I worked in the Provo Utah Temple and the Temple Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I reported to my supervisor, director, managing director, executive director, HR, general authorities, and top leadership if the Church the abuse suffered by myself and many Church employees in the Provo Utah Temple they ignored me, retaliated, became hostile, defended the abusers, and punished me. They sought to silence me, refused to follow Church HR policies, practices and procedures, and ultimately sought to silence me. In my experience the Church doesn't care about the truth of abuse, illegal conduct I witnessed in the Temples, and doesn't want bad news to get to the First Presidency of the Church. So they act in disgusting, despicable, and illegal ways to silence whistleblowers.
As I blew the whistle my direct report began to lie to the Temple President and Temple Department about my conduct. All written documentation shows I received above average reviews yet behind the scenes he verbally was destroying my reputation and career. This began after he broke into my computer by resetting my password, stealing my journal and password file, and paying for a software cracking utility to get into my journal and password file. I was then transferred tot he Temple Department for a "developmental assignment". During this time I had to go see a therapist and get on medication to deal with the constant depression I felt. The Recorder still works in a temple today.
Once at the Temple Department my job was threatened by the Director only a few days after arriving. He stated that because I asked to see an HR policy in writing that I lacked judgement, may never be a Temple Recorder, and they were considering whether to keep me. He was an abusive, Pharisaic, self righteous, hypocritical, and overbearing man. So abusive and oppressive was this man that I began to have bleeding ulcers and severe stomach pain every time I got off the bus to start my day at the Church office buildings. He was a vile man and still works in the temple department today.
Eventually, I was forced out of my job and was told the reason was that I was "not a good fit" for the job despite recommendations for temple presidencies, the temple recorder (in writing), and an analysis they had me do (they refused to share the results with me and were trying to use that analysis to get show I wasn't a good fit. However, when I passed it they simply used "not a good fit" as an excuse). When I asked, in a recorded conversation, what I had done wrong he stated I had done nothing wrong, my work was excellent, and acknowledged my excellent reviews.
However, when I began to appeal suddenly multiple "issues" with my conduct and work suddenly arose. These deceptive and manipulative men didn't realize I had recorded the conversation and when I presented that fact they suddenly stated my recording as one of the reasons for my being released. Think about that for a moment, it is astounding! They then sought to demonize me and have ever since. They also said they were "tucked it" with their attorneys, Kirton & McConkie, who also refused to look at the evidence or acknowledge the Church was not following their own procedures for termination.
The Church failed to train and counsel, were inconsistent in their treatment of employees, spoke inappropriately about current and former employees, did not hold regular development discussions, did not give honest and timely feedback or write me up if indeed I had done the things they said I did as they tried to defend their termination actions, did not give me 3 appeals as required by their own policies, did not follow their own termination checklist, did not give opportunities to improve my performance if what they said during my appeals was true, did not give me an opportunity to explain my side of the situation, did not ensure the action taken was consistent with the action taken for other employees, and did not consistently apply policies, procedures and standards of performance.
Why? Because I was a whistleblower trying to expose abuse in a Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a whistleblower their goal was to shut me down as quickly and harshly as possible. They saw my reports as attacking the Church. How dare I speak in such a manner about my superiors and the "only true and living church on the face of the earth". How dare I call into question the conduct of such inspired and holy men.
My advice is to not bother trying to go to the Church. Go to law enforcement, to state and federal agencies, to an attorney. But DO NOT try to report illegal activity to the Church. They simply don't care and will seek to punish and bury you.

FTM 16 weeks pregnant. In laws live on the east coast and want to book flights ahead of time around the time of our due date to be here ready to meet the baby when born. I’m generally a pretty private person. I’m also genuinely scared about the labor ahead and how torn up my body may be after the fact. Being a FTM, I really don’t know what to expect or how my recovery will go. I went through IVF for this pregnancy, so the whole process was quite traumatic. Probably partly due to that, I’m also scared about my in laws passing flu or other things to my baby after coming off a plane.
My in laws are very nice people, but can be overbearing. My FIL doesn’t really understand boundaries (he once followed me into the bathroom instead of getting the message that we were done chatting). I wouldn’t expect either of them to be hugely helpful with the types of things I’d want help with (cooking, cleaning), and think they’ll just want to pass the baby around. I also think it would be so stressful for me to have them in town during the home stretch of pregnancy, just waiting for me to have the baby.
I’ve expressed to my husband that I would like to tell them we will let them know when we’re ready for visitors and that we don’t know when the baby will come or how long after that we’d be ready for visitors. My husband is on board and supportive, but so nervous about offending and upsetting his parents. The conversation was broached the other day, and my FIL was shocked that we might want to bond as a family before having visitors. My parents are local too, so he immediately made the comparison and asked if my parents would also wait to meet the baby. My response is anyone who is coming over is coming to help me, not to meet the baby. And the priority will be my comfort, not fairness. I absolutely cannot be tits out nursing in front of my in laws as that would be mortifying for me.
One compromise that was suggested was to allow them to book plane tickets for 2-4 weeks after the due date. They would stay in a hotel. I still worry about how I’ll be doing and how much time we’ll have to ourselves to bond as a family, depending on when I end up actually delivering.
For those who’ve been in a similar position, how soon after having the baby we’re you feeling well enough to have out of town visitors over? 2 weeks? 4 weeks? I think it’s probably different for everyone which is why I’d like to decide after I’ve had the baby and have a better idea of what I’m dealing with recovery-wise.
Any good suggestions on how to approach the conversation or compromise? I really do want to have a good long term relationship with my in laws, and also want the same for my baby with her grandparents. I know I’m lucky to have in laws that care and are excited, and I feel guilty pushing them away. Is it selfish to ask them to wait until we feel ready?

WARNING, LONG AS FUCK. SORRY

Intro
Hello! As this insane situation continues on, I’ve seen lots of comments about the Korean reaction to it. There have been lots of comments expressing bafflement that so many people around the world, but particularly in Korea, seem to be supporting MHJ. A lot of people have also expressed confusion (and sometimes anger) and question how this woman became a ‘feminist icon’ since her fiery press conference.
A lot of people have given brief explanations about how she appealed to the working class and how her anger resonated with the anger of so many young women in Korea. And indeed, MHJ support was most prevalent in online communities frequented by young or young adult women. So what gives?
I chanced upon this incredibly well written article, which explains just how MHJ was able have such a chokehold on the Korean general public, and all the ‘cultural context’ (very hot phrase these days lol) to understand MHJ’s angle. I’ve seen many of the points this article makes around on this subreddit, but not consolidated as well as this. It also conveniently summarizes this entire case (until the 17th anyway)!
I considered just adding it as a comment on the existing megathreads, but (excuse my greed) I wanted as many eyes on it as possible. And also this shit doesn't fit in a single comment...
Here is the link to the article and below is my translation of it. Please excuse any grammar mistakes or typos. Do keep in mind that this is, in the end, an opinion piece and does go against MHJ’s stance. I hope you’ll read with an open mind if you support MHJ.
What about Min Heejin is making people so fanatic?
[Mediaus=Reporter Yoon Kwangeun’s Column]
The feud between HYBE and Min Heejin has become increasingly chaotic as days go by. In fact, now it is confusing to even try and remember what the initial cause of this feud. Both sides entered their first legal procedure on the 17th. This hearing was for a provisional injunction filed by Min Heejin (hence shortened to MHJ because I’m lazy), CEO of ADOR, to prohibit the use of HYBE’s voting rights (in the upcoming shareholder meeting).
This fight is being fiercely fought in the court of public opinion. The younger generation and female-dominated communities are supporting MHJ, while other sites seem more divided in their support for either side. Both HYBE and MHJ have been repeatedly exposing each other to try and sway public opinion, and on the 17th, there have been a deluge of articles airing each other’s dirty laundry. In particular, MHJ’s side’s method of winning the public opinion seemed to focus on diverting the discussion from issues like embezzlement and the takeover of management rights to generating negative public opinion towards HYBE. During this process, broader topics regarding the sustainable development of Kpop and many HYBE groups, such as ILLIT, Le Sserafim, and BTS have been targeted in these exposés. Currently, public opinion on most SNS platforms and majority of large communities are overwhelmingly critical of HYBE. This article will present and examine the stances and strategies of MHJ’s side that has resonated with the public in order to separate true and false.
When HYBE first publicized this case with the keyword ‘takeover of management rights,’ it looked as though MHJ was cornered at a cliff’s edge. To be able to completely turn the tides shows the enormous impact of that press conference. In truth, it was as if everyone had been bewitched. As soon as the conference ended, the internet exploded with talk about MHJ, and many TV journalists were busy praising it as “shocking.” What MHJ did exactly is ‘public agitation’ (used in a neutral sense). Her opponent during this press conference was not Bang Sihyuk but the ‘public,’ and her aim was not to clarify the existing accusations but to introduce her own. In doing this, she expanded the scope of the case and simultaneously seized the initiative. While many people evaluated the conference with keywords such as ‘honesty’ and ‘impulsiveness,’ in truth, it was meticulously prepared and controlled.
Her approach was effective because she presented topics that people could easily understand. The points of contention during this feud—embezzlement, control of management rights, and shareholder contracts—are difficult and tedious to understand without knowledge of corporate law. Initially, public opinion simplified the issue by criticizing MHJ as someone ungrateful to the company that supported her. This reaction was a form of false consciousness, following the perspective of the ruling class and lambasting her for throwing muddy water (i.e. to make dirty) on the current social order held by ‘money and corporate power.’
In this situation, MHJ broke the mold by creating a popular “narrative.” During the press conference, as if sharing the nitty-gritty details of her personal diary, she shared stories of a mother-daughter relationship with NewJeans, of the hardships of the working class, of the suffering of women under ‘fucking boomers (gae-jussis),’ and of the hypocrisies within the Kpop industry, weaving a Cinderella-like tale while casting the role of the evil stepsister to other idol groups with existing negative public opinion. She utilized intuitive topics that the general public could easily understand and threw out bait to fandoms who were used to discussing such topics as if experts, igniting the fuse on this explosive issue. MHJ positioned herself as a woman/motheworkeartist and claimed the position of the underdog/victim, while attributing HYBE with the label of oppressoassailant opposing these identities. The one word to perfectly tie the entire narrative together: ‘gae-jussi.’
This process unfolded like a monodrama, vividly expressing her unfiltered emotions. As she cried and laughed and raged and swore and shouted, an overwhelming flood of emotions—unimaginable in a typical press conference—swept through the audience, captivating their eyes and ears. In fact, this format was not unfamiliar to many people. It bore a resemblance to the emotions felt in ‘internet livestreaming.’ BJs (broadcast jockeys) on AfreecaTV conduct themselves similarly—crying, laughing, raging, swearing, and dissing others on camera. These intense emotions are then consumed as ‘tension’ and ‘dopamine’ by the audience. For the younger generation accustomed to such internet broadcasts, witnessing such scenes in a formal setting must have been both novel and familiar, and thus a fascinating experience. On the other hand, for those not familiar with such experiences, the press conference may have merely been ‘shocking’ or even deviant behavior. MHJ tailored her appeal to the dominant code of contemporary society, especially to that of the young internet masses.
Storytelling of a Good vs. Evil Narrative
In summary of MHJ’s actions, she adapted the narrative structure of the dispute, weaving a story by rearranging the roles of good and evil. She presented a simple and classic moral tale of good triumphing over evil and positioned herself on the side of virtue. From the press conference to her current interactions with the media, every topic MHJ has raised aims to portray HYBE as a public ‘villain’ and appeals to the public to judge ‘HYBE’s sins.’ In the name of this cause, topics such as the criticism of multi-label diversity, random photocard marketing tactics, and the recent claim of album pushing (sajaegi) have been summoned for her cause, even though they are not directly related to the dispute’s initial topic.
MHJ’s agitation is reminiscent of certain types of politicians who are gaining traction today: those who claim to represent the grassroots, the ‘common man,’ while stirring hostility towards the elite. A by-the-books populist tactic. They ride the wave of social conflict, stoking people’s anger and then presenting targets for that anger. MHJ also added a layer of nationalism to this conflict by calling out Miyawaki Sakura, a Japanese-born idol, and labeling her as an ‘outsider’ who was taking what is rightfully NewJeans’. In doing this, she insinuated that Korean women were being discriminated against because of a Japanese woman. Various ‘pro-Japanese’ conspiracy theories about LE SSERAFIM and HYBE circulating the dark recesses of YouTube and online communities stem from this anti-Japanese sentiment. (Note: the term ‘pro-Japanese’ used here is ‘친일파,’ a very loaded term attributed to pro-Japanese Koreans during Korea’s colonization by Japan. Much worse than just ‘traitor’)
The real danger is that her strategy punishes those who are not responsible. MHJ has directly named NewJeans, ILLIT, and LE SSERAFIM, and placed them in the roles of good and evil under the role of her and Bang’s “children.” The story of ILLIT copying NewJeans, and of NewJeans’ debut being delayed by LE SSERAFIM plays a central role in this Kpop ‘Cinderella’ story that MHJ has strategically revealed to establish her narrative. Prior hostility from encore and Coachella controversies were reignited towards LE SSERAFIM and ILLIT was dragged into the spotlight as a ‘fake NewJeans’ to be publicly shamed.
Public opinion was largely flipped due to the sadism and retributive psychology of a crowd immersed in the narrative of good triumphing over evil. After the press conference, malicious comments regarding ILLIT and LE SSERAFIM surged across communities, YouTube, and all social media platforms. LE SSERAFIM and ILLIT have done nothing but be contracted to a company and work under said company. And yet, they have become villains, not for any wrongful actions, but because they were on the opposite side of a narrative established in one press conference’s monodrama. The severity of these malicious comments has reached alarming and dangerous levels, with malicious comments not only flooding the group accounts but also individual members’ Instagram accounts, receiving thousands of likes. This wave of public opinion also extends to other celebrities who have collaborated with these groups, urging them to “distance themselves” while mockingly mentioning NewJeans. MHJ has continually brought up these groups and much of her current dominance in entertainment communities and social media platforms is largely supported by the hostile public opinion towards this group. This method of mobilizing public opinion is morally questionable and dangerous.
Misinformation Arising from the Narrativization of Reality
The “narrativization of reality” can be an easy means for the public to understand and engage with reality. However, it can also be a trap that distorts one’s perception by fitting that reality into the plot of a story. Facts that do not align with the good vs. evil narrative of MHJ vs. HYBE are dismissed, and those that neatly fit this mold are adopted and exaggerated. Under this framework, it is impossible to accurately understand the hot topic of “the reality of the Kpop industry” and only leads to inaccurate discussions and conclusions. The alleged wrongdoings of HYBE are isolated as purely HYBE’s faults rather than being connected to a broader reflection of the Kpop industry. This phenomenon arises as public agenda (i.e. societal issues) becomes co-opted as a weapon in the battle of public opinion.
MHJ receives significant support from the feminist perspective, as her situation is being viewed through a lens that criticizes a male-dominated society. This is likely due to the image and narrative MHJ has crafted for herself, portraying herself as a “female employee oppressed in a society full of fucking boomers/gae-jussis.” Like in many other fields, there is a consensus that protecting a “successful woman,” which is especially rare in the entertainment industry, from the attacks of male executives aligns with the values of feminism. The article “Before Pointing Fingers at This Woman for Being Eccentric” published by 한겨레21 is an example of this stance. This article evaluates the situation from a feminist perspective but does not consider MHJ’s past actions and values, rather simplistically placing her in the position of an individual woman against the universal norm of a male-dominated group. This is despite the fact that even during the press conference, MHJ revealed perspectives mirroring ‘toxic masculinity.’
By evaluating the ages of female trainees, the appearance of the NewJeans members, and equating womanhood with motherhood, she adheres more with patriarchal conventions. An older woman in the industry, labelling members of ILLIT and LE SSERAFIM—young women who are just setting foot in the industry—as ‘outsiders’ or ‘insiders’ is, even viewed from the kindest of lens, very far from the solidarity that feminism seeks. MHJ’s behavior as a creative director is also very far from feminist principles and often contradicts them. For instance, when the MV for NewJeans’ ‘OMG’ was released, there was controversy as she depicted the gender-based criticism against the group as actions of mentally ill haters (Note: explanation below). Additionally, the story that emerged on the 17th about a sexual harassment complaint involving ADOR’s deputy CEO, alleging that MHJ demanded the deputy CEO treat female employees with an overbearing attitude, is difficult to dismiss. It gives the impression that MHJ is not representing feminism but rather, using feminism as a tool in the battle for public opinion.
Attitudes demonstrating a positive evaluation of MHJ seems particularly strong in progressive media. This attraction towards MHJ is also understandable. She claimed a victory against the elite class using a populist framework and overturned the institutional media’s narrative with a single press conference. On YouTube and online communities, she has garnered considerable support from ‘grassroots’ communities. Her story is filled with elements that progressive media find compelling. However, this attraction should not replace an objective evaluation and reflection of the situation. MHJ’s press conference was inappropriate not just because she abandoned formal public speaking decorum. It was filled with morally and politically incorrect elements, and the emotions it stirred were the core mechanism that captivated public opinion. This spectacle, catharsis, and value inversion are not far removed from the foundation of what society has termed, ‘extreme right wing’.
The unfairness I feel becomes justification when self-rationalizing my behavior, and the dichotomy of ‘my children vs others’ children’ becomes moral legitimacy for my survivalism. This becomes the basis for believing that any action is excusable so long as it is directed towards those who have a reason to be criticized. Survivalism, retributive justice, ideologies instrumentalized for conflict, and the violence of the crowd… These concepts all resonate strongly with people’s social identities and are reflected in the enthusiasm for the press conference (Note: essentially, people feel strongly about their social identities of being a workewoman/man/etc and are prone to fall victim to the above traits). Many commentaries analyzing the ‘Min Heejin phenomenon’ have emerged, but none have questioned or reflected on this point. This may be evidence that the media and intellectuals ultimately view this incident as merely ‘celebrity gossip,’ downplaying its harm, but we must not overlook the fact that the codes of our society are embedded within it (translation into normal ass english: that this situation says a lot about Korean society and its people).
(Note on OMG MV, since it’s mostly a sexualization of minors and an age-thing in the West. The final scene, where someone writes ‘Am I the only one uncomfortable with the MV’s content’[뮤비 소재 나만 불편함?] is also worded quite similarly to a phrase “Unnie, am I the only one uncomfortable with this?” [언냐 이거 나만 불편함?], a phrase used in misogynistic and anti-feminist circles to mock feminists and how they complain online.)
Thanks for reading until the end! It was a pretty hefty read, but I think it brings in a lot of societal issues in with this whole MHJ situation. Societal issues that aren't really unique to Korea, but are definitely particularly contentious here.
For the sake of being fair, I do want to emphasize that it may well be true that HYBE participated in some of the things MHJ is accusing them off (the industry stuff, not the mistreatment or copying stuff). But I hope that this gives some insight into how MHJ is muddying the waters to hide the initial reason for this conflict.
To leave on a high note, playing with people's emotions is playing with fire. Once people sniff out the bs, they'll come back with a vengeance. This is already starting to happen in Korea.
I'm never gonna make a post this long again. I almost died. Please feel free to discuss parts of the article that stood out to you, or say 'called it' on the points you already knew lol

My in-laws are hosting us at their lake cabin next week. We'll spend lots of time around the lake, on their dock, and on the boats with our 14-month, fully mobile (walking) daughter.
I trust them all greatly. They've babysat in the past with no fuss or concern at all. I have an idea, however, that I'm worried they'll view it as overbearing.
I have a "Guardian Lanyard." It's just a lanyard for the person to wear who is solely responsible for watching babe. It's a physical reminder to have eyes or hands on her at all times and to never assume "someone else has got her."
My fear is that, while we're all relaxing, we (they) fall into a routine of thinking she's being monitored by somebody else, and then she slips silently into the water being watched by nobody.
If somebody is watching her, they have the lanyard. If several of us are watching her, one person still has the lanyard. If they want to do something or leave for a minute, they pass off the lanyard and responsibility for babe.
Thoughts? How should I present this idea to them? I think it's a good idea, I'll just have to enforce it.
(Yes. She'll be in a life vest at all times near water.)
Update! Posted a copy of the tag I plan to use on my profile.

My son just turned 4. My in laws love him and always wanna spend time with him. And they do. They live only a few minutes away. My issue is they always want to take him places without me or my husband present. They actually tell us we can’t go. I love my son and we almost lost him at a very young age, so maybe that makes me a bit overprotective, but he’s my only baby. Of course I want to protect him. My SO is very close to his parents, especially his dad. So he sides with them saying I should learn to trust them and let them take him out without us there. It’s not that I don’t trust them for no reason. They do things like give him certain foods or drinks or sweets that directly tell them not to. In front of us. So my thoughts are, if they do these things in front of me, what do they do when they’re alone with him? At this point I don’t know what to do anymore. It is causing constant fights with my SO because he thinks I’m the one who should change. Has anyone been through anything similar? Please, any advice would help.

Between 1907 and 1911, Tumbleweed became a ghost town. There are many theories about why Tumbleweed was abandoned, but according to Marshal Johnson, the railroad didn't go all the way to Tumbleweed and instead went around the town. The people who lived there left soon after. Because they didn't have enough control, bandits took over the town.
A facility established to evaluate the purity of minerals is called an assay office, which is one located near the General Store. This implies that, prior to its financial collapse, Tumbleweed was a mining town that may have been supplied by the Gaptooth Breach mine. In the mission "Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane," Marshal Johnson makes another indication that Tumbleweed was a mining town. It is probable that the Spickin Mining Company owned said assay office in Tumbleweed and, by extension, it would also be the name of the company which used to operate in Gaptooth.
However, if you believe that this mystery still has something to do with ghosts or some other cliché ghost town curse, then the official Red Dead Redemption 2 map description for Tumbleweed has this insight to offer:
"A once bustling New Austin town that has been on the decline ever since they built the railroad to nearby Armadillo, Tumbleweed is dominated by the overbearing and draconian Sheriff Freeman who dispenses frontier justice very forcefully."
Rockstar most likely had to explicitly say something on the matter during development, since we were about to experience the town at a time when it was still inhabited by its elusive residents and mystery had yet to befell upon The Blackwater Ledger's reporters. Now the questions arise: "What has become of the vendors, lawmen, and ordinary individuals who lived in Tumbleweed by the year 1911/1914?" and "Where have they gone?" I believe I have the answer for both, and it is quite anticlimactic and easy to verify.
Sometimes, while walking near the Blackwater Hotel or simply by staying near the law, a policeman might make a comment emphasizing how Blackwater is now full of "Tumbleweeders" during a conversation, which gives us an idea as to what happened to the town's deserters. To me, the town's citizens drifted East between 1907 and 1910, possibly avoiding Armadillo, as they still resented the town due to the whole railroad business forcing them to move, choosing to stay in Blackwater, a city where they could have some economic stability without worrying about a possible decline in their finances.

So this is a long post regarding SIL and going no contact
30th of November my 8 year old daughter was taken to hospital due to low oxygen due to a cold while in there she deteriorated quite extreme and ended up being transferred to a bigger hospital put on life support and unfortunately lost her life.
My daughter was three years old when I got with my partner and his parents have called themselves nanny and grandad since she was about 4 years old and treated her as a grandchild so regardless of DNA they are her grandparents however sister-in-law has always treated her like an outcast along with my older daughter that’s 13 and me and my partner have a three year old together but auntie is overbearing with him to the point my son cries every time she’s near him.
When my daughter was in hospital, my son was two,I’m still nursing to sleep so the hospital was happy to have him with me as he’s extremely clingy mummies boy. While my daughter was in hospital sister-in-law would message me asking how daughter was and offering to have my son that is extremely uncomfortable around her then when I politely declined her having my son but then would explain how my daughter was she would leave me on read because she didn’t get the answer she wanted rather than replying how my daughter was,then would message me the same thing practically the next day this went on for five days that we was in hospital where she offered to have my son then the message explaining how my daughter was doing which unfortunately was not doing well.
on the 5th of December, my daughter unfortunately passed away. I was with her and as you can imagine this destroyed me. Sister-in-law messaged me saying sorry for your loss blah blah blah nothing wrong with that part. Then it come to News getting around the town that my daughter had passed so I was receiving lots of messages on social media about my daughter so I just put a post up explaining what happened and then logged out of Facebook and stayed off social media for about a week. In that week SIL posted about how heartbroken she was that her niece had passed blah blah blah proper attention post considering she never once called my daughter niece in the whole time she was alive and was really milking social media.
When I did go back on I noticed she had done like five different posts about how heartbroken she was About my daughters passing bear in mind she never called her niece before in her whole life. For the sake of the family I didn’t bring it up plus I wasn’t sure if I’ve been extra sensitive due to grief
there was an autopsy performed because because they didn’t know exactly what happened since she had a common cold but unfortunately that virus attacked her heart so myocarditis was the reason, because everything had happened in December everything had been prolonged because the Christmas and New Year’s period.
my daughter didn’t get to the funeral directors until the 4th of January, I went to see my daughter on the 5th of January and asked my sister to watch my son for the first time ever my sister had watched my son and I’m not going to go into detail but my daughter had been passed for a month so as you can imagine seeing my daughter, she wasn’t in the best of ways, she didn’t look like herself and the best way to describe it is she was dead dead this really torn me up and I still have flashbacks to how she looked.
my partner receives a crappy message from his sister because it’s not fair that my sister got to watch Hunter and how this isn’t fair on her, she should’ve watched him which had actually shocked me that she would do that but it was the first ever time that my sister watched our son and given the situation that we had just gone to see my daughter‘s body who’s no longer with us I was extremely shocked that she could be that insensitive and entitled. I told partner I just couldn’t be around her for a little while. I won’t say anything to her. I’ll just avoid her to keep the peace then came January 15th that was my daughters funeral again obviously not an easy day. No parent should ever have to be planning a funeral for their child who was eight years old with her whole life ahead of her so not the best of days but his sister came she was nice on the day, no problems with her on that particular day the first thing she did when she got home was post pictures that she had taken and you know how hard it is blah blah blah on social media again for likes but I didn’t say anything. she asked if we could go round to her house, she still lives with her mum and dad and her partner and two children. she wanted us to go round there so me thinking maybe you know it’s it’s just checking in on us because of we’ve lost my a child but what it actually was was for her to give her personalised card and Teddy and a big amount of fuss to mine and my partners son asking him to be pageboy at her wedding , now this wedding is May 2026 so the fact that she needed to do it two days after my daughters funeral, didn’t sit right and that was when I actually finally had enough and I had to walk out because I could not sit through watching her try everything just to bring attention back on herself literally two days after we buried my daughter.
I didn’t hear from her at all and February comes my eldest daughter was 13 on the 22nd of February again no text nothing from sister-in-law then February 23 was my son’s third birthday my sister and my nieces and nephews came over. My partner Mum and Dad came over and they had brought my niece and nephew from that side of the family too so nobody mentioned anything about my sister-in-law so I assumed she wasn’t coming and was thankful for that then just as I’m about to do the cake I get told no wait for sister-in-law because she is coming. She didn’t even bother to let me know so then she gets there gives my son his presents and he’s got a lot more presents than usual and a voucher all fine. I do the cake and then they say it was lovely and leave then My daughter asked me if I could message my partners mum and dad to say thank you for her card and money as her birthday was the day before but being older she spent it with friends at the cinema so I stupidly said what did my partner sister get you assuming she would have got her a card at least even just a happy birthday but no she didn’t even say happy birthday to my daughter or hello so my daughter still getting the same treatment my other daughter got through life but then apparently was a niece once she died.
Then I noticed the post that sister-in-law had tagged me in about my son‘s birthday tag removed and the tag in my daughter’s funeral had also been removed and I was like okay then? But I’m not in the right mindset for drama so I just thought I’ll just remove as a friend on social media problems solved rather than this petty removing tag stuff,
within five minutes of me removing her straight away calling me a bitch and asking what my problem was with her so I explained from start to finish what my problem was with her and I explained that I don’t expect her to treat my oldest as her niece but I do expect her to at least say happy birthday to her and acknowledge that she is also human to which she replied that my daughter isn’t family so she will not be doing that and that she wasn’t using my other daughter for likes she would never do that even though she’s always been about attention and I snapped at that point and explained to her that if she can’t treat my children fairly on their birthdays then I don’t want her around on either of their birthdays to which my partner has hundred percent agreed with me, especially as I treat her two children exactly the same as my sister‘s children and class them as my nieces and nephews so that was how it was left
until she then messaged my partner explaining she is disgusted that I could say that she was using my daughter for likes when she would never do that and that she would never try and bring attention back to her the reason she picked two days after my daughters funeral for wedding stuff was because she was doing it for friends that lived far away too not that friends was there or anything so that was invalid. my partner then explained to her that there was no issue with her doing it for friends but it was not an acceptable time to do it when we have just lost a child.
I have decided to go no contact because I cannot bear to be anywhere near this woman and she has now messaged my partner moaning that she hasn’t seen my son for well since his birthday my partner has explained that I have gone no contact and that he agrees that if she can’t treat my children fairly, she doesn’t get to be around either of them so we have in fact taken the kids no contact too.
My partner has backed me. also, just as my daughter passed his sister went and like all of my Instagram posts with my daughter in from the last 5 years and commented on them about her beautiful niece even though she never liked her picture with my daughter and before this point. She also posted on New Year’s Eve about new chapter and how this was the best year of our life because she got engaged bare in mind that two weeks before that she was so heartbroken my daughter died but suddenly it was the best year ever. There’s a few more things she did but if I type them all I’ll be here all day.
Am I wrong for cutting contact because I’m in the middle grief? I have to second-guess everything in case it’s grief but I just feel the disrespect and entitlement that she has shown since the loss of my daughter is quite frankly something that I never want to be around because I could not imagine being that way to anyone that has just lost a child. But am I right for these feelings and cutting her from my son’s life? Can I have honest opinions please

He hoi me noi my buds. It is your baker man Pirate here. With Human Trauma book two coming to a close in the next week, I wanted to shre with you all the next planned novel I am working on. This time around we will have a stuborn human mercanary, a lizard princess, and one goal---escape Heavalun Mass city. all thats in thier way is corrupt cops, gangsters, the general populace and thier willingness to tolarate one another.
Lets get this Bread.
Shooting up from the blankets, Conor grabbed hold of the neck of whoever was jostling him awake, his cybernetic arm whirring while activating. Suddenly touching someone asleep was a stupid idea to do to anyone from Heavalun. Any sentient from this city was on edge most of the time and was usually particularly ornery when waking up.
He was especially prickly after years of contract killing and near-nonstop battles. While most people from Heavalun Mass City were used to fighting or having to keep an eye over their shoulder, watching for gangers, junkies, pickpockets, or the local police, his experience working and living here made him like a rubber band, ready to snap. Be that a neck, arm, leg, or whatever the poor sod he was fighting had.
“Who the fuck do you think you are,” Conor snarled, his natural and cybernetic eye narrowing and focusing in the wan light of his drab bedroom.
In an action built into him like an instinct, he willed his cybernetic eye to switch to see in infrared thermal sight, letting him get a good look at whoever this was while his natural eye adjusted to the lighting.
In bright orange, reds, and whites, Jurilra's face came into focus. She was a Jurintik, a werewolf like species; while he was human through and through. She had dull brown fur, long, dirty blonde hair, and a gaunt face and frame. The Jurintik was an alien species widespread throughout the galaxy, be it in the GU(galactic Union), Freespace, or here deep in the COS (concord of systems); you can’t swing a pipe without hitting at least two of them.
“Conor—let—-go,” Julitra gagged, clutching at Conor’s cybernetic forearm, her claws scratching roughly at the overlapping metal plates. “It’s me.”
Realizing who it was, Conor let her neck go, and she fell to the ground. He had only lifted her several centimeters off the floor, but doing that when half your torso, including your shoulders, one arm, and most of your organs were non-organic, or at least cybernetically enhanced, was a simple task, and he had done so out of sheer reflex.
“What were you thinking waking me up like that? You’re lucky I didn’t just dust you with my hand cannon,” Conor said, gesturing to the massive handgun sitting on the bedside table. “What in the stars are you doing here anyway?”
Taking a moment to rub at her neck and gag for a moment, Conor pieced together what likely happened. Considering that Julitra was naked, save for a thong, he must have hired her last night to blow off some steam—it wouldn’t be the first time he had done that when drunk.
“You didn’t pay me for last night,” Julitra said, standing up and nervously scratching her furry forearms and looking deeper into the shithole of an apartment toward the room where Conor stored all his weapons, money, and other precious items for barter or fencing purposes.
Conor sighed and scratched behind his still intact ear, the other having been halfway taken off by a frag grenade a few local years ago. After taking a moment to swing his legs out of bed, flexing his sore muscles, and rubbing his palms on his thighs, he looked up at her, having deactivated the thermal vision in his eye. “Fine; in the room top drawer on the right, you will find some bags of Murt and Syntrit. Take one of each.”
“Alright,” Julitra said, turning around and sashaying in that direction, clearly doing her best to move suavely and gracefully.
But Conor knew that was a load of Kret shit; She was little more than a strung-out junkie who just managed to keep herself on another fix fast enough by either guy like himself paying her for a quick lay or by managing not to get taken advantage of by one of the dealers on a street corner.
At least if she was selling herself for the night, she wasn’t going to end up in some slave market in the lower sections of the city or crammed into a skiff bound for a star on the far side of the galaxy. Julitra did have some kids to take care of, after all.
Not that it mattered to Conor if she went missing; there would be another skag he could bring in here. He just preferred her because she never tried to steal from him nor kill him in his sleep—finding another girl that he could trust would not be easy, especially in this shithole of a mass city. That well over a billion sentients were nestled in it did not matter; finding another piece of ass would be a pain.
“And only take one. I know how much product I have,” Conor grumbled, standing and heading toward the kitchenette. The dirty, blood-stained carpet was uncomfortable under bare feet.
God he hated going around with bare feet. It paid to have good boots to keep your feet safe from glass, nails, and other debris. That was especially important when operating in urban areas.
When he was out in the countryside or the house, he would forgo wearing them, and switch to sneekers, but being bare foot still sucked.
“I know,” Julitra replied from the room, “can I use your shower?”
“Whatever,” Conor replied flippantly, pulling down dried stulk leaves and tossing a pot of water on the stove.
So long as she didn't cause any issues with him getting started for the day, he honestly could not care less. All he needed to start the day was a pipping hot cup of stulk, and his stims. On that subject, the datapad built into his artificial arm chimed and reminded him of just that.
He frowned while retrieving the volatile cocktail of stimulants from the cupboard. He was almost out and only had enough for three days. Inside were six small autoinjectors about 20 centimeters long, marked with several warnings indicating that they should only be used in dire combat situations. But he was a particularly unique case and needed them just to survive.
After having a solid forty percent of his body replaced with cybernetics, from a metallic jaw, fake eye, a few replaced organs, torso, numerous enhanced joints, and even a few bits of wire running through his brain, the stims kept him working.
Without his friend Stich’s unique stimulant blend twice a day, Conor would start to fall apart. First would come the tremors, then body lockup, followed by seizures and eventually death. He had never made it that far in relapse; it was just easier to keep his organic parts cranked up to keep pace with his enhanced parts, and the video Stich showed him of sentients who relapsed was a good dissuasion.
Those poor sods were mangled wrecks, limbs at unnatural angles, blood, hydraulic fluid, and bone everywhere. And they were at most twenty percent wired up—what he could end up like was something he would rather not learn.
Dutifully and like clockwork, Conor ripped the cap off an auto-injector and shoved it into his thigh; a dull hiss sounded out as the brackish fluid flowed into his muscles. Just as he tossed the now empty injector into the trashcan, the sounds of Julitra starting the shower and humming flowed into the joint living and bedroom.
While Julitra was showering, Conor's friend and coworker Brakul sent him a message.
Brakul: Hey, conor, what are you doing tonight? I think I might have a contract for us to pick up.
Conor: No plans at this point. I just gotta get Julitra out of my safe house.
Brakul: Are you still fucking that scag? You know that won’t end well.
Conor: Yeah, gotta get my dick wet somehow. Besides, aren’t you still plowing that Kurilta we worked with a few months back—the one with the red hair?
Brakul: Yeah, I am. I like the crazy little woman. Plus, she is only a meter tall and makes me feel massive. But are you in or not?
Conor: Yeah, I'm in. When, where, and who is the client?
Brakul: Perfect, meet me at Zyntle’s around 2100. If all goes well, we got a contract for some new upstart to the north out of town. He is looking to hire some muscle for a few months. Don't worry about the contract's legitimacy; Norla sent this man my way to arrange half a dozen bodies. I just want you there in case something goes down.
Conor: So, bring a few extra solutions?
Brakul: if you would, and keep ‘em quiet, no shotguns. We will be in Zynie's place and need to keep things civil.
Conor: Afirm, see you then.
After switching off the arm-mounted datapad, Julitra stepped back into the room, redressed in her clothes from the previous night. They weren't anything fancy by any stretch of the imagination. Just a simple lowcut dress, showing off a shallow valley of furry cleavage, and cut to give ample view up her thighs and see the thong barely covering her womanhood.
For a hooker, it was good enough.
“Want to have some stulk?” Conor questioned, pouring himself a glass.
“Sure,” Julitra replied, going and lounging at the dingy table in the corner of the room.
They were quiet while eating their meager breakfast; neither had much in common or to talk about as is. The only things Julitra knew about Conor were: he killed people for money, sold stolen goods, and could give her a mean dick down. Whereas Conor knew damn near everything about her, acquired through basic profiling of her actions, attire, and mannerisms or from some of the intelligence brokers he dealt with regularly.
Some friends called him paranoid for keeping such tight tabs on anyone he dealt with; at least Brakul and Stich did. But Conor knew that knowledge was power and was needed if you wanted to always end up with your opponent dusted and not you. Conor knew better than anyone that you don’t survive like he has without a bit of paranoia. Hell, he was more persistent than a Hureclian beetle seeking water.
Once they had finished scarfing down crackers, canned meat, and the bitter, brackish brew, Julitra quickly took her leave, with Conor locking the door behind her. First, the deadbolts, then the chain, followed by a biometric scanner, and lastly, he kicked a metal wedge underneath the door—it would take a whole breaching team from the local government a solid hour to breach that reinforced metal monstrosity, and that was just how Conor liked it.
Unless you were invited into his home, it would behoove you to stay out and not try to get in.
Now that he was alone again, Conor trundled into the room Julitra had gotten her payment from and opened up one of the massive ceiling-high safes lining the walls. Inside was some of his equipment. This specific one contained most of his low-visibility equipment: body armor, weapons, knives, toolkits, and anything else he might need for more subtle operations.
In the other safes were other tools he might want, but those kits were built for more specific jobs: sniping, heavy assaults, aerial and maritime operations, along with anything else he could use in a warzone, but most of that was overkill for tonight.
So Conor pulled out a few items he thought could be useful and started his preparations in such meticulous detail that it would take him the rest of the day.
—-
The area outside of Zyntle’s nightclub was insanely crowded, even for Heavalun standards. Up and down the street, as far as the eye could see, were nightclubs, bars, and restaurants, catering to whatever vice once could possibly want.
Unlike some of the out portions of the city, areas in the inner and lower regions like here, you could not see the sky. Instead, if one looked up, they would be met with obnoxious neon signs and more buildings arching overhead, choking out any star or sunlight that might be visible.
Aiding in the choking and oppressive atmosphere, Aliens of all shapes and sizes bumped into one another with little grace, care, or concern. Most were decked out head to toe in bright neon colors that melded together in a caleidoscope of shifting brilliance.
At least that gave the usual drab greys, rust reds, and browns of the cityscape some color, even if Conor usually found it more annoying than not. Thankfully, neither Conor, Brakul, nor their strange contact could not hear the crowd outside from the second-floor window. Instead, they were being bombarded by something as if not more grating.
The happy tones and idle conversations of the crowd on the dancefloor below them, along with repetitive keyboards, synthetic snapping basslines, and ethereal vocals, filled the air to a near-deafening level. If not for the three of them having wired up to a local chatterbox that Conor brought along, they would not be able to hear one another.
The chatterbox was not fancy; it was just a tiny device Conor had whipped up. That lets them speak normally into microphones on their collars and be heard in earpieces. He had devised the idea for it after a few skiff airborne operations, where unless you were jacked into the aircraft comms, you could not talk without screaming.
Now, the chatterbox just doubled as the perfect tool for having conversations you would rather not have others around listen into. Hell, unless you were inches from them, you would not be able to hear them at all.
Brakul and whomever this Farun’se was, a two-meter tall feline-like alien, had been going over the finer details of the contract for the last half hour. Conor had been listening just enough to keep in the loop, but his focus was elsewhere. Namely in the crowds around them, watching for anything he did not want to see: other contractors, a gang war about to erupt, or anything else that caught his eye. People-watching was one of the things Conor enjoyed about setting up jobs; it gave him plenty of time to keep tabs on the ever-shifting city.
He had not spotted anything yet, in regular vision, Thermal, or through tracking, but something was off—he could feel it in his hackles. As such, One of Conor's hands was in his somewhat oversized brown leather jacket, wrapped tightly around the grip of his suppressed handgun. Neither Brakul nor the Client commented on him keeping watch; they both knew he was just filling the role of an enforcer and was backup for them.
“So, what do you think about the contract?” The Farun’se man questioned before taking a sip from his drink.
Whatever that glowing drink was, it was not ethanol-based; the smell was far too sweet. Conor could tell that much even through the skull-like mask covering his face. Not that the flat black ballistic bask he wore to cover his metallic jaw and mangled face covered scents much. It was built much like the other equipment he wore to enhance his senses, not diminish them.
“I think it is perfectly acceptable. But are you certain you only want a ten-man team to provide escort and transport for your client while within the city?” Brakul asked, flipping a palm up. “I am certain I can get more, considering your daily generous payment offer.”
Generous was one way to put it. The politician the Farun’se represented offered a whopping 15 thousand crit a day for well-experienced mercs. It was enough to get Conor's tail wagging; Most jobs barely pay that out, and this contract was supposed to be ten days long. You could almost buy a house outside the city for that kind of crit. If they were actually paid it out and not betrayed by their employer, at the end of the day, Conor likely would do just that; then, he would have a place to live without the threat of death around every corner.
Each of his jobs over the last few years was a means to that end—escaping this shithole. But getting out of the city was difficult, even for guys like him with opportunities to leave and a reasonably regular income.
“Well, we can work that out via messaging, but for now, I am just offering what I am allowed to,” The client said. “Anything more than that, and I won't be able to pay you half upfront.”
At least they are offering half the credits upfront. Conor must have missed that part during their long-winded discussion about what type of experience each mercenary needed, what weapons they would be allowed, and the specifics of the contract.
All they would have to do was finalize details of the team when Brakul had assembled another eight bodies, but they could do that in a few weeks.
“If that’s the case, then I think we should be good for now,” Brakul said, standing and extending a hand for the client.
“Perfect, expect to hear from me in a few days. Please have your team prepared by the end of the week,” The client replied, shaking Brakul’s hand.
After removing his earpiece and microphone, the client nodded to Conor and disappeared into the crowd looming around the stairs leading to the ground floor.
“So you like the sounds of that?” Brakul asked, sitting back down and sipping at his drink.
Keeping his sight on the crowd below, Conor tracked the client as he struggled to weave through the jostling dancers. The Feline was clearly out of his element in the crowds of the mass city. Based on how quickly he was recoiling from each touch by the intoxicated patrons, he was uncomfortable with all the physical contact forced onto him.
The sight was almost comedic, but Conor was used to dealing with people like the client's representative. If you had enough crit to hire ten mercs, you came from one of two walks of life: you were an influential underground leader who could afford the extra muscle, or you were a sheltered individual with no real business in Heavalun Mass City but decided you wanted to make some friends in low places and needed locals who would be loyal to the almighty crit.
But all of that was neither here nor there for the time being; Brakul would handle any issues with the contract. He was far better at being a politician than Conor was.
“So, any issues with what he wants?” Brakul smirked, knowing that it had been several months since Conor's last contract and that he needed the money.
Conor passively waved at his friend; he did not need to comment. Conor would take any contract that came his way so long as the pay was solid enough. In the past, he had taken contracts Brakul refused for moral reasons.
This contract of defending some high-born trader was in no way out of the ordinary and was relatively tame by Conor’s standards. His last contract was far more low-brow enough that he had almost said no. But for the low, low cost of 100 thousand crits and the fancy nanotech armor he was wearing under his tank top, he was more than willing to blow up the wing of a hospital with a firebomb—insurance paid to fix the building and burry anyone caught up when he killed a lowborn noble or some distant planet.
“I’m more interested in what's going on down below,” Conor said, pointing to a group gathering near the club's back entrance.
Below, barely visible through the flashing strobe lights and low haze of fog machines, seven Kyrail lingered at the back doors. One of the amphibian-like bipeds was giving instructions to the others. It was a shame the music was so loud; if not, Conor and Brakul could easily hear them, but even without sound, it was easy to see what they were doing. They were scouting a mark.
“What do you think, Voodals gang?” Conor posed, scanning the crowd for whomever the lead croaker was trying to target.
Voodal is a leader of one of the area's crime families and merc groups. They had been competitors of Conor and Brakul and their usual hiring groups for a long time. While Brakul and Conor did not have beef with them, one of their usual employers, the Farklut clan, had generations of bad blood.
That rivalry was nasty, to the point anyone who was a direct member of either family would dust the other on sight. Both had been caught up in that rivalry several times and had a negative opinion of the Voodal family and any of their ilk.
“Likely. This is part of a contested city, after all,” Brakul replied, sipping his drink.
“I wonder what they are doing here?” Conor said, still not having located whatever it was they were doing, but he had seen them pull out a particularly nasty drug, giving him an idea of precisely what they planned on doing—abduction.
The gaggle’s leader had passed out plastic bags with what looked like Visage clinging to the bags. That drug might as well be chloroform on the strongest combat stim out there. It would put you in a trance and make you forget the next several days until the effects wore off. The perfect drug for slave traffickers and abductors.
The only reason Conor could tell was that he had used the tactic several times to capture targets alive. It was great; you could fish information from them freely, and they wouldn't remember anything beyond where they had been picked up and whenever the drug wore off.
“I see their target,” Brakul muttered, “switch to IR. I will laze her for yah.”
As his friend and partner told him, Conor switched his false eye to IR and watched, and Brakul’s pistols laser pierced the crowd and danced on the back of a red scalled Kurlatra, dancing happily with some other repltilians of her species. All were woefully ignorant of the Kyrail weaving through the crowd toward them, hands tucked into jackets, likely clutching knives, pistols, and bags of drugs.
“Hmmm, odd, not a lot of Kurlatra on this side of the GU borders,” Conor commented.
“For sure,” Brakul agreed.
Kurlatra were a noble-esc species in the GU and tended to stay in the GU, as opposed ot the COS; most here only cared about their nobility for the sake of making money on ransom after all.
The GU was safe but was overbearing compared to the COS. It had far more laws, restrictions, and limitations on carving out a living. Conor’s chosen profession of being a Mercenary was outlawed in the GU unless you were on the Union congress's payroll, But he was not on that list, despite trying a few times.
“Wanna toss a wrench in their plans?” Brakul questioned.
“How so?” Conor replied, keeping a keen eye on the crimson scalled in the center.
Compared to those around her, she was different. Unlike the others who wore simple clothes, she wore a very revealing yellow dress that was low cut in the back and front, showing offer cleavage, but that's not what made her so different. It was all the glistening jewelry that made her smell of crit.
All those stones and precious metals were likely worth a few hundred thousand crits on their own. That was before you sold her pert ass to some slaver.
“We can go down, nab her after the entourage is dealt with, and be big damn heroes. Then we get an award from that payday of a ruby. If she is not feeling up to it, we could ransom her off to the Voodal; they want her for some reason,” Brakul explained, using his keen eye for diplomacy and deals to guide Conor’s mind to the potential payout.
Conor took a moment to take stock of the situation; he had enough ammo to carve through the Voodal family present and could carry such a Kurlatra if needed. Should this shit go sideways and end up in a firefight, they could just use the crowd and vanish.
“What about the contract we just took,” Conor posed
“We haven't taken one yet,” Brakul reminded, “that rep needs to get back to us with upfront payment. Until then, we are freelance.”
Conor could not deny he was right; no crit had changed hands yet, they were still unemployed, and this bitch might be worth some cash. Before Conor had a chance even to comment one way or the other, Brakul pressed on a nerve he knew would get Conor to act.
“Come on. I got fifty crit that says you can't extract that Kurlatra before the Voodal drug her,” the fellow Jurintik mocked.
The bastard knew how to get to Conor for sure. He was competitive and hated to have his abilities brought into question. Just out of professional pride, Conor could not let that lay.
“Two hundred,” Conor countered.
“One hundred,” Brakul retorted, “oh, look, they already nabbed one of the entourage.”
He was right. One of the Kurlatra heading toward the bathrooms near the back entrance just had a bag of Visage slammed into their mouth and had already gone glassy-eyed. Now, there were only five Kurlatra left, including the clear HVT(High-Value Target)
“One fifty,” Conor snapped, eager to have his friend stop messing with him.
“Deal, I will cover and feed you intel from her. Open channel one,” Brakul sneered.
Without missing a beat, Conor shot up from the table and descended the stairs into the crowd, drawing his suppressed pistol and activating his target tracker to keep sight of the HVT.
Conor did not know it yet, but that little bet, one that was not even worth as much ammo as he was about to expend, would send his life on a journey that would change him forever.
So what did you all think? was it a good time? a fun start at bare min? next chapter we will have connor dealing with the voodal, follwed by us meeting the little princess. It should be fun.
Please dont forget to updoot and comment. I will see you all in the comments.
Your Humble baker
-Pirate
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So i had a baby and she’s a first grandchild to my in laws. On top she is a girl, whereas they only had boys. At first they were overbearing. They were over every single day, asking to take a newborn for a walk. Then they asked to go for walks twice a day. At some point my husband and I had to give each of them a specific day of week to visit so its not every day. But now i’m in this situation that my mil doesnt even want to share her time with the baby with anyone. She wont let her husband visit on the same day she does, and she leaves after 30 min of being over if any of my parents are around. She doesnt even want my husband and I be there when she is with the baby. A few times she told us to leave and i was not comfortable with it cause my baby was only a few weeks old. How do i politely get across that she needs to share her time and that as baby gets older and goes to daycare and does sports she’s going to have an even lesser time with her. Currently she comes twice a week and she thinks even that is too little. My fil comes another day so it’s 3 out of 7 days that they are already over every week.

AITA
So this is a long post regarding SIL and going no contact
30th of November my 8 year old daughter was taken to hospital due to low oxygen due to a cold while in there she deteriorated quite extreme and ended up being transferred to a bigger hospital put on life support and unfortunately lost her life. My daughter was three years old when I got with my partner and his parents have called themselves nanny and grandad since she was about 4 years old and treated her as a grandchild so regardless of DNA they are her grandparents however sister-in-law has always treated her like an outcast along with my older daughter that’s 13 and me and my partner have a three year old together but auntie is overbearing with him to the point my son cries every time she’s near him. When my daughter was in hospital, my son was two I’m still nursing to sleep so the hospital was happy to have him with me as he’s extremely clingy mummies boy. While my daughter was in hospital sister-in-law would message me asking how daughter was and offering to have my son that is extremely uncomfortable around her then when I politely declined her having my son but then would explain how my daughter was she would leave me on read because she didn’t get the answer she wanted rather than replying how my daughter was and then would message me the same thing practically the next day this went on for five days that we was in hospital where she offered to have my son then the message explaining how my daughter was doing which unfortunately was not doing well. Then on the 5th of December, my daughter unfortunately passed away. I was with her and as you can imagine this destroyed me. Sister-in-law messaged me saying sorry for your loss blah blah blah nothing wrong with that part. Then it come to News getting around the town that my daughter had passed so I was receiving lots of messages on social media about my daughter so I just put a post up explaining what happened and then logged out of Facebook and stayed off social media for about a week. SIL posted about how heartbroken she was that her niece had passed blah blah blah proper attention post considering she never called my daughter niece in the whole time she was alive and was really milking social media. When I did go back on I noticed she had done like five different posts about how heartbroken she was About my daughters passing bare in mind she never called her niece before in her whole life. For the family I didn’t bring it up plus I wasn’t sure if I’ve been extra sensitive due to grief there was an autopsy performed because it had happened in December. Everything could been prolonged because the Christmas and New Year’s period so my daughter didn’t get to the funeral directors until the 4th of January, so I went to see my daughter on the 5th of January and asked my sister to watch my son in the first time ever my sister had watched my son and I’m not going to go into detail but my daughter had been passed for a month so as you can imagine seeing my daughter, she wasn’t in the best of way, she didn’t look like her and the best way to describe it is she was dead dead really torn me up and I still have flashbacks to how she looked. my partner receives a crappy message from his sister because it’s not fair that my sister got to watch Hunter and how this isn’t fair on her, she should’ve watched him which had actually shocked me that she would do that but it was the first ever time that my sister watched our son and given the situation that we had just gone to see my daughter‘s body who’s no longer with us I was extremely shocked that she could be that insensitive and entitled. I told partner I just didn’t wanna be around her for a little while. I won’t say anything to her. I’ll just avoid her to keep the peace then came January 15th that was my daughters funeral again obviously not an easy day. No parent should ever have to be planning a funeral for their child who was eight years old with her whole life ahead of her so not the best of days but his sister came she was nice on the day, no problems with her on that particular day the first thing did when she got home was post pictures that she had taken and you know how hard it is blah blah blah on social media again for like but I didn’t say anything she asked if we could go round to her house, she still lives with her mum and dad and children. she wanted us to go round there so me thinking maybe you know it’s it’s just checking in on us because of we’ve lost my a child but what it actually was was for her to give her personalised card and Teddy and a big amount of fuss to mine and my partners son asking him to be pageboy at her wedding , now this wedding is May 2026 so the fact that she needed to do it two days after my daughters funeral, didn’t sit right and that was when I actually finally had enough and I had to walk out because I could not sit through watching her try everything just to bring attention back on herself literally two days after we buried my daughter. So I didn’t hear from her at all and February comes my eldest daughter was 13 on the 22nd of February again no text nothing from sister-in-law then February 23 was my son’s third birthday my sister and my nieces and nephews came over. My partner Mum and Dad came over and they had brought my niece and nephew from that side of the family too so nobody mentioned anything about my sister-in-law so I assumed she wasn’t coming and was thankful for that then just as I’m about to do the cake I get told no wait for sister-in-law because she is coming. She didn’t even bother to let me know so then she gets there gives my son his presents and he’s got a lot more presents than usual and a £50 voucher all fine. I do the cake and then they say it was lovely and leave then My daughter asked me if I could message my partners mum and dad to say thank you for her card and money as her birthday was the day before but being older she spent it with friends at the cinema so I stupidly said what did my partner sister get you assuming she would have got her a card at least even just a happy birthday but no she didn’t even say happy birthday to my daughter or hello so my daughter still getting the same treatment my other daughter got through life but then apparently, was a niece once she died. Then I noticed the post that sister-in-law had tagged me in about my son‘s birthday tag removed and the tag in my daughters funeral had also been removed and I was like okay then? But I’m not in the right mindset for drama so I just thought I’ll just remove as a friend on social media problems solved rather than this petty removing tag stuff, within five minutes of me removing her straight away calling me a bitch and asking what my problem was with her so I explained from start to finish what my problem was with her and I explained that I don’t expect her to treat my oldest as her niece but I do expect her to at least say happy birthday to her and acknowledge that she is also human to which she replied that my daughter isn’t family so she will not be doing that and that she wasn’t using my other daughter for likes she would never do that even though she’s always been about attention and I snapped at that point and explained to her that if she can’t treat my children fairly on their birthdays then I don’t want her around on either of their birthdays to which my partner has hundred percent agreed with me, especially as I treat her two children exactly the same as my sister‘s children and class them as my nieces and nephews so that was how it was left until she then messaged my partner explaining she is disgusted that I could say that she was using my daughter for likes when she would never do that and that she would never try and bring attention back to her the reason she picked two days after my daughters funeral for wedding stuff was because she was doing it for friends that lived far away too not that friends was there or anything so that was invalid. my partner then explained to her that there was no issue with her doing it for friends but it was not an acceptable time to do it when we have just lost a child. I have decided to go no contact because I cannot bear to be anywhere near this woman and she has now messaged my partner moaning that she hasn’t seen my son for well since his birthday my partner has explained that I have gone no contact and that he agrees that if she can’t treat my children fairly, she doesn’t get to be around either of them so we have in fact taken the kids no contact too. My partner has backed me. also, just as my daughter passed his sister went and like all of my Instagram posts with my daughter in and commented on them about her beautiful niece even though she never liked her picture with my daughter and before this point. She also posted on New Year’s Eve about new chapter and how this was the best year of our life because she got engaged Ben in mind that two weeks before that she was so heartbroken my daughter died but suddenly it was the best year ever. Am I wrong for cutting contact because I’m in the middle grief? I have to second-guess everything in case it’s grief but I just feel the disrespect and entitlement that she has shown since the loss of my daughter is quite frankly something that I never want to be there another human with because I could not imagine being that way to anyone that has just lost a child. But am I right for these feelings? I have honest opinions

So this is a long post regarding SIL and going no contact
30th of November my 8 year old daughter was taken to hospital due to low oxygen due to a cold while in there she deteriorated quite extreme and ended up being transferred to a bigger hospital put on life support and unfortunately lost her life.
My daughter was three years old when I got with my partner and his parents have called themselves nanny and grandad since she was about 4 years old and treated her as a grandchild so regardless of DNA they are her grandparents however sister-in-law has always treated her like an outcast along with my older daughter that’s 13 and me and my partner have a three year old together but auntie is overbearing with him to the point my son cries every time she’s near him.
When my daughter was in hospital, my son was two,I’m still nursing to sleep so the hospital was happy to have him with me as he’s extremely clingy mummies boy. While my daughter was in hospital sister-in-law would message me asking how daughter was and offering to have my son that is extremely uncomfortable around her then when I politely declined her having my son but then would explain how my daughter was she would leave me on read because she didn’t get the answer she wanted rather than replying how my daughter was,then would message me the same thing practically the next day this went on for five days that we was in hospital where she offered to have my son then the message explaining how my daughter was doing which unfortunately was not doing well.
on the 5th of December, my daughter unfortunately passed away. I was with her and as you can imagine this destroyed me. Sister-in-law messaged me saying sorry for your loss blah blah blah nothing wrong with that part. Then it come to News getting around the town that my daughter had passed so I was receiving lots of messages on social media about my daughter so I just put a post up explaining what happened and then logged out of Facebook and stayed off social media for about a week. In that week SIL posted about how heartbroken she was that her niece had passed blah blah blah proper attention post considering she never once called my daughter niece in the whole time she was alive and was really milking social media.
When I did go back on I noticed she had done like five different posts about how heartbroken she was About my daughters passing bear in mind she never called her niece before in her whole life. For the sake of the family I didn’t bring it up plus I wasn’t sure if I’ve been extra sensitive due to grief
there was an autopsy performed because because they didn’t know exactly what happened since she had a common cold but unfortunately that virus attacked her heart so myocarditis was the reason, because everything had happened in December everything had been prolonged because the Christmas and New Year’s period.
my daughter didn’t get to the funeral directors until the 4th of January, I went to see my daughter on the 5th of January and asked my sister to watch my son for the first time ever my sister had watched my son and I’m not going to go into detail but my daughter had been passed for a month so as you can imagine seeing my daughter, she wasn’t in the best of ways, she didn’t look like herself and the best way to describe it is she was dead dead this really torn me up and I still have flashbacks to how she looked.
my partner receives a crappy message from his sister because it’s not fair that my sister got to watch Hunter and how this isn’t fair on her, she should’ve watched him which had actually shocked me that she would do that but it was the first ever time that my sister watched our son and given the situation that we had just gone to see my daughter‘s body who’s no longer with us I was extremely shocked that she could be that insensitive and entitled. I told partner I just couldn’t be around her for a little while. I won’t say anything to her. I’ll just avoid her to keep the peace then came January 15th that was my daughters funeral again obviously not an easy day. No parent should ever have to be planning a funeral for their child who was eight years old with her whole life ahead of her so not the best of days but his sister came she was nice on the day, no problems with her on that particular day the first thing she did when she got home was post pictures that she had taken and you know how hard it is blah blah blah on social media again for likes but I didn’t say anything. she asked if we could go round to her house, she still lives with her mum and dad and her partner and two children. she wanted us to go round there so me thinking maybe you know it’s it’s just checking in on us because of we’ve lost my a child but what it actually was was for her to give her personalised card and Teddy and a big amount of fuss to mine and my partners son asking him to be pageboy at her wedding , now this wedding is May 2026 so the fact that she needed to do it two days after my daughters funeral, didn’t sit right and that was when I actually finally had enough and I had to walk out because I could not sit through watching her try everything just to bring attention back on herself literally two days after we buried my daughter.
I didn’t hear from her at all and February comes my eldest daughter was 13 on the 22nd of February again no text nothing from sister-in-law then February 23 was my son’s third birthday my sister and my nieces and nephews came over. My partner Mum and Dad came over and they had brought my niece and nephew from that side of the family too so nobody mentioned anything about my sister-in-law so I assumed she wasn’t coming and was thankful for that then just as I’m about to do the cake I get told no wait for sister-in-law because she is coming. She didn’t even bother to let me know so then she gets there gives my son his presents and he’s got a lot more presents than usual and a voucher all fine. I do the cake and then they say it was lovely and leave then My daughter asked me if I could message my partners mum and dad to say thank you for her card and money as her birthday was the day before but being older she spent it with friends at the cinema so I stupidly said what did my partner sister get you assuming she would have got her a card at least even just a happy birthday but no she didn’t even say happy birthday to my daughter or hello so my daughter still getting the same treatment my other daughter got through life but then apparently was a niece once she died.
Then I noticed the post that sister-in-law had tagged me in about my son‘s birthday tag removed and the tag in my daughter’s funeral had also been removed and I was like okay then? But I’m not in the right mindset for drama so I just thought I’ll just remove as a friend on social media problems solved rather than this petty removing tag stuff,
within five minutes of me removing her straight away calling me a bitch and asking what my problem was with her so I explained from start to finish what my problem was with her and I explained that I don’t expect her to treat my oldest as her niece but I do expect her to at least say happy birthday to her and acknowledge that she is also human to which she replied that my daughter isn’t family so she will not be doing that and that she wasn’t using my other daughter for likes she would never do that even though she’s always been about attention and I snapped at that point and explained to her that if she can’t treat my children fairly on their birthdays then I don’t want her around on either of their birthdays to which my partner has hundred percent agreed with me, especially as I treat her two children exactly the same as my sister‘s children and class them as my nieces and nephews so that was how it was left
until she then messaged my partner explaining she is disgusted that I could say that she was using my daughter for likes when she would never do that and that she would never try and bring attention back to her the reason she picked two days after my daughters funeral for wedding stuff was because she was doing it for friends that lived far away too not that friends was there or anything so that was invalid. my partner then explained to her that there was no issue with her doing it for friends but it was not an acceptable time to do it when we have just lost a child.
I have decided to go no contact because I cannot bear to be anywhere near this woman and she has now messaged my partner moaning that she hasn’t seen my son for well since his birthday my partner has explained that I have gone no contact and that he agrees that if she can’t treat my children fairly, she doesn’t get to be around either of them so we have in fact taken the kids no contact too.
My partner has backed me. also, just as my daughter passed his sister went and like all of my Instagram posts with my daughter in from the last 5 years and commented on them about her beautiful niece even though she never liked her picture with my daughter and before this point. She also posted on New Year’s Eve about new chapter and how this was the best year of our life because she got engaged bare in mind that two weeks before that she was so heartbroken my daughter died but suddenly it was the best year ever. There’s a few more things she did but if I type them all I’ll be here all day.
Am I wrong for cutting contact because I’m in the middle grief? I have to second-guess everything in case it’s grief but I just feel the disrespect and entitlement that she has shown since the loss of my daughter is quite frankly something that I never want to be around because I could not imagine being that way to anyone that has just lost a child. But am I right for these feelings and cutting her from my son’s life? Can I have honest opinions please

I welcome all insight here but I am not seeking anger. I am seeking success stories of redeemed or tolerated relationships (if there are any!)
My husband and I had to go to couples counseling because of the strain my MIL has put on me and my marriage. We have graduated to going as-needed and me remaining in individual counseling. My therapist and I have identified that I struggle with trust and forgiveness, hence why the MIL issue has boiled up to this point.
At every opportunity for me and SO to have a significant life event, she has made it about herself. And then I felt crazy because my SO couldn't understand why that was an issue (he does now! And he sticks up for me, and is understanding when I put myself first. We are even working on him calling out her narcissistic tendencies first, so I don't feel like I'm always nitpicking/going crazy)
The thing is, and I don't know if my husband understands this, is this woman has pushed me to the brink of the end of my marriage. Whether that was divorce or suicide. I can't do it anymore. It's been 8 years of her chipping away at myself and my marriage. I will not conceed one more life event to her, when she has lived a full life and got to experience the depths of her joy.
In my eyes, my MIL has narcissistic tendencies but is not an intentionally malignant person. She cares so much about her family, which now includes me, but is almost like.... Incapable? Of seeing things through others eyes. She is the most generous and the most self centered person I know, which has put me in a weird spot.
My in-laws are very helpful and very loving. They are also very overbearing at times. I have and will continue to call out and correct treatment I don't like. I learned recently this has made me MIL "afraid" of me. I don't like that. I think it's because I am the first person in her life to tell her no/not center on her feelings.
I don't like that. I don't want my MIL to be afraid of me. I want a close family relationship, but it seems like my options are to either tolerate her self-centeredness or to remove myself from family events that aren't obligatory. I don't want to fracture their family - I don't view that as my place. As long as my husband puts me first in OUR family (which he is and I am proud of him for), and views me as HIS family now, I am satisfied enough.
I give my MIL a lot of credit for being well-intentioned. She's sweet but tone death. She is not a black and white person which I especially struggle with (for context; autism runs in my side of the family and my therapist has noted I have autistic tendencies)
Do y'all have any advice or insight? How did you get to a tolerable place? I have checked out JUSTNO and I believe that my MIL's good intentions and sweetness keeps her a MildlyNo. I would like to foster whatever relationship I can without sacrificing my marriage or mental health at this point.

SO SORRY FOR THIS ONE. IT IS VERY LONG!!! <3
I am a little worried and would love some help/advise on how to control my emotions around some situations, or if i might be over reacting. My MIL to be can be rather overbearing and has an issue accepting boundaries. Over the past several months I have noticed that my MIL can be somewhat overly mothering and emotionally manipulative. She also seems to try to target me whenever my finance is not around, and when it is just me and her. i.e. She had a tantrum when I told her that she could not join us on a walk which my fiance and I wanted to do as a couple AS A DATE DAY. My fiance later tried to have a conversation with her about this and she described it as just being playful...
She also refers to my fiance, his two brothers, their partners and myself (as a collective) as children "Do you think the children will like this" or she will talk to my FIL in front of us as "The children..." - Bare in mind I am 30 in November - My own parents never categorize me as a child so I am somewhat shocked that she does this - All of the "so called Children" in my fiances family are 23 and over. At first I thought this was a term of endearment that she was just too used to saying, but after my fiance had a conversation with her about this asking her to stop saying this in reference to me, as it was making me extremely uncomfortable, I was asked so many questions as to why I didn't like it. I advised that I found it belittling and patronising as my own parents don't refer to me and my siblings in that way. And also that I was nearly 30 now and I find it a little offensive (I have my own house and worked hard for it, I have two degrees which again I worked hard for, and I have been through a lot in my life, I stopped being a 'child' a very long time ago)- I know that this could be me overreacting a little bit, but this is whole new territory for me as I have never been referred to as a 'child' in my adult life, not even by my own parents who refer to me either by my name, or as their eldest daughter.
I am sorry if anyone else has the same situation and is okay with it, but it just makes me uncomfortable. When I was explaining about how I was feeling she was smiling the entire time but looked so confused at the same time, as she couldn't understand why I felt the way I did. And she continues to use the word Children to describe me and my fiance. Even my FIL has told her to stop it, but she doesn't seem to understand or pay attention to it.
The big red flag for me was this: The other day my partner and I went to see his parents for a visit. He was in the garden in deep conversation with his dad, and I was talking to his mother in the dining area, the conversation was quite lovely at first... Until she started talking about buying fabric from a well know UK fabric and craft store to make some elegant dresses. She had a lovely royal blue material which she was showing me and advised that the both of us should go on a trip to the store together, as she really wanted to by the same type of fabric, but in emerald, green (WAIT FOR IT). She was going on about dresses and weddings, and my gut instantly knew where this was going. A few moments later, she says, “I would really love to make a nice dress in blue for *bother-in-laws wedding*” and then proceeded to say, “... and I would like to make something in the emerald green for your (and my fiancés) wedding” - HELL TO THE FRICKING NO!!! Please note, me and my fiancé got engaged in September of last year, and I happily told MIL and my fiancés family that I was not the conventional sort of gal, I never wanted to wear just white, or white at all. I showed them all, numerous times, the picture from my Pinterest board, of what I hoped my wedding dress would be or at least look like. And guess what colour that dress was and the colour I have wanted my dress to be ever since I can remember… IT’S EMERALD GREEN... I created my Wedding Planning Pinterest board in 2015 and I have always wanted to wear Green.
This conversation literally hit me to the point where I was either going to cry or blow up - Due to the share fact that she was so adamant that she wanted to wear the same colour as me, but also that she did this when it was just me and her in the room and no one else was around to hear it. Somehow, I just managed to keep my cool and I simply said, "NO. I am sorry, but you are not wearing the same-coloured dress as me on my wedding day. Absolutely not. And I am not meaning to sound like a bridezilla in any way here, but that is a very specific colour that I have had picked out in my mind for a long time now. No, please don't wear that colour, anything but emerald green" She seemed shocked at first, and then joked it off saying, “Well I don't have to wear emerald, green (DAMN RIGHT). I will wear blue or something.” And then she made a joke about the fact of me saying "on my wedding day" like "OOO MY WEDDING... OOO IT'S MY WEDDING DAY" . I didn't have the energy to question this so i just had to laugh it off. I later told my fiance about this and he was frustrated at the situation, and advised that she will not be wearing the same colour as me on our big day. It worried me that she does things like this when it is just me and her, sometimes it is very minor things, but they are noticeably overbearing and manipulative in my eyes.
She still treats my fiance like he is a teenager, and tried to do the same thing with me, like "oh let me clean you glasses for you" and "take a coat with you its cold" (I am always hot to the point I overheat, she is aware of this), "here you go let me do that for you" These are just examples, but she acts as though we cannot do things for ourselves at times, and her way is the best way. I have been very independent since I was 18 years old (and younger tbh - but 18 is when I moved out by myself etc) . So it is hard for me to see this as anything but patronising.
Do you think I am overacting or is it normal for me to feel uncomfortable? Any advise on how to tackle these issues would be really helpful. I have spoken to my mum and sister about this, and they are very hurt by the way I am feeling at the moment. I just wondered if this is how other people would also feel, or if anyone else is or has been through the same.
THANK YOU <3 And sorry again that it is so long. And if you have made it to this point. I appreciate it! x

This needs a little back story first. And this one is a bit long, sorry. My mil and I never really got along. She was an overbearing, passive aggressive Karen. That thought I wasn't good enough for her son. He was a bit older than me (13 yrs) and came from a better background. My family grew up rather on the poor side and his was solid upper middle class. My father-in-law was rather indifferent about most things and she wore the pants in the family, what she said goes, always.
That said here we go. Her and my father-in-law would go to Krispy Kreme at night to get a cup of coffee after supper. When my daughter was born, a few months after her birth they started taking her to Krispy Kreme with them to give me and my husband "a little time without the baby" her words, which was appreciated but we never asked them to do it. They're reasoning was they wanted to show off the baby, their first and only granddaughter.
I guess after having three grandsons from her daughter, it was a joy to have a female child in the family again and she wanted to show her off at every occasion she could think of. My husband and I never really minded I thought it was wonderful. I thought she was wonderful, she was going to be the perfect grandmother. She loved having her granddaughter around. She loved showing her granddaughter off even though she and I didn't get along she loved her granddaughter.
The problems started, after my only son was born. Now I know she had three other grandsons and I figured she'd treat them all the same. Boy was I wrong. Her daughter's Sons were treated like normal grandchildren wonderful presents at Christmas and birthdays she spent time with them she babysat them she was the same way with my daughter if not more so. But when it came to my son that was a completely different matter. She didn't want to hold, him she didn't want to feed him like she had my daughter. She didn't want to take him anywhere either. Remember she had been taking my daughter with her to Krispy Kreme every evening for 2 and 1/2 years before my son was born. But she didn't want to take my son anywhere, ever. I overlooked it at first. My son was still a baby my daughter a toddler handling both of them would have been a bit too much. So I figured when my son got older she would want to take him as well. She never did
When my son got old enough to ask, why granny didn't take him to Krispy Kreme in the evenings ever, I figured then we'd have a conversation. Well that day arrived and he asked the question that I knew he would and the only thing that I could tell the poor little guy was let me talk to Granny about it. So I talked to my mother-in-law about it and asked her why she never took my son to Krispy Kreme. And she explained that he was too much to handle. I asked her what she meant by that. She said I can't handle both of them. I told her that you don't have to handle both of them take my daughter one night and my son the next that way you won't be overwhelmed. She agreed to do this. My son was overjoyed he thought he was going to get to go to Krispy Kreme with Granny! So that night she took my daughter and I told her before they left that tomorrow night was my son's turn to get to go. She said "yeah yeah I know". So the next day after dinner she tells my daughter come on honey let's go to Krispy Kreme and I tell her wait just a moment you said you would take my son today. This is when she tells me again I can't handle him. And I again ask what do you mean by that. She says he's too rambunctious that she can't make him behave that my daughter is easier to handle.
Granted little boys can be a little harder to handle but he was no harder than his sister. This answer aggravated me to the point where I told her "you said that you would take him tonight, you promised him". And she again tells me "I can't handle him". So I tell her "if you can't take him tonight like you promised him, you can't take her anymore either. So instead of agreeing to take her grandson to Krispy Kreme she simply stops taking her granddaughter to spite me, or her grandson, I'm not sure which. She always treated my daughter much better than my son and this was just one example of the petty, small-minded, ignorant behavior she heaped on that child's head. My son was never cruel, loud,or entitled he never broke anything that belonged to someone else, he never had tantrums like most small children do, he was a well-behaved little boy and she already had three other grandsons and didn't need another one or that's the way I felt anyway, especially after all the other incidents but this one sticks in my head for the blatant disregard for either of her grandchildren. So I told her she was a horrible grandmother to my son . I never fought in front of the children with her. I never talked about her badly to them either. So am I the a******?
If you want to know more of what she did let me know.

I’ve posted here before but removed the posts because I was worried my MIL would find them somehow lol but I don’t think I care now.
My in laws keep showing up early. Even if we call them the day before and say “okay we will see you at 9!” and they agree, they still show up an hour early. On Saturday, they called my husband saying they were an hour away…at 7 am. Frankly, I lost it. Every time they come over they’re early despite us knowing that they understand they’re supposed to come at a certain time and they ignore it. I get anxiety and don’t sleep the night before they come because I dread it now. When we made these plans, I was talking to my MIL discussing food and I made the mistake of saying “I wasn’t sure how long you guys were thinking of staying…” and she said “if you don’t mind, we’ll just sleepover!”. Me: “oh well we don’t have an AC in the guest room yet, I don’t think that would be comfortable.” Her: “that’s fine I’ll bring my fan!” Me: “husband has to get up very early in the morning for work, it’s going to be a bit busy here.” Her: “that’s fine we’ll get up when he gets up and leave when he leaves so you’ll have your day to yourself!” I realize now I should have said “sleepovers don’t work for us” (seriously they live less than 1.5 hours away the sleepover is not necessary especially with them coming in the morning!!!). My husband called them the day before they were supposed to come, stressed the coming at/after 9 and that sleeping over is not a great idea. She clearly ignored it and showed up with pillows and dog with leash in hands, ringing the doorbell multiple times like a child an hour early. Unfortunately for them, once we knew they were going to be early again, we decided to leave to get coffee. They pulled up, rang the doorbell multiple times and walked around the back of the house to see if they could see us (yay cameras!). Finally, they called asking where we were. My husband said “we had things to do this morning. this is why I told you 9.” I wanted to stay out until 9 but my husband felt bad so we went back to let them in at 8:30. We made them breakfast (which she picked out and did not provide) and my husband wanted to make add a little extra to it (meat, cheese salt and pepper). I told him not to make them their plates so they could make their own food but he made it for them anyways. 10 seconds later I could hear his dad yelling about sending his mom to the hospital…all because he put pepper on her sandwich and she’s on some crazy kidney stone diet that we did not know the specifics of. At this point, we’ve been with them for half an hour and I’m already done and want them to leave but we bought tickets to go to an amusement park. We’re there from 11-5 and my social battery is drained by the time we get back, despite me keeping my distance from them as much as possible. I head to my room for a bit to decompress. While I’m up there, the in laws said that they’ve gotten the vibe that I don’t want them there…husband says that they’re being overbearing towards me so they decide not to sleep over. They also told him they love me as much as they love him, which is not true (they rarely text or call me) and felt manipulative to me. I come down after all of this. We have an awkward dinner and they leave. Now I know my husband and I need to have a serious talk with them about this, but I don’t know how to start it and I know they are gonna be pissed. I do know we will not be having them over until we talk about this.

So, I'm 24, and I'm trans. I had a long time where I struggled with not wanting to change my legal, feminine name because it was "a gift", "special", and my family is kind of overbearing. But recently I've decided that I want to change my name to the one that I use in common conversation and every day life.
I know that there's a lot of legal hoops to jump through in order to get my name legally changed on all my documents, bank accounts, medical records etc. I have a bit of difficulty reading legal documents and instructions, so I want to only do this process once. My boyfriend and I are also seriously discussing marriage, and I want to take his last name.
My question is: would I have to go through the name change process all over again if I take his last name after I change my first and middle name? And would it be easier to wait and do it all at once instead? I live in Arkansas so that's the law I'm working under. I figure my situation is a bit unique since I haven't had much luck figuring out what to do.
ALSO, I was sort of pressured into adding onto my name at 16, but it wasn't changed on any of my documents that I'm aware of. Would I need to put that name down on any forms? Would it impact my ability to get an approval?

I lucked out not spending my second Mother’s Day with my in-laws. Surprisingly my fiancé didn’t even mention his parents. My MIL did send a card to our house. At the end writing, “(child’s name) is our joy. This is the thing that has shaped our relationship since giving birth. Is their entitlement to our child as their joy their happiness. It’s going to snatching my LO one to doing things that make me feel uneasy and the need to be possessive over my kid. My DH doesn’t get it. I’ve tried to explain how this stress that our child is filling some parental void for DH’s parents. He doesn’t get it he only excuses it as they loved being parents. Great for them I don’t want to share my experience with them or my limited time I have off work sharing it with them.
Sorry if my post comes off harsh it has been a battle of severely overbearing and overly involved in-laws once my first was born. And I hate comments like these. I just want to say I think u need to find a hobby like volunteer at a daycare or school bc I do not want to share every single weekend with you guys and ur comments and ur kid snatching and ur belief u can do whatever u want with my kid without asking over involvement.

I had my baby a few months ago, my very first and the first grandchild/niece/everything. It felt like everyone was so interested and excited during my pregnancy but things are incredibly different now that baby is here.
My in-laws are a dream. They’re over whenever we ask and one will watch the baby while the other handles stuff around the house so we can rest. It’s truly the best. My parents on the other hand are MIA. My father came out to visit with us (lives further away but planned to visit for two weeks) but was not very interested in the baby and only held her once or twice the whole time. The rest of his visit he was on his computer or phone or went on other random day/overnight trips with little or no notice.
My mother I think is the stranger situation. At one point in my pregnancy she told me that I should call her once my labor starts so she can get on a plane and be here in time for delivery. I told her that we were keeping things more private and small at first due to cold and flu season and she was super understanding. Now here we are, 4.5 months after delivery and there’s no plan of ever coming to visit us. She told my sister that she “doesn’t see a point because (the baby) won’t remember”. The invite has been issued again and again but….nothing.
It never occurred to me that my parents wouldn’t care about my baby. I’ve seen so many posts about overbearing and boundary violating parents and part of me feels jealous because at least they’re interested.
I guess I’m just hoping I’m not the only one who this has ever happened to or that I’m not crazy for feeling let down like this.
I also think I’m looking for advice on how to handle things in the future.
To clarify, she does live far away and that does make things difficult. She also has other trips coming up that she has planned which are not to come and meet my baby so money/PTO/other travel issues are not the reason.

MINNESOTA NUMEROLOGY DECODE

Today I will be decoding the state of Minnesota. I recently did one for Massachusetts if you would like to check that out. I will begin decoding the letters in the state letter by letter and then point of conclusive insights afterwards.
M - This is the 13th letter of the alphabet which will point to the energies of 4 which represents caution, privacy, withholding, responsibility, order, restriction, and family. A place with this letter as the first letter will likely have things in order or order will be of significance.
I - This is the 9th letter of the alphabet which brings the energy of adventure, learning, wisdom, experience, and expansion.
N - Being the 14th letter, N vibrates at the energy of 5 which is the use of responsibility being used for creative purposes. This can take place in many forms, especially when it comes to a state and not a person.
N - Being the 14th letter, N vibrates at the energy of 5 which is the use of responsibility being used for creative purposes. 5 is the number of war and combat as well.
E - 5th letter of the alphabet which points to love, joy, romance, child-like energy, and creativity. 5 is the number of war and combat as well.
S - 19th letter which vibrates at the energy of 1, but in this case, Minnesota isn't a state looking to be in control or to get too much attention since the 1 energy isn't overbearing. In this case, the 1 represents being self-motivated and capable.
O - 15th letter of the alphabet which vibrates at the energy of 6. 6 is about discipline, hospitality, compassion,etc.
T - 20th letter of the alphabet which vibrates at the energy of 2. 2 is a money number and the number of cooperation, stability, and comfort. 2 is also about compassion as well.
A - 1st letter of the alphabet which is about action, observation, and opportunity.
Based on what we have decoded regarding the letters in Minnesota, we can see that the main repetitive number and energy is 5. 5 shows up 3 times in this state's name which equals 15 and then 6 when added and reduced. This is definitely a state that focuses on discipline, balance, and fairness. Justice or the justice system could be very significant for this state. This is also good for financial purposes because maybe they avoid causing financial problems for their residents. Family and love can also be significant for this state. They may welcome outsiders more easily than Massachusetts(I did a decode for them first). When violence arrises, they most likely take care of it as soon as possible to keep the state at a balanced medium.
We have the energy of 1 only repeating twice which means that this state may be more welcoming and cooperative in general. Could be nice acts of kindness pretty often. They likely create a fair workforce and living arrangements of their residents as much as possible.
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I’m 8+2 today, had our intake yesterday and my husband and I are so excited. His family is from the UK, and we are going to visit next month right after our NIPT. I have a fantastic relationship with his side of the family, they respect boundaries and are helpful and kind and good people. My family, not so much. They live out of state, but have anger issues and cross boundaries and make their opinions known and push for it to be their way or the highway. We have a conversational arms length relationship, but they’ve hardly been involved in my life unless it’s convenient for them, or benefits them until now with their first grandkid on the way where suddenly they want to be involved.
My parents called me earlier to ask about how our exam went and about when we will find out gender. As my husbands family doesn’t get to participate in a ton being international, we decided to do a bit of a gender reveal while we are over the pond with his family as we get results that week we are there, and my family threw a fit, my dads reaction was an angry “REALLY?!?” acting like they were absolutely pissed they won’t be involved and like it’s outrageous we are “favoring” my in-laws. I offered to face time them in but my mom is just pissed we won’t wait until later in pregnancy to find out so she can be there and so I ended up hanging up on them and sending my first boundary text, telling them I won’t tolerate this behavior and the jealousy and unwanted opinions are only going to push me away, that this is my pregnancy so I will be calling the shots and if they don’t like it they can take a hike.
I know this is going to be a recurring competitive theme going forward, and I’m trying to figure out how to sedate the flames considering both families are already planning to be here for birth (we both have decent sized families) and we can’t host everyone so I’m thinking I’ll tell everyone they need to get an Airbnb or hotel near us since we are not hosting any family the first month.
My mom already thinks she is coming to stay with us during third trimester through to a few months after birth, when in reality I can hardly handle a weekend visit with her. I don’t mind a few days here and there, but I don’t want the stress of having her around and her overbearing opinions. However, my MIL also has offered to come live in for part of next year to help us and be hands on and we are really open to that, considering I have a demanding job I will need to get back to and we know she will genuinely be helpful. I can see it already, once I tell my family about this it will be a massive fight that I’m allowing my MIL, but not my mom to stay long term.
I’m exhausted already thinking about it and I’m not even through 1st tri. Any family advice for setting boundaries with one side so they don’t feel left out but it’s not more than you can mentally handle?

If there's been 'a theme' to the 2020s besides one once in a lifetime event after another, it's been one of the comeback. Especially as it concerns film, a lot of stars who got big in the 90's and 80's are getting a resurgence and having their legacies reevaluated. The biggest example of this is probably the 2023 Oscars where all the acting winners were all people I definitely remember begging my mom to take me their movies when I was like 10. Especially as it concerns non-white and queer actors, there seems to be this period of atoning for the sons of the past. People are remembering why Michelle Yeoh is a force of nature. They're remembering why Angela Bassett is a powerhouse. One person who is probably up next for this is Rosie O'Donnell and I'd love to be the one to kick that off. If you bring her up now, I think a lot of people have this perception as rude, boorish, argumentative and loud. While she definitely can be some of those things a lot of stuff tends to get left out of the story when we talk about her. I think younger people might be surprised to know for a minute she was actually known as a pretty solid actress and popular personality in general for most of the 90's. Why did this perception change?
Before we get to that we need to go over how she got that perception in the first place. I think it's easy to overlook the fact that Rosie is actually a really good actress and a lot of the qualities that make her a good actress could also work against her later on. Every actor has a brand and persona they project in order to get roles and to get audiences on their side. Rosie's film career started in earnest in the early 90's. She was coming off a relatively successful stand up career as an insult comic and that grit translated well to screen. She brings an earthy, world weary, wizened energy to all of her roles and with the right script and director, she excels. A League of Their Own is a great example because she has to bounce off of so many other personalities, mostly as a grounding force, while still standing out herself. Rosie's coarse New York accent, stout yet strong body and plain yet expressive face all work together to help her project an image of strength and authority. You're going to listen to her when she starts talking. In Sleepless in Seattle, she plays the wise cracking good natured but tough talking best friend and editor to Meg Ryan's very flighty lead character. In Harriett the Spy, she plays a streetwise Mary Poppins type nanny who convincingly makes you believe an impressionable young girl would make her entire world. In Exit to Eden, despite the rather off-beat premise she manages to bring a realism to the concept of a cop going undercover in a BDSM resort. Even in The Flintstones, her Betty actually does balance out Rick Moranis' quirky and absent minded Barney.
A large part of why Rosie works onscreen is because unlike many other 'fat comedians' that became big in the 90's and beyond, that's not the totality of the joke. She's more similar to a female John Candy than a white Monique. Contrast her to Roseanne Barr who she gets compared to at times, especially back then. While they both have very crass and aggressive comedic styles that are aided by their larger frames, Roseanne's humor relied upon her being an unconventionally attractive woman who leaned into the slobbish idea people have of bigger women. Rosie doesn't do that. She's not afraid to be unattractive or be the butt of the joke. But the joke, at least on her part, usually has nothing to do with how she looks. She knows what her body looks like and her stand up occasionally poked fun at her but it was always on her terms. Where she often made fun of herself was that she is more masculine. She's not an out and out stud but she's not feminine. She plays feminine but she doesn't mind embodying a more butch vibe and playing up the comedy within that. But almost always, until the 2000's rolled around, she is the one with the agency. She's the one who is making the joke. She's the one in control. As I've mentioned in many other breakdowns about women in this industry, agency gave her power. This agency would come to an apex when she finally received her own show.
Before we get to that, let us briefly discuss the trend in the 90's of the transparent closet because it's going to become very relevant when we discuss the back half of Rosie's career. If you're much younger, you probably do not realize how bad it was back then to come out as gay. While we're not talking 1950's level of complete career obliteration, it wasn't exactly a fun experience to come out back then especially if you had reached the heights Rosie had by 1996. It was apparent to anyone with eyes, that Rosie was gay. It was apparent to anyone Ellen or Ricky Martin or Sean Hayes was gay back then too. But there's a difference between everyone snickering behind your back about how butch you are and them having a confirmation straight from the horse's mouth. This was the era in which the Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask, Don't Tell were put into place. This was the era where Matthew Shepherd and Brandon Teena were killed. The gay/trans panic defense was still alive and well. Rosie was very much a lesbian to anyone who had ever met a lesbian but in order to be the family friendly host of a daytime talk show, she had to remain closeted. Back then and arguably today in some circles, being gay ran counter to the idea of being wholesome or someone safe to market to children.
With all that said, it was a surprise to some when her talk show debuted that they were trying to market her as a family friendly, mild mannered and aw shucks type personality. While a lot of people didn't buy it, many did including myself who was around 6 or 7 when her show debuted. It's worth noting that this wasn't a Bob Saget style pivot, most of the qualities Rosie had brought to her show were those that made her film career rather successful. She's likeable but she's not saccharine. She's funny but she doesn't punch down. She's bawdy but she knows how to pull back and let everyone in on the joke. She's very outspoken but she's also articulate. She reminds me of a PTA mom who might've had a couple drinks. She's having a good time and she wants you to have a good time too. This was very effective for her, so effective that she dubbed the Queen of Nice. Rosie is very likeable and most of her characters rely upon that niceness and jovial personality with a slight edge, her show was no different. My hot take is that I think she was more suited for a late night show where she could cut loose a bit more and not be confined to the censors because she can be hilarious when she's allowed to speak her mind. See more recent interviews she did with Seth Meyers for an example. It's also worth noting that the aforementioned moniker isn't one she herself came up with or particularly leaned into. There's not much of a huge difference between Film Rosie and Talk Show Rosie, at least until later on.
Whatever shift people happened to notice in her largely happened after her interview with Tom Selleck not long after Columbine. I'm not here to break that down piece by piece but this interview is significant for several reasons. 1) it is the first time as far as I could find that gun control was discussed on this large of a public platform and 2) it was definitely the first time Rosie had been as openly political. I've watched this interview several times and my big takeaway was how respectful she was for the duration of the interview. The common thought is that she 'broke character' but that's not an accurate description. She's always been brash and forward and direct but this is the first time the public saw those qualities applied in an overtly political context. Daytime hosts back then really didn't do that unless you were Oprah and even she didn't do it to a celebrity guest. Maybe it wasn't the time, maybe she could have handled it better but for what it was I don't think she lost the plot. However that was not the conversation at the time. The conversation was essentially that Rosie had gone rogue.
The talk show actually lasted for about three years after that interview and while her popularity hadn't exactly taken a sharp turn yet she was definitely on the decline. Towards the end of the show, Rosie O'Donnell officially came out as a lesbian to advocate for gay parents and to protest laws that blocked them from adopting. All of the snickering behind her back was now done to her face and she became an enemy of the right wing. Rosie being Rosie didn't take this sitting down and dished it out as good as she got it. This didn't really do wonders for her public perception because society never likes it when a woman goes against the grain. Rosie O'Donnell was officially an Angry Lesbian™. Her stint on The View was the apex of this salacious sapphic persona and obviously everyone knows about her going toe to toe with Donald Trump, so I won't rehash that here. She was voicing a lot of opinions that were controversial at the time but have become the general consensus today. If the right wing hated her before, they made her the symbol of the wayward unpatriotic liberal now. But for what it's worth, none of this seemed to really to have bothered Rosie. If anything, coming out as gay and as 'a dirty, flithy commie' seemed to have liberated her and this is reflected in the latter half of her career.
In the 90's, Rosie played 'straight' characters but they were the most lesbian straight women you ever saw. She rarely kissed men in her roles. She always played the tomboy or a butch woman despite her character's relationship status. Her characters, outside of maybe Betty Rubble and in Exit to Eden, usually dressed in a way Rosie herself probably would. Even in Exit to Eden, she tells a submissive man to paint her house than anything remotely sexual. She never made the concerted effort to act or appear more feminine. She never did a sex scene for which I know both she and we are grateful. Although the idea of Rosie O'Donnell simulating sex with a man has me cracking up. For added comedic effect, imagine it with fellow transparent closet resident and registered Depraved Homosexual© Sean Hayes. After she came out, Rosie almost never played a straight woman again. The rose was of the bloom and she could do what she wanted. This is also my favorite era of Rosie's career because she truly did not and does not give a fuck about who she appeases or offends. Her most significant appearance in the phase of her career was as Tutu in Smilf. Here she plays a side we didn't get to see very often: her maternal side. She plays the coarse, tough talking somewhat overbearing mother of the titular Southie Mother I'd Like to Fuck and did it very well. She did play a straight character in this and it's probably one of the more layered characters she's played in a long time. She was in American Gigolo playing opposite Jon Berenthal playing a nonsense detective and she was on The Fosters as a tough but kind social worker. She was on the recent reboot of The L Word because of course she was. She's set to appear on Just Like That presumably replacing Che Diaz, the most unpopular lesbian on television since Ellen DeGeneres. She's leaned a lot more into the butch aspect of her personality but the well-intentioned warmth that has defined her entire career has never faded.
If anyone is due for a meaty role that reminds the general public why they were beloved, it's Rosie O'Donnell. In the over twenty years since she's come out, society has progressed a lot despite the best efforts of the same conservative voices that tried to bog her down back then. If anything, we could use someone like Rosie who isn't afraid to speak truth to power. She's my personal pick to host The Daily Show. Rosie's run in the 90's had plenty of dramas that showed she has the chops to pull this sort of thing off. While she isn't particularly feminine, she's not unbelievable in her roles as a straight woman. Rosie makes any situation feel real, no matter how outlandish it may be. She can play a wise cracking gorilla, a kindly maternal nanny, a tough as nails baseball player and a patient long suffering wife without skipping a beat. Truly Rosie is one of the most versatile flowers in the garden.