therapist about a year and a half ago, and she has probably said 25 plus times that she “respects confidentiality.” Then, in a recent vacation, she had a meltdown when I refused to share what I talked to my therapist about, and told my dad I “have no interest in having a relationship” with her.

I live with my dad, and since we moved to St. Louis from fl 5 years ago, I have not seen my mom that much (thankfully). The problem is, all my close family are pushing me to be nice and accept my mom for who she is. My dad and brother both think I am overreacting when I say I don’t want to see her. This means I am effectively permanently stuck with being friendly with my mom, as I do not want to alienate my other family members. I hate that someone can do so much shit to you and get off scot free.

This isn't necessarily a theory I believe, I just find myself thinking about this case often, and the perplexing body of facts surrounding whatever happened that night. Given we will never know the true story - we can only base our speculations around things that have been documented in one way or another, I have a theory on why this case is so confusing: Everyone involved was blackout drunk.
Let's try to imagine this from all perspectives:
-Let's say you're Brian Albert
You're at the waterfall bar. Everyone seems to be having a good time. You're hanging out with your extended family, who are all close. It's your son's 23rd birthday and he's hanging out with his friends, several of which are family as well. Basically life is good. Then you don't remember much. Jen McCabe wakes you up the next morning telling you John is dead on your lawn. You have no idea why. You see that you apparently called Brian Higgens that night at 2:30am, AND he called you back and you picked up. You don't remember this happening. Holy shit, what the fuck happened?
-Let's say you're Jen McCabe
You're at the waterfall bar. Everyone seems to be having a good time. You're hanging out with your extended family and your neighbor and his girlfriend. Everyone is having a good time. Then you don't remember much. You wake up to a call from John's Niece, who says Karen is freaking out about John. Karen grabs the phone and is completely frantic. She keeps screaming and saying John didn't come home and they got in a fight and they had to find John. Since you blacked out, you check your phone's history to try to piece together the night. You realize you made a bunch of calls and texts, and searched how long it would take for someone to die in the cold. That's weird. You decide to delete all this information because you have no idea what happened, and perhaps just from a psychological standpoint you find it a bit concerning.
-Let's say your Karen Read
You're at the waterfall bar. Everyone seems to be having a good time. You're hanging out with your boyfriend and his friend group. Then you don't remember much. You wake up at around 4am and John isn't home. You send him some texts and calls and he doesn't respond. You vaguely remember getting into an argument with John. What if something bad happened to him? Panic starts swelling inside and you realize you need to get in touch with someone from that night. Your niece has Jen McCabe's number, so you ask your niece to call her. When Jen picks up you quickly grab the phone and say you need to find John. You're panicking. As you leave John's house in a panic, you accidentally crack your tail light. When you get to Jen's house you notice the broken tail light and start freaking out. Now it really looks like you hit John. At this point you're in a state of complete panic. You insist the group head to the Albert home, where you find John's body. You have no idea what happened, but you're worried you hit him with your car because you saw that your tail light was broken. You're devastated.
I know this sounds like a silly idea, but I think it explains why the testimony is all over the place, and why it feels like we don't really know what could have happened. I can only type so much so feel free to post your own juxtapositions of witness testimony with this theory in mind to see if we can piece it together.

Weird title, and weird story, but I have to get this off my chest and tell somebody about it because it upset me so so badly.
My grandpa is in the middle stages of dementia, and he likes to watch animals. Birds outside, the neighborhood cats outside of his window, squirrels, live cams of animals on TV, all that kind of stuff keeps his attention and make him less antsy for a long time. So for his birthday in early April, I got him a 20 gallon fish tank to keep on the table next to his recliner. Now, I did some research into fish, and found out it was best to run the tank for a while before putting fish in it. Ok, so I set it all up on his birthday, put some aquatic plants in it, and let it run until I got home from college, about a month later.
The other day I decided it was finally time to get some fish. Although I could have done this without my Papa, I decided it would be good to get him out and about, and get his say on what color of fish we were gonna get. We talked about what fish we wanted before this, and decided that wanted at least 4 Tetras, so we could name them after the Beatles.
We get to the big chain pet store, Papa picks out a little yellow submarine to put in his tank, all is well, until we get to the actually getting of the fish. A worker comes out and asks me what type of fish I want, I point out the exact fish, and ask my Papa what colors he would like. The worker stops me, and asks me who exactly the fish are for, and seeing no reason to lie, I tell the worker that they are for my Papa. Who, at this stage of dementia, it is quite obvious he is not at 100% mental capacity. Suddenly, the worker gets all strange, and begins interrogating me on my tank. What size it is, how long the filter has been running, etc. Again, I see no reason to lie to him, so I tell him everything already covered. The worker says that my tank is way to small, that I need at least 30 gallon tank to hold any fish, and that my filter hasn't been running for long enough, blabbers on for about 30 minutes about how irresponsible it would be for me to have this fish, an insists the only thing that can live in my tank is plants. He says he will not sell us fish, any fish. He then proceeds to practically force us to buy a plant (picked one off the shelf, put it in my hand, and walked us to the register). I buy the plant and my Papa's yellow submarine.
At this point, I am fuming. I kind of caught on to what this worker was about-he assumed my Papa couldn't take care of this fish. But I'm trying to keep my cool, not wanting my Papa to see that I was upset. Papa is of course confused when we get back to the car as to why we have no fish, I tell him that they just didn't have the ones we wanted (now usually I tell the truth but in this situation, I knew he would have stormed back in and demanded the fish if he knew what had happened)
I knew for a fact fish could live in the tank I set up, so I did what I should have done in the first place, go to the local fish store. The reason I didn't do this in the first place is because it is not disability accessible, like so many small business are, unfortunately.
I go to the local fish store, leaving Papa in the car with the Beatles playing (of course), explain to the fish man my situation. Asking him if there are any fish that could live in a 20 gallon tank
"Of course, I've got the perfect fish for you"
You know what they were? Tetras! The only warning the fish man gave me was to keep the food hidden from my Papa as him may over feed them, no problem was gonna do that anyways. Plan was for me to be the fish caretaker in the first place.
So now John, Paul, George, and Ringo are happily living next to my Papas chair with their yellow submarine. My Papa couldn't be happier watching his fish. I'm just so mad we were seemingly discriminated against by the worker at the big chain store, I assume he thought my Papa would be the sole caregiver of the fish, which is an unfair assumption, especially since he didn't ask me who would be caring for the fish-just who the fish were for.
Sorry for the long post, this whole story has had me fuming for days, I though writing it all out for you lovely internet people would help me calm down about it.
TLDR: Big chain store wouldn't sell me and my Papa fish because worker assumed my Papa wasn't capable of taking care of them, local business to the rescue. Paul, John, George and Ringo are now very happy fish.

I (f) just turned 17 today and my entire family is mad at me for spending the day with my bf 17(m). For some context I’ve never had a good birthday. I would always get in trouble the week of and before because my mom is irritable and I would never earn a good birthday. Celebrations would always happen without me or what I would get would be a card or a cake with foreign languages on it with mean comments. For my 15 she got a cake and in blue icing in Spanish she wrote do better and then put me on punishment for confronting her. She kicked me out a year ago to be with her boyfriend and my 9(m) brother her “perfect family” that don’t include me so I’m living with my grandma 65 and aunt 39. They don’t like my mom’s take to my birthday and how I have to earn it and how my brother always has what he wants but I can’t even be present. I’m sorry to sound like a brat but 17 years of resentment adds up. My grandmother and aunt have been preaching about how this birthday will be MY day but the allure of birthdays aren’t even there anymore for me. I got a bf almost 9 months ago and he’s been saying the entire time how for my birthday he’s going to go all out he asked them every month is he can take me out my birthday and they always say yes. I have always had restrictions put on me and they just got worse when me and him got together. I have to turn my phone in every night she checks if I’m otp with him so I can’t be and I haven’t seen him outside of school since his birthday five months ago. I ask and I get random excuses every time when they tell me no. My mom was the one who suggested that I spend my birthday with my bf and when my aunt and grandma were like yes ofc you can they were even saying that can be your birthday gift. I hadn’t asked much for my birthday everything I wanted had been turned down and so what I asked for I made sure I could get when I get told no. All I wanted to do was roller skate and get a cheap hello kitty Stanley dupe off Etsy since they said I could pick a place to go. When today rolled around and they dropped me off at his house since they also haven’t allowed me to learn to drive or get a permit I had fun at his house. He taught me madden even though it made him mad we made cookies and he took me to get chipotle. He got me a bunch of hello kitty gifts and got me a personal strawberry shortcake which is my favorite. I didn’t ask for what he did all I wanted was to play video games and get a cuddle in before I can’t see him for I don’t even know how long. I got home and everyone was mad at me my brother if visiting for the week and even he put his iPad down long enough to mean mug me . My grandmother explained to me that everyone was mad because I chose to spend my birthday with my bf. My brother honestly didn’t even know it was my birthday he asked if it was true. I asked her what she meant and she said how I had chosen my bf over spending time with them. How they had an elaborate day planned out and I didn’t want to. I tried telling her that wasn’t it I would’ve been fine with seeing him tomorrow or even a few hours but they gave me the whole day so I took it and then she said well we feel like you chose someone else over your family when you were supposed to choose us you owe this day. I was asking why they didn’t say no or give me an option or we could’ve compromise d and she said no I was supposed to choose them and be with them but now they know where my loyalties lie. When I went to my room my brother came in and asked why I didn’t choose them and I told him I’ll talk to him later so I wouldn’t get mad towards him. I’m still confused and very mad and hurt by all this but I took an opportunity when it was handed to me so am I the a hole?

As a writer, I have a conflicted relationship with commissions, but you’re here for the tea. Sorry if this is jumbled, but the client is an amalgamation of every bad commissioner that you have ever read about or that you may have worked for.
First, they ordered a writing commission, but during the first 5000 words they were surprised there was “too much” writing and reading. I told them from the start the first draft would be better off as a script so I could easily adapt into a novel, a D&D homebrew or whatever they desired. They originally had 60 PAGES of characters, but I have cut it down to 31 pages (so far). I gave them three simple ‘homework’ tasks to gather all the information I needed for the three parts of this commission. A plot summary (in bullet points) which took them four months because they insisted on writing it like a novel. The list of characters took six months (they are going back to remake EVERY character reference because it took them so long that the early references are out of date) and they fought me with every character we cut and they still haven’t sent me examples of how they want the D&D homebrew to be formatted. They say they have no idea what to look for as they knew nothing about D&D, but they blew me off for two years playing a D&D game with other friends using a D&D Beyond account ( I do not support Wizards of the Coast). For context, the bullet points took me 2 pages and 2 voice calls with the commissioner to summarize and the list of character names took 3 days and 3 voice calls to compile on Google Doc and move to Trello. What about my plan to script? He INSISTED that I, an expert in my field, should write the novel while he worked with a ‘friend’ of his on the D&D homebrew. Why would he need a script? He didn’t WANT a script.
Only a few weeks later, he ran back to me after being blown off by said ‘friend’, with the genius idea of having me write a script, novel and homebrew. His card is always empty whenever he pays for the next part of the commission because he spends it on $400 sketches and junk food. He refuses to listen when I say he doesn’t need 300+ characters. One of the stories he is plagiarizing is mine. My novel only has 27 characters (including a canine). We will be celebrating the 16 month anniversary of the commission by the time this is posted. He has nine days to finish the characters before I cancel. I’d rather live in my car again. Two hours ago he LITERALLY just made a FULL bio (in the description) with five full body outfits for a character that was deleted. He spent a month adding a shine texture to an npc's tiddies.
After making me wait for 16 months, he has the AUDACITY to get angry at me when I was offline for an emergency and I could only make one of our two commission vcs. Now he’s using the deaths of friend(s) caused by recent global tensions to ADD more characters. Why do you NEED to keep your brother’s ocs? To kill them? Delete them! This psycho has a history of making fictional versions of people who he perceives as having wronged him to kill and/or torture them graphically. Do you really need an entire MONTH? You won’t recycle two characters (that don’t belong to your brother) to fit VITAL roles but you proceed to make two random characters FROM SCRATCH that have nothing to do with those roles. Or last month I asked him for a list of 8 damage modifiers (8 digits) he replied in 12 minutes. This task previously took him an ENTIRE month because he was ‘busy’ with maps (in reality he was blowing up on a ‘friend’ who turned down his art commission on Discord and watching videos). This client is too lazy to browse with Google but he deliberately makes changes in complex organization software to disobey me. I am going to die before this torture ends! Would I be the a–hole if I put a stop to this nightmare?
It’s happening! Finished or not, the commission ends on my birthday. I am sick of getting “Okay.”, "Cool" or "XD" every time I ask him a question about his commission.
Just when I thought I was in the clear, he drops a D&D manual of dice rolling, resting and training mechanics, skill trees and a point buy system he has NEVER mentioned predating these 16 months; all the way back to when we met (2012). He does this the week that I am “finishing” the commission. Did I mention that he has “accidently” erased the maps through his own bad habits. ARGGHH! He’s got until Monday. I don’t care if he pays me one last time. I can’t live like this.
FREEEEEEEEEEEDOM! After 16 months and two weeks.
Since I had writer’s block and another traditional art friend was suffering from art block we decided to remake some of each other's characters in our styles. The subject of this post got excited to join us. What kind of a--holes would we be if we gate kept something this trivial? I remade nine of the subject of this post's characters in my style (in two days). We both use the same program for the same amount of years, but we have developed wildly different styles. Will I ever learn? He spent the whole stream telling me their sweaters were wrong, he disliked the ribbon in one of the girl’s hair because it was too big, asking why do all of the girls have the same stockings (while wearing school uniforms) and why they do not have the exact same skin tones (despite me using the eyedroppecolour picker to show him the neon colours (one background character has eight colours in their hair) he chose in his style does not work with my duller, minimalist palette. Did you ask for me to copy your style or use my own style? After they were done, he listed all of his (multiple) issues with them like nine college essays. I can take criticism, but I had to force one compliment (one word per character) out of him. His criticisms regarded me adapting elements from the references that HE sent me. 90% was negative and 10% positive. Naturally the subject of this post still has not even thought about which character of mine he'd like to remake, but even professionals cannot unravel the web of things this person has done to avoid me even in situations when I am the center of the conversation/activity. I was unsure where to post this since this rant is a bit of most subreddits that I enjoy. Thank you for reading! I have mountains of experiences to share from freelancing and I will have many more in the future.

My boyfriend 24M and I 23F of 3 years, have a somewhat ongoing argument about me going out and staying out late. It started after I went to a concert which ended around 12, me and my friends then went to a bar for two hours and I got home shortly after that. He called me the next day upset that I stayed out late bc he wasn’t there with me. I brushed it off and apologized but recently it was my friends birthday and they made plans to go out to dinner and go to a couple of bars afterwards, probably staying out until 2am. I told him about it the day before and he told me he didn’t care, but then we started arguing abt it. He said that people in relationships shouldn’t need to go out that late into the night and that he doesn’t do that bc he cares abt our relationship. I know he’s not wording what he means well, and he’s just uncomfortable with me being out late. But, I don’t think it’s fair since he should trust me and my actions.I don’t know how to communicate to him that he should try to be more trusting and understand that I’m not “disrespecting” the relationship this way. I don’t go out often with my friends and I don’t often stay out late. If I do, it’s with him. These two instances were the exception and he was unhappy about it. Any advice on how to communicate to him that it’s okay and it’s normal for us to go out late separately?