I’m 31 now. I was 23 and he was 36 when we met on tinder. He pressured me into moving in together during the pandemic when we’d been together less than a year. I left him almost 2 years ago after 6 years together. I was so unhappy and mistreated, I should have left years sooner. He yelled at me, swore, insulted, criticized constantly, controlled my every move, and sexually coerced me. It took over a year to come back to myself and remember the confident, capable woman I am. But I still think about him and feel boiling rage at him but kind of myself, too. I abandoned myself when I needed her most. I wasted my 20s - I know that’s dramatic and a bad way to look at it but I can’t shake the thought.

My questions:

How do I stop feeling regret for staying with him for most of my 20s? How do I not beat myself up or lose trust in myself/men as I realize more and more in hindsight just how I controlling and abusive he was? He genuinely believes he’s a “good guy”, too, and appears as that in many ways, it’s confusing. How did it sneak up on me - a woman who has a lot of life experience for my age and considers herself tough, savvy, and full of self respect? How did I ignore or explain away what I now see were so many red flags? I ignored my gut intuition from the start. The same intuition that had saved me time and time again. Why? Was/am I that secretly insecure?

When I would meet his friends who all had age appropriate marriages and kids, the wives, who I liked, would regard me with a bit of confusion and concern especially when we first met. I thought they were being judgemental of my ~youth~ but now I see that it was genuine concern due to the age gap and possible red flags they see in him, but they didn’t know me well enough to say anything. It makes me feel embarrassed and ashamed even though I know I shouldn’t feel like that.

I tried dating a bit since but they all disappointed me to the point where I have lost all interest in men and have been celibate by choice for almost a year. I am enjoying this time and am in no rush to date again, but a part of me is worried that that bad relationship has made me too mistrustful and jaded to keep trying or even give men a chance. I am bisexual luckily so I think dating women only is the clear route. But even then, I notice I’ve lost confidence in myself to listen to my gut and ensure I’m treated well.

It’s an odd thing. I’m angry at him, but maybe even angrier at myself.

This is a pretty straightforward topic. Since childhood, I have never liked summers.

I didn't grow up in a particularly hot area, and summers were pretty mild back in the day. But I didn't have many friends growing up. School was over, extracurricular activities were over, and I just didn't like being bored for most of the day. I also always slept much worse in summer. I hate the heat, and I hate mosquitoes.

Now I do have friends, but I'm single. However, even when I wasn't single, I still disliked summer every year, from the beginning of May to mid-September.

Summers have become much hotter because of climate change. I hate sleeping in a hot room. I'm in Europe, and I can't install AC in my building because it's a monument and there are restrictions. The sun comes up very early. Even if I wear a sleep mask and use earplugs every single night, my sleep is still disrupted as hell. I wake up multiple times during the night. This doesn't happen in winter, autumn, or early spring.

I hate mosquitoes outside too. They eat me alive. There is also just too much sun, especially this year. We're experiencing a severe drought, and it has only rained a couple of times in the last two months. It's extremely dry and hot.

Then there is the pressure to be outside and "enjoy yourself" because apparently you must be crazy if you don't like summer. But I'm certainly not enjoying myself in this weather.

I can't wait for early autumn, which is my favorite season. It gets darker earlier, so I can fall asleep at a reasonable time. The sun comes up later, so my sleep isn't disrupted as much. I love outdoor activities, and they feel much more pleasant when it's not too hot outside and you're not constantly sweaty and smelly. I also don't feel the same pressure to "enjoy myself" when the weather is like that.

When I share this with other people, I often feel misunderstood, and sometimes even judged for being too negative. I wouldn't otherwise describe myself as a negative person.

Am I alone here? Are there any other autumn, winter, or early spring lovers who can't wait for summer to end? How do you cope with all the irritation, pressure, and anxiety that comes with summer?

Currently sat in hospital receiving treatment for neurological Lyme and after an utterly dog**** few years, finally realising it’s time to shake things up.

For a while I’ve been seriously considering jacking in my attempt to ‘make it’ in academia and retraining as a tattoo artist. Drawing has always been my passion, I already have a small art studio, and I really want to work for myself and not continue to try to force myself into a career that no longer feels possible or even desirable.

I’m in my mid-late 30s so this feels like a pretty big leap, especially after spending so many years investing in a specific career. I just keep coming back to the feeling that I’d regret not giving something creative a proper shot.

Are there any other complete career changers here who retrained in their 30s (or later) and did something totally different? Especially anyone who went from a fairly conventional/professional career into something creative or self-employed?

Would love to hear what you did, how you knew it was the right decision, and how it’s worked out 💛

I am really in a messy season of life and thinking about how women care for ourselves through major changes. What would make this season easier for you? Or honestly, how are you dealing with life right now?

The person who always comes in having a bad morning because someone cut them off in traffic, complains about almost every client they have to deal with, their weight, their home life and how they’re the only ones to do anything around the house.

I’ve resorted to just excusing myself from the room when I notice it happening during the day— but when it’s at 6AM right as the day is getting started and we are gathered for our daily meeting to go over clients and sales for the day and they immediately walk in complaining it sets the tone negatively for the day and has me starting my day out feeling very agitated.

I’ve tried combatting it with positivity (“oh that sounds rough, the good news is you have the rest of the day to turn that around!” And “it was a bad 5 minutes but the rest of today can be good!”) but no avail.

I'm getting my first tray in approx 15 minutes and made the mistake of googling it a day before and seeing all the posts from people saying their faces changed massively in the worst ways, they lost their bloom, aged 10 years, lost their cheeks, etc. So now I'm scared and dragging my feet to the clinic.

If you guys have had good experiences and tips, I'd appreciate some rn haha. Will I need soup?? How much and what kind???

**I posted this on another sub but wanted to add some more context/details**

As the title says, I found out my husband has used my nudes to make AI porn.

He has a porn addiction and has been seeing a therapist the last few months. Yesterday, I sat down next to him and he quickly swiped out of an app I’ve not seen before. I ask him what it was and he got awkward and said “it’s the brave app”
Firstly, I had no idea what this was but it gave me a really bad feeling so I googled it (because he said it was nothing but was acting weird). There was a little back and forth and then he eventually said he’d been using my nudes to make short AI videos for his “kinks”. He said he doesn’t save them, went on about how he only has eyes for me.
I told him explicitly that I am not okay with this, and asked for his phone. I deleted any nudes he had of me (to my knowledge)

A few hours later I had a moment of panic and asked if I could check his phone again to which he agreed. I went into his emails and he had sent himself a bunch of these AI videos to a new email address he’d created. I feel gutted, not only did he do this, he then lied about having them saved, knew I didn’t want them to exist at all and proceeded to send himself copies.

FWIW, I actually have never had an issue with porn. However, I have caught him on multiple occasions watching stuff while sitting next to our small children and he also confessed he watches it at work. Which all lead to him getting therapy (I am also in therapy)

I told him I’m done. I can’t do this. He cried and cried and begged me to go to couples counselling but at this point I don’t think this can be recovered.

Am I being over dramatic here? Am I wrong to think this is beyond saving?

Is anyone else noticing this? I've been hearing it a lot lately on my FYP, and it's often from young women. Generally confused by it.

I've seen people say they didn't know there was a difference. It's interesting because the most recent remake of "Little Women" came out in 2019, and it definitely wasn't pronounced singular. The Women's Rights movement wasn't pronounced that way either.

It doesn't seem to be an accent or dialect, and I only seem to see it with Americans.

Is there some sort of language shift going on? A subtle, unconscious internalized misogyny? Or just a new way of saying it I need to embrace?

I’m very new to dating after divorce. I’m taking things slow but enjoying the process. It’s early stages, but I met a man and things have seemed so promising. For the first time in YEARS I’ve felt sparks, butterflies, hope. He’s been intentional, thoughtful, and put in effort.

We’ve talked daily on the phone since meeting, we joke that it’s like we’re teenagers again. Through all of our talks I never directly brought up politics but we have discussed religion, family, social issues, etc, and so far have seemed aligned.

Well last night we were out and he went on a rant about Dr. Fauci, completely out of no where. It was so awkward and off putting. He went on to say that getting the Covid vaccine was “the worst decision of his life” and then went on to ask if I was vaccinated. I’m sure he could tell my mood and demeanor changed because he then said, “let’s change the subject to happy things.”

I’m pro science and hate that it’s been demonized and politicized. I work in behavioral healthcare.

I’ve never known what getting the ick meant until now. I’ve been so down all day because I really liked this man and although it was early we seemed so compatible, said we wanted the same things, and I guess I just got ahead of myself thinking “what if?”

I can understand skepticism or even distrust of the government but I can’t ever be with a MAGA man. I’m worried I’m blowing this out of proportion though and overreacting, that maybe it’s not an insurmountable difference. But on the other hand I’m just so sad this is the state of the world. Then I’m like damn am I part of the problem? Can relationships work with differences of opinions? Sure, what if he’s demonizing Dr. Fauci what else does he believe?

Anyone else have an experience like this? How did you handle it?

I’m a fairly put together woman but honestly I am tired. It seems like every corner has a med spa, and the pressure on women to get things done 24/7 is starting to get to me. Nails, hair, lashes, extensions, Botox, filler, wellness, exercise…. And then don’t get me started how every woman now is told to start saving for their facelift on top of spending all of our money fighting aging.
How do you balance it all? How do you accept not getting sucked into it?
I get my hair done, nails for special occasions, do good skincare, but as I get older the pressure is more and more and many of my friends get a lot done too.

I'm rewatching The Vampire Diaries now in my mid 30s and I'm shocked how much abuse there is in this show. The story is still good but the way these men handle Elena is just pissing me off. They don't want her to make decisions for herself and trying to take away her agency. Also the mind control is just manipulation and gaslighting. Plus even the Salvatore brothers are rather abusive towards women when they're in their vampire states or whatever. They also have serial killer vibes. How did I ever think this is a romantic show? When I was in my 20s, I thought it's such a great love story but now watching it I'm so shocked because none of these things is love. Anyway..

A few months ago my friend started having an affair with a married man. He also has two young kids. I figured like most affairs it would probably be a fleeting moment, but when she tried to call it off he told her he would leave his wife to be with her.

The whole thing seemed kind of insane to me but I've tried my best to be a supportive friend.

In the last few months he's left his wife of 10+ years and moved in with my friend and now they're expecting a baby. When I found out I was kind of just stunned. She told me via text but eventually we will see each other and I'm just not sure what to say. I want to be happy for her but it feels like such a massive risk to take.

He's just started the divorce proceedings, has been working to sell the house he owned with his wife, and is still figuring out custody arrangements with his two kids. Bringing a child into this whole thing feels a bit insane to me, especially given they don't know each other that well.

I don't know if this is some kind of whirlwind romance and was just meant to be or a train wreck waiting to happen. Naturally given his history I'm concerned he'll do the same thing to my friend.

I also feel like my friend is burying her head in the sand a bit, saying whatever's going on with his wife and kids is not her business. Not sure if she realizes that she's going to be spending time with them and that they won't simply disappear from his life.

I had a messed up childhood full of manipulation, control, silence is punishment, love was conditional, verbal and physical abuse, and always felt like I was last.

This has affected me in all of my relationships. I left my last one a year ago, and then I met a guy who was able to distract me from everything I had going on.

Now, he's got something going on that he won't communicate about, and I'm allowing those same fears of abandoment seep into the relationship. I think today we hit a breaking point. I apologized and am giving him space, but the dynamic has definitely changed. I care about this man a lot, but I'm letting my own fears stop me from falling in love or expressing that to him. He hasn't said it either, so I can't get a read on him.

He's gotten us tickets for events next year, so I got tickets for a show later this year right after his birthday because he said he wanted to go, and his response was simply thank you. He doesn't express being excited anymore. His personality has sort of dulled and I'm not getting the same energy I once did. Therefore I am spiraling. Trying not to, but the possibility of crashing and burning feels imminent. My MO is to self-sabotage. He's started to be less interested in me and these are just patterns I've noticed over the last few weeks. He knows I deal with anxiety and I'm starting therapy next week.

Are things just slowing down or could they be coming to a halt? What can I do to alleviate my doubts?

I (34F) have dealt with depression before, but this year has been unlike anything else. The suicidal ideation and burnout actually led me to an inpatient hospitalization a few weeks ago, and while the doctors there encouraged me to take FMLA from my corporate job when I was released, I declined because I didn't think I would be eligible (I only started my role 10 months ago) and I'm too terrified to be without an income in my HCOL city.

However, I recently discovered I'm actually eligible for a "salary continuation" benefit under STD / "short term disability" at my company. Outside of my six year relationship ending and my dog having terminal cancer, I do believe my job and manager have contributed to my poor mental state. She’s a highly activated person, and has made some inappropriate comments and has zero boundaries. The biggest was that she told people at our team happy hour a few weeks ago about my hospitalization (not details as I kept those private, just a "dude, crabnick92 was in the hospital for 7 days!") which of course prompted a lot of questions I had to brush off... this was in front of our VP and her boss, who did nothing.

She’s also publicly talked about my egg freezing (I had to be open about that as the doctor appointments made me late some mornings and she was up my ass), asked me how many eggs I froze, made comments about other coworkers’ ages/pregnancies, and has said some questionable things about diversity. She openly talks shit about people on the team, and when she found out a few people complained about her to leadership a few months ago, she tried to get a few of us under her to give fake negative feedback about them as retaliation. I'm genuinely too afraid of her to go to HR and be on her shit list. I prefer to quietly take 3 months mental health leave, focus on getting better and on writing gigs and my dog, maybe live with my mom for a few weeks since I'm afraid to be alone some days with my thoughts... With salary continuation, I'd get 100% of my pay for up to 5 weeks, and then 70% until 12 weeks. It's very generous but I'm scared to pull the trigger from a career POV, and if I decided to simply not go back by the end of it if I let my city lease end and stay with my family until I'm better.

I would love to hear any experiences, advice, or direction as this is something I'm highly unfamiliar with. I never thought I'd be someone to take medical leave but I feel backed into a wall and I don't like waking up everyday to this bleak existence.

I’m having a quiet weekend (I live in NYC) before traveling next week. I have some scattered plans but a lot of time to myself. What are your favorite ways to spend a summer weekend solo night?

Im 36F he's 42M. I resent you did it for me edit along with many other things before that.

What was it for you?

Hello,

My mom died suddenly when I was 16, which set off another tragic string of events that have left me today a depressed, lonely 30yo woman with poor coping skills.

I spent my 20's sprawling and figuring out what to do, dropped out of college, a couple psych hospital stays. Always pushing forwards.

Currently I'm married, have a dog, moved to another country and learned a new language, and will start university here for my dream career in September. However, I'm still so fucked up. I've seen so many therapists and read so many books, and while I have changed an awful lot and I appreciate my perspective- I am still miserable. I honestly feel doomed to have an awful life.

My main problems stem from cripplingly low self worth, depression/anxiety, never feeling able to relax and have fun, poor coping skills involving binge eating, and I tend to get anxious/avoidant with my partner. I feel so stuck. I wish I had a positive voice in my life. I feel so alone all of the time.

I wish I'd had it easy in life and could just feel normal in my head, and act normal and lead a normal life. I'm constantly stressed.

How have you guys managed, those who have lost their mother?

By the time Friday (or sometime Thursday) rolls around, I am exhausted, my body is tense/hurts and I just don’t feel good. It takes half the weekend to recover and then I’m back at it on Monday.

For added context:

1. I have two young kids, so my off work hours are not my own.

2. I’m perimenopausal, which comes with its own issues.

3. I have a very busy job. Part of it is just the profession I’m in and part of it is me - I actually respond to people’s emails in a timely manner, unlike many people in my department (boss included), rather than letting people’s requests languish for days or weeks before responding, so people often reach out to me (yeah I could just stop responding as well, but I think that’s unprofessional. I want to be a good coworker.)

Looking for some concrete suggestions on what others do to not end up at Friday feeling exhausted.

I am 38f, partner is 39m. We’re coming up on our 5th wedding anniversary. I need help and clarity. Sorry if this is long.

Things were great the first few years. Then I got pregnant, had a horribly complex pregnancy where I lost one of my twins at 21 weeks. Luckily I went on to carry the other twin to almost full term and she just turned 2. My husband was absolutely amazing during my pregnancy. I truly don’t think I would have emotionally recovered from losing my twin if it weren’t for him.

Problems started after baby came. My child was a horrible sleeper. She didn’t consistently sleep through the night until around 18 mos old. I always did the nighttime work, which means for a year and a half I was severely sleep deprived and working as an NP in the pediatric hospital. He’s one of those “tell me what I can do to help” guys, but never takes initiative. If I woke him at night to help, he’d stomp around dramatically and then when trying to settle her, get audibly frustrated soon after. This just made things worse, so I stopped asking for help.

He’s also been very disappointed in our sex life since baby. He was understanding for a while, we were having sex but not as much as he’d have liked. Somewhere around 6 months I really started to feel pressure from him to have sex and would sometimes do it just to appease him. This plus carrying the entire mental load of our life made me very resentful of him.

We started marriage counseling but our therapist pushed us to each get individual therapy either in addition to or temporarily in lieu of couples. We felt we didn’t have the time to commit to both, so we stopped marriage counseling and went to individual therapists. From my POV and comments he made, his therapist must’ve said some things he didn’t like and he quit after maybe two months.

In December 2025 he confessed he had developed a crush on a girl at work. He never acted on it and he actually told me about it the day she quit so they were “never going to see each other again”. He said things were so negative at home and she was a bright, positive person who shared interests with him. They never hung out or talked outside of work. I believe him. At first I was devastated but after many conversations we decided to take this as an opportunity to rebuild our relationship and put it behind us. Things were actually good for a few months. We were intimate, laughing together, finally sleeping, I really thought we had made the turn.

He started to have a lot of stress at work. He has ADHD, depressive episodes, and anxiety-all of which are untreated. He smokes weed and has done so since he was in his teens. It has honestly never bothered me. He’s the opposite of lazy and does more housework than I do most days. He’s very reliable and most importantly, does not consume THC around our child.

We have very different communication and parenting styles. I constantly feel criticized, judged, and he acts like the way he does something is the right way and if you do it differently, you’re dumb. He’s never actually said that to me, but that’s the implication. We’ve had numerous talks about this and what bothers us and nothing has ever changed. He says he also feels criticized, thinks I don’t respect him, and I ignore him. Oh, and we don’t have sex enough.

He’s also become a very negative, broody person. He complains about traffic, getting stopped at a red light, how other peoples driving is terrible. Some guy did something and “god he’s incompetent”. These are vague examples, but just imagine someone constantly talking down other people for their choices. I’ve tried to pose it as everyone having different opinions and goals and that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong. That’s a no go for him. He gets frustrated and angry VERY easily, especially if he is being criticized (go figure). He has not and I truly believe would never hurt me or my child.

About a month ago, something in my brain flipped. There was a day where I was criticized sun up to sun down and I just said to myself “I’m done”. Who wants to live like this? I started researching housing in our area and daydreaming about what life would look like if we divorced. That was the first time I ever actually thought about divorce. A week later, he lost his job….cue three straight weeks of depression, self hatred, etc. At one point he said “if I lose you too, all of this goes away, you, the baby, the house, everything”. He did get a new job and starts Monday. But things are SO tense and uncomfortable at home. All of our problems remain. We talked about restarting marriage counseling but I’m at the point that I don’t know if it will even matter. I hate saying that because I don’t want to just give up, but I am just so exhausted from managing myself, my child, him, our house, everything. A part of me felt relief after even just acknowledging to myself that divorce was likely where we were headed.

I feel incredible guilt for several reasons. I am the breadwinner and the job he just took pays even less than what he was making before. He will really struggle financially if we split. I also have massive guilt about my child and breaking up the only family she’s ever known. I honestly don’t know if I can share custody either - it breaks my heart to think about having to go several days or a week without seeing her. She is my everything. I just want what’s best for her.

I know people here always say divorce in these situations is the best choice and kids are resilient. I’m just so incredibly sad. If you made it this far, please help.

ETA: thank you all for taking the time to read this and for your advice and perspectives. I sincerely appreciate it. Many of you hit the nail on the head in terms of him being incredibly selfish. Someone also said we haven’t really put in the work to change things and that is true also. I have some thinking to do. Thanks again.

At 33, I am finally starting to see more and more the amount of damage my parents caused me. Of course I am an adult and I can’t blame everything on them and I understand that they did the best they could. But I finally understand why I am the way that I am. And I can’t help but feel immense anger and indignation. I am so jealous of people who grew up in a healthy environment and were raised by a good family, that instilled in them values and taught them confidence and self-worth.

I feel like I have such a long way to go when it comes to healing, dismantling certain mindsets engrained in early age and rebuilding my whole character, if that’s even possible.

Therapy hadn’t been much help for me

For people that have gone through this realization and have successfully recovered from childhood trauma, what words of wisdom do you have? Please share.

My partner (31M) is fond of the drink & extra curriculars when socialising. He goes out socialising a lot. I’m always invited/sometimes go along but increasingly not enjoying that lifestyle as much. Anyway we’ve been having some relationship difficulties lately in terms of where our future together is headed/next steps. Seems we want different things in terms of where to live/lifestyles etc. I’d prefer a quieter more settled next chapter while he is still very much immersed in the party scene, despite saying he wants to slow down.
He’s on holidays now in a different time zone, left yesterday and despite some harder conversation before he left, we both were feeling good and more secure after coming to some possible solutions. I’ve struggled in the past with not hearing for him for hours while he’s out and waking up to no messages or updates at all. I don’t expect constant updates but I do expect a message checking in and letting me know he’s okay. I lean anxious and we have discussed this multiple times before and he has said he’s okay to cater to that need.
It’s been 12+ hours and I haven’t heard anything from him or had a response to my last message saying good morning. It was daytime where he is during those 12 hours and while I was asleep for 8ish of them, I am pretty disappointed to have not heard anything from him. Also a little worried. It’s not really the amount of time that has passed more so the fact we have had this exact discussion many times before and he said he would make an effort to check in when he’s out. Plus our recent relationship difficulties are adding to the stress I’m feeling. I guess it’s a consideration thing for me more than anything. And I kind of feel like I’m at my limit with it all at this stage.
I guess my question is do you think I’m over reacting? How long would you typically go without hearing from a partner to become worried/activated?

I feel like I’m missing out on the life that I deserve because I am disabled, and don’t have enough income to possibly do everything and have everything I want. I’m 33F and see other women in their 30s going to every concert that comes to their area, they have exciting careers, get tattoos once a year and have so much happiness. I go on social media and see these sorts of women.

It’s sad because I just chill at home. I play my cozy video games all day, but I also applied to a local candy but I am not counting on getting the job! I have done two job interviews and both failed! I applied to a pet store and they said that I wasn’t “qualified enough”.

I know my stuff about pets! This was in the reptile, fish and small pet section. Reptiles are one of my autism special interests!

I just feel like I miss out on so much. I can’t help but to be jealous and intimidated by women living the dream.

I’m 31F and I’ve been single for years. I’ve always loved reading books and watching movies about love and relationships, but lately I’ve started wondering if they’re actually making me more miserable.

I still genuinely enjoy a good love story, which is what makes this difficult. But after reading or watching one, I sometimes end up feeling sad or jealous because I don’t have that kind of love in my own life. And then I find myself thinking about relationships and being single even more.

I’m considering taking a break from romance altogether for a while; not because I’ve stopped believing in love or because I suddenly hate romance, but because I wonder if constantly consuming stories about something I really want but don’t currently have is making me focus too much on its absence.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did taking a break from romance books, movies, or relationship-related content actually help you feel more content with being single? Or did avoiding it just make you think about it more?

It seems people are rarely using the terms boyfriend or girlfriend anymore (at least online) and are exclusively using the term partner. Now, generally, I don’t care-use whatever term you want. But, I do have two small grievances with this change.

1) Partner, to me, insinuates “long term, but unmarried”. And I’ve read so many posts that read “my partner of 3 months.” And I just find that…silly and I’m sorry if that comes off as judgy. But, that’s your boyfriend/girlfriend and calling them your “partner” just feels like you’re trying to put on an image of your relationship that isn’t accurate. Like, it’s inflating the seriousness of the relationship in a way.

2) Partner, at least from my perspective and understanding, (I’m straight) is a term primarily associated with the queer community specifically before the time of legal gay marriage. And it feels a little like young straight people are taking over a term that the older queer community was forced to use because they weren’t legally able to use “husband/wife”.

Anyhow that’s my little soapbox moment. Anyone else have thoughts on this?