My husbands 39th birthday gift ideas

Hey! So I'm really struggling and could use some advice from other autistic adults. For context, my wife and I have been together for about eight years now (married for one) and she's the best person on the planet. Genuinely my best friend, favorite brain to pick, life partner, and someone who I deeply love. She had ADD and I have AudHD, depression, and anxiety.
I just recently found out that I'm autistic in the past few years. I only found out because I was having frequent shutdowns and ultimately had to do some intensive outpatient therapy to avoid being hospitalized. Finding out that I was autistic was a huge game changer. It contextualized a lot about myself and my relationship. I also found out that a significant portion of my depression is autistic burnout (explaining why depression was medication treatment resistant). My partner has been my biggest supporter. She's spent countless hours researching autism, burnout, and trying to understand the way I work. In addition, she has picked up a considerable amount of slack around the house and is doing virtually all of our combined finances. I left my solid paying job to soul search and find something that would be more compatible with who I am. Unfortunately, truly taking time off was not an economic option.
Ultimately, I decided to follow my passion to become a teacher. It has been great, it's routine oriented, comes in spurts, always has an end date, and gives plenty of time off. I am looking forward to celebrating my first summer break of my adult life (and teaching career) in the coming weeks. The only problem, is that in addition to being a first year teacher I had to go through the certification process. This was extensive. I took a half dozen test, a bunch of undergrad classes in my subject, and 30 graduate credits - all in a little over a year.
This was a crazy schedule and, predictably, left me more burnt out. I have now graduated with my masters, finished the licensure process, and have settled into my role. Over course of this process my wife has been nothing short of amazing. As I mentioned above, she took on the lions share of the work and assured me that it was to help me get to the finish line, get better, and be able to recover over the summer. As time has gone on, doing all of this is starting to, very understandably, leave her burnout. She's made it clear to me that “just because an action has a negative consequence doesn't mean it's wrong.” However, seeing ten stress she has been under and her burnout increase has absolutely ruined my already shaky confidence and ability to feel like an equal partner. To be frank I haven't been one. I simply have not been able to. Everytime I try to add more housework, or even just little things for my wife like making her coffee in the morning, my burnout induced demand avoidance makes my fight or flight kick in. As we get closer to my break, the cracks in her facade of being OK with taking on such an extra burden has begun to appear. To be clear, I do not begrudge her for that. She's doing so much for us, and just for me.
I am really struggling to find things I can do to help her feel valued and to take back on more of the household load. I know summer about to start and things might change then, but the idea of taking on even something as innocuous as the litter box or dishes absolutely terrifies me. I want to do these things, and so much more, to lessen her load and make her feel appreciated but simply fail at being able to turn that will into action. As a result, this has made me very insecure about our relationship which only frustrates her more.
I really don't know if this is a rant or if I'm asking for advice - either way I appreciate you for making it this far. I just really want to be a better partner but feel so limited in the ways I can do so. I feel terrible as my wife will suggest things that aren't household load/management related like planning nice dates but my brain turns even those into demands that need to be avoided. In many ways I feel like I have become like an injured pet she needs to take care of rather than a proper husband. I hate feeling like this. I'm afraid that when summer comes I won't magically have more spoons and it'll continue like this. That will only make us both more frustrated as it's definitely not fair for her to be working, paying our bills, and doing the housework while I, uh, do nothing over the summer. I need to figure out how to step up and be the husband deserves.
Since being diagnosed, I have found so much autistic joy and many strategies to make my life better. This is truly the one area that makes me feel lesser than for being autistic. Even then I feel like I am just autisming wrong somehow and that this is a personal failing.
If you have any advice on how to set myself up for success, recovery, and being a better partner this summer I would love to hear it.

I’m looking to see what websites have the best city jersey I looked at all the websites from the spreadsheet I seen some that are darker then others or some that don’t match at all from the original color of the original one . I’m looking for a city one to gift a jersey for my friend which his birthday is coming up ?

My boyfriend and I had made plans a week ago to go out to the city yesterday and take cute couple photos, which was actually his idea to begin with. Our work schedules are pretty opposite. So, when we hang out any other day, it’s usually after work for me and it’s usually just dinner and hanging out for a couple of hours. I knew that this day with the photos would take a good chunk of our day and we both wanted to make sure we had plenty of time together. The only solution we could come up with would be to take the day off. I ended up taking the day off.
Well, yesterday morning, at 7am, he texts me saying he’s taking his sister to the ER and that we need to reschedule the original time we had planned. I responded saying “hope everything is okay, keep me updated”. And then I hadn’t heard from him all day. I called him, texted him and nothing. He then updates me, 9 hours later that his sister fell and hit her head. I expressed my concern and wished for her speedy recovery. I then asked him to call me when he had chance. He calls, and we talked for about 10 minutes. He said sorry for not saying anything and that his phone was on silent and didn’t want to talk to anyone and that he couldn’t focus on anything else.
I’m not mad that he couldn’t meet up, obviously his sister is injured, so he says. It’s the communication. He has actually used the ER excuse as a reason in the past when we had made plans. One time he claimed to have been in the ER for chest pain and didn’t tell me until midnight, claimed it’s too hard to think when you’re in that kind of situation. Another time, we were supposed to go on a birthday weekend getaway, he had gone to the ER and it had gotten canceled. One time he was supposed to see me, he claimed he needed to help his friend with something and couldn’t meet up. So, Idk, it seems weird something like this happens constantly when we have plans.
We actually broke up 3 months ago because of his communication problems. He didn’t talk to me for 10 days after losing his job, he basically acted like I didn’t exist to him and that he was dealing with his issues and that I shouldn’t be upset with him. I broke up with him for this. Then 2 months later, he reached out again, apologized for everything and promised to work on it and that he still loves me. I decided to give him another chance, and things were good, up until today.
What bothers me, is he knew I took the day off for us. I know technically it’s not a big deal, but I work in the medical field and hate taking days off unless absolutely necessary. He knows how I feel about my job. And then the whole disappearing act of not saying anything to me. Claimed to be not on his phone and was ignoring all calls. I’m sitting at home worried sick and he doesn’t even have the decency to take one minute out of his day to text me to update me. And considering the type of injury she had, he could’ve told me that I should go to work because he won’t be able to make it, but he basically had me sitting and waiting for him. This almost feels break up worthy for me. I’m not sure if I’m overreacting though.
Tldr: bf and I made plans to go take photos in the city then he proceeded to not say anything to me for an entire day. He had to take his sister to the hospital and said we would reschedule for a later time, making it seem like we would meet up, but he didn’t. He has used the ER excuse before and has had communication issues which upsets me so much whenever it occurs

I really want to be on top of it this year, and be done Christmas shopping by the first of December. I’m having a little trouble with ideas as my kids get older. Looking for some fun and unique gift ideas for 12 and 9 year old girls.

Hi so I feel like a lot of the discourse about people not liking this season is also in part people not really understanding what friends to lovers is, specifically the relationship between Colin and Penelope, so I thought I might share my thoughts :)
Now I haven’t read the books - this is all based on what I gleaned from the show on multiple rewatches and as someone who has been the Penelope in a friendship for a longggg long time. Hopefully this makes sense.
———
Romance tropes are so often boiled down to their immediate, basic truths. The popular enemies to lovers, for example: Enemy 1 + Enemy 2 + sexual tension = Lover 1 and Lover 2. Not to say enemies to lovers can’t be complex, but generally the starting point for enemies is an essential lack of trust between the parties and moments of connection (via fights) fueled by intense feelings of hatred/rage/whatever which can, in turn, translate to sexual tension. Due to the lack of trust, when they do get together it’s an explosion of that intense energy, highlighted even more-so by the knowledge that they don’t truly trust each other but they need each other which makes the heart race all the more and the passion all that more explosive.
Let’s look at Kate and Anthony as this trope. When they meet there is an immediate spark, fueled by a race in which they’re in competition. Once she hears him at the ball she decides she will do everything in her power to stop him from marrying her sister, and since he is determined to marry Edwina every interaction they have from that point on, until they have their happily ever after in the last episode, can be considered a fight. Moments like the bane of my existence and you vex me are such high intensity because it’s two people fueled by anger and sexual/romantic tension. They need each other like air but will do everything to fight it because of the anger, making the onscreen affections super intense for the viewer (especially as viewers who have just been introduced to Kate and are getting to know her through the lens of Anthony).
Now friends to lovers is, if I may say, quite a bit more complicated. All friendships are different - if you’re new friends your pipeline to lovers is likely entirely different to old friends to lovers. If one party is in love with the other that changes the dynamic entirely; are they long distance or close? Were they childhood friends? Are they both likeable and popular or is one more nerdy and quiet or both? All of these and more create new dynamics and emotions that can lead to love in different ways. My point is that friends to lovers is not as easy to pin down as something like enemies to lovers. So that’s why a couple like Polin may seem like they don’t have as much chemistry on screen - because their intensity shines in a different way than what we’re used to.
———
Going into season three we know that Penelope has been in love with Colin for a long time, but during that time the two also formed a close friendship. When Colin proposed to Marina, yes Penelope whistledowned about the pregnancy to stop him from marrying her for love reasons, but also because he is her friend and she didn’t want to see him trapped in a loveless marriage. We also know that when Colin traveled between seasons one and two Penelope most often responded to his letters. Even during a scene in season two Pen specifically asks to hear more about his travels, even though everyone else in Colin’s life had asked him to stop talking about it. Pen’s crush and friendship don’t cancel each other out, they exist side by side as two parts of Penelope that often overlap but are most importantly separate entities. And she knows that.
Colin does not. In season three when Colin is talking about when they first met, Penelope looks away with anxiety when Colin suggests he knows why Penelope was so forward in making fun of him for falling off his horse and starting their friendship. She knows it’s because she had a crush on him. He states that it was because they were kids. This means it’s canon that Penelope had a crush on him since the moment they met. As a result, Colin has never experienced a friendship with Pen that doesn’t also have an underlying crush. He doesn’t know that Pen doesn’t respond to everyone’s letters all the time, or hangs onto their every word, or goes out of her way to talk to them. How Pen acts around him is how he assumes she acts around everyone - that’s why he doesn’t pick up on her crush.
It’s also why, I argue, he doesn’t realize that he loves her until the kiss in season three. He truly and genuinely takes her affections, her friendship, for granted because he doesn’t understand that someone so loyal and loving like that is rare. He doesn’t appear to have much else in the way of friends; outside of his family we don’t really see him interact with other men, and in season three the “friends” he does spend time with make comments to suggest they only started hanging out with him after his personality change to be more like his brothers - a rake who doesn’t care much for real affections. It’s why he said he would never court Penelope Featherington, or why he said “You are Pen, you do not count” when asked why he was still talking to her if he swore off women. He was super young when his dad died, so the only male role models he has for what love means are Anthony and Benedict. So, as he understands it, a man courting a woman is about sleeping around until the man finds a suitable match that pleases the family regardless of the man’s happiness. Even though he saw that Anthony fell in love by the time Colin said he would never court Pen, he didn’t see Anthony’s journey to understanding that love is not something to run from but something to cherish like we, the viewers, did. Anthony’s arc was just background noise for Colin, so it wasn’t like that would change his outlook on what Anthony’s actions in season one and beginning of season two loudly called out: choosing love over meaningless sex is idiotic and weak. Colin is genuinely distressed when Penelope walks away from him at the garden party in the first episode of season three, and he went after her to explain that he missed her when she stopped writing to him on his travels. He loves his relationship with her, not understanding that what he feels is actually love for her because he has never been aware that true love feels the way it does when he is with Pen. In fact it is explained in a letter that the reason he decided to try being like his brothers is BECAUSE Penelope stopped responding to him during his travels between seasons two and three. He decided to start guarding his heart, throwing on the rakish armor we see him dawn in the first half of season three, because he didn’t have that relationship that made him feel stable and loved anymore. He sees Penelope as his best friendship, rather than the love of his life, because he literally can’t see it any other way based on how everything in his life played out to that point.
———
Okay this is way longer than I intended this to be already, but to finally make it to my main point! The Friends to Lovers trope as it plays out in Season Three Part One: Polin Do Be Polining.
What does all this mean for how Polin’s intensity shines? Due to the way their friendship has played out things like Colin taking Pen to the dance floor (not small social feat btw) in season one when Cressida bullies her, seeking each other out at social events, Pen asking about his travels - all of these are part of their romance! It’s all part of the slow burn; it’s just less slap-you-in-the-face noticeable, to a viewer of a show about romance, as Kate and Anthony and even Simon and Daphne because acting like friends is an implicit part of Polin’s love story. Because they are best friends as well as lovers!!
This is in full display in Season three, though put more on blast since it’s their season to get together. Colin saying he’ll teach Penelope how to get a husband isn’t a pity thing, it’s a real moment of genuine care that Colin is extending towards her.
—— “Pen wants to get a husband to be happy? Great! I’ll help her get a husband to make her happy because her happiness means everything to me.” - top ten photos taken ten seconds before disaster. ——
And it works! They start spending all this time together, and Pen has always looked gorgeous but is finally wearing clothes that she feels gorgeous in and you can see it in the way she acts, and suddenly Colin’s heart starts doing all these weird jumps around her like when she’s in the drawing room and when she wraps his hand because he has always loved her, so he doesn’t understand what these feelings that are coming up during these scenes are because they are not new feelings, just more intense ones of what he believes is pure friendship.
Penelope, during all of this, has had her brain decide to give up on Colin Bridgerton (even though her heart hasn’t). As someone who’s been there, being in unrequited love with your friend is brutal but you can never really let go. No matter how many people they date, or the hours you spend together talking about their new crush, or the life moments share together where they do everything but love you there is always that small spark of hope in your chest that you can’t let go of lest they ever possibly realize they love you back. That chance is too precious to give up - that’s why Penelope can’t give Debling a real answer when he asks her if she would like to be with Colin in episode four. Logically she knows she should give it up but her heart just can’t. She is a hopeless romantic and her life has been spinning around Colin Bridgerton since she was 16 like the earth around the Sun. There is no other way to live, for her, if she isn’t in love with Colin. And that’s what breaks her heart the most.
It’s also why, I believe, she asks him to kiss her in that garden. She had just written about herself in Whistledown that she did the upmost embarrassing act of taking Colin’s assistance on the marriage market, and her mother dressed her down about being a spinster for the rest of her life. All of Pen’s plans, of marrying and getting out and even finding what could turn into love, are utterly gone for her in that moment when she goes out to the garden. She doesn’t have her prospects. She doesn’t have Eloise. She doesn’t have safety in her own home. The only thing she has left is Colin. That’s why she asks him to kiss her, because he might grant her this one kindness of making her feel alive for just this one moment before the rest of her life ends. That moment is the culmination of all of her feelings up to that point in the show. She’s given up on Colin - she wouldn’t have asked him to kiss her had she any hope left. This was her last ditch attempt to just be a girl and be kissed regardless of what he actually meant to her. It wasn’t out of desperation, it was staring down the barrel of the gun with societies’s finger on the trigger.
When she asks him Colin is taken aback. Not because he doesn’t want to kiss her but because he has never considered it before. Kissing was reserved for women you are looking to sleep with at a bar, for prostitutes in alleyways, not for his caring Pen. I’ve seen some upset over not including more of Colin’s writing in the show, as he becomes quite the writer in the books apparently, and the writing we do see is just about sex but given the way they paced the show they provided the most important piece of context for Colin’s understanding of intimacy in the writing they did use. He wonders how one can feel, despite sleeping with every kind of woman across Europe, such intimacy in physical closeness and yet such distance emotionally. It’s some level of satisfying for him to sleep around, but it doesn’t fulfill him in the way it seemed to fulfill his brothers. He cannot equate the idea of kissing to Penelope because he feels such emotional closeness to her. But when she brings it up, suddenly everything clicks into place for him. All the emotions he feels towards her, what he thought was just friendship, is so much more. Yes she is his friend, but by god he wants to kiss his friend.
———
Their kiss is sweet, and soft. Unlike Daphne and Anthony’s first kisses with their respective partners it isn’t this immense clashing of bodies and teeth. It’s two friends who love each other finally meeting each other as sparks fly and shivers run down their spines.
Colin is left speechless, and confused. The kiss was amazing to him because he finally unlocked that part of him that made him realize he was in love with Penelope. The kiss was amazing to Penelope because she has been in love with him for so long, but it was also tinged with her own doubts and feelings of hopelessness. That’s why she runs away, and thanks him, because this was her last stand and he was just her friend helping her out as she believes.
But as always, a night of sleep helps clarify things. The next time Pen goes into society she is awkward but still well intentioned about getting a husband because that kiss was a long day’s worth of self pity followed by, in her terms, a moment of weakness. But it clarified things for her too. Now she can’t die without ever having been kissed, so that ultimatum she set up in her own mind was gone and everything seems much more manageable from that point on. Colin, as we know, is a wreck who is absolutely bamboozled at these feelings and we love to watch him flounder!!!
———
Now the tables have been turned. To those of who are think Penelope should have chosen Debling, this part is for you. This is when Debling really starts to court Penelope as she goes after him. She literally fights Cressida for him, because he seems like the most amenable husband for her to be able to continue Whistledown and be provided security. She isn’t looking for love in Debling because she already has love in Colin (love she believes will always remain unrequited, but that kiss can be a memory she cherishes for the rest of her life and that be that); she basically did was Anthony did at the beginning of season two. Find a suitable match that makes the most sense for her and leave love out of it. She likes Debling, for sure, and he’s a rly nice guy!! He cares about her in a way that a suitor might, and I’m certain had they gotten married he wouldn’t have been mean to her or anything. But she would’ve been lonely. As remembered she is a romantic, someone who craves the love she reads about in her romance books. She’s spent most of her conscious life in love - marrying Debling would stop that in its tracks. In his own words, Debling tells Pen that he could try to maybe love her but that it was far too unlikely to find any room in his heart her for over his passions (aroace Debling stand rise). He specifically mentions that he is choosing her to marry because she has her own passions, separate from his, that can keep her company while he is gone both physically and emotionally from her. She doesn’t realize this until it’s too late, when her focus on the chase is over, and Debling asks her mother for her hand. It’s only then that she thinks that maybe she could hold out for love, and that power is strong enough to make her actively not want to ensure her security through Debling.
Love is treacherous, and yet we yearn for it like a sailor who cannot help but smile at the beauty of the raging sea at it comes crashing down upon him. Penelope would rather a thousand lifetimes of the chance to be in love with Colin over one lifetime married to Debling in safety.
That is why Debling breaks it off with her. Because she loves Colin, Debling knows she would choose Colin over him, and he sees Colin’s interest in her even if she does not. Like Colin literally found out she was going to get engaged, ran to the ball, interrupted the dance wherein Debling was going to ask Pen to marry him, ran after her carriage just to know if she was engaged because he couldn’t fathom letting her get away in a loveless marriage, and when finding out she was not engaged telling her he loved her even if she did not love him back because he simply had to express to her how much he loved her as he owed her that as his friend. Colin got in his knees in that carriage because he was genuinely splaying out his heart to her for her to dissect as she chose. He put himself at her mercy because that is where he believes his place to be - just hers, and no one else’s.
———
The carriage scene is, of course, the moment of highest intensity from the viewer standpoint of what we think love should appear to be. Other scenes could be Colin’s dream, and the moment in the sweets tent, etc. But those moments aren’t all of Polin’s love story. They may be the most visceral to witness, but they are just as important as the two of them laughing together in the corner of a ball. Their romantic trope is defined as Friends to Lovers, but that isn’t quite right - they are both. There is no big “or” between the two. Colin and Penelope are friends and lovers, and all of it is a beauty to witness.
And that’s all! If you’ve made it this far thanks for sticking around to listen to my obsessive thoughts. I wish you a very happy Bridgerton rewatch :)

My boyfriend and I take lessons from a chef (over a dozen now) and would like to buy the chef a gift. As a lifelong chef and business owner I know he has most everything he could possibly need. He is left handed though and really appreciates “authentic” things. Would a custom knife be a good idea (like a left handed Japanese sushi knife, or something those line)? Also how would I go about obtaining it? I would also like to personalize it with his logo on the handle or part of the blade. Wouldn’t even need to be something he uses, maybe something that is just a nice show piece. I’m willing to spend $300ish

Ok, I dont' understand the constant ghosting im experiencing, and wonder what someone's advice would be.
I left a very abusive marriage and lost a lot of my self-worth and confidence. It's taken years to rebuild and I dont even feel like I have a good foundation at my core. But, I have avoided for 7 years getting into a relationship or even trying to date again. I realized recently that actually I put too much pressure on myself or the guy by thinking it will be easy, like we meet, I like you, we're a thing (that's how my marriage rolled along but lots of gaslighting was involved.)
Recently, I thought well, let me start with sex. I am in my mid-40's and crave the intimacy that comes with sex again. And the last time I was having sex it was easy to have a hook up and move on if it didnt work out. Well, in this process, I reconnected with someone I had a very deep feelings with years ago, they treated me like gold but were married and I wouldn't have sex with him, yet, got a ton of feelings caught up in the talking stage of 4 months until he ghosted.
Then last night I had super super passionate sex with a man (it could not have been faked, it was really good) and he was highly communicative and texted today, and asked to set up another time to get together, and then I said hey im actually in your area tonight, and he unmatched me on the dating app and ghosted.
What am I missing so I don't get consistently ghosted? I feel connected, which is usually my guide in life if it feels right and natural. But, is my gut off? Is this building my strength? I really dont understand my lesson here. This was a blow to the objective of getting back out there and having courage to share myself and my body with someone. I felt like I could do this, but maybe I cant. I dont know if I give off that I have low self esteem. This feels like an uphill climb. Whereas my ex-husband jumped into a Tinder MARRIAGE 6 months after I divorced him...on my birthday no less. I want to get to some situation that makes me feel like I can be myself and authentic and connect with people who want the same, but I continually am ghosted. I dont get it.

Hi everyone! I’m looking to buy a Garmin watch for my husband for his upcoming birthday.
My husband loves to golf and goes probably once every week or two weeks minimum. He’s also an avid runner and starting to run more races this year. He also likes to work out daily, either by running or lifting weights.
Right now, he has a Samsung watch that I think for the most part is meeting some of his needs, but I think he still has to take his phone with him while running. He also doesn’t like watches that are too bulky.
I’ve heard a bit about some of the Garmin watches that have various golf features, like a rangefinder, etc. Could you all recommend any watches that have some golf features but also good for running (the ability to let him leave his phone at home for a run would be nice too)? I have a Apple Watch so I’m hopelessly lost 🙃
Thanks!

I (31M) was introduced to a girl (27F) for arranged marriage a month ago. Parents introduced us and we have been taking things organically. We met 4 times after which I started opening up to her and mentioned a few things about myself which pointed to introversion. A couple of weeks later she invited me to the birthday party (25+ people) of a close friend of hers. I asked her what to introduce myself as there and she suggested 'friend'. I took that to mean no one at the party knew I was a marriage prospect and that she was asking me to be guarded around her and her friends. I also took that to mean there were no specific expectations from me at the party and decided it was fine to be low-key given I was tired that night. Unknown to me, her idea to invite me there was to see what I was like in social situations around her .. whether I need too much support or if I could socialize on my own. Also, her close friends who were hosting the party were told beforehand she was bringing a marriage prospect.
Overall, my behavior there came off detached and went against the expectations of her and her friends. They tried to make me feel "comfortable" by pointing me to employees from my company to socialize with and all that but I felt it was a bit silly to be pushed to socialize when I was not particularly in the mood to. And further I insisted I was fine being there. At one point, she came to me after talking to her friends and suggested I should leave the party. I was shocked and I insisted I was fine and stayed there. By the end of the party, she became closed off to me signaling indirect rejection.
Now my question is, is this a weird situation or did I mess up?
I am willing to put in some effort to mend this situation since a few things I want match in her but a few concerning things: my invite to the party was some sort of a covert test and this is not sitting well with me. is this a common thing in these situations or am I reading too much? The fact that she was not open with her communication about my status there ('friend') confused me about how to act around her. Also, being asked to leave? when i was clearly telling people i was fine there, perhaps on the quieter side? i don't know if it's a sign of incompatibility but it made me feel humiliated.

Hi all. I have relied on Reddit so much in the last few years for feedback on my fears and emotions. I’m so grateful for the kindness I’ve seen on this sub in particular.
In December of 2021, at 36 years old, I experienced an ectopic pregnancy that was treated with two rounds of methotrexate. To say it was traumatizing is putting it mildly. It was a much wanted pregnancy with my husband and the experience left feeling vulnerable and scared of my own body.
After the ectopic was resolved, I didn’t want to try again. It was like reality set in and I had a new lease on life. My daughter is in college and my step-kids are also grown. My husband and I do not have a child together. But still, I just was no longer interested in starting over even though I had always dreamed of having a biological child with him.
Last week, I discovered (at 38) that I am about 5 weeks pregnant. It was a shock. At first, we talked about how it was scary but exciting. The first night, I tossed and turned and just basically lay awake in one long panic attack. I told my husband in the morning that I wanted to terminate and he was extremely supportive and said it was the best idea. He said we have a many years ahead of us to travel and spend our money however we want and to just be with each other. He’s right. But I am sad and feel so worried about the emotional toll the next year will bring.
I have an appointment on Friday for an MA. I guess I’m not looking for advice, but for any similar experiences.

I (31M) was introduced to a girl (27F) for arranged marriage a month ago. Parents introduced us and we have been taking things organically. We met 4 times after which I started opening up to her and mentioned a few things about myself which pointed to introversion. A couple of weeks later she invited me to the birthday party (25+ people) of a close friend of hers. I asked her what to introduce myself as there and she suggested 'friend'. I took that to mean no one at the party knew I was a marriage prospect and that she was asking me to be guarded around her and her friends. I also took that to mean there were no specific expectations from me at the party and decided it was fine to be low-key given I was tired that night. Unknown to me, her idea to invite me there was to see what I was like in social situations around her .. whether I need too much support or if I could socialize on my own. Also, her close friends who were hosting the party were told beforehand she was bringing a marriage prospect.
Overall, my behavior there came off detached and went against the expectations of her and her friends. They tried to make me feel "comfortable" by pointing me to employees from my company to socialize with and all that but I felt it was a bit silly to be pushed to socialize when I was not particularly in the mood to. And further I insisted I was fine being there. At one point, she came to me after talking to her friends and suggested I should leave the party. I was shocked and I insisted I was fine and stayed there. By the end of the party, she became closed off to me signaling indirect rejection.
Now my question is, is this a weird situation or did I mess up?
I am willing to put in some effort to mend this situation since a few things I want match in her but a few concerning things: my invite to the party was some sort of a covert test and this is not sitting well with me. is this a common thing in these situations or am I reading too much? The fact that she was not open with her communication about my status there ('friend') confused me about how to act around her. Also, being asked to leave? when i was clearly telling people i was fine there, perhaps on the quieter side? i don't know if it's a sign of incompatibility but it made me feel humiliated.

This is my first reddit post and honestly it's a lot so please bear with me. I'm still trying to figure out how to process everything and make sense of it all. I guess we will start at the very beginning. My boyfriend,( we will call him michael) and I just passed 6 months together. Honestly, hes been great. We clicked pretty fast and have a great bond. I feel safe and comfortable around him and can communicate in a way ive never been able to before. It just kinda works. I definitely fell hard and fast for him and from what I could gather, the feeling was mutual. We had met on tinder in early October and went on our first date in November. We made it official shortly after our first date.
After we started dating, he had briefly mentioned that he had a friend who had a bit of a crush on him. I told him I didn't mind and I trusted him. As long as he kept things respectful to me, it didn't matter. He then explained that her crush was a bit obsessive and he actually wanted to push her out of his life and needed advice. Apparently, this friend, (we will call her beth) was pregnant and wanted Michael to be her baby's God Father. He said that she would follow him and got jealous when he was with other girls. I found this kind of odd but he swore they were just friends, so I told him the best way to let her down gently and let him do his thing. About two weeks later, he told me she was out of the picture. I didn't really care either way but the communication was cool.
Anyways, I pretty quickly forgot about all of that because it was irrelevant and I wanted to focus on our relationship. One night when we were hanging out, he got a snapchat notification. He turned away from me to respond to it but I didn't think much of it, just asked who that was. He said it was just a friend (we will call this one Jen) and they were catching up. I had never heard of her before but I didn't care, I just said cool and dropped it. Just like before, I quickly forgot about that conversation because again,it was irrelevant and I had better things to think about. I trusted him so why should I care who he talks to? He is his own person after all and I understand the importance of friendships.
Fast forward about another two weeks later, him and I had our first argument. I dont remember what it was about. Most likely something small and pointless because I had a stressful day at work but nothing too serious. We did not talk much that day. Later that night, I apologized and we talked it over. Everything was fine. He then told me that earlier in the day, an old friend that he had removed off social media readded him and messaged him. We will call her Molly. Apparently she had just noticed she was removed and was upset and wanted to know why. He told me that he sent her a message explaining that he didn't see her in his life long term and doesn't feel the need to keep someone around who won't be around forever so he didn't want to be friends anymore. He then removed her again. At this point I thought the way he acted was odd. I had never heard of molly before, he waited until he had already removed her before telling me about the conversation, she only came into the picture when we had our first argument and it got me thinking about the other girls who were just friends. I definitely started to over think a bit and was more than curious about who these people were and what their relationship to him was. But he swore they were all just friends. So I continued to believe him.
We went a long period of time without anything coming up so once again I forgot about it and moved on with my life. Him and I were doing great. We were young dumb and in love. I felt truly happy, something I hadn't experienced in a long time. I felt like I genuinely found someone who was right for me and I didn't need to second guess whether or not he was gonna cheat on me. He occasionally would ask to see my phone but I didn't have anything to hide so I allowed him. I had set a boundary with him that if he ever felt concerned or needed reassurance, he needed to bring it up to me first. After we talked it over then he could see my phone, but we would always go through it together. This seemed fair to me. My phone was never off limits, there just needed to be open communication. Anyways, he would always offer for me to see his phone in return but I would decline. I didn't feel the need to and I had learned from past experiences that if you go digging, you will most likely see something you can't unsee.
Then one day he needed to have his wisdom teeth removed. I dropped him off in the morning for his surgery and I was told I needed to hold on to his personal belongings and wait until the operation was over. No big deal. I know this is wrong and I shouldn't have but finally curiosity got the best of me and I looked on his phone. At first it wasn't malicious. I genuinely was just curious. But of course, I saw things I wish I could unsee. It started off on tiktok. In one of his conversations with a friend, he poured his heart out, explaining how he was still so in love with his ex and missed her like crazy. Of course it stung a little to see the things he said but I knew there was someone before me so it wasn't that surprising. That was until I saw those messages had been sent in mid October. So of course i was like huh.we started talking early October and dating early November. So clearly he wasn't over his ex when he met me. But I was willing to forgive it. It wasn't a deal breaker. But Instead of putting the phone down to protect my peace and his privacy, I kept looking. And boy did I find a lot. I found lots of old text messages from contacts that were not saved. Most of then were hard-core sexting and flirting. This dude literally acted like a dog.And yeah it was again hard to see but it was before me and he wasn't like that anymore. With me, he was gentle and respectful and never treated me like an object. Some people just go through a phase and that's okay. Again, it wasn't a deal breaker. But finally i found some very passionate, lovey, intimate messages with an unsaved contact. I was immediately drawn in by the kind words and heartwarming love messages. Whoever this was, they cared for eachother very strongly. I almost immediately felt heartbroken. Not because she was a past love interest, but because he had never spoken to me the way he spoke to her. I read all the way from the top of the conversation. Months worth of love confessions, paragraphs of strong feelings, longing to be with one another, etc. But finally halfway through in one of the paragraphs I see a name. Molly I was shattered. Molly was the girl who supposedly was removed months before him and I even met. The one that was "just a friend" who messaged him and he removed her because he didn't want to be friends anymore. Yeah clearly they were more than just friends. I was livid and felt crushed. Why did he feel the need to lie about something so unnecessary? I wouldn't have been mad if he had told the truth about who she was. But then it got me thinking. Was Beth truly just a friend? Was Jen truly just a friend? What was the actual relationship? I gathered up as much as I could but then the nurse came to the lobby to tell me he was awake and ready to go home. I kind of panicked and in my hurry, I forgot to delete the screenshots out of his phone.
We get in the car and I give him his phone, he's still pretty loopy. Obviously I had a million questions to ask him but I knew he wasn't in the right state of mind to have that conversation so I put my feelings aside and decided it could wait. Well he wanted to take pictures of his bloody swollen face and send it to his uncle. In the process, he sees the screenshots i had forgotten to delete off his phone and immediately screams what the f*** is this? I tried to talk calmly and explain that now wasn't a good time to talk about it and it could wait. He kept pressing "what the f*** did you do? Who the hell is this?" In my mind I thought "uh dude, you tell me." But didn't want to escalate it while he was drugged up. I decided the best option was to simply say that I wasn't mad , I stilled planned on taking care of him while he recovered and that we would need to have a conversation when he was in a better state of mind. He just started sobbing. Oh boy. I kind of ignored it as much as I could. I drove us to the store to get ice cream and other soft foods he could eat before taking us back to my apartment. I helped get him set up in my bedroom and he still was crying. So much so he started coughing out blood. It smelled awful and got everywhere. He was a wreck. I felt bad for everything. I felt guilty for going on his phone behind his back, for leaving the screeshots on his phone and for him crying. It took several hours but eventually I got him to calm down. I kept my word and continued to take care of him until he was recovered.
Finally when enough time had passed I decided it was time to sit down and talk about it. I explained that obviously I had found messages and i wanted an explanation. He told me molly was just a friend, and very clearly it was more than that. I also explained that I had a suspicion that he was not fully honest about his relationship with Jen and Beth either. He looked me dead in the eyes and said he had no idea what I was talking about and they were just friends. I remained calm and explained that I won't be mad at him or leave him. I told him I didn't want to fight. I just felt as though I deserved to know the truth if I was going to continue to be with him, especially since he was still in contact with Beth and Jen while we were dating. We continue to go back and forward for several hours with no progress. I decided then if he didn't feel I deserved the truth, I would find out for myself. I took the screenshots I had found and reached out to the contacts one by one.
Let's start with Beth. She was the quickest to respond. I briefly explained who I was and that I was hoping to ask some questions about my partner because I felt like i was being lied to and was hoping she could fill in some of the gaps. She texted back and simply asked "do you work at blank" I responded that yes, I did. She then asked if I lived at a specific apartment complex. I said yes and was creeped out. She knew where I worked and lived. She then asked if she could call me. I agreed. For some context, he told me that she was a friend he had met in school. He explained that she had gotten out of a rough relationship and he wanted to make sure she was okay when it happened. That's how they became close. He explained that they would hang out all the time and eventually she became obsessed with him. Well during my phone call with her, I heard a very different story. Yes, they met in school and initially started off as friends. But, slowly with time as they started to spend more and more time together, they started to catch feelings. He said I love you first. And she proved this with screenshots. She also sent me pictures of them holding hands and kissing. She explained that they never officially started dating but they definitely were more than just friends. Their relationship was much more physical and romantic than platonic. She also told me that they had hooked up about 3 times. She explained that they had eachothers location and pretty frequently they would make plans then he would last minute cancel. So she would see what he was doing and would see him at two very specific addresses. Visiting my work or my apartment. She eventually asked him where he was and he told her that I was his cousin and was trying to get out of a rough relationship so he was helping me. I felt sick. No wonder why she was "obsessed" he was borderline dating her, telling her he loved her, and then started to ditch her when he made things official with me. Then it killed me to realize that even though they never had an official title, he was dating the two of us at the same time. I didn't know what to do. I ended up apologizing to her for everything he did and told her I never would have agreed to be his if I knew he was entertaining someone else. Michael overheard this phone call between us and looked like he had seen a ghost after. All he did was started crying, said she was lying, and that she was only a friend. I asked "so....these screenshots and pictures are all made up?" No response. He knew he was busted.
I decided I needed to take some time to process that information and I didn't want to say something I would regret. I let him stay at my place because he had nowhere else to go and I went to stay with a friend. He kept calling and texting but I couldn't deal with it. I cried all night. I was a mess. I should have just accepted that I was cheated on and lied to but I couldn't leave. I needed to know the truth. So I kept reaching out. Next up was Jen. I never was able to reach her, but I found out through Michael and Beth that Jen was Beth's best friend. But even more than that, I found out the three of them had a threesome together. He had told me previously that he had never been interested in a threesome and would never want to have one. Then I found out not only did he have one and lied about it, but it was with two girls he told me were just friends.
I went back to my apartment the next day and tried to talk stuff out. He just continued to say they were just friends. I finally snapped. I screamed and cried and told him that I just wanted to know the truth. That I deserved the truth. He looked me in the eyes, pinky promised me no more lies. We talked for a while and basically he explained that he never had an official title with Beth. They were very close but he basically just used her to pass time because he had nothing better to do. He said he loved her because that's what she wanted to hear and he treated her like a partner without ever having any real feelings for her. He knew as soon as he met me that he wanted me but didn't want to hurt her so he just kind of pushed her to the side but kept her in the picture. I felt so sad for her. He used her. He led her on. He treated her like an object and then threw her to the side when he met me.I asked why he lied about having a threesome. He said he felt ashamed Apparently they started to do it and then he chickened out so he didn't really count it. That made sense to me. I was pissed that he lied but at least it made sense. Next I asked why he told me Beth and Jen were just friends instead of being honest about the relationship. He said he never had feelings for either and they never had the official title so he didn't think it was important and he did not want to scare me off. I explained to him that although I understand why he lied to me, I didn't forgive him. I warned him that I would not tolerate anymore lies and obviously for the time being I did not trust him. I told him I wouldn't break up with him but if I found out he lied again, he would lose me. I also told him I considered what he did as cheating since he was seeing us at the same time after him and I became mutually exclusive. After we concluded our conversation about Beth and Jen, I started thinking about molly and the messages I had seen. I asked him what their relationship was, he said just friends. I freaked and told him to give me his phone. I found their old messages and told him to read them. "Hey goofball, you awake? Well if you're not I have something impossible to say to you. You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars. I love you lots and want you to know that no matter what happens I will always care about you. To me you are perfect. Amazing. And attractive asf. You are also very sweet and caring and adorable. Don't think about the negative things about yourself that will drag you down. You are way more than that. This is an official goodnight and I love you goofball." This is just one of the MANY messages sent back and forward. He reads the conversation and just goes oh. He then says he didn't remember any of that happening. We began to argue and the story he tried to spin was that his life must have been so traumatic that his brain literally deleted his past memories and replaced them with false memories where he didn't do these things that he is ashamed of. He got caught in lies and after so long was just like...whoa I did that? I had no idea I didn't remember. Technically I didn't lie because I told what I thought the truth was the way I remembered it. I told him I wanted to break up and he cried and begged me to forgive him and stay. I listened.i tried to move on and make things normal again but I couldn't stop thinking about all the lies and what else he might have been lying about. Then randomly one day, Molly added me back on social media. She was the last and took over 1.5 months so honestly I figured I'd never get ahold of her. I was genuinely surprised to see her show up on my friend list and reached out. Once again back story, he told me that she lived in Wisconin and they had never met. He said he was also using her for nudes and to pass time, same way he used Beth. He had told me that he removed her off social media months before him and I even met and aside from that one night she reached out, he hadn't heard from her in forever. I found out from her that she did not live in Wisconsin, she lived in the same state as us That to her, they were definitely dating and in love. I also saw a messaged saved on snapchat where he had been texting her in October (after we met) and even sent her the same pickup lines he had sent me. he had cheated with not just one, but two (at least that I know of) other girls.
At this point I had been broken so bad I didn't even feel the pain anymore. I just went numb. I had no more tears left to cry and couldn't be bothered to care anymore. I stopped eating and taking care of myself. I just went to work, came home, slept and repeated. I had watched the man that I loved and adored, one that made me feel so safe and happy turn into a monster right in front of me. He wasn't him anymore. I finally could see him for who he was. But I still didn't leave. He told me that he had only ever slept with three girls. I later found out it was actually six. He told me he had never been in love before. I later found out he tells basically every girl he's ever talked to that he loves them AND genuinely was in love with his ex before me. He told me after his ex and him broke up, he had a rebound but he only hooked up with her once before ghosting her. I found out they actually dated for several weeks, hooked up several times, and she had taken cute couple pictures with him and posted them on social media. He said that he never wanted to take those pictures, she made him put his Hands on her and pose and if he didn't cooperate, she would throw a tantrum like a child. One last thing I think that is important to mention,when we went on our first date, I told him I don't do hookups. We stayed out late and hit it off really well so I offered for him to stay the night at my place. I said I was okay with cuddling and whatever but I did not want to have sex. He seemed okay with it. I went to bed and then when I woke up, my pants were off and he was inside me. He claimed he didn't know I was asleep and thought I wanted it because apparently my butt kept rubbing against him while we were spooning.
It's been about a month since all that and I'm still just meh. I haven't exactly forgiven him but I also don't hate him. Things are normal. I act normal we still do couple things. But I can't help but wonder if he is just using me the same way he used them. I mean after all, he lives in my apartment rent free and asked me to buy him a truck for his birthday. He says I should forgive him because he genuinely doesn't remember doing these things and he didn't mean to lie to me. He said he's so ashamed of who he was but isn't like that anymore. He doesn't associate with who he was and wants to be given a chance to show that he is different. But can I ever forgive him? Should I? Where do I go from here? I feel so lost and confused. I dont think I'll ever be able to trust his word again. I dont feel secure. He broke me so bad I can't even feel anymore. Am I crazy and somehow making this a bigger deal than it is? Can I ever have the man I fell in love with back? I'm sorry if this was confusing. I'm typing this all out in one sitting. Please help me because I genuinely am so lost and I don't want to tell any friends because I don't want them to hate him.
TLDR: My boyfriend cheated on me with at least two other girls that I know of at the moment and has lied to me about too many things to count. His argument is that It doesn't actually count as cheating because he technically didn't date these people and he didn't remember doing it.

First of all, I'm so grateful for each person here who has shared about their experience at Ballet 5:8. I found ex58 after a random TikTok search one night last November, on the off chance anyone on TikTok had a negative experience there like I did. I found a series of videos from one ex-dancer at 5:8 who shared her experiences and mentioned this subreddit, and I debated about making a post for a while. Part of me was terrified that J would see it and figure out who I am and hate me even more for it (which is definitely my people-pleaser tendencies + trauma coming through), but I really don't care anymore. Hi J, if you're there. 👋
I was a staff member at Ballet 5:8 for four-ish months, which is a minuscule amount of time compared to many of you. It's heartbreaking to hear what you endured. I guess my four months there demonstrate how quickly J and the culture she's created can completely shatter a person's self-worth, faith, and beyond.
I was fresh out of college and desperately looking for a job. "Desperately" because I was in the midst of a season of rough mental health and family dynamics, and I needed something to keep me occupied. Up to this point, I had done PMarketing/Advertising for a few agencies as internships and part time, but nothing full time. I stumbled across a LinkedIn job post for an open staff position at Ballet 5:8 that seemed to align with my skills perfectly. It seemed to be some sort of match made in heaven that Ballet 5:8 was also a Christian organization and I was a Christian who had danced for 10+ years. All I needed to do was move across the country to Chicago. What could possibly go wrong?
The First Red Flags

• Turnover Rate - While I was interviewing, my soon-to-be-boss (not J) mentioned that 5:8 had been looking for someone to fill this role for at least a year, but the past few people they had chosen to fill the role either left or moved on to other opportunities. Huh. Despite multiple people filling the role, there seems to be a common denominator...wonder who...
• Salary & "Benefits" - My high-school-age brother, who worked as a cashier at Panera at the time, made slightly more than what I made as a salaried employee at Ballet 5:8. Oh, and health insurance? Definitely not. It's laughable. I know you're a non-profit organization, but if you're going to try to hire someone to promote your entire brand, you might want to consider paying them more than Panera.
• Love Bombing - During my second round of interviews and as they were preparing to tell me I got the job, I remember Julianna saying something similar to, "We've been searching and praying for this role to be filled for years and we've finally found you. You're the person we've been waiting and praying for." Yeah, yeah. It was music to my people-pleaser ears at the time, but deep down I knew it was a load of crap to get me to sign on and drink the B58 kool-aid.
• Job Description - They made it sound like I'd be managing and directing a team, which is something with which I did have prior experience. However, they failed to mention that the rest of the "team" was currently a product of their imagination and they were planning to one day hire more people to support my role. This part alone led to a vast amount of stress on my part and infinite expectations on J's, because at least they had one person now, rather than none. Maybe I'll tell some of those stories here someday, which make up the bulk of the horrors. They had absolutely no idea what they needed, but they had a precise vision for the miraculous outcome that would follow each project and task I was assigned. A massive TikTok following overnight! A whole perfect Wikipedia page! Becoming bigger and "more obnoxious marketing-wise" than Shen Yun! Yes, those were a few of the goals.

I know those red flags should've been more than enough to make me run for the hills rather than accept the job. Hindsight truly is 20/20. Without my already terrible mental health clouding my judgement, or the love bombing mixed with my people-pleasing tendencies, there is no way in hell I would've ever agreed to work there.

1. BTN > College Graduation? Beyond the Nutcracker is ridiculous in my opinion, but unfortunately that's not what this is about. This is about the fact that Julianna & my (other) managedirect boss (who has since left 5:8) wouldn't let me go to my own college graduation ceremony because Ballet 5:8 was *far more important,* despite me requesting to attend my graduation 4+ months in advance and already making arrangements for a hotel, flights, and my grandparents to come. For context, I took summer classes and graduated during the summer term, so my university's next commencement was in December. Why did Julianna need me at 5:8 so desperately at that time? None other than to have me help operate the damn BTN ticket booth. I wish I could say I quit then and there when they told me I couldn't attend my graduation, but I stayed. My last day with Ballet 5:8 was working that Beyond the Nutcracker show, which otherwise would've been my graduation day.
   
2. Merry Christmas By late Novembeearly December, I was completely broken. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't focus, I couldn't even cry anymore. I could, however, feel the most overwhelming sense of anxiety at the thought of giving my two-weeks notice. I will never forget the night I pressed the send button on that email, going directly to J and my boss. If I thought J's intimidation tactics during the previous 3.5 months had been hell, I hadn't seen anything yet. Unfortunately, the morning after I submitted my two-weeks notice was a work day, so I went in early and tried to prepare myself for J's rage. It came, but through snarky comments under her breath, rushing past me on her way into her office, the silent treatment, and multiple vague and dramatic messages in the all-staff Slack. "Nothing like a good punch to the gut right before Christmas!" Oh please. You've managed to control and/or traumatize an entire organization for years. Don't let me, a barely 20-year-old at the time, intimidate you. There's a grinch or scrooge joke in here somewhere. In brief, she didn't speak a word to me for the last two weeks of my time there.
   
3. Chicago (Again) It's been a few years since Ballet 5:8. I moved back home. I'm married now. And I'm moving back to Chicago now. My husband's job is requiring us to move there for at least the next four years, and while I'm excited at the chance to redo my time in Chicago, I'm also terrified that the bad memories will be too much and I'll be living in fear the entire time. That being said, what were/are some of the things you've enjoyed in Chicago? I'm open to any recommendations. 😅
   

If you managed to make it this far, thanks for reading. I've found so much comfort by reading all of your stories and I'm grateful to have the space to share parts of mine.

Hi all!
I was wondering if anyone here has had/is a teacher assistant for a virtual school? I’m currently a sub and absolutely love it! However, me and my husband are looking to buy a house next year and I’m thinking more stable income might look better on a loan application. I would miss being in the classroom though. What does a TA in a virtual academy do? If anyone has any idea or wants to share their experience it would be greatly appreciated 🖤

Hi all,
Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but here it goes.
I have multiple roommates and a newer roommate has a cat. The cat is super cute but he is starting to obsess over trying to get into my room/ hangs out in front of my door clawing at the carpet. I wouldn't care but unfortunately I was gifted with pretty bad cat allergies. Is there anything I can do to keep the little guy just away from my area to reduce dander's floating into my room?
​
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post but my sinuses/ eyes will thank any ideas!

What it was like, what happened, and what it is like now... My sobriety date is January 10th, 2016. I had been coming in and out of the program of AA since I was 18 years old, I had a drawer full of white chips, and it wasn't until I was 33 years old that I had finally been beaten down enough and suffered enough consequences due to this disease that I was finally ready to surrender... not because I had any hope that things would get better, but because I was frightened of how they were on their way to getting worse.
I was finally ready to follow through in working all 12 steps with my sponsor, which I did over the course of a year. I moved onto a new sponsor, and worked them through again. I was hungry for this new life and I sought out the oldest of the old timers, women who had more years in sobriety than I had on this earth. I was desperate for change because I was faced with two choices: change, or face a life without my two precious children that had been wisely removed by the court and my ex-husband because of how I'd let this disease impact our lives like a category five hurricane. I learned quickly that it simply wasn't enough that my admission of powerless and taking of the first three steps stopped the proverbial winds of destruction from blowing; like a devastated city by the sea in the aftermath, I had a job of reconstruction ahead of me that wasn't going to be cleaned up over night... it was going to be a process of years before everything would come back together, and be restored to something better than I could have ever dreamed.
What I ended up discovering through the years of consistently working this program wasn't at all what I'd originally sought out. I just wanted the chaos to stop. I just wanted to be able to put down the bottle for good. I thought this was the alpha and omega of it. But this was just the barest beginning.
The cessation of drinking was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This program would do more than just divorce me from alcohol and substance abuse... it was going to completely transform me. Little by slowly, the working of the steps began to reshape my perspective as I had to accept a spiritual remedy or return to my own spiral of misery and the onward march to jails, institutions, and death.
Through the working of my inventory, my sponsors helped me to see that everything I resentfully blamed on my ex-husband, my abusive upbringing, my traumatic brain injury in early childhood, everyone who'd ever bullied or abused me had layers. Resentment would poison me; I had to forgive those against whom I harbored resentment not for their sake, but my own. Forgiveness, I discovered, set me free from this self-created prison. Letting go meant a greater freedom than I could have ever known.
And then, further on: most things I blamed on God for allowing to happen to happen to me, such as the loss of my precious children, my sponsors helped me to understand through my inventory were traceable back through so many actions I willfully chose that had a domino effect of consequences that I now had to face and accept as my responsibility. Whether or not other people were involved, I had to let this go, learning a new meaning of powerlessness and acceptance of things I could not change... namely, other people and their own actions... and focused on the only thing I could change: my own choices, moving forward. Understanding that the only way out was through. Bless them, change me wasn't just a catchphrase any longer... I was the only one over whom I had control. When I finally came to this realization, I was able to work through my own defects, see them for what they were, rise into the 6th and 7th steps to pray for their removal, to be taken to something better.
I was then able to identify and accept what "my part" had been in two decades of wrecked relationships with others. I was able to understand to whom I must make amends, and found the genuine willingness to do so, a long list made, a scouring of the internet and social media and looking up all the people upon whose lives I'd had a negative impact, people whom I had hurt. I owned my part, I made the amends and I was surprised at the response I got, overwhelmingly.... not one person told me to go to hell like I rightfully would have deserved, and none of them even expressed anger. Each of them shared with me in their own way how they knew I was very sick, very lost, and they knew inside somewhere I was a good person, I was just hurting and how they had always hoped that I would find recovery, find God, find a way to be who I was. They were happy for me. They had forgiven me long ago.
And as a result of working these steps, persisting through consequences I had to face and accept, finding that the only way out was through... my life was transformed. I was transformed. I got my children back... not instantly, but I began my journey in 2016 and by 2017, I had them back on weekends. By 2018, I had them back in a 50/50 arrangement. And by 2019, circumstances aligned so that they were returned to me full-time, and this was also the year the man who'd stuck by me during the worst moments of my disease and through the ups and downs of early sobriety asked me to marry him, and my girls and I had a whole new family, a whole new life... today, he is the man they call "Dad" and they have their biological father every weekend whom they call "Papa." He, too, has found recovery and is growing into a better life, he dated a great woman who adored my daughters in the same way my new husband has and he is marrying her this summer. As a show of love, she gave each of my daughters a special ring to symbolize her own commitment to them in how much she values the importance. We're now working together as a united front and a blended family for what's best for the girls and it is a blessing.
It has been a challenge, honestly, now that things have gotten better and the promises have come true to stick with a consistent practice of this program. Complacency is probably my biggest struggle, something I continually work on because it is so easy now to let all of the blessings of this program consume my life and cause the program not to take a first place priority. The reality is what it is though: if I forget where I come from, if I rest on my proverbial laurels, I will absolutely lose everything that I've gained and I will end up drunk. I am finding that it was ironically much easier to work the program diligently when I was at rock bottom and this was the only way to climb out.
As such, I know that today, my actions still have consequences, good and bad. Sometimes, as before, the consequences might not show up immediately, but they will always manifest. Fortunately, though, through the working of this program, especially in the initial few years of working through the steps and my inventory, I find that I am making more positive choices than I did once upon a time, and so just as I reaped what I had sewn early on in terms of negative consequences, I now find the same thing is true insomuch as I enjoy positive consequences perhaps to the same degree that I once experienced negative ones. The most solid part of all is the gift that the 12th step provides, practicing these principles in all my affairs, as well as Step 10 that I try my best to keep up with regularly, I am able now to much more quickly identify when I have made a wrong choice, when a resentment crops up, or when I owe someone an amends. It is just like keeping a house clean in a literal sense: doing small things each day maintains a level of consistent cleanliness that is much easier to maintain than letting things get messy and piled up and trying to go in and clean.
And most importantly of all.... when I came into this program, I reached for God and striving for the next right thing because it was either this, or worse consequences than I was already facing. As one day at a time began to flow into weeks, then months, then years, I found myself reaching for God and striving for the next right thing because I was seeing how it was bearing the fruit of my whole life improving. And now, as I am moving toward my 9th year of sobriety, so close to an actual decade... I have never forgotten these former two stages of my own evolution, which have merged into where I find myself now... reaching for God and striving for the next right thing, as it is written, "as unto Him", because I am in a new habit now of right living, right choosing, being a kind of active faith in which I know that, as a line in one of the devotional books said, "When we do the next right thing, all the power of God is behind you."
I can make these choices today especially in my classroom in devoting myself to my occupation as a labor of love, and this in and of itself being its own reward. I was nominated for "Teacher of the Year" this year, but I knew from this moment that it wasn't going to be God's will for me to receive such an accolade and I was perfectly at peace with this. Because doing the right thing as unto God for me today rests on a foundation of just how important anonymity is, in a way I never appreciated until recently. I think of the founders of AA, how Bill W. was offered an honorary PhD in Sociology from Harvard (I think this was he area), how they wanted to erect a huge monument over Dr. Bob and his wife's grave to mark them as founders... I can scarcely imagine how tempting these opportunities would have been, especially when we all have that ego part of ourselves that whispers, "I have worked hard for this and I deserve to be recoginzed!" But they turned these offers down, as so many others that came and went. Anonymity was and still is everything.
My oldest old timer sponsor--the one with more years sober than i had alive-- had to really work hard to make me see something I was stuck in around years 4-6: "I have worked SO HARD to get to where I am today!"
She told me over and over that I was missing the point: I made choices to do the next right thing, but I was incapable of getting myself anywhere but drunk on my own unaided will. It was God who you allowed to work through you.
I understand that a lot more today. I am proud of a strength I possess to be industrious. But "I" don't matter. I do my best to do the next right things because what really only matters is that God sees what I do. Through any talents, abilities, strengths He has given me, they are from Him, and they make me useful as a vessel to be of service. I am a sewer of seeds, and I may never know how my willingness to be of service impacts someone, but He does. My own anonymity protects me from me.
Of myself I am nothing, it is only through the grace of God and this program that I am where I am today. I ask daily in prayer to for Him to get me out of my way, to be made of service, for Him to show me the next right thing one moment at a time, and the power to carry that out.
And this is all that matters.

I was with my common-law husband for 15 years and he suffers from mental health issues. I know this isn't an excuse, but it plays a big part in my situation. He wanted to end our relationship during an episode, but we are still living together. He started trying to chat up any women online that would pay attention to him. He visited his home country a few months ago and met up with a woman he used to go to high school with. She is not his type at all physically or lifestyle-wise, has three young children, and just got a divorce.
She went after my partner and now they are in a "long-distance relationship". Normally, I wouldn't blame the other woman, but she 100% knows about me and our situation. She doesn't care and encourages him to divorce me while she talks to him and ignores her children on the phone every day for hours. She is really bad news and she also has ulterior motives and is taking advantage of him. He is sending her money and she tries to tell him to do other risky things with our money. All I have is her Instagram, spotify, LinkedIn, and facebook. I can't find her phone number yet as she lives in another country. I'm open to any ideas no matter how petty. Thanks.

It’s my husband and I one year anniversary and the one year “traditional gift” is paper. For years, he has always made my lunch everyday and wrote little notes and I’ve kept every one of them. I was thinking it would be so fun and sentimental to do something with all these notes and give it to him. I’m having a hard time coming up with something. If anyone has any ideas please share!!

Hey, all. I just inherited my dad's '56 Bel Air and my husband and I are wanting to get her running by ourselves as opposed to paying for real mechanics to do it. Because we're broke. And stupid. Ha.
I haven't worked on a car since my '73 VW Bug, and even then it was with LOTS of help from Dad. So I'm pretty lost here.
She hasn't been started in several years and has been sitting, and Dad was a notorious jerry-rigger. There was a clamp on a hose from the engine/radiator to the heater core and we stupidly un-clamped it.
Welp, then we had to drain the radiator because no amount of re-clamping would stop the antifreeze leak from the heater core box onto the mats. Once drained, we removed the heater core box and opened her up -- corrosion galore. Radiator also features a good amount.
So now we're faced with what to do next. Do we take the heater core somewhere and have it recored? Do I get a brand new one? How do I know if the old one's any good and just needs a good cleaning and a new hose, or if I need a new one? How do I make sure it's the right new one? I doubt the original was "deluxe" but that seems to be all I'm finding online, and I don't know how to tell what the original was. Also, I've read about a deluxe not fitting if it's not replacing a deluxe.
And what about the radiator? Clean or replace?
If we had the money I'd restore her to all original pristine condition. But right now, I just want the poor girl running properly.
TIA for any insights! And apologies if the attached photos go through as stretched as they look on my end... No idea how to make them not do that.
-A '56 Belle