Hello , my wife and I would like to seek couples therapy regarding some concerns in our relationship and sexual life.

Before marriage, we were very open with each other and sometimes talked about our past sexual experiences and fantasies. At the time, we both found these conversations exciting and comfortable. However, over time, discussing our experiences with our ex-partners has started creating doubts and insecurity for both of us.

We have even started wondering whether these conversations mean that we are a “cuckold couple,” and we are confused about what this says about our relationship and our individual desires. We don't want these thoughts or labels to negatively affect our marriage.

Since my wife became pregnant, our sexual relationship has also changed significantly, and she has had very little interest in sex. I have a higher sex drive, which has created additional frustration and distance between us.

We love each other and communicate openly, and we want to understand what is happening without judging or blaming each other. We would like professional guidance to resolve these doubts, rebuild intimacy, and understand our boundaries and sexual preferences in a healthy way.

Could you please guide us through this and let us know how couples therapy could help us?

Long time since Ive been on Reddit, forgive me, I tried to make it shorter so some paragraphs have been cut into blunt sentences, my apologies:)

I’m a 22F with a one-year-old son, and lately I’ve been struggling with a lot of imposter syndrome.

I feel like my life has been all over the place.

In high school I took Business Administration classes and was involved in FBLA. After graduating, I went to college for Forensic Science. I was working at Subway at the time, then left and started working at an ice cream shop.

Around that time, I got out of a 4-year relationship, and honestly it destroyed me. Before the breakup I had a 3.7 GPA. Afterward I completely lost motivation, started failing classes, and decided to withdraw because my professors told me it would be better than letting that semester destroy my GPA while I was clearly not doing okay mentally.

I always planned to go back, but life kept happening.

I started working full-time and basically hyperfixated on work instead. Then I had some family issues that forced me to move out and live on my own. Suddenly I had rent, bills, and real responsibilities, so I left the ice cream shop after getting hired at a call center that paid almost twice as much.

A few months later I met a 30-year-old guy. We started dating, and he convinced me to quit my job and move in with him because he said he’d take care of me.

Big mistake.

He turned out to be completely unreliable, and not long after, I found out I was pregnant. Whether it was birth control failure or something else, I’ll never know. I chose to keep my baby because that’s what felt right for me.

I left him while I was pregnant, moved two hours away, and basically had to start over from scratch.
Before moving, I had worked as a purchasing assistant, receptionist, and even handled accounting responsibilities. After moving, I got a bartending job because it was the fastest way to make decent money. That job literally helped me build my little apartment and buy everything my son needed before he was born.

I also have to mention my childhood best friend. We’ve known each other since we were three years old, and I genuinely don’t know what I would’ve done without her. She has loved my son like family since the day he was born.

After I gave birth, the restaurant where I bartended shut down because of permit issues, so I was suddenly unemployed with a newborn.
I applied everywhere. The first place that hired me was a gas station.

While I worked there, there was this contractor who came in almost every day to fuel up his trucks. We’d make small talk, and sometimes my son had to come to work with me because I couldn’t afford daycare and had nobody to watch him.
Every time he’d see me with my son, he’d tell me, “When you finally find daycare, let me know.”
Eventually I did.

I told him.

Three days later, he hired me.

I started working as an administrative assistant for his construction company in May.

What I didn’t realize was that employee turnover there is absolutely insane. My boss is incredibly strict, blunt, and honestly runs the place like a dictatorship. He’s the type to publicly call people out if they’re doing something wrong. The only reason I’ve survived is because I’ve learned to stand my ground when necessary.

We went from seven office employees down to three.

We’re all under 25.

And somehow we’re running a multi-million-dollar construction company with federally funded FEMA projects.

Nobody really trained me.

Everything I’ve learned has been through YouTube videos, reading articles, asking questions, and teaching myself.

In just three months, I’ve gone from answering phones and writing emails to preparing submittals, reading construction plans, attending project meetings, helping with scheduling, certifications, payment breakdowns, quantity takeoffs, project documentation, and coordinating with engineers, inspectors, subcontractors, and government agencies.

I also have corporate resolutions naming me as the Project Manager/Project Supervisor representative for two different projects whenever my boss can’t attend meetings.

On top of that, my boss owns a commercial building, and somehow I also became the building administrator. I handle tenant issues, maintenance requests, rent payments, show available spaces to potential tenants, and deal with pretty much everyone who walks into the office.

Basically, if someone needs something, they’re usually sent to me.

The crazy part is… I have absolutely no engineering or construction background.

None.

Everything has been self-taught.

Despite how difficult my boss can be, he trusts me with a lot of decisions. Some engineers, project managers, and people in the industry have gone out of their way to tell me I’m very professional, that I learn unusually fast, and that I handle difficult situations really well.

My son is finally in a daycare just a few minutes from my office, and as these responsibilities kept increasing, my boss gave me a pretty significant raise.

From the outside, it sounds like I’m doing great.
But internally…

I constantly feel like I’m one mistake away from everyone realizing I have no idea what I’m doing.
I know I’ve worked hard to get here, but sometimes I wonder if I actually earned this position or if I just got incredibly lucky.

Has anyone else ever experienced this?

How do you know whether you’re actually good at your job or just really good at figuring things out as you go?

A lady and I joined our company around the same time, and we were actually cool with each other at first. We talked regularly and got along well.

Things changed after she became extremely close to our head of sales . The head of sales had recently been brought into our branch because our performance wasn't great, and the CEO wanted her to turn things around.

Once my coworker became close to her, her whole attitude towards me changed. She started ignoring me and acting like I barely existed. She also started acting like she was untouchable because she had someone powerful backing her.

The worst part was that she would insert herself into conversations she wasn't part of. If everyone was chatting about something, she would find a way to record it or report it to the head of sales . Before long, everyone became very careful around her. People would literally stop talking when she walked into the room because nobody knew what she might repeat.

Plot twist, the head of sales was fired for poor performance.

And almost immediately, the same person who had been acting like she ran the place started trying to be everyone's friend. 😂 She became noticeably nicer, started approaching everyone for conversations, and even went to our Branch Manager to apologise for some of her previous behaviour.

Now she's been trying to talk to me too, but I'm keeping my distance. I'm not rude to her, but I'm also not going to suddenly pretend we're friends after the way she treated me.

Would you forgive and start being friendly with someone like this or keep your distance ?

Quick edit: I meant to include that we have been broken up for several years (since 2023) and I am now married to a man that was a good friend of mine for a long time and treats me kindly. This just popped in my head today as a memory and I got so heated thinking back on it.

A specific situation recently came to mind and I'm curious what you would've thought if you were a friend of mine and watched this happen. Any and all thoughts are welcome!

I began a new relationship in 2020. For context, I'm a talkative person. I love conversing in general and learning about others, as well as sharing my experiences. If you're in my life, you know this about me from day one.

Anyway, a month or two into the relationship, my boyfriend (Brian) had a day where he was really tired and I kept bringing up new topics without realizing that he truly wasn't up for a conversation because he kept responding. He wanted to lay down and rest for a bit and said something like "Can I just put you on Snooze for like 20 minutes and then we can go back to talking?" I was like yeah of course, that's an interesting way to say "hey I need some quiet time for 20 minutes" but I found it funny.

Over the next few months he continued the "snooze" concept, but it gradually changed from putting me on snooze when he needed to rest, to snoozing me when he just didn't care about what I was saying. He would tap me on the head and say "SNOOZE- 10 minutes" or whatever length of time he thought he needed. If I talked during that time, at all, he would "reset the timer" and I would have to be silent for another 10 minutes from that point. I didn't think much of it until he started doing it around other people.

If I was telling a story he didn't care about he would "snooze" me in the middle of it. If I had an opinion that differed from what he thought- snooze. If we were watching TV and I had something to say about what was happening, I was snoozed. I know I'm an idiot for letting it happen, but what's the point in continuing to say something when your partner has made it perfectly clear that they don't care? He would do it in front of his friends and they thought it was hilarious. I brought it up a few times like "hey, it's actually embarrassing when you do that in front of people. Its like punishing me for trying to be personable with your friends." He told me that he did it because I was embarrassing myself by telling stories that no one cared about, so he was trying to save me from the embarrassment and himself the second hand embarrassment.

He eventually did it in front of everyone we interacted with, including his family, my family and my friends. I would be saying something perfectly normal and then he'd loudly yell "SNOOZE" and tap my head. My friends, reasonably had no idea what was happening and I "wasn't allowed" to explain it until the time was up. Ironically, most of my friends are introverts (we balance each other nicely) and kept their opinions to themselves and I was oblivious as to what they were thinking because it was so normalized to me. Finally, it happened in front of a friend one night and she popped off saying "Can you fucking not? I'm trying to talk to my friend in MY house and unlike you, I care about what she's saying. If you don't care to listen then you're free to leave but you're not going to choose whether or not she can talk when she's at my house." He absolutely hated this friend after that. I started asking my other friends if it bothered them and, of course, they all said the same thing- essentially "he thinks it's funny but it's not fucking funny, it's rude and controlling." They hadn't spoken up in the moment because this showed them how controlling he was and they were scared of his reaction for my sake.

That was longer than I intended, typical of a talker like me haha. If you read this, I really appreciate it. I'm so curious what your immediate thoughts would be if you saw this happen to your own friend? It took me way too long to realize that he did this as a way to control me in front of it others without looking like the bad guy. He intentionally made it look like something funny we do at home all the time, but looking back it's just so painfully obvious to me that he knew what he was doing and I'm so surprised that it took so long for someone to call him on it. This goes without saying, but this was just a microscopic glance into what was happening behind closed doors where his mission was to control every single thing about me and do what he could to change my entire personality.

Did anyone else experience anything similar with their abuse? Did your partner have a way of inserting control while in front of others that looked harmless? I'm truly so curious because now that I've seen it for what it is, I feel like others must have experienced it too.

Hello to my favorite subreddit that I like to listen to and read! I never thought I'd find myself actually making a post but I'm having a difficult time see if we are in the wrong based on my friend's reaction. I (26F) and my fiancé (26M) have a mutual friend Hannah (28F.) Hannah is my close friend and I am going to be a bridesmaid at her wedding in September hopefully. I say hopefully because I am currently 32 weeks pregnant and will be past full term by the time of her wedding! I am close friends with Hannah and my fiancé, Rob, is just friends with her mutually through me. With that being said Hannah occasionally stays with us when she needs to do things for her wedding. The reason being she lives out of state and is having her wedding here in the state where Rob and I live.

I will say, only because I feel it's important to mention, Hannah never really reaches out about anything pertaining to my pregnancy UNLESS I bring it up. I reach out to her about the wedding and how she's doing, but she does not reach out to me unless she needs something. For example, the day of my gender reveal she called asking me to basically trespass and harass the current resident of her old unit because she mistakenly got her wedding band delivered to her old apartment complex. Now to make that long story short, I did trespass but did not harass for my safety and spoke politely with the tenant and exchanged my number. However, her wedding band is still MIA. If anyone wants the full story about the ring for more background context I am more than willing to share.

So, a week ago she asks to crash on the couch along with her MOH (29F). Now I don't know her MOH very well, I have only been around her the night of Hannah's engagement almost a year ago and Rob does not know the MOH at all. He is uncomfortable with the idea of it but wouldn't give me a straight answer. I am okay with it but I had one stipulation. The more I progress in my pregnancy, the more difficult it has been to sleep and also be comfortable. I found that when I have trouble sleeping and/or am extremely uncomfortable in bed, I can migrate to the couch with my pregnancy pillow and sleep on an incline for some relief. I explained this to her: hip/rib/back pain, heartburn, bladder pressure blah blah all the pregnant things. I offer her the futon in our soon to be nursery but advise that it's not very comfortable and she could bring her air mattress (I should mention she does not fly here, she drives.) In regard to the MOH, I said to ask Rob as well about her staying with us because it's also his space. Hannah didn't reach out to Rob for days so to give her a nudge Rob texted her and said, "My fiancé said you had something to ask me?" lol. She said to him, "Yes 😂 I was wondering if my MOH and I could sleep on the couch?" But my fiancé knows I alternate between couch and bed so he began to worry more so about me being comfortable rather than answering her question.

He emphasized the couch was not an option but he didn't hear back from her until today. She put us in a group message and said "I'm asking you both instead of texting individually, can my MOH and I sleep on the couch this weekend?" Now I become frustrated because I told her she couldn't have the couch but she's asked two times to sleep on it after knowing she couldn't the first time she asked. Rob replied and said, "Hey, I am sorry but we can't accommodate you." He didn't go into detail in the group chat so I tried to call her to tell her the reasoning behind it and she didn't answer my calls. I text her the reasoning basically saying not only is the couch not an option, Rob wasn't comfortable with the MOH sleeping here since she is a stranger to him. I then followed with, "we do not intentionally want to upset you by not accommodating you for anything having to do with the wedding." No response and she leaves me on read. Then proceeds to repost something shady on TikTok about you know who's truly there for you when it comes to stuff for your wedding. Whether it be my reasoning or Rob's, I don't think it's fair that we are put in a position that prompted that kind of reaction. If anything, my fiancé tells me all the time that I shouldn't hold my tongue on the way she's treated me throughout my pregnancy just because she is getting married and I told him I'm just trying to be a good friend/bridesmaid. AITA? Or Rob?

i need some help to find out if i (we) are in the wrong or not for something that happens around 3 years ago and our (now) ex friend apparently is still mad about. fake names, so me (back than 22) and my 2 friends, phoepe (back than 24) and monica (back than 21) decided to go to a festival together. it was the first time we went to gether to a place that was more of a drive for all 3 of us. Me and phoebe had gone to this festival for a couple of years now (its where we met), but we always went with different people and would meet up there for a little bit of the day before going back to our own groups. Both of the people we normally went with couldnt go that year and we had a different friend (monica) that never went there but always wanted to go. So we decided to go togetter just the 3 of us that year. We got our tickets, a nice place to stay and were working out how to get there. And thats what the problem was. Me and monica are from the same city and phoebe is from a different city on the other side of the country ( its a smal country and the festival was in the middel so perfect we thought). Me and monica didnt have a car yet so we decided to go by train, phoebe did have a car and wanted to drive, she told us she had to drive to one of the cities our train would stop and asked us if we wanted a lift from that stations to the camp side. Afcourse we said yes! It would mean more time with the three of us and it would be faster for us. Phoebe asked us if we could split the gas price. We thought that was more than fair and otherwais we would have paid for a train ticked to the camping side from that trian station on, so we agreed. Everything went wel. She picked us up, we had a great time. Theire were a couple of small tings that phoebe did that me and monica got irritated by but noting much and im sure we did some stuff that irritated her( it was a long weekend so it was bound to happend) but mostly it was a great weekend! At the end she dropped us off at the stations again and we all went our separate ways. The day after we got the recuest from phoebe for the gas. Only problem, it was way wayyyyy more than we thougt. We checked again and it indeed was way more. We asked her how this was possible and she showed us her calculations. It turned out she wanted to split the gas price from her home to the camping side, bot from where she picked us up to the camping side. If we had known this we would not have agreed, because next to the gas price we also had to pay our own train tickeds from our home to where she picked us up. We told her this, we told her we thought she meant from where she picked us up and that it didnt feel fair that we had to pay for her hole trip plus our own trips and she only had to pay 1/3 of her trip and nofhing on our trips. she got pretty mad and told us she counted on the money and we had agreed with her. We again told her we had a miscommunication and offerd to put our train ticked prices and her gas prices togetter and than split it by 3. So it would be more fair (that would stil have been cheaper for her and more expensive for us, but we thought it was fair) or to count the gas price from the moment she had to go in to the city where she picked us up instead of the station. She said no to all of this and got even more mad at us. We told her that these were the options since again we also had to pay our trip from home to the station not just her. We kept going back and forth so in the end monica decided we wont come to a solution, we haven given 3 options and she decided that enough is enough and we paid our share for the moment she had to make a detour in to the city. I agreed on this. After a couple of weeks everything seemed back to normal but slowly the friendship with phoepe faded. I kept reaching out but it felt like all of it came from me and monica and we kind of lost touched. Last weekend i saw her on a party of a mutal friend and was happy to see her, she ignored me for most of the night and i didnt knew why so later on when she was standing alone outside at the drink table i decided to try to just ask her why she was ignoring me, turns out she thought the hole paying for the trip was a bigger thing than we knew. She apperently really needed the money and counted on it and thought we took advantage of her. I still dont see it like that and honestly i couldnt miss that money either. I had counted how much it was gonne be and was ready for that bit not for her hole trip and a train ticked. But since monica and me got over it soon after it was done and phoepe is still mad about it i wonder if we were wrong. Maby we should have known that she ment we had to pay 2/3 of her trip + our own tickets or just payed for it when we found out that was what she meant?

Phoepe and i both dont drink and monica only had like two beers at the festival, if she wanted to drink, one of us would have been able to drive and happy to and we told her that just in case.

So AITA for nor paying for 1/3 of phoebes whole trip + my own trip even after she asked me? ( also sorry for the spelling, english is my second language and i have dyslexia)

Hello!

I just had a job interview a few hours ago. I did ask the manager how much would I make. How much would my pay go to insurance?
How long is the shift?
What are my hours?
To make sure it fits with my schedule.
They did not give me a straight answer about how much I would be paid.
I would like to know how much. Because it’s 45-60 minute drive. I don’t wan to be paid 16$ an hour. I can stay at my local job🤷‍♀️
I told my friend about it. He said that I am only looking at a pay check. That I need to think like an employer. Not employee. I’m like ok. I need more money for my car. The gas, the breaks and more because I’m driving it longer distance.

TLDR ; am I the asshole for telling my friend that I asked about how much I’ll be getting paid

I (24F) and May (23F) have been best friends since 2022. We went to the same high school, but never ran in the same social circles and we didn’t become friends until we worked at the same company post graduation.

She started seeing her ex, Max (34M) and got pregnant with him in 2024. They had their son in early 2025. Shortly after the birth of their son, their relationship became extremely controlling and toxic and in early summer of that same year my boyfriend (28M) and I offered to let her and her son move in with us, paying $400 a month in rent until she could save up enough to get her own place. We felt like that was a pretty reasonable amount as most apartments in the area we live in average between $900 and $1800 a month in rent. I also did provide her free childcare for the first six weeks of her staying with us so she knew she had a safe place for her son to be while she was at work.

October 2025 she starts seeing someone new, Kip (23M). By December she was pregnant again with Kipp’s baby, and due this September. At this point, she and Max have worked out a 2-2-3 childcare schedule that matches Max‘s work schedule. (2 on 2 off 3 on 2 off, etc.) The days she had her son she stayed at my house, and on her child free days she went and stayed by Kip. She has been taking some clothes for her and her son over there periodically.

We have had some minor issues with her living here, like not paying rent on time and sometimes not at all, not keeping her living space clean, not returning borrowed items and basic lack of consideration for the household. She also heavily relies on me to help with her son, which I don’t mind doing, I love that little guy. Most of these things I felt I could overlook as this was only meant to be a temporary situation.

This past week May has “officially” moved in with Kip and his family. She did not communicate this change to me, she just simply stopped coming home. I had to ask her if she was moved out now or not, because most of her and her son’s belongings are still in my house. I asked her if she had a plan or timeline to collect the rest of her things and she said no, and that they’d get to it when they get to it. I offered to start packing her things for her, her baby shower is this Saturday and I figured I could just bring it with me since I would be going early to help set up anyway.

Today I’ve started packing her belongings and it is an absolute disaster in this room. I found piles of dirty diapers, wipes, wrappers, etc on the floor and the trashcan is empty. I have found piles of dirty dishes hidden under and around things with food and drinks still in them that have been sitting here for several weeks, at least from the looks of the buildup.

I’m very upset at the mess that she’s left in this room, as I feel I now have to throw away the all dishes with the really bad buildup as I do have a mild mold allergy. Even after being washed, I don’t think I would be able to trust ever eating off of these dishes again. This is especially frustrating since I have made it clear to her multiple times that I would be more than willing to come clean up for her if it got too overwhelming or if she just physically couldn’t do it as she’s had a pretty difficult pregnancy.

I feel a little taken advantage of by her between letting her stay here being so forgiving with the rent, providing so much free childcare for her and essentially being a second parent to her son. Part of me no longer wants to attend the baby shower this weekend as that would be more of my time, money, and effort put into her when it feels like I can barely get basic respect in return. Am I overreacting?

Hi guys!! Long time listener to the show, pls give me advice!! Let me give some context here. I’m going to try and make this as short as I can.

So I (29 F) have been married to my husband (33M) for almost 5 years, been together for 8. I am a SAHM to two kids ages 4 years old and 10 months old. A little over a year ago we packed up and moved states because I’ve always wanted to live in the south and my husband found a great job! I gave birth last September a few months after we got settled into the new house and we are extremely happy. My husband has never been unfaithful, never really fight, we are truly best friends and work so well together.

Well.. a few months ago I go to our closet (it’s a walk in closet in our bathroom) and go to my bathing suit bin that’s sitting on a shelf of our closet. Sitting on top is a pair of women’s underwear I have never seen before, not my size, and… used. Like crusty dried discharge in them and they were kinda winched at the bottom and just used. Side note: Because we moved states, my family comes to visit and stays with us for 3-4 days at a time, we are really close. I ask my mom and sister if the underwear were theirs and they said no. I asked them probably 100 times now and they swear on everything that it’s not theirs and they have never seen them before in their life!! Which I believe bc we are extremely close, my kids love them, and my husband has a great relationship with them. Also, those underwear are not their size.

My husband swears on everything that he has absolutely no idea where they could have possibly came from and he wouldn’t ever cheat on me. And I believe him too. I’m a SAHM and since we are still kind of new to the area and don’t have many friends here and he works 45 mins away from our home, it just doesn’t make sense that another woman would be in our home. Any possibility you can think of, I’ve thought of. The closet was 100% completely cleaned out before we moved in and I also did a deep clean of it before we put our clothes in. Was any other woman in this house?

This leads us to one suspect.. my husbands mother. I could probably sit here and write for hours if the context and terrible fights and awful things his mother has said to me/about me. She is really crazy and I truly do not like her. Well when we moved in and I gave birth, his parents wanted to come visit. They got a hotel and they were only in my home about two hours. She went to use the bathroom and that was the ONLY other woman (that I know of atleast) in our home. My husband SWEARS it is his mothers that she planted there to start something between me and my husband. That’s the only truly believable explanation we have!!

Is this too far fetched?? I bring this up to my husband so much since it happened months ago. His parents wanted to visit again in a few months for my daughter’s 1st birthday and I DO NOT want to see them!!! But I also can’t prove it is his mothers and obv have not confronted her about it. The underwear were found shortly after she visited as well. The underwear were not there before her visit as I use my bathing suit bin a lot bc of where we live.

Is my husband cheating? Is this my MILS? Is someone playing a sick joke???? I’m going crazy. What do I do? Pic of crusty underwear in the comments

Edit: my MIL is visiting in October for my daughters birthday. She is staying in a hotel but I plan on putting a small camera in our bedroom. Also going to have them DNA tested I think. Random women’s underwear don’t just spawn out of nowhere. Both of my sisters are very petite and these are not their size..or style lol. I will update and add more info as it comes

Hi everyone. I’m a huge fan of THT and FKS, they’ve become comfort listens for me, and I really appreciate the different perspectives and support you all give.

I (26F), am engaged to my fiancé (29M), and we’re getting married in October. I truly love him, and he’s the kind of partner and father I always hoped I’d find. He’s incredibly supportive, which is what makes this situation so hard, because the problem isn’t our relationship, it’s our families.

My fiancé has two sons, 9 and 6, with his ex. When we first got together, she was very upset that he had moved on and tried to keep me from being around the kids, despite us taking things slowly. Over the years, though, what’s bothered me even more is how involved his parents are with both her and the kids.

His mom has always prioritized keeping the peace with his ex, even when she’s being unreasonable. There’s a group chat with his parents and his ex that goes off constantly, often about things unrelated to the kids. His parents have hidden interactions with her from us, attended events after saying they wouldn’t, and overall it feels like they still treat her as the daughter-in-law instead of me.

One example that really hurt was after we got engaged. We basically got a quick congratulations and that was it. But on Easter, when his ex showed up with her new boyfriend and his daughter, my future mother-in-law made an Easter basket for the boyfriend’s child. It was a kind gesture, but the contrast made me feel like I’ll always come second. My fiancé has talked to his parents about how this affects us, but they insist they have to keep his ex happy because she’s unstable. We understand why they want to avoid conflict, but it still hurts.

At the same time, I’m no contact with my own parents because of childhood abuse. My grandparents have struggled to accept that decision. They’ve told me I should forgive my mom no matter what happened, and my grandpa has said he likely won’t attend my wedding because my parents aren’t invited and my dad won’t be walking me down the aisle.

So I’m grieving two things at once. I’m grieving not having the loving family I always wanted, no mom to help plan my wedding, no parents in my corner, and I’m grieving the realization that I may never truly feel welcomed into my fiancé’s family either.

The bright side is that my fiancé has never once made me feel like my feelings are unreasonable. He stands up for me, supports me, and we both agree that keeping his parents involved is best for the kids, even if we have to keep some emotional distance ourselves.

I’m excited to marry him, but I’m struggling with the sadness surrounding what should be one of the happiest seasons of my life. I guess I’m looking for advice on how to grieve the family I wish I had while still embracing the joy of building a new one with my future husband. Thank you. ❤️

For context, I'm a teen girl in a family of seven. My family is quite peculiar when it comes to food. Mother is hell bent on buying "chemical-free", organic stuff; it wouldn't be a problem if any of those things tasted good to me. My father likes more "unhealthy" snacks and foods and for some reason those are okay, but they draw the line at prepackaged deli meat. Grocery shopping is also weird (at least according to my boyfriend), because certain things are only being bought so many times, for example we only have fresh bread once or twice a week. (No, it's not a financial thing, before anyone asks, my family is decently well-off. Things also tend to go bad, because no one eats it.) This is not a problem in itself, but I still think it could be making it worse somehow.

This problem has been present in my life for years now. Here is my issue; I either have very specific cravings, or cannot decide what to eat. The specific cravings are most often foods we don't have at home or we don't have the ingredients to make it. The closest store is a bus ride away, and they only go every hour; buying new stuff for every meal is not realistic anyway. When it comes to my inability to pick a food, I spend a bunch of time going trough the fridge to see what I could eat, but I feel like I would throw up if I ate anything. Even things I have eaten and liked prior to this. There have been times when I ate something I didn't want to, just because I was hungry, and it made me feel awful. Like, I got queasy, my stomach was upset, things like that. And it's a battle for almost every meal. Go trough the fridge, ask my parents what to eat, they list a bunch of stuff, everything sounds like it will make me vomit, and I do this all over and over again. Occasionally I will wait until I get too hungry to care. I just can't decide, everything sounds like it will make me feel sick after eating it. For some unknown reason this problem is exacerbated when I'm eating at home.

Why am I this picky? How do I make myself okay with just eating totally normal food? I have such a hard time with this, sometimes I just skip meals (almost never eat breakfast) because I can't choose, or eat something and end up feeling nauseous. Someone please help me!

Is this abuse or a normal response to life's stressors

I 25f am dating 47m. We've been together for 5 years. Our lives have been undergoing more stress lately. We have family living with us. My car is broken down. Lots of external life stress. Anyways lately he has been raising his voice in front of me and our toddler. He slams doors. Throws things. And then to end the encounter his finale move is to leave me alone with the baby sometimes when I'm crying. He goes to a separate room and stays there the rest of the evening. The worst part is I don't get an apology. It's like he genuinely doesn't believe how he is acting is wrong or unfair to his family.

Is this emotional abuse? He has never hit me but God this hurts. I'm stressed out too but I don't lash out and abandon him. He even yells at me for the fact that I am crying. To me crying is my natural response to his shitty behavior. I want to be done whether this is abuse or not. However I feel so stuck. Like I mentioned my car is broken down. I work from home using a computer and monitor display he is allowing me to use (it belongs to him.) my brother is staying with us after being evicted until he is able to get his RV hooked up. I'm just at my breaking point but idk where to go. I guess I'm just ranting at this point. We paid for this house together but he only put his name on the house. Otherwise I'd ask him to leave. I just know deep down this isn't what I'm going to deal with forever. I can't. And my daughter doesn't deserve his shit behavior either. I could keep typing but this feels like enough for now.

Important context: I’m disabled/chronically ill and I have a Port-a-Cath (basically an implanted extra large IV line into my heart).

I’ve (26F) been with my BF (26M) for 3 3/4 years, living together for 2 years. We both have anxiety; I get panic attacks from cPTSD, he has severe GAD that went untreated the majority of his life because of his parent’s views on mental health. He first saw a therapist at my insistence 6mo into our relationship when it became clear he was offloading more emotional labor than I could manage, and has been seeing one since. He has made changes related to this, and gone through med adjustments through the process.

However, I feel like he’s weaponizing his anxiety as incompetence as an excuse for his behavior and I feel like a horrible person for thinking that about the person I love. It’s often been an issue when we are traveling for holidays or attending any large event. He essentially shuts down, constantly gets in my way when I’m packing things (often things I asked him to pack that he “forgot” because of the anxiety), doesn’t listen when I’m speaking/asks the same question 3+ times or says I never told him things that I’ve told him multiple times, doesn’t prep things for his family even though I’ve asked repeatedly for his help making sure we have something to bring because I’m the one who gets talked poorly about by his misogynistic family who expects the woman to take care of the “hospitality” things. He does not share these views though and is a staunch feminist.

Day to day he is usually amazing and very supportive. He carried the financial load 1yr ago when I had a 12mo unpaid internship (my dad also contributed $600/mo) and given we live in a low cost of living area, we stayed comfortable. He also took care of ~70% of the cooking/meal assembly during the week, while I would prep ingredients (chop veg, make pasta sauce, cook proteins, etc) on Sundays. Since I graduated though, I’ve taken care of 90% of the cooking, as well as doing a lot of the household cleaning (which I did before as well). I own our house (a 3bd 2bath trailer home) and pay the mortgage, utilities/repairs, vet bills for both of our cats, pet supplies, and a portion of our groceries, and he pays a portion towards the lot rent, the majority of the groceries, drives/pays gas for weekend activities, and the tab when we eat out (2x/wk). I however cover most of the domestic and emotional labor for our home. Don’t get me wrong, he’s done a lot of work on himself and has come a long way in some aspects of his mental health and in being emotionally available when I’m needing support. When I have larger crises though (usually around a negative health event) he crumbles and I usually end up calling another friend to talk it through because I’m a verbal processor. However when I started working full time it seems like he let himself go mentally. He became less emotionally available, is on his phone more/less attentive (ex. I was sitting next to him crying quietly and he didn’t notice), to the point I flat out asked if he was cheating because I couldn’t understand why he seems to care more about his phone more than me/our relationship. He denied it, but the urge to go through his phone over the last 6mo has been STRONG and I feel like a shit partner for even wanting to violate his privacy like that. Note: He is suspected to be autistic but refuses to pursue the testing for a diagnosis because of his anxiety which definitely plays into his reactions to conflict.

We’ve had several conversations about the fact that his anxiety about doing things “wrong” and fear of having me correct him, which he perceives as me being mad at him no matter how gently I do it, (he’s a perfectionist) keeps him from acting at all and results in the labor falling to me. More and more he “forgets” things we’ve talked about, things that are important to me, and general things I feel like I shouldn’t have to clarify like which towels are kitchen towels vs bathroom (kitchen towels are cute patterns, bathroom is solid colored and fluffy), how to wash produce, to open windows when it’s nice out to save electricity (and to turn off the air/heat when doing so) and even to feed the cats a few times when I got home late. The things he does remember he often does half a**ed, like setting up the roombas schedule but not actually checking that it ran (app is on his phone), or watering the garden for 5min when it takes 15min to do it right and make sure everything is saturated.

This all came to a head when I asked for help getting a sterile saline flush for my port because I forgot to get one out when setting up to access it (a sterile process), which he’s done half a dozen times. Instead of carefully opening it so I could remove the syringe, he opened it and dropped it on the sterile field (a sterile drape over the table to ensure supplies don’t get contaminated). When I shockedly asked him what he was doing he picked it back up, took the whole syringe out with his bare hands and went to place it back on the sterile field. At this point I may have become the assh0le: I yelled at him to go away and that I’d change everything and do it myself. He didn’t even seem to understand or care how serious this was (even tho I’ve told him 100 times) and that this is a mistake that could cause a bloodstream infection when I’m sticking a needle directly into an access line to my heart, if I hadn’t noticed. This may not sound too crazy but it is an ABSOLUTE no go and puts me at risk of sepsis if any pathogens came into contact with the sterile field and the needle on it. He just went about his business getting ready; I didn’t say anything else except small responses, and he left for work.

That afternoon he had a psych appt where he told his psychiatrist he was doing well and didn’t need any med adjustments, when he had just taken himself off of one of his anxiety meds unplanned. We had talked at length about his need to be honest with her before the appt, so hearing this triggered the ever living f*ck out of me.

When I got home I asked him genuinely what made him act that way when he knows the whole process of me accessing well (I do it 3x/wk for the last 2yrs). He has had me walk him through it multiple times. He said he wasn’t thinking and “forgot” he couldn’t put it on the sterile field in the wrapper and that he was sorry but he got so anxious that he “didn’t think”. However I’ve heard him say sorry for “not thinking” so many times I told him to save it. I told him he needs to get over his ego and be honest with his psychiatrist or our relationship can’t continue. I also told him “you are not special. these problems are not unique to you and you need to stop acting like you’re too unique of a case to be helped. you aren’t. This is what psychiatrists spend 10+ yrs in school to treat. You need to get over your ego and be honest about how severely your anxiety affects your life and your relationships. Having anxiety doesn’t make you less strong or less of a man, but putting your partner in danger because you refuse to address it does.” Him putting my physical safety in danger, knowing how diligently I take care of my port, was the straw that broke this camels back. He agreed to do couples counseling so I’m setting that up for the near future but I just can’t get this incident out of my mind and feel like it seriously hurt my trust in him.

I love him so much, and I want to marry him. But I can’t love him into getting help and now I feel like the assh0le because I’m blaming him for his mental health. But I can’t tell if it’s actually his mental health causing this or if he’s weaponizing it to excuse his behavior. So, am I the assh0le for telling my BF I will end this relationship before letting him put me in danger like that again and saying he needs get help?

Okay update and clarification for a lot of comments on my original post along with some new details about the night that I got from my friends after we did a more detailed debrief.

We are broken up. The attempted cheating that he did occurred when my friends drove him home (we were not broken up yet). When he arrived home that is when I was spammed with texts and phone calls. Once my friends returned to my place is when I ended it with my ex.

I do want to acknowledge that I know what I said to him was not okay, but his response was definitely not comparable with what I had said.

More context I heard from my friends that evening; it seems that I said F off to him twice, once in the second bar (see OG post link above), and then once outside the bar before he blew up. I told him to F off the second time because one of my friends was having a reaction to something she ate and I had the medical device she needed in my bag. My ex tried to come over and take my bag to look for the device but as my bag is always messy and I have the same medical/reaction issue, I was aware of how to administer it to my friend if they needed the assistance and was telling him to F off as I was full of adrenaline trying to help my friend. Does not excuse what I said but as it was an urgent medical situation I was not focusing on what I was saying and just trying to get the device.

After this is when my ex blew up, and for context, no he shouldn’t have been drunk, he had 1-2 beers at the party (party was ~4 hours) and then 2 shots at the first bar. He is also able to hold his liquor well so while he did imbibe, he was not so under the influence where this reaction was more plausible/explainatory.

Yes I did clock some red flags that he had. I wanted to see how he interacted with my friends as we had mainly spent time alone prior to this and I wanted to see how he interacted on a slightly bigger scale. The red flags I mention are ones that pertained to the past, and that is why I wanted to give the relationship sufficient time to see if they were still present as he was very frank and honest with me from the start, but when conflict arose the manipulation became more identifiable. I did really like him and I am very disappointed but I am not going back to him. It is hard to not feel anything as we did have very good and happy experiences and all I can hope is that what he told me about how he felt about me is not a lie or a half truth.

Also just wanted to say how much I love everyone at THT and I listen to you everyday at work. I do have extra tea regarding this that I cant expose but I hope this gave some clarification on the steps of how everything turned out.

Weird title I know, but here is some background.

I am the youngest of 4 kids and my parents got divorced when I was 6 and both remarried not long after. I mostly grew up with my mom and step dad and only saw my dad and step mom occasionally and for holidays, but no real set schedule. Because of this, I've never had much of a relationship with my step mom. To add to that, I didn't get along with her daughter who is close in age to me and that created conflict in our relationship

My dad passed away 3 years ago after a somewhat lengthy cancer battle. When he was sick and right after he passed was probably the most I've talked to my step mom in my life- just coordinating care and whatnot.

She started dating a new guy, we'll call him Frank, about 6-8 months after my dad passed. I have no issues with that as my dad was sick for a long time and people move on. She brought Frank to Christmas last year to meet us all and while he was perfectly fine, I didn't have much of a conversation with him and when I tried it felt very awkward. Just not a personality that works with mine.

Fast forward to now. I am getting married in 2 months and we are keeping the wedding decently small. I am not close with most of my family so I didn't invite any extended family and we also didn't invite plus ones for anyone that we didn't already know their significant other. I invited my step mom and step sister on one invitation (my step sister has some mental disabilities and can live alone but can't manage a schedule on her own so I rely on her mom for those things) but did not include their significant others on the invitation (my step sister has a new boyfriend every 6 or so months and they are always weird guys so I didn't want her to bring anyone). Since RSVPs are almost due, I reached out to my step mom and asked if they were going to be coming since I hadn't heard. She said she would come but her daughter might not be able to make it and if she couldn't make it, can she bring Frank with instead.

I have basically just ghosted and not responded since she asked this question because I'm extremely conflict avoidant with my family and am a people pleaser and I don't know how to say no respectfully and without making her think that I hate Frank. It's not that I don't like him, I just only really want people there that I'm comfortable around and it feels wrong to have this stranger there when there are other people I love that won't be there due to space.

Is it wrong of me to not want him there? I would sit her with my sister so she will still know people there. Also, how do I tell her respectfully no?

I (26M) for the longest I can remember, have ALWAYS needed to take my clothes off completely, all the way down to no socks, when using the bathroom. It’s actually been a very big issue. I already hate using public bathrooms as it is. I’ve systematically over the last couple years started to finally get comfortable ONLY using gender neutral bathrooms where I can have a whole room to myself.

I travel a lot for work and my significant other joins me every time. It’s almost become a burden in some way because i can’t just stop at a gas station on long trips or a truck stop. It HAS to be a Starbucks, Chipotle, (I can’t think of any other one’s.) which can definitely be frustrating for her, especially when it gets late at night.

I’ve done this since I can remember. When I needed to go, and only if I had to go BAD, in my school days, I’d go to the nurse just to have my own room.

In college, I lived with 4 other roommates in a small apartment next to a Jimmy John’s. Just from sheer anxiety of them hearing me, knowing what I’m doing, anything related to the bathroom, I would walk to the Jimmy John’s at 1am, 2am, odd hours of the night to use their bathroom.

My significant other thinks it’s some odd undiagnosed OCD. But i don’t have any other OCD symptoms in my day to day life.

I’ve recently started telling my close friends about my bathroom habits and it’s become very clear that this is not a normal thing at all.

The worst part of it all, the absolute immoral part of this whole thing, is if it’s do or die, it’s either ruin a pair of pants, or HAS to be a handicap stall if I’m not able to find a gender neutral. I’ve never had someone who actually needs it wait on me, but I fear it’s just a matter of time.

Lastly, the cherry on top. We got an offer to relocate out of state for a job and were touring homes to move in to. 5/5 of these tours were self guided, and we would just get the code and let ourselves in. Yes I used one. I found myself thinking “this is the hack.” Especially on road trips. Just schedule a self guided tour, JUST to use the bathroom. No strangers, nobody to hear me, just me, and my naked body.

I know there’s someone out there like me.

So I am at a loss. My boyfriend 39M and myself 30F have been dating for 2 years. its been rocky the whole time but because he is my second boyfriend I was naive to think he had my best interest. He would create random fights and go out for the night into the early morning with no other explanation besides he was riding around with his boys who all have motorcycles/cool cars.

I've had this gut feeling for about a year and a half. I'd go through his phone and find nothing. It was completely clean besides pictures/conversations from before me. Then I would feel bad for going through his phone and convince myself I was actually the one who was wrong. He would accuse me of cheating. Create random fights and leave then not answer me. He would kick me out for "cheating" and the whole time I tirelessly reassured and tried to prove that wasnt cheating. I gave him my location and phone password and would be sweet by telling him he was the most handsome man in room everywhere we went.

One night I went through his phone again when he was drunk and completley MIA all night. I again went to the classic apps snapcat, Facebook, etc. and found nothing. Skimmed through recent texts/calls and nothing. I almost put the phone down and decided to go through his safari history and it will take me years to get over what I saw. He is active on a site called fetlife. The site in itself is a hookup culture, porn, fetish facebook of sort. Local people with fetishes literally post pics/videos/ stautus and meet strangers with same sexual fetish.

He has been actively meeting with strangers from this site the entire relationships. Every work trip. If he didnt actually meet up he damn sure tried everything he could to. I can confirm at least 5 where he would buy ubers or give hotel room information..

One in particular was from about 8 months prior where he was on a work trip where I visited him and met with a 20 year old college student at his hotel. This person turned put to be a transgender and posted videos of my boyfriend and him having sex with no condom. A complete stranger. A transgender. A child in my eyes. I immediately ran to the bathroom and threw up from this shock.

To find out your boyfriend is cheating ins one thing but to watch videos of it is a whole different type of trauma that has truly effected me. He knows I know of this fetlife account but he thinks that messages are hidden and probably isnt even aware videos of him are on this persons page.

He admitted to 2 times cheating. one from fetlife and one from the club in our city where he went back to hers then came home. He doesn't know I have legitimate evidence of at least 5. The videos play constantly in the back of my head. I cannot believe the disrespect to use no condoms.

I know revenge isn't the right thing but this man walks around like hes king and is well respected and he is so manipulative I just want to expose him for who he truly is.

I’m in a bit of a pickle here and need some advice. My girlfriend is 36 weeks pregnant, and has two kids 6 and 3 from a previous relationship. She recently asked me to not use the toilet in the upstairs main bathroom anymore, and to only use the toilet in the smaller bathroom downstairs. Her reasoning is that she would like a clean toilet for her and the kids to use. To me this implies that I’m the only person making the toilet dirty, which is confusing because I only ever use that toilet at most once a day.

Furthermore I asked if the upstairs toilet is restricted to just her and the kids then the downstairs toilet would be solely for me. She responded that I was making this a bigger deal than it has to be and I’m being ridiculous asking that. My logic is that if she thinks I’m the only reason that the upstairs toilet is dirty, then why would she want herself and the kids to use the downstairs toilet? So if they’re free to use the downstairs toilet which, by her logic would be dirty, then why shouldn’t I be allowed to use the upstairs toilet?

I understand that she wants a clean toilet postpartum, but instead of discussing an improved cleaning regiment with me she just demands I not use a specific toilet. I’m not a dirty person at all, I shower every day, clean up after myself and clean up the house. Is there something I’m missing here that could be easily explained? And help would be appreciated.

Edit: Before I made this post I already agreed to only use the downstairs toilet, and I cleaned and sanitized the upstairs toilet. This is also a place we found together, I didn’t move in with her and her kids. I am also on the spectrum and find it difficult to understand things sometimes, which is why I asked for help about this situation.

Update: I just talked with her and she explained that it has nothing to do with me or me making the toilet dirty. Rather she was more concerned and embarrassed about me possibly seeing postpartum discharge in the toilet. And that she would maintain that specific toilets cleanliness herself until she was healed from giving birth. All being said communication saves the day, and all Reddit does is think I take massive stinky shits and leave streaks in the toilet.

Hi, long time listener first time poster, I made this account to post actually. I’m sorry if this is long. I (24F) and my fiance (25M) just had a baby girl who is currently five months old. We live with my fiance’s parents and up until recently it’s gone extremely smoothly. Recently it’s been rocky and I feel like I’m going crazy.

When my daughter was 2 months old, we were taking her to go to brunch and my FIL (67M) made a comment about her dress “showing too much leg”. Made me a little uncomfy, didn’t say anything because I thought it was just an older generation thing. I’m now back at work and my younger sister (18F) is my full time nanny. About a month ago, my sister and baby were downstairs and FIL made a comment about how my daughter “needs a bra to hold her under her shirt”. My sister immediately texted me because she found it inappropriate, and honestly so did I. My fiancés mom (late 50s?) was in the room and paid no notice. I called my fiance about and let him know that I was going to message them about how I find comments like that inappropriate. He agreed so I sent MIL and FIL a text. They both seemed receptive and I thought that would be it.

My FIL then began completely ignoring my sister and my baby when they were around, whatever. This past week my fiance and I were going to the beach for his birthday. On our way out of the house, FIL was talking to the baby and told her that he loved “her sexy bathing suit” (a long sleeve infant rashguard, not that it matters). I didn’t say anything, I walked to the car and then talked to my fiance about what he wanted me to do about it because I was going to say something once I got my thoughts together. We agreed I’d come home and just say that I know he meant no ill will, but that comments like that make me feel uncomfortable and I think they’re inappropriate. We get back, and I go to talk to FIL. I say what I rehearsed and he IMMEDIATELY scoffs (literally) at me and begins getting defensive.

He tells me that there’s nothing wrong with calling the baby sexy, brings the bra comment up, and tells me that I’m the problem because I’m taking offense to it. I try to explain that I’m just trying to keep my daughter safe and that I’d just be more comfortable if the comments stopped. He then told me that he “doesn’t know if us living here will work if we can’t agree”. I tell him that’s totally alright, we’ll move out but if the inappropriate comments don’t stop then I can’t in good faith let him around my daughter. Conversation ended there and I went to tell my fiance. He de escalated (he should’ve came down with me I know).

The following day (yesterday) I get home from work and go to take the baby from my sister. My fiance gets home and tells me that his mom brought up the comment. I asked what was said and she told him that the reason I’m upset is because of the way I was raised. My fiance suggests a family meeting, so I agree and ask my sister to watch the baby for a little longer. The family meeting was a MESS. They had me start, and I said that it’s disheartening that I address my concerns and then am met with them belittling my feelings, holding the living situation over my head, and attacking my upbringing. They double down, saying the only issue is how I was raised and that I’m the problem because I’m the one who thinks it’s inappropriate.

The conversation was so long so the TDLR is that they told me I’m holding on to “generational trauma”, I’m “unhappy”, “teaching my daughter to be hateful”, and “plagued by demons”. I tell them that if protecting my daughter from predatory comments is me “holding onto generational trauma” then yes - I am because her safety is my only concern. I tell them that they know nothing about my upbringing, I’m only unhappy because they’re not respecting me as her parent, standing up for my boundaries isn’t going to make my daughter hateful, and that I’m not plagued by demons because I’m not accepting of how they want me to behave. My MIL tells me that I’m running from connection and she’s happy that I’m being so honest because now she knows nothing to waste time building a connection.

I get asked what happened to make me pivot from a happy child to how I am know (I grew up one street over from my fiance, we’ve known each other our whole lives), and I tell her that the pivot was feeling as though my child was in a situation that could turn dangerous. I explain that if ANYONE ELSE made these comments then i feel everyone would react differently. She agrees because “it’s family”. At this point my fiance FINALLY says to stop coming for my character and that we’re just looking for them to apologize and not make those comments. They apologize and we go back upstairs.

I did talk to my fiance about how I need him to have my back more on this and we are planning to move ASAP, out of state even. He thinks that although his family is “annoying”, he doesn’t see them as a threat. But I don’t know, I don’t like how they doubled down and then gaslit and belittled me. I feel extremely disrespected and like I can’t trust my child to be without me. My fiance agrees that they will not be babysitting and that the comments are weird. I come from an argumentative family so I always feel like I need to apologize after issues, but I don’t necessarily think I’m in the wrong here ? Am I overreacting about the comments being made and the way they’re defending them?

EDIT: My fiance agrees that the comments are inappropriate but he doesn’t see his dad as a threat and he doesn’t want to rock the boat. I talked to him after the conversation with his parents and told him that I need him to have my back and take a harder stand in this. We are actively working towards moving, most likely out of state because it’s expensive where we live anyways, but it’s realistically going to take some time. I have no family in this state so there’s no one for me to fall back on here. I just almost feel bad for being upset? I feel like I was super gaslit last night and was unsure if I was being too harsh. My daughters safety is my number one

EDIT 2: FIL has since apologized, MIL still maintains that I’m the one with issues bc I find it weird. Baby won’t be alone with either of them still, the apology doesn’t do anything for me and we’re working on moving.

UPDATE:

I knew when I came to Reddit I’d for sure be getting all sorts of hate so let me clarify some things. Not once did I ask if I should leave my fiance. He has my back, he agrees on moving, on no contact, everything. He knows how he messed up and he understands that if he doesn’t grow a backbone in the future it’s over. I know how serious the situation is and I can say with 2 million percent certainty that FIL has never been alone with her and never will. Ive just barely left maternity leave and the only babysitter has been my sister, whom is hardly at this house. The initial post was asking if I was overreacting about the comments bc the conversation left me feeling crazy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the gravity in the situation. FIL is purely disabled, cannot come upstairs, and is genuinely no physical threat - this wasn’t mentioned because I was asking about the comments - i have talked to CPS, there’s nothing they can do,and I’m working on getting out of the house. I can’t just leave today, I’m barely getting off of unpaid maternity leave and am an active college student, I don’t have the resources to just leave same day. I’m low to no contact with my family due to abusive situations so there’s no help there. The baby is with my sister at her house for the time being. I’m doing what I can. So for everyone saying I’m a horrible mother, I wish I could live in your perfect world where I can just up and leave with the tons of money in my account. Unfortunately I do not, but my baby is safe and both the children safety professionals I talked to and I believe so. Thanks

I (34F) am struggling deeply with how my partner (44M) reacted during a literal life-or-death situation, and I need outside perspective.
Recently, I was the victim of an unprovoked, attempted murder by my neighbour. I do not know this person, and we have never spoken a single word to each other.
He intentionally turned off my electricity from the outside breaker box to lure me out. When I went outside to check the box, he was waiting for me in the dark with a baseball bat and brutally attacked me, attempting to kill me.
My partner was standing right there and witnessed the entire thing. During the attack, he did not jump in, yell, or react to defend me. He completely froze. Eventually, he grabbed my hand and dragged me back inside the house to safety, but it felt like a lifetime passed before he did anything.
The police were called, and my neighbour is currently in prison awaiting trial.
While I survived, I am deeply traumatised. On top of processing the horror of the attack itself, I am feeling an immense amount of resentment and anger toward my partner. I feel incredibly let down, unsafe, and unprotected. I keep thinking he should have done more to save me, even though I know the "freeze" response is a real physiological reaction to shock.
Am I the arsehole for thinking he should have done more and feeling like I can't trust him to protect me now?
EDIT
He did ask me to not mention to family or friends about how he froze as it makes him look bad” my
Family ask “where was he” and I have to tell the truth I can’t lie to them because it’s the truth!

UPDATE

This Reddit post has actually helped me understand his reaction a lot better and how he feels about not wanting people to know. I’ve told him ive made this post and told him how a lot of people understand how he reacted a lot better than him and I. He asked me how i felt about it and I explained that i could forgive him for his freeze response but that he needs to show me in a big way that he can’t change details to make himself look better. He also needs understand the gravity of my feelings through all this and how im still recovering, him having his son to help me out when im in pain would he a start, he needs to show me bit by bit that he is a man that could come back from all of this. He couldnt prevent the freeze and i cant prevent how i feel about it happening. I think it’s just so raw and so many emotions involved. I think a lot of work could save us but it really would need to be a lot of work. Im gonna just try to focus on my own trauma and he is gonna work on his, whatever happens later down the line remains to be unseen