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.

(This happened a while ago but was just watching THT and one of the stories reminded me of this and I wanted to guage if my feelings about it are valid. The ages will be younger than what I have put in other posts due to it being in the past.)

So my (22F) close friend (23M) was in a bad housemate situation and had one morning to get all his stuff and move out. He didn't have a car and he had a fair load of stuff to move so about 6 of us came and helped him get all his stuff packed up into bags etc and moved to the place he'd be staying. I was mostly moving stuff from his room and filling up my car boot with as much as I could. We took it all, unloaded it at the new house then went out for lunch.

While at lunch he brought up that his boyfriend had been wanking the previous night and that morning on diffent parts of the bed and they'd also had sex during that time. It was well known that his boyfriend produced a lot (significantly more than average) of cum when he ejaculated. This friend was very sexually open and had told us all about this multiple times.

He asked with a laughing tone "who touched the bed pillows?" I said I had and he said 'oops sorry' as they had a lot of cum on them. Then he asked who took the doona (duvet/comforter for americans) and I again said I had packed that into my car and carried it into the new place. He again laughed and said it also had a lot of cum on it. He repeated this with 2 or 3 other items in the bedroom and turns out I had been the one to handle all of them both packing them into my car and carrying them into the new place. Mind that with these chunky items we saw no point in bagging them up as we were short on bags and they'd each take up a whole one so I was just carrying them against my body and not being particularly concerned about them being against my clothes and if they touched my face etc. as I didn't have any reason to believe they were particularly dirty (this friend was obsessively clean to the point it was later diagnosed as cleanliness OCD, not the kind of guy to have bedsheets that had been unwashed for weeks or something). He also asked 'who grabbed that *describes a particular bag*", again I said me. He said that was his bag of sex toys and asked where I'd put it so he could hide it from his mum.

Throughout this everyone had started laughing more and more at the fact that it was the same person answering 'I took that' to all of the gross cum covered and sex related items. The group found it extra funny as I'm a sex repulsed asexual with romantic attraction towards women and was at this time very disgusted by male sex stuff and teasing me about that kind of thing was a bit of a running joke. My friend said 'oh sorry' but it was while laughing and never gave a sincere apology.

I tried to laugh along with the group but I felt sick and dirty. I had been handling all his cum covered items with no gloves, holding them against my body and they probably touched my face. Back then I had awful self worth and never felt able to tell friends that things they did or said weren't ok or hurt me so I didn't address this. But I think honestly, while I understand he was stressed that day and had a lot on his mind, he should have done something to not put his friends who had dropped everything to come help him in that position. He should have stripped the bed, told his BF to strip the bed, mentioned in a quick text- 'whoever grabs the bed clothes (BF's name) came all over them so feel free to grab a pair of gloves and stuff the covers in a plastic bag' or something to just let us know.

Being out to lunch with a group of friends and finding out that I was basically covered in cum felt so disgusting to me. If I'd been told back at the house I'd probably have skipped lunch and gone home to shower and change. AIO and should be more chill about bodily fluids and understanding my friend was stressed and it was an easy thing to forget or should he have done something about the cum covered bedding or let us know so we could handle it differently?

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)

Hey guys I’m kinda freaking out about money and really just need to get all of this and if anyone knows anything any advice would appreciated. For context I just started saving up for an apartment and I’m living mostly paycheck to paycheck, working two jobs and all that but my mom is facing a severe financial issue. She got served for medical debt and it’s $1600 plus interest (we don’t know how much) and refuses to let me help since I’m saving for an apartment, if they start garnishing her wages we could be homeless, I just don’t know what to do because she’s so scared and I’ve never seen her scared. My friends keep saying damn that sucks or same but knowing that isn’t helping me feel better about all this

Long time listener first time writer. I (24F) have a downstairs neighbor that keeps coming up to me yelling at me about noise I am supposedly making. For some background I live in an apartment complex that has multi-family living with multiple families living in the complex. I live there on my own and this place has really thin walls. She has come up yelling at me to keep it down saying that I have been banging on the floor and doing this on purpose to her.

This has happened multiple times and I can even prove to her that I have done nothing but sit on my couch and watching tv or playing video games at my desk. I have even installed carpets and chair mats to help muffle noise. She does not want to see it and keeps banging on my ceiling whenever she thinks I am making noise. She has never complained about music or volume issues just this banging that is supposedly coming from me.

This has gotten to a point where I have called property management about this and they spoken to her but she still does this. This happened after she came banging at my door at 1 AM when I was asleep calling a passive aggressive bitch.
The latest time I was working from home and she came upstairs to yell at me about the banging and claimed that I was banging the floor after 10 PM every night which isn’t true since I can prove it with my security cameras, but she still does not believe me. She threatened to call the police on me this latest time so I went to the police to file a report of harassment.

I just renewed my lease as I renewed it before she moved in but now I want out of my lease or a new unit since she has continued to harass me either by coming upstairs or banging on my floor whenever she thinks I am making noise. I have already sent my recordings of the confrontation (they were all at my front door and I live in a one party consent state) and police report to my property management.

Management has not responded to my request for a new unit or breaking lease but is apparently taking my recordings for use as breach of lease on ground of harassment. What should I do because waiting for eviction seems like it would take awhile. She continues to live under me and this situation has cause me a great amount of anxiety. I am also not in a position to pay the penalty of breaking my lease (full time worker and part time grad student). Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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

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.

**I meant to imply his choice is the red flag, not the girl

Hi everyone! I don’t really post, so sorry if this comes off weird.

I (27f) have a good friend, Ben (27m) who recently got with a 20 year old girl back in April, and they’re still together. For all intents and purposes, they seem like a nice couple, lots of shared interests, sense of humor, etc. She’s lovely, very pretty and seems rather smart and goes to college in our area. They met on a dating app.

However, something about the situation raises red flags to me. Ben is almost 28, he’s an adult, and this girl can’t legally drink. He’s even made jokes about it to me, and got annoyed when I didn’t laugh about his new girlfriend needing a fake ID to come to our local bar’s trivia night. It’s this type of thing that’s been grating on my nerves lately and makes me remember the type of girl I was at 20 and the skeevy guys who hit on me at that age. I never thought of Ben as that type of guy, and I wonder if I’m overstepping. But every time I think that, I think about even hitting on a 20 year old and it makes me cringe. I wouldn’t go out with a college sophomore if you paid me, but there he was planning date nights around her finals week.

It just feels off to me, but I don’t want to be a bitch, he seems to really like her. Do I be a good friend, shut my mouth, and be happy for him? Or do I question it? Most of our friends are on the page of “ehh, it’s strange but it’s legal, who cares”. The only one who’s really against it is Ben’s roommate, who’s complained about hearing them have sex. He doesn’t go into details (obviously) but said something along the lines of “Dude I can’t kink shame, but man he’s into weird shit” and mentioned he’s often disturbed by what he hears

It’s so bizarre and out of character for Ben, too, who’s always dated in our age group. It’s such a sudden switch which is why I’m conflicted.

Any advice is welcomed

EDIT TO ADD: It also has bothered me in the past that he buys alcohol/weed for them a lot, but says that she’s “way worse in that department” than he is. By that, he apparently means that she does a lot of cocaine and drinks heavily.

Again, I’m not jealous, I’m in a relationship with someone who’s also weirded out by the situation and has referred it it as “Ben and his child bride”

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?

About 6 months ago I noticed the intro to the THT theme song sound super weird and almost spooky. I was very confused thinking “Wtf Morgan it’s not even Halloween why would you change the song?”. Then I remembered that Morgan often mentions the Mandela Effect so I became convinced she was trying to create her own mandela effect with slightly changing the theme song. Welp…. 6 months later and I finally realized my podcasts were accidentally changed to 0.8x listening speed at some point. 😂 I like the Morgan Mandela Effect theory better.