Jokes to boyfriend

So about 1 year ago I met this girl, she was really attractive and after exchanging some texts she wanted to hang out. We went on a date, had a lot of fun and after a few drinks we ended up having sex in a hotel room. After this we started dating for a while, we would always go out every weekend and obviously we developed feelings for each other. I was not the kind of guy looking for a relationship, I would constantly have one night stands or just have fun with different girls; but the connection I had with this one girl felt really special, I lusted over her but at the same time I wanted to be just by her side every moment I could.
Eventually we started a relationship, we argued sometimes but nothing out of the ordinary. I stopped doing a lot of things I considered normal just to not make her feel insecure, like hanging out with my best friends (all girls), etc. Things were fine, except from the fact that she met my family about 2 weeks after knowing each other, while after months of dating I never went to her house, not even once.
She lived with her mother and her "brother", she would constantly talk about them, telling me about the things they did or when they would hang out. When I asked about who I assumed was her brother though, she said he "kinda" was, and that things were complicated but she would soon tell me everything about it. I assumed the kid was just adopted or something and simply shrugged it off.
We were a happy couple, we would hang out all the time and simply enjoy whatever we were doing, we were both deeply in love. Until one day we went to a bar with my friends, she already knew them, like I knew hers, so it was nothing new. However this time one of my closest pals brought a girl that I already knew, but would rarely go out. Everything was fine, we parted ways, I went to my house with my girl, we were really tired so we went straight to the bed and like always, had some fun before sleeping.
The next day was when everything went to hell. I was hanging out with my girl, when suddenly my pal texts me saying that I need to call him ASAP. I supposed something funny happened, as we would always talk about the stuff that we did the day after. I go outside and call him, he tells me to "be calm" and to take it easy, at least for now, this just shocks as he has never tell me something like this. Then he proceeds to tell me that my gf has a kid. I was in shock, it was about 10 months since we began dating and she never told me, or even tried to. I was shaking when dealing with this info, we are both fairly young so this was one of the things I never ever expected.
He told me that the friend he brought along yesterday recognized her as her cousin´s ex. And to everyone surprise, they broke up for this very reason, because she never told him about her kid. He then sent me screenshots of the texts he had with this guy, where he was in shock after finding it out and broke up with her.
I composed myself, went to my room and told her to pack her stuff, we need to talk, but outside. We talked for about an hour, I couldnt believe she had lied to me, or well, she hid something as important as that from me for so long! suddenly everything started making sense, from her getting offended from some stupid jokes I used to make to me never going to her house after all this time. I changed! I stopped doing all those things that bothered her and for this ? I felt betrayed, and after she left I went to my house, talked with my closest friends and try to get over it.
The very same day she called me, saying that she wanted to tell me but didnt know how to, that she loved me and that she didnt want to lose me. I was still in shock, and didnt want to see her again after all this, however she showed up in my door, and after letting her in (it was late AF and I did not want anything to happen to her) we talked about it. She said that things would be better, that it was the only thing she never told me, and that she did it out of fear of me leaving. I didnt want to believe all this, I really felt she was special; remember how I said i was kind of a playboy before ? I somehow wanted to marry her and have a family, something that I never ever wished to do with anyone else before. And suddenly, all this dreams and aspirations I had with her were gone; this may be a immature response but I felt that while this would be my first time, she already had it.
After learning almost everything about the situation, that she basically had the kid without knowing (she didnt knew she was pregnant until the very last months) we broke up but would still hang out like if we never did, things were not the same but this was the way I coped with all this I guess.
I started to be the asshole I was before, I loved her, but I still felt betrayed and didnt know what to do, as we werent really a couple anymore. Days went by and I started replying the messages of all these girls I used to ignore (who were obviously flirting with me). Some of them asking me to go out, or help me with stuff that I needed; I started going out with them, having sex, haging out, getting drunk, etc. Most of them developed feelings but I never reciprocated, I was just having fun like I used to. Suddenly my ex asked me to be her boyfriend again, and not knowing what to do I accepted.
Its been months after all this happened, we had a lot of fights because I just dont care about all the things that make her insecure now, I am the way I used to be again, we broke up again, but we still see each other every weekend. Recently a girl that used to flirt with me started to hit on me again, even sending food to my office, and there are other girls asking me out, and although I dont have as much time as I used to, as I am now focused on a personal project that has been the work of my entire life, I still manage to go out whenever I feel "bored".
I have tried to make it work with my ex, I swear, but everytime I feel like I want to marry her and have a family I remember that she already has a kid and how she lied to me. I start thinking about how stupid I would be as a step father. I can barely manage my life and I dont want to be responsible of a kid, even though she says that her mother takes care of him. I want to travel, I want to fullfill my dreams, and honestly, I dont want to have kids, not now, not in the future.
I dont know what to do, I have tried to stop contact with her, but somehow we end up talking again and the cycle repeats. Currently we are "happy" but I feel like I dont want to have her as my partner for life, as I know that doing so means that I would have to accept the kid, and to be honest (maybe this is a immature way to look at it) looking at the kid would remind me of everything that went wrong, and would also remind me of the fact that she was with someone else.

My boyfriend (28) and I (24)have been or were dating for the past 9 months. With us being two guys it was a pretty significant relationship because this usually isn’t common for gay men.
Whole situation:
My boyfriend was straight when we first met each other and we hit it off pretty well. It felt natural considering we didn’t meet through an app and we weren’t looking for each other. I thought he was so pretty and later on did I find out he also thought the same thing about me. That night with our group of friends he continued to flirt and make jokes with me to the point where my friend was offended thinking he was gay baiting me. Sparing all the details of that night. Nothing sexual happened but we had good chemistry for barely knowing each other. Of course this confused him but after messaging some people to get my number he finally got in contact with me
My boyfriend made significantly less money than me considering I’m a veteran and also a medical professional and I think this caused a bit of insecurity with him even though I assured him I never cared. A few months into our relationship we were at dinner with some friends. We were all heavily drinking and I made a joke about being able to afford the car I have now. Just poking at him but it extremely hurt his feelings which I realized immediately. We went to his house and he was still visibly upset but I had to go home so I asked if he wanted to come over so that way I can be there for him since he was hurting.
This is where it gets complicated - I eventually asked him what was wrong after we made it to mine because he was sulking. He then told me how the joke was not funny and it hurt him so I apologized and assured him again that I did not mean to offend him. I promised I wouldn’t even make a joke or bring up financial topics again. He then became aggravated as (us both still intoxicated) he began getting loud and saying that we have nothing in common and the only thing I’ve done is made him miserable. He stated he felt trapped and then he said “what is even the point of us dating” he continue to yell at me as he was storming out. He ignored me as he waited for an Uber and declined to let me drive him home. He even walked down the street just so he wouldn’t be waiting in front of my apartment. At this time I continued to drink so much to the point where I was spilling wine everywhere. He wouldn’t respond to me over the phone. Not even to tell me he was safe.
I felt as if we had just broken up because of his aggravation and statements. (Sober me did not think this). I ended up downloading Grindr and convincing myself that he hated me and I drunkenly drove to a randos house to hook up. Which was extremely stupid. (I used to hook up with strangers during bad times in my life, of course this only hurt me. I think I was reverting back to my old ways of wanting to feel wanted). As I met the guy I began to sober up and realized I did not want to do this anymore but long story short, I was afraid to leave the hookup after he had been waiting and was aroused and I was also in his home, and I felt like he had a lot of potential to hurt me if wanted. So I just gave him a bj and left. As soon as I left I felt guilt in my life I had never felt before and I immediately deleted the app and vowed to tell my BF immediately.
The next day in the morning I told him what happened and assured him it was because of my immaturity that I did that and I never wanted to do anything like that again in my life as it hurt me so bad and this hurt him even more. He continued to tell me that he wanted to hurt me and that I can’t love him because I can’t even love my self. And some more stuff that extremely hurt my self esteem but at the time I thought I deserved it. Then he told me to get out of his house. He broke up with me via text 2 days later.
A few days passed and we decided to stay together as we both messed up. Me more than him though. I loved him and told him that my own actions caused me to cheat but I wasn’t thinking of the consequences and that in no way was it because I didn’t like him. But because I felt alone and hurt by how he treated me that night.
Our sex life was about once a month after this. He wanted to do something every day but I felt guilt every time he wanted to sleep with me. He also made a statement to me that hurt me so bad and I can’t put on here. He said he didn’t mean it but it made me ashamed to have sex at all ever again. He also stated a few months later that because I don’t have as much sex with him that it’s affecting his mental health and it doesn’t matter how I feel anymore but that I need to start putting out.
I’m also on SSRIs so it’s extremely hard for me to orgasm so every time we had sex it felt like it was just for him and I told him this. So when we weren’t together I would masterbate. He told me he does also but that I shouldn’t and that I should only be having satisfaction from him. I had sex toys before the relationship and he told me that they were disgusting and that I can’t use them. He even told me to throw some away. They were just regular phallic toys.
We continued to date for about 7 more months with resentment building up towards each other understandably.
Ending:
Last week I was already upset about our relationship and wanted to sit down and talk about it. But before I got the chance he hurt my feelings even more. I had just gotten my dream car, reasonably gonna talk about it. It also was 70k so I think it offended him that I could have the luxury of getting something so expensive. Last week I simply stated I wanted to get a modification done to the car and he told me he’s tired of hearing about the car and that I need to stop talking about it. He said I cared about the car more than him just because I talked about it. I also had a junk car before so I was just proud of myself. At this point I decided I can’t be happy anymore as he’s always getting upset with me. So we both agreed to split up. (Throughout our relationship he said “I love you” about 5 times for every time I said it just because I had a hard time showing I cared sometimes, at times I felt as him I didn’t love him enough because he loved me so much). I told him I want to remain friends and he agreed but now he stopped speaking to me altogether. I loved him and he “loved” me so how could he just drop me so fast. I know it takes time to heal from this but I feel like I just lost my best friend also and I don’t know what to do.

Okay, so for this post there are a lot of people involved (this has been going on for a while) so I'll list up here who's who. This is my wife's family. I'll be using code names when appropriate:
Father-in-law - FIL
Mother-in-law - MIL
Wife(oldest daughter) - Wife
Second daughter - Sarah
Third daughter - Lana
Fourth daughter - Ruth
Second daughter's husband - BIL
Third daughter's fiancee - Karl
My daughter - daughter
Second daughter's older son - Danny
Second daughter's younger son - Aaron
And me as me
I know this is long but bear with me TL;DR Brother-in-law has snapped the last straw for the family and we are all starting to cut ties with him

 BIL's family has their own side of the story that I'm barely familiar with, so it won't be brought up here. We first met BIL way before they got together; Sarah bought a house as a group of friends with her boyfriend at the time, and BIL and his second wife at the time. We didn't interact with him much. We just heard a few stories about him from their friend group. Eventually this situation broke down and BIL and his second wife left and vandalized Sarah's home on the way out. They let their dogs poop all over the floor, stole some miscellaneous items, poured water in their lawn mower gas tank, etc. He did this to Sarah, his future third wife. We thought this guy was out of our lives forever. Sarah eventually came to stay on my couch after she sold the house. She lived with me and my wife for roughly 3 months. Then she went and rented an apartment a few miles away. No sooner than a few weeks did we find out she was dating future BIL, and a few weeks after that we found she was pregnant. He met the family and stated that he wanted to be a part of it. He blamed all his past transgressions on his second wife. We questioned him at the time if he was still with his second wife. He said no, and that he was officially divorced. My wife looked up the public court records and found out that he didn't file divorce papers until 11 days after we asked that question. A small lie but considering our history of knowing him it was concerning. BIL is a big gun enthusiast. About 1 months after they told us Sarah was pregnant, while cleaning a gun at home he shot himself in the hand. Again, we were concerned but Sarah assured us he was a changed man and this was just an unfortunate accident. His hand healed but he didn't do his physical therapy that seriously so his hand is still kind of jacked up. I feel this is important because he kind of has a history of not following through on what he says. During Sarah's pregnancy we found out that BIL seriously beat one of their dogs back when they bought the house together. We also figured out he diagnosed himself with bipolar, but refused to go to a doctor to get an actual diagnosis. The whole family at the time was distracted by all of this because during Sarah's pregnancy my wife went through a major medical struggle that resulted in multiple surgeries and a months-long stay in the hospital. We were so focused on that the BIL details just kind of came and went at that moment. Sarah gave birth to Danny during COVID lockdown. We were so excited and we all were very active in Danny's life. Time would pass and we just kind of got used to BIL being despite the fact that he often would miss family events. BIL and Sarah would move into a house on my in-laws property just down the road from in-laws house. MIL became their primary caregiver as she could work it around her job and still make decent money. As 4 years have passed my MIL, FIL, Lana, my Wife and I all take shifts of watching their now 2 kids for them, for free. MIL also watches my daughter but significantly less that their son's. 2 years would pass after Danny was born and everything seemed OK. There would just be hints in they way he talked about who he really was. He would say something in casual conversation like "man, there seems like there are too many black people in commercials these days" or "I don't know why we are forcing women's sports to be a thing." Bigoted stuff like that, but veiled enough so there was plausible deniability. I would often call him out on it, so he really grew to not like me. This all changed at his 30th bday. He had a big party with a lot of alcohol and weed with dozens of friends. My wife and I didn't go because we are not party people. Lana and Ruth went to the party. Sarah was also there. During this party BIL went outside and decided to "mud" his jeep through the creek beside their house. This was possibly with Karl but I'm not sure of that to this day. Karl has recently come into the picture prior to this event and was previously friends with BIL for a long time. The jeep got stuck and flooded for obvious reasons. After trying to get it out of the creek by multiple means, they gave up and left it there. I believe it took almost 2 days to get it out. He went back to the party and as everyone got progressively drunk and high, my 2 sister-in-laws Lana and Ruth (I believe) criticized BIL for getting his car stuck in a creek while playing. BIL verbally assaulted them and demanded they get out of his house. They left in tears. They drove separately, and Lana had gotten buzzed so they both got in Ruth's car and drove to my house. They sat and vented to my wife and I for a while, and eventually I offered that we should go do something fun to take their minds off of it. My wife and I drove them to Taco Bell and we got some food and drove around town for a while and made jokes in the car. After they cooled off and were in a better mood they said that Lana needed to go get her car from the party. In a flurry she accidentally left her keys inside her sister's and BIL's house. We drove them over just in case anything sketchy happened but Lana and Ruth didn't want us to go inside, so we waited out in the car. She didn't think it would be a big deal to walk in, but as her and Ruth did BIL immediately got in her face and demanding she gets out or else. Ruth went to talk to someone else at the party and didn't notice this at first. BIL shoved Lana against a wall and held her there. Everyone apparently stood in stunned silence as this happened. He then shoved her to the ground, grabbed her around the ankles and started pulling her across the floor. As he was threatening to do even worse, Ruth ran up and jumped on his back and gave him a head lock. She screamed at him to stop but before BIL could anything about this everyone finally woke up and pulled them apart. Ruth helped Lana up and they ran out of the house onto the front porch sobbing. My wife saw this and got out of the car and yelled at them to get back in our car. We drove up to the in-laws house. By then it was past midnight. MIL was about an hour away working her job and FIL was up in his room asleep. The sisters went and woke him up and explained the situation through tears. They also called MIL to inform her of the situation. He got ready and ask me to go with him down to the house to get some answers. The sisters stayed up at the house. We drove down in his car and when we got out the entire party was ready for us and greeted us at the car. Literally over a dozen people, most of whom I did not recognize started screaming what happened at both of us simultaneously. Everyone was clearly very drunk. FIL looked overwhelmed, so I raised my hands and tried asking everyone to stop for a second and go one by one telling their bit of the story. BIL stopped me mid sentence and pointed his finger in my face. I noticed he had his other hand on a holstered hand gun. He yelled out "You don't have a say here! You're barely even part of this family." For context, I had been with my wife for over 11 years at that time and he hadn't even married Sarah yet and had been there about 2 1/2 years. FIL backed up and told me that I need to stop talking and that I was being a problem. I backed off and went over the yard to Sarah and Karl. I asked Sarah what happened and she told me that she didn't see what happened and that she wasn't very aware of what was going on now. Karl would barely answer the same question. I walked back over to FIL but he told me to back off and that I really wasn't needed there. Admittedly I felt pretty insulted and just decided to walk back to his house and get my car and go home with my wife. We eventually left after FIL came back to the house. We found out later that BIL had pulled his gun out and threatened to kill himself if FIL didn't leave. Out of fear of what he would do, my in-laws were pretty afraid to take action at this point. A lot of the situation was his word against someone else's and Sarah went on a tour around to the friends and convinced them not to take any of this to the police. She then tried to smooth things over with the family and offered that BIL would apologize to everyone. He then refused, stating that Ruth was the real aggressor and that she assaulted him. He eventually agreed to apologize to just FIL for causing a problem and I think some half-hearted apologies to Lana and Ruth. The whole situation was swept under the rug but an unease has existed over the family since then. He stopped coming to family events pretty much altogether. About 4 months after this situation, prior to my daughter being born, he told MIL he was going to bring Danny up to their house so she could watch him for a few hours while he took a nap. His job works long hours so this wasn't out of the ordinary. However, he didn't show up for a while and my MIL started questioning what going on. She called but there was no answer. She drove down to his house and knocked but there wasn't an answer, only Danny crying in the background. She let herself in and found BIL asleep on the couch with Danny actively trying to wake him up. MIL tried to wake him up but nothing for a few minutes. She gave up and wrote a note to let him know where Danny was. BIL didn't notice Danny was gone for 2 hours. He finally woke up, drove up to in-laws house, and yelled at my MIL for just taking Danny without informing him. He took Danny and then left. A few months after that, after my daughter was born, He fell asleep while watching Danny again. This time we found out because when he woke up the front door was open and Danny was gone. He called in-laws for help finding him. My in-laws have a large property (about 200 acres) with a ton of it forested. Danny wandered 1/4 of a mile into the woods and I believe it took roughly a little over an hour to find him. Family questioned him hard this time but he just recoiled back into their house and didn't talk to us much. Sarah continued to defend him and said it was just an accident. Again the police were not notified about any of this. There was always this idea that if we went to authorities about any of this they would just run for it. They would then surprise everyone with the news that they were pregnant again, despite the fact that Sarah had used the morning after pill. This whole time they hadn't married yet. They announced that they were getting married but Sarah told Lana that it was mostly just to help BIL not have to go through bankruptcy a second time. I wasn't sure if this would do anything to help that situation, but that's what Sarah said at one point leading up to the wedding. About a month before the wedding, however, he threatened Sarah that if she insisted on inviting my wife to the wedding he would demand to invite a friend of his that Sarah hated. This friend also used to date BIL I believe. This was his ploy to force Sarah to not invite my Wife or me. The 2 other sisters and MIL all stood in solidarity with us and said that they would also not go if we weren't invited. He eventually relented and they got married a little before Aaron was born. As more kids were added, MIL's childcare duties got much harder. Eventually my wife and I started paying her (not much but something at least. $150 a month) to watch our daughter, but we also did chores for her, bought her food often, and eventually my Wife started taking a few shifts to watch all 3 children. To date, BIL and Sarah have never compensated any of us for our work. It's a little frustrating but we've tried to understand because Sarah and BIL seem to be bad with money. They objectively make more than us yet can't afford to pay MIL anything. Last Thanksgiving, in the middle of dinner, Sarah and BIL decided to have an "intervention" and talk about how we were not treating BIL fairly. They addressed everybody but really honed in on me specifically. This seemed to be because the rest of the family kind of dance in eggshells around them, while to be frank I'm pretty honest about how I feel about them. They seemed to think I was causing the family to turn against him and questioned why I would do that. I told him he lacked humility. He said he didn't understand. I told him that if he admitted to his mistakes and actually apologized about any of the stuff I previously wrote, instead of blaming everyone and everything else then the whole family would feel a bit different about him. A lot of talk was about the 30th b-day and other times when I just ignored him and how he had already apologized about the party. I reminded him that he didn't apologize to most of the family and he blamed Ruth. He then stated that Ruth was the cause of a lot of the problems at that party. He also made a big deal about how the family doesn't trust him with my daughter and kept emphasizing how he has never held her. We finally tried to come to an agreement. I told him I would try to talk to him more and try to understand him better and he said he would try to come to family events more. He also wanted more of a relationship with my daughter. We left and my wife and I were skeptical but we said that if this is who Sarah really wanted to be with, as long as BIL wasn't perceived as a threat he could have more contact with our daughter. We have had way more of a relationship with his kids than he has had with our daughter so I tried to sympathize with that imbalance. Karl also stated later that having known BIL for a long time, he thought he was very sincere. To date, BIL has not asked or tried at any family events to spend any time with my daughter, despite having numerous opportunities. Now to the current situation. About a month ago Lana and Karl announced that Lana was pregnant. This was a revelation due to Lana having a medical condition that made it harder to get pregnant. A lot of excitement was brewing in the family because of this. Karl has been seeming like a good partner to Lana, and proposed to her a little before the pregnancy happened. This is especially pertinent because Lana and Karl moved into a house together right beside BIL and Sarah. A few days ago they were over at Sarah and BIL's house when an argument broke out between Sarah and BIL. BIL demanded that Sarah wasn't an "obedient enough wife" and that if she wanted there marriage to work then she was going to have to get better at serving him. She was upset and they weren't coming to an agreement so he was going to leave, but apparently he was very high so Sarah refused to give him the keys to his car. He got extremely mad and then got a gun, held it to his head, and threatened to kill himself if she didn't hand over the keys. Fortunately, Danny and Aaron were taking a nap during all of this. Sarah called the police during this whole exchange and the operator heard a lot of what BIL said over the phone so based on that they arrived at the house. He apparently drove away and it took the police a bit to find him but once they did he turned himself over. They admitted him to a mandatory 72-hour stay at a psychiatric ward for a mental health assessment. Sarah then came up to the rest of the family (not me or my Wife) and gave them Danny and Aaron. She then went and confided with Lana and Karl about how abusive BIL had been and how life was just miserable right now. A lot of us, especially Karl and my in-laws, were telling her that she needs to leave BIL and file for emergency custody of her children. She seemed to be listening to us and turning a corner, but inexplicably the psychiatric ward allowed BIL to have a phone call with Sarah and they had a long conversation. Suddenly, Sarah shut us all out and completely changed her story. She started defending BIL again. BIL was then let out of the psychiatric ward a day early. Since Karl was working at the time, Lana came to stay with us and then over at her in-laws. We are especially concerned about her safety around BIL due to her being pregnant. They have since cut nearly all contact with us for 4 days now. They have only told Karl that they were getting a new TV because the old one mysteriously broke somehow. They have continued to post on social media like nothing has happened. They have spent 2 days with BIL's family so we aren't sure what their opinion of this is, though we do know a sibling of his has also told Sarah to leave him prior to this latest situation. We don't know what their plans for childcare is because they are wholly reliant upon us. Lana is very reluctant to ever be home alone. Ruth is as well. There are so many other details I haven't mentioned. There have been holes in walls they've had to fix. There is some evidence that BIL is cheating on Sarah, but that evidence is somewhat inconclusive. The bigoted comments for a while now have gotten increasingly misogynistic. It's a lot of 'we need to respect proper gender roles' kind of stuff. There's just too much and I've already written a book on here. I don't really know what to do at this point. Because a lot of this stuff has been swept under the rug it's hard to tell how seriously CPS or police would take our claims. FIL has threatened to kick them out of their very cheap rental they're in now. Who knows what they would do in that scenario. I know this post is detailed and because of that BIL or Sarah might see it, but at this point I wonder if I even give a shit. They've already eluded to keeping their sons from us in the past and the vibes we are getting now is that they are already doing it. And from the bottom of my heart, fuck BIL. 

Me (21F) and my boyfriend (22M) have been together for 3 years. We’ve had our ups and downs but our relationship is the healthiest it’s ever been now. When we first met and started having sex we had it almost every day if not 3-4 times a week and we both had very high sex drives. Now we only have sex once a week if that and have gone 2-3 weeks in between having sex. While I was in school, he was working on the road as an equipment operator so we were long distance for almost a year. I feel that now that he’s home (which has been since December 2022) we don’t have sex as often. We’ve had conversations and communicated our issues multiple times and we’ll be good for a couple weeks and then it goes back. He works 70 hour weeks most weeks so I totally understand him being tired and want to believe that that is the main issue but also feel it could be that he got used to not getting any while we were long distance. I know the reason I’m overthinking is because the question always pops in my head about me being the issue. He’s constantly flirting with me or making dirty jokes or suggestions, they just never lead anywhere. I mostly just need advice or someone to relate to here because I feel like we’re too young to be having these issues. Let me know if y’all think I’m just overthinking and being insecure because its something that constantly bothers me.

I (16M) go to school with this girl (16/17, idk). We are in the UK in sixth form. Recently, she has been making “jokes” about how I’m secretly gay for one of my best friends. I’m very comfortable with my sexuality and I know for a fact that I’m not gay. It’s also annoying that said friend feeds into it sometimes, but not usually.
This would be bad enough if it was just the jokes about me and my friend. I’d probably be able to tolerate it if it was just that. But she also makes “jokes” about how her boyfriend (who I vehemently dislike and have done for a long time) is secretly my best friend and I’m also secretly gay for him. For example, she could be sitting next to him, and then she’d say “Are you jealous that I’m sitting next to your boyfriend?” It just really pisses me off and makes me super uncomfortable.
I don’t understand why she’s making these jokes. I’ve told her before that it’s just really fucking weird and asked her to stop doing it, but she ignores me. And she’s also called me a furry, completely unprovoked. I’m not a furry and I will never be a furry (nothing against them, just not my thing).
Anyway, I’m not looking for advice. I just needed to vent. I’ve talked to my mum about it and I don’t really want to do anything else because 1) I doubt anything will be done and 2) I’m really non-confrontational. Thanks for reading.

So I’m 16M talking to this girl 16F in my grade, and. We kinda clicked but as friends I think, when we started talking it was once every few weeks and now it’s practically everyday, but when we started talking a week later she found a bf so I know she probably not into me but now they broke up and her texting became more frequent and kinda like more from her side I think, anyway I wanna know if there is a chance that she might like me or wants to find a rebound or just friendzone.. in the past she made it clear that I’m in the friendzone and I don’t know if I still am or more than before, she calls me every few days or when I don’t come to school she is the only one who asks me why I didn’t come today, we joke a lot and have a great time talking, this is confusing… I don’t know what to do cause I do want her but don’t want to get hurt
By the way one time she called while I was drunk with my friends and come to find out I apparently I opened up to her about some stuff I had going with my life and she told me about her boyfriend and all that… if this helps with anything cause since that day we became a frequently talking almost everyday
My mine question is how do I get out of the friendzone if (Idk if I’m in) I’m in the friendzone?

I've (23,F) been dating my bf(35,M) for almost a year and friends with the flatmate (21,M) for almost four. Living together for 2 years.
My boyfriend used to stay 2-3 nights but would drop by almost every night for 10-20 mins to hug me, kiss me and then leave. My flatmate and boyfriend got to know each other during this past year and they normally get along well. We even went on a vacation as a trio, just a month ago.
So around 3 months ago my flatmate voiced some issues about my boyfriend staying so often. I said it's okay, i can do 2 nights instead. Mind you, those nights start after 11 as we both work and end before 4-5 p.m. the next day. I didn't create any problems, i even told him it's good he said this, maybe it would become the reason he takes me out on more dates as he wouldn't be seeing me as often. So the flatmate then said, "i also don't like him dropping by. Even if it's for five minutes, i feel like i see him everyday and i feel like this isn't my house when i see a third person so often."
I said okay. No more hugs at the doorstep. I was honestly disappointed but i knew i had to comply in order to keep my peace at home.
Still the situation affected my own peace. I no longer had a home where i could just casually call my boyfriend to, even if it's for ten minutes. We had a strict schedule. One day, he couldn't come so we postponed to next day without letting the apartment manager ahem sorry, the flatmate know. But it was still 2 days within the same week, not three. Not at all to my surprise, the flatmate again told me how bothered he was that he wasn't informed. All i did was say sorry and promise I'll inform him next time there's a change.
Fast forward to last week, boyfriend and i were out of town for some important stuff but then we realized our day trip was going to take longer he had to go back home as he had work. Before he left, he had parked his motorcycle in front of my apartment building (he lives too far away and it was way more convenient to do so, for retrieving it later). Then he knocked on my door to ask whoever was at home to hand him his helmet, which we had left in my bedroom. The person (whoever opened the door) ended up telling him they don't know where it is, so he went to my room to get it. While he was there, he noticed that the cats were hungry and their litterbox was stinky, so he took care of that too and left immediately after. In summary, i was having a very hard time out of town and he was retrieving his helmet and helping me out however he could, as he should.
And tonight we came back home extremely tired. We both have not slept a decent night's sleep for the past 5 days. He has pulled 3 all-nighters and i, 2. I told him to come rest a bit in the kitchen and then he could leave. We spent half an hour in the kitchen, chatted to my flatmate and our friend who has been staying with us. And then bf left. I was then immediately asked this question: "How did your boyfriend enter the apartment that day?"
I was confused because i remember him mentioning that one of those two had opened the door for him. I said "I'm not sure". The flatmate said "well i did not open the door. Then the other friend said "neither did i.. actually, i just don't remember opening the door".
I called bf to confirm. He said it was the other friend who opened the door. I hung up the phone and told them that. The friend just replied "i... Don't remember. I'm not sure".
I was still confused by this question. My boyfriend doesn't have a key. So it must be one of those two who opened the door for him. And what kind of a question is that? Why would you even ask that? All i knew was that the room was becoming very tense.
I asked "what's wrong?" To which the flatmate replied, "We both did not open the door. He came inside somehow. Did he have your keys?"
I explained over and over that i had given my keys to the friend before leaving, and i have never given the bf any keys. We only have two, one is always on the flatmate and other one is mine. I genuinely thought they were joking so i attempted to break the ice by saying "well looks like bf is secretly a ghost!". The attempt did not work, they were both dead serious.
Then i asked "are you implying that my boyfriend got another key made behind my back?" They said "why not". I mean respectfully sir, you shouldn't be going on vacations with the people who you believe have the potential to break into your home and commit a literal crime. What i mean is, these people both know my boyfriend very well, and they know he's not that kind of person.
Well after this they both looked at me like i was hiding things. They said "well we don't know who opened the door" to which i replied "well that is a you problem, you probably should know whether you've opened a door or not".
The flatmate also added that he was again bothered that noone let him know the boyfriend was coming. And the fact that he was here when i wasn't. I mean... He was just taking back his helmet and cleaning cat litter for heaven's sake. Not like he sat in front of tv with a beer. And it was early morning, he had not slept for two days straight, just come back from a 7 hour trip, and just wanted to take his helmet so that he could go to work. He couldn't let me know because i was sleeping, 7 hours away from him.
I've lived with actually toxic situations before, but for this one i don't know what to think. Am i even slightly right? Or am i fucked? Should i move? How can i approach this situation? Someone please give me some advice, right now I'm very much sleep deprived and can't think but i feel like this kind of accusation should probably make me angry.
TL&DR: i was out of town, my flatmate and another friend were home. My boyfriend stopped by for something and the other friend opened the door. Now that friend says she doesn't remember whether she opened the door or not, and they accuse me of giving my boyfriend a spare key (or him making another key for himself)

So for a while about 2 or 3 years ago, I thought I was bisexual and I said something about it to my parents and I kind of feel like they talked me out of it and they brought up how I had never dated anyone at that point in which they were kind of right. I love my parents but that kind of made me a bit mad and I just kind of forgot about it for a few years. Now I have a boyfriend that I’ve been dating for a little over a year and I love him and wouldn’t give him up for anything but sometimes I still wonder yk. It kind of started out as a joke that if we broke up then I would date a girl because I can’t stand any other men lmao. I kind of feel like it doesn’t matter at this point but I would still like to try and figure it out for my own comfort yk.

I’m gonna lay out the whole context here, and it’s 2 years long so bear with me. A TL;DR isn’t really possible as there’s so much important context to whether or not IATA.
We’ve been married almost 10 years and she’s from overseas. She came here through our marriage. We were happy and doing extremely well for ourselves.
The problem started to 2 years ago. My friends wedding. Afterward we went out and then went to another friends house to continue partying. At the party one of the wedding guests started having a pity party about how he’s depressed because all these happy couples are around and he’s single.
For context. This guy is weird. He’s disrespectful to women, capitalizes on captive audiences (waitresses most often), and is overall a loser. He’s got a good job but that’s about it.
My wife, listens to his sob story and says “I have a sister!” and immediately starts FaceTiming her sister. This is something I’ve said isn’t okay. We’re not tinder, and we’re not matchmakers.
Beyond that her sister has a history of treating her poorly. She constantly told my wife she’s stupid growing up, well into adulthood. She blocked my wife for a whole year because my wife called her and told her not to go on boats with men she doesn’t know. Told my wife to live like she doesn’t have a sister. For a whole year I consoled my wife a couple times a week.
Anyways we were both drunk and with people so I’m not gonna start a fight right there. I figure I’ll talk to her about it maturely later. So I do. In the meantime, I switch to speaking Arabic with her sister and tell her this isn’t okay and isn’t what she wants.
Her and my wife to this day claim I was happy and supportive. They claim I was too drunk to remember. But there’s a few things wrong with this. I drove home, I take drinking and driving VERY seriously and would never, ever do it. In fact, if I know I’ve drank too much, I’ll hand my keys to a friend before the liquor starts hitting, just to avoid any possibility of making that bad decision.
Secondly, I switched to Arabic. I’m white. Arabic is a language I learned. When I speak it, I speak it very, very deliberately and remember the conversations perfectly. I know exactly what I said.
Anyways, when I talk to my wife later, I’m told how it’s wrong to prevent her from helping her sister and how her sister really likes this guy. A guy she talked to for 5 minutes. I told her it’s wrong to think of it as “helping” her sister in the first place and that her sister is a grown woman who can find her own partner.
So my wife says “okay I’ll tell my sister to stop talking to him”. That was the end of it. Or so I thought.
A few weeks later I’m at a different event and this guy let it slip they’re still talking. Immediately I’m upset and text my wife about how she lied to me.
She said her sister was really falling in love with this guy and separating them would be wrong. She said she did tell her sis to block him but when her sis went into a depression she told her she can unblock him and talk to him, behind my back.
Upset I told her we need to talk about going behind my back and how disrespectful of my boundaries this whole ordeal was. She said “it’s okay I’ll tell her to block him again”.
Over. Or so I thought for the next few months. A few months later I again am at an event with this guy and this time he’s smart enough to lie about them talking. But I’m a salesman and a bullshitter. You can’t bullshit me unless I trust you. I knew immediately he was lying but I let it go. I did ask my wife and she said no they’re not talking. So I believed her.
Well, a year and a half goes by. In that time her sister and her fought about how her sister could come to the US. We said we’d help her but it’s a lengthy process. At the time I had little animosity toward her sister and would’ve loved to see her come here and be near my wife again. She wasn’t happy with that and said it takes too long. This is her sister’s mindset.
Anyway. Her sister gets a B1 visa in the meantime, temporary business visitor and wants to come visit my wife. Lies through her teeth about her intentions to the immigration officer, telling them she wants to stay 90 days. They approve her for 60.
So we file for an extension ASAP so she can visit for 3 months. Staying with us the whole time. I wanted her to have fun on her visit so I arrange for my friends and I to go out. This guy shows up. She talked to him and told him our plans.
Immediately they disappear into the casino and come back holding hands and all kinds of PDA. I’m fuming because I know she’s a conniving word I won’t say here. I don’t say anything though and we go through the night and I let it go so I can have fun.
The next day he’s picking her up from my house and they’re out for the whole day. The next time my wife is off work, same story. Well, I thought you were here to visit her? And that’s where I put my foot down.
I got told it was wrong to try and control her, wrong to try and separate them, etc. etc. etc. Finally she blocks his number and he calls from a separate number. I turn off her SIM card because I’m not gonna support her going behind my back in my own home. He calls me and tells me he really loves her and just wishes I’d accept it.
I tell him very plainly I will never, ever accept it because it all stemmed from him, her, and my wife going behind my back. Primarily my wife, as she’s the only one of the three I should be able to trust is telling me the truth.
At this point, I feel as if my wife had an emotional affair, although it’s with her own family. She repeatedly chose to go behind my back, against a boundary I had told her repeatedly before this situation at my friend’s wedding after party ever transpired. If that’s not an emotional affair, I don’t know what is.
So I tell him bluntly to not call me anymore and I’m not going to change my stance, and his feelings don’t mean shit to me. He started to give me a sob story about how we’re friends and he I should be happy for him and I cut him off and told him to save his breath.
My wife is upset at me for how I talked to him. Another emotional affair. Trying to protect the feelings of this dude.
The next day, while my wife is at work I’m eating lunch at our dinner table and studying schoolwork her sister comes to the table and starts talking to me about this guy asking if I talked to him and I tell her plainly I did and what I told him.
She goes into a story about how she really loves him, she’s an adult woman and I shouldn’t be intervening etc. I told her I agree I shouldn’t ever have been involved and neither should my wife. I told her to save her breath with any talk of her feelings because I don’t care. She started crying telling me I’m cruel etc.
I told her at this point I’m done being nice. I’ve been lied to for 2 years and it’s over. I’m done being my laid back self and I’ve been pushed repeatedly and I’m standing up for my marriage and my boundaries.
I did turn her SIM card back on so she could call my wife and I, her hosts.
The next morning I wake up to my wife in tears calling me to her sisters room. Her sister is bawling her eyes out and packing her bags to go home. I talk her sister into coming for a car ride with my wife and I to talk things out.
Immediately in the car my wife starts berating her sister about how she’s selling her for a man and a whole host of other things. I calm my wife down and tell her that’s not okay to say to her sister. Because against what they thought I don’t want and would’ve never wanted this to cause a separation between them. I know how much my wife values family.
In the car her sister tells me she really loves this guy and that she can see them being a family one day etc. etc. etc. I tell her plainly don’t ever bring him around my house, if they do marry and have kids, don’t ever bring them around my house, and don’t consider me her brother in law because I will never do anything for her again after she goes home.
My wife is shocked, she’s shocked and they both wonder how I could be so cruel. I said I’m over it. I’m over hearing about this guy, I’m over being used, and I will never again trust her. She said she understands and resumes talking to this guy.
A few days later we’re in the car going to a family event with my family and I get asked if he can come. I said no, very politely. I said no, he’s not part of my family. I was told how terrible I am, and my wife and her sister both jump out of my car in a bad part of Chicago, an area neither of them know.
My wife calls my family and tells them I kicked them out of the car. So my family starts blowing up my phone screaming at me. Once I explained the situation my family said they’ll come pick them up but I hung around and kept driving by to make sure they were okay. Eventually my wife calls me and says they’ll get in.
So I pull over and they open the doors and my wife goes “I’m scared I don’t feel comfortable getting in the car with you”. So I drive away pissed off. This is a 85,000 car in a bad part of the city where carjackings happen every other day.
I go park somewhere but keep an eye on them to make sure they stay safe. A homeless guy passed them and my wife calls me to come get her. So I do and we go home.
Again her sister packs her shit and cries that she’s going home. I tell her to relax, sleep on it and we’ll talk in the morning. She does eventually and in the morning she decides she’ll stay.
A week goes by and I hear nothing about this guy from her. My friends and I all joked about him and made light fun of him. He caught wind of it and cried to my wife’s sister who told my wife, who came to me and aggressively told me to stop and leave them both alone. I got pissed off because this was a private convo between me and my friends and if he heard it and got his feelings hurt it’s on him.
This spiraled into a huge argument with me, my wife, and her sister. In the argument I asked her sister plainly if she planned to leave at the 90 day mark. She said no.
So I kicked her out of our house. Her and my wife went for a walk and I yelled out the front door to get her shit to the curb before the walk before I do, because if she doesn’t do it herself it’ll be thrown on the wet ground. They both thought I was joking before then I assume. Her sister comes in and packs her stuff and gets out. I said if you plan on staying here illegally it won’t be in my house. If the choose is between here or the streets, it’ll be the streets.
She went to stay with the boyfriend and his parents. His parents must not have liked her too much because within a couple weeks they made them both move out.
This was in January of this year.
Since then, I’ve been repeatedly goaded into accepting this. My wife has tried to get me to visit her sister, etc.
It came to a head recently at a wedding we went to for another friend. Her sister and this guy were there. I didn’t say a word to either one the entire night and all was fine.
Except my wife spent the whole night at their table because he wouldn’t dance or do anything to have fun. She can’t handle the idea that her sister might find something she doesn’t like about this guy. She has to be there just in case the relationship goes on life support.
This pisses me off, obviously. She’s more invested in their relationship than she’s been in ours for the past 2 years. Grown adults.
Well, today she was going to her sisters house. She had 2 bags. An ulta bag and a discovery bag. I asked what that is, and she said it’s for her sister. She pulled out taco shells and said it’s just small stuff she wants her to try. But I could see through the bag and saw beauty products. I’m not an idiot.
I looked in when she went to the bathroom and saw a fucking armoire full of shit. I looked at the receipt. $300. I was fucking livid.
I continued getting ready for work and said “her husband can’t buy her that?”. It’s confrontational, yes. But I said it politely, and was open to talking about it.
I get met with immediately hostility. I never raised my voice but I made it very clear I wasn’t being nice about this or anything anymore.
I told her “maybe she could pay you back and find you a new husband”. I’m going to give her a choice. Me or her sister now. Because this has gotten fucking ridiculous.
We pay for her to come here. She hired an immigration lawyer apparently, but doesn’t have money to pay me back for the flight or even pay for the Ubers they take or anything. My wife is trying to make up for this losers shortcomings. He’s too much of an idiot to see that her sister is using him.
By the way, this isn’t her first fiance. It’s not even her first western fiance. She’s been engaged to at least 3 different guys. One from France, another from Belgium, and a third from Canada before this guy. She was looking to immigrate. He’s a fucking idiot though so, oh well.
My wife’s sister is very materialistic. My wife is fortunately down to earth but is so far up her sisters ass because she thinks if she doesn’t do everything her sister wants that her sister will cut her from her life again. Which is exactly what would happen.
I told her that’s on her sister. I’m not asking her to never talk to her sister. I’m asking her to stop treating her sister like she’s a child and putting their relationship before ours. Stop bending over backwards for a grown woman who will throw you away the moment you’re inconvenient.
But it’ll never happen it seems and it’s the reason I’m strongly considering divorcing her. I’m over this fucking shit. Oh, and by the way, my wife claims that she’s scared of me etc. now when she tells the story to other people.
I have never and would never hit my wife. I’ve never given her any reason to be afraid of me. So to put that out there on me is absolutely fucking bullshit and I’ve lost all trust in her.
AITAH?

Olá! It's me! I'm Rickle Pick! Hello everyone!
So, I’ve been listening to some stories about Neckbeards and Kevins, as well as some Legbeards and Kevinas (Is that the correct term??). Well, most of the times I listen to those stories, I am reminded of some people I used to deal with in school. Specifically, this time, the tale of a guy, who I’ll name Roger Bacon for reasons soon to be explained. Sorry for any grammar errors, eu falo português! I also don't really know the posting rules here, so I'll just post it and see how it goes lol
This prologue is more of a compilation of stories that I think is needed before we get to the main shenanigans and awkward situations this guy put himself AND me into. If this generates any interest, I will post more specific tales of this weirdo! Long time lurker, first time poster, english is definitely not my first language and the whole shebang. I also never wrote a text this large, so go easy on me!
THE LIST:
Well, I guess it’s usual to make a list of people that appear in those stories, so I’ll make one just for you!
Me: Your basic musician-type nerdy theater kid white guy! Tall, thin with medium-light brown hair. At the time, I usually wore a leather jacket and sometimes a hat (not a fedora, a Chaplin hat. Also, where I live, hats are an acceptable attire choice lol). I kinda looked like the Once-ler from Lorax. At this time, I had just failed my second year of high school because of… honestly just lack of effort, mixed with undiagnosed ADHD and a bit of lacking in the ol’ confidence and self-respect department. At the time, I also was physically incapable of saying no and had a crippling fear of disappointing people.
Roger Bacon: 168 centimeters (or 5,5ft for the uncivilized) of pure muscle! Or at least he thought it was that way. In reality, he did have some muscles but was kinda chubby and flaccid. Not FAT fat, but athletic fat (???). He was mixed, light skinned, had shaved short curly hair, no beard (except for the inside beard) and his face was a special kind of oval, besides having a, "chiseled jaw". He always smelled like he had just gotten out of a day-long brawl with a french cologne wearing burrito. He wasn't an usual neckbeard, but he was a huge attention whore. Thought too much of himself, as we say here in Brazil: “Promised too much, delivered nothing at all.” His moto was: “Dude, I think she’s into me!”
For now, these are the characters, as the focus is to introduce you all to Roger Bacon as a person.
With the list over, let us get to the story.
FEBUARY 2018:
The year of 2018 started pretty badly for me. I had just been held back from 10th grade, had no friends and didn’t really know anyone. As most people know, high school in Brazil is quite different from America, as we start school in febuary and we share the same class with the same people all day, excluding language classes and extra-curriculum activities. This meant that, for the foreseeable future, I was alone. On the first day of school, I shyly sat on the last desk on the far right corner of the room, as I scanned my classroom to see what I was dealing with. A few groups of people sitting together, talking and greeting their friends, some loners reading or playing on their phones. The artsy girl drawing a beauriful woman on the white board. Some guy drawing a penis right beside her. Perfect balance. A normal classroom.
Another difference between our school systems is that we don’t really have clicks based on like Jocks or Nerds or Pretty Girls, it’s mostly people who connected in childhood or matched personalities, instead of connecting through roles and interests within the school. Not saying either one is better, just different. And yeah, the bullying situation is just as bad. I was bullied for my whole middle school and through first year of high school, and made a very specific group of low profile friends. So when I failed sophomore year I thought to myself “Screw it, if I’m going to be held back, that’s at least a second chance for me to grow an acceptable social life.”
All this elucidates how intimidating it could be for someone to join a new classroom full of mostly new faces. If you were unable to make a friend, you’d pretty much be on your own for the whole year unless an already formed group “adopted” you. So my mindset was to at least try and meet new people.
Well, have you ever said “I’m gonna do this thing I’ve never done before!” And got the worst possible circunstance you could get at the very first attempt? Welp, that’s just what happened. My strategy was to start small, and go talk to only one person at first, and then try to interact with a few of the groups as that was a bit intimidating (fun fact: we call “clicks “panelinhas”, spelled “pah-neh-lin-ias”, wich means “little pans”, because, you know, they’re closed groups, like a closed… pan. Idk, anyway), so I went up to this guy in front of me, and that guy was Roger Bacon.
He was almost lying on his chair, on a cool guy pose while messing around on his phone. He was also wearing a black sports tank top with a grey opened sweatshirt and the standard uniform wine-red shorts that were mandatory in our school, which made him look like a short and jelly version of Rocky balboa mixed with Kick Buttowski.
In real life, my name and his started with sequential letters, and because of this, we would sit near each other for the whole year, so I guessed he’d be the best person to interact with. I also KINDA knew him because we had basketball training after class in like 2015 and I went to the same church as him, in which I befriended his brother, Kevin, slightly, but didn’t have much contact with him because he had already graduated (I have some stories about basketball and church so tell me if yall wanna read them lol). I approached and gestured for him to take of his headphones (They were extremely loud, so I could recognize he was listening to the song In The End by Linkin Park).
Me: Hey! Aren’t you Roger? You’re Kevin’s brother, right?
RB, trying to sound stoic: “Oh, hey Rick. Yeah, it’s me… fortunately for you.”
Me: “What do you mean?”
RB explained: “Well, I’m the cool brother! Kevin was lame, and also had no friends.”
Me: “Isn’t he in a band with [insert band members]? They seem to be his friends…
RB: “They might look nice, but they’re all assholes. Don’t let them fool you! I’m the nice brother, Kevin is a dipshit.
To elucidate you: that band he said was made of assholes was the Worship band of the church we went to. It was also the worship band that I occasionally played the piano with.
I said, jokingly: “Guess I’m an asshole then! Because, ya know, I play with them more often than not”
RB: “No man, it’s just them. They’re just so infuriating! They never let me participate!”
Me: “Wow, that’s weird… I mean, I didn’t know you were a musician too! What instrument do you play?”
RB: “I play the drums, piano, guitar, bass and I also sing. But Kevin keeps me out because he wants to be the 'star brother'!”
I could tell he got a little heated, and went silent for a little while. I decided not to mention the band or his brother in his presence, 'cause ya know, that was pretty awkward lol.
I remember thinking to myself “This guy’s kinda weird”, because his brother was one of the nicest people I had ever known, and he also didn’t have the say on who played on the band, the worship leader did. I thought about confronting Roger with this, but I didn’t want to abandon my quest of finding a friend. And also, he seemed chill at first, if not a little insecure.
I was a little uncomfortable with this line of conversation, so I opted to change the subject. We talked a bit more about me having been held back, and he went on about how he was really good at math and chemistry, and how he could help me with my school stuff.
I was glad to have someone to help me, and even more, someone who apparently liked the stuff I liked. I remembered what he was listening to, so I commented on it and asked which song was his favorite, and we talked about Linkin Park for a bit. He said “In The End” was his favorite song, and then I mentioned I was a huge Linkin Park fan. He told me he was a big fan as well, but as we talked about it, it became a bit fishy. He never specifically said anything and just kinda repeated what I said. It became clear after a while that “In The End” was, in fact, virtually the only song he knew from that band.
That was the first time I noticed something strange, but only in hindsight, as at the time I just thought he really wanted to make a human connection. I remember thinking he was just excited to know someone who was open to talking to him, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Also, not everyone memorizes this stuff, and maybe he did only remember one song, for whatever reason, so I let that pass. I only felt necessary to include this information because it was, at least in some way, the first lie that Roger told me, a little sample, if you will, of what’s to come.
After we talked for a while, mostly catching up on our lives, the bell rung and our first actual class had begun, and I had the first-hand experience of this guy’s sense of humor. The teacher walked into the classroom and introduced himself as the new Geography teacher, and started a power point presentation about some of the subjects we’d be covering that year, saying “Please pay attention to this class, as you’ll need to know how our schedule will work”. Roger looked back and said “Huh, I guess this class is useless for you then, being held back and all, hahah”, which made everyone look at me and just kinda stare like I should say something, and he kept repeating the joke to anyone that showed any reaction besides just staring, adding “Amirite? Huh? Amirite?”.
I was kinda salty about this, but my people pleasing peapod brain couldn’t handle letting it show, so I just laughed and said nothing. I guessed it was a poorly thought out joke at first, but then Roger proceeded to make the same comment on every single one of the opening classes we had for both of the introductory days. There were 12 of them. He did it every time. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes he repeated it even louder, as if he didn’t think people heard it, because no-one was laughing.
“Ok”, I said to myself, “He didn’t mean to make fun of me, he’s just a little overexcited and probably is trying to make a connection and help me get acquainted to our classmates.”
Either way, I was very uncomfortable and annoyed.
Thankfully, this came to a halt when he was practically thrown out of the Literature class for interrupting the teacher mid-sentence while she talked about how important the first month of class would be for our comprehension of the whole subject. He made the joke four times. FOUR TIMES. I was beginning to think that I made a mistake, but well, the mistake was already made, at least I can try and understand him a bit, before judging.
The rest of the week went by and he didn’t get any better, but I got kinda used to it. In fact, I actually enjoyed having conversations with him at recess, when we could talk a bit more freely. And, as all things in life tend to do, it got weirder. Weirder in the sense that as we spoke more and more, I noticed a bit of a concerning pattern: every time I shared an experience I had, he’d share a cooler and more awesome almost equal experience back.
Some light examples:
I told him I went hiking for 2-3 kilometers on a trail by the beach. Then he smirked and said he went hiking for “at least 7 kilometers on a deserted beach that only his father’s company’s employees had access to and he saw a Gorilla. There are no gorillas in Brazil. Maybe in zoos, I guess, but definitely no gorillas.
I told him I was kinda sad because I had just ended a “thing” with a girl from my old grade. He “proudly” said he’s been dumped by his ex, Laura, after they dated for 11 months and made out aaaallll the time after school, and he even saw her “lady parts” once!”.
And then he went on to describe that shit for like 3 straight classes, adding more and more to the story every chance he had to speak, providing me with my daily dose of cringe in tiny bits of uncomfortable information at a time! Like a sporadic cringe snack! Sninge! Crack? Probably Crack.
ANYWAYS
There was also the time I told him the story of how I became best friends with a guy because we got into a fight in P.E.. We were arguing about some nonsense and he wanted to fight, so after he socked me on my stomach, I cheaply kicked him in the face so hard I almost sprained my ankle and then we started laughing (because I guess sometimes that’s all it takes). Phillip is my best friend for almost 10 years now.
Roger puffed up his soap dish chest went on for at least 2 classes worth of time about how he “beat up his last bully and broke both of his arms, and almost went to prison, but his dad is a lawyer and bailed him out”. Dude was 16, and I don’t think he’d need to be bailed out, but okay… He was, in fact, very badass.
Those are all approximations of actual stories he told me, because my ADHD memory is shit, but you get the gist of it.
My days were filled with endless stories filled with absolute bullshit, like a Gary Stu from a dying rpg campaign. (I have a story about a DnD game he participated in, but that’s for another time!)
Roger, not content with lying to me about anecdotal facts about his past that could be true but were almost certainly mostly bullshit (if not entirely), had a tendency to just negate reality when presented with facts in certain situations.
And example of this situation is the time we were doing a group assignment and a girl at least 3 meters in front of him dropped her pencil and he just kinda threw himself on the ground, picked it up and said “Here you go, Lana!”. She said “Thanks Roger!”, barely turning around and carried on with the assignment. Roger, then, turned to me with a sleek shit feasting smirk on his face and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me??”
I contained a ridiculing laughter just in time to realize he was dead serious.
I said “I don’t know man… Doesn’t seem like it to me, but sure I guess.”
RB then straight up asked ME to go talk to her and get HIM her number. When I asked why shouldn’t he do it, he said it was “the wingman’s job to get the number of the girl” so that he wouldn’t “look weak for asking”
I said I’d do it, cause I genuinely wanted to see if he was right about her liking him (I hadn’t really understood the dynamics of the classroom, so I actually had no idea if he was actually right, just a gut feeling that yeah, he probably wasn’t).
I went up to her and asked for her number, explaining it was Roger who was interested in her and, as I pulled out my raging 2014’s Sony XPeria, I was swiftly interrupted by her delicately saying “Sorry! I have a boyfriend.” (She said the boyfriend part out loud, and stared at Roger)
I said “Oh, ok, sorry to bother ya!” and, as I was starting to walk back, I noticed that she turned back and glared at Roger. Later that day her boyfriend texted him, telling him that “He’s got to stop asking her out, and next time, if he wants to get rejected, he should come do it himself” He called him a moron. And then they both blocked him.
Well, that was embarrassing.
Despite having been turned down (for the 6th time now, I’d come to find out), Roger still maintained that she was “totally into him”, and it wasn’t just Lana. Any time he had even the smallest interaction with any girl, he’d say that they’re “probably into him”, or that “they made out at a party, but she was drunk and probably won’t remember”, or that they “sent him nudes last year but he’s already deleted them because he’s a good person, with morals”.
This went on for a while and, after about a month, Roger begun to dial down the crazy stories about how he’s a “badass and he gets all the girls but he’s single because he’s too good for them”. Until I started seeing a girl from another church I started going to. I met Janice () at the churches youth group, and we talked the whole time afterwards about lots of stuff. This name’s given because of her insanely similar laughter and demeanor of Janice from Friends. We clicked well and I was very interested in her, but my ADHD ass forgot to get her number, and remembered it only when she had already left.
When I told Roger, he laughed and said “I had just cockblocked myself” and that I’d “probably missed my only chance of banging a girl ever”. I was bummed, but clarified I didn’t really want to have sex before marriage or at least before making an emotional connection (I had just then begun to go to church, so I didn’t really get the rules, so it was more of a personal choice I always had in mind when thinking about dating. Also I met her at church so wtf).
He said “that was dumb” and, “even though he was a virgin, he’d dance the Devil’s Tango with the first chick he had the chance to”
“What about Laura?”, I asked. His face went from a confident smirk to an almost sad expression, and he blankly replied: “She didn’t want to, but I tried anyway at times. I even got a blowie once!” I let it go because I was very tired, as Mondays are hell on earth.
A few classes later, I went up to him and reminded him of our conversation and asked:
I said “Ooookay, but what about all those girls you told me were all over you? Didn’t they want to have some bum bum times with you??”
He was taken by surprise by this, and was visibly trying so hard to think of an answer for at least 15 seconds. He mumbled “Well…”, and like just left. Like he got up in the middle of the class, and walked away. Well that was weird!
He got back and I didn’t pry, thinking he had some kind of trauma, and I tried to change the subject.
I say “tried” because instead we were suddenly interrupted by a girl asking me if I was Rick. I didn’t know her or how she had materialized beside our desks, but later I found out that that girl’s name was Mary. She had blue eyes and was smiling mischievously, and I answered “Yup, that’s me”. She then giggled and said that “Anna wanted to make out with me after class”. Me and Roger were both very much taken aback by this, and I immediately thought to myself that this could only be some type of dare or prank (which it probably was), and was about to try and respond with the first witty joke that popped up in my monkey brain when, without missing a beat, Roger said “Rick’s already seeing someone!”. Mary was visibly surprised and said “Oh, you have a girlfriend??” with a look of disbelief on her face. Ouch. I explained that I wouldn’t say I do, I just liked a girl from church and we’re going to see a movie with some friends on Saturday, and that either way it was a pass on the making out sesh! Mary said “Oh, okay!” and started to walk back to her desk. I was about to make a joke and say that Anna could probably do better than me, when Roger interjected:
RB: “I’d like a making out sesh if she’s interested!”
Mary looked back with a visible “Lol, ew no” expression and just said: “I’m sure you would, Roger!”, turned away and sat down, laughing with her friends when she got to her desk.
Roger turned to me and said:
RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me?”
This cycle repeated once in a while, so I’m not gonna tell you all of the situations that I felt like shaking him and trying to wake him up like Woody does to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Exhausting, right?
Another thing Roger tended to brag about was that he did Martial Arts. Specifically, Kung Fu (Wushu). I would come to find out that, in the year before, he made a big scene to tell everyone in class that he’d just started Kung-Fu classes and, when no-one payed attention, he started a habit of punching the wall beside his desk, audibly making “hmpft” noises. When anyone asked why, he’d say he was training, and that his Sensei (Not shifu, he actually said sensei) had asked him to do that to strengthen his fists so he could harness all the strength he had, so one day he could put a hole through a wall with his fists.
He would also punch the school’s fireproof doors because, if you didn’t know, they dent pretty easily, and he would show me and tell me to bask at his strength and ability. That until I said I’d give it a try. He told me not to, because “I wasn’t trained” and “it could really hurt my hand”. I punched the door. It made a dent.
Roger said it was beginners luck and that he’s just a good teacher. I told him I really didn’t even make an effort to pay attention, the metal was just bendy and soft. Roger never talked about it again, and started only punching walls. For that, he would feel superior because, yeah I ain’t doing that. There were consequences for his wall punching habits, but I’ll address that some other time.
The last thing I’ll say about him for now is how clueless Roger was, how much he thought of himself and how he treated everyone else like they should (and would) respecting for what he told them, and not for what he showed them.
(I plan on doing another part eventually, with the story of how his disconnection with reality, lies, schemes and generally narcissist behavior eventually exploded back into his face.)
As a last bit of exposition of our circumstances, there’s an important part of our school life that fueled Roger’s social life’s demise.
Pranking was a big part of my class’ culture. There were also some people in my classroom who were bullied. The thing is: the bullies actually made fun of literally everyone else, which made it very hard to figure out if you were considered a target or just a colleague. They’d mess with people’s stuff, tie backpacks to the windows and hide pencil cases, but they would also do it to their own group.
Essentially, the only way to differentiate those who they considered normal schoolmates from those who were bullied was the frequency of the pranks and their demeanor in general towards those people. They would apologize for the pranks, ask to make up for it, buy you lunch, make jokes, try to laugh with you. I swear some of those guys were politicians in the making. Luckily, was very good friends with one of the guys in that group, I’ll call him Turkey, who was also held back a few years before me, and he liked my sister, so I was mostly safe.
Roger, on the other hand, THOUGHT he was one of the pranksters. Every time someone pranked him or anyone else, he would laugh knowingly, like he was in on the joke the whole time, and try to make jokes, only to further humiliate himself. And they would capitalize on that as hard as they could.
You see, Roger liked to portray himself as the “Mysterious-Badass-Quiet-Protagonist-Take-No-Shit-From-Anyone-Mr.-Steal-Yo-Girl” guy. This combo of personality substitutes was the recipe for the downfall of his popularity, and the start of the longest lasting pranks I’ve ever seen in my life, which will come if yall want another post. That prank is also the reason I named him Roger Bacon.
Because he was so into Math and Science (and into himself too lol) he also always wanted to look like the smartest guy in the room. The problem is that, as our first semester went by, it became clear that he wasn’t as good as he hyped himself up to be. Shocker, right? This was proven to be true when we were doing a chemistry group test, and I was paired with him and Anna, and we needed to calculate some entropies or whatever. He made a point of telling us to do all of the “easy ones”, and he would take on the more complicated questions.
The thing is, he was trying really hard to look like a genius, to maybe impress Anna, so every time he made a calculation, he would roll his eyes up and kinda vibrate a little. I guess he wanted to look like a genius mathematics robot, but instead he looked like he was trying to imitate an autistic person having a small stroke. I didn’t mind the Good Doctor amateur impersonation, because at least it looked like he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, it really just looked like he knew what he was doing.
Each easy question of the test was worth 1 point, and there were 4 of them, and there were 3 hard questions worth 2 points each. We got a 4/10 on that test, and lo and behold, the only questions we got right were the ones me and Anna worked on. We were a bit pissed, not gonna lie.
Until the last time we spoke, Roger still blames Anna for his complete failure at this test for, in his words, distracting him because she was obviously into him.
But that’s just Roger, I guess!
I've got A LOT of stories about Roger and other neckbeards I've encountered, and I can't wait to tell them!
Until then, thanks for reading, and have a good one yall!

I have been dating for past 3+ years and planning to marry my boyfriend. He is really a great guy who I admire, adore and respect.
But recently after a discussion with my parents, I have been questioning myself if my love is true? Or does true love actually exist?
I come from a wealthier family (networth somewhere around 80cr) than my boyfriend who comes from a family where he is the sole bread winner with lot of financial responsibilities (basically no assets). He is hardworking, passionate and I know he will be successful irrespective of anything.
Coming to our relationship, I was the one who proposed him, back then money was never my criteria. I just could not help myself from not falling for him.I knew his financial and family conditions.. But for me nothing mattered as I just saw him as an individual. He was someone who was more hardworking than me, more passionate than me and had really high morale. Currently he earns more than me though we have same degree.. So if we see individually he is more capable and also I feel is a better person than me which made me fall for him.
Coming to my family discussion, I was always with a perspective that boy and girl are equal. I am 25 now and I can say never till today I saw my parents differentiate between me and my brother. But recently now that my brother is getting married I came to realize that the whole property would go solely to my brother. I love my brother and we have a great bond. But hearing this I did not know how to react.
I know that I have cousins where girls were not given any inheritance, but my dad always complained about how unfair it is. My mom also was not given any inheritance though her dad owns a fortune (his network is 10x of my dad) .. And my mom use to complain about the same. Seeing this I expected that my parents are different, I will have an equal inheritance with my rother.But no.
Basically there is no inheritance for girl child as girls are always expected to get married into a way more wealthier family. So the whole property goes to the son alone. while if a girl does a love marriage then it's her fate and she gets no inheritance.
My family is not open to love marriage so they deemed that mine will be an arranged marriage, sometimes my brother keeps joking about how I should lend him luxuries ones I get married to a richer guy ( in an arranged marriage).
The irony is that few years back my brother fell in love with a girl (who was a gold digger and cheated on my brother later very badly) who came from a very poor family background, though my parents did not like her.. Not because she was poor but there were lot of roumors of her being not a nice girl (had multiple affairs). Still my parents agreed to my brothers choice, as it's his life. It was easy for him as he has no change in life. The girls financial condition never mattered to him as his life is not changing at all.. He will have all the money anyways. No life style change.
But for me... If I marry my boyfriend, I will be living in a 1bhk rented house with his parents. Untill recently the guy I was soo sure about now because of this drastic change which I will have to face.. I am getting a cold feet. I can convince my parents for the marriage, but I know I will get blessing but no wealth.
Till date I always thought I will be living in one of the 5 house which my dad owns, with my bf and his family. But now.. I feel I have too much to lose.
(Legally - only ancestors wealth can be distributed equally, and all the wealth we have now is solely generated by my dad (he is great at stock market). So it's his choice to not give me any assets. Though he loves me i am sure if I go for love marriage .. He won't give me a penny! )
My bf is perfect no reason to break up at all! So if my love is true I should not be afraid to let go of wealth and live in a rented 1bhk right?.. But i am feeling suddenly so chickened out. Feeling too scared about the change in my lifestyle.
I know, if we work hard we can get rich too but tentatively the struggle is scaring me.
If I chose to marry him now.. Will I blame him in future after a fight?
Will love fade away and will I regret later?
Is love greater than money?
Do i really love him? I really think I do... Then why am I getting second thoughts ?
Was I never in love with him?
I am just dwelling in these thoughts now...

Over the past weekend a close female friend of mine told me her and her boyfriend had broken up. They had been on shaky ground for a while so it wasn’t too much of a surprise, but she was heartbroken all the same. Myself and another friend of ours went to her place to comfort her and we all began drinking. She drank a lot more than us, which was fine given the circumstances. Eventually, our other friend had to leave and that just left the two of us.
We’ve known each other for years, initially meeting through a dating app. But after a few dates she decided it wasn’t right and we left it alone. But a year later or so we reconnected but strictly as friends. Whenever she had met her now ex-boyfriend she made sure I was the first person to meet him so we could explain our brief romantic history and he had no issues. Her and I have never shared any intimate moments or anything since when we first met, and neither of us ever tried anything.
But on this particular night, when it was just the two of us she began coming onto me. At first I didn’t much pay attention to how close she sat to me on the couch. Whenever I got up to get something and she grabbed a blanket I came back and sat farther away and she patted the couch for me to sit beside her, but I didn’t move. On the tv, we had a movie playing and there just happened to be a sex scene on and she kept commenting about how that looked fun. I just chuckled and didn’t respond. She then asked if I was turned on by watching them have sex, and that the real thing was so much better. I threw out a joke about old people having sex didn’t spark the same feeling and she tried to compare us to them. After a few more exchanges she crawled towards me on the couch and told me to lean back while she slid her hand across my thigh. At this point I jump up and go to the kitchen, telling her I was going to grab us some water. She kept calling my name and telling me to hurry up and I took my time on purpose. When I came back she was sitting with her shirt off, revealing her bra. I told her to put her shirt back on and she just laughed. I sat on the far end of the couch, and after throwing some more hints she finally just flat out asked if I we were going to do it or not. I didn’t respond and before I knew it she was passed out.
I stayed there for a little bit until her son got home from work. I carried her to her bed and left, letting him know to check on her. The next day, we texted here and there, mainly just talking about how she felt. We told me she would call later and I was a bit nervous about if the night’s events would come up. Once we got on the phone, she told me that she had no idea that our other friend had left. I was puzzled, reminding her that we all shared a moment of comforting her while she was crying right before our friend left but she didn’t remember. So, I began reviewing our night, seeing if she recalled anything and she didn’t. Initially I thought maybe she was just seeing if I would tell her but it didn’t seem like the case. She said she didn’t remember me carrying her to her room, or how she ended up in just a bra. At that point I thought she would for sure think that something had happened. I simply told her that she said it was hot, and she just responded with “well at least I had a bra on”.
I decided not to tell her about her actions. I have known her for about 6 years now, and we are very close. We know each other’s kids and family and other friends. Her ex-boyfriend and I even became good friends. We’d go to NBA games and such all the time without her, and he’d even come to me at times when things weren’t going well. But I’ve never really looked at her romantically like that, until now. When I was home the next day I thought about it a lot. I figured maybe it was just the sexual desires, and how maybe if she hasn’t been so drunk I would have gone for it. I’ve thought about what that might have done to friendship, good or bad, and if it was worth the risk. One of my friends that knows her has expressed that she thinks she has a thing for me, but I blew her off. My sister said the same thing, and this was after meeting my friend and her now ex-boyfriend, so I called get crazy. I’ve been wrestling with if I should tell eventually and see what she says. There’s like a dozen different thoughts running through my mind and I for once am not sure if this is a one time thing or if that was something related to some much deeper feelings she has for me.

I created this account, to vent some of my frustration. I won't be commenting, looking, or editing it after I post. No, I'm not a bot, but sometimes I wish I was.
One of my best friend tried to kill himself, he left a farewell message which wasn't supposed to be interpretted as that, but I understood. I called every hospital in the area looking for his name, until I found one. When I went to visit him, I wasn't sure if I'd be finding him dead or alive. I worked up the courage to walk into the room, and found that he was surprised to see me. With so much frustration and anger in my mind, I just started yelling at him, wondering what the fuck he was thinking and why he didn't just call me. He couldn't answer, but a tear rolled down his cheek and my anger subsided and turned into grief, depression, then sorry. I asked him, why and he said told me I knew why. He struggled with major depression for years, like me. I tried my best to be a friend and help him out of that hole, but nothing I did would help. I thought maybe if I put my depression to the side and helped him with his I'd find a way of curing my own. I was never overt with any of the actions, I lent out a helping hand when neeeded and hung out with him when he was down. We've both had terrible traumas— his from neglect and financial issues, and mine from abuse and bullying, but I thought because we both suffered we would be able suffer together. I visitied him when his family was there as I was the nuclear detterent. I watched his mother and brother hurl insults at eachother while I tried to lighten the mood, the brother cared for him, the mother didn't. It seemed like she was there, just to say she showed up. I've known her for a while, she's callous, she always has a couple boyfriends on her side, but she never tries to keep them around. When the brother and the mother were around the entire room was filled with a negative aura and you can feel it, it was never pleasant and when I left tensions only raised. I visited him when work allowed me to, but after he was transferred to the psych ward, my schedule didn't fit in with any of the visitation hours so I never could. When he left the psych ward, what followed were days of him visiting my workplace during my lunch hours telling me that he would attempt it again, "it could happen any day now." My words seemed so hollow and breathless as I tried to sounding them out. I questioned myself, "What could I say? What could I do? Why is he telling me this?" This happened almost everyday for a couple of months, he would visit me and utter the same words. One day, I asked him, "How do you want me to respond to this" and to his non-challant reply was, "I don't know take it as you well." He was always forgetful, so I hoped he would forget about me too. Some nights we would get boba and he would tell me I was part of the reason he did it. I didn't know how to respond and I still don't. What did I do? I was completely and utterly drained of any emotions, sadness, depression, anger, grief. He was a boa constrictor wrapping it's body around mine smothering me to death. Nothing mattered to me, and so one day, I left without saying a word. He is still alive and hasn't tried anything since then, to which I am thankful. But I never answered his texts or calls. In this rough patch, I started unravelling because everything around me was unfolding.
I was still talking to the above friend, during this time when I got a call from my brother, "She's in the ER because she OD'D. Can you bring some blankets?" He was completely devoid of any urgency or emotion, I understand he doesn't handle them very well, but the calmness of voice only irritated me and made my bite my tongue til I bled. My mind was blank as I sped down the highway at 100mph. I remember the flickering lights as I paced through the hallway, a nurse recognized me from my personal life, but I brushed her off saying that I didn't know her as she was part of our church. Our family is conservative and if this got out, then all eyes would be on us with looks of disappointment and shame. I couldn't tell anyone. I hesitated, a roller coaster of emotions overwhelmed me as I grew closer and closer to the room. The same ones that had enveloped me with my best friend, but this one was brought on by so much shame. "How didn't I see this coming? What sort of brother am I, that I can't protect my only sister? Please... Please... Please.. don't be dead." I stopped in the hallway, where my brother stood and he just said he was getting a sandwhich. I watched him go as he walked away, not an ounce of grief, but after I saw him I noticed there was confusion and sadness in his face, but his words remained neutral as if he were trying to keep it together. I approached the door and hesitated right before going in, rubbing tears that were running down my face and collecting myself the best way I could. I saw her lying there, so helpless, barely alive, and struggling to breathe. My stomach sunk, my heart dropped, and my lungs collapsed. No physical pain, no abuse I had suffered, no moment would have prepared me for this, but as I looked at her she looked at me. I walked over and remarked, "This is because I didn't kill the spider, isn't it?" She laughed in pain the best she could, and my Dad added into and gave me a small slap on the head laughng as well. I saw her arms and saw the cuts and how deep they were. The heart monitor started fading and transforming into ringing within my ears. I sat down and talked to my Mom and Dad to see what we needed. They asked for blankets, which I forgot, and something to eat. I told them to go home as I'd just stay here to watch over her. They both said no at first, but my Dad reluctantly agreed after realizing there was no one to watch his business the next day. I nearly lost my mind. Your daughter is laying here in the ER, and you still need someone to watch the business? I volunteered to do it, but I stayed in the hospital until the I had to leave as I watch the seconds turn into minutes, the minutes to hours. The clock has never moved that slow before, I felt like I was frozen in every moment. It was only after I had learned she was raped three times. My blood boiled, my face turned hot, as I was heading to my car demanding who did it. He'd done this mutliple times. throughout the year, and I had no idea. I reached a point where I stormed out of my house, but my brother asked me where I was going. I told him that I was going to find him, and beat the living shit out of them. He stopped me and told me, that that's why she didn't tell me. I didn't understand it it all, why he wasn't hopping into the car with me to this mother fuckers house after knowing all of this. He didn't want me to know because I'd go over to the hospital demanding her and asking her who did it. He was right. I calmed down, but if he wasn't there I would have found the fucker and I would have beaten the living shit out of them. I told my best friend what happened, and he tried to keep me calm and tried to get my mind off of things. We went to a friends birthday party and I could still hear the heart monitor ringing as I watched everyone have fun, eat, and party over this friends birthday. I felt like an extra, just playing the part of someone who's there to be there. I laughed and made jokes, but this hole in my chest kept getting wider and wouldn't close. I hadn't slept in three days, and the pain was like I was being eaten alive without being able to scream in agony. When we returned to the hospital, she was moved to a different facility, because she wasn't needed in the ER any longer. The nurses asked me to leave as they said that visiting hours were over, but they fell upon empty ears. I wasn't moving. I stayed there all night, and woke up the next morning. I don't remember falling asleep, I just blacked out at one point. I could tell you that when I woke up, all I saw where white walls, white floors, and white sheets. The typical hospital smell that filled the air with ammonia as it burned through my lungs. The heart monitor started to lose it's preptual ring and began to sound normal again. None of these details are important, but I remember them so well as if I'm living that moment right now. This was my second close call. She was home within the next week, but this trauma made our family a lot closer— but, there's a new edition to the family in the shape of an elephant, he doesn't speak to us and we don't speak to him, but he's always there. I haven't been able to look at her the same way, because I'm not sure what will set her off, and the scars on her arms still make me sick to the stomach.
My second best friend was tearing at the seams while all this was happening and I was trying to get his life back together, but something just wasn't clicking with him. I saw him descend into an abyss that I couldn't pull him out of, he started stalking his ex, binge drinking at work, in public, etc. , doing more and more drugs. I went to his rented out room where the landlord would help him do his laundry, cook for him, allow him to have pets even though she was against it. She was kind to him, and I had hoped that might have had some affect on his mental state, but he couldn't get out of his head. He nose dived and I tried to bring him back up, but I couldn't so I gave up. I was emotionally and physically exhausted from everything, in a puddle of a quicksand trying to get out, the more I resisted the further it pulled me down. I was in a boxing match with hit after hit after hit, I just couldn't stand it anymore, but this man gave me a family when mine abused me, he gave me a home when I didn't want to go back to mine, he allowed me to express myself and be free when I was in a position where everyone wanted to chain me, he became a friend when I needed one the most. I pleaded with my group to look after him a little bit more, we could take shifts, but no one cared or wanted to listen. "You can't help someone who can't help themselves." After his nose dive, I told him I couldn't do this anymore and I'd rather kill myself to watch him destroy himself, so I stopped speaking to him— after all, you can't help someone who can't help himself. I removed myself from the group and started working on myself. It had been a year since we last talked, he wrote one story on Instagram that caught my attention, "Maybe everyone was right about me." By this time, I had finally collected myself, I was in a good place, and I had every intention of talking with him again and helping him get back on track if I could, whether it be reaching out or just treating him like a person as if it were a typical Tuesday. As I was typing in the words, I stopped myself and said I needed a little bit more time. I was in the midst of a massive project at work that needed to be completed in two days. The next day, I got a text from one of the mutal friends in the group I had left, "He's dead. They found his body in his room." I stared at the phone for a few seconds. My mind blank. I just put my phone down and kept working.
I haven't talked to a therapist about any of this, but I have mentioned it. None of them seem interested in exploring it so it must not be that important, but I feel the need to get this burden off my chest. These three events happened concurrently, and after the dusk settled, I looked closer into all of the close relationships I had, and how many of my closest friends had ended up hurting themselves in a way to "heal." Nearly all of them. They would vent their struggles to me, and I always became an ear because people just need to be heard. Maybe they had problems before I met them, maybe they didn't. I'm probably stretching my own importance in their lives, but the nagging tick that bothers me is that I feel like I am the common denominator.

I 36 female was asked my my sister in law to be her bridesmaid. First off let me say that I love and respect my sister in law. She is an amazing and kind person and I’m so grateful to have her in my life. We are very close and get along 100% of the time with little to no disagreements about anything.
She recently asked me if I would be one of her bridesmaids and I asked her if I would have to wear a dress. She said yes and I declined. I explained to her I don’t feel comfortable at all wearing dresses. Dresses make me feel exposed almost like I’m naked. Even the thought of wearing a dress makes feel nauseous and panicked. On top of that I have really bad social anxiety and don’t do well standing up in front of crowds.
I was a bridesmaid for my sister about 14 years ago where I had to wear a dress and stand in front of a lot of people and it was nerve wracking. The anxiety and feeling of being exposed and stared at was almost too much for me to bare. I told my sister in law about this and she said “you did that for your sister?” I explained that the only reason I did was bc my other sister declined to be her bridesmaid and I felt obligated to even though I was freaking out on the inside.
My sister in law has offered all kinds of bridesmaid attire ideas like wearing leather jackets but all the ideas she has are dresses and I really don’t feel comfortable at all wearing one. The only times I have ever worn a dress was when I was around the ages of 5-6 for picture day at school, prom(which I was forced to go to with my friend bc my boyfriend felt bad for him not having a date to go with) and my sisters wedding.
For even more context I’m not a girly girl, never have been. As a child I played with Barbies, Batman and ninja turtles. Where most girls wanted to dress up as princesses for Halloween I wanted to be Batman and Donatello. I’ve always had mostly guy friends bc I just feel I relate more to guys than girls. I’ve always had a “dude” sense of humor. Dark, fart and dick jokes.
I don’t paint my nails and dress up in girly outfits. I rarely even wear makeup these days. I mostly wear tee shirts, leggings and hoodies bc I feel most comfortable in that. I know it’s hard for my sister in law to understand bc she is stunningly beautiful and wears dresses all the time and she feels good wearing that kind of stuff. When I wear a dress I just feel naked and anxious.
I know her wedding day is her day and it’s not about me and I feel really bad for declining her offer to be her bridesmaid. At the same time I don’t feel like I should have to put myself in a position that makes me feel exposed and on the verge of tears and vomiting. Am I the asshole?

Okay fellow humans, I’m kind of at a crossroads here and I need some advice… So lately some stuff went down with my roommate and her boyfriend and on a night of drinking she showed me and my boyfriend the screenshots of the conversations between her boyfriend and another female(s). I saw some things like “you get me soaked” and him calling her baby which honestly made my red flag radar start going off. I didn’t really pay attention to the time stamps or when the conversation happened but all I know is that if you’re in a relationship you shouldn’t be talking to other people like that, and I told my roommate those exact words. She also went to my boyfriend to talk about it as well and I’m pretty sure he told her the same thing. After that we continued having a good time together and went on with the night having fun as a little family. The next day (Mothers Day) my boyfriend and I were leaving to go see our beloved mamas, as I was walking out the door my roommates boyfriend stopped me to talk to me about last night. He looked at me and started with “First I want to clarify that those screenshots she showed you were old and happened before we started dating, she likes to show stuff like that when she’s drunk.” I was honestly speechless… the questions running through my head in that moment were “why are you trying to justify yourself with me right now?” And “If you already talked about it before with her why are you trying to talk to me?” Of course I didn’t ask those out loud but I just kind of gave him a glare, and I said “alright man” and walked out the door, mind you when he told me that his body language was off and fidgety AND she has never even showed us stuff like that before the previous times we got drunk together. When my roommate and her boyfriend talked about the screenshots… he said he was doing it for “money” because they were in a tight spot, at the time both of them were unemployed. But I smelt total bullshit with that excuse. There’s other ways to get money in a more honest way, I know getting hired and finding a new job is hard but talking to other women who aren’t even sugar mama age is a little sketchy to me, don’t you think? My boyfriend and I honestly were getting restless about the whole situation because we had a strong feeling he was lying right to her and our face. Later we came back home from the domains of our lovely mothers, I didn’t really want to talk to my roommates boyfriend so I went straight upstairs to take a shower while my boyfriend conversed with them downstairs. From what my boyfriend explained to me, he talked to them about the situation and they were allegedly on good terms and roommates boyfriend deleted/blocked all the girls he was talking to, he even let my boyfriend look through his phone to show proof. But there was more evidence of one more girl in his phone that wasn’t deleted, a girl under the name “Fggt😁😁” my boyfriend found a text from him to her saying “Be mine😍😍😍😍” HOW ARE YOU GOING TO TELL YOUR GIRL YOU BLOCKED EVERYONE AND STILL HAVE ONE LEFT?! The date of the text was from April 15, 2023… My roommate and her boyfriend have been together for the past 3 years… ummmm RED FLAG. My boyfriend didn’t say anything about what he found and handed the phone back. Later that week my boyfriend and I planned on talking to my roommate alone when her boyfriend was at work, and that’s what we did. About two or three days ago we pulled her outside to express our concerns, my boyfriend and I have both been in relationships with shitty people so we know how it feels to be cheated on so it was with good intentions and we were just trying to look out for her. My boyfriend told her to just keep an eye out and proceed with caution. I’m a very straightforward person with my feelings so I told her something similar but I also told her that I don’t really trust him anymore and that he might keep this behavior up and get sloppy about it in the future.. When we came back inside we again clarified that we are watching out for her and we are on her side. We also told her that if shit hits the fan with her relationship, we will be on her side 100% she was willing to listen to us and respected our opinion which we were grateful for. But then yesterday or maybe the day before I’m not too sure cause my perception of time sucks, me, my boyfriend, our best friend, and my roommates little brother were all having a good time drawing really stupid pictures of each other on the fridge, as a JOKE. Then my roommate and her boyfriend came downstairs and the vibe in the room totally shifted to complete tension, her boyfriend was visibly upset or irritated, standing in the corner with his arms crossed and just glaring at us (me, bf, best friend). We looked at him and tried showing him the drawing of him to get a laugh out of him but he was just stone face and not happy at all. We tried asking him what’s wrong but all we got was the silent treatment, which we didn’t really care. But he was being salty which ruined the vibe in the room so my boyfriend and I just went upstairs cause we didn’t want to be around a sourpuss. We didn’t know why he was upset, but my boyfriend and I assumed that our roommate told him about what we said to her and now he’s mad about it. Was it wrong to express or worry to her? Are we the as*holes for not wanting our friend to get hurt? I need some advice. What do ya’ll think about this??

A few days ago I met someone online and we connected in a very special way, I hadn't connected with someone in this way for years. At first, he told me he was from a specific place and I told him that I knew where it was because someone I know lives in those same parts... then he made a sexual joke out of nowhere but I've a dirty mind so I didn't care.
We started talking and he made me feel special but my alarms started to go off when he started asking me weird questions like “do I make you feel special?” and “do you feel loved?”, it was extremely weird because at least where I'm from nobody asks you those questions and even less formulated in that way so I told him to stop with the interrogation although I didn't judge him because I thought “maybe in his culture it's normal and in mine it's not”.
Although I liked him quickly everything turned into a flirtation and something s*xual... and when I say quickly I mean that everything was too fast to process. Then the second alarm went off and he told me out of the blue and in a rude way that I wasn't the only woman he chatted with that he didn't want jealousy shows, I didn't care because he wasn't my boyfriend but then he said something like “you are mine and I don't share what is mine”.
I started to suspect that he only approached women virtually to manipulate them and use them s*xually for his pleasure, so I told him that I didn't want us to touch the s*xual topic anymore and even though he said he was ok with it... he started to ghosting me. Last night, after convincing him he finally send me an audio because I already had suspicions that he was just selling lies and maybe he wasn't even from where he had told me he was from in the first place, so when I heard the first audio I realized that he had indeed lied to me because his accent wasn't even remotely from where he had told me.
This morning when I confronted him, argued with him and asked him for explanations he told me to go to hell and start to accusing me of being a racist because according to him I was judging him by where he was from so I, fed up with all this, blocked him from all the social media I have. AITAH for doing this?

Hi’
So little backstory, I have been in 3 relationships before this one and in each one I got cheated on.
So, me and my boyfriend were hanging out the other day looking at photos when i asked him to sent one to me and when he did I noticed another girls texts. Now important to know we use telegram and neither of us really add other people on there.
Now I jokingly pointed out “wanna tell me who she is”
And he knows about my past and immediately started reassuring me, I got a little emotional and just left.
He blocked her, told me he just needed my attention and all of that.
My boyfriend is an amazing human and kind. Now I’m just struggling with not feeling like I’m being cheated on.
I know he wouldn’t but cuz of my past I can’t shake it and I was wondering if other people have been through this and have some tips.
I talked to him about it and he keeps reassuring me that he loves me and that he just wants be, just being supportive all around but I just keep having the overthinking so any tips?

Long story, please bear with me because I want advice. May 19th was my 20th birthday. I wanted to go to Seattle and spend the day up there with my boyfriend (We’ll call him mark) and some friends. Anyway, we only had one set plan for the morning, and then the rest of the day was just exploring and doing whatever looked interesting. Anyways, I sent mark the link to a cafe in Seattle I wanted to go to so we could book reservations. He asked me what time I wanted it to be for and I said 10am, since the only times left were 9am, 10am, and 3pm. I told him 10am worked the best prior to him asking because our friends had to leave around 3pm for work. Anyway, when I replied, he had already made the reservations for 9am. He said “too late, it’s for 9”. Seattle is an hour and a half away from us so I was upset because I didn’t want to wake up that early. But I let it go and told him thanks for making the reservations because I chose to look at it at a positive way. Being there at 9am gave us all more time to be in Seattle.
Anyways, morning comes around, and my friend (We’ll call her Maria) texts me and asks if me and mark would like to meet up with her and her boyfriend zane at 7:45 at a local store. This was a plan made just that morning, but regardless nobody would have to wake up earlier to meet up with anyone. As time goes by I know my boyfriend isn’t awake because he hasn’t texted me, which he usually does. And I was alerted his phone was dead on Life360. I tell Maria we can’t meet them but we’ll see them at the cafe in Seattle. I drive all the way to marks to wake him up. Long story short I had to knock on his window because the back door was locked, which it NEVER is. Anyway i look in the window and his stepbrother wakes up from my knocking. For context marks stepbrother spends some weekends at marks house, they share a room. Mark opens the door and I follow mark to his bedroom door and I just say “Hey I’m sorry I woke you up”. I had no idea his stepbrother was there because his car wasn’t parked outside. He just says “kill yourself” in a super annoyed tone.
I was already kind of emotional that morning, because I took offense that my boyfriend didn’t wake up on my birthday and I had to come wake him up last minute. So the “kys” comment got to me, even though I’m good at taking jokes. Fast forward to the drive there, my boyfriend was buttering me up, which is super rare. He just took my hand in his and wished me a happy birthday and apologized for waking up late and kept telling me he loved me a lot. Anyway, the day kind of went downhill after the cafe. All of us were walking all around Seattle, and 90% of the time my boyfriend was walking ahead of me. Again for some context, my left leg is two inches shorter than my right, so lots of walking hurts my hips and makes me walk slower. My friend Maria noticed and would walk with me but after I would get back with my boyfriend and Maria with hers, I would fall back again. I said “Babe can you walk a little slower? Because my leg?” To which he replied “I’m trying to catch up with Maria and Zane. Also, every time we walk together you always fall behind anyways.” Also, he wouldn’t hold my hand. I saw how Zane held Maria and put his arm around her or his hand on her waist and mark maybe held my hand in 30 second intervals.
Anyway, nearing the end of the story, after we drive home, my friend comes over and drops off the presets she got me. It’s 5pm at this point and I still wanted to go home and spend my birthday with my parents. Birthdays have always made me feel a bit awkward because I’m not a fan of opening gifts while people are watching, I feel guilty for some reason haha, or like I’m spoiled. Anyways, I was looking forward to the gift my boyfriend mark got me the most, because a few days prior he told me he was leaving to buy me stuff. Anyways, I hated to ask mark this, but I was about to go home so I said “Can I have my gift now?”. He said “Seattle was your gift, it was expensive and you’re an expensive person.” He was smiling while saying this, so he was half joking, but I was a little taken aback. I didn’t wanna seem like a spoiled brat so I played off the awkwardness by saying “Oh ok, didn’t you say you went to the store though?” He said “Yeah but they couldn’t do what I wanted that day and I didn’t feel like going back any of the other days.” I said “Oh alright well are you going to get it?” His response was “Probably not.” I played it off really well, I wasn’t showing that I was upset in anyway really, I just got a quieter, because I really didn’t want to seem like a spoiled brat.
Also, on Saturday, the day before my birthday, my boyfriend mark went fishing with his friend and spent over 100 dollars on equipment and a fishing license. Saturday night was a bbq at his friends house and I attended. While all of us (friends and such) were sitting in the living room I told mark that we had two options for dinner, he interrupted me mid sentence and said in front of everyone “I’m not sure how much you’re expecting me to spend but it’s not much.” Again, I played it off, and said “alright well that’s okay I was just letting you know.” My boyfriend is an electrician and makes (I think) either 23 or 24 an hour. I feel like he shouldn’t have said that in front of everyone. It was indecent. Also, I heard from my friend (the one who dropped off the gifts) that when all of the boys were outside my boyfriend was complaining about how much he’s gonna have to spend on me, to which her boyfriend responded “dude it’s her fucking birthday shut the hell up.” Also, I’m sure other Washingtonians know that pikes place has a huge variety of flowers. It was my first time there, and I got excited and said “ooh I want flowers!” My boyfriend sighed and his friend Zane said “dude it’s her birthday you got that”. He in fact did not have that. I didn’t get flowers hahaha
Anyways, I was quiet a few minutes before I left. I asked if he wanted to come over for cake with my family. To which he responded “I mean I could.” I just left. 2 minutes away from my house, he called me and said he’d be over in an hour with gifts. Now this part makes me feel the absolute worst, because I don’t wanna sound ungrateful at all, but I saw on Life360 that he went to goodwill, I think a rite aid and a dollar tree for my gifts. This made me sad because I didn’t want a sympathy gift, especially one that wasn’t thought out at all. But when I got it I smiled and kept saying appreciative things. Like for example, he got me a book that says “100 things to do in Tacoma.” I told him “this helps a lot actually because I never know what to do thank you babe!” . I am grateful , I’m grateful that he still made an effort after I was sad, and I really do like the gifts he got me, because they weren’t bad. Just not thought out at all. Anyway he ate a slice of cake and left after that. I was talking to my friends about how sad I was about the day, especially because I cried on my birthday. Am I the asshole for talking to my friends about how upset I was about the gifts and the day in general?

Theories:

1. Auntie Bev is upset she’s never invited to the McAlbert parties that Jen throws
2. Jen stole a boyfriend from AB back in the day.
3. Auntie Bev finally came to her senses and realized that there’s so much many inconsistencies, this could ruin her career and reputation more than it already has

Obviously a joke but I was truly shocked that she allowed Jen to answer so many questions and didn’t sustain as much as the previous days.

Me (19f) and my new boyfriend (21m) have been in a relationship for about two weeks after dating for a few months. I'm aware it's still fresh and new so everything is settling into place BUT he finally posted a photo of me and him on his instagram page, and his friend commented "side piece 🤣".
Even as a joke it rubbed me the wrong way. This happened this morning and I feel really icky about it. Me and my boyfriend talked about it and he said that wasn't okay for him to say and he deleted the comment from his friend, he also said he would talk to his friend about the joke since he found it tasteless.
But i still really awful. I asked my boyfriend for space and we havent talked since. I don't know what to say or how to process my feelings about it. I'm typing this on my lunch break at work.
I'm not sure what would compel him to say that, rather than give his friends congratulations. There's an anxiety about this situation that I can't really put my finger on. I'm anxious that since its SO NEW that they are laughing at me behind my back or that there is some truth to that tasteless joke- despite the fact my boyfriend thus far has been nothing but sweet, reassuring, and worthy of trust.
I just feel really off right now and I'm not sure if I need reassurance from my bf or just space for now to think about everything because that was incredibly cruel and hurtful.

A little disclaimer before I get fully into it: This was my first real, long term relationship so a lot of things still don’t make sense to me, but I will try my best to explain everything clearly and fully.
Me (19M) and my boyfriend (19M) got together in February of 2023. We met through our job, and even before dating we were good friends for about 6 months prior. During this time in my life, I had just turned 18 and was struggling heavily with my self image, self worth, and the idea that a relationship was even a possibility for me. In fact, I would say i was struggling the most with relationships and men in general. When my boyfriend came along it honestly seemed too good to be true. We hit it off instantly, got along very well, and shared a lot of the same morals and values when it came to dating. Except for when it came to sex, but i’ll go more into that later.
For the first few months, I would say the dynamic worked out well between us. Then, he moved out of his parent’s and in with his best friend and her family, which consisted of her mom, dad, and brother. Since the beginning of the relationship, I wasn’t too crazy about his best friend. I do care about her and have empathy for her, but for lack of better words, my boyfriend kind of let her walk all over him. This seemed to get worse after they started living together. And, it became apparent that they did not see eye to eye on most things and wanted different things out of their living situation. She would get jealous anytime we wanted to spend time together alone, and often times would not let us be alone when I was at their house. This eventually was talked about between them and i will say, in the regards of giving us more space, she did back off. However, their living situation was still toxic. They would have disagreements, but ones that would never be talked about or worked through. In turn, my boyfriend would talk/rant to me about her, and I always agreed with his POV, but that was the end of it. He always said that it’s extremely hard for him to confront people due to his own anxieties and past trauma. I 100% understood this, as I struggle a lot with confrontation too, but when it came to the point of his friend putting stress on our relationship/on me and I would talk to him about it, he would say he understood but nothing would ever be done about it. I could’ve very well spoke up for myself against her, but I was terrified that he would be upset with me and it would cause problems for us. I know that’s unhealthy now but in the moment it felt like I just had to get over it.
Then, around OctobeNovember last year, his friend’s mom ended up kicking both her daughter and my boyfriend out over a very small misunderstanding involving transportation. It was one night that I was taking him home from work, and her mom thought she had to pick him up, so we both showed up to get him. She absolutely flipped out over this and used it as justification to kick him out. Then when his friend tried to defend him against her mom, she kicked her out too. She ended up going to live with her current boyfriend and mine came to live with me. At this point, I had moved about 45 minutes away from our hometown with my dad and step family. I was (and still am) working in said hometown, because I do like my job and most importantly the people I work with. My boyfriend could’ve gone back to live with his parents, but honestly, neither of us wanted that. In hindsight, that’s what should have happened.
Up until this past April, everything was okay with our situation. We were living and working together full time and considering he didn’t have a car or his license yet, I was his source of transportation. Something shifted inside of me though. I found myself not being excited about his presence anymore and also not having sexual feelings towards him anymore, which is highly unusual for me. I felt like I had hit a wall that I couldn’t climb over in the relationship. In that moment, I chalked it up to being a “simple” change in feelings and that we were just growing apart. This did not go very well when I told him. I didn’t expect it to, but I know that he wasn’t even trying to fathom how I felt in the situation and ended up being pretty hurtful about it. The first night after it happened, we had a lengthy conversation over text where he was essentially saying that I ruined him and broke him and that I couldn’t possibly have loved him like I said I did since I was doing this. He also said, and I quote, “You built me back up and made me believe I was finally having the life I deserved and then you destroyed me and left me worse than when you found me”. This of course made me feel immense guilt but I knew it was coming from a place of hurt and I didn’t let it weigh me down too much. He also said that I would never find a friend in him and that this was goodbye, and blocked me on all social media and my phone number. Even though I was the one to break up with him, this still hurt a lot because I did and still do very much care about him.
The next day, he reached back out and apologized for how he reacted and asked me if we could try space instead of a full-on break up. I agreed to this because the relationship really did mean everything to me and I genuinely loved him. I did make sure to tell him that I couldn’t make any promises about my feelings returning but that I would try. And I have. Since then, we have still been working together, just not on the same schedule as before, and he is staying with his parents back in our hometown. We still text on the daily because we both made the agreement that we didn’t just want to go back to strangers. We mainly just talk about work and life and what not, but not much has been said about our specific situation on either end. We both agreed that we needed space. We both also agreed to not really see each other outside of work because we both know it would just complicate things even more, especially if we were to still act like a couple and even more especially if we continued a sexual relationship. This brings us to current day.
It has been about a month of space now and although it’s hard to admit to myself, I don’t want to be back with him. After I’ve had time to think everything over, I’ve realized that I may have put up with more than i deserve/disregarded my self and my feelings for him. Sex was honestly not that important to him, but it always has been for me. It’s not all that I care about of course, but I found myself being told no more often than not. I found myself suppressing my true sexual feelings for him in order to comply to what he wanted. I am also the type of person who likes to try new things, and he was almost always opposed to it. For a while I told myself this was the right thing to do in order for us to work out. With all this being said, our sexual relationship was good and we both enjoyed each other in that way, but it was just very inconsistent.
I also now feel like we just started to want different things out of the relationship. We both needed our own personal space which was impossible at the time, considering we lived and worked together on the same schedules and I was his transportation to and from work and also to hang out with friends when he wanted to. We also have conflicting love languages, as mine is primarily physical affection and reassurance while his are more along the lines of quality time, gift giving, and sharing his interests. As far as the love languages go, I knew early on that they were not the same but I thought we had come to a place where they could coexist. I know now that it was starting not work out that way, and I think he felt the same too although I’m not 100% positive as I found it very hard to understand him and his feelings sometimes, as did he with me.
Like I said previously, he struggles with confrontation. Any time I had an issue with something he did that would upset me, it was usually met with silence and a simple apology or “I don’t remember that/That’s not what I meant.” It seemed like he was taking things as a personal attack rather than trying to understand where I was coming from. One specific moment sticks out to me. One night after work, his best friend wanted to see us before we went home, but she got off of work later than us , which meant we would have to wait around for that. I was very tired due to a long busy day and just wanted to go home as did he, but we stayed and waited anyways because he was afraid of her reaction had we not. I did not respond to this well, and I told him straight up that she walks all over him and that I felt he was not considering how I was feeling about the situation either. All i got in response was confused silence and a simple “I’m sorry.” I was not satisfied with this, and after telling him so, he said how he doesn’t know what else to say/doesn’t know how to communicate how he’s feeling. I ended the conversation there because I could see that I was getting nowhere, but I was still very visibly upset. After we left to go back home, he wouldn’t talk to me and just fell asleep on the drive. This caused me to start crying and after he realized and I reiterated my feelings, I was met with a little more compassion and “i’m sorry”s but then the conversation shifted and no more was said about it on either end.
There were also multiple times that I knew that I had upset him over various things, because he would start acting different (short responses, dirty looks, spending more time on his phone etc). But , when I would ask him what I did, he would just say that he’s fine and to not worry about it. For example, on Valentine’s day this year, I made a very inconsiderate joke about his size (even though it wasn’t true). I was trying to be funny and we both knew I wasn’t being serious, but it still was wrong. It did affect him and eventually he opened up to me and we talked about it, and i apologized profusely and all was resolved. But before that, his demeanor and attitude towards me completely changed and he was treating me very differently. Before we talked about it, I was unaware that the joke I had made was the cause of it, but he told me that he was upset about something I had said but told me it was fine and that he’d get over it, while still treating me differently. I didn’t respond to this well because I knew I had hurt the person I loved, and wanted so desperately to resolve it and make sure it never happened again, but until he brought it to light I was stuck in an intense self-hate/guilt trip.
I will say I don’t recall him ever using any of that against me, but communication is extremely important to me and I just wasn’t getting it. It was like , we always were fine together until the more serious issues came about (differences in intimacy desires, communicating our issues with each other , etc.)
It’s worth mentioning that I also struggle with self image/self worth, and a lot of anxiety/uncertainty. I forgot to include it earlier, but another reason the space is happening is because we lost ourselves in the relationship. We still don’t really who we are or what we want from life. I was constantly preoccupied with how he was feeling and how my actions affected him, and he was constantly preoccupied by turning to me for comfort and safety. I don’t blame him for that though, as I know that we have to fully love and know ourselves/know what we want first before making a commitment to someone else. That’s why I struggle so much with knowing if I’m making the right decision or not. I’m also scared that once I tell him, he won’t want anything to do with me anymore similar to how he reacted the first time. I will forever be grateful for the love that we shared and all the good he showed me and would rather have him as a friend than nothing at all, but I don’t know if that’s the reality. And if it’s not that’s okay and I know that, but I haven’t accepted it. I just want us both to be happy in life and live to our full potentials even if that means it’s not together. If you made it this far I’m sorry for the novel but thank you for taking the time to read. I may be the asshole here and if that’s the case, I will do better and I will make the right decisions. I just need a little insight. Thank you again for anyone who took the time.

I was asleep one night with my boyfriend, and I woke up to him trying to make advances to which I told him no, I was too tired and wanted to sleep. He stopped for a while and the next thing I remember he was inside of me. It did not feel comfortable for me at all and at this point he says "I know when someone doesnt want to f***", pulls out and rolls over. My boyfriend is aware of previous sexual assault Ive experienced in the past, so we've had discussions about consent and any other time I decline he does not proceed. I dont know what was different this time.. but anyway I felt really confused about it as someone who has gone through sexual abuse in my previous relationship and as a child from a family member, and I stopped having sex with my partner to try to work through it on my own- and also because I just could not get myself to feel aroused after the incident. It gave me flashbacks. I opened up to my therapist about my experience, and she said "let me first say hes not wrong. well, he probably shouldnt have done that but thats what people in relationships do. his behavior isnt odd and he isnt wrong. in relationships people have sex." to which i said "even when i expressed i didnt want to and didnt give consent?" she said "yes. what he did wasnt wrong, because he's your boyfriend." She even laughed at some ppints trying to make jokes, telling me not to ruin my relationship just because "of my past trauma." Then she says we will move on to another topic of my trauma next week. Basically, youre overreacting, dont ruin the relationship, and next subject. im in the middle of a mental health leave but really it doesnt feel like ive made any progress. She also said I should apologize for being distant toward this person.