I met Luna on a train two years ago. I’d just escaped from a toxic relationship, so romance was the last thing on my mind, but then she sat across from me in the carriage and asked about the book I was reading. She had a copy in her bag and wanted to know if it was any good.
I'd never felt such an instant, effortless connection with anybody before. I took a chance and asked her to dinner, and by the time the waiters cleared away our desserts, I already felt comfortable being vulnerable around her. So we went on a second date. And a third. And next thing I knew, we were planning our second anniversary.
In all that time she never gave off any 'creeper' vibes. Until a few months ago, when I stayed the night over at her place...
She'd gotten up early to use the bathroom. I grabbed her laptop off the side desk so I could catch up on some work e-mails, and the incognito tab was just sitting there. My first thought was: either she's having an affair or she's got a secret fetish.
What I found instead was a Google account with a photo album called ‘Michael’s EX’. In it, there were 427 photos of my former girlfriend turned psycho stalker, Sadie. This included shots of ‘Sadie the stalker’ with her family, screenshots of her passport—the works. On Facebook, Sadie's latest post said Moving to the Philippines, and since then she’d become a social media church mouse, so how did Luna keep her under surveillance? And how did you even get PERSONAL ID from a person halfway across the globe?
Down the hall, I heard the bathroom door swing open. Quickly I closed the laptop and pretended to be asleep until Luna planted a kiss on my lips. “Wakey wakey Bugs.”
I faked a stretch. “Morning Lola."
(At school, the other kids christened me ‘Bugs’ because of my cartoonishly large front teeth; I called Luna ‘Lola’ because of her blonde bangs and heart-shaped face.)
“How about we grab a fry for breakfast?” Her smile didn’t seem genuine, more like she was wearing a mask.
“Crap. I forgot I’m doing overtime today, I’ve gotta get to work.” With that, I shot out of there faster than a bullet train to Tokyo.
Because I didn’t wanna believe the worst about someone I cared so deeply about, I didn’t contact the police (not that anybody could’ve guessed what Luna was up to) and made excuses whenever she asked to meet, delaying the decision whether to end our relationship.
At night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time a hedge rustled outside, I’d run to the window and pull back the curtain only to discover a black cat skulking around the garden. I put this down to my previous relationship leaving me with a mountain of unresolved PTSD.
Sadie the stalker also seemed normal until we moved in together. After that she started picking fights if she caught me talking to another woman, even just distant relatives or childhood friends. The screaming matches went from weekly to nightly, only ever ending when I conceded to her every wish and gave her full access to my phone and social media accounts. I literally needed to grab my clothes into a bag and run away one night, and then I started hearing noises outside my new apartment. And although I never found any evidence, I was pretty sure she’d broken in at one point because the books on my side table were suddenly out of order one day. What hurt the most was Luna knew all this and still acted the way she did.
Right as I reached my lowest point, my close friend Gertrude called and said, “The universe is telling me you could use a sympathetic ear.”
I told her the universe didn’t know the half of it.
I’d met Gertrude—aka my surrogate mother—on a flight to London. Passing over Wales the aircraft hit heavy turbulence, and the grey-haired hippie in the seat next to mine squeezed my hand so tight that my fingers turned blue. After we levelled off, she apologized and said, “So what’s calling you to London?”
“A job.”
A few glasses of wine from the service trolley later, she blurted out, “You know your aura is strikingly similar to my husbands.”
“Uhh, thanks. Where is he now?”
“Oh, he burned to death in a house fire.”
Gertrude’s eyes started welling up. To take her mind off the subject, I said, “I lied earlier. I’m going to London because I fell in love with a Londoner.” I pulled up pictures of Sadie (back in her pre-stalker days) on my phone. “We met in Italy. She looked flustered trying to read a map book so I offered to help. Next thing I knew, we were planning a trip to this place called Orvieto.”
“Michael, I need to know how this story ends. Gimme your number.”
Since then, we’d met two or three times a year.
I laid the whole mess out over pizza. It was the first time since finding the Google account I didn’t feel hidden eyes crawling all over me.
Just as I wrapped up the story, over in the corner booth, a family burst into a chorus of happy birthday. A waiter appeared carrying a chocolate cake, capped by a giant candle that looked more like a flare. Gertrude tensed up.
“So what do you think about all this?” I asked.
She looked back at me and said, “It’s possible your reaction has been a touch on the dramatic side.”
“DRAMATIC??”
“Well consider things from Luna’s point of view. Your last relationship lasted for, what, three years? Maybe she felt threatened.”
“I don’t believe this.” I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket, but Gertrude snatched it away.
“You know how I feel about you poisoning your lungs, Michael.”
“Don’t you start. I got enough of that crap from Luna.”
Gertrude always encouraged me to work through my romantic problems. Ultimately, I decided her love of fairytale romances clouded her judgement and ghosted Luna instead. But I couldn’t escape her shadow. She always felt close. In fact, it got so bad that at a friend’s costume party several weeks later, my eyes kept compulsively scanning the crowd as if she was there in disguise, ready to pounce.
I stood off to the corner until, over the sea of heads, I spotted a beautiful stranger dressed as Jarlath the Goblin King. I took a shot of liquid courage and made a B-line towards her.
Halfway across the crowded room, beer splashed across the front of my Ziggy Stardust outfit.
“I am so sorry,” a female pirate said, patting me dry.
“Don’t worry about it.” Every time I tried circling her, she moved to cut me off.
“I am such a klutz. Why don’t you come into the kitchen so I can clean up this mess?”
I put my hands on her shoulders and steered her out of the way. “It’s fine. Trust me.”
Approaching Jarlath from behind, heart slamming against my chest, I said, “Well this is awkward. One of us is gonna have to change.”
Jennie had bright blue eyes and dimples impossible to miss. Ten minutes into our debate about David Bowie’s greatest album, I said, “You know Absolute Bowie are playing the Half Moon next week. I could take you?”
“Sorry. I’m going with my boyfriend,” she said with a sympathetic smile. From beside the buffet table, the pirate stared daggers in our direction.
“No worries,” I replied, despite the fact I was brimming with jealousy.
The next day, as I jogged off my hangover, a brown-haired lady cut across my path and we both went spinning to the ground.
“Flip, sorry.” I rushed to pull her up by the hands. “I’m like a bloody zombie lately.”
She did a doubletake. “Ziggy, right?”
There was no mistaking those eyes. “Jarlath?”
“Well, Jarlath or Jennie. Eithers fine.”
“Right. Well, sorry again. Enjoy Absolute Bowie.”
Before I could jog away, she said, “Hey, so that guy I was seeing? Turns out he’s a total prick.”
Jennie and I went for coffee. Coffee morphed into drinks. Drinks morphed into a steamy make-out session on my sofa.
But as she covered my neck in soft kisses, my stomach turned. It felt like cheating. So, I put the brakes on things and said, “I can’t do this. I’m really sorry. You’re amazing, but I just got out of a serious relationship…and…it’s just…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
We agreed we’d let our connection blossom in its own time.
Jennie had a playful mystique to her. Within a handful of dates, we’d developed inside jokes and could tell what the other was thinking. But Luna’s imprint was hard to shake, to the extent I almost mixed up the two ladies’ names multiple times.
To detox, I suggested Jennie and I spend a romantic weekend in the Lake District, because after two days of hiking and kayaking my ex would no doubt be a spec in the rearview mirror.
Hours before we set off, however, Luna’s mom called. She wanted to meet and wouldn’t accept any excuses.
“Look, it’s obvious why I’m here,” she said, sitting across from me in Starbucks. “Ever since you and Luna broke up, she’s been acting…different.”
“Different? Different how?”
“I call but she hardly answers. I go over to her place but she’s never there. Now she’s telling me she needs to find herself. Says she’s moving to Australia.”
Her fingers tightened around her cup. “I need to know what happened between you two. And I don’t care if that paints anybody in a bad light. I’m just worried about my daughter is all.”
I told her about the Google account.
“Did you confront her about it?”
“Hell no. I ghosted that crazy bitc—” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I just…stopped seeing her.”
She started crying so loudly customers at nearby tables paused their conversations. I touched her forearm, promised I’d call if I remembered anything else, then set off for my romantic weekend.
But while Jennie and I enjoyed all that fresh air and pub food, a thought nagged at me. Luna adored London, so why move to Australia? It seemed so out of character. Back at our rented cottage, I was so fixated on the thought I needed a smoke, badly.
“What the hell is that?” Jennie demanded, as she stepped onto the front deck.
I glanced at my hands. “Uhh, a cigarette.”
“Michael! Don’t be sarcastic. You know how I feel about those things.”
“…Do I?”
“Uhh, well it’s the same as anybody else. Quit poisoning your lungs and put that thing out.”
“Alright alright, geeze. Sorry Luna.”
“That’s okay.”
A knot formed in my stomach as she went back inside. I’d called Jennie Luna by mistake. And she hadn’t noticed. In fact, her reaction to me smoking was identical to Luna’s—even the snappy way she said the ‘poison your lungs’ line.
I followed Jennie into the lounge, where she’d curled up on an armchair with a Colleen Hoover novel. She was hiding something. What else did she know about Luna? Maybe I could trick her into revealing some details…
From behind, I started massaging her shoulders. “Sorry for being rude before. I know what you said came from a place of love.”
“That’s okay.”
I waited until her eyes drooped shut, then said, “It really is perfect here, huh? Maybe we should stay forever.”
“Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
Her little groans of pleasure, the rhythm of her breathing, it all felt so familiar. I waited until the tension in her neck dissolved, then I pushed my lips against her ear and whispered, “So how about we take this into the bedroom…Lola.”
“Hmm. Sure thing Bugs.”
My hands froze. Jennie jumped up. “Uhh, that felt so good, why’d you stop?”
“What did you just say?”
“What did you just say?”
“I called you Lola,” I replied, my arms frozen in midair. “And you called me bugs.”
“Like the cartoon, right? I thought it’d be a cute nickname. Anyway, I’m tuckered out.” She forced a yawn. “Why don’t we get some sleep?”
As her hand laced with mine, an image of me waking up drugged and gagged and tied to the bedposts flashed before my eyes.
I said, “Sure. I just…need to use the bathroom first.”
The second the door shut behind me, I flew out of the house, climbed in my car, and sped away.
Within seconds my phone started blowing up with calls, followed by texts. Where are you going? Is everything okay?
No, I wanted to reply. I’m onto your sick little game. Whatever it is, I’m onto it.
Luna stalked my stalker, now Jennie somehow knew Luna and I’s nicknames. How? Did all women take turns drawing straws and whoever picked the short one needed to become my girlfriend?
I couldn’t go home. For all I knew, my exes would’ve been there burning effigies of me. I needed a safe place. Somewhere I could lie low until I got all this straightened out.
“Of course you can stay,” Gertrude said over the phone. “I’m out with some friends, but I’ll meet you later. If you hop the side gate there’s a spare key under the kissing gnomes out back.”
Gertrude lived in a detached house in Wembley. It took a bit of foraging to find the gnomes hidden beneath the weeds in the brown, patchy garden.
I needed to shoulder the door open. Inside, a mountain of letters and flyers had piled up on the welcome mat.
Down the hall, a huge archway connected the landing with a lounge, where a bar sat against the far wall, surrounded by upholstered sofas, a low table, and tie dye sheets strung over the filthy carpet. Everything had a real elegant vibe, despite the musty air.
I’d drained two glasses of whiskey before Gertrude arrived.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough evening.”
I said we could talk in the morning.
“Not a chance. You can’t take negative energy to bed. Come on, confession is good for the soul.”
She sat on the sofa and patted the empty seat next to her. So, with a weary sigh, I shared a tale of deranged exes.
“Crazy,” she said.
“I sure can pick ‘em, huh?”
“No, I mean you’re crazy.”
“What?”
“Think about it. What’s more likely: that your ex’s are secretly in collusion, or you’re being paranoid? Look how bloodshot your eyes are. When’s the last time you got a good night’s rest?”
She made a great point; teenagers on the street occasionally shouted ‘Bugs’ or ‘Thumper’ at me. Jennie might’ve come up with the nickname herself. I pinched the bridge of my nose, groaning.
“Look, sleep here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll brainstorm ways you can make it up to Jennie.”
I fumbled through my pockets for a cigarette.
“Really?” Gertrude said. “If you insist on poisoning your lungs, can you at least do it away from my home?”
“Well if I can’t smoke, I’m gonna need a refill.” I shook my empty glass.
On my way toward the bar, a wave of wooziness hit me. My first instinct was to blame it on the alcohol, but there was something else.
It was her reaction to the cigarette. My finger ran through the thick layer of dust along the bar’s countertop. Why was it like the place had been abandoned? Why did Gertrude always pressure me to stay with my psycho girlfriends? And how come she always reached out, as if on cue, whenever my relationships hit problems? It couldn’t be coincidence…
I poured two glasses of whiskey and carried them to the sofa. “So, you’re really against the whole smoking thing, huh?”
“Of course. It’s a filthy habit.”
“Yeah. Plus, there was that mess with your husband. House fire, right?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Sure, sure.” I ignited the lighter with a roll across my trouser leg.
Gertrude grabbed a cushion and hugged it. “What are you doing?”
“Alright, cut the crap. What the hell’s going on? Have you been sending your friends to date me?”
“What are you talking about?”
I wrestled the cushion from her and held the lighter beneath it. “I want an explanation right now or I’m torching this place.”
This was an empty threat. I wasn’t some pyromaniac—I just wanted answers. Inch by inch, I raised the flame. “Last chance. Why are the women in my life acting weird?”
Gertrude grabbed for the lighter. As I swatted her wrists away, we both got scorched, and for a moment her skin went wild with spasms, a sensation I can only compare to reaching inside a bucket of wet, writhing maggots. My gaze whipped between her face and her hands, which vibrated like plucked guitar strings.
Before I could scream, she yanked me up, clamped a cold, wrinkled palm across my mouth, and forced me against the wall. I thrashed around, unable to move. For a lady old enough to collect a pension, she was crazy strong.
She waited until I ran out of breath, then said, “Michael, please. I’m not going to hurt you. Open your heart and listen.”
What else could I do?
“You were right before. I have been keeping a secret from you. The truth is, I’ve been in love with you since we met. I’d never flown before. And you were so so sweet. You started talking about this other woman, but I knew our energies were perfect for each other. And it’s like I always say, love makes us do crazy things. You can’t begrudge me that can you?”
She looked as if she expected me to respond, so I shook my head.
“But I think we’ve reached a point where our connection is so deep we can be completely transparent with one another.” She took a slow, steady breath. “Michael, all your ex’s, Luna, Sadie, Jennie. They’ve all been…well, me.”
I stared at her, confused.
She sighed. “It’ll be easier if I just show you.”
Out of nowhere her hand wriggled again, then her face tightened, as though the skin was being stretched over the bone. Wrinkles smoothed out and colour bled into her grey hair, turning it brown, and within seconds I found myself face-to-face with Jennie. Even her vintage clothes morphed into a green blouse and white slacks.
“See?” she said in Jennie’s voice, her now blue eyes locked on mine.
I screamed into the soft flesh of her palm.
“Sssh, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. Watch.”
Her entire body jerked and twitched, the muscles spasming as she shifted from Jennie to Luna. “See? Think of these as costumes”—from Luna to Sadie—"the important thing is what’s underneath. And you’ve fallen in love with what’s underneath three times. Now I’m going to let go, but I need you to promise you won’t overreact. Understand?”
On the verge of a panic attack, I nodded furiously.
The second she pulled away I made a break for the exit. The thing posing as Sadie grabbed me and hurled me backwards against the wall.
Like a disappointed teacher, she put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been so patient with you, Michael. So very, very patient.”
She blocked off any hope of escape. I sidestepped around the outer edge of the room, towards the bar.
“All those years moulding you. Trying to grow you into the man I know you can be. I really thought we had it this time. For the record, I wanted to do this the easy way. But drastic times...”
I was so scared I slammed right into the cabinet and yelped. Glass bottles chattered together, and then something wet ran down the back of my shirt. It was whiskey, leaking from the overturned bottle onto the carpeted floor.
Speaking more to herself now, Gertrude said, “I’ll just have to keep you here until you love me as much as I love you. Of course, that means posing as you so nobody gets suspicious, but that’s no trouble. I’ll tell your dad you’re moving to Italy. You always loved Italy.”
Pose as me? She'd been killing my ex's and taking their place, I was just the latest in a long line. She’d keep me as a personal sugar baby if I didn’t escape, but how? She was impossibly strong, and the only thing that seemed to scare her was…
Snatching the bottle, I doused the remaining whiskey all over the carpet and furniture. As I flicked the lighter open, Sadie’s hands shot up.
“Bugs…darling…what are you doing?”
I took three slow, steady breaths. “Breaking up with you, you crazy bitch.”
I tossed the lighter forward. Within seconds flames sprung up all around us, spreading as far as the sofa. Sadie’s shoe caught fire, and as she stamped around, unintentionally fanning the blaze, her body writhed again, starting with the ankles. Fat boils climbed up every inch of exposed skin, milky white and with the consistency of frog spawn, like she’d had a killer allergic reaction to poison ivy.
She dropped to her knees, wailing like a wounded animal. This was my chance.
I made a break for the exit, giving the creature as wide a berth as possible. But as I got one foot planted in the hall something clamped tight around my ankles. My chin hit the floor, then I started sliding backwards.
I twisted onto my back. Where Sadie’s left arm should’ve been, a tentacle-like appendage stretched across the length of the room, a distance of over twenty feet. It reeled me toward her like a fish on a line. Whatever that thing was no longer looked human. It melted like an ice statue, with no bones or connective tissue inside, its lips nose and mouth becoming hideously elongated before dripping off in huge globs like melted candlewax. A fire alarm started wailing as the tentacle dragged me through the flames, scorching my arms and legs.
The loose mass of skin reached out and encased me like a mother bird sheltering its eggs.
“WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?” all my ex’s voices screamed at once. Whichever direction I looked, silhouettes of faces rose and fell, as if trying to burst through. Parts of them dripped inside my mouth, disgustingly warm with a bitter taste worse than Vaseline.
I put everything into clawing my way out if there. What was left of the beast had the consistency of wet clay and came apart just as easily. I tore away chunks until there was a hole large enough to squeeze through. Then, I crawled along surrounded by black smoke.
At the far side of the room I risked a glance back and saw a bumpy, uneven hand reaching out of a puddle of ooze. Soon I was crawling over the bristly welcome mat, then fumbling for the door. All I remember after that are paramedics wrestling me into an ambulance…
A specialist officer came to see me at the hospital the next morning. They’d been unable to contact the homeowner, Gertrude Huyton, and through his line of questioning I could tell they hadn’t found her ‘remains’ inside the charred house. Like the wicked witch of the West, my stalker had melted. I told the officer she said I could stay the night, and that I probably started the fire by dropping a cigarette.
“In that case, we’ll keep trying to reach her.” He walked to the curtain surronding my bed and paused. “Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, her cat is missing.”
“Her...cat?”
“Yeah. The little black one. One of the firemen pulled it out of the wreckage. The poor thing had burns over its legs but it ran off before anybody could take it to the vet.”
I swallowed a gulp and thanked him for telling me.
And now I’m still sitting here listening while nurses rush back and forth, terrified any one of them might be Gertrude…

So my ex who I dated for two years (me at the time being 15F-17, him being 17M-19) reached out to me the moment I made a Facebook at the age of 25.
When we dated, it was fun when it was fun, but he also mistreated me. He had rage issues, would scream at me, slapped me (not hard), and then cheated on me. I've grown so much without him and understand how much better I am not dating him.
After he reached out, he apologized, said he's medicated, the whole thing. I told him we will never be anything more than casual friends if anything at all, but I'm proud he's growing.
Yesterday I casually said I was going to Walmart. Later I got a text that said "I hope you don't think I'm stalking you, I just needed to go to Walmart, too." I was like ??? I didn't even see you. But apparently he saw me and said I looked good. Which is nice, but I'm like... flabbergasted.
What do I make of this? Is it a big deal, or not really? I'm having a hard time gauging if this is severe or if I'm feeling unnecessarily uncomfortable. He is a different person now, for sure, but this is a whole new behavior.

Throwaway because wife is on reddit.
tldr: how do I change so that I only put the same effort into the relationship that my wife does?
My wife and I have been together for 26 years, married for 23. We have 4 kids teenage to adult. I'm coming to the realization that my wife doesn't really like me. I know she loves me, but it seems like I'm the last thing on her list most of the time. I on the other hand, can't stop thinking about her and ways to make her life easier or more enjoyable. I feel like somewhere along the line something changed and now I'm more of a chore to her than anything else. I try not to be too sensitive or read too much into things, but it's pretty hard not to pick up on the clues.
A few examples: sexy time, while it still happens, is only when I initiate. And when I do, it's pretty much the standard pillow princess kind of deal. I try to do all of the things she likes and In return, I get nothing. We've had conversations about the things I like, like lingerie, but I never get that. If she's on her period, she never offers to do anything, it's just quit for a week. She doesn't ever have to do anything of course, I would just think that she would want to? At least sometimes? If for no other reason than it would make me happy.
She also has become quite addicted to social media. She spends most of her time scrolling facebook and Instagram. Its the first thing she does when she wakes up (spends 30-45 minutes scrolling, before even getting out of bed). I can be laying right next to her the whole time, and not so much as a hello. It's the only thing she does anymore after she gets home from work. No other hobbies or interests. They've all dropped off along the way. If I say anything about it she gets very defensive and I drop it.
Her eyes light up and she gets pretty happy to talk to all the kids, which is awesome, I just wish I had the same effect. If I didn't actively engage her in conversation, we could go all day or longer without talking. She pretty much has 0 interest in anything I like. As a matter of fact, as soon as I get into something that she might like, it very quickly turns into something she doesn't. If I do stop talking to her, then I'm the one being moody and grumpy, which just gives her more reason to not want to interact with me.
I've tried to talk to her about these things, and she sometimes makes me think I might have gotten through to her, but nothing ever changes. That just hurts worse because I get my hopes up thinking I might have finally had a breakthrough, only to see nothing change.
I'm not perfect. I know I have my flaws and faults, but she genuinely is the most important thing to me, and I just want to feel like I'm getting that in return. I doubt she's cheating and divorce is off the table, so how do I go through the rest of my life caring a bit less and change that power dynamic so that I don't feel like we have an 80-20 relationship?
Sorry for the long post. I even left out a bunch of things. I'll answer any questions and provide more details if people need them.

Key: for later in the story Older sister: Horse Younger sister: llama Me: Bunny My wife: Fox Creepy boyfriend: Leech
Anybody who has more than one kid in the family knows that one of them is a "pick me" child. Well I have one, my older sister. How do I describe her, you know the Pokemon Ditto? Yes just like that, a purple blob that mimics any Pokemon, she mimics anyone. She made my life a living hell. Get ready Reddit it's a long one. I will have to break this up into multiple parts.
Let's start with my childhood/teen years. So my older sister is a couple years older than me and our dad was married to her mom. Anyway our dad ends the marriage when he finds out her mother was cheating on him. A little bit after that my mom and dad got together and well ....they got married and then I was born. A couple of years later my little sister was born. My older sister's mom pretty much screwed my parents and had to take her every other week. God I hated those weekends because we had to do everything she wanted, buy the food that she could only eat, watch only what she wanted to watch, and she made my sister and I her own personal Barbie dolls. When I say personal Barbie dolls, she wanted to be a hairdresser when she was older and practice on us. She thought that she could get better -newsflash! -she didn't. One time she wanted to put curls in my hair so I let her when the curls came out I looked like bloody Shirley Temple. 😤
Adult years: It only got worse as we grew into adults. For some reason my older and younger sisters had competition between each other, which left me in the dark and that was okay, I was too weird for them. At this point I had gone through my own demons. Anyway, we are all "adults" The older sister still acts like she never grew up. In 2016, all hell broke loose my older sister got into sell mlms (yuck!). The only reason why she said that she got into selling mlms is because she was helping her friends, hmm yea no just wanted to be a part of a group. She was selling herbal life, a weight loss program, now she did lose the weight while on this program, but she didn't stick to it. Also at this time she was married to her husband of eight years. She then met her current boyfriend when her family moved to another town. After that her and the husband split up. Now reader ,I never said they got legally divorce so they are still married to this day while she is with another guy. In 2017, I met my lovely wife on Facebook. We had a long distance relationship for a 1.5 years. In 2018 they came over to the states and asked me to marry them and of course I said yes!! They came back over in early 2019 because we had an event plan and while they were here we had a big family dinner. Oh goodie, I would rather go to church then do this dinner. The day of the family dinner comes up and everyone is happy to meet my fiancee, Fox. Well let's get on with dinner. The whole family went and sat down, and even before we started eating, Horse insisted on saying a prayer, now I was raised Christian, but I am pagan and so is my fiancee. After that we went to the all you can eat buffet. Now my mom can't have the buffet because she has a seafood allergy (understandable) ,but Horse and Leech didn't go to the buffet because and I quote, " Oh Leech doesn't eat seafood and neither do I." In my brain I am "What?!? since when?!?" That was a lie 🤥!! She used to eat a pound of shrimp when we were the kids. As we were eating, we were talking to each other, Llama asked me, "Bunny where are you guys going to get married", and I explained that I was going to move to Ireland, (where I live now) and we are going to get married at the register office and later on we are...then Horse butt in and said, "Leech and I are getting married at the lake" All of sudden both Llama and I said,l: "Aren't you still married?!" That shut her up. Yes my reader she never got divorced , so legally she is still married. After that I finally got to say what I was going to say, "Going to have a vow renewal at Ren fest in Kansas City later on down the line." All of a sudden Horse said: "Oh there is no way Leech and I can go because Leech is a convicted CP." In my mind:" Wtf, you are my sister and you are picking a guy over my vow renewal ?!? After that , I lost all my respect for her. Like they say like mother like daughter. Would you like a part 2. Let me know!!! Thanks!!

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/ImDyingRn123
Originally posted to AITAH
AITA for not having my boyfriend be a plus one at my best friends wedding
Thanks to u/queenlegolas and u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for suggesting this BoRU
Trigger Warnings: manipulation
Original Post: May 9, 2024
I (25f) have been seeing my now boyfriend (27m), who will call Joe, for about six months now. We made it official three months into dating so I like to say he’s only officially been my boyfriend for three months.
My best friend, who we’ll call Anne, is getting married next month. I’m one of her bridesmaids. It’s a small destination wedding, only about forty close friends and family. The bridal party is set to arrive about four days before the actual wedding to do bachelobachelorette stuff.
The issue came up yesterday morning when my boyfriend started asking what time my flight was for the wedding week. I didn’t think much of it and told him. He came back about ten minutes later and said he’d have to go on a different flight because he couldn’t find one on the same airline or at the same time.
I didn’t understand why he was looking at flights. I asked him if he was planning on going on a solo or guys trip while I was gone since I wouldn’t be around.
He looked confused and then said he was looking for flights for the wedding.
I then proceeded to tell him, trying to be as gentle as possible, that I wasn’t planning on a plus one and the guest list was already finalized. He has only ever met Anne over face time since she lives in a different state from us.
After telling him, he exploded at me. Honestly it was a total 180 from his usual behavior. He said it was insensitive of me to not ask for a plus one because we’d been together for so long now. That I was purposefully excluding him and trying to keep him a secret. He ranted and talked in a circle and I just sat there in shock. What snapped me out of the daze was when he insinuated that I would likely cheat with one of the groomsmen.
Thats when I got up, got my shit, and started walking out of his place. He freaked out even more and said we needed to talk about this and I couldn’t walk out on him. He tried to grab me twice but I shoved him off.
Since I last night, I haven’t spoken to him. he’s been blowing up my phone with calls and texts that I don’t reply to. Even put him on do not disturb because it was so annoying. I was pretty solid in believing I wasn’t TA but one of his best friends got my number and texted me I was being petty and a female dog about everything. That I lead Joe on for six months.
I haven’t talked to anyone about this since I wanted to cool down before I got a second opinion. But now that his friend is texting men, I feel like I handled it all poorly. I know I need space right now but I don’t want to ghost Joe, which his friend implied I’m now doing.
So I’ve come here to get some unbiased opinions. Fellow redditors, I asked you now if i am TA for not having my boyfriend be a plus one to my best friends wedding.
posting this is the other aita sub too
edit: to clarify. we don’t live together. i just spend the night at his place sometimes
edit 2: in our last conversation last night i texted him that i needed some space to breathe to which he then just kept calling and texting
edit 3 because people keep acting like joe is a secret: he has met my other friends. he hasn’t met anne in person because she lives in a different state. across the country to be exact. they’ve only met through face time. i’ve met his parents and friends. he hasn’t met mine because they moved back to mexico two years ago. he has met them over face time.
edit 4: his friend saying lead him on was “leading him to believe he was invited”
AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA
Relevant Comments
OOP to multiple comments on why she is not having her boyfriend as her plus one to the wedding

OOP: i accepted the wedding invite long before we met. this wedding invite didn’t just recently happen. + main reason for why i never asked for a plus one is because joe and i had only just started seeing each other when the wedding was being planned. a lot went into it because it’s a destination wedding in europe + i’m not meaning to dismiss it. i’m pointing out that’s why i’m not having a plus one unlike the other groomsmen and bridesmaids. they have been with their partners for years and personally know anne. joe has only ever met her over face time + also there’s a lot more then just buying a ticket. i said earlier that this wedding was planned months before we met. anne planned a lot of things for this wedding that are catered to the fact there’s a limited guest list. again. i would have been fine to explain all this but again. i never got a chance to + this wedding wasn’t a secret. he was even aware of it when we first started seeing each other because i’d just done dress shopping. again. this wedding was very planned out because it is indeed, very small and private in france. he’s also met anne and her fiance over face time, not in person because she’s in a different state. he’s met my other friends as well. he hasn’t met my parents because they live in a different country.

 
Update: May 11, 2024
The general consensus was that I wasn’t TA. Unfortunately the original post got taken down on the main aita sub but is still up on the other. Still posting the update on both though.
Some of y’all had some stuff to say about me saying I need help communicating because I shouldn’t have walked out. Have your opinions, but never let someone scream at you and just sit there and take it. Im realizing thats emotional abuse.
About why I never pushed to have a plus one. When the wedding planning was starting, Joe and I had not met. By the time we met and made things official, the wedding planning was finalized. I never hid the wedding from Joe or the fact it was very small. Someone said “most normal people” plan on bringing their s/o to a wedding. Maybe thats true. But never automatically assume that since your s/o is invited to something, you’ll be going too.
The wedding was heavily pre-planned because again, it’s a destination wedding. Anne is originally from France and primary reason why it’s a destination wedding.
I talked to Anne about this shortly after posting and she agreed that I’m not TA. She said if the roles were reversed, she’d never expect her so of less than a year be invited to an important event.
So, on Friday, I texted Joe asking to meet up Saturday morning to have a discussion about everything.
This morning he tried to get us to meet at my place, but instead, I got him to agree to meet at a local cafe. A lot of you brought up how he tried to grab me and that’s a big sign that he could get more physical in the future. I didn’t want anything to be left to chance.
He got there early and tried to hug me, which I didn’t allow. I got the ick at the thought of him hugging me.
We did a bit of small talk but got pretty much to the point once we sat down.
He did apologize for blowing up but in the same breath said I shouldn’t have left. I countered that he shouldn’t have tried to physically stop me from leaving, twice. He said what else was he supposed to do. That set the tone for the whole conversation.
He went on to say that me just walking away was a “clear indication that I didn’t respect him”. I then pointed out that he was not letting me explain why he wasn’t invited.
This is when we started talking in circles. I told him how the wedding was being planned long before we met. How by the time we mutually agreed to be exclusive, they had everything finalized, especially the guest list. He said I should’ve asked for Anne to change it anyway. I asked him if I ever gave him the impression he’d be attending. He was silent for a while and then admitted he just assumed that since he was now my boyfriend, I would have told Anne to invite me. I told him then wouldn’t I have said something if he was invited in the past three months?
I realized that we weren’t getting anywhere. I told him I wanted to break up. To paraphrase, I said something along the lines of.
“I understand you were hurt that I didn’t invite you. I am sorry that we didn’t have a clearer conversation. I do wish that we could have had a calmer conversation. However, I don’t feel safe in this relationship because of how you reacted. I don’t think this relationship is good for either of us if you feel betrayed and I feel unsafe.”
He didn’t take that well.
Joe’s response was if we broke up, I wasn’t getting my stuff back. I told him I didn’t care. Because honestly? If he wants to keep some of my underwear and used toothbrush, okay.
I then asked him to not have his friends text me too. He then went from pleading to have another chance to accusing me of never wanting him. I just stood up, told him I wished him the best, and left.
Ended up going for a two hour run when I got home because I still felt stressed. Blocked his number, his friends, blocked his instagram, deleted the pictures of us on my feed. Changed my Facebook status to single. Had a cry and have been watching Netflix since.
Something I learned from this your first fight with your partner tells you everything about them. Our first fight told me Joe was explosive. Maybe if he hadn’t blown up, we would still be together. Not gonna dwell on it though. I know it’s good I got out while you can because as a lot of you pointed out, the fact he kept trying to overpower me twice says a lot.
I’m honestly glad I broke it off. As some of you said, it took him six months to show his true colors. Can’t imagine if he did come and then a year later, I find out he’s like this and have to look at wedding photos with a guy who is fine blowing up.
I’m going to stay single for awhile now. I have a wedding to look forward to. My focus is on supporting Anne and making sure she has the best wedding ever. I may update when the wedding happens to let you guys know how it goes and if Joe tried anything else.
Thank you again to everyone for their opinions.
Relevant Comments
OOP on staying away from her ex-boyfriend

OOP: thank you ❤️ i do have a dog and a roommate so that’s some extra security already. the roommate and i talked before about getting a ring camera but this experience and other comments have solidified us getting one

 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

First / Previous
Suzanne thought it was absolutely brilliant of me to put books on a flash drive for Sun. She explained that Sun wasn’t as sophant (her word, not mine) as she might seem, more of a repository of information, but she was fairly intelligent. It was how she was able to connect Andrew being in pain to the fact that I was friends with Andrew, and that I would want to know that he was in trouble. Apparently some of Sun’s species had given some ‘wisdom’ to others in the past and it had made its way into mythology.
The key fact was that she was not smart enough to protect herself and her kind from the clever, organized poachers. With that information in mind, it was fascinating for me to think of how Sun took in and organized what she learned. It was almost as if she was a walking, talking library.
On the topic of tours, my first one went wonderfully, and I’m almost hoping Suzanne lets me do more of them. I know not all the tourists are going to be as awesome as these people were, but Suzanne gave me a lot of slack when it comes to dealing with them. She actually said that being a smartass is not grounds for dismissal, and that if I’m sarcastic or facetious to guests who are being ‘daft’ and they complain, she really doesn’t care. Is this the perfect job for me or what?
There were four guests in this party, two adults who were sisters and two children of one of the women, brothers aged thirteen and seventeen. The tour was a birthday gift for the older of the boys from his aunt, since apparently he was passionate about animal protection and conservation.
When they arrived at the front gate, I was sitting at Andrew’s desk, going over the booklet of information one last time. When the visitors pressed the button that sounded the alert buzzer, I tucked away in a drawer and let them in. I did have a cheat sheet with information about the animals on my phone just in case, a brief notation of each of them and which enclosure they were in, but I really didn’t need to use it.
Exiting through the front door, I saw them walk up the path toward me. “Hi, I’m Ripley,” I said, holding out a hand toward the woman closest to me.
She shook it firmly. “I’m Denise. This is my sister Carla and my nephews, Wesley and Jason,” she said, motioning to each of them in turn.
“I heard it’s your birthday,” I said to Wesley, giving him a smile. “You’re interested in animal conservation?”
“Back where we live, yeah,” he said, nodding. “The animals that you’ve got here are incredible. I can’t wait to see them.”
“Well, I can’t wait to show them to you,” I said. “Right this way.”
I led them on the path around the building, toward enclosure one. Despite the horrific memories of the animal killing Stanley’s friends, I knew it was just an animal, and I had to push past my feelings on what had happened. Keeping a small smile on my face, I motioned to the enclosure. “Fiercely territorial and amazing hunters, despite their large size, they’re arboreal and known to dart from tree to tree with barely a sound. This is one of only about two thousand left in existence.”
“Two thousand, three hundred and fifty six at last count,” spoke Wesley, his eyes on the trees.
I blinked, surprised and impressed. “Well that was fantastic. Do you plan on stealing my job when you graduate?”
Wesley looked at me with a grin. “Nah, everyone knows Suzanne only offers humans this gig. And I want to help animals like this one get off the endangered species list. The zoos are great for awareness and fundraising, but then the money has to go somewhere. I want to be doing the real work.”
“That’s really great,” I told him. “I wish you all the best in that career path.” At that, we saw the animal climb down from the tree, wandering a few yards from the tree line. This was because 90% of the time, when humans were at their enclosure and making noise, whether it was speaking to each other or calling out to the animal, it was someone bringing them prey to eat. Or, in my case, enrichment toys to play with.
“Whoa,” Wesley whispered.
“How close can we get?” spoke up Jason.
“The warding starts at the fence,” I told him with a small gesture. “So, just there.”
Both boys wandered closer and I glanced at their parents. It seemed that Suzanne’s zoo had a serious reputation for high quality invisible walls, because they didn’t look worried in the slightest about the boys being hurt or killed.
“They prefer dense forest as their home and have been known to make their nests in trees up to twenty meter in the air,” I continued. “And when hunting, they’ve been seen dropping eight meters straight down. They have incredibly dense yet flexible musculature, which allows them to tackle their prey without injuring themselves.”
There was more information about the animal that I continued to rattle off, though Wesley chimed in at certain points with the info I was about to convey. That was highly entertaining and very cool. When I’d been in school, I’d never met anyone who had my level of passion about endangered animals. I wondered if things were better where these folks came from, but realized that considering there were so few of these animals left, I guessed not.
The animal paced a little bit, seemingly waiting to see if we were the kind of humans that came bearing food, before deciding we weren’t and climbing back up into the trees as easily as I would climb some stairs.
As we moved onto enclosure two, Jason spoke up. “Are there any animals here we can touch or feed or something?”
I sighed inwardly before slowing to a stop. “Well, can you show me your hands?” Jason looked bemused, holding out his hands. “I mean…they both look like they’re in great shape. You can stand to lose one.”
The two women chuckled and Wesley smirked as Jason shoved his hands into his pockets. “Very funny.”
Grinning, I started walking again. “The animals here are all carnivores and all predators. You get to see them, but that’s it.”
“Alright.”
When we reached enclosure two, I started on my next spiel. “We’ve got three reanimated dead in this enclosure,” I spoke. They were just coming out from the trees as we arrived, presumably having heard our approach. “Marissa, Connor, and Bradley. They were donated by families who knew where they would be exhibited. Their next of kin, whoever they are, can’t stand the idea of putting them down. But we need to make sure they don’t have access to corpses, because one of them plus one corpse equals two of them.”
“They eat flesh though, don’t they?” Wesley asked.
I nodded. “Oh, yeah, but it’s from bodies that have already been dismembered. There’s no chance of them being affected by the transformation because it’s all parts.”
“Oh, got it.”
The creatures with blueish-white skin had superhuman strength, which is why they qualified for the security of Suzanne’s zoo. They also were likely the source of any Earth tales of people being brought back to life as zombies, specifically draugr, according to my research. They smelled like rotting flesh, so even as I kept talking about them and giving a background to the people they used to be, we were quick to move on once Wesley had gotten a good, long look at them.
“Enclosure four’s animal is a vampiric spirit. He’s a small, hairy humanoid creature with pointed ears. He wears a hat, and if he somehow loses it, he freaks out,” I said.
“They eat horses,” Wesley noted. “Also anything that gives them the chance to sit on it, usually catching them by surprise while they’re sleeping.”
The creature came out from the brush, giving us a suspicious look. He wasn’t in his humanoid form though; for some reason, he’d chosen to shapeshift to a dog.
I nodded. “Yep, indeed. Once the prey is dead, then he’ll eat it, and he has a voracious appetite. We have two wolves and two bears in the forest, which is one of the reasons I’ve got some self-defense items,” I said, patting my belt where my pepper spray (rated for bear) and my taser. “But the wards keep them out of this area of the zoo, so it’s really not much of a worry. It’s also a known shapeshifter, preferring the form of a dog, as you can see, as well as a cat, a snake, or even white butterflies, though the last one is rare.”
“The white butterflies are supposed to be a sign of good luck,” Wesley said, glancing to me. “Too bad we got the dog.”
“Yeah, otherwise you might be able to talk your mom into getting scratch-offs on your way home, huh?”
Wesley smirked at me.
The next enclosure was Spike, and he was waiting for us, dripping wet from having just emerged from the lake. I gave the introductory information about him, which included his propensity for eating animal eyes, nails, and teeth. “Recently, I’ve given him some enrichment activities, and I learned he likes artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts,” I said, taking a bag out from my cargo shorts. “Wesley, do you want to toss this bag into the enclosure?”
The boy’s eyes widened and he nodded excitedly. He took a look into the paper bag before wrapping down the top to make sure nothing would fly out. Then he chucked it underhand past the fence. It landed a few yards from Spike, who waddled over to it quickly and tearing the bag open, spilling out the prizes inside. As the animal ate the pecans and hazelnuts, Wesley asked, “How’d you figure out he likes those?”
“It’s not all about taste,” I told him. “It’s mainly the difficulty of getting them out of the shells. He’s used to having to work for the parts of his prey he likes the most, so this mimics that activity, and he enjoys the process. I tried a bunch of different foods to find a few he liked.”
“Cool,” Wesley murmured, staring at him.
We watched Spike eat until he’d finished and then he went back into the woods, leaving us to move onto enclosure five. Japanese camellia were plentiful here, a type of pink flower, and that was because they grew anywhere near one of his species made their den. “This girl spends most of her time in the lake also,” I said, as the creature made its way toward the fence separating us from it. “But as you can see, she’s just as curious as the rest about what we’re doing here and whether we have food for her. She eats fish mostly, but she also regularly gets live prey.”
This creature was a spider-like monster, having six legs with long claws on each, and the head of an ox with two sharp horns. She was capable of shapeshifting to look like a human, but I guessed that she wasn’t fond of it, since I hadn’t yet seen her in that form.
“She prefers the easy way of catching prey, so to speak, by hiding in the lake and pouncing when something comes for a drink of water,” I explained. “Apparently humans are some of her favorite prey. She has an advantage of being able to spit poison, which often hits her prey in the eyes. But it’s usually used in defense rather than offense, since she secretes a limited amount.”
“What kind of animal would even go after something like this?” Jason asked, staring at her.
“Never discount one of its own species when you’re thinking about what might attack an animal,” I replied. “There are places that are breeding all of the animals here, but competition for mates is common. That means an advantage in a fight, like poison or venom, can make or break who the winner is.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
“It can’t spit past the warding, right?” Carla suddenly asked.
“Oh, no,” I assured her. “We’re fine. The wards wouldn’t let anything cross over.” She nodded, appeased.
The animal in enclosure six was the ginormous seal-hippo, Fiona, and she was looking at us as if she was imagining sprinkling us with herbs and spices and stuffing us in an oven. “This girl is one animal I’m going to work on enrichment activities for next,” I told them. “She prefers to feed on crayfish, though she’s happy to eat any humans that wander into her territory. She’ll even make a sound like a baby crying to reel us in. I’ve heard it a bunch of times.”
“Can you get her to make the sound?” Jason asked, perking up.
I grinned. “Not on command, sorry.”
“What enrichment are you thinking of trying?” Wesley asked.
“Possibly food placed in puzzle feeders,” I told him, “since she has claws that are pretty dexterous. Maybe a piñata made out of newspaper with flour inside, or a scarecrow that mimics a human.”
“Awesome,” he muttered.
After a little more educational tidbits, we moved onto Yui’s enclosure. “What is that?” Wesley asked, smiling.
“I got Yui the closest thing I could to a ping-pong ball,” I replied. “She quite likes it.”
“That’s so funny,” he said as she came out of the trees in her spider form. “I mean, the idea of her being a bloodthirsty hunter who seduces men to their deaths and eats them alive, but then on the other hand, she likes playing with something like this.”
“It is a little funny,” I agreed. “But when it comes down to it, all the animals here enjoy activities besides hunting.”
“She can shapeshift to look human, right?” asked Jason, trying to be casual about knowing something factual like his nerdy brother.
I nodded. “She looks like a woman from a region of Earth called Japan. And she’ll use strategies like holding out a hand to shake to get you closer. She tried that on me when I first got here but, as you can see,” I said, holding up my hands and waving them, “I didn’t fall for it.”
The boys both laughed as they got closer to the fence, watching her slowly pace near the trees.
Next was Sun, but she didn’t make an appearance as I spoke about her species. “Well…unfortunately we can’t guarantee that every animal comes out to say hi,” I sighed. “But…oh wait, here she is.”
The green lion with several horns and many eyes along her flank came out from the forest. “Hello,” she spoke.
“Hi, Sun,” I replied. “We have visitors.”
“What’s that?” Wesley asked suddenly, pointing at the small plastic bag that was still where I’d left it.
“Oh! That is Sun’s enrichment,” I said with a smile. “I put dozens of books on a flash drive and found that she can read them just like she’d read a shelf of books.”
Wesley’s eyes widened. “Wow. I don’t think I’ve read about anyone trying that before. That’s really cool.”
“The books are new and interesting,” Sun spoke, drawing our attention. “I’m grateful for them.”
I nodded to her. “You’re quite welcome.”
The next animal, unfortunately, wasn’t there, and we waited around for ten minutes as we discussed him. He was large and reptile-like with red eyes, with its hind legs and tail making him look vaguely like a kangaroo. Then, enclosure ten was a terrifyingly disturbing creature, the not-a-centaur with no skin, that I’d only seen a few times while walking my route. It gave a good demonstration of its ferocity, showing its sharp teeth and snapping at us a few times.
“I’m thinking of trying salt licks and other horse enrichment like a big bouncy ball,” I told Wesley, whose eyebrows went up at that. “Maybe give him more things to forage like scattered grains or a box filled with pinecones and seeds. Foraging is a huge part of a horse’s life in the wild, and humans have to do a lot of activities like that to keep pet horses busy. Of course, he also loves the little salt-water lake that was built for him.”
We spent some time looking at the animal before moving past our last stop, the empty enclosure of the animal was stolen. Carla glanced at me with a sad smile, knowing what had happened, it seemed. I gave her a nod as we continued on our way, walking into the office. “So, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves!” I said with a smile.
“That was the coolest birthday present I’ve ever gotten,” Wesley said, looking to Denise. “Thanks so much, seriously.”
“It was my pleasure,” she said with a nod. “I’d never been here before, and knew I’d find it fascinating. Thank you for the educational aspect,” Denise said, glancing at me. “I learned quite a lot.”
“Happy to hear it,” I said, returning the nod.
As I escorted the guests out of the zoo and locked the door behind them, I reflected on how much I’d changed. The first time I’d seen Yui’s tarantula form, I’d nearly passed out from fear. Now here I was, walking tourists around like it was no big deal. Humans really can adapt to anything, it seems.
That afternoon, Suzanne had texted me that she was coming by after my shift, and I met her in Andrew’s office, shutting the door to the security room behind me. “How’s Andrew?” I asked first thing.
“He’s doing well,” she said with a wide smile. “Back on non-hospital food. He’s allowed to order food on his phone, and to hear it from him, that’s the best news he’d received in a long time.”
I chuckled. “I guess some clichés are true for a reason.”
“Indeed.” She took a breath. “All right. Ripley…I would like to discuss something with you.”
My face went slack at the serious tone in her voice. “I’m not… Am I being fired?”
“What? No!” she exclaimed. Then she chuckled softly. “No, it’s nothing like that. Just, here, let’s have a seat.” Suzanne walked over to the couch and sat at one end, and I took the other. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I’ve kept from you, that I wanted to keep from you until you found your sea legs here.”
“Well…I have,” I said with a nod. “So, what is it?”
Suzanne took a breath. “I knew your mother.”
The words hung in the air for a moment before making their way to my ears. It was a perfectly logical sentence, and yet it didn’t make any sense. “What?” I finally managed.
“When you graduated college, I decided to move the zoo from Italy to within driving distance of your home,” she said softly. “Near enough to your town that you’d see the advert. We ignored any other applicants and I hoped you’d apply. Actually, I expected you’d apply. Not just for the money, but considering the field you wanted to go into. As soon as I’d found out your major, I knew.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, holding up a hand. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “How do you know Patricia?”
“She owned the zoo before I did,” Susan explained. “Fourteen years ago…she was working to track an injured animal that we could bring into the zoo and she was killed by poachers.”
My heart calcified in my chest and a lump lodged in my throat. As my breaths became shaky, I stared at her in shock. “She…she’s really dead?”
“You suspected?” she asked softly.
“It…” I swallowed hard. “We had her declared legally dead after…I don’t know, seven years I think. My dad wanted to go after her for child support, but the police said…they said they couldn’t find…” Tears came to my eyes and I blinked them back before I met Suzanne’s gaze. “She owned the zoo?”
Suzanne nodded. “It was her baby, you’d say. When Patricia passed, I inherited it, which we’d discussed beforehand, a legal just-in-case that I never expected her to need. I’m under the impression that you were told she went to Africa for her photography career, but she was in fact going to remote areas back in my home world almost every time.”
“But I-I saw the photos,” I said, my eyes narrowing. “You’re telling me she put on a show of getting pictures that someone else took for us to see every time she visited? Did my dad even know?”
“I suppose that’s an accurate way to put it, putting on a show. And no, your father was never told. It’s not the way of things to tell humans unless it’s necessary. I won’t bore you with the details, but us and humans, we’re distant relatives, so we can still have children. But it wasn’t planned. Your mother fell in love with your father despite herself; she hadn’t meant to find love. Then she became pregnant with you and…well, the rest is history.”
“I think she had a different definition of love than the one I have,” I said tightly. “You’d think she’d have put her survival as more of a priority. Put being with the man she ‘loved’ as a priority. Her kids needed her. I needed her. She signed up when she became a mom. She could’ve screwed up all the time but she couldn’t even manage that one job: be there. When I was in the hospital, I kept thinking, ‘Where is she?’ and now you’re telling me that she put these animals above being there for her kids, and this whole time she’s been dead.”
“The hospital?” she asked, furrowing her brows.
“Never mind,” I said tersely, averting my gaze.
Suzanne hesitated before she nodded slowly. “I’m sorry for your loss, and not just for her death, Ripley,” she told me. “Patricia was…well, a ‘free spirit’ would be putting it gently. She always assumed the world would be there for her whenever she needed it.”
Staring at her for a long moment, I shook my head. “Why? Why come here and hire me?”
“I thought that would be obvious,” she said, smiling. “Your mother was so passionate about this place and once I found out your college major, I figured you would be as well.”
“Did you know that I hate her?” At that, Suzanne’s expression froze on the edge of shock. “She…she left us,” I whispered. “Didn’t tell us who she was or what she really did for a living and gave us no closure. And even when she was here, it was just visiting. Her real home was her work. She could give me all the presents she wanted, but even when she was here, half the time she was still on her computer doing work. It’s not like that stereotype of never making it to my tennis practice or something; it’s that it always felt like she was only partially here, even when I was sitting next to her. I don’t even know if I appreciate her turning me into a wildlife fanatic because it…it…makes me feel like I’m close to her in a way that’s just infuriating. She loved the animals more than she loved us.”
“Oh, Ripley-”
“Don’t,” I said, shoving myself to my feet. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she said quietly. I pursed my lips. “I was going to say that I’m sorry that was the case. Your mother was…flawed, just like any other person. She had two loves in this world: her family and her work. And often, her work overcame her, her zeal for environmentalism getting in the way of being a good mum. She left your father trying to fill the role of two parents, holding your family together. You and your brother and your father, you all deserved better than that.”
My lower lip quivered but I bit down on it hard. It would’ve been a lot easier for me if she’d been speaking from a place of clueless reassurance about all this. But everything she said was making sense and that meant I didn’t have someone in front of me to be angry with.
“Why didn’t you tell me when Andrew hired me?” I sighed, sitting back down on the couch.
“Well, like I said, I wanted you to find your sea legs,” she said with a small smile. “I didn’t want the truth affecting whether or not you wanted to work here, whether you wanted to stay here after finding out about what the animals are. It would’ve complicated things, the emotions you’ll have to work through now that you know the truth. Whether or not you decide to give another tour, you also know what they’re like. That’s the benchmark I wanted you to reach before you found out about who you are.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who I-” My face went slack. “Wait.”
Suzanne nodded slowly. “You’re only half human. Your brother too.”
The room seemed to tilt on an axis for a moment. “That means I’m also half…what?”
“We call ourselves Eldritch, these days,” she replied.
My eyes bugged out. “What?” I exclaimed. “So you’re all, like, gods or something?”
Suzanne burst out laughing. “Oh no, goodness, no,” she chuckled. “It’s just a word. We live in a very different world from this one, and a few generations ago we discovered the word and it made its way into our lexicon. But it does mean you can see all the animals. Indeed you did, on the tour you gave.”
“Wait, no, I had the glasses that…” I stopped. “Did those glasses do anything?”
She gave a sly smile and shook her head. “Not a thing. You made incredibly quick progress, and then when it came time for the tour, all you needed was to expect to see the animals, and you did.”
Genetics. That’s what Andrew had said during our interview, that part of how many animals you could see was determined by genetics. I guess having a mother who was originally from the other dimension gave me all the genes I needed to see everything here. “Could I…visit your world?” I asked tentatively. “You said that my mom took photos of the animals there. Could I…” My voice trailed off, not even sure if or how I wanted to finish that sentence.
“Those who are half human, especially those who are raised on Earth, don’t come visit,” she said gently. “I could show you some photos of other animals, and I could loan you as many books as you’d like, but it’s simply not a place where you’d be safe.”
“Oh,” I said, leaning into the couch cushion as I pictured the animals in the zoo. “Yeah, actually that…makes sense.” I paused. “So, what now?”
“It’s up to you,” she said. “I wanted to wait until I was sure you were comfortable with your position here, and then put the ball in your court. And so it is. What do you want to do now?”
What did I want to do? It wasn’t that difficult a question, just a deep, serious one.
I wanted to thrive, as the animals did. This is my enrichment now, working at an incredible, wonderful, terrifying zoo. The experience so far hasn’t been perfect, and I know there are risks, but life isn’t about staying safe. It’s about learning new things and making a difference in the world. And, if you’re lucky, having a job that’s something really special.
THE END
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I am NOT the Original Poster. That is u/SparkMandrill90. He posted in AITAH
Mood Spoiler: Good ending.
Original Post: May 9, 2024
My (33M) ex-wife (30F) and I got divorced 3 years ago. In college, we worked at the same restaurant, that's where we met. We were together for 7 years, and married for a little over 3 and half. We divorced because she cheated twice.
2 years into our marriage I discover she is having an affair with a former classmate. I collect enough evidence and confront her. She confesses everything. The affair was about 2 months long. This was a really terrible time, and was really hard to work through with her. You can call me an idiot, but I am a forgiving person. I do believe in 2nd chances and that people can change. We agreed to reconcile. We did the work. We had marriage counseling. We read some of the books, she went no contact with classmate right away, open phone policy, we told our parents. She was doing the right things and our relationship was recovering.
1 year into our reconciliation, her Aunt dies. I am very busy with work and cannot attend the services as they are on Thursday and Friday, back in her hometown 5 hours away. Her parents and brother no longer live there, so she stayed with a good friend from HS. I had met this friend a few times and was comfortable with that.
On Saturday morning my wife text me that the car was loaded, and she was about to start making the drive home. About an hour after that I got a Facebook message from the friend. Who stated she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she just let this go, but informed me that my wife had gone out Friday night with some old friends from HS. The friend thought nothing of this until she discovered my wife had left her phone behind, and that she didnt come back until the following morning. I had gotten a text that Friday night from my wife that she was going to bed early since the past few days had been emotionally draining.
I confronted my wife soon as she got home. She was really hesitant to tell me anything so I lied to her and told her if we were going to work through this, I needed to know everything like the last time. That got her to confess that she had gone out, and had gone home with an old friend from high school. She said they didn't have sex but did do "stuff" that I won't go into detail about here. It didn't matter, once I got enough of the truth I left for my parents house. That week, my Dad called my landlord and paid all the termination fees and got me out of the lease. We went and got my stuff while she was at work. My parents set me up with a friend of theirs that was a divorce attorney and he cut me a deal. Took about 7 months for divorce to go final.
That was 3 years ago. I have an awesome girlfriend, and am doing well. This past weekend I got a Facebook message from a guy who is now engaged to my ex-wife. He introduced himself and said he was probably just being crazy, but he wanted to know why we had gotten divorced. He said he had broached the subject a few times, and she always "gets weird." She had told him we had divorced because we grew apart, but mostly she just deflects or is really really vague.
I told him the truth, and offered evidence if he would like. He declined, and thanked me for my time and story.
A day later I get a phone call from a local, but unknown number. I answer and it's my ex-wife. She is really upset and asking me why I am trying to ruin her future. I get her to calm down and talk. She says her fiancee has asked for some space and is staying with his parents this week. That he is saying he needs to reevaluate their relationship. She wants to know why I told him all about their past and why I'm still punishing her. She tells me she's not that person anymore, and has done all this work, and been in therapy. That she deserves another chance and I'm being petty and hateful. There were a few generic insults thrown. I got a little pissed and told her if she really changed for the better she would have been upfront with him about heour past and owned up to cheating in her prior marriage, and then gone about showing her fiancee that she was ready to be a worthy partner to him unlike she was with me. Instead she tried to lie and hide the truth, and now it's blowing up in her face again. She said a few choice words and hung up.
I haven't heard anything since. I told my girlfriend and she reassured how I handled it. But I find myself feeling guilty. I still believe in 2nd chances and that people can change. While I would have felt wrong lying to the guy, I wonder if I should have handled the whole thing differently or just not responded. If she is truly different and this is just a blip, I don't want to be the thing that prevents her from finding happiness, but also believe I'm not what's hurting her engagement. AITA?
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: The fiancé called you and asked you what happened, you are under no obligation to lie to him for her sake, as a matter of fact, anything that you told him besides the truth would be suspect as you have no idea what she told him. Don’t feel bad, she is only feeling the consequences of her actions. NTA. Kiss your wife, tell her you love her, and live a good life together

OOP: Yeah, I don't know what she's told him exactly. He made it sound like she will do anything NOT to talk about it. He did say the most he's ever gotten out of her when bringing it up was "We grew apart". Which is a lie in itself.

Commenter: NTAH, imagine if you had lied to the guy and said you had just grown apart. Would you want thar on your conscience? I’d have told him rather than been part of a lie that will lead to someone else getting hurt. She hasn’t changed at all.

OOP: No, you're right, I would not have lied to him. I think I was largely wondering if I should have just told him "it wasn't my place and he needs to get it from his fiancee", but after the amount of feedback, I'm feeling really good with my decision.

Commenter: NTA. I’m like you. I would feel guilty because at a glance it seems like being honest about your experience caused your ex to potentially lose her relationship. However you are holding yourself accountable for someone else’s actions. Your ex cheated. Your ex withheld information from her current partner. Your ex is still avoiding accountability. You are not responsible for her actions. Anything that happens in her relationship is her problem, not yours.

OOP: Thank you for this, I got to remind myself of that. I hate causing others pain, so I'm glad to hear from someone who can relate

There is no consensus bot on AITAH, but a majority of votes are NTA
Update Post: May 12, 2024 (3 days later)
I really didn't expect to give an update because I assumed I'd never hear anything from my ex wife or her fiancee again. First Post
Last night I received a very very long text from my ex-wife. I'll summarize it below, because it was long and did have personal details.
She started off by apologizing for the way she talked to me the other day and said I didn't deserve to be insulted like that. She then went onto explain herself, and her situation.
She started by acknowledging that this whole situation wasn't my concern or business, and apologized for me being drawn into it, and said she was embarrassed that their issues were being "aired out." She said it was her fault this happened. Since she began dating her fiancee she has hidden the details of our marriage out of shame and guilt. For the most part it was never brought up until he proposed a couple months ago. That's when he first really asked and seemed to want to know. She said she wasn't ready to deal with that and kept trying to rug sweep it, but he persisted. This is when she started therapy (so apparently she's only had a few therapy sessions and all are recent). She never thought he would reach out to me.
She then stated that none of this was my fault, and apologized for blaming me. She said she should have faced this a long time ago, gotten therapy for ruining our marriage, and come to terms with her own feelings of guilt.
Then she apologized for her affairs, and way I was treated during our marriage.
The last part was just her stating that she was not expecting a response back, wishing me the best, and saying that hopefully her and her fiancee will never "bother me" again.
This morning when I got up and read this, I sent back a brief message:
"I appreciate the apologies and am glad you are working on yourself. I have moved on from what happened, and hope you can move on from this. The only bit of advice I have is I think this text needs to go to your fiancee."
She responded back just by saying "Thank you" and that he's received far more and far longer texts.
I doubt there'll ever be another update. I actually hope there isn't. I don't believe in closure, but I will say it was refreshing, to hear her apologize without an asterisk. That's what I always got before, the "I'm so sorry, I just drank too much and..." "I'm so sorry, I was just really depressed and stressed and...". Doesn't mean a whole lot really, maybe just unexpected for me, but it was nice to hear an apology that has no excuse trailing behind it. I'm going to enjoy the rest of my day now and leave all this behind me.
Wanted to address a small sets of commenters from the first post though. I had several people hung up on that my Dad paid my termination fees and got me out of my lease. He did that of his own accord, to take a lot of the stress of the separation off me. I included that to show how I had a support system that was behind me, and willing to help in any way no questions asked. It really helped me through the healing process, and I got back on my feet pretty quickly after. I'm sorry if you don't have anyone there for you when you're at your lowest, but it doesn't make you better or manlier or whatever you were going for when you made those comments. Having to face any and every challenge on your own, is really just kind of a sad existence in my opinion. I hope that changes for you and you'll find someone to be in your corner someday.
Relevant Comments:
Commenter: She seems to be taking some accountability for her actions which is a surprise if she is sincere. They almost never take any responsibility for anything.
Go on and have a wonderful life.

OOP: Yep that's what I'm going to do.
I don't have much thought on the texts she sent me, I mean this whole thing is really nothing more than a weird few days in my otherwise routine life. But I will admit, it was nice to hear her take some accountability without making an excuse right after. That had never happened before.

Commenter: I honestly don't see why people were jumping on you for having someone in your corner to help you out, seems like a weird thing to get hung up on.

OOP: That's how I felt too, but there were a handful of people who were trying to imply that I was some sort of crybaby man child because my Dad took care of that for me.

Commenter: What accountability exactly do you think that she is taking here? She’s basically just playing defense to try to save her current relationship. It’s easy to be honest when there’s no other choice.

OOP: Her motivations are her own.
But to address your questions on accountability. When she first got caught having an affair, and we decided to work it out. She did everything "right." She came to every counseling appointment and fully participated, she read the books we got, she gave me every password, and so on. She would apologize profusely, but every time she would also give an excuse along with it. "I am so sorry I did this to us, I don't know what I was thinking, I was just so caught up in the validation" or the attention, or I was just so depressed and he was just there, and so on. She would put her self down, beg for forgiveness, and each time there was always just a little "asterisk" added on. A little reason/excuse/deflection as to why she did it. An outside factor that pushed her into it to some degree
When she did the second time, there wasn't much discussion because I ended things and left as soon as I got enough confession out of her. But when she was bombarding me with texts, emails, snaps, you name it trying to explain and beg, and ask for one more chance and all that, she apologized a 1000 times, all 1000 times had its little "asterisk.". I was just so drunk I wasn't thinking, I really thought he just wanted to keep hanging out, we didn't have sex (whether this was true or not I really don't care) and so on.
I'm going to assume you've never dealt with a betrayal like this, and I hope you never do, but when you are a person like me, who has been betrayed, even years later, to finally get an apology that has no excuses, no asterisks attached to it, it is incredibly refreshing. I truly thought it would never happen, thought she would never be capable.
Now, it doesn't mean much, our lives haven't crossed paths in 2.5 years, and may never again. I'm not going to be reaching out and I assume neither is she, but for that to actually happen, I'll take the win today.

This will be a bit long so there will be a tl,dr at the end if you don't want to read all of it. I'm new at this so bear with me.
Bit of background about myself I [18F] have diagnosed combination type ADHD though for my entire life my doctor has recommended I be tested for Autism and my school has always been saying that I have Autism for as long as I can remember. I have never been emotionally attached to my parents while I am grateful for all they have done for me I have just never been attached to them like I would care if they were gone. When I was in elementary school I was a very hyper child and I was not well behaved at all due to this in kindergarten my teachers would often tell me to go off to another part of the room away from everyone else and give me things to play with so that I would be distracted and they could teach the rest of the class without me disrupting them so I would pretty much be isolated from everyone else. I have been in special needs classes since kindergarten and I have only been put on medication for my ADHD once which was when I was 8 but I was taken off it by my parents as it turned me into a "zombie" I believe the medication was Adderall but other than that I have been unmedicated for ten (10) years. My parents have been married 18 years, I believe they got married because my mother became pregnant with me
I discovered that my mother was cheating on my father about two (2) or three (3) months ago though I had been suspecting it for over six (6) months I just never had any solid proof until two (2) to three (3) months ago. Recently I had my friend send my father the proof of my mother's affair that I have collected but to my surprise after they talked for around 15 about it their relationship has improved significantly compared to how it's been for over a year. This all started in 2023 my mother began constantly face timing this guy we'll call P I had never seen before whenever my father wasn't around when I asked about it she said P was just a friend and so I believed her and I had even spoken to the guy though he didn't sit well with me as he seemed like a prick. After about a month of my mother constantly on the phone with P whenever my father wasn't around I began to wonder if there was more to this, so I began listening in on their conversations whenever I could to see if I could hear anything that indicated that was an affair but I never got anything out of it besides lewd jokes and comments from P about black women. During this time she was giving my father zero affection and had even stopped telling me that she loved me even I said it to her.
Eventually I got fed up with them constantly talking to each other and I was very angry with my mother for taking me and my three (3) year old brother to the park for as she called it "family time" only for her to be off on her own away from us and on her phone the entire time texting and face timing P and even flat out ignoring me numerous times whenever I tried to talk to her or asked her to watch me do something, this upset me because I like getting attention from others and she had denied me that. So after I was fed up with them I went off on my mother for the first time ever while she on the phone with P and said some not nice things to her and said not nice things about P, I also brought up my suspicion of her having an affair which she denied and when I pressed her about why said lied to me about things regarding P such as where he lived, how she knew him, why she only ever called him whenever my father wasn't around, and why she started talking to him she told me it was because she "wasn't allowed to have friends" which is not true she has many friends many of which I know. After that all happened I stopped talking to her for a while and she stopped calling him whenever I was around and I began to wait for opportunities for when I could take her phone and go though it as I knew her password. I couldn't just wait for her to go to bed as she is a light sleeper and my father goes to bed a different times from her so he would see me and question me as to why I was taking her phone or she would end up waking up and question me so I had to wait for when she left her phone unattended which wasn't very often.
Two (2) months ago I was able to swipe her phone and go though it and it was all right there. I love you's, naked pictures, sexual conversations, talk of divorcing my father for P and taking my brother with, and I made sure to get plenty of pictures of it and I even found out that on a trip she took to "Ohio" in which is paid 300$ for plan tickets to and from she had actually not went there and instead went to the state P lives, I also found P's Facebook where he had pictures of himself with my mother together and the dates the pictures were posted and the date my mother left for her trip matched up, during that trip she had actually never even called back home to talk to me, my father, or my brother. For a while after I confirmed my mother was cheating on my father I blamed myself because P asked me if I was okay with him talking to my mother (This was when I still though he was just her friend) and I said I was and it made me feel like I was the one that allowed this to happen but I realized it wasn't my fault and the only one to blame was my mother. After my mother returned from her trip she had actually wanted to have sex with my father for the first time in a while though I suspect she only did it because she had sex with P and wanted to do it with my father in case she became pregnant though I have no evidence to prove this but I do know that birth control does not work for my mother as when she conceived me, my sister, and my brother she was on birth control same as her mother though take that with a grain of salt as my mother is terrible at taking medication at the same time everyday. After that I began to plan out what to do, I didn't care about what would happen to me if they got divorced I was thinking of how I could try and get this to work out best for my brother. My at the time boyfriend had gone though a similar situation as to what I was going though, his mother cheated on his father and divorced him and ran away with her affair, leaving behind her children and leaving her ex-husband in lots of debt from legal fees. I didn't want that to happen to my father so I talked with my at the time boyfriend and my friends as for what I should do and I also looked into what the divorce laws in my state which my state does not count adultery as grounds for divorce.
Eventually I got another chance to go though my mother's phone and it was more of the same old stuff but in one part she told P that she was in the process of filing some kind of legal paperwork and P seemed excited about that there was also a "protected files" thing on her phone that needed a password to get into but since it wasn't the same password as the one to her phone I couldn't get it. Once I saw that I knew I couldn't wait any longer and I had my friend send my father the proof though a burner phone number so none of it was connected me and they wouldn't know I had all of the evidence then I waited for him to confront my mother. It didn't take long for that to happen as soon as she came home from work he was on her about it but he never raised his voice or showed any kind of aggression towards my mother they just calmly talked for about 15 minutes. During so my mother never showed any kind of regret or remorse, she never even said sorry mostly just saying "believe what you want to believe" she told my father that he was just a friend from high school (Though I think there is more to it than that) and that he was obsessed with her and wanted her to divorce my father for him and even her parents where egging her on to do it but she said she didn't want to give up her family and home just to start all over and that if she wanted to leave she would have already left, but that doesn't really make sense to me as if you cared so much about your family and the life you built then wouldn't you show some kind of emotional response when all of that was threatened? she also implied that the lewd pictures she had sent P he had paid her to send them. After they finished talking they hugged and carried on with their day like nothing had happened and they have been doing things they hadn't done in years, cuddling in bed together, kissing, and hugging. Today I checked my mother's phone again and it seems she has stopped talking to P all together and doesn't even have him as a friend of Facebook anymore and I can't find their messages on Facebook messenger anymore though I doubt she really stopped.
TL,DR: My mother cheated on my father but after exposing her cheating to my father their relationship began to improve, I want to try and fix my relationship with my mother for the sake of my brother but I don't know how to go about it
While their relationship is improving my relationship with my mother is in the trash I have told her to stop talking to me or doing anything with me period as I despise cheating but I would like to attempt to fix my relationship with my mother because I want to be in my brother's life and I feel if things between me and my mother sour she will prevent me from being around him and I plan on moving out as soon as I am able to. I have two (2) older half sister's 21 and 25 respectively (Same father different mother) but I don't get to see them much since they have their own lives and one of them even has her own family, my mother also doesn't like them and I feel she played a role in keeping me from seeing them when I was growing up and I have one (1) younger sister that was put up for adoption though it is an open adoption so I still see her every now and then, I have never been able to form any kind of relationship with my siblings as I never grew up with them and I scarcely saw them during my childhood but my brother is the only one I have been able to be with long-term and I want to be able to build a relationship with my brother as he grows up and I believe fixing my relationship with my mother will help me be able to do this. I want to be able to fix things between me and my mother for my brother but at the same time I don't want to reveal that I was the one that caused her little affair to get exposed as I feel that will damage our relationship even more. How should I approach mending things with her without damaging things further? I don't believe cheaters should be given a second chance with the person they cheated on but I want to fix things between me and mother at least temporarily for my brother.

I (26F) when I was 4 years old my parents legally divorced and for my whole life I lived with shared custody. Until I was 16 years old my mom was my biggest enemy because she abused me verbally and physically while my dad was my best friend, going to his house was what I expected all week long because I went on weekends, we played board games, we went to the movies or to different places, he did let me have a pet, everything was a dream until I turned 16 years old. Something curious about this time is that my dad used to talk to me about how my mom cheated on him and she told me not to believe him, but since he was the enemy I didn't listen to him.
12 years ago my mom started attending a Christian church along with my whole family and I, curious, started attending with her... that's when everything took a turn. You see, my father is an extremist Catholic and from then on he started to attack me in every way possible: against my new belief, he discovered that I had Facebook and forced me to give him my password to h*rass me and read absolutely everything; he told me that if I took the entrance exam for the university I wanted, he would find out because he hired a friend to stand near the door and take photos of me if he saw me arriving, which made me scared; when I decided that I was going to be a teacher my dad exploded in fury, although I was already a legal adult he told me that I had no right to choose my career and only my mother and he could do it, he tried to force my mother to pay me to study medicine but he didn't succeed and now I am studying education; Oh and it is worth mentioning that he generated in me an irrational phobia of buses because he told me that if I got on a bus, my parents would never see me or my body again.
My father over time has tried to manipulate me more and more and I increasingly move away, he pressures me every year to marry someone rich, to get pregnant even by accident because he doesn't want to “die without knowing his grandchildren” (my father is macho), that I stay in his house when he no longer lives alone and lives with a family that I don't like, he wants me to call his partner's children "my siblings" and treat them the same as my biological siblings, that I become Catholic again so I don't go to hell, that I convince my sister to stop therapy because her bipolar "is a lie", that I don't relate to minorities or people of other races (my father is r*cist since we are not white), that I don't relate to anyone in the LGBT community (my father is “proudly homophobic”).
My father lives by appearances, he lives in an expensive house but my grandparents pay his rent, he wears pilot suits when he used to repair airplanes and he doesn't know how to fly a plane, he tells everyone that I studied “educational administration and future founder of a school” because he is ashamed that I am a teacher, he bought very big cars when he didn't even have enough to pay for gas and finally he presumes he is a good father... when he has caused me such strong psychological abuse that I'm afraid to do things because he might find out.
4 years ago I started to progressively cut communication with him to the point that I don't talk to him and I don't go to his house anymore, only once a month and it hurts me because in this dispute my paternal grandparents and my younger sister got caught in the crossfire, but my dad is so harassing that if I call them or her just to say hello, he will find out and come here to complain because I talk to them and not to him. Sometimes I think my life will be easier and I will rest the day he dies, AITAH for wanting or thinking that?

My parents (45M, 38F) have never had a good relationship for as long as I’ve been able to remember. They both had a toxicity that boiled over and burned everyone around them (aka, me - 16, my older sister - 20 and my little brother - 11). Me and my older sister would always get the brunt of everything, and we got hurt a lot, but my brother didn’t (he only got shouted at) because he was just a baby and he had difficulties so the school’s he went to would have a close eye on him anyways.
The only reason i’m asking if i’m TA is because i’m beside myself right now. I don’t know what to do and I need advice and I’m scared I may have started the end of my family.
Just before christmas, on the second to last week of term before winter break, i refused to go into school. The only reason being was I was in a difficult situation with a couple friends and I felt i had no one, I was alone and i hated that so i didn’t want to face anyone at school incase i broke down. My dad had come into my room, telling me to get up for school, get ready and he’ll take me. An hour goes by, and I hadn’t moved from my spot in my bed. My dad comes back into my room, and says ‘you need to go to school’ and such things like that. I didn’t say anything to him, all i did was groan (like when you don’t wanna hear it or don’t wanna do smth).
flash forward about midday, my mum comes screaming and shouting into my room, telling me all these horrible things and that i needed to go to school or she’d ‘make me pay for it’. I immediately thought it meant she was going to hurt me, so i thought i’d stand up for myself and tell her ‘what? you gonna beat me because i can’t stand going to school?’.
Half an hour later, and with no one saying anything else, i heard my mum on the phone (she’s really loud - she like raises her voice down the phone unconsciously so i heard every word) but then I heard these exact words: “(dad’s name) told me she refused to get up this morning and that i fcking knew about her not going in”.
I jumped up and raced down the stairs and started screaming that i didn’t say that because my mum was threatening to ground me and ‘make me pay for it’ - which actually meant chores but i liked chores to a certain extent. My dad had lied to her to make me look me once again, like a couple years ago when I caught him cheating on my mum when messages from a random woman on facebook would ping on his screen (he cheated on her 24 times since they’ve been married, also cheated on her a couple days before their wedding day and even fcked an old woman, like an OLD OLD woman).
My dad seemed to like the chaos because he always was the root of it. Whenever my older sister and mum were on good terms, he would go whispering into my mum’s ears saying my sister said this and she said that and so on. The same went for when myself and my mum were getting along. He had lied to my mum once again about me and it ended up backfiring mostly on me.
I told my mum what really happened and she confront my dad, who was sat on the sofa watching tv, and he fought back saying ‘she said it, she said it, i’m not lying! why would i lie?’ but when my mum refused to back down, he stood up and squared his shoulder and went to leave the front room, where myself and my mum were stood, which freaked me out because he clenched his fists and my mum saw it and she hugged me, saying go upstairs because he said he wasn’t going to be spoken to like this. (he also once got told by his sister that he shouldn’t be dictated by a child - ME, his first biological child - when all i was trying to do was talk about how i felt with his drinking because it was really bad.
Because of this, he left and he showed up on christmas and spent time with us, but kept getting agitated with my little brother because he kept asking questions and kept talking about his new plane game for his ps5 (my brother was recently diagnosed with ashbergers (however you spell it, it’s on the spectrum) and ticks that could develop into tourette’s). two days later, he left and i didn’t see him for about two months.
during those two months, i was conflicted because he’s my dad and i don’t want him to leave but he didn’t reach out, and i was tired of trying to reach him for the last sixteen years of my life so i didn’t bother. whenever i tried to spend time with him on my own as father-daughter, he would ignore it until my mum forced us to watch a documentary together (it was a murder documentary because we both like the genre) and it was so awkward, i wanted the ground to swallow me whole.
i didn’t see him until he came to pick my brother up for plans they made with one another because he messaged my brother first, which hurt but i couldn’t say anything because i felt i caused the whole mess of him leaving. we didn’t talk and i told my nan (we were living at hers because my mum filed charges of DV against my dad, which he didn’t and shouldn’t have needed to know - a lot more had happened because of him, but he was a veteran so his abuse was ‘excused’ and no one said anything despite us asking for help, especially from my dad’s side of the family) that i didn’t want to see him ever again.
i did see him again, only a couple times though because i felt really bad and i wanted him to be better (from the drinking) so i went with it and spent time with him, thinking it would help but it didn’t. he’s gotten to point he physically shakes because he hadn’t had a drink that day, and his face was all red whenever we saw him. he was also denying all the abuse and harm that he caused when we were younger.
It was only recently that everything has sunk in properly. i’m 16 and doing my final exams and i have a life that i need to start leading soon, and that’s terrifying. i’m moving across the country after waiting since early january, but my dad isn’t coming and he recently told me that he’s getting a place of his own soon (he’s in a temporary hostel) and invited me to go over whenever i wanted to because he would be working and it would just be sitting there empty. i told him i might, but i’m moving on the 15th of June and i don’t even know when i’m coming to visit my sister and my nan and my nieces let alone him, especially since my mum told me to cut all contact with him.
the thing with my mum is she found herself a new man from tiktok because she’s in an “agency”, and he’s a bit of character, in all honestly. my mum had always needed a man in her life and she’s had multiple boyfriends when she and my dad would split for months at a time. the only reason we’re moving the area we are is because that man is there, and she’s lost two of the babies she could have had with him.
i’m so lost and i don’t know what to do.
my dad still drinks and he basically lives at the pub that’s across the road from where he lives at the moment, and i don’t want to watch him drink himself into an early grave.
and i believed my mum was influenced to move to where we are going because of this new man, who she’s now not with because he’s also controlling and doesn’t trust her.
do i cut all contact with my dad just because my mum doesn’t want me to or because she’s trying to protect me? i’ve just gotten him to open up to me as a dad for the first time ever and i don’t know what to do. i know he was a bad dad, and he can only love one person at a time, but am i in the wrong for wanting my dad to finally see me as a daughter?
and should i really move because my mum wants to? does it sound that it’s gone too far?
AITA for wanting my parents to get along for the sake of me and my little brother, or is that asking too much?

The moment a lot of you have been waiting for is here!
A couple of notes before you read (or after because I would just jump into the list right away too)

1. Direct quotes from Ali herself are in italics.
2. I tried my best to keep everything in timeline order. Some people like The Come Back Kid I placed in the order where they reconnected/talked about on the pod. But I did my best to note this.
3. All this information came from the FMH podcast, the Patreon, the original FMH blog, TikTok and other podcast that feature FMH/Ali. I also crossed reference information with this sub. I got most of this done with the help of the Patreon and listening to 1.75x speed but I lost accessed to the Patreon because my subscription ended.
4. I'm open to edits! Things around the matchmaker era confused me and if anything is incorrect or if I'm missing someone, please let me know! I will note where corrections are made.
5. Some people don't have anything simply because only a name was said or I couldn't find any details about the person/date
6. And of course, please be respectful of all the sub rules!

Names on the original FMH blog

• Mr. Adorable aka The Coach
• Trouble
• Waffles
• Future Husband Brian (FHB)
• Cookie
• Peter Pan
• Ambiguous Goodbye Guy
• Bad Bitch Man

AOL chatroom Boyfriend
Mentioned on Tiktok and on the pod once
Myspace Boyfriend
Mentioned on Tiktok
Third Boyfriend
Met on eCrush.com in 2002 and this was mentioned on the Cracked Up podcast, The Dave Glaser Podcast and Tiktok
The Kiwi
Met on a 2 week Model UN type youth trip in high school when Ali was 15, never a boyfriend but she had a huge crush on him, he tried to kiss Ali and she literally ran away, didn’t talk the rest of the trip but exchanged numbers and screen names (Ali’s was FineGal13 or BeachJewel760), she made him a mixtape cd called “Ali’s really cool mix for The Kiwi” but never sent it and she still has it. In 2021, he DM’d her when she posted photos of her and her mom in France and invites her to visit him in London, she says she can’t but says they should catch up if he comes to NYC
Fourth Boyfriend
Met on OkCupid when you had to use it on the computer, this was mentioned on Tiktok
The Homecoming Date or Light Switch
First boyfriend? (she goes back and forth calling him her first bf or a situationship), a family friend, a month younger than Ali, dated in high school but went to different high schools, football player, made him ask her to her Homecoming dance over email (her words), Ali hid in the bathroom the whole Homecoming dance, 3-4 revisits of this situations as adults, saw him on Bumble a few years ago and texted him that he had a typo in his bio, “he very much wanted to be with me” and now he’s married with a kid. His mom is still “obsessed” with Ali and she listens to FMH
Random college guy
Freshman year of college, Ali doesn’t have a nickname for him/doesn’t remember his real name, met this guy through a friend, was texting him to invite him over to hot tub but her phone autocorrected to “how about some hot rubbing tonight?” but Ali didn’t noticed/didn’t correct it and he never replied, Ali had a house party and got really drunk and was all over him, he left the party early, she messaged him on MySpace 3-4 times asking why he left
The Resident
Matched on Match.com, first guy she dated in NYC after college, older than Ali, a doctor, lasted 3 months ”maybe”, he didn’t like Ali’s friends, got a card from him on her birthday and it said “Love, The Resident” and it took Ali back a little, Ali drinks black coffee because of him, he coordinated having her mom visit NYC for her birthday then he broke up with her a week later
The Ghost
Met at a bar when she was 25, turns out they matched on OkCupid and they already had a date scheduled next week, they dated for 6-8 weeks, had sleepovers, “The worst ghosting experience I’ve ever had”, he borrowed The Great Gatsby from Ali’s roommate, planned to make dinner together after a beach trip in August with her friends and never showed up, Ali is blowing up his phone and gets no reply, two weeks later she finally texts “are you alive? check yes or no” and he responds “Yes”, Ali then ask if he could return the book and gets no reply again, 5 months go by and she receives the book in the mail with the note: “Here’s the book back. Sorry. P.S. sorry about last summer. I was in a bad place. You’re a great person and your salmon is amazing”, since then she has ran into him twice on the streets and matched with him on Bumble
The Coach/Mr. Adorable
First serious boyfriend at 26/27 in 2013, matched on Match.com or met through work depending if you’re listening to the pod or reading her OG blog, clean-cut look, played volleyball, Ali invited him to a friend’s birthday party and they made out in the streets at 4am, on their second date he asked Ali if she was seeing any one and when Ali said no he ask her to be his girlfriend 3 days after their first date, dated for almost 1.5 years or almost 2 years depending on if you’re listening to the pod or the Patreon, first time saying “I love you” to a guy, “lovely guy“, never would posted Ali on his instagram until Ali said something, he “lived” with her for two weeks while he was in between apartments, tried blind folding/hair pulling during sex and she didn’t like it, by the end of their relationship Ali didn’t like sex and thought she wasn’t a very sexual person, after they broke up Ali drunk texted him at 2am and he picked her up and she spent the night and she took her things in the morning in a rolly suitcase, from her blog in 2015: “I just want to be careful I don’t end up with another Mr. Adorable situation, where I find myself dating my platonic best friend”, had drinks with him in 2016 from the blog: “Not in a romantic way (at least on my end)”, Ali still talks to him sometimes through casual instagram DMs, he’s currently (as of 2021) dating someone for 4+ years and Ali thinks they’re going to get engaged
Trouble
OG 2015 FMH blog, never mentioned on the pod, “I was immediately enamored with him”, met at a Beer Olympic party but he worked with one of Ali’s best friends (Ali was still dating The Coach at the time), lived in BK, tattoos and stubble, Ali’s best friend said he was a “fuck boy”, “he very much made me see that it was the right thing for me and The Coach to not be together”, from her blog in 2015: “he has this look in his eye like he’s constantly laughing at me – in a super sexy way”, he texted her saying he didn’t see anything romantically with her and she sent a gif of someone shrugging
Personal side note: Ali has mentioned she has cheated on someone but never disclosed who she cheated on or with. I feel like she cheated on Mr.A/The Coach with Trouble because of the timeline. Just a guess.
Waffles
Matched on Bumble, OG 2015 FMH blog, he asked Ali fuck/marry/kill breakfast foods, dated 2 months around summer time, on Fourth of July while watching fireworks he said how they had a great day and Ali replied with something along the lines with “yeah, it would be better if I could call you my boyfriend”, he said he wanted a relationship but just not with Ali and shortly afterwards they stopped seeing each other
The Buffalo
Lived in Buffalo NY, 6’5, Scorpio, met in 2015 at Adults National volleyball (Ali’s team won that year) where he was heckling her while she was playing, asks Ali’s mom for her number and Ali’s mom said “I guess you’re tall enough” and told him to ask her himself, he flew her out and she met his parents, dated over summer, exclusive but never boyfriend/girlfriend (but called him her LD boyfriend on TikTok), texted and talked on the phone a lot, Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “they had really good banter”, in October he invited her to his cousins wedding and she invited him to her friends wedding, after Ali bought her ticket to his cousins wedding (with the promise he would buy her ticket to her friend’s wedding) he ghosted and stonewalled her, she “poured her heart out to him on voicemail” and he never replied, she asked him to pay her back for her ticket and he got mad that she “made this about money”, 2 years later he told Ali that he freaked out because he really liked her and saw a future with her but knew she would never move to Buffalo and it would “never work”, Ali said at the time she would have considered moving for him, Ali used to have him blocked on Facebook and told all her friends not to update her on info about him (unless she asked). He’s now married and goes to Disney with his wife (which Ali kind of scoffs at?), Ali said on TikTok that she dodged a bullet
Baby Bic
Met him at Adults National years ago, had a flirtationship with him in 2016 when he was 19 years old, ran into him at the Adults Nationals 2021, last texts she got from him were about getting his fake ID taken away at the bar and him visiting her in NYC but Ali didn’t want to buy him beer and drink at her apartment
The Chef
Matched on Tinder around 2016, he loved karaoke, “total shit”, asked Ali to be his girlfriend and to meet his mom after a month, off and on dating, broke up the first time because he was talking to his ex, lied and flew to Mexico to see his ex while dating Ali, that ex sent Ali a Snapchat of them in bed together on that Mexico trip, Ali broke up with him via text and called him a shitty boyfriend, he’s the reason Ali deleted her Snapchat because of drunk Snaps he would send post break up, FB messaged Ali 6 years later (while Roark was visiting/staying with Ali) and said sorry for being a shit head. Ali’s best friends hated him
The Dentist
Met on Halloween in the wild, Canadian, dated NYE 2016- May 2017 “nice guy, not my guy”, one of Ali’s best friend’s favorite ex “he adored you, “he was too sweet for me” and “he had no edge to him”, he painted Ali’s cat for her 30th birthday but she was annoyed it was just Rory and not both cats, The Chef texted Ali while on a date/sleeping at his house
ASV - Aspiring Sober Vegan
Met through a friend (her best guy friend’s college roommate) the day before she had to fly out to her dad’s memorial, a doctor, into meditation, remembered him “being cuter” when they went on a first date, felt “the spark”, had “omg this is awesome sex”, Ali described this relationship as a “slow burn” and “the most attracted she ever been to a partner” even thought she didn’t think he was that cute in the beginning, dated 2-3 months before he tried to ghost Ali but they talked and broke up, four months later they start casually dating/FWB because he’s moving but this turns into a ‘middle distance relationship’ and he moves to Philly, had a lot of communication issues but didn't have a lot of fights, wants to live in Ohio and give a % of his income to charity, Ali was close to saying ‘I love you’ but didn’t, he uninvited her to meet his extended family and they got in a fight, broke up with her a couple weeks before their 6 month anniversary at the park while on a picnic and told her that she’s still his favorite person, Ali used to think he was “the one that got away” and would frequently have dreams about him. From what Ali knows, he's sober but not vegan
The Scientist
2017 or 2018ish, from San Diego, went on one date, Ali ended up ghosting him due to the decline in her dad’s health, saw him on Hinge while she was in San Diego for 3 months in 2020, texted him and apologized for ghosting him, ended up going on 2-3 more dates, took a selfie in front of his house and sent it to him but acted like she didn’t know that was his house and made a TikTok about it, things ended up not working but she doesn’t make it clear on who ended it. She can now see she shouldn’t have been going on dates during this time when her dad was sick.
Good on Paper Divorced Dude
Met a couple of years ago (she told this story on TikTok in 2020) on Bumble
The Groomsman
Met at her friend Ashley’s wedding in Chicago Oct 2019, had a “two night stand” with him, texted/talked/FT’d for 3-4 months, divorced, never dated seriously/FWB, saw each other a couple time when he came to NYC, Ali stopped talking with him due to FMH and her trying to find a serious relationship, he starts dating someone, follows FMH on insta, slid into her DM in 2022 and then sent her soup while she was sick, turns out he’s single again, 2 months later Ali is heading to Chicago and texts him “Hello! Reminder that my arrival to your neck of the woods is imminent” and turns out he is now seeing someone and Ali doesn’t see him while in Chicago (at least she doesn’t mention it)
Unnicknamed person
He was her plus one at her best friend from college’s NYE wedding 2019/2020, met and hung out with Ali’s mom, posted photos of them together on her personal Insta story, “fully dating but weren’t official hehe” doesn’t have a nickname/never gave him a nickname? This could be The Latvian/the person she texted her friend in DC about saying “I think I’m on a date with my husband”

Starts FMH on January 2020 on Instagram/TikTok

The Traveler
He was browsing Bumble while Ali was in the bathroom during their first date, he was banned from Bumble and was using his grandma phone number. Ali turned down a second date
The Duke
Early FMH, went for long periods of time in between texts, 7-8 Zoom dates while Ali was in San Diego and he was in NY, Ali said you could see three of his ex’s on his instagram page (without scrolling), they finally went on one date and it was “meh” but they did kiss on their date
The Oyster
Matched on Bumble (he had one photo and no bio) two weeks before Valentines Day, Gemini, a lawyer, part of the 13 First Dates in 30 Days series (he was #13), dated Feb 2020-Aug 2020, love bomber, felt “the spark” and became official after 3 dates, best first date ever??? at the time, said “I love you” to Ali after two weeks, “For most of my relationship with The Oyster, he didn’t live in the city he had moved to Connecticut without telling me”, would fight all the time, opposite political views, Ali felt like a “fucking summer camp director” because she planned all their dates and he would get upset if Ali didn't have a plan, sought out a therapist (Megan) because of her relationship struggles because of him, went to Mass/church, he wanted a traditional marriage/life/wife/kids (at one point had Ali thinking she wanted that), didn’t want to live in NYC, didn’t support BLM, Cindy hated him
The Pilot
Went on 3 dates, texted a lot, didn’t hear back from him in four days and when she said she was looking to date someone who showed more consistency, he replied saying he met someone the day after their last date who seems to have more free time than Ali and he wants to pursue that but would like to be friends, Ali said on TikTok that this other women “bent her schedule to his schedule” and she was unwilling to do that. Mostly talked about him on TikTok
The Analyst
Matched on Bumble two years ago and went on one date, re matched in 2021 and he stood Ali up, she send him a text “getting stood up” script and he never replied. Only mentioned him on TikTok (?)

Ali and Roark start FMH: The Podcast February 2021

The Boomerang
First date on the pod? I couldn't find anything else about him
The Scuba Diver
The Music Man
One date, “he didn’t do anything wrong, he’s just not for me”, amped up small talk, complimented Ali a lot which made her feel awkward cause she wasn’t feeling it, he texted her and asked for a second date and Ali sent the no ghosting script
The Bet
Uses the phrase “ok bet”, 28 years old shoe designer, only went on one dinner date to a spot he picked, turns out its cash only and he didn’t bring cash, was not into him , not looking for the same thing
The Dinosaur
Nickname was previously The Hawaiian, first date at Dinosaur BBQ, stood in a parking spot to save for Ali, he asked for a kiss after their date and Ali declined saying maybe next time
The Rose
He sent her a rose on hinge, first date was an hour long walk in the park while drinking beer
The Comic
Matched on Hinge, older than Ali (Ali’s friends express how happy they were to hear that), had brunch on their first date (was the first part of a double header but the second guy canceled), listed as “moderate” politically on Hinge, good and easy convo, went back and forth twice over text and then never heard back from him, “technically not ghosting...”
The Camper
Met in the wild at a volleyball tournament in July, lives in Chicago, 27 years old, hung out the whole time, over heard Ali asking someone to get her a make out partner, gave Ali his number, drunkly ask him for a FT date in the future and he didn’t reply, Ali texts him again about a volleyball thing and he replied back with not a lot of enthusiasm, Ali is going to Chicago in Sept for a volleyball tournament and she’s already planning on playing 4-on-4 with her best friend vs. his roommate and maybe The Camper, he texts her saying he has to work on the date of the tournament and won’t be able to do the 4-on-4 game, “I feel like I got broken up with someone I never want to date in the first place”

Ali’s Matchmaker contract starts in August 2021 - 6 matches

The Schmoozer
Went on a dinner date, was chatting up the waitress in a kind of creepy way, was bragging about a lot of things and it turned Ali off and Ali texted him her no ghosting script
The Accountant
1st matchmaker match, 31 years old, lives in BK, his dad has also passed away, easy to talk to, on the third date she wasn’t sure if she saw a future with him and in her gut doesn’t feel like this would be a slow burn, Ali breaks things off with him, months (?) later he sent Ali a 5 min long voice memo and they said they were both down to see each other as friends. He later on dated and ghosted Erica
The Aussie
Matched on Hinge, in politics, from Australia but lived all over the place, asked Ali what she’s looking for on the first date and he said he’s “casually looking for something serious”, Ali accidentally walks up to a different person on their second date, Ali texts him saying she would love to see him before he leaves on a trip and she wasn’t happy that it took him till the next day to reply and he can’t see her before he leaves
The Goalie
Was supposed to be Ali’s 2nd match, he’s a paying client, Ali didn’t hear back from him for a while when she told him where she lived, he wrote to the matchmaker saying that she lived too far away even though it states where she lives in her matchmaker profile
The Journalist
2nd matchmaker match, ended things because she was dating/pursuing things with The Discoball and paused her matchmakers matches

The Threepeat
Matched multiple times on dating apps but this recent time with Hinge, Amazon seller, first date was a pizza lunch date (with bubbles aka champagne) and he gave her a single yellow carnation, talked a lot about her “side hustles” aka her food blog, coaching, FMH and the pod (Ali didn’t mentioned the name on FMH), had an awkward half kiss during the date and then gave her a peck when they said goodbye, he had no night stands by his bed?, spent the night but told public pod they had a movie night, different kissing styles, 6 dates, broke things off with Ali two days before her first date with The Rower WHILE Ali was on a Halloween girls trip
The Rower
Dated from Halloween 2021 till early Feb 2022, Pisces who is 6 days older than Ali, has an ex-fiancé (they dated for 8 years, engaged for two of them, she broke off the engagement with him 1.5 years ago once he started dating Ali), has a shared dog with this ex, slept together around Xmas on the fourth date and Ali got a UTI, first time having “omg this is awesome sex” since ASV, first person Ali slept next to wearing an eye mask "that's a big step for me", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, on New Years Day told her that he sees “long term relationship potential” with her but doesn’t want to be exclusive after 5 dates, “we didn’t talk all week”, he said he wasn’t as ready as he though to date someone seriously and “I don’t know why I don’t want to be in a relationship with you” they broke up over the phone, Ali said he’s a good human and wants to date someone like him, 3.5 weeks later Ali drunk texted him at 3:00 am saying “its really hard not to talk to you” which Ali said was a lie, he replied back (few days? A week later?) while Ali was on another date and it made her cry a bit, she replied back saying “the door is closed but not locked” in regards if he wants to get back together. “Fin… for now”

2022

The Discoball
Matched on Hinge but didn’t go on a first date for two week, Gemini, used to be a singer in a band, moved from DC to NYC, went on 7 dates in 2022, had a dog w/ ex and ex got full custody once he moved, met one of his friends on the second date, slept with him on the second date “morning and night”, he tried to find the podcast without knowing the name, podcasted from his house in DC, he would send Ali photos of them together “all the time”, gave a virtual presentation from his hotel room, did Molly together in DC, had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, moved to BK (didn’t see each other for 2 months pre-move), had a sex-less sleepover (a milestone for Ali), he showed up for her on her dad’s death date (something that a person she’s dating has never done), used to listen to the pod but stopped before they stopped seeing each other, ghosted her after they had a talk about moving things forward to exclusive and Ali texted him something along the lines of “your silence is the answer” when she didn’t hear back from him for a week and he ghosted her. Ali said he sucks in #77 AUA
Lisbon
The Brit
M&M
The Come Back Kid
They went on 2-3 dates in Nov 2018 and reconnected in May 2022, "felt immediately comfortable", sat next to a very drunk lady on their second 1st date and was supportive but "didn't step on Ali's toes" when the drunk lady said something offensive to Ali, couldn’t remember if they slept together or not, knows about FMH, ghosted Ali
The Trainer
The Cold Brew
The Nomad
3rd matchmaker match, reminded Ali of The Oyster, wanted kids and didn’t want to live in NYC forever, Ali was upset at first because her matchmaker was supposed to screen for that but the matchmaker DID check and it wasn’t mentioned when she was screening The Nomad, no second date because those are dealbreakers to him
The Catcher
Matched on Bumble, “good not great” after their first date, ~April 2022, talked about sports a lot on their first date
The Gentleman
4th matchmaker match, knew about Ali’s FMH socials before their date, Ali didn’t like his texting style, awkward intro on their first date “like hugging a 2 x 4”, he runs a dating event company and actually email Ali to be a guest on the pod when FMH first started, awkward goodbye, didn’t discuss the actual first date on the main pod because she doesn’t want to give him a reason to reach out again
The Tennis Pro
Ali had a good time on their date, “He is an adult, he’s mature” BUT “I don’t think he was into it”
The Padre
Matched on Bumble, 3 dates, from San Diego, “energy mismatch”, doesn’t want to know or listen to FMH, no psychical connection/kiss, only a kiss on the cheek on their last date, “I haven’t spoken to him since Friday night [a week]”, she didn’t want to do what The Threepeat did to her (break up while on vacation/traveling), she said it might be a MOO

Roark leaves and Erica joins the pod Oct 31st 2022

Captain Kirk
5th matchmaker match, found him on Bumble before their in-person date, ghosted Ali AND the matchmaker???
6th matchmaker match
Last match and Ali states she will not talk about this date or anything about it
JFK Kirk?
Matched on Bumble, didn’t realize he’s located in SD, exchanged personal instagram info, not sure where things went or how things ended

Kirk #1
Met in the wild, make out a lot the night they met, “stealing kisses throughout the night”, exchanged numbers, planned a date (no specifics, just the day) but when Ali texted him day of he asked to reschedule (no specifics again), he replied back that he’s picking up a rental car, told him she’s looking for someone to respect her time and he never replied back

2023

The Falcon
First date of 2023, matched on The League, first nickname was “League Kirk”, hard to talk to, felt like Ali was always reaching for the next topic, likes to travel, “there wasn’t a vibe”, MOO
The Roommate
Used to be her friend’s roommate and have met before (Ali doesn’t remember but it was the day after that exclusive convo with The Rower), “totally cute”, reunited at their mutual friend’s engagement party January 2023, made out at the bar, comes back to her place and sleeps over (no sex), Ali questions why her friends never set them up and its because he was taking a break from dating, first date they made out a lot at the bar (again), “I really felt like we were already a couple”, “It didn’t feel like a first date”, mentions her FMH content has popped up on his FYP, tried texting him after their date and he wasn’t giving effort, she’s glad she didn’t sleep with him because “one night stands aren’t my thing”, MOO
The Belgian
Matched on Bumble, accidentally had their first date during a trivia night at a bar, easy to talk to
The Viking
Ali forgot they had a first date on the day of said date
Tinder Man
Matched on Tinder (duh) on Valentine’s Day, first Tinder date in three years, good convo on first date but got a pushy vibe from him at the second bar they went to, put his hand up her sweater and was kissing her in the bar, made Ali uncomfortable and she told him that after her asked her on a second date
The Historian
Matched on Bumble, good conversation on the first date with a wide range of topics like “urban planning and its impact on feminism”, he’s in grad school
The Georgian
Matched on Hinge, he asked if she was free on Friday and she said yes but didn’t hear back from him in two days and in that time she made plans for Friday, rescheduled for a Saturday afternoon date at a dive bar, ate on her way to her date “it would be next level rude to eat on the subway”, good first date, talked about places he wants to take her to
The Publicist
Matched on Tinder, lives in BK, Jewish, one year younger then Ali, good first date, invited him to the Chaotic Singles Party that night, came over to Ali's apartment (which Ali said was messy) before and he made her favorite cocktail for her, a couple of listeners met him at the CSP, goofy and silly convo mixed with deep and serious convos, second date was at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and a tasting menu dinner, he made a Resy reservation and Ali got an email saying she was added to it ”fuck receiving gifts, THAT’S my love language”, he's into words like Ali, he sneezed and Ali said "God bless you" but then corrected herself and said "gesundheit" and he leaned over and kissed her and said he loves that she cares about her words, he met her friends on the third date ”It felt so easy. It felt so comfortable”, her friends took “sneaky” picture and videos of them together which Ali said she loves a sneaky pic, took all their date recap videos on his phone, cooked Ali steak on their fourth date, "it's very comfortable", had him watch 90 Day Fiancé, Ali met two of his friends and some of his teammates he plays a rec sport with, had sex the day they took a trip outside of the city, Erica met him before their trip to Greece and I said “he’s dorky in a good way”, WhatsApp video chatted while in Greece and told her “see you in two days!” at the end of their call, said she felt less anxious about him compared to other relationships while on vacation, sent him a birthday present while she was in Greece, felt an energy shift coming back from vacation and didn’t hear back from him 3 days after she came home, Ali requested a call to talk about this distances she was feeling, ”I did the 12 date rule and it didn’t work!”, she said the distance help her see that they’re not compatible, went on a total of 9 dates. Ali talks about the “break up” on episode 123
Mr. Chaotic
Matched on Tinder but he saw Ali at the Chaotic Singles Party and Cassidy the host is there mutual friend, went to a brewery and played games on their first date (Ali said this was her favorite first dates in episode 147 where they recapped 2023), works in entertainment industry, very high energy, knows about FMH and he said she's entertaining to watch, splits his time between NYC and some unknown city, texted while she was in Greece, ”The man gives good texts”
Random Matchmaker Match
Withdrew his match to Ali because he found her FMH socials. Talked about on #71 AUA
Gone with the Wind
Matchmaker match, said some gross things about women in volleyball outfits on their first date, Ali told her matchmaker about this, ”I would describe him as misogynistic overall”, Ali was glad he did say those weird things so early on so she didn’t waste her time, the matchmaker flagged his account. This was around June 2023
The Rock
Ali knows him from an activity that they used to be involved with in the city (she's very vague about what this is) from 8 years ago, he had a very serious/long term GF when they met, follows her personal Insta, has never talked about him because he’s never been a “prospect”, summer 2023 they met up to catch up and found out that he’s now recently single but he’s moving out of NYC for work, Ali texts Cindy saying she thinks this is a date, Cindy said to tell him that you really want to kiss him, he ends up telling Ali “I really want to kiss you”, made out at the bar, Ali invited him back to her apartment and they had sex the night before Ali ended things with The Publicist, “one night stand vibes” but she said she was down to do it again, Patreon only and talked about on #75 AUA
The Tourist
Matched on Hinge, just moved to Brooklynn, went to a brewery in BK for their first date, Ali showed up to the date dripping in sweat, allergic to cats, he sent Ali a ‘no ghosting’ text the next morning
The Stout
Matched on Bumble, ”we had really great banter right away”, laughed the whole time on their first date, talked about going on a second date during their first date
Speed Racer
Matched on Bumble, drinks first date, axe throwing second date, made out after their second date, MOO, randomly texted Ali ~6 months later because he said one of Ali’s date recap videos about him popped up on his FYP (Ali and Erica think this is a lie), he thought Ali wasn’t into him, he claims he was doing all the work with texting even though there was only a few messages since they exchanged numbers after their second date
Billy Joel
Recently sober, Ali said she felt like they had several inside jokes before they met in person, ate pizza on her way to their first date, second date was getting coffee and going to the museum, they cooked dinner together for their third date at Ali’s apartment and they watched 90 Day Fiancé (he didn’t like it), he Googled how to clean a red wine stain when it spilled on her countertop, he asked if she wanted to have sex and she turned it down, the next day/the day before a 7am flight Ali booty called him and they had sex, she was drunk and said the sex wasn’t good/they stopped mid way, helped Ali pack for her flight, Ali said he’s at a crossroad and he doesn’t seem like a long term fit, Erica found a condom on the ground while cat sitting, Ali said she didn’t regret hooking up with him but wishes she hadn’t done it, MOO
Sales Cycle
30 seconds in and Ali said he was very boring, only really talked about his job, stared at Ali’s boobs, “might be a MOO”, texted her ‘merry christmas’

2024

Pie Guy/Dr. Laundry
Matched on The League, 34 years old, requested a nickname change from Pie Guy to Dr. Laundry, he had to cancel their second date because he got hit by a car, went on two dates, Ali sent him a pic of his subway stop saying something along the lines of “the stop isn’t looking as cute today” and turns out someone he dated with in that photo, were supposed to go on a third date the night she got back from a bachelorette party but he didn't answer her text when she said she landed, the next day he asked her how her trip was not acknowledging her previous text at all, Ali expressed her disappointment and he replied that he was tired last night, she said she would've been understanding if he said something then ghosted her
Andddd I stopped listening to the podcast around the Dr. Pie Laundry Guy but have stayed up to date with everything via this sub.
I have a huge interest in dating culture, human behavior and data similar to Ali and this little project of mine was really interesting once I got the framework of this list. I started this list once I found this sub in December 2023 and started re listening to the Patreon while working out (and lost 10 lbs ayeee) and writing down information in my notes app. I did my best to keep this list unbiased and just give facts and information that was said.
My own thoughts after making this list is that I'm very sad for Ali. I didn't realize the extent of her dating history. I think about my own dating history or even my friends who are in their 30's and dating and Ali's dating lore runs so deep. Is Ali unlucky with love? Did she pass on someone that could have been great for her? How has she had so many dates with little success in a long term partner or even going beyond 6-8 dates? Or is Skyline the person she has been waiting for? What's the pattern with all this dates/men? So many questions.
I truly do hope Ali finds her guy because I believe theres someone for everyone. Until then, I'll be hopping into this sub (cause y'all are too funny and give the best advice) and waiting for Ali to find Mr. Height.
Enjoy and I look forward to everyone thoughts! I'll keep my eye out for any edits that need to be made.
Bonus quotes:
“Longest relationship was a little under a year and a half. Haven’t made it past 6 months with anyone else” - AUA #7 11/27/21
“I spent the first 10+ years of my dating life being sort of perennially single” -1. The Actual First One episode 2/21/21
"I think my parent's story is the reason why I think that I can romantically get back together with an ex and it'll work out" -The Dave Glaser Podcast 4/5/21
“Almost every relationship I’ve ever been in, with a couple of exceptions, started as a situationship.” -21. The Undefined One 7/11/21
“All of my boyfriends have been white” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“You definitely need an older guy” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“I’ve been on the dating apps since high school. Dating websites at the time” -Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Who would be the perfect man for Ali?”
“Clearly a combination of the The Dentist and [the early stages of] The Buffalo” -Cindy on Ali’s BFF Special on Patreon 4/23/22
“Do you consider The Rower or Disco ball to have been situationships?”
“No, I don't consider either The Rower or The Disco Ball to be situationships” -question asked on TikTok 11/9/22

My wife and I have been married for 26 years and have been pretty happy. However, recently we have been fighting a lot. My wife dedicates herself to her work and it frequently interferes with our plans. For instance, we work at the same place and have lunch together. However, every day it is the same story, she puts me off for several hours, cuts our lunch short, or just doesn't show up at all. She is a counselor at a school and her reasoning is that if a student needs to see her then she puts that above all else. Everybody else in the school gets to take a 30 minute lunch, she almost never gets hers. As a result, I have stopped having lunch with her and go by myself. She does manage to go to Dr's appointments or Dentists during her lunch time and the students manage to survive without her. It is only when we get together that she needs to be there for her students. She says that it is her job and that is what is most important to her. In the past, I have been left sitting in parking lots for 45 minutes or longer waiting for her to leave work. Her excuse, students needed to talk. We worked in a different town from where we lived so we car pooled.
We have a very routine life and usually have sex only on the weekends. This is partly because of my fatigue but also because she stays up later than I because she has a Facebook addiction. She is usually excited, calling it "sex fest" weekend. Often our adult daughter calls last minute and asks her to babysit so she blows me off to go watch the grandchildren. Sex fest weekend turns in to a bust and usually leads to a fight.
My wife has a lot of anxiety and gets flustered when things go wrong. When the pressure is on, she will take her frustration out on me. Often telling me to "shut the F*!K up" or blaming me for what went wrong in her day. It almost always causes a fight. I have been reading religious books on how to be a good husband and I have tried applying some of the lessons but am having an extremely hard time. I have tried to exercise patience, not yell or respond to her abuse and be supportive but she usually pushes me to the brink and I lose my temper. Unfortunately, I tend to pout and give her the silent treatment. Early in our marriage we had a really bad fight and I ended up tipping her off of a couch and she hit her head on a table. I was horrified and vowed that I would never let things get physical again. To this day, I have never laid a hand on her, choosing to walk away and not talk to her until I am calm. Unfortunately, it takes me several days to calm down. She resents this and calls me "cruel and mean".
Our last fight, was over a complete misunderstanding, but once again ended with her yelling and telling me to "shut the F*!K up". I don't understand why she completely disrespects me and has such contempt for me. She feels that this behavior is totally acceptable. We discussed her total lack of respect for my time during lunch and she doubled down on "It is my job and it comes first." I tried to tell her what it was about her that upsets me but she denied everything and told me she doesn't feel like talking about it anymore. That is where we are today. Barely talking, she stays late at work, goes to our daughter's house for hours or just doesn't come home until late. She often gets in the car and takes off without telling me or my younger daughter where she is going. NO, I do not think she is cheating on me. She may be mean but she is not a cheater.
I am so close to calling it quits but for some reason still love her. It doesn't seem like she wants to spend time with me but wants to be married to me. When we do spend time together, she is always on her phone browsing Facebook or on her iPad playing card games. She seems to find any distraction to not communicate with me. She has asked me to go to counseling with her but I am skeptical. We tried that once and the guy was a complete disaster. The counselor was 3 times divorced and was a complete idiot. He actually caused more harm to our marriage than good. I am open to trying again but want to try this thread to see if anybody else has gone through something similar and has any advice.
I realize this sounds whiny and I am sure I will get some haters but I would really appreciate some advice.
Edit:
The guy that lol'd me and said that I can not expect 100% of her attention. You're right. Don't know why your post disappeared but thanks for the hard advice.

For a little back ground I've been married for 10 years and a few years ago we had something horrific happen in our family and me and my husband both did not cope well at all. We both (mainly me) handled it incredibly badly and our relationship started to break down. Also on mobile and really need to vent so sorry if format is weird and I'm all over the place. Sorry this is long
During this time I got a new job and I loved it and loved my colleagues and made some great friends. During this time "Nice guy" and I started a friendship and I felt comfortable enough talking about my marriage problems. At the time I thought he was just being supportive and not aware of other motives. Eventually "Nice guy" convinced me to cheat on my husband and be with him obviously my husband found out and we took a break.
During this time I started dating "Nice guy" and after a few months I realised I didn't want to be with him, there was no attraction and I found out I hated more about him than I liked and some of it is disgusting such as littering, spitting and the one that really irked me (because I used to work in a fast food chain) was leaving the table a riot because its the workers job to clean it. Anyways During this time I was still in contact with my husband as we had to be due to the family situation and had to know about legal matters.
So I dated "Nice guy" about 6 months maybe less as I had personal things going on as well as mot being attracted and not liking his behaviours. So I broke it off and tried to let him down nicely as possible but unfortunately he mistook this as a "break". Never once did I say break I said finished. I removed his number and didn't have social media at the time apart from reddit and removed him from whatsapp.
During the time we were together my best friend who moved to the otherside of the country so he has never met her added him on Facebook just being curious they never really spoke before this.i just also want to add I'm when I broke it off I got the full shebang of "I don't understand I'm a nice guy" "why would you throw away the one person who ever truly loved you" (lol I've had previous partners and got friends and family that love me) and we can't forget the "I can change."
Anyway I get radio silence for a about a month I get a message on freaking goodreads asking me to contact him because he misses me. I just ignore and delete I've got my own stuff going on and I've really only new him the 9 months I had the job. Next day I get a text saying new number and same misses me. I didn't want to deal with it so I just reply pretending to be someone else and just say they have the wrong number.
Then I get another text the next day and says oh hi OP this is random initial not his. So I have a friend who starts with this initial and she was the last person I had gone out with on a night out she has never had my number ever and wouldn't be able to get it as no one in that friends group have my number and also we weren't super close we would talk now and again. So I say the same thing wrong number and block the number.
Now back to my best friend who lives on the otherside of the country basically he has never met her, never spoke to her until a few weeks ago says he's just wanting to make sure I'm okay my friend replies dryly she's fine. Now to finally get to the title my friend has replied to one message being dry but over the course of the week has sent 16 messages to her which doesn't seem like a lot. I would post but I don't know how to edit the video she sent to protect her name. But these aren't like one word messages these are pages long about how much he misses me and loves me she didn't even open the messages. She accidentally only opened it today and showed me.
Also after I broke it off I left my job due to more illness related than anything else but he was also apart of it and I hate that. I've also still got my work badge that I haven't handed back because I do not want a conversation with him.
Me and my husband and currently going to couples therapy and have talked about everything and trying to fix our marriage my best friend isn't aware of this yet as we've only started the process and don't want People involved yet which is why she hasn't told "Nice guy". I am also very convinced that if he new my address he would turn up. But yeah 16 messages doesn't seem a lot but when there pages long and over a short span of time.
I also don't think she's blocked and deleted him because she tends to just ignore Facebook and let people delete her and she just ignores the messages anyways.
Oh I also wanted to add he admitted to people he was proud that he broke up marriages as his ex was also married. At this point I'm just waiting for a message on some weird app again or another new number. He doesn't know or understand what reddit is so he won't message here but he would know clearly its about him and I would love to just name and shame him.
Sorry its long just had to rant

Now that fans are saying that Ethan may be a casanova wannabe, I thought we can't rule out this scenario. You know what say of ugly mfers: they can and still will cheat if that is who they are as a person. I get this will come across as delulu, but please have fun with me. Picture this:
Not long after Ethan's divorce is finished, Ariana, in desperation for love and better PR, marries this runt. With Wicked on theaters and finally going ~official~, the public quickly forgets how both of them are POS. The media writes silly stories about how Ethan is real life Boq for discount Temu's Galinda, and the stans are ecstatic.
Ethan, previously an "average" working actor doesn't have to hide in shame anymore: He finally gets the reflectors and attention he has always dreamed of. Thanks to the fame of his new wife and the romanticization the media has done of their relationship, he is receiving a lot of love from the public, and newer and bigger work opportunities. He gets an even greater taste of the good life. He thinks all his decisions have been good and have payed off very well.
Buuut, Ariana is still a disturbed and sick womanchild. Months pass by and the honeymoon phase is over. Her tantrums and vapidness start getting to him. Now he has access to high society, he gets to meet all kinds of people, including lots of beautiful women. Sometimes he smiles and greets them effusively and thoughts cross his mind.
Long gone are the days of flirting through facebook as some commoner simp. Now he has money, powerful friends and a newfound confidence. After all, he screwed and married THE Ariana Grande. No woman should be out of his league, right?
He gets to hookup with insta models who draw gifts and money out of him. Ariana discovers it, has a meltdown, does an album, dates yet another weirdo; the usual. The second divorce goes public, stans go for Ethan's throat. Since Ethan's powerful contacts were in fact Ariana's, now he hasn't that good opportunities at his hand. He takes Ariana's money and spends it on drugs and women until insta girls decide he's not good anymore.
Lilly has moved on, and has a new loving partner. Since Ethan became cheap tabloid bait for a while, she knows he is yet again divorced and a bit of a mess. That kinda explains why he has been texting her late at night about nonsense, though she never replies. In hindsight, she is grateful of having divorced him, he was most definitely not the one. Page Six reached both her and Dalton for comment, but they declined.
~The end~

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

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I really don’t know how to make this short and make sense. This literally just happened and I am shaking. I’m just so unbelievably upset and I genuinely need advice and help.
I’m 30 years old and I graduated from college yesterday with my bachelor’s. I went to community college and graduated in 2014 and took some time off. My parents got divorced when I was a baby and my Dad and I used to be close. But when I was about 10, he ended up meeting this woman that he had a baby with. Ever since then, he’s been with multiple woman, got divorced, got cheated on, got married again. It’s a cycle. And every single time I was put last. The stepkids and new woman were his entire world.
My mom helped me with everything in my life. She was a single mom - a hairdresser going back to school for nursing - and she still managed to pay for everything. She would have to take my Dad to court for child support because he wouldn’t pay, my braces couldn’t come off when they were supposed to because they were missing his half of the payment, he never paid for my school, my books - never even offered. He’d throw me $20 from time to time “for gas”. Yet, he’d go to Aruba and all of these other elaborate vacations with his “new family.”
As I got older, I just got sick of trying. He was always late. If we made plans, he always ended up bringing his new woman along. Even now - we barely talk. We maybe see each other once a year. We’ll say “happy birthday” or happy whatever holiday through text. We do not communicate, I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m cordial with him, but I just don’t necessarily see him as a father figure. He was never there. And once my grandma passed away, that was really it. I just never felt like I could be myself with that side of the family, I always felt judged. I just couldn’t fake it anymore and once I realized I was the only one reaching out, I stopped, and once I stopped - I didn’t hear from anyone. So why should I try?
However, I did go to his most recent wedding a few years ago because he seemed to really be more present in my life and I felt like it would be a good thing. Well, after the wedding he went MIA again so I just felt like it was all for the show.
So, I got engaged last July and he texted me. We ended up going out to a dinner a few months later to “celebrate my engagement” - but when I got there I realized it was to also celebrate his other two stepkids who also got engaged after me. Which would’ve been fine, if I didn’t think he wanted to just celebrate me for once. He ended up giving us a $1,000 check which honestly, was truly nice. But I just feel like he thinks money buys back years of non existence. And honestly, he hasn’t asked me about my wedding since - never just calls or texts to see how it’s going - so I doubt he wants to be involved financially or with planning. Not that I think he would, but just the lack of interest he has says it all. Still, I invited him and some of his side of the family to our wedding. I wanted to be nice. I wanted to keep the peace. I knew he wasn’t going to be walking me down the isle, and maybe I should’ve said something the day we were all sitting down for dinner, but I was going to break the news when we actually sat down to plan the wedding (it’s a destination wedding next year, 2025, tbh…we didn’t even think half of them would come).
Now, I didn’t invite him to my graduation ceremony because I only had 4 tickets and I invited my fiance and my mom. Both of whom helped me financially, mentally, and with unwavering support my entire time back in school. My Dad knew I was in school but never asked about it. Never asked if I needed help with paying for anything. He clearly just didn’t care. Again, maybe I should be keeping him up-to-date but I just don’t feel like that’s my job anymore.
I get a Facebook message from my aunt - his sister - that I haven’t seen/heard from in years. Telling me how my Dad saw on Instagram (I shouldn’t have him on there, I know. He never interacts with my stuff so I honestly forget) that I graduated and he’s upset he wasn’t invited. That they all got their wedding invites which is nice, but they feel like they’re all just coming as guests and not family.
I’m just so done. I feel like he’s delusional about him being a nonexistent father. I feel like he tells his side of the family something totally different than what really happened. They’re in different states, how would they actually know? I want to literally cancel my wedding because I don’t even want any of them there. I didn’t to begin with. Which sounds terrible but I just wanted my closest family there. I just felt like a terrible person if I didn’t invite them and now I feel like a terrible person for inviting them.
Please Reddit, AITAH? What can I do? I know I have to reach out to my Dad, considering he didn’t reach out to me to express any of this. I just feel like such a moron.

I wrote a post recently that REALLY upset the trolls (I was getting downvotes almost instantly, i.e. they didn't even read the very long post). Therefore, I'm going to keep sharing this clearly very needed perspective. The more they hate it, the more you know it's getting closer to the truth.
Just like I am male-defeatist (I don't believe men will ever change. In fact, I think they'd like us to keep going from wave to wave of feminism, in the hopeless attempt to fix them. Evidence for this is liberal feminism, which was obviously created for their benefit), I'm also defeatist about human interaction in general.
I have come to realise that other people are the obstacle to happiness. I imagine that 99% of people will disagree with that statement when expressed in a serious way (they might agree when they think it's a flippant joke). This is ironic, given that humans seem to have an insatiable appetite for creating societies that cause maximum misery to the greatest number of people.
Therefore, they would like you to have no means of escape. Separatist movements have always been bastardised (clearly, because they actually threaten order). You may not even describe your miseries, let alone expect meaningful change, AND you can never attempt to leave. You are a toy of someone else to do with as they please.
I'm sometimes very saddened by the number of women who don't understand that feminism had to be thought for just as a concept. It's progress just for something to be seen as a concept - systemic, not just a collection of individual accounts that are the fault of the woman. Many don't seem to understand that e.g. marital r*pe and the age of consent are relatively new concepts - concepts that were seen as 'crazy' before they were created. Women have to deal with horrors right now that will (at least I hope), become 'concepts' in the future.
Why do I mention this? Look at how much effort has to go into even LEGITIMISING the RIGHT to just talk about misery (without being called hysterical, dramatic or have one of those eye roll-inducing phrases "that's just the way it is"). Man-made misery. And still nothing has come of it - we objectively live in a worse world now than our mothers in many ways. Humans are addicted to the patriarchy, it seems. Most women now are unintentionally allies to the patriarchy by supporting liberal, 3rd wave 'feminism'. Do you really think people are any different when it comes to other misery-inducing aspects of the world?
Unfortunately, even radical feminists seem to think this is all just 'socialised'. I've even seen some describe permanent separatism as 'fascism' - oh, the irony. It is not my job to fix men, nor do I have to endure living with them while they choose to remain wholly unfixed. This is why I don't buy the idea that people are not inherently the obstacle to happiness because all these power structures are socialised - okay, cool, so go unlearn them. In the meantime, I'll be off. These people would love to keep us in a perpetual, almost certainly fruitless, loop of trying to educate people who know very well what they're doing. No, it's up to people to convince us that they've changed, not vice versa.
People don't seem to understand that there's no need to socialise inherently. Humans become miserable when they don't socialise, yes; but we are unusual compared to other beings. We've evolved to 'need' to socialise because it was evolutionary. That makes sense. We become 'miserable' because our body is literally perceiving that we are going to die. However, in the modern world, there is no need to socialise - these fears are akin to a phobia. There is no threat.
What's also akin to a phobia is the unconscious desire to pass on your genes. I think most humans can rationalise that it doesn't matter whether your genes are passed on, especially since our planet is going to die in 'x' billion years anyway. None of this matters. Your time alive and happiness are all that matter. If you're very maternal, adopt, as I might.
Both evolution-created desires - to pass on one's genes and to socialise - are not real. They're just 'real' because our genes (and therefore brains) have told us they are real. When it comes to socialising, we're running away from a fake threat (the threat of death) towards the lion's den.
This is why I have hope for AI robots. If what we're told is true, one day they might be just like real people. Assuming that they don't actually act like humans 2.0 - that we can program them to be UNLIKE what we're escaping - this would be a great move for separatism. There's certainly more hope with this avenue than trying to convince people to create gene therapy to 'turn off' the 'need to socialise' genes. But hey, they're too busy creating sex robots first - because a man's desires always come first.
How does all of this link to antinatalism?
We're born into a body that's against us from the very start. We're programmed to survive, not be happy. It's additionally farcical that a lot of those survival mechanisms aren't required in the modern world, and are actually very unhelpful. Currently, the 'benefits' from socialising are not worth it, compared to the phobia we have of dying without it, yet we continue to. Additionally, it's too horrible to bring a child into the world but we continue to because of our programming.
Because we're programmed to survive, we all come to have different, opposing agendas. This is clearest when it comes to anything described as a 'market' - i.e. the dating 'market' or the jobs 'market'. And just like capitalism (the 'market'), all of this creates untold misery that eventually becomes more inefficient and a net negative to the majority of people than a socialist system.
Think about how unnecessarily misery-inducing and inefficient the dating market is: take 2 people who are deemed 'unattractive' by our socialised beauty standards. I don't like talking about being in such ways (attractive/unattractive), but to provide structural analysis I have to talk in patriarchal terms unfortunately. Most people want connection - the majority aren't aromantic or asexual - but we reject connection from people we have compatible personalities with because of these unnecessary socialised beauty standards, combined with our evolutionary 'need' to pass on 'fit' genes - i.e. we don't want our children to also be rejected connection. We assume that these beauty standards will be the same for the next generation, which is often accurate (or they just get worse).
Eventually, these beauty standards (or just standards for people to not be rejected connection, doesn't have to be beauty - it could be intelligence, success, etc.) will become so great that it is not worth bothering trying to connect. This has already started to happen - women are 'going their own way', and quite rightly so. As the patriarchy continues to march forward, stomping on our happiness, the beauty standards/gender role expectations will become ever greater, and our treatment increasingly worse (because these are not just concepts in media - it's propaganda that objectively affects how we're treated by every man), more and more women will see that it's not worth it. The downsides and risk will continue to pile up against the supposed 'benefits' - like they even need to get worse.
Therefore, it is not worth being natalist because the world in its current state is hostile to happiness. We have a loneliness epidemic because people are not reaching out, due to the anticipation of being treated poorly and because of capitalism (not having the money to buy a house and raise children). Socialised or genetic? I don't know. I don't care. It's not changing anytime soon either way.
I'm going to assume that people are going to call this 'crazy' or start with the im14andthisisdeep predictable comebacks. I don't care - I've never read such a nuanced, genuinely deep analysis such as this. Autistic people are always at the forefront of social change. This is another reason I'm people-defeatist - all the people in the world, and I still have to create my own 'media', as such, because no one else is out there saying what I'm thinking. I can't find anything that isn't wishy-washy and just meh online or in books.
I'm also going to assume that people think I'm 'salty' from being rejected, given that a lot of this is about the 'dating market'. Please think what you want, I know I'm pretty lol. I got engaged when I was 18. And no, I've never been cheated on. This is called having empathy for other people & recognising that the system is stupid on so many levels. Besides, as standards continue to rise (and they will), the people who were previously calling us 'salty' or 'crazy' will start to change their tune.
Final note:
A little while later, I realised that this could be compared to inceldom, because I'm talking about beauty standards and giving up on the opposite sex/people in general. I find these comparisons to inceldom in general hilarious - please, please keep your sex! You couldn't pay me to have it lol.
Incels are men who don't want to get rid of beauty standards whatsoever, only for men - or just for them. Go on any incel forum and you'll see men discussing how women look - women much more beautiful than themselves - in the most brutal terms. This is why Margot Robbie was infamously deemed 'mid' by men on the internet, as a backlash to the hilariously-fruitless 'feminist' Barbie movie. Incels also aren't talking in terms of connecting with others - it's just about sex. It's always about sex with men.

So I'm not sure how to even go about telling this tale. It's something I've never even tried to do, not from the beginning, at least. I guess we'll start with how I first fell in love. I was young. 18. I'd never had a boyfriend, never had a boy look twice at me, at least to my knowledge. So my first love became the boy I was around so often. My brother's best friend at the time. Sick, I know. He was the first boy to ever show me affection. The first guy that ever made me feel sexy and beautiful. I fell slowly bit by agonizing bit. He held back for the longest time for a noble reason, I thought. He cared for me, but he and my brother were so close. I went down the route of okay, well, then let's just have sex. Nothing more. I was 18 and still a virgin. He would say things like, "I can't do that. I can't use you. I'd break you anyways you couldn't handle it." Funny, looking back, it was all its own little lore. Long story short, we finally had sex. Life moved forward, and I fell in love, and I thought maybe he was too. I was wrong. If you hadn't already guessed. I became a toy, for I'd say a year, maybe 2. Every day, I begged and asked, "Can't we just be together? You care about me. You say you do. So let's just be together. Let's tell everyone, " And each day I was met with a fight. "We're not together. We never will be!" Time went by, and this fight became the norm. And fights about me talking to other guys' fights about me not coming around when he wanted. I never got to come when I wanted. I only came when called. Like a dog. Again, time passed. The cycle continued. Drugs got involved, which only made things worse. I felt neglected. I talked to people everyone told me to move on. So I did every so slightly. I fucked my other brothers best friend. Great sister here. Trust me, I know. Of Crouse, the first guy found out, and things got crazy. he threatened me. I got scared and called my sister in law aka my very best friend. She saved me that night. And for my best guess, about 4 years, we never spoke he left me be. He moved on. after making my life mental torture for 2 years, it was like I disappeared. Which was fine, really better than you'd ever expect. my sister in law threatened him, of course, so maybe that had something to do with it, and he was intensely afraid of my brothers. And so again, time passed, and I dated other people. Nothing ever worked out. All of them as painful as last and just as filled with bad choices. All until one summer, he came back. Last summer, I was beginning again. Like I've done so many times. I was back at my first job again looking for a fresh start from the beginning. That's when I heard from him for the first time in a long time. My brother and he had stopped being friends maybe a year before. My brother called him manipulative and a dick to say the least. But when he contacted me, I felt things had changed. That he had finally changed and for the better. the fact he was contacting me again wanting me back, I thought it was fate. I'd be with my first love, the man who took everything from me, we'd get married and be together. The whole time yard's. Fucking stupid that's what I was. What I am.. We fell back together slowly but surly. I fell in love, and he got control. The summer passed in a wave of drugs. He never told me he loved me he never put forth any effort to be near my family. All he wanted was control over me. He shrunk away at the idea of coming to my home being near my brother he ex best friend and my roommate. Time passed, and I realized I wasn't much more than a bank for him. I'd forgotten to mention in the time we spent apart he hadn't worked for 4 years. His mom took care of it all. I did everything I could. I was there all the time I made food, I cleaned the house, and I kept his dog fed. I tried to show him everything. It never mattered. The only thing that mattered was how I "cheated" on him all those years ago. I had never thought of it as cheating seeing as he said we weren't together and loved to talk about how hot other girls were. He would bring up past relationships while he and I weren't together like I got with these people just to antagonize him. So as summer went on, I got exhausted. So fucking exhausted how do you show someone you love them when all they see are the faults? He well really I can't just blame him, but we drained my bank account buying drugs. I got tired of it, and I left. I told him to leave me, be that I was done being used. This was around Thanksgiving. He didn't take it well. I blocked him after about the 30th message. That didn't stop him he messaged through friends Facebook or with their phone numbers. I blocked so many people. But it didn't stop the messages kept coming. And so by Christmas, I caved. Don't know why he'd admitted to coming out and driving by my house told me how he could see my Christmas tree in my window. And still I caved. Because who would do this for someone they didn't love? Who would keep trying for someone they wanted to treat badly? I got my answer. I went back only to be accused of cheating and lying. He'd call me a bitch and whore and a cunt. He'd done all this in the messages, too, before the begging started. I should've listened and not fallen for the begging. But he'd tell me all I wanted to hear how he loved me and wanted to be with me wanted my kids. So I fell for this over and over and over again. Until not long ago just a few months I tried to leave, and we got into a fight. I wanted to go with him to ride with his friends. He didn't want me to. Would've been fine with that honestly but as soon as he saw I was disappointed the fight started. I tried to leave his home. we yelled his neighbors threatened to call the police. I ran he hit my car tried to yank the doors open. Once I finally thought I'd gotten away he started chasing me. Chased me down his road at probably 70 in a 45 mind you and swerved in front of me almost wrecking us both. He proceeded to get out of the car ignoring me sobbing and started screaming at me through the window and asking me to come back. Once I agreed he proceeded to do burnouts in front of me. I followed him back he took me riding with his friends I got what I wanted in the end I guess. But after this I got scared. If you can do that what else can you do? I left again not long later because it just didn't seem to matter what I did. nothing was enough. I left I blocked him. It wasn't enough he found ways to contact me. And today he contacted family of mine to get ahold of me. He waited out near my house by a restaurant and followed me home. I ran I didn't know what to do I didn't want him and my brother to get into a fight because no matter what, I still somehow care about him. He stopped me in the middle of the road wouldn't leave until I agreed to unblock him and to give him a hug. I feel disgusting he kissed me. I want him to leave me alone. I know this is my fault I led him on again and again by coming back. I just wanted him to change. I wanted him to love me. I just wasn't enough and I won't be ever. Why won't he just let me go? He could move on and find someone new to use. I know I have a problem too I've gone back again and again and made it normal for him. I just want to be free now though this has gone on so long. I know he doesn't love me I just don't know how he can say it when he doesn't. I'm not sure what I'm really asking for here maybe validation or maybe just encouragement that I'm doing the right thing. I coukd go into more detail really he's done so much to me but it's hard looking back. I just I really need to know that me leaving is the right thing.

M51, F48, My Dday was 17 years ago, nov 2007. A single, non emotional chance encounter nearly destroyed my life. It was my choice, and I make no excuses. We reconciled and moved on.
But, did we?
I look around at what others have. Love, happiness, friendship with their spouses. Reddit and Facebook can be so damaging to your mind sometimes: seeing what others have and what you do not. I imagined i had these things, or at least I thought i did sometimes. Various emotional events have happened to me this and last week. I have met people here who have come to mean a lot to me. Maybe too much, and in ways that i did not expect or intend. Love has many forms, and can strike when you least expect it. This weeks events forced me to look inward and outward at my life. It's been hard. Truth can be ugly. It is easier to turn away. So easier.
The other day, my wife and I were talking while we made dinner. She made a comment that she figures I cheated more than once, but she never caught me. It was off-hand, flippant almost. At that instant, I knew I had failed. Both in R and as a husband. In a flash, in that moment, i recalled that I can't remember the last time my wife said she loves me, although I tell her that same thing often. Am I "in love with her", or do I merely "love her"? Thats a good question. I hurt her so badly. How could then i ever say that i love her with a straight face? I thought about all the things I could have done. Or should have done better. I don't blame her. She feels what she feels. Because of me.
Should I have left all those years ago? Maybe. Was I even up to the task of real reconciliation, then? I really don't know. My guess is no.
I am not the same man that I was when we married in 2002. I am not the same man that I was in 2007 when i cheated. I was 35 then, very much like Emperor Cuzco from the Disney movie "The Emperors New Groove" (my favorite movie). now I am almost 52. Older but wiser. I understand what love is a lot better. Emotions are more intense for me now than ever before. Apart from losing a child, of which I know too well, to be in love with someone who does not love us back is the worst possible feeling imaginable, at least for me. How much worse when the focus of that love betrays us. I can't even imagine that.
Reconciliation is hard. It's so easy to rug sweep. Especially if you have a partner who is loving and forgiving. They can become umwitting participants in that very act. But, rug sweeping only delays the inevitable. Eventually, you become roommates. That is a kind of living death, but we don't see that immediately. One day, you will have to pull up the rug and vacuum what's underneath.
I am vacuuming my garbage now. Money, possessions, they mean nothing if you don't have love and someone to share your thoughts with. Someone to connect fully with. There is no joy in being the emperor without an empress to share it with. I don't know what to do anymore. You can't turn back time. You can't bring back the dead.
Reconciliation must be total. You must feel it in your core. You can't do it partially. It takes 100 percent effort every day. For how long? Who knows. If you don't have the courage to do this, then walk away. Don't keep your partner as a hostage. Read, read a lot. Then, apply those teachings fully.
This is, and someone else, new and special to me, is what I was thinking about this morning, as the rain slowly falls.

I finished another Radiant Dawn run on the hardest difficulty and felt the bug to talk about tier listing again. Thanks for indulging me. My list:
https://i.imgur.com/8d4aPNg.png
Some commentary, from worst to best.
F Tier:
Lyre - This character has literally nothing going for her. Lyre has terrible bases, the worst class in the game, bad growths, and no endgame potential beyond being a mediocre filler unit. I can't imagine a worse character in Fire Emblem. Maybe Sophia. Even if you wanted to do an all-Laguz run, she can't crack the top 10. She isn't even force deployed on any maps. I cannot think of a single positive thing to say about Lyre.
Fiona - With even worse bases than Lyre and a baffling availability schedule, Fiona should be the worst unit in the game, but at least her class is solid. Female Silver Knight has bad caps overall, but good weapon types, speed, and a top-tier mastery talent. If you can endure the grind, you can make a unit with real contributions in the endgame. I feel like the game designers hate this unit, though; they make her arrive in a map themed around rescuing, but don't even let you recruit her to do any rescuing. The very next map is indoors. After that, we go to a swamp which is once again themed around rescuing, but Fiona isn't even available! After that? Another indoor map! Then another swamp! Then more cliffs! 3-13 is considered an indoor map and penalizes horse units! Literally the first map with wide open spaces to take advantage of cavalry classes that allows you to deploy Fiona is in Part 4. Her class level and bases are even bugged (allegedly). I can't believe how this game is engineered to ruin Fiona, and it's a miracle that she isn't the worst unit in the entire game.
Kyza - While he can be crafted into a tolerable lategame unit (better than many on this list who rank higher), there just isn't any reason to do so. He's got a terrible class (only cat laguz are worse), bad bases, and joins in a big pile of units that are a hundred times better at everything he can do. Need a tank? You've already got Brom and Gatrie on the team, and they don't untransform halfway through enemy phase. Kyza has the crown for most forgettable, pointless unit, but at least if you do train him for the experience, you get a unit that can kind of do something late game.
Makalov - Easily the worst of all cav units, any chance Makalov has to be good late game is betrayed by his poor class caps. He nearly escaped F tier by having a few useful turns in Part 2, but after some consideration, I honestly think he's more of a liability than helpful. The only units he can reliably hurt in Geoffrey's Charge are the ones that give you bexp if you spare them. I don't even like putting out fires with him; let the yellow units do it, so they don't run off and get themselves killed. Makalov is just a trainwreck of a character. At least he gets Sol.
Pelleas - As a secret character with a completely unique weapon type, you'd think unlocking him gets you access to some outstanding lategame growth unit with a big payoff for all your hard work. Nope. You get the worst mage in the game instead. While I give him a glimmer of usefulness for the potential to learn staves, you have to invest heavily in him to get there and it's just pointless when even Tormod can do the same thing for cheaper. I can't imagine a run where I'm relying on Pelleas as my 12th string healer for the tower. If you haven't really looked into the numbers, and you decide one day "I'm doing a Pelleas run!" you're going to find his bases shocking. What were they thinking here?
D Tier:
Sephiran - Kind of an easter egg at the end of the game, I considered not rating him at all (like the Burger King), but eh, he contributes something against Ashera I guess. Can't say much more here. Maybe, in an ironman, if you've lost all your non-Micaiah staffbots, you'll be glad when he joins? For barely squeezing out a microniche he escapes F tier.
Sanaki - Maybe I'm underrating her, but I just don't see the point. She needs heavy investment (particularly in seraph robes) to be able to survive the bosses of the tower. When she joins, she's just another subpar mage who doesn't even have the decency to learn staves. Her one saving grace is that she doesn't count against your 10 tower selections, so if you slap a paragon on her and get her battle ready, she can bless Meteor or something and make some contributions. The resources (including combat xp) you pour into her are better used on your real tower units.
Astrid - I considered dumping her in F tier. What the heck happened to the star paragon unit of Path of Radiance? Somehow, she's turned into a turd of a growth unit with atrocious bases, mediocre growths, and wacky availability. I only pulled her out of the gutter because of her class, and even with really awful strength and defense caps, she can turn into a solid tower unit. I've used her before and found she was legitimately not a waste of space as early as 4-1, where she was popping falco knights. I could see her be a good bird sniper in the Izuka map. Still, like all bad growth units, she's just not worth the effort.
Kurthnaga - While he can be fun to train, again, why? He provides the least useful of all dragon auras and just takes XP from your many units who still need it. Maybe make a Kurth juggernaut once for the experience, and then never again. If he joined at the start of Part 4, I can imagine him getting boosted a couple tiers, but nah, you can't be picking up new projects this late in the game.
Meg - Often times called the worst unit in the game, she is...somewhat underrated... as a midgame tank. A project unit for sure, and not worth it, but Meg does grow into a strong unit around 1-E and for all of Part 3. She can solo Ragnell Ike and the field of laguz in 3-13 pretty easily. You've got better options for that, but I do recommend experiencing a Meg run once just to see that it can be done. Ultimately, though, Meg can't escape D tier because her awful class caps betray her in the end, and her best attribute (speed) gets cut off at the knees.
Vika - The Tormod Squad all suffer from the availability curse, but Vika has it worst, since she desperately needs training to be viable at all. As if laguz weren't bad enough already, they can't take Discipline or upgrade weapons by any means other than the long, dark strike rank grind, and Vika has no time at all to do it. That leaves only her joining maps to recommend her, and she can do things like poke-canto or rescue villagers in the swamp, so that's something. If you force yourself to train her, she does gain incredible speed, but hitting twice for 0 isn't impressive. Her class also has cat-like gauge drain, and she can't gain any experience in part 1 due to bizarre laguz xp math, leaving Vika no angles to improve.
Stefan - Thrown in at the end like an afterthought, Stefan is (I would argue) the worst of all the Tower Gotohs, that is, the units that just join at the very end to make sure you have high level units for the tower. With bad luck and a fairly bad class, the only reason I can recommend bringing Stefan is if you want an Alondite unit and you don't like Renning for some reason. He just doesn't serve any purpose. He even joins in a map that locks down his movement. Take his sword and bench him.
Ena/Gareth - I put them together because they fill the same role: buffing your units to fight Ashera. While Gareth is legendary for getting wrecked by magic, Ena is arguably worse, as Ashera's physical attack can kill her too. While that's not nothing, I can't justify taking someone out of D tier when their entire purpose is to help a faster clear in one map, and you don't even really need them.
C tier:
Tauroneo - I had a hard time rating Big T. He pops in to dominate just a couple of chapters before disappearing until part 4. He's the worst Marshall, but gets boosted a tier over Meg because of his efforts in part 1. Marshall is a pretty bad class, but if you want one anyway, you've got two much better options that have tons of availability, so don't bother.
Heather - In a game that doesn't care much about thiefy stuff, Heather just doesn't have a key role to fill. She gets you a couple of stat boosters, which you can promptly feed to your units that cap everything anyway. I'll give her a leg up out of the worst tiers because she can rescue you in Oliver's Mansion if you ran out of chest keys, and the Fortify Staff is really, really good.
Muarim - Unlike Vika, he dominates his few part 1 maps, and he's still viable in Part 4 with his bases. Not bad! Unfortunately, with so little time to train him, you really have to invest heavily to get him tower-ready, and why bother? He's got an awful class and competes with much better units. I suppose he gets a slot in an all-laguz run.
Tormod - He kills that obnoxious wyvern rider on the swamp map. I give him a whole tier for that, because man, that thing is annoying. Beyond that, he's helpful for several part 1 maps, and he can be trained up to use staves for the tower.
Leonardo - The worst member of a great class, Leonardo will absolutely wreck with Double Bow, but the road to get there is harrowing. Only his prf bow's speed boost gets him out of D tier. Maybe even F. He's just such a liability for so long that I can't recommend him.
Ilyana - Strange that in a game where availability is so restricted, the number one most available character is so bad! She was great in PoR, too, but thunder magic has been substantially nerfed. I give her a lot of credit for her join map, which is arguably the hardest map in the game, and if you really work hard to level her, she gets staves with an excellent magic score. As with most units this far down, though, she's just outclassed by all the better options who do the same thing, and you don't need that many backup staff units.
Ranulf - Force deployed for what feels like a dozen chapters, Ranulf mostly hangs around to shove people and occasionally do some damage. He's got the worst class in the game, but unlike Lyre, has great bases that give him a nice little midgame role and then not much else. If you manage to feed him experience in Part 4, he's somewhat endgame viable, as long as you don't have much competition for the laguz gem.
Nealuchi - Like Ranulf, the old bird has a bright spot in the middle of the game where he's got some utility, but is best ditched when his time is up. I find him essential for 2-P and 2-1, a good contributor for 2-E, and then...well, that's a C tier unit.
Kieran - Bummer that he's so reduced here versus PoR, but at least his class gets better caps than most cavs, and he's viable as Geoffrey's sidekick for those odd chapters in Part 2/3. I can't hate him. He's easy to train and turns into a viable, if underwhelming, tower unit, but joining Ike's crew so late in Part 3 hurts him, as he is immediately outclassed by like two dozen people that you've been training for ages.
Lucia - She gets a big boost for being essential for 2-1 and viable in Part 4. If I was going to train a bad trueblade, I'm picking her over Stefan at least, but her lack of availability and bad class push her to the middle tiers.
Renning - An unfairly hated tower gotoh, Renning is your best freebie Alondite user, and has tolerable enough bases to hang out and contribute with your actual good units. He's just mediocre compared to anyone you've actually built up yourself, and he's clearly worse than Giffca and the royals. Many people do their ironmans with all royals banned for the challenge, and if that's you, Renning suddenly becomes a valuable backup unit that I would maybe bump another tier. As-is, he's just mid.
Volke - Ditto what I said for Renning, except he uses the Baselard instead, doubles auras without help, and can instakill people. I usually take Stillness off and give it to Micaiah, though, so his durability is a problem. Volke is like a super-trueblade and worth considering if you are low on viable tower units.
Giffca/Mufasa - The lion king and his shadow are virtually the same unit, except that Giffca has to use a laguz gem to transform for some reason (Guess he was borrowing his boss's formshift scroll last game?). I usually refuse to use them on principle, but I can't count that against them. They absolutely wreck the Tower but serve no other purpose. As the best of the Tower Gotohs, I can't justify higher than C.
Nasir - The best of the dragon auras, Nasir enables some aura one-rounding strategies that make a big difference. Still, we're talking about one dang map. When I made this I struggled with whether or not he should be down with Gareth and Ena, but I'm giving him a lot of credit for his special aura and his invincibility versus magic.
Sigrun/Tanith - The lesser two of the three Seraph Knights, they have one of the best classes in the game, but mediocre bases and growths. There's only one Wishblade, unfortunately, and while Seraph Knight is the best class to use it, that just means there's no reason to bring multiple of them unless you want to goof off with triangle attack. If Marcia turned out poor or you didn't use her, I recommend grabbing Sigrun (higher base level) for the Wishblade and training her up in Part 4. If you aren't training these units, they still get credit for flying utility in the desert.
Ulki/Janaff - Can't decide which of the twins are better here. With insane bases and no xp gain at all, these guys show up in part 3 to help shove people and generally help out when someone is in trouble. While they stay viable to the end (to the delight of the zero percent growth community), I don't get too excited by their lategame contributions. The laguz gauge is their Achilles Heel in part 3; I just can't justify relying on them.
Bastian/Oliver - My hottest take of this tier list, I have argued for a long time that Oliver is underrated as your Renault/Yoder character; that is, your staffbot gotoh who fills in to rescue ironmans. Bastian serves the same role, but slightly better. If your Micaiah is bad or untrained and you haven't leveled any of the project mages, these guys are your strongest staff users.
Devdan - Just as forgettable here as in Path of Radiance, Devdan suffers from bad bases and availability, and as the worst member of a meh class, there's just no reason to invest in him. I give him a lot of credit for major contributions in two key chapters without being a liability, and if you do train him, his superior caps make him arguably better than Kieran in lategame. Oh, and in part 3, he can climb that one ledge to keep it open. That's...something.
Calill - Helping out on a couple more midgame maps than Devdan, Calill is never good, but she can chip a bit here or there and usually isn't a liability. Anyone who can do anything in Elincia's Gambit gets a push in my book. If you do wind up making good use of her and slap on a crown, she's another backup staff unit with okay stats.
Lethe/Murderkaiser - The cat and tiger duo once again shows up midgame with good stats, bad growths, and a spot waiting for them on the bench. I find that they make a great contribution in part 2, remain viable in part 3, and...well, they exist in part 4 I guess. Mordecai can be built into a viable tank thanks to having vastly more time to grow compared to Muarim, and better everything compared to Kyza. Lethe has dramatically better strength than her idiot sister. Too bad the bad classes keep them out of the good tiers.
B tier:
Edward - We're getting out of the riffraff and into some viable units. While Edward is one of the weaker Dawn Brigade growth options, he is super helpful in numerous key early chapters where you desperately need it, and he can grow into a complete powerhouse. Just watch his growths as he naturally levels throughout part 1, and if he fails to pop off, bench him. If he crushes those strength and defense growths, though, he's an excellent choice for a Part 3 carry, as he's on the shortlist of units who can solo 3-13 - not the best one, but much easier to level than Meg, for example. His luck sword is I guess the worst of the DB prf weapons, but it's still decent for a long time, before you toss it for Alondite. If he didn't fall off in late part 1, he'd be A tier. Also, he's got a bad class and competes with at least one or two better units for that precious Alondite.
Soren - With magic nerfed in this game, Soren has no chance of breaking into the highest tiers, but he sure tries. I'd argue he is the best mage in the game. He's not too difficult to train, hits high magic numbers, and turns into the game's best staffbot (arguably) by endgame. While I'd rather bring a free Bastian than a high effort Soren to the tower, Ike's BFF gets a big boost from his super high availability. I never feel like he's a drag on the party.
Rhys - Like Soren, but you don't need to wait for staves, alright, Rhys probably snatches the prize of lategame staffbot from Soren, but not by much. He's hurt by awful physicals, which can make him seem like a liability, but your list of part 3 staff units is sparse, so he's going to contribute a lot every run, no matter what you have planned for him.
Mist - She's much weaker than Rhys in every way, but when she promotes, she gets Canto, which is wonderful for a frail unit. While Florete is bugged (or sucks by design, depending on who you ask) and there is no Sonic Sword, Mist is still viable as a mobile healer who won't let you down through the entire game. I know I keep saying different people are the "best lategame staffbot" but I swear this is the last one, it's really Mist.
Zihark/Volug - I paired them for nearly identical availability and the legendary earth/earth affinity, which gives them a niche in certain difficult part 3 maps where their contributions are invaluable. Neither character scales well into endgame (there are better options for trueblade) and they aren't invincible like Big T, but at least they show up for work. Use them as Jeigans in part 1 and tanks in part 3, then say goodbye.
Micaiah - Often called the worst lord in the game, she...probably deserves it. Oh no, I'm about to call her the actual best staffbot, aren't I? No, she's difficult to raise up due to being such a frail liability all game and having forced promotions. She gets big credit for a couple key Thani nukes early game, and she's a force deployed physics bot from 3-13 onward. Have I overrated her? Maybe, but I like healers.
Geoffrey - With a couple chapters designed to make him look good, Geoffrey is essential to clear the game, but his class caps keep him from getting into the elite levels. I find that he levels quickly in part 4 (without paragon, even) and holds his own. I really wish he joined with Kieran and the others. By endgame, he's a viable filler unit.
Nolan - A godsend in the early chapters, the Dawn Brigade would have died in the cradle without Nolan. He gets an amazing prf weapon and is easily viable as a part 3 carry, but I find him inadequate to solo 3-13 or reliably fight Ike. His strength and defense growth is just too poor, and he lacks the avoid to make up for it. Still, he has the best beorc class caps in the game, and after being reliable and useful for so long, you can reward him with careful bexp abuse to make sure he can slam the tower bosses with 62 attack power. There's something satisfying about seeing a human inflict lion-like damage to gods.
Laura - I always see her at the bottom of tier lists, but your only healer in part 1 (Micaiah doesn't count) deserves some love. She's a huge liability on the field, but think about how much harder Part 1 gets if she dies. She stays viable in part 3 (I usually savior backpack her with somebody) and is, yes, another top tier lategame staffbot. For being an essential unit for so long, and for having endgame potential, I can't see lower than B tier.
Simba - The lion prince needs paragon and some effort to get rolling, but boy does he! As an acceptable alternative to those cheating royal laguz, Skrimir is just an unstoppable powerhouse who can solo entire maps in part 4 if you let him. Until the white dragons show up, Skrimir is never in danger from anything other than his own stupid laguz gauge, which is why he's not in A tier. If you haven't tried slapping paragon and adept on Skrimir and letting him eat all of 4-P, try it once, it's hilarious.
Royal Trio - I put Nailah ahead of the bird brains for her availability, but they all have the same role: hold your hand through part 4. Tibarn can actually die to the crossbow guy in 4-2, which makes me laugh, and Naesala is downright mortal by comparison. I like to leave Pass on Nailah from part 1 and give her chest keys for Oliver's Mansion. All of these units are insanely strong and help trivialize the tower, which is why I don't bring them.
Singing Siblings - I know, putting Rafiel lower on the list than the others is blasphemy, but he's barely around through the whole game. He's widely accepted as the best tower bird (though I prefer Reyson), but other than Oliver's Mansion, what hard missions does he help out on? Rafiels' role is to help fight dragons and gods, which is a pretty good resume, so he's up this high. Leanne wins my heart for Elincia's Gambit alone, but she also helps make the bridge and desert maps more tolerable.
Marcia - A hot take here, but Marcia has a lot of availability and a positive, if underwhelming, contribution through most of it. By lategame, she turns into an excellent flier (Seraph Knights are truly amazing) and is, in my opinion, the single best Wishblade candidate in the entire game. Marcia never crushes this game like she does Path of Radiance, but I'm here for her.
Boyd - Notoriously tough to get rolling, Boyd has those insane Reaver caps and a lot of time to reach them. While he's just a project unit in part 3, he does crest that hill eventually and turn into a complete wrecking ball who trivializes the rest of the game. He easily hits 40 strength and isn't that tough to train up to 35 speed with bexp. He's the game's best Urvan user (as his caps are easier to hit than Nolan) and I only don't put him higher because it's a bit of a struggle to get him going.
A tier:
Rolf - People are going to lose their minds over this one. I'm always astonished how many people don't know that Rolf has 75% strength growth! Snipers are easy to level and have a great payoff, meaning that even if Shinon wins your double bow, you'll never regret bringing a second killer deadeye through the whole game. Imagine if Leonardo had Rolf's growths. Little bro is like Dmitri, but in the Wii era. Don't sleep on Rolf. He's amazing.
Nephenee - Sometimes overrated, sometimes underrated, Nephenee has top notch availability and is an essential unit for several chapters, and while she can get lost in the Greil Mercs spam, she quickly turns into a stellar well-rounded infantry unit who can carry the game. She's never bad and turns into another excellent Wishblade user, who I only put below Marcia for the tower due to lack of flying/canto. Due to high availability and never needing particular training attention, though, Nephenee skirts into the top tiers.
Mia - Unlike Path of Radiance, Mia starts viable and quickly takes off like a rocket, turning into your best Trueblade. Lacking only one strength in her final caps versus Edward, she's easier to level and, imo, your best overall Alondite unit. Because she is around so long and always helpful, she gets a bump.
Brom/Gatrie - Brom almost gets the nod for being an essential unit for so Part 2, but his falloff is noticeable, and his endgame potential as a Marshall is worse than, say, Nephenee. Gatrie picks up that slack and remains as one of your best Greil Mercs for the rest of the game. I could see someone valuing Brom's early contributions more and swapping this order. Both units suffer from the usual Marshall problems: bad caps, bad movement, competing with far better units for the best items.
Titania - The stalwart ride-or-die arch-paladin of Tellius, Titania doesn't carry hard like she does in the previous game, but she's immediately dominant and stays that way virtually forever. She has reasonable class caps (compared to other cavs, anyway) and is fine to bring to the tower, but you will notice a dropoff. Regardless of tower viability, she's so damn strong for so long that I can't rank her any lower.
Oscar - While he starts weak and is imprisoned by truly awful tier 2 caps, Oscar is still solid and provides that lovely earth affinity through a ton of chapters. Once he breaks into tier 3, he's immediately one of your best units, and stays that way for a long time. I almost rated Titania higher, but I think Oscar surpasses her and is a candidate for an early crown. If not for those tier 2 caps, he'd be S tier.
Shinon - Embarrassed by the "9 strength incident" in Path of Radiance, Shinon hit the gym and turned into a powerhouse from the moment he joins until the end of the game. He's never not great, and he only gets better as he gets his outstanding third tier caps and SS rank weapon. While he usually needs bexp to hit str and def caps, that's more a function of the highish caps than any weaknesses in growths. Shinon is almost breaking into S tier. If he was a flying archer, he'd be the next Haar.
Aran - The wrongest opinion in all of Fire Emblem is that Aran is bad. Just wrong, wrong, wrong. Aran starts as a weak unit among numerous other weak units, is easily trainable, and quickly pops off - 75% strength growth, again! - to turn into a juggernaut that surpasses everyone except the royals. By Part 3, Aran has made the rest of the Dawn Brigade redundant, and by 3-13, he's a walking god. I always laugh when I hear commentators talk about how difficult part 3 is, then minutes later, mention how bad Aran is. Well, of course it's hard if you don't use the best unit! I only keep Aran out of S tier because of DB availability and because his class caps keep him from stomping as hard in the tower, where he rarely doubles.
S tier:
Jill - Flying utility gives her the bump into the upper echelons. Slightly harder to train than Aran, she benefits immensely from the str and def items (which are useless to Aran, who caps immediately) and turns into another juggernaut. While she stays weaker than Aran throughout most of the game, the mobility is a factor, and she grows into one of your best endgame units. If you had to average the two games together, Jill is probably the best character in Tellius. Or Titania, it's hard to say, but it's definitely a canto redhead.
Sothe - Play this game: a trickster god deletes one character from your rom, permanently. Seize squares and game over conditions get reassigned, but you now have to play the rest of the game without that unit, forever. What's the absolute worst unit to lose? I cannot think of a worse unit to lose than Sothe. Is the Dawn Brigade even possible without him? I'm sure someone has done it. After making the game playable, Sothe falls off hard, but he can be trained into a sub-par Volke if you want. I contend that Tellius literally could not be saved without him. So why isn't he the absolute top tier? Well, I guess I'm weighing the rest of the game higher, but I'm not 100% convinced that's right.
Elincia - What a glow-up from PoR! The devs nerf her in 2-P to keep it difficult, but as soon as she gets her weapon, she turns into a flying healer who also wrecks things. I think she's a lock for the tower, even if you are dedicating six tower slots to royals and lions. While a weaker staffbot than some others I mentioned, she's good enough. And she flies! Elincia is just awesome.
Reyson - Speedrunners and LTCers prefer Rafiel for a better Turn 1 against Ashera, but I like Reyson's high movement and canto, and you have laguz gems by that point. As for the rest of the game, Reyson has by far the best availability of all herons - which isn't saying much, I know. I just wish this game wasn't so weird with dancers.
Ike vs Haar for the championship - People have debated between Ike and Haar since the game came out. I put Ike 2nd because, while he carries harder with Ragnell, he's still a normal (albeit stronk) infantry swordlocked unit for a long time before then. Haar saves your bacon in Part 2 (twice) and then carries Part 3 just for fun afterwards. He also has the best boss convos in 2-P and 4-E-2. Ike gets the boss convo award in 4-P, so this most critical of category tips the scales toward Haar. The real answer is availability + domination = top of the top tier. As if Haar wasn't stupid OP enough, he gets the best beorc defense cap in the entire game, because why not? He even beats out the Marshalls on Strength! And his mastery skill is better! Honestly, what were they thinking here? While Ragnell Ike is the strongest unit in the game, Totality Ike is only the second strongest.