Today, I finally put on my altered dress for my (23f) best friend's (24f) engagement party. Although I look beautiful in it and I am feeling myself, I keep having flashbacks and flashfowards of what can go bad.
We met on facebook when we were both in high school and clicked, despite having bad opinions about each other. We had plenty of common things to talk about, and I honestly admired her for how intelligent and well spoken she is. Although, she always was the kind that had her mind set on an ideal when it came to relationships that resulted in a very toxic dynamic between her and her partner. When her partner didn't satisfy her, she would go cold and never said what was wrong. Instead, she was venting to me. That made our friendship toxic. She would constantly cheat emotionally on her partner with me. Things escalated quickly, and we actually caught feelings for each other. I started to be her actual lover, and I felt guilty about it. At some point, we were in a relationship, too. It was a short and bad one that put our friendship on a pause.
4 years later, I decided to reconnect with her because I thought that I wasn't going to waste a good friendship in a bad relationship, and it was a very good decision. We were both healthier, and now we had a better dynamic, too. I talked to her about my boyfriend ( 25m) and our love story. Long story short, he is my soulmate. I am convinced about that. No relationship compares to this one. I told her about how fast we had to move on because of our circumstances and how nice it is to live with him, and she understood. She is happy with our relationship and wishes us the best. Not so much later, she met her current fiancé (25m). He was quite intimidated by me, he told that to my face but we clicked well. That's until we found out that he is quite dodgy. He is a womanizer who decided to "settle" and fell for her quickly. He also is the kind to search for the most dodgy jobs just to make a bit more cash, that he spends quickly on god knows what. He saw everything. Drugs, prostitution, robberies, death, etc. Not only that, but he is cocky about never being caught, too. I thought they were an odd pairing since she is the independent, level-headed but introverted big sister that took no shit from anyone, but whatever. We didn't want to judge. They moved on quickly with their relationship, even quicker than me, and my boyfriend did. They got engaged in 8 months, and three months later, she is pregnant, too. Their engagement lasted only 6 months, and next month, they are getting married. Because a wedding is quite expensive for them right now, they decided to skip the church wedding and only do the official documents and do an engagement dinner party with their close family and friends. Oh boy, the organization is a mess.
First, they asked us to be their godparents but quickly changed their minds after their parents realized that me and my boyfriend are not married, which is a big problem with the church but not with the documents. I wanted to point that out to them since they are not going to be wedded in church but whatever. Ever since we were in high school, she promised me that I would be her godmother to her wedding. It was disappointing, but I knew that I needed to be flexible. Second, she wants her guests to dress more elegantly for the event. Her fiancé and my BF got a bit fussy that they couldn't wear jeans and Hawaiian shirts, but we quickly changed their minds. But this transitioned to the third problem. I had to get my dress pretty early into the engagement so we could save some money. I got a nice dress for my budget: a midi mint dress with puffy veil sleeves and crochet flowers motifs that enhanced my bosom. I checked with her if the color and the model were ok, and she said that she was happy with it... Until she got her dress. She decided to dress in a way more layed back style and get a white cotton beach dress. It's incredibly simple, and my boyfriend described it to be a sack of potatoes in comparation to what I was wearing. Not only that, but it was 5 times more expensive than mine. This was a problem. I didn't want to overdress or upstage the bride to be, so I got another dress that's more laid back, the one that I am currently wearing so my mom could alter her a bit. Fourth, they keep changing the dates, and that got everyone annoyed because it messed with the free work days. Fortunately, this was resolved, and now they have a date that's set in stone. The organization is quite messy, too. BF had the condition that he didn't want to drive in the city, so he would drink, something that can't happen because they have many guests and not enough cars. We live far away from them, in a suburban area. There is a 5 hour drive between us and besides them, we don't know anyone in their city. They offered us a free room ( baby's future room) but even that is uncertain. Fifth, they are not the most stable couple. Her fiancé gets mad and jealous quite easily. He used to fight with her when she wears more make-up than usual or she was too indiferent to his flirting. She is the kind of woman who never wears her emotions, and that drives him nuts. She did open up slowly to him, but it's too slow for his pace. Not only this, but he has a high-sexual drive while her's is low. He gets very fussy when they don't get to have regular sex. When she got pregnant, the gyno told her to stop sexual relations for a while, so the baby stays in place. He said that he can't stop having sex for his own health, and it is quite unfair. She hit him with an ultimatum that if he made her abort it, she would never have kids with him again. That made him settle, at least for a while. He is also the kind that wants a boy, so he could continue his "legacy." If that didn't make it clear for what kind of person he is, then I don't know what more can I tell you. Also, the both of them hinted that me and boyfriend should get pregnant too, so our children could be best friends just like us. We quickly shut it down with "With what money?Plus, we are not mentally prepared for it". Which brings us to the sixth problem, and I and BF are not in a stable money situation like they are. BF used to be overworked and paid badly while I couldn't work right now. He did get to change his job for a better one, which is a huge relief. I wanted to work, I wished to, but bestie and her fiancé keep wanting to have vacations with us twice a year. No workplace would be able to give me that many holidays, which I know is unfair. That's the country we live in. Because of this, for the last year, we were on a tight budget that couldn't allow any more changes.
Besides these problems, there are many more things like family drama and other money problems. Because of the constant change, me and boyfriend are stressed and this got us in an argument. First being about my dress and then about the couple that couldn't understand our money problems. Me and bf resolved it, but he has some good points. The organization is as messy as their future marriage.
I apologize if I've made grammar mistakes, english is not my first language.

Today I am discussing about a scam or a black hole which is destroying houses of many peoples .
A game currently is in demand name colour trading this is not a type of trading this is a betting game runs on various platforms like TIRANGA , 91 CLUB , BDGWIN etc. People thinks that they could easy make money from this game specially lower middle class in india. This is not the fault of people as many influencers are promoting this game and showing their luxury lifestyle to people that they own through this game. They are just trapping people in cage , this is betting platform as you predict the result and bet real money on it. This is a type of gambling and gambling always lead to destruction , House always win. Today , on many platforms like Instagram , Facebook , Telegram, You tube etc . they are promoting this betting platform . The main characters of this dilemma is these influencers the main goal of these influencers is not to promote this betting platform before as some of them are gamers , vloggers , artist etc. but in greed of fame and money they started promoting these betting platforms. These platforms usually targets teenagers they show them that they could make money easily and many of them steal from their parents bank accounts and bet on these platforms. This is a game of luck not a game of skill and a game of luck is classified as gambling. Let us take a example that you are betting 100 rupees on small or big on these platforms. As we can see there are total two case and if we find probability of one that is 50% each . So you are betting money on 50% win chance and 50% loss chance , you think this is true no it isn't true. The result is in hand of these platforms this is just a computer coding. Let us think about it no one will give you free money one will always in sake to have returns. If they are giving you free money then how there platform is running . Listen Carefully if you are a teenager , you are shaking trust of your parents , you are giving cheating your parents , those parents who have trust on you those who are doing hardwork for you and you are wasting their hardwork instead of making proud to your parents you are making shame of them. That's it for today
MARK MY WORDS YOU NEVER EVER GET OUT OF THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T STOP THIS TODAY.
AND HOUSE ALWAYS WIN THESE PLATFORMS NEVER GIVE PEACE [HOUSE ALWAYS WIN]
.
.
.
.
FOR MORE FOLLOW THIS PAGE - Ansh Dhull

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/ThrowRAtricionera posting in TrueOffMyChest
Concluded as per OOP
2 updates - Long
Original - 2nd February 2024
Update1 - 2nd February 2024
Update2 - 17th May 2024
​
My sister slept with my boyfriend and I sent her a really cruel message that I don't regret at all
​
My sister slept with my boyfriend and I sent her a really cruel message that I don't regret at all Sorry but this post will have A LOT of bad energy and I'm terrible at writing in English so If anyone is going to read the post, I'm sorry for all the grammatical errors that are likely to be in the post. :P
So a few days ago I (F25) found out that my sister (24f) has been sleeping with my boyfriend (now ex, 25m. We dated for three years) for one year or probably more.
They always had a close relationship but I obviously took it as something innocent, I don't like video games but my sister does so they talked a lot by text and I thought it was about games they like until I found out that no, they talked a lot about their secret dates while I was working and in college, I found pictures, videos and a lot of other disgusting things in the chats between my ex and my sister.
My pathetic sister found pleasure in asking my pathetic ex all the time if she's smarter or prettier than me, she even compared our private parts, wth (We're both pretty, she's actually thinner and prettier than me and even if she's an introvert she has her group of friends so I really don't understand where she got so much venom towards me, our parents never compared us or anything like that and she was always the one asking my ex to compare both of us in the chats.)
The first thing I did was throw all my ex-boyfriend's things out of the apartment, I insulted him in a thousand ways and I kept the PC that I gave him for Christmas.
I didn't speak a single word to my sister for over a week and she didn't contacted me like the coward she is until yesterday when she sent me a message trying to justify herself by saying that it was a mistake (Yes, a mistake that lasted more than a year) and that I should forgive her because we're sisters and blah blah blah at one point I thought "Should I be the mature person in the situation who doesn't let resentment speak for her?" but then I realized that I've never been that kind of person. I took my phone and wrote a long message to my sister that I would love to write here but I am sure that I would break the rules since I called her out in every possible way and I wrote a lot of personal things too, I told her how much of a failure she is and how she has always envied me and that's why she needed to feel what it's like to be me for a second of her sad life.
She sent me a voice massage crying and saying that she's in a very weak moment mentally (but she's still with him, lmao) and I shouldn't make her feel worse and that she regrets it, I just reacted to her message with this emoji 😂 and didn't even heard the long voice message until the end.
Was it a low thing to attack her with all her flaws? Yes, but it's lower to betray your sister and believe that she's going to forgive you just because you share blood with her.
Honestly, I feel really good after sending her that message and feel that it was Therapeutic to take out everything I feel to give closure to that.
Btw I've never used a PC for gaming but I'm looking for tutorials on YouTube about how to download the SIMS.
I helped my sister in every moment of her life, I literally fought for her when she was being bullied during High school, I helped her thousands of times to make friends, I even accompanied her everywhere she wanted, it is a betrayal that really hurts and I will never forgive, never. It hurts me that she slept with someone I loved, but it hurts me a lot all the things I read in those chats, how she enjoyed watching him compare me to her or how she asked him about personal things about our relationship just to laugh at it. She's dead to me and my parents knows it.
I don't even care if I'm a bad person like them, this is something I can't forgive and I don't even feel bad for my reaction.
​
Comments
​
tsscaramel
At least your ex showed he was a POS before you got married so now you have the opportunity to find someone who actually appreciates you, sounds like an upgrade if you ask me.

OOP: To be honest the relationship was already going bad in some ways (although that doesn't justify what he did) so I don't feel too bad for breaking up, I took out the trash

​
MyUsernameIsMehh
Going bad is still never an excuse to cheat. If e had the slightest bit of respect for you as a human being then he would just break up
Good riddance.
People often say "how you lose them is how you got them" so I wouldn't be surprised if she came crying to you one day about him cheating on her
​
Ithink-imoverit2405
Good for you. Perpetrator only makes themselves a victim when they wanted to. Please inform your parents of the event to not let her play victim more and throw you under the bus and back the bus to hit you more times.

OOP: Thanks! They already know everything. Neither of them are on her side and they respect that I want to cut off all contact with my sister. My parents are really strict so I think they're going to cut contact with her too but that's their decision, I don't want to get into that and cause problems

​
The message - same day
​
Thank you for all the nice comments you left me! Many wrote to me with tips for the sims and I'm really grateful, thanks for the game recommendations even though I'm really bad at playing action game, The last action game I played was Resident Evil 4 on the PS2 long time ago and it was because I had a crush with Leon Kennedy (he would never cheat on me btw).
As a token of appreciation (And because I also like it when the op uploads the whole gossip), I will put here half of the message I sent to my sister.
The message I sent her was really long and I cut out the parts where I talk about very private things or when I insulted her to not make the post too uncomfortable because I was really hurt and angry at that moment and I talked about many personal things in the text. I will put the copy of the message in the end if someone talks Spanish. I'm sorry if it sounds weird in English, I did my best to translate it and I had to remove a lot of parts.
"I'm not interested in hearing any of your excuses, I believed you when a problem she had with her ex-friend group happened because I really trusted that you would never do something like that but now I understand why everyone leaves you alone and you deserve it.
What you did to me is a shit and you know it but you didn't care because you spent a year being the whore of ex name without any shame and now that I found out everything you went days without talking to me because you are a coward and on top of that you still don't care about what you did to me, You're only talking to me because Dad probably stopped talking to you and you're running out of money, so you want to fix this shit so he gives you money again.
You were always an asshole but don't you think it's a lot to be my boyfriend's second woman? How little respect do you have for yourself? We're sisters, I don't even know what's going on in your head because I don't understand what's wrong with you. Girl, I read all the messages between you and you even started comparing our bodies, YOU'RE SICK.
You know that I never did anything for you to do this to me and I loved you. But everything turned out really well for you because he's with you so enjoy that feeling and the love you two have for the other for now because you are going to be really lonely later and you are going to go back to your cave but this time I am not going to be there to pity you like every time I did before.
Stay with him, there's nothing that interests me less than fighting for an idiot who is surely going to leave you but let me make it clear to you that you're not going to hear about me again, this dies here, we are not sister's anymore. If I see you on the street then I'm going to cross to the opposite sidewalk to not see you."
"No me interesa escuchar ninguna de tus excusas, yo te creí cuando pasó lo de a problem she had with her ex-friend group porque de verdad confié en que vos nunca harías algo así pero ahora entiendo por qué todos te dejan sola y te lo mereces.
Lo que me hiciste es una cagada y vos lo sabes pero no te importó porque estuviste un año siendo la trola de ex name sin ninguna vergüenza y ahora que me enteré de todo estuviste días sin hablarme porque sos re cagona y encima te sigue sin importar lo que me hiciste, solamente me estás hablando porque papá seguramente te cortó el rostro y te estás quedando sin plata así que querés arreglar tu cagada para que te vuelvan a depositar. Siempre fuiste una pelotuda fracasada pero no te parece un montón rebajarte a ese nivel de ser la segunda de mi novio? Tan poco respeto te tenés a vos misma? Somos hermanas, no sé ni que está pasando por tu cabeza porque posta no entiendo que te pasa. Flaca, leí todos los mensajes entre ustedes y te ponías a comparar nuestros cuerpos, estás re enferma.
Vos sabes que yo nunca te hice nada para que vos me hagas esto y te re quería, igual te salió re bien porque el está con vos así que disfruta por ahora ese amor que se tienen porque después te vas a quedar sola de verdad y vas a volver a tu cueva pero esta vez no voy a estar yo para tenerte lastima como siempre hice antes.
Quédate con el, no hay nada que me interese menos que pelear por un idiota que seguramente te va a dejar pero que te quede claro que de mi no vas a volver a escuchar, acá muere, no somos más hermanas y si te veo en la calle me cruzo de vereda."
Edit: Yes, I'm from Argentina :)
​
Update - 3 months later
​
They broke up nobody's surprised
When all of this happened my parents scolded my sister and she got offended and didn't speak to our parents except to ask them for money, she asked them for money to buy things for her career but then my aunt told my parents that my sister actually used that money to buy my ex some sneakers.
My parents never gave her any money from that day on, she's an idiot tbh. My parents started to pay for us to go to a private college and the only thing we have to do is literally STUDY, The only thing she had to do was take her studies seriously but she didn't, so my father got tired and hasn't sent her money for months.
My ex discovered the post because he said it went viral in Facebook and obviously he recognized the story, he contacted me to apologize and said he knows he did wrong by hurting me like that but my sister 'manipulated him' and it was a total mistake, I told him he can shove his apologies in the ass. Meanwhile, my sister and I have only crossed paths a few times, but she always avoids me because she thinks I'm going to hit her (I won't). We're not going to the same career so we luckily don't see each other too much
Anyway, a few days ago she went to our parents' house saying that she broke up with my ex (idk why) And that she felt really sad and had an anxiety attack, I don't know exactly what they talked about since I wasn't there but my mother told me that she told my sister that she knew what was going to happen when she slept with him and my sister justified herself by saying that 'They're in love' so my mother and her just argued again and my sister left. Now she doesn't talk to anyone in the family except our grandmother to ask for money, I know my sister is not going to change her bad habits and she didn't learn anything from this, I even think she will get together with my ex again because they're just toxic with each other but it's her life to ruin, not mine and I don't care anymore.
The bright side: I sold the pc to a guy from reddit that saw my post and that really saved me from having to keep paying the dues, unfortunately I didn't get to play The Sims much but I prefer the extra money. My ex had told me that he wanted the pc back but I told him that then he should pay the remaining dues AND HE SAID NO, so the idiot wanted the pc for free even though he slept with my sister. 🥴
The weird side: There are YouTubers who are literally charging their subscribers to read the post or other reddit posts in their podcast, tf, at least give me a share of the profits.
I'm know it's a boring update and probably everyone wanted that the update was my sister begging for forgiveness and my ex suffering but no, they are just two idiots who deserve each other and nothing more happened but even today I received a message asking me for an update, haha.
​
Comments
​
Driverpicksthetunes
Not even 6 months later they break up, oh yeah clearly it was twuuuuu wuvvvv 😂 glad you sold the PC and dropped the dead weight from your life
​
MyUsernameIsMehh

They broke up

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

That was quick lmfao
​
I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Venue: Greensboro Coliseum (Greensboro, NC)
Attendance: ~8,200

Winner	Loser	Match Finish	Stipulation
Chad Gable w/ The Alpha Academy	Sami Zayn	Chaos Theory after Otis attacks Sami
Bron Breakker	Kale Dixon	Spearb
Lyra Valkyria	Iyo Sky	Pin Reversal	Queen of the Ring Semifinal
The Awesome Truth (c) w/ Braun Strowman	Finn Balor and JD McDonough w/ Dominik and Carlito	AA after Braun Strowman runs down and causes JD to run into the ring	For the World Tag Team Championships
Shayna Bazler and Zoey Stark	Damage Ctrl, Ivy Nile and Maxxine Dupree, Katana Chance and Kayden Carter	Alley-Oop Knee	#1 Contender for the Women's Tag Team Championships
GUNTHER	Jey Uso	Chokehold	King of the Ring Semifinal

• Kickoff with Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn making his way to the ring. He says we are 5 days away from King and Queen of the Ring and he finds himself in a triple threat with Bronson Reed and Chad Gable for his Intercontinental Championship. Sami says he agreed to this match despite the disadvantage because he has two issues to deal with, one is very personal with Chad Gable and vows that Chad Gable has an ass kicking coming his way. The other issue with Bronson Reed isn't personal, all he cares about is the title, so the way Sami sees it this is a fight between the mind, Chad Gable, the body, Bronson Reed, and the soul, Sami Zayn. Sami says if he's putting his money down he's betting on soul every single time because it's that passion that is the reason he's holding this title right now and he was able to beat GUNTHER at Wrestlemania, and why he will walk out this Saturday still champion. Chad Gable comes out with the Alpha Academy in tow. Chad says he isn't manipulative, he selfishlessly coached Sami to victory at Wrestlemania and says he's been too damn nice to Sami and the three clowns standing behind him. Take Maxxine for example, she should be competing in the Queen of the Ring finals but she blew her opportunity and she's a failure. Tozawa did 0% of the damage he demanded he do to Bronson last week which makes him a failure as well. Chad turns his attention to Otis and says last week he proved once again why he is the biggest disappointment on the planet. Sami says he's heard just about enough and asks the Alpha Academy how much longer are they gonna deal with this guy's crap?! Chad says he sees what Sami is trying to do but the three of them have already re-dedicated themselves to him and the Alpha Academy. Chad says he's sick of hearing Sami go on about his heart and his soul, it's pathetic and says in Saudi Arabia he's going to pin Sami and won't just be taking that tile, he's taking his soul. Sami says Saudi isn't for another 5 days and last he checked they're scheduled for one on one competition tonight and both of them are dressed and ready to go so let's get it on.
  
• During the opening match Chad tries to get Maxxine and Tozawa to cheat on his behalf but both hesitate, causing him to make them go to the back. After Otis also fails to attack Sami as well Chad slaps him before grabbing the title belt to try and strike Sami. Sami ducks but Otis attacks him while his is in the corner, allowing Chad to his the Chaos Theory for the win.
  
• Backstage Chad is interviewed after his victory but there is a commotion and the camera rushes to find Crus Del Toro laid out with the rest of the LWO checking on him asking is Carlito did this.
  
• After the referee stoppage Bron runs the ropes and nails Dixon with a third spear before throwing him to the outside. Bron goes to attack him with the steel steps but officials rush down to stop him. Bron backs up and grabs a steel chair which he uses to bash Dixon's skull betwee the corner of the steps. Bron walks off as paramedics rush down to attend to Dixon. After the break Dixon is loaded into an ambulance and Adam Pearce shouts for Bron and says he's never been good at math so make this add up for him. Bron says Pearce didn't put him in King of the Ring, this is what he gets.
  
• Backstage Becky tells Lyra has come a long way for this and she's gotta go out there and show why it's been all worth it. Lyra says she's got it.
  
• Lyra is interviewed after her victory, but before she can speak Iyo shouts in Japanese at her before leaving. Lyra says three weeks ago she wouldn't believe that she'd be standing there beating a former WWE Women's Champion, and says it doesn't matter how you get the job the done as long as you believe you can and now she is only one Nightwing away from being Queen of the Ring.
  
• R-Truth is talking with New Catch Republic when Miz comes in and tells Truth they may be in a disadvantage going against Judgement Day. R-Truth says his good friend Andre the Giant told him he's got their back as Miz has to tell Truth that Andre passed about 30 years ago. Truth asks what he passed on before walking. Miz looks up and says they could use Andre in spirit tonight, Truth walks back and says people call him crazy before waving up at the sky.
  
• Earlier today GUNTHER is standing in the stands and admits he was wrong, 7 months ago he mocked Jey Uso, but he has turned himself to one of the hottest people in this company and later tonight these seats will be filled with thousands of people cheering in delusion. GUNTHER says he deals in reality and says tonight it won't matter who is the more exciting act on the way to the ring, it's about who is best once that bell rings and after that final bell rings all those people will embrace him and soon he will be King of the Ring.
  
• In the Judgement Day Clubhouse Finn and JD say they are ready to bring the tag titles back, Priest moves to Dom and Carlito and tells him good work on what he did to Del Toro earlier and Carlito says he came back til the heat dies down. Damian tells him they aren't his personal protection agency and that he needs to keep earning his keep. Dom reminds him that Carlito did help Finn and JD last week so they're cool.
  
• Backstage Shayna Bazler returns! She approaches Zoey Starks and Shayna Bazler and tells them she has something to talk to them about, Zoey seems interested but Shayna shuts it down and says they're busy as they go to prepare for their match
  
• Backstage Becky congratulates Lyra on her win and says they'll never beat the Irish. Lyra continues walking and runs into Liv Morgan who congratulates her as well and says she's shocked she didn't have Becky help her win again like last week. As Lyra goes to explain Liv distracts Lyra before slapping her.
  
• Bronson Reed confronts Sami backstage and tells him he doesn't have to worry about Sami and his mind games, instead he should be looking at the real threat standing right in front of him. Bronson leaves as Otis walks in and Sami says he expected better out of him but maybe he's wrong about him and tells Otis he shouldn't be proud of himself. Otis tells Sami he's truly sorry and Sami believes him. He tells him that Chad isn't a good guy and that he's been in Otis's shoes before and it's time he stops listening to Gable and starts listening to the fans.
  
• Becky Lynch makes her way down to the ring. She says in 5 days she'll be defending her title against Liv Morgan, the two of them have a lot of history, they've fought in honor and in bad blood but not once has Liv beaten her. Now we are dealing a much different Liv Morgan, attacking people from behind and bailing on fights. Becky goes to talk about when she first came over here but Liv comes out to interrupt. She says Becky is gaslighting the fans since last week Becky punched her and she was just getting retaliation and she left once Damage CTRL came out because that wasn't her fight. Liv says she doesn't even care about Becky, her only purpose is to finish the Liv Morgan Revenge Tour. Becky congratulates Liv on finally finding a purpose after being here for 10 years, while she has had her purpose since she first started training at 15, she wanted equality and to break down barriers and wanted to leave things better than she found it, meanwhile Liv just wants revenge and then what. Liv says Becky is the most selfish person in this company and has only ever cared about herself, but since Becky was so kind to ask about someone else for a change Liv says she'll finally sit at the top of the mountain as WWE Champion. Becky says these people have always come here for here, and right now Liv is here and she is here so why wait, let's get this going right now. Liv walks down but turns around at the ring, she says she's doing the smart thing and waiting until the title is actually on the line and tells Becky to cry about it.
  
• Back at the club house Damian demands that someone explains what happened. Carlito says he thought JD was supposed to handle Strowman and Priest tells McDonough to challenge Strowman to a match next week. Priest says he doesn't even recognize them anymore. Finn agrees and tells JD to go to Pearce and get the match made.
  
• In the trainers room the doctor tells Woods he's now cleared to compete and Kofi celebrates and goes off to tell Pearce they're ready to re-enter the tag division. After Kofi leaves Karrion Kross enters and tells Woods there is always times for things to be turned around.
  
• Backstage Ludwig Kaiser says he hopes Jey Uso takes his loss tonight better than Sheamus took his loss. He says Sheamus used to love to fight but now he just pounds at a computer being a keyboard warrior and challenges for Sheamus to come back to Ludwig can put him down for good. After Ludwig Kaiser leaves Drew McIntyre comes out and says he's surprised he's here after being medically disqualified, but the people want him and calls out the paper champion Damian Priest, saying he's spreading himself too thin with the Judgement Day, LWO, Braun, Awesome Truth, and more and says it's the same things he warned Seth about and look how that turned out.
  
• Backstage Chad is talking to the Creed Brothers about amatuer wrestling stories and tells them to keep in mind about what they discussed. Otis walks up and tells Chad he apologized to Sami. Chad assumes he's doing this to soften up Sami and asks Otis if he's all set to help him win back his Intercontinental Championship together and tells him to say it and Otis says of course.
  
• Jey Uso says tonight is the night, there is no tomorrow, the main event vs the Ring General and says he almost had GUNTHER last time but he's gonna finish the job, GUNTHER gonna get a yeetdown while he's about to get that crown.
  

*
SHAMELESS PLUGS

• Live Thread
  
• New to /SquaredCircle? Check out the Wiki!
  
• Check out our Squared Circle twitter account for all sorts of AMA announcements and interaction!
  
• Curious about how the /SquaredCircle Championship and Jobber Championship works? Check out the rules!
  
• Be sure to follow @WWE on Twitter and Like WWE on Facebook! You can download the official WWE App on iTunes so Michael Cole shuts up about it!
  
• Like other wrestling promotions? Perhaps you're looking for other subreddits related to wrestling? There's a sub for that! Check out /TheDirtsheets, /luchaunderground, /njpw /TNA, /ROH, /indiewrestling, /Wrasslin and more!
  

Embark on Your Amazon Reselling Adventure

Step into the dynamic realm of Amazon reselling, where opportunities abound, and innovation drives success. This comprehensive guide will reveal the strategies to navigate guidelines, overcome restrictions, and master best practices for unparalleled achievements.
Picture a vibrant marketplace where your entrepreneurial dreams can take flight—a space where small and medium-sized businesses thrive. In 2022, independent sellers in Amazon’s U.S. store sold over 4.1 billion products, with average sales reaching an impressive $230,000. This isn't just an aspiration; it's a reality waiting for you to grasp.
Your journey begins with essential questions: Where can you source items to resell on Amazon? How can you turn branded products into profitable ventures? This guide serves as your roadmap, offering a step-by-step approach to building a successful reselling empire in the expansive Amazon marketplace.

Understanding Reselling

Reselling goes beyond a mere business model; it's a refined craft. It's about unearthing valuable items from unexpected sources and offering them to eager buyers. Here’s your strategic guide:

1. Research Product Demand:
   • Market Analysis: Dive deep into current market trends and consumer preferences. Use tools like Jungle Scout, Helium 10, and Google Trends to identify products with high demand and low competition.
   • Competitor Analysis: Study your competitors to understand their pricing strategies, customer reviews, and sales volumes. This will help you identify gaps in the market and potential opportunities.
   • Seasonal Trends: Keep an eye on seasonal trends and upcoming events that could boost demand for specific products.
2. Procure the Products:
   • Reliable Suppliers: Establish relationships with reputable suppliers and wholesalers. Websites like Alibaba, SaleHoo, and local trade shows can be excellent sources.
   • Quality Control: Always inspect the quality of the products before purchasing in bulk. Request samples if possible to ensure they meet your standards.
   • Negotiation: Don't hesitate to negotiate prices and terms with suppliers to maximize your profit margins.
3. List the Products Online:
   • Product Listings: Create detailed and compelling product listings. Use high-quality images, thorough descriptions, and relevant keywords to improve your visibility on Amazon.
   • Competitive Pricing: Research the pricing strategies of similar products and set competitive prices. Consider using dynamic pricing tools to adjust your prices based on market conditions.
   • SEO Optimization: Optimize your product listings for search engines by incorporating relevant keywords, bullet points, and customer reviews.
4. Handle Shipping and Fulfillment:
   • Self-Fulfillment: If you choose to handle shipping yourself, ensure you have a reliable system in place for packaging, labeling, and dispatching orders promptly.
   • Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): Alternatively, you can use Amazon’s FBA service, where Amazon handles storage, packing, and shipping. This can save you time and provide faster delivery options to your customers, but consider the costs involved.
5. Manage Inventory and Customer Service:
   • Inventory Management: Keep track of your stock levels to avoid overselling or stockouts. Use inventory management software to automate the process and forecast future needs.
   • Customer Service: Provide exceptional customer service by responding to inquiries promptly, addressing issues efficiently, and ensuring customer satisfaction. Positive reviews and ratings can significantly impact your sales.
   • Returns and Refunds: Have a clear policy for returns and refunds. Handle returns professionally to maintain a good reputation and build trust with your customers.

By mastering these aspects of reselling, you'll be well-equipped to transform your business into a thriving venture on Amazon.

Decoding Profit Margin

Profit margin isn’t just a figure; it’s the heartbeat of your reselling venture. It determines whether your business merely survives or truly thrives. Here’s how to strike the perfect balance between competitive pricing and maintaining a healthy profit margin to ensure your reselling dreams stay afloat:

1. Understanding Profit Margin:
   • Gross Profit Margin: This is the difference between the selling price and the cost of goods sold (COGS), expressed as a percentage. It reflects the profitability of your products before accounting for other expenses.
   • Net Profit Margin: This includes all expenses, such as shipping, fulfillment fees, advertising, and other operational costs. It's the true measure of your business’s profitability.
2. Calculating Your Profit Margin:
   • Formula:
     • Gross Profit Margin = [(Selling Price - COGS) / Selling Price] x 100
     • Net Profit Margin = [(Selling Price - Total Expenses) / Selling Price] x 100
   • Example: If you sell a product for $100, and the COGS is $60, your gross profit margin is 40%. After including $20 for other expenses, your net profit margin would be 20%.
3. Balancing Pricing and Profit:
   • Competitive Pricing: Research your competitors to set a price that is attractive to customers while still allowing you to make a profit. Avoid the temptation to underprice your products significantly, as this can erode your profit margins.
   • Value Proposition: Justify higher prices by emphasizing the unique value your products offer, such as superior quality, better customer service, or additional features.
4. Reducing Costs:
   • Bulk Purchasing: Buying in larger quantities can lower your COGS due to discounts from suppliers.
   • Streamlined Operations: Use efficient inventory management and fulfillment processes to reduce operational costs.
   • Shipping Options: Explore various shipping methods to find cost-effective solutions that do not compromise delivery speed.
5. Monitoring and Adjusting:
   • Regular Reviews: Frequently review your profit margins to identify trends and make adjustments as needed. This could involve tweaking prices, negotiating better deals with suppliers, or finding ways to cut operational costs.
   • Dynamic Pricing: Consider using dynamic pricing strategies that adjust based on market demand, competition, and inventory levels.

By carefully managing your profit margins, you ensure that your reselling business remains profitable and sustainable in the long run.

Is Reselling Your Calling?

Reselling appeals to those with a keen eye for lucrative opportunities, particularly in the following areas:

1. Limited-Availability Items:
   • Scarcity Power: Capitalize on the limited availability of certain products. When demand outstrips supply, prices can soar, allowing you to turn a tidy profit.
   • Examples: Limited-edition sneakers, concert tickets, or special collaboration items.
2. Exclusive or Rare Items:
   • Rare Collectibles: Seek out and sell rare collectibles, vintage treasures, and unique artworks. These items often attract discerning buyers willing to pay a premium.
   • Examples: Antique furniture, rare coins, vintage clothing, and limited-edition art prints.
3. Seasonal Products:
   • Seasonal Waves: Leverage the high demand for seasonal items, such as holiday decorations, outdoor gear, and summer accessories. Timing is crucial to maximize sales during peak seasons.
   • Examples: Christmas lights, Halloween costumes, summer camping gear, and winter sports equipment.
4. Clearance or Discounted Items:
   • Discounted Deals: Purchase items on clearance or at a discount and resell them at market value. This strategy allows you to profit from the price difference.
   • Examples: End-of-season clothing, overstock electronics, and discounted home goods.
5. High-Demand Products:
   • Trending Items: Maintain a steady supply of trending products that are in high demand. Selling these items at competitive prices ensures a consistent flow of sales.
   • Examples: Popular tech gadgets, fitness equipment, beauty products, and fashionable accessories.

If you possess the knack for identifying these opportunities, reselling could be your calling. It’s about recognizing value where others might not and delivering that value to eager buyers, ultimately transforming your skills into a profitable venture.

Setting Sail with an Amazon Seller Account

Embark on your reselling adventure by choosing the right Amazon seller plan to suit your needs:

1. Individual Plan:
   • Cost: $0.99 per product sold plus applicable selling fees.
   • Ideal For: Those just starting out or selling in smaller quantities.
   • Advantages: Low upfront cost, making it perfect for testing the waters without significant financial commitment.
2. Professional Plan:
   • Cost: $39.99 per month plus applicable selling fees.
   • Ideal For: Sellers with higher sales volumes or more extensive inventory.
   • Advantages: Access to advanced selling tools, eligibility for top placement on product detail pages, and the ability to sell in restricted categories.

Choosing the Right Plan

Evaluate your inventory size and sales expectations to determine the best plan for you. Here are some key considerations:

• Sales Volume: If you plan to sell more than 40 items per month, the Professional Plan may be more cost-effective.
• Advanced Features: The Professional Plan offers additional features like bulk listing, detailed sales reports, and promotions.
• Category Restrictions: Some categories require a Professional Plan to list items.

Utilize Amazon’s Tools

To maximize your profitability, leverage Amazon’s free tools:

• Fulfillment Cost Calculator: Use this tool to estimate your revenue potential by calculating fees for storage, fulfillment, and shipping. This helps you make informed decisions about pricing and profitability.

By carefully selecting the right seller plan and utilizing Amazon’s resources, you can set sail on a successful reselling journey, navigating the vast Amazon marketplace with confidence.
The Art of Retail Arbitrage
Retail arbitrage is the thrill of the hunt, buying low and selling high. Navigate this path with care, adhering to Amazon’s selling guidelines and securing necessary documents like invoices. Calculate margins meticulously to ensure your efforts yield treasure, not toil.

Launching Your Reselling Business: 6 Steps

1. Gauge Product Demand

To ensure your product offerings resonate with your target audience, it's crucial to stay ahead of market trends and continuously adapt. Here’s how to gauge product demand effectively:

Stay Ahead of Trends

• Monitor Trends: Regularly track market trends to understand the evolving desires of your target audience.
• Adapt Offerings: Be flexible and ready to adjust your product lineup based on the latest insights and trends.

Market Research Tools

Use a variety of tools to gain comprehensive insights into product demand:
Google Trends:

• Track Search Interest: Utilize Google Trends to monitor the popularity of different products over time.
  • Trend Analysis: Identify upward or downward trends in search interest to forecast potential demand.
  • Comparison: Compare search trends for multiple products to determine which ones are gaining more interest.
  • Spikes and Trends: Identify spikes in interest that may indicate growing popularity.
  • Regional Insights: Understand where certain products are more popular geographically to tailor your marketing efforts.

Social Media Analytics:

• Platform Insights: Leverage analytics tools available on social media platforms to see what's trending.
  • Instagram Insights: Analyze engagement metrics, popular posts, and trending hashtags related to your niche.
  • Facebook Analytics: Track audience demographics, post reach, and interaction rates to understand what content resonates most.
  • TikTok Analytics: Monitor trending videos and hashtags to identify emerging product interests.
  • Trending Hashtags: Track popular hashtags related to your niche to discover emerging trends.
  • Influencer Posts: Observe what influencers in your industry are promoting and which products are receiving the most engagement.
  • Audience Insights: Use analytics tools on social media platforms to gain insights into audience demographics and preferences.

Industry Reports:

• Comprehensive Market Insights: Review detailed reports from reputable sources to get a broader understanding of market dynamics.
  • Statista: Access a wide range of statistics and reports on various industries and consumer trends.
  • Nielsen: Gain insights into consumer behavior, market performance, and emerging trends.
  • IBISWorld: Utilize industry reports to understand market size, growth prospects, and competitive landscapes.
  • Market Analysis: Read reports from companies like Statista, Nielsen, and IBISWorld to understand broader market trends.
  • Consumer Surveys: Look for surveys and studies that reveal consumer preferences and buying habits.
  • Product Performance: Identify which products are gaining traction and why, helping you to make informed decisions about your inventory.

2. Competitive Analysis

Conducting a thorough competitive analysis is essential to understand the landscape of your niche and to carve out your own space. Here’s how to do it effectively:

Study Top Sellers

• Identify Leaders: Find the top sellers in your niche by browsing Amazon’s best seller lists and top-rated products.
• Analyze Listings: Examine their product listings to understand what makes them successful. Pay attention to:
  • Titles: How they structure their product titles for SEO.
  • Descriptions: The level of detail and key points they highlight.
  • Images: The quality and variety of product images used.
  • Pricing: Their pricing strategies and how often they change prices.

Identify Gaps

• Product Offerings: Look for gaps in the market where top sellers may not fully meet customer needs. This could be in terms of product features, variety, or price points.
• Customer Feedback: Read reviews on competitors’ products to identify common complaints or suggestions. These insights can reveal opportunities for improvement.
• Niche Segments: Explore niche segments within your broader market that are underserved or overlooked by major competitors.

Learn Best Practices

• Effective Tactics: Incorporate successful strategies from top competitors into your own approach.
  • Listing Optimization: Use similar high-impact keywords and structure your product listings based on the best practices you observe.
  • Marketing Strategies: Adopt effective marketing tactics such as targeted ads, promotions, and social media engagement.
  • Customer Engagement: Implement customer service strategies that resonate well with buyers, like prompt responses, clear return policies, and follow-up emails.
  • Inventory Management: Learn how top sellers manage their inventory to maintain stock levels and avoid stockouts.

3. Source Products to Sell

Finding the right products to sell is a critical step in building a successful reselling business. Here’s how to source quality items effectively:

Vet Manufacturers and Suppliers

• Quality and Authenticity: Thoroughly vet potential manufacturers and suppliers to ensure the products meet your quality standards and are authentic.
  • Background Checks: Conduct background checks on suppliers, including reviews, ratings, and business history.
  • Certifications: Verify any certifications or licenses the supplier claims to hold.
  • Samples: Request product samples to inspect the quality firsthand before committing to large orders.

Wholesale Suppliers

• Bulk Purchasing: Establish relationships with reputable wholesalers to buy products in bulk at lower costs, improving your profit margins.
  • Networking: Attend trade shows and industry events to meet potential wholesalers and establish direct connections.
  • Negotiation: Negotiate terms and prices to get the best deals possible.
  • Reliability: Ensure the wholesaler can consistently supply the quantities you need and meet delivery timelines.

Liquidation Sales

• Overstock and Returns: Purchase overstock or returned items from liquidation sales at reduced prices, which can offer substantial savings and higher profit margins.
  • Reputable Sources: Use trusted liquidation platforms and sources to avoid low-quality or damaged goods.
  • Inspection: Inspect items closely to ensure they are in good condition and can be resold at a profit.

Online Marketplaces

• Unique Products: Use online platforms like Alibaba, eBay, and Etsy to find unique products and reliable suppliers.
  • Alibaba: Great for sourcing bulk items directly from manufacturers, with options for custom orders and private labeling.
  • eBay: Ideal for finding deals on individual items, overstock, and liquidation products.
  • Etsy: Perfect for sourcing handmade, vintage, or unique items that can differentiate your product offerings.
  • Supplier Verification: Utilize marketplace verification features and read reviews to ensure supplier reliability.

4. List Products for Sale Online

Effectively listing your products on Amazon is crucial for attracting customers and driving sales. Here’s how to make the most of Amazon’s tools to optimize your product listings and pricing:

Utilize Amazon’s Tools

• Amazon’s Resources: Take advantage of Amazon’s robust suite of tools designed to help sellers enhance their listings, manage pricing, and improve visibility.

Product Listings

• Detailed Descriptions: Craft comprehensive and engaging product descriptions. Highlight key features, benefits, and any unique selling points to help potential buyers make informed decisions.
• SEO Optimization: Use relevant keywords strategically throughout your product titles, bullet points, and descriptions to improve your search ranking. Research popular keywords related to your products using tools like Amazon Keyword Tool or Helium 10.
• High-Quality Images: Invest in professional-quality images that clearly show your product from multiple angles. Ensure images are high-resolution and adhere to Amazon’s image guidelines.
• Strategic Keywords: Identify and incorporate high-impact keywords in your listings to enhance discoverability. Use backend search terms to capture additional relevant keywords without cluttering your descriptions.

Pricing Tools

• Automate Pricing: Utilize Amazon’s Automate Pricing tool to keep your prices competitive. This tool allows you to set rules for automatic price adjustments based on various factors, such as competitor pricing and market trends.
  • Dynamic Pricing: Adjust prices in real-time to stay competitive without the need for constant manual updates. This helps ensure your products remain attractive to potential buyers while maximizing profitability.
  • Competitive Edge: By automating your pricing strategy, you can respond quickly to market changes, maintain a competitive edge, and potentially increase your Buy Box win rate.

5. Handle Shipping and Fulfillment

Selecting the right fulfillment method is crucial for the efficiency and success of your reselling business. Here are the two primary options:

Choose Fulfillment Method

Merchant Fulfillment:

• Overview: You handle all aspects of storage, packaging, and shipping yourself.
• Advantages:
  • Control: You have complete control over your inventory, packaging, and shipping processes.
  • Customization: You can customize packaging and include personalized notes or branding materials in your shipments.
  • Cost Management: Potentially lower costs if you have an efficient system and low overhead.
• Considerations:
  • Time and Effort: Managing fulfillment can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, especially as your business grows.
  • Scalability: As order volumes increase, handling fulfillment in-house can become challenging.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA):

• Overview: Amazon takes care of storage, packaging, shipping, and customer service on your behalf.
• Advantages:
  • Convenience: Amazon handles the logistics, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business.
  • Prime Eligibility: Products fulfilled by Amazon are eligible for Amazon Prime, which can increase your sales by attracting Prime members.
  • Customer Service: Amazon provides customer service and handles returns, improving the overall customer experience.
  • Scalability: FBA can easily scale with your business, handling large volumes of orders efficiently.
• Considerations:
  • Fees: FBA comes with storage and fulfillment fees, which can add up, especially for low-margin items.
  • Less Control: You have less control over the packaging and shipping process, which might affect how your brand is presented.

6. Drive Sales

To boost your sales and make a mark in the competitive Amazon marketplace, follow these key strategies:

Differentiate Yourself

• Know Your Audience: Take the time to understand who your customers are, what they want, and how they shop. Use this knowledge to tailor your product offerings and marketing efforts.
• Stand Out: Use advanced ecommerce tools and unique selling propositions (USPs) to set your business apart from the competition. Whether it’s exceptional customer service, unique product features, or a compelling brand story, make sure your business has something special to offer.

Amazon Advertising

• Sponsored Products: Increase your product visibility by investing in Sponsored Products ads. These appear in search results and on product detail pages, helping you reach more customers.
• Sponsored Brands: Showcase your brand and product portfolio with Sponsored Brands ads. These banner ads appear at the top of search results, highlighting your brand and multiple products.
• Sponsored Display: Use Sponsored Display ads to target customers both on and off Amazon, keeping your products in front of potential buyers as they browse the web.

Social Media Marketing

• Instagram: Share visually appealing posts and stories about your products, engage with followers through comments and direct messages, and use Instagram Shopping to make it easy for users to buy directly from your posts.
• Facebook: Create a Facebook Page for your business, post regularly to keep your audience engaged, and use Facebook Ads to target specific demographics.
• TikTok: Tap into the viral potential of TikTok by creating fun and engaging short videos that showcase your products. Collaborate with influencers to reach a wider audience.

Customer Reviews

• Encourage Reviews: After a purchase, kindly ask customers to leave a review. Highlight the importance of their feedback in improving your products and services.
• Enhance Credibility: Positive reviews build trust and credibility, making potential buyers more likely to choose your products.
• Respond to Feedback: Engage with customer reviews by thanking them for positive feedback and addressing any concerns or issues raised in negative reviews. This shows that you value your customers and are committed to providing excellent service.

Embark on Your Reselling Adventure
Reselling on Amazon isn’t just about making money; it’s an adventure waiting to be explored. Whether you're just starting out or you’ve been in the game for a while, the journey is full of excitement and potential. Here’s why you should dive in and how to make the most of it:

• The Thrill of Discovery: There’s nothing quite like the excitement of finding that perfect product at a great price and knowing you can sell it for a profit. Every day brings new opportunities to uncover hidden gems, from rare collectibles to trending items.
• Profit and Growth: With smart sourcing, great listings, and the right tools, you can turn reselling into a highly profitable business. Many sellers achieve impressive revenues, turning their side hustles into full-time successes.
• Build Your Own Brand: Think about the long-term benefits of creating your own brand. It’s not just about selling products; it’s about:
  • Building Customer Loyalty: When people trust your brand, they keep coming back.
  • Increasing Profits: Branded products often yield higher profit margins.
  • Generating Passive Income: Enjoy steady income from repeat customers and subscriptions.
• Leverage Amazon’s Power: Amazon’s vast reach and powerful infrastructure can help you scale your business. Here’s how:
  • Brand Registry: Protect your brand with Amazon’s automated protections, get access to detailed reports, and benefit from dedicated support.
  • Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA): Let Amazon handle the heavy lifting of storage, packaging, and shipping, so you can focus on growing your business.

So, what are you waiting for? Your reselling journey on Amazon is an exciting path filled with opportunities for growth and success. Jump in, explore, and make the most of what Amazon has to offer. Your adventure awaits—grab it with both hands and enjoy the ride!

So I’m getting a bunk bed from Facebook marketplace and only have 1 mattress for the bottom bunk, the seller said she would give me the top mattress with it! I’m a little weary because I’ve always thought the idea of using/taking someone’s mattress is dirty or gross😭 I wouldn’t be sleeping on the top bunk ever but I do want to use it for stuffed animals. Should I accept the mattress? And if I do is there anyway to ensure it 10000% clean? It doesn’t appear to have any discoloration or any stains on it.

I am so sad all the time. Our whole relationship I had suspicions but he would feed me a good lie and I was super naive and believed him. He was my first. He always pushed my boundaries, I wanted to wait till marriage but he did not and pushed them until I stopped saying no and cried instead. I got pregnant and We got married. He was always very weird about his phone. He and i had had a conversation early on that porn wasn’t okay for our relationship. He was very adamant that if I watched porn it would be considered cheating to him. He didn’t even like if there was a shirtless guy on tv and I didn’t look down right away, so I know how strongly he feels about it. He didn’t want me to have any social media except Facebook. No problem i got rid of them. Except some days I would see tiktok On his phone. He insisted it was cause he wanted to sell stuff on tiktok shop. So dumb of me to believe him. I’d ask to see it and the first videos are basically soft porn of women. He tells me tiktok is just like that. He deletes it so I’m comfortable. During sex he seemed to have a bad habit of getting distracted on his phone. I tell him that makes me uncomfortable , he has yet to delete alll the photos of his ex girlfriends who he had slept with and I mistakenly thought maybe he was looking at that. He tells me he’s looking at vidoes of us. That makes me uncomfortable and I ask him to stop. He tells me he will. He adopts a favorite head position, where I am under the covers sideways giving him head. I peak up to see him holding his phone where I can’t see it, trying to make me think he’s not on it. I asked if he was, he lied and said he wasn’t. I keep sucking them I bolt up and see he was on it. I ask to see his phone right then and there in the moment. Too many times in the past he would curse and yell and I wouldnt push him. Now I push him. He grabs me and hugs me and tells me he’s sorry I am so insecure and it’s probably cause I’m 8 months pregnant and hormonal. I have my eye on the prize tho. He’s hugging me and I am waiting till it’s over heart pounding till I can grab the phone. He suddenly bolts up and says he hears someone at the front door. He runs , phone in hand to the door. I am 8 months pregnant. I chase after him but I am not fast enough. By the time he hands me the phone, not a single app is open. Very weird. I break down crying, I know what my gut is telling me. He tells me I’m insecure, delusional, crazy, but that he loves me anyways and hugs me. This is one of many times Something like this happened. I have the baby. 5 months post partum we are sitting together on his computer and a Twitter notification came up for a Twitter account I never seen. I ask him can we look at it. He gets angry, slams his fists , curses me, tells me I’m so insecure and no matter what comes of this, he’s leaving tonight. I suddenly don’t feel scared anymore. I insist. He won’t give me his phone. By the time he gets Twitter redownloaded it’s cleared. I make his download the data. I ask if he’s watching porn he gets angry says i do not trust him and throws a fit at me. I am not scared. I wait. The Twitter data never comes. He lies about that too. Finally I get it. I insist and force it. I read all the openings. He promised he had uninstalled Twitter when we were dating but he made a new account less than a month after we married. He was using Twitter, Reddit, tiktok, and Incognito safari that I know of. He admitted he was watching girls and porn our entire relationship and imagining them while I gave him head under the covers, pregnant and nauseous. I just did it because I loved him. I feel most angry at myself. I am the fool who stayed when he pushed my boundaries. And I am the clown who has to stay in this painful marriage now because I have a baby. I don’t want to do visitations and split custody. The only thing that matters is my baby. I feel like I am acting and dissociated most the time. I cry every night. It’s been almost 5 months since I found out and if anything it’s gotten harder to cope with. I saved myself, I only had one boyfriend before him and I gave him nothing. I gave my husband everything. He took everything. So many of my dreams are dead. I wish I could’ve had a pure relationship. The lies, manipulation, and realization that they do not love you more than their addiction is soul crushing

Met my husband when I was 15 and he was 18. He was on and off with his high school gf at the time. We were essentially just friends and never did anything more together than hug but were open about liking each other. My Husband was the epitome of a gentlemen then and now, never trying anything inappropriate and we avoided being seen outside school and our houses together as to avoid drama from his on and off gf at the time. A few months into our friendship and he gets back with her, which wasn't that shocking but our friendship continued and I dated other people. His gf at the time cheated on him constantly and there was a lot of drama that I at the time wanted no part in and while I did care for him felt it was best to end our friendship.
He tried many times to contact me, and we even ran into each other a few times but I harshly ignored him. About 18 months later before I graduated High school I reached out to him to rekindle our friendship. He confessed his past stupidity to me, the love he had always deep down had and asked if I would ever consider him as more than a friend to which i agreed. We fell madly in love and have been together ever since.
His ex at the time became very upset when she saw on Facebook he was happy with someone else even though she had been in her own relationship for sometime and her and my husband had not been a couple for almost a year and had not even seen each other in close to 6 months. She immediately started sending him love letters and apologies anyway she could and my husband ignored all of them. This went on for a long time and eventually we got engaged and I decided, naively, that if she could see we were happy together she would be able to move on.
HUGE MISTAKE, upon friending her on FB she confronted me and made a remark about me not trusting my husband at the time. Now I'm not proud of this but please keep in mind I was only 18 at the time. But in retaliation I told her my husband cheated on her at one point in their relationship (this was practically middle school). She immediately began spewing that he never loved her, that she went through hell with a pregnancy that never happened, that he only ever started talking to me because I reminded him of her and he said "stuff" about me.
My Husband has always 100% denied all of this. I also have several mutual friends with his ex who believe she only said that to Stir the pot but it's always bothered me. My husband says there's was never anything negative to say about me, that we never dated and that she was just being manipulative and self absorbed. Me and her do not look alike outside of having a shorter stature, being fair and having dark hair and eyes. But that is just my husband's type overall and has dated other girls with similar traits. She is also Hispanic and I am White so there's many features between us that are different. We also have very different interests and personalities.
My question is that even though my husband has sworn on his life that he never said anything negative about me to his ex, how should I feel? He even has said since it's been so long now that if ever remembers anything he will tell me immediately and that if anything was ever said he was wrong or didn't mean it. That he has loved me in everyday you can love another person.
I even once asked his ex gf years later when we ran into each other what she meant by those things and she apologized and said she can't remember and was in a bad place then.
Idk what to believe and while this was almost 10 years ago, I get so hung up on it sometimes. I know I can forgive him if he did say something, but it's hard accepting the unknown. How would you feel? How should I feel?

I caught my ex emotionally cheating on me and I confronted her about it and she disappeared after the fact is the short form of what happened. I posted previously about it if anyone cares to read.
When she left, she left all of her stuff in my apartment and out of respect and legality I did nothing with it besides pack it all up for her and waited for her to pick it up. It took an entire month for her to come get it. The entire time she kept saying that she wasn't in a relationship with this guy she said was her "friend".
She kept gaslighting me saying he's just a friend etc etc. making me second guess if I was crazy or not. Well a couple days ago she informed me she was coming with a uhaul to pick her stuff up. So I decided to put all of her stuff outside because I couldn't emotionally handle or hold back my anger over what happened so I decided that was the best course of action.
She didn't think so, she knocked on the door and I made the mistake of opening the door. She requested that she comes inside to do a "walk through". I said no all of your stuff is outside. She put her foot in the door and step inside while I was trying to close the door. I decided screw it go ahead.
As she was walking through she started taking stuff like all the cleaning supplies I bought, food I bought and kitchen ware I bought. I told her all that is mine and she said "No, I bought all of this. I was the only one who cleaned and cook" which was a lie because she wouldn't do anything besides lay down in bed and be on her phone majority of the time.
I got really irritated and went off on her. I called her a cheater and a liar. You left me for a loser. You're the most dishonest person I have ever met. She kept saying "I'm not dating him, we aren't together, I didn't cheat on you. I don't know whats wrong with you dude". I said should I go outside and tell him that? Should I tell him how much of a liar you are?
She responded with "He knows everything already". I decided it was the best course of action to not go outside because I know I would go into a blind rage and end up in jail for sure.
Afrer she left. The next day I made the mistake of looking on both of their facebooks and they updated their relationship status that they are together. The day they "made it official" happened to be the next day after she did her disappearing act. It felt like they were "hiding" their relationship status until she got her stuff back. So they made a team effort together to do what they did, which is insane to me.
I just can't believe how much I did for some one who stabbed me in the back the way they did. The amount of support, the amount of care, the amount of love I gave to her and she did what she did.
She even acts like I was the bad guy, I was the evil person. The whole reason I was upset with her was because she was talking to this guy and lying to me about it.
I'm so angry, everyday so far I feel this rage. I got a gym membership yesterday and worked out last night. When I was done working out for some reason when I was driving home I just started crying out of nowhere. I don't know what triggered it but I couldn't stop. It came to me that I haven't had time to cry or feel sad, I have just been angry, I feel it even now as I'm typing it. I can't seem to stop being so upset.

I broke up with my boyfriend (M23) of a little over 2 years about two weeks ago. It was after his ex messaged me on Facebook to let me know he had messaged her a few times 1-1.5 years ago saying he missed her and still cared for her. She had then blocked him on everything so he couldn’t contact her anymore. It stayed that way until March of this year when he says he downloaded Hinge while drunk and liked her profile. After seeing her screenshots and talking to him I immediately ended things because I couldn’t look at him in the same way. I had issues a couple times in the past with him messaging other girls too and this was the last straw. I know he’s never physically cheated on me, but this I still consider emotional cheating. It has been hard and I am keeping my distance while I heal. He did reach out about a week ago to apologize and I told him I could not forgive him right now and needed space. I also mentioned he needed to figure out why he feels compelled to talk to other women casually while in a relationship. A mutual friend of ours that has been through a similar situation has been on my side of the situation since I told her. She did mention a few days ago though that he was going to see a therapist to work on himself and talk to his family about things. She thinks he seems apologetic and like he wants to make a change. Obviously this makes me happy to hear, but I still don’t know if I should forgive him. Everything else about our relationship was great and I did lose my best friend, but I fear the good memories are overshadowing how bad he hurt me and betrayed my trust. I’m trying not to get my hopes up for a change. Is that change even possible? I’m not sure

DAY: May 19 2024

• 5-19-2024 ILLNESS TOOK AWAY HER VOICE. AI CREATED A REPLICA SHE CARRIES IN HER PHONE Alexis Bogan, whose speech was impaired by a brain tumor, uses an AI powered smartphone app to create a audible drink order at a Starbucks drive-thru on Monday, April 29, 2024, in Lincoln, R.I. The app converts her typed entries into a verbal message created using her original voice. Credit: AP Photo/Steven Senne The voice Alexis “Lexi” Bogan had before last summer was exuberant. She loved to belt out Taylor Swift and Zach Bryan ballads in the car. She laughed all the time—even while corralling misbehaving preschoolers or debating politics
• 5-19-2024 SMART CONTACT LENSES LEAD THE WAY FOR HUMAN-MACHINE INTERACTION Scientists have developed eye-tracking smart content lenses based on radio frequency tags that can be used for various applications, including health care and augmented reality (AR). The lenses are biocompatible and imperceptible, requiring no battery or conventional silicon chips. Smart contact lenses that can keep track of various health factors and can be used for human-machine interaction (HMI) are a relatively new technology.
• 5-19-2024 INTEL EXEC ON BRINGING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INTO THE WORKPLACE Artificial intelligence is just about everywhere you look these days—including the workplace. That means training staff about the technology and using it responsibly is critical. It’s a tall order, especially as the commercialization of generative AI continues its rapid growth. Now some tech players have kickstarted initiatives in hopes of meeting that need. Christy Pambianchi, chief people officer at Intel, recently spoke with The Associated Press about how the semiconductor chip maker is expanding AI education programming beyond the company’s walls—as well as best practices around
• 5-19-2024 JUST BELIEVING THAT AN AI IS HELPING BOOSTS YOUR PERFORMANCE, STUDY FINDS Sometimes it seems like an AI is helping, but the benefit is actually a placebo effect—people performing better simply because they expect to be doing so—according to new research from Aalto University. The study also shows how difficult it is to shake people’s trust in the capabilities of
• 5-19-2024 FEMALE HEALTH APPS MISUSE HIGHLY SENSITIVE DATA, STUDY FINDS Apps designed for female health monitoring are exposing users to unnecessary privacy and safety risks through their poor data handling practices, according to new research from King’s College London and University College London (UCL). In the most extensive evaluation of the privacy practices of female health apps to date, researchers found apps that handle medical and fertility data are coercing users into entering sensitive information that could put them at risk.
• 5-19-2024 OPENAI GIVES CHATGPT NEW POWERS TO SEE, HEAR OpenAI and Microsoft are in a heated rivalry with Google to be generative AI’s major player, but Facebook-owner Meta and upstart Anthropic are also making big moves to compete. OpenAI on Monday released a higher performing and even more human-like version of the artificial intelligence technology that underpins its popular generative tool ChatGPT, making it free to all users. The update to OpenAI’s flagship product landed a day before Google is expected to make its own announcements about Gemini, the search engine giant’s own AI tool that competes with ChatGPT
• 5-19-2024 CHATBOTS TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR, RESEARCHERS FIND Chatbots share limited information, reinforce ideologies, and, as a result, can lead to more polarized thinking when it comes to controversial issues, according to new Johns Hopkins University–led research. The study challenges perceptions that chatbots are impartial and provides insight into how using conversational search systems could widen the public divide on hot-button issues and leave people vulnerable to manipulation. “Because people are reading a summary paragraph generated by AI, they think they’re getting unbiased, fact-based answers,”
• 5-19-2024 STUDENTS, ACTIVISTS, ENTERTAINERS: MINECRAFT’S GLOBAL APPEAL Since the first version of Minecraft was released to the public 15 years ago, the block-based world-building game has become a global phenomenon. Since the first version of Minecraft was released to the public 15 years ago, the block-based world-building game has become a global phenomenon. Players of all ages and backgrounds have used the game for everything from educational projects and architecture to building communities and creating artwork. With more than 300 million copies sold, it is the best-selling video game of all time.
• 5-19-2024 SWISS NURSERY LETS ROBOT DO THE TALKING Swiss children in a Lausanne creche have some fun with their new robot friend, Nao. Sat in a circle on the nursery floor, a group of Swiss three-year-olds ask a robot called Nao questions about giraffes and broccoli. By the time these children become adults, interacting with robots may well be as commonplace as using a smartphone, experts believe. So one Lausanne creche has decided to give them a head start.
• 5-19-2024 EU TO ENCOURAGE INFLUENCERS TO HAVE ‘POSITIVE’ IMPACT Younger audiences increasingly get their information from influencers as they turn away from traditional media. The EU announced steps Tuesday to encourage influencers to post content that has a “positive” impact on society, as concerns rise over disinformation in a fragmented information landscape. With online creators increasingly the preferred source of news and opinions for younger audiences in the European Union, Brussels said they needed to be helped to use their role wisely. Ministers from EU countries responsible for culture, audiovisual and media issues approved a series of steps
• 5-19-2024 THE METAVERSE COULD CHANGE OUR RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES, AND CREATE NEW ONES New technologies have always informed and changed our religious experiences. Listening to early radio broadcasts in the 1880s was experienced by many as religious because radio voices seemed to come from some other dimension. Séances became wildly popular at the time because it was thought by some that radio had opened a door to the spirit world. Today, religion is experiencing new transformations. The information-rich, image-laden character of the internet can provide new ways to understand and explain religious activity.
• 5-19-2024RESEARCH SHEDS LIGHT ON THE WEB OF TRUST, PRIVACY AND SAFETY FACTORS SHAPING USERS’ EXPERIENCES ON FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE Love it or hate it, Facebook Marketplace is the largest online resale site today with more than one billion monthly users.
• 5-19-2024RESEARCH SHEDS LIGHT ON THE WEB OF TRUST, PRIVACY AND SAFETY FACTORS SHAPING USERS’ EXPERIENCES ON FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE Google on Tuesday rolled out a retooled search engine that will frequently favor responses crafted by artificial intelligence over website links, a shift promising to quicken the quest for information while also potentially disrupting the flow of money-making internet traffic. The makeover announced at Google’s annual developers conference will begin this week in the U.S. when hundreds of millions of people will start to periodically see conversational summaries
• 5-19-2024 NEW STRATEGIC DESIGN APPROACH FOCUSES ON TURNING AI MISTAKES INTO USER BENEFITS More and more often, automated lending systems powered by artificial intelligence (AI) reject qualified loan applicants without explanation. Even worse, they leave rejected applicants with no recourse. People can have similar experiences when applying for jobs or petitioning their health insurance providers. While AI tools determine the fate of people in difficult situations daily, Upol Ehsan says more thought should be given to challenging these decisions or working around them. Ehsan, a Georgia Tech explainable AI (XAI) researcher, says many rejection cases are not the applicant’s fault.
• 5-19-2024 MANAGING SCREEN TIME BY MAKING PHONES SLIGHTLY MORE ANNOYING TO USE Existing apps for managing screen time can abruptly lock users out of their phone. If users were in the middle of an important task, they could scramble to skip the time limit, opening themselves up to spend more time on their phone than originally intended. InteractOut’s interventions are more gradual and allow users to decide when to put down their phones while also encouraging them to think harder about their smartphone use.
• 5-19-2024 DIGITAL TWIN HELPS OPTIMIZE MANUFACTURING SPEED WHILE SATISFYING QUALITY CONSTRAINTS Feedrate optimization using an uncertainty-aware digital twin demonstrates significant cycle time reductions of up to 38% in a CNC machine tool while staying close to the error tolerances compared to the existing methods. A new method uses a digital twin to optimize manufacturing machine speed—known as feed rate—while adhering to quality constraints,
• 5-19-2024 THE INCREASING DIFFICULTY OF DETECTING AI- VERSUS HUMAN-GENERATED TEXT Generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools are used to create text, images and videos, impacting the way society consumes and produces online content. As that technology continues to evolve, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between AI-generated and human-generated content. Determining the integrity of online information—particularly text—is the current research focus in the Penn State Information Knowledge and wEb (PIKE) Lab, led by Dongwon Lee, professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State. In a discussion with Penn State News, Lee spoke about the
• 5-19-2024 RESEARCH TEAM WORKS TO IMPROVE AI-BASED DECISION-MAKING TOOLS FOR PUBLIC SERVICES More and more public services—such as affordable housing, public school matching and child welfare—are relying on algorithms to make decisions and allocate resources. So far, much of the work that has gone into designing these systems has focused on workers’ experiences using them or communities’ perceptions of them. But what about the actual impact of these programs have on people, especially when the decisions the systems make lead to denial of services? Can you design algorithms to help people make sense of and contest decisions that significantly impact them?
• 5-19-2024 CINEMATIC TOOLS CAN SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVE USER EXPERIENCE IN VIRTUAL REALITY ENVIRONMENTS Without teleportation, many users would be unable to use virtual reality due to motion sickness. Unfortunately, teleportation can cause users to miss important aspects of their surroundings. Credit: Alan Medlar Cinematography techniques can significantly increase user engagement with virtual environments and, in particular, the aesthetic appeal of what users see in virtual reality.
• 5-19-2024 HUMAN DIFFERENCES IN JUDGMENT LEAD TO PROBLEMS FOR AIThe noise level observed in ComVE annotations when controlling the minimum (a) and maximum (b) allowable labels for each turker (we omit the residual in these two figures as, similar to what was observed earlier for TG-CSR, it was nearly coincidental with the level noise curve). We also report the statistics of statements categorized by the number of annotation labels under different cutoff methods used for screening participating annotators
• 5-19-2024 HUMAN DIFFERENCES IN JUDGMENT LEAD TO PROBLEMS FOR AI Innovation is rarely accidental. Behind every new invention and product, including the device you are using to read this story, is years of research, investment, and planning. Organizations that want to reach these milestones in the fastest and most efficient way possible use technology roadmaps.
• 5-19-2024 HUMAN DIFFERENCES IN JUDGMENT LEAD TO PROBLEMS FOR AI A team of researchers at Delft University of Technology has developed a drone that flies autonomously using neuromorphic image processing and control based on the workings of animal brains. Animal brains use less data and energy compared to current deep neural networks running on graphics processing units (GPUs).
• 5-19-2024 US SENATORS UNVEIL ‘ROADMAP’ TO AI LAWS Top US lawmakers on Wednesday said efforts to pass laws governing AI were entering a higher gear and hoped to pump $32 billion into the sector to help assure US dominance. US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said bipartisan legislators had agreed on a policy roadmap and had tasked key senate committees to draft specific proposals on regulating AI. The US is home to the biggest AI companies in the world and has trailed the EU and other regions on coming up with rules to rein in the sector.
• 5-19-2024 US SENATORS UNVEIL ‘ROADMAP’ TO AI LAWS Google chief executive Sundar Pichai says the AI revamp of its online search engine will soon spread to countries other than the United States. Google’s use of artificial intelligence to sum up answers to search queries has publishers wondering if traffic to their websites will wither. The internet titan announced Tuesday it is introducing AI-generated answers to online queries in the United States, in one of the biggest changes to its world-leading search engine in 25 years.
• 5-19-2024 CONSUMER GROUPS ACCUSE TEMU OF MANIPULATING ONLINE SHOPPERS Chinese shopping app Temu has on average around 75 million monthly active users in the EU. European consumer groups on Thursday accused Chinese shopping app Temu of using “manipulative techniques” to make users spend more and other violations of a landmark EU tech law. One of the fastest-growing apps, Temu only entered the EU market in April 2023 and says it has on average around 75 million monthly active users in the 27-country bloc. Europe’s BEUC umbrella consumer rights group filed a complaint with the European Commission while 17 member
• 5-19-2024 PARENTS UNDERESTIMATE THE PRIVACY RISKS KIDS FACE IN VIRTUAL REALITY Nearly two thirds of parents of children aged 5–10 don’t understand the metaverse, according to the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Credit: Kampus Production/Pexels/public domain Virtual reality lets kids play 3D games with their friends as avatars, go back in time, even journey to outer space, all without leaving their living rooms. But while children are immersed in the metaverse, they also face privacy risks that their parents might not recognize
• 5-19-2024 MODEL DISGORGEMENT—THE KEY TO FIXING AI BIAS AND COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT? By now, the challenges posed by generative AI are no secret. Models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude and Meta’s Llama have been known to “hallucinate,” inventing potentially misleading responses, as well as divulge sensitive information, like copyrighted materials.
• 5-19-2024 CAN WE RID ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OF BIAS? AI giants face a challenge of making artficial intelligence models reflect the world’s diversity without being overly politically correct. Artificial intelligence built on mountains of potentially biased information has created a real risk of automating discrimination, but is there any way to re-educate the machines? The question for some is extremely urgent. In this ChatGPT era, AI will generate more and more decisions for health care providers, bank lenders or lawyers, using whatever was scoured from the internet as source material.
• 5-19-2024 CHATGPT IS NOW BETTER THAN EVER AT FAKING HUMAN EMOTION AND BEHAVIOR OpenAI executive Mira Murati launching GPT-4o. Credit: OpenAI Earlier this week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted as a step towards more natural engagement with AI. According to the demonstration video, it can have voice conversations with users in near real-time, exhibiting human-like personality and behavior. This emphasis on personality is likely to be a point of contention. In OpenAI’s demos, GPT-4o sounds friendly, empathetic and engaging. It tells “spontaneous” jokes, giggles, flirts
• 5-19-2024 MOST PEOPLE STILL THINK BARRISTERS NEED TO SOUND POSH, RESEARCH SHOWS—BUT ACCENT DISCRIMINATION SERVES NO ONE In the UK legal system, a barrister’s job is to present formalized legal arguments in court and at tribunals. Training to become one, therefore, involves considerable focus on oral skills. It is considered important that barristers have the ability to speak “eloquently.” This risks people thinking there is a “correct” way of speaking in order to be successful in this career. Accents, of course, play an important role here. Accent-based bias discriminates against speakers with non-standard accents—people whose speech differs from Received Pronunciation (RP).
• 5-19-2024 A MINUTE’S SILENCE IS FINE BUT WHEN IT COMES TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, BEING QUIET ISN’T ENOUGH Sport has a role to play in creating a culture of respect, yet women in sport are often seen as “less than” on almost every measure: salaries, sponsorship, broadcasting, leadership, access, media, coaching, officiating, uniforms and support. Research shows 3 out of 4 Australian men are gender equality supporters, but very few (17%) prioritize taking any action. As Australia grapples with a “national crisis” of violence against women, what can men in sport do to help?
• 5-19-2024 ARE CANADIANS TOO POOR TO BREAK UP? Why did Al and Peg Bundy from the sitcom Married… with Children never get divorced? After all, they were rarely happy and constantly arguing. Maybe they felt they were the best they could do for each other—a middle-aged homely shoe salesman and a stay-at-home mom with two kids. They cared for each other, but they also hated each other deeply. And neither ever cheated, despite having the opportunity. However, what if the Bundys lived in Canada today?
• 5-19-2024 REPORT LOOKS AT ‘POVERTY STIGMA’ THROUGH A NEW LENS TO STAMP IT OUT OF SOCIETY Stigma is a glue that holds poverty, inequality and economic insecurity in place enabling and exacerbating inequalities of wealth, health and opportunity, says a new report. Poverty stigma is a “wicked social problem,” highly complex, difficult to define and challenging to solve
• 5-19-2024 HOW CRAFT-BASED FIRMS PROJECT AUTHENTICITY THROUGH CREDIBLY AND VISIBLY COMMUNICATING THEIR IDENTITY Consumers are drawn to authenticity when it comes to craft-based firms, and a study looked at how managers in identity-driven markets are challenged to maintain their authenticity as their company’s scale of operations expands. In such craft industries, the authors note, overt claims of authenticity by producers are ineffective.
• 5-19-2024 PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH OFFERS STRATEGIES FOR HEALTHY POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS AMONG PEOPLE WITH OPPOSING VIEWS Civilized political debates may seem increasingly out of reach as democracies across the world face rising polarization, but people still want to discuss issues with people they disagree with—especially those who present themselves as balanced and willing to seek solutions that work for everyone or open to learning new information, according to two studies published by the American Psychological Association.
• 5-19-2024 MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICANS GIVE TO CHARITY AT CHECKOUT, SURVEY SHOWS 53% of Americans give to charity at checkout, and young and diverse people tend to do it more often, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York. Credit: Binghamton University, State University of New York Fifty-three percent of Americans give impulsively to charities at the checkout, and certain demographics tend to give more, according to a new survey conducted by faculty at Binghamton University,

I’m new to this group and a lot of what I’m reading feels very familiar to me. I (39M) have been in a relationship for 20 years with my (50M) partner. I realized my partner may be a covert narcissist (I’m 99% sure he is) about a year ago. Two years ago I came clean and admitted to past infidelity on my part. What I did was horrible and I regret it immensely. Getting to the reason of why I cheated is what started increasing my insight into our relationship, dynamics, and patterns. I have always had a phrase I would say to myself over the course of our relationship which was, “he has this gun (metaphorical gun) and he keeps playing with the trigger and then it goes off and shoots him and then I get blamed for it.” Then, he is the victim and I “was so awful to him.” When he found out about my infidelity, he put me on blast on Facebook, messaged my parents, my co workers, etc… I understand he was upset and the level of betrayal is probably beyond what I can even comprehend. The “punishing” went on for a solid year. The blasting stopped but it was constant yelling. We could never talk about our issues because it was always “you you you.” If I did bring up how I felt in the relationship, he would say “you’rere blaming me for your affair ”(which I wasn’t). What really opened my eyes to my experience with him was when his daughter and I were discussing what had happened the day after he messaged everyone. She asked how her dad was doing and I said something along the lines of, “you know how he is when he’s mad.” She replied with, “My dad is the type of person who lights a house on fire and then turns to you and starts yelling at you for burning the house down. If you look up gaslighting in the dictionary, his picture is there.” I nearly hit the floor. I never shared my gun analogy with anyone and here is his own daughter who he is VERY close to telling me this. I couldn’t believe she saw it too. This led to a couple therapists and close friends who are familiar with NPD start talking to me about it. I recognize the pattern with no problem now. It starts with me saying something he doesn’t like or agree with. The attacks come and I find myself on the defense and trying to address the last statement but my statement is then used against me and it’s a complete clusterf*ck spiral. I now walk away and cease communicating (which is also my fault too). About one year after the huge “blowup,” he got some help and for the first time ever admitted his behaviors to me were not appropriate. He took accountability for his roll and forgave me. Things were fine until about February when his old habits started creeping up again. Because I know the pattern, I shut it down immediately. He then proceeds to gaslight me like no other and tells me the stuff he’s doing to me is what I’m doing to him. He throws the affair into it and makes himself more of the victim. So….with all that said, every once in a while I seriously start questioning myself. “Am I the covert narcissist?” “Did I escalate this?” The list goes on…Our sex life is non existent on my part bc of the fighting patterns and now that he’s been unmasked (I think that’s the right term), I don’t want to be intimate with him. I’ve told him it’s because of the conflict we’ve been experiencing but that’s also thrown in my face along with my past affair. I don’t really know what I’m looking for but I feel I need to share this with people who understand. Does anyone have any tips for how to bring yourself out of the gaslighting manipulation?

I (16f) and my dad (52m) have a very rocky relationship. To give a little back story, my father was a twin and has many other brothers and sisters. They grew up around gangs and many of them joined them to be able to support themselves as my grandmother and grandfather both ended up unaliving from oding and something else. My father and his twin brother Lamar moved across the country to where I live now.
The story of my mom and dad is unclear but they did fall inlove and had me. When I was born my father started cheating on my mom, using substances, lying, etc. When my mom found out she broke up with him, ever since he hasnt been a constant in my life. When he was in my life it was never a good thing.
He was kidnapped me, left me in trap houses with strangers, hit me, threw things at my face (I now have a scar on my face), screamed in my face, tried to unalive Lamar infront of me.
when lamar died he refused to acknowledge my existence and fled back to his home state, told me he wanted to unalive himself and it was my fault, showed up to my home on multiple occasions on substances, etc.
Even after everything I still defended him because he’s my father and I love him but I realized he’ll never change no matter how hard I try.
What got me to my breaking point is he’s gone back to doing some very stupid things like posting his personal information on facebook, he started drinking and doing substances so much he “accidentally” sent me and my cousin (lamars son) a picture of his PP.
When I called to confront him he dismissed me saying it wasn’t meant for me and to get over it. Instead I told him I was done with putting up his bs and to never speak to me again.
After I had posted saying he was no longer going to be in my life his side of the family said I was being an AH and unreasonable saying I should always support him because of what he has been through, but what about me though? AITAH?

I'm a 47 year old divorced single mother of one. My son is 22 years old and still lives with me. We currently live in my parent's basement apartment. I have one sister who is 41. She has been living with my parents for several years now. My sister has never been married and has no children. My relationship with my sister is horrible. I try to avoid speaking to her or even being in the same space with her, but since we live in the same home we cross paths sometimes. She fills my mother's head with all kinds of negative things about me, mostly untrue or greatly embellished. My sister has told me on more than one occasion that she resents me for having been married and having had a child because she didn't get to experience those things. I can understand that to an extent, however my ex-husband was physically abusive and constantly cheated on me and this is something that my whole family knows very well. One of my sister's favorite things to do is create a fake profile and try to troll mine or my son's social media. We have her actual profile blocked from our Facebook and Instagram pages, so what does she do? She creates a fake profile or has one of her "friends" try and stalk our social media in order to try and find out what is going on in our lives.
As teenagers my sister and I were never allowed to have guys over to our home, and especially not for overnight visits. I have always felt that this was a really antiquated way of thinking, but it was my parent's rules and I lived under their roof so I didn't argue. I mention this because my son has a girlfriend who he has now been dating close to a year. She is very sweet and seems to have a good head on her shoulders. I have really grown quite fond of her, and I allow her to visit my son at our house because they aren't teenagers anymore. When my sister sees his girlfriend's car parked in front of our home, she goes outside and takes several pictures of her car and her license plate and then sends me a text message that says "We aren't stupid, she shouldn't be over here. That's mom and dad's rules." And then she immediately informs my mother about the situation which causes a shit show. I spoke with my mother about this and told her that I thought that this rule was a little silly for a 22 yr old man. My mother became angry and started talking about how my sister informed her that his girlfriend had practically moved into the basement and that he wasn't going to be shacking up down there and that he was a deadbeat. First of all, I live down there as well and I definitely would have noticed if his gf had moved in and she most certainly has not. She still lives at home with her parents. Secondly, I never would have dreamed that my mother would ever refer to my child as a deadbeat.
So now we come to the icing on the cake. Yesterday my mother was showing me something on her cell phone that she wanted me to order for her. She handed me her phone and told me that she would be right back. I decided to take a glance at the texts that my sister had sent her while I had the opportunity to do so. The last message that my sister had sent was on 4-1-24. It was a social media post from either my son or his gf announcing that they are having a baby. I had absolutely no idea and was shocked to find out this way. My sister and my mother have known that I'm going to be a grandmother for almost 2 months and I had no freaking clue! My sister had apparently trolled either his or her social media and obtained this information and then forwarded it to my mother. My mother has said not one word to me. I immediately contacted my son to verify this and he said they were waiting until she got a little further along to tell me. I feel such anger towards my mother and sister. I feel betrayed by them, and I feel like they are against me in life. I used to have a wonderful relationship with my mother and now I am so angry and confused as to why she is acting like this. I am currently in the process of trying to find my own place again and get away from this toxicity. I was just looking for any advice or thoughts on how to handle this with my mother.

When I think of marriage, my main thoughts are of people saying how hard it is, how much work it is, how annoying their spouses (mainly husbands) are, how they get bored sexually even if they are 10000% in love with their partners, how they become roommates, 50% divorce rate, etc etc. And after watching the most recent Ashley Madison documentary, it just seems near impossible to find a man whom you can truly trust not to cheat or want to cheat on you.
All those things seem to outweigh the possibility of having a truly fulfilling and loving marriage.
I don’t necessarily want to “die alone” but it just seems so much easier to be by myself. I’m 42, no children and have been in a few long-term loving monogamous relationships.
Welcome to anyone either agreeing with me or people in happy marriages talking me off of this cliff.

Hello!
Today I felt like telling my story that don’t matter but actually does because it really built my character haha when I was 13 years old I had a Facebook profile from a character that I like, Zack Fair from Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core, at the beginning I didn’t even know what role play was, just that I really wanted to play as him. I added a bunch of people roleplaying as other characters from that game in particular and later on just random accounts from other games, I was very shy and didn’t actually role play that much because I was insecure about my English since it’s not my mother tongue, so I kinda just saw everything from the sidelines, with kinda no popular status I got a real life friend to join me as Aerith side note she didn’t even play the game or knew anything from it but went ahead and created an account to role play with me who was my character’s love interest and we would play as a couple. Nothing really happened at the beginning, until it did.
I added a profile playing as Ike from Fire Emblem and we started talking, only thing I know is that he’s a guy haha so we started talking and I explained him about my character and the game which got him interested about it, I really liked him he was cool at that time. He even left his Ike account to make one for Cloud Strife, a character from Final Fantasy VII. My character’s life was started to progress since he was being so extrovert, loud, cringy haha I made friends from role playing like Xion from Kingdom Hearts who I believe was a girl, Roxas from Kingdom Hearts who was a girl too, shout out to my girl! We still talk to this day.
Zack and Aerith got engaged after a while and we adopted Xion as our daughter, but little did they know I was having an affair with Cloud.
Cloud and I got closer and closer by talking I swear everyday after school, next fact I unlocked from him was that he was from the UK, we would talk about our interests and how was our day without revealing our names, to this day I don’t know his, but I would feel like we were actually friends on the start, he would tell me I play the best as my character, even saying I was actually him so I think that started to mess with my head, what was really aimed at my character and my real identity? Because it felt like we were in a relationship, he would say he liked me and that we should be together, so we started talking more flirty and couple like, even role play smut but it would be so awkward like *moan* and stuff haha nothing graphic, I don’t know why I didn’t tell my wife, to the outside we were this happy family, even my daughter had a crush on Cloud and I would discourage to pursue him, my thinking was he’s gay you don’t have a chance but with me it’s different.
I am Zack Fair.
The way I would role play was using fanarts, I would make albums from the characters and post a bunch of cute fanart and go from there, since it was easier to describe the scenery because of my English. I made albums from most of the characters of my game, even albums titled as family and it would be crossovers from Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. Other people used this method I am not claiming it as my own, but overall this life was competitive I remember another Zack Fair named with the Japanese pronunciation Zakkusu Fea and I was totally jealous of him, he was so popular he had his Aerith and his family, their profile pictures were pretty so that made him pretty in my head, there was also this other Cloud Strife but named Cloud NotaChocobo something among those lines and he was a very cute boy, he always pick the cutest fanart of Cloud, but I never spoke with any of them I was shy and I tried to expand my social circle.
But Aerith disliked Cloud to the point she deleted him from Facebook, I don’t remember the motives but he would be sarcastically rude to her, it wasn’t really just one big event and I was really a coward to not defend my wife, instead I wouldn’t really interact in public with him, it was all on private messages, one day Aerith suggested we should switch accounts for a day and I accepted because I thought it would be fun to play as her. Big mistake.
She saw,
everything.
She posted on my wall saying what she found out, would copy paste fragment of what we told each other, our professions of love, I tried to warn Cloud but I was not on his friend list, soon enough friends started to notice the posts on my profile and got involved, I was rightfully the bad guy in all this, my daughter hated me because here I was breaking the family apart and engaging with the guy she wanted. I immediately apologized to my friend in real life playing as Aerith and she just lol’d telling me it was okay it was just a joke but in my mind it wasn’t. We got a divorce after that and she kept engaging on role playing as a single mom, later on I saw she remarried but then she really wasn’t much online anymore. For myself I grow out a mustache, a friend drew one from one of my profile pictures, it was popular back in 2008, haha, this face was even my signature :{D.
I went back to Cloud, we were apologetic of what had happened and soon enough it was like before, only this time I would tell him that I wanted our relationship to be public but he wasn’t ready yet, so I waited and waited but deep inside I felt hurt because I thought he didn’t love me in real life, he would then tell me his problems from his day, that he was at a friend’s house playing spin the bottle and he had to kiss a guy but didn’t because he was shy about it and I was so jealous about it I thought we broke up in that moment but didn’t say nothing, he would give me a few hints here and there about his personal life, I only know he has his mother and a big brother and were from India, he would send me links to Indian songs and dramas from Bollywood, that made him happy. One time while looking at profiles to add from mutual friends I saw an account named after my character and the profile was a real photo of an Indian guy, I looked through his profile and I got the vibe it was him, but to this day I don’t know since I never told him and the account was soon deleted or maybe he changed the profile picture since there were so many accounts with the same name.
We kept our relationship private until one day he said he was ready to make it public I was very excited about it, our friends congratulated us and I thought this new step would be so much fun but it went downhill from here. I don’t really remember anything from here I think because it were the days that I really struggled with balancing this persona and my own, the friends I made here would vent to me about their real life problems and I would try to help them as much as a 13 year old can, later I fell sick to the stomach turns out I had gastritis from all the stress, I remember leaving the Doctor with my mom telling her “So it’s because of the stress? But I like helping people, they tell me their problems…” and she said something among the lines of how they wouldn’t help me back, it sucked.
Tumblr was a miracle, I got my blog and I got obsessed with it, since I loved many tv shoes back in the day I enjoyed the content that people were posting, the images, the gifsets, the audios, the videos, the memes we got from that like the Mishapocalypse haha. Again I don’t really remember how Cloud and I broke up but I’m pretty sure he broke up with me, I told my friend Roxas about it and we decided to have a public relationship but really we were just friends, in my head I tried to make Cloud jealous but later on I didn't even care he had changed and I disliked this new persona and speaking of people they were not getting online as much anymore, so leaving was easy, I added Roxas to my real account and didn't look back.
I would only get online from time to time since I was afraid my account could get hacked or deleted for inactivity, but when I was logged I could say hi to all my friends and I got some juicy gossip, remember Cloud? He was in distress telling me that he was role playing with a mutual friend of us, a Genesis from Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core, and boy they were role playing smut and Genesis’ mother caught a glimpse or something but she read all that and grounded him from his computer, I was indifferent from it I recall only saying him something like: Too bad. To this day I have the gut feeling that he was cheating on me, not with Genesis but I recall him interacting in a suspicious way with other Zacks, oh yeah he only liked Zack Fair.
Later on I saw that Cloud changed again his behavior, he was like a role play police if he didn’t like how you act he would let you know about it, he made a lot of accounts like a second Cloud Strife, a Genesis Rhapsodos one, one of my character Zack Fair. Until I logged one day and I couldn’t find him on my friend list until I realized he deleted me, with time I never found his account, maybe he deleted them all, I don’t know since roleplaying on Facebook wasn’t as popular.
That is all I have to say, I might have little stories here and there about these time but overall it really messed with my reality of how I view these friendships… relationships… I don’t regret it much, it was a fun escape since I hated my middle school haha but super cringe it let’s be real, I don’t really remember much apart from minor details or fun stuff that happened but shoutout to that other Zack Fair from Italy on his mid 20’s who told me he was in a metal band and learnt German from metal music who got stabbed in a bar I don’t remember why but when I told him I was a girl he wanted to be in a relationship with me and come visit me, I shut that shit down. But hi bro o/

An open letter to my ex’s new girlfriend. She deserves to know that he wasn’t faithful to her the first time and was not truly single when they reconnected. My therapist recommended I write about it. It’s been sitting here for a while so I decided to share it and let this be my final closure.
This is all true, with no embellishments and events recounted as I understood them to be. We can only believe the truth that others allow us to see.
D and I met through a local hiking group. I had chatted with D a few times over a year on things like cameras, cars and waterfalls. We followed each other on Insta. I didn’t have anyone to go hiking with me this particular week and had been chatting with D about something, so asked if he would like to hike with me. He said sure and we made plans to meet.
The first impression I had of him was he seemed kind of nerdy and inexperienced. He had long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail and oval rimless glasses. Just some kid I was going to hike with. He led the way and was quiet at first. But towards the middle of the hike, we talked about where we were in relationships. Or he did. He did most of the talking. He told me about a friend with benefits situation with A. That he wanted more, but it couldn’t happen because she was living with a guy. And had been for years. The guy was helping raise her daughter, who she had gotten pregnant with during a teenage one night stand. A basic single mom. D had gotten his dog from them, a great dane and said he had kept in touch with her and taken some pictures of the puppies they had. At some point, D and A began a sexual relationship. I never asked how it happened, who initiated, I was just stunned that this guy dumped this on me, someone he knew for literally hours. It made me feel gross. He justified his interaction with her because her partneboyfriend was a narcissist and treated her horribly. She was claiming to be in the process of moving out and he said when she was, they could be a public couple. He told me details about her - her job, what kind of car she drove, how they communicated. He obviously was hung up on her. I asked him if he didn’t feel bad for cheating, and he said no, he wasn’t cheating, that she was, but he wasn’t. He didn’t have anyone to cheat on. I still don’t understand that justification at all. He was partaking in a clandestine act, it was a secret that was kept between them and if it came out, would affect others. This had been going on for four years. He said that A encouraged him to date other people and he had tried on a few occasions. He had met N through his Facebook photography page. He said he only saw her a few times over two months and she was crazy. She texted him twenty times in an hour when he didn’t respond. So he blocked her. I told him he could have just told her he would get back to her later, but he said no, she was annoying. He took the easy way out and blocked her. I notice that this guy takes the easy way out on a lot of things. He truly has no back bone. But we’ll get to that later.
We had a good day. It was a good hike. We continued to talk and spend time together after that. Platonically, then a bit more as time went on. Two months into knowing D, I was with a good friend, K, who I had also met through the group. She had recently broken up with her boyfriend, J. I hadn’t met him, but didn’t like what I heard about him. He had things that he hid from her. They had dated on and off for over a year. She brought up J and said she thinks he was dating this woman where they work believed it started while they were still in a relationship. She said they worked together and named this woman’s job. She said she saw the car she drives. She mentioned that this person had a daughter. All of those details were very specific and exact descriptors of what D had told me about his FWB, A. I hated to see my friend, K, in distress, so I told her that I thought I knew who this person was. I asked if her name might be A, and K said yes, that’s it! I told her that I knew of her through a mutual friend. I said she had lived with a man and she seemed to be in the process of moving out. That’s all I could share. This is where things got weird. I don’t remember how it all happened, but something along the lines of K and J exchanged words. She pressed me for where this knowledge I had came from, so I caved and told her D, but she could not say anything. D had become a bit distant and I was going to tell him, but figured why, if he wasn’t hanging around, I didn’t want to be involved in this. We were casual, nothing set in stone. A few days later, he was being odd and I said, it’s a small world, my friend’s ex is dating someone who drives this kind of car, has this kind of job, sounds just like A. I knew he didn’t know this, and probably still thought he had a chance with A because she was still leading him on even though he claimed he hadn’t seen her in person for months. He was surprised, I could tell he was pissed in the manner he responded. I stepped back and said I didn’t want to be involved in this shit show, I was just letting him know because he deserved to. Apparently A was dating J while still living with the long time boyfriend, but the long time boyfriend didn't know about J or D. D then reached out to the long time boyfriend and told him that A had been cheating on him for years (but failed to tell him that he was the one that A was cheating with, or one of the ones). D loves drama. He even admitted it. He confronted A, sent me a bunch of screen shots of their convo. They kept their convos secret on snapchat. The whole thing is so fucked up, that as I’m writing it out, I can’t believe I was even involved in something like this. I told D to keep me out of it, that I didn’t want to be involved in this. Eventually A moved to her own place and stayed in a relationship with J.
I kept my distance from D, but he would reach out every few days to remind me he was here. We remained friendly for a few months then embarked on what would become a year long relationship. It wasn’t something I planned or even wanted, but it happened and we spent a good amount of time together. Towards the end, I was getting tired of his low vibe energy, his racist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-semetic comments, his lack of engagement conversationally and his very narrow minded world view. He was 34, still living with his parents, with no intentions to leave, wouldn’t spend the night, was breadcrumbing me. I was seeing him for who he really was, not what I envisioned he was. What was I doing? I knew we had to break up, but I put it off. The last time I saw him, he was doing everything he could to turn me off. On his phone constantly (I’m now sure he was already talking with or seeing N, I had a feeling he was chatting with someone), vaping more than usual, the sex wasn’t as connected as it usually was, dropping snide comments, he was just off in a way that was not the him I knew at all. We texted a bit, then a few days later, I called him in the evening. He didn’t answer or call me back. The next night, I texted him that it seemed he was going out of his way to ignore me, so even though I felt our year together deserved a respectable parting, he obviously wasn’t going to give me that. And I was done. He texted immediately that he was going to call me back but he forgot and he was sorry he couldn’t give me more at this time, but he would like to remain friends and I could invite him to hike. Thanks for the good times. I ok’d it and that was it.
I didn’t hear from him at all. On my birthday a few weeks later, I saw a FB post he made about if your birthday is around now, that means your dad looked at your mom on Mother’s Day and said, you’re not a mother now, but I can make you one. It was so stupid. I texted him and said you didn’t have to do higher math to come up with that, you could have just said happy birthday. He responded that he knew a bunch of people with birthdays around then and that was for all of them but happy birthday. I told him thanks, then told him a bit about my new job, and that he was right, it was tiring because I still have my other job when i came home from the new one and sometimes was gone from 6am to 9pm. A while later, he sent me a wall of text, going on about how now imagine doing that 6 nights a week because someone (he was meaning me) wanted you to come over, and if he didn’t, that someone made him feel guilty and all of the work he had to do, and if he couldn’t hike or hang out on the weekend, again, the someone made him feel bad, etc. And if he didn’t comment or respond to every FB or insta post or text that someone got upset. I read it a few times and my response was, first, I don’t know whose house you’re going to 6 nights a week, but it’s not mine. And I don’t get upset if you don’t respond to everything because I rarely post and I wait days for texts sometimes. And this sounds like how you described N, not me, so keep us straight.
A week later, I see N interacting with D’s FB feed. Apparently she got unblocked. Did she reach out to him or him to her first? Just so happens she thought the birthday post was for her. It was all I could do to not comment on it, but I didn’t want to be a part of any of their drama, so I kept it to myself. D had something of mine, I asked for it back. He said he was so busy, he didn’t know when he could get it to me. I waited a week. Sure, I FB stalked N and saw that D had interacted with her stuff in an overly friendly manner. I’m not stupid and I’m more observant than I let on. So I contacted him for my item again and offered to come get it. He said he wouldn’t be home (it was a Monday night, he was always home on Monday nights - we rarely got together on Mondays because the few times we did, he was always in a mood, so I kept Mondays distant). I said i could meet him somewhere when he got home and that I just wanted to get this over with. He said he didn’t know what that meant, but ok. I said I notice that you’ve reacquainted yourself with N. That’s an interesting choice. I guess you’ll be at her house tonight. An hour later, he left the item by my back steps and sped away in his obnoxiously loud man child sportscar that he can only afford because he still lives with his parents. I called, he didn’t answer. I texted and asked if I needed to get an STD test and the only thing he said was “I never cheated on you.” Cheating to him just means he didn’t have sex with her while we were still together, but I don’t believe that either. Why would I? I deleted him immediately. He has a second FB profile that he uses just to snoop, and I let that one remain.
He had told me he would never get back together with an ex, especially N. He mentioned her once or twice, never with any enthusiasm, or any kind of empathy. She was easy to snag, a bit desperate. He had mentioned another woman who he was FB friends with. He had hung out with her once, but didn’t like the way she talked, but he said on more than one occasion, “I should date her and be really mean to her and see how long it takes for her to walk away”. People who think that way are not ok. They are off in the head. D really had very limited compassion and no moral compass. It took me a while to get over it, I think mostly because we didn’t have closure. We had split up for a week a few months into the relationship, and I asked for a convo, I just wanted to state a few things. We didn’t argue, I asked him questions, I felt settled and thanked him for allowing me that space to talk. We both agreed it was better when we communicated like that. He said he wasn’t happy about our parting and he would still like to see me. I agreed because it seemed like we had come to a mutual place of understanding, but we never had communication like that again. I wish he would have just broken things off earlier, instead of lining N up before he could fully disengage from me. He’s a complete coward and that along with him leaving the item by my back step proves it to me. He couldn’t be a man and look me in the eye. Maybe N is more his speed. Maybe she has the same narrow world views and disrespect for others of different races and religious beliefs. Maybe they are a match. But I wanted to let her know the kind of person he really is, and I think she knows. She just doesn't want to believe it, when honestly, having him as a partner is not a flex. Quite the opposite when you know the kind of person he is. I’ll bet he told N that I texted him non stop too, which I never did. D probably says all of his exes are crazy, now including me. If I ever run into D and N, I will happily hand my phone over and share his texts and screen shots so she can see the truth. Maybe she will stumble upon this, but I doubt it. Whether she believes it or not is up to her.

TLDR: Girlfriend cheated less than a month ago with a guy she met online, been profusely apologetic. I'm completely lost and have no idea if I should give her one last chance or end it.
Girlfriend (22F) of 1 year confessed to me (29M) last night that she cheated on me less than a month ago, with some guy she met on social networks. I've been an empty shell ever since.
For some background, she likes to meet people online and talk through the apps. I'm not the jealous type nor a control freak, she's a free woman. She also regularly keeps me updated on her new friends, without my asking, as if to let me know she's not doing anything suspicious (which could be suspicious in itself, I'll give you that). I've never been worried, and she even instantly blocks the guys that don't respect her boundaries or when I have the feeling something's off. I'm a dude, I know what dudes want.
Anyway, I was doing the dishes last night, when she comes out of the bathroom not her usual self. She seemed worried, and I asked her what's up. She tells me to sit down and that she must talk to me about something important. I instantly thought she had done a pregnancy test and that the result was positive, since we had a pregnancy scare a few months ago.
"Remember Thomas?" (Not the real name) "Sure" I answer.
Thomas is a guy her age she met on Instagram, and they do the same job. They regularly exchange ways of doing things, and he honestly seemed like a good guy.
"Well, he's been harassing me and threatening to look you up on Facebook to tell you we've done things together." "And?" "And I'm scared of what he might say, and your reaction."
I'm not the type to get angry easily. I'm tall and strong, and most people don't take their chances at even trying to piss me off.
"We kissed."
Time kinda stopped around me for a moment. I couldn't believe it.
"I didn't want to, it was a moment of weakness." "Is it all that's happened?"
She doesn't answer and her phone keeps ringing from the message notifications from Thomas. I feel something's really off.
"Is it all that's happened?" I insist.
She gets up because the question clearly made her uncomfortable.
"No." "Tell me."
She pauses.
"There was penetration."
At that instant, my world collapses. I feel like Ali and Tyson teamed up to beat me up. I feel numb, disgusted, empty, angry, powerless... I haven't eaten nor slept since. Its eating me up inside, my head is a mess, and I don't know what to do.
I love her, we have projects together. We planned so much stuff. Her parents love me, mine love her, and they get along so well. She loves my dogs, and they love her back.
I believe her when she says she rejected him almost immediately and felt disgusted at herself. She's been nothing but apologetic ever since, and I feel like she's sincere about it. But something broke inside of me. All the trust I put in her was smashed, and I have no idea whether I can glue the pieces back together. Perhaps time is the answer. But, right now, I can't even look her in the eyes, even less so hold her in my arms. I'm totally apathetic.
So I'm turning to Reddit, I need some advice, maybe stories about people who gave their SO one last chance and how it turned out. She's away at her parents' for a few days. She gave me the keys to her apartment, and I don't know yet if I should go there and gather my stuff, or give her that last chance. She says she'll do anything to keep me and be with me, that she fucked up and isn't looking for excuses. I really want to believe her, but I don't know if I can do it, if anything can be salvaged from the relationship.
She's the best person I've ever known, the light of my days. She got me to quit smoking pot, helped me out of a major depression by loving and caring for me. I love her to the end of the ever expanding universe, which makes the decision so difficult.

i had a boyfriend at my uni he was final year student and i had just got admission in the same uni. he cheated on me later he was also related to me .. during relationship he forced me for physical after sometime he lost interest. then he broke up with me saying family won't accept our relationship. and after so months of breakup i had finally moved on. one guy came to my life , he was crushing me since 2 years and had sent request on Facebook but me being loyal to my ex i didn't respond to it.. i don't remember him as i used to get a lot of friend requests back then. so this guy (new one ) he was from another country but of same caste went to UK for further studies and there he met my relatives , through whom he got connected to me, he came to me with the intention of marrying me, i felt he was my soulmate we both felt, but times went by and i shared him about my past thinking he would accept it as he was the one who came into my life with the intention of marrying me.. now he's so insecure as he knows that guy's name, his address and every details of him. Does your past really matter to your present one? Can one not accept your past? does this happen for real? Or he find someone in the middle so he just got a reason to leave me ? Did he ran out of feelings all of a sudden? I'm so heartbroken as he left me with this reason that he cannot accept my past. I cannot change it. i mean who doesn't have past ? does virginity matter so much in relationship? Am i wrong or he's wrong? I mean how can someone love you so much and leave you like you mean nothing to them? I LOVE YOU. I WANT YOU BACK. You know that I'm not going back to him but why are you acting this way . It's hurting me like hell.
can somebody help me getting him back with the positive words? he might melt or anything. I'm having a very hard time. I love him so bad.

I’m (20M) living at home. Over the years, I’ve developed resentment towards my dad. He provides for me and my family (mom and sibling at home) and does his best for us to be physically and financially stable. But there have been incidents here and there which have damaged our relationship together.
We have always clashed heads and disagreed on many things, which would more often than not, rise to physical and extreme vocal confrontations. Neither of us have talked about the issues to one another, much less apologized or work through the many issues between us. Instead, he’d usually pretend nothing even happened and I would stay quiet out of fear of making the situation worse.
Recently, we had a disagreement over some things while we were in Mexico. We were both drunk and he was being very stubborn and disrespectful. I finally decided to express myself, as I haven’t been for so long. I let loose and begin to tell him off, how I didn’t want to talk to him, see him, I didn’t want anything to do with him. I was very emotional, not just because of what had happened that night but because of the built-up issues over the years and after bottling up my emotions forever, they finally spilled and I exploded. He began to ugly cry and sob, as he was feeling emotional before this(we went to go visit my grandma’s grave). A part of me felt shitty and regretful. But another felt weirdly satisfied that he finally felt how I had been feeling for years. So, we get home and I’m just disassociating the entire ride home. I hear him sniffling and crying at one point and I begin to reflect on my actions. My mom was driving and trying to comfort him. Got home, he went to bed and I went to my room, neither of us spoke a word to one another. The next day, I was full of anxiety and was putting off seeing him as to prevent any weird interaction between us. Once I leave my room after being in it all day, he acts like nothing happened, which is both a relief but also hurtful.
A few months ago, my sibling and I discovered text messages on his phone to another woman. We didn’t know how to react or what to do. We decided the best thing to do was to discuss this with our other siblings who no longer live with us at home. But we don’t see each other in person too often and it doesn’t seem right to do it over the phone so we unfortunately haven’t gotten around to it.
I’m convinced my mom knows. Although she has never confirmed it directly nor have we talked about the situation at hand, she discovered my dad had a fake facebook account under a different name. She’s also noticed how my dad would leave the house and say something along the lines of “I’ll leave for X reason, I’ll be back later”, despite the hours gone being senseless. For example, on two separate occasions where my mom left for a trip, my dad was supposed to pick her up from the airport (30 mins away). On both occasions, he told my sibling and I he would leave to go pick her up but then we’d get a text from my mom asking our ETA hours later. He left to “go pick her up” hours before she even landed and would tell us this thinking that we wouldn’t know our mom’s arrival time and wouldn’t say anything to her.
Anyways, my issues with my dad coupled with his cheating on my mom has left me full of anxiety and dread. I don’t know how our relationship together will be like and even worse, would this result in a divorce and break up our family? Should I try to speak about this with my other siblings? Seek therapy? I know the most obvious way to go would be to talk with my parents about these issues but I get so much anxiety about it and want to hear what others think before taking that route.
Edit: this is my first time posting on Reddit and I don’t use this app very often. Apologies if my post doesn’t adhere to the usual stuff.