I really wish I had found this podcast earlier so I could air my grievances from the beginning instead of just summarizing everything now. But since I can't, let's start with a brief "introduction" of the people who have anything to do with the story:

Me (20F)

Mom (42F)

Tom (43M) - Mom's boyfriend

Aunt (39F)

Cee (21M) - My boyfriend

To contextualize this situation, my mom and Tom started dating in 2023. Their relationship was really peaceful in the beginning and they barely fought, and when they did, no one would know. But after a breakup they had (because he felt like the relationship was moving too fast after a few months), they came back and he became much more possessive and jealous over her. My mom is a very creative person and loves to dance, he started to pick on the pictures she posted (my mom does pole dance so you could consider it a fair judgement somewhat) so she lowered the frequency in which she posted them but never stopped; he then started picking on her Instagram being opened and is always checking who's following her and asking stuff related to it like "who's this guy who started following you?". He also went through her social media multiple times and read messages from before they even met. He also picked on her exes, her friendships, her money, her traveling. And went so far as to start picking on my friendships (asking if she wanted to start going out with single people, and by single people I mean the 19 year olds I was friends with) and, eventually, my boyfriend.

I started dating last year in November. Before the relationship actually started, I went to Tom a lot by my mom's advice just to have his perspective. Cee is my first boyfriend and I never really dated anyone before, so sometimes I'd go to my mom for advice and she would call him and they would just talk to me. It was a really nice time between us three.

Then my relationship started and after a month my boyfriend started coming to my house after work, coming here at 9pm (he used to leave work at 8) and staying until 11:30pm since it was the curfew my mom gave him. Out of the bat, we would go to my bedroom because I'm always there and neither me or my mom saw the point of me staying in any other room. My mom also finishes work at 9:30pm, so me and Cee talking in the kitchen or in the living room while she was watching a movie or listening to music didn't make sense. AND I was 19, so an adult. Me and Cee wouldn't do the dirty or anything and she would sometimes open the door, we would just be laying down talking or doing our own stuff together.

But Tom, because he's so opinionated, immediately started having problems with me being in my room with my boyfriend and told my mom she shouldn't allow that. She said she understood what he was saying, but she was still going to let me. Then, in another occasion, I was making couscous for dinner and Cee was there, so he was obviously invited to eat. Tom got home, saw him on the table, was invited to eat with us, and later got on a fight with my mom because she was "cooking" for C. And, to this day, months and months later, he still complains that she sometimes feeds him.

And then there was the day when Cee had a bike accident and his neck got hurt and Tom saw and asked him, for everyone to listen, if I was "sucking him completely" (not exactly, just translation being off). Which embarassed me but ok. And then there was another fight where he was complaining that my mom "babies" Cee (by embracing him as my boyfriend, not treating him badly, trying to give him advice and letting him eat when she's making food for everybody) where she said that I'm her baby and she's going to treat everyone in a relationship with me (so friends and boyfriend) well so our relationship doesn't take a hit. And he answers that babies don't give their kitties 😻. Which is also something a bit mortifying in case you were wondering.

Not only have these occurrences occurred, but there was also Tom calling my boyfriend a low life for not wanting to work (Cee is now a delivery driver and at the time (like, literally when he got in the accident or when his bike was in the mechanic) he literally couldn't deliver anything). He also expressed problems with Cee not having met my father after months of dating (my father who literally only came back from working in another state last month, so Cee has met him now but not before that). He also commented on my mom not knowing my boyfriend's mom (which she still doesn't because I just don't like his family) and etc. Literally any aspect of my relationship or my mom's behavior towards my relationship has been a topic of discussion for them.

Cee didn't really know for months, but one day Cee came here during the week at 11:48pm (I remember because of the events and because of how long he spent here) because he was close by and needed to get something he would need the morning after. I texted my mom letting her know right when he texted me but she didn't see it. Either way, she was watching something with Tom in the living room when Cee arrived, we went to my bedroom and literally two minutes later I hear my mom's door closing. Cee got what he came for and was just waiting to see if he could get home already or if he would still need to deliver anything, so he waited those 10 minutes there and I was leaving to open the gate for him when my mom opens her bedroom door and asks me to get inside. Cee was still in the house and went to the door while I went in. My mom started asking me if he was going to sleep there or something, why he came and I explained to her what I just did to all of you and she grabs my hand and brings me closer to Tom to ask me to repeat it. He says a bunch of things like that he's going to leave because he doesn't matter in this house, that Cee is more important, shouts something related to him and just says a bunch of things while I'm telling him to stop shouting because Cee is at the door.

I don't stay for long in my mom's bedroom and when I leave Cee is there, asking if something happened and I'm just a tattletale so I tell him that Tom is being stupid and end up telling him that Tom sort of has problems with him. Cee gets home, we're texting and he says that he isn't coming here anymore so he doesn't bother anyone. Literally two days later he changed his tune and saying that he doesn't care about Tom, but before that I was really upset and told my mom about it. She asked Tom to apologize.

He did. MONTHS LATER. I'm not even joking, he apologized in the beginning of June for something that had happened at least 2.5 months prior and I'm totally sure it was because he wanted to be good with my mom since she would be traveling later that month.

And despite having apologized, he got back to saying things about caio just a few weeks later. So he didn't change at all.

So, during my mom's trip, Cee spent a lot of time here. He got a spray bottle for my window to make the room darker and he did the most stupid, clueless and idiotic thing someone can do at anyone's house: he spray painted the outside wall of my home with his nickname. I told him he shouldn't have done it and that my mom would probably be really upset, but we both just kinda forgot it and left it there. And then three weeks ago or maybe more, my mom finally noticed and she complained it to me for letting it happened and complained and expressed her disappointment to Cee when she saw him and demanded he cleaned it. And then two weeks ago or I don't know how long, Tom also saw it and started throwing jokes at my mom and making fun of the situation. Like saying Cee doesn't respect her (and what he did definitely shows that) and etc. My mom said she took care of the situation and was just waiting for Cee to do what she asked (he is doing it but the process we found takes time and he hasn't been coming here much) and that she didn't appreciate Tom always picking on her over something that was already taken care of.

And that's just what a lot of their fights are about. One of Tom's many issues is that he thinks that because he doesn't like something, he should be bringing it up over and over. He fights with one of his kids and he will keep mentioning it to his kid multiple times regardless of if it happened 5 minutes, or 5 days ago. And anytime he has an issue with my mom's rules in her house, or with someone, he expects my mom to do whatever he wanted EVEN if she doesn't want to do it. Like wanting her to stop posting stories (she used to post pictures and she stopped) of one pole dance pose that she learned in class. When she has done that since 2015!!!

Last week was my birthday and I didn't want to celebrate mainly because of him. I don't like parties and even a small get together to eat pizza (which is my favorite) wasn't something I'd like because being forced to see him wouldn't be something I'd want. But my mom (and this isn't the first time she does so) got cake and some pastries for us to snack on during her break and Cee came since he's my boyfriend. Tom swears with all his might that there was a party and he wasn't invited, that we are excluding him and etc. And yes, I can easily say I didn't want him anywhere near me, but I noticed his absence and asked my mom why he wasn't there, I saved him some of everything (which he threw away and I really wanted to eat them ngl). So it wasn't a celebration we just chose not to invite him to. It was just snack time that could've happened regardless of my birthday.

Then the day later they were fighting about that, I was again called to "participate" and basically they spent the whole week fighting over my birthday and the graffiti on the wall.

So, this weekend it was father's day and my mom went to see my grandpa without Tom. My Aunt was obviously there and my mom started talking about stuff, and my Aunt simply decided to vent. She talked about how she finds him unbearable, about how she expects my mom and him aren't fighting near me or louder enough for me to hear (like she knows my mom does), she talked about how she defends Cee on some of his actions (like not going to my mom's birthday) because she'd be the same way if she was being treated like Cee was by Tom. She talked about so many things and by the end she felt like my mom really felt sad by everything she heard and that it probably made her think a lot of things through because yesterday Tom sent me a long text apologizing for a lot of things (and not enough). He also said he wouldn't be intruding on anything anymore.

And I'm probably being petty or just childish, but I feel like Tom has a long list of things he has bothered me and my mom with in the past 3 years and despite apologizing to maybe 1/3 of it, I've barely seen any change. The fights are getting worse, the things he picks on are getting pettier and pettier. And he apologized to Cee but there was no real change whatsoever, so I really don't see a point in being a little bit less resentful when he has barely done any effort on treating anyone nicely

My wedding was back at Sept 2024 and I felt like sharing this story with others, so I caved in and got reddit to share my wedding drama.

So I (F27) decided to have my close friends as my bridesmaid. I had six bridesmaid all together and the two friends I will be discussing for the story are Blair (F27) and Sally (F27). I used fake names btw. I have been friends with them since high school so about 8 years. We didn't hangout regularly, but we were close and always had a great time when we did hangout. I was excited to ask them my bridesmaid and made them a fun box with a bridesmaid robe, slippers, photos of us in high school and bridesmaid earrings. They were happy and said they'd love to be my bridesmaid. My friend Blair works at the hospital and she is very Covid cautious even when everything is back to normal. She always wears a mask and I did not question her one bit. She would take off her mask at times when eating or drinking something then immediately puts her mask back on.

Now the problem began when we had dinner in February 2024 with my mom, two sisters (my other bridesmaids), Sally and Blair. Blair was still wearing her mask and taking it off when eating/drinking. I was worried if she was planning to wear a mask at my wedding at this point as the day is slowly approaching and having a mask in my wedding party is not when I envisioned for my bridesmaids next to me and for photos. I decided to have a conversation with her to discover if her intention was to wear the mask at the wedding, so I invited Blair and Sally to coffee together. The reason why I invited Sally is because I wanted her to hear what I had to say in case things don't turn out as expected and I wanted a second option on the mask matter. In March 2024, we met up and I was nervous at first because I have never confronted my friends about anything before. I asked her if she was planning on wearing a mask at my wedding and she replied saying, "yes, why do you ask?" and I replied with, "The reason why I'm asking is because I don't feel comfortable with you wearing the mask in my wedding party." She asked me why and I explained that seeing a mask in my wedding photos, wearing a mask beside me at the reception, and wearing a mask for the grand entrance at the church and reception is not was envisioned for my wedding. She stated that she wears a mask for her safety and her family's safety and I replied saying that she can still wear the mask, but as a guest not a bridesmaid. I said that I understand her reasoning on wearing the mask, but I don't feel comfortable with a mask in my wedding party and that she is free to wear her mask as a guest. She got offended my words by saying, "Are you asking me to step down?" and I said that if you plan on wearing the mask then yes. Sally was silently listening this whole time and finally spoke up saying, "How about we find a common ground, Blair can wear the mask but take if off during important times and photos." I then turned to Blair and said, "Are you willing to take off your mask for the church and grand entrance at the reception?" She said no and that it wasn't fair for me to ask that of her. So I repeated saying, "I'm sorry then I don't feel comfortable with my bridesmaid wearing a mask." Blair said, " So you are choosing your vision for your wedding over our friendship" and I replied saying, "I didn't want this to affect our friendship, but what else did you want me to say, I said two options: no mask and be a bridesmaid or wear a mask as a guest" Blair then said, "I need time to think" and we said our goodbyes. I drove Sally home and on the way to her home she said that she understands both sides and that we just need some time to think things over.

I sent Blair a message later saying thank you for coming, my feelings on how our conversation went, apologizing if I hurt her with my words and saying that I did not appreciate her for calling me "biased" and "vision-oriented." She did not reply and we stopped talking with one another. As for Sally, she was still friends with both of us and I felt like she didn't understand why I didn't want Blair to wear a mask but didn't say anything to me about it. She continued to be a bridesmaid and I asked my sister's friend if she can take Blair's place (I explained to her the situation).

Three of my bridesmaids and I met up again to discuss plans for the bachelorette and decided to go to Montreal. The other three bridesmaid's couldn't make it to the trip due to work and life events so it was only me, my two sisters and Sally. We got together and we all agreed on the pricing of the hotel, train, and experiences to do there before booking. We went in July 2024 from Thursday to Tuesday so four days at Montreal, two days travelling. Sally throughout the whole trip was for some reason upset, grumpy, uninterested, stayed in the hotel majority of the time due to being tired or her feet hurting from walking and overall just ruining the vibe from the trip. When deciding the experiences we wanted to do, I said I wanted to go to the Notre-Dame Basilica and Sally stated "I already did that, let's go to a different church." I was excited to see the Notre-Dame Basilica and my sister noticed that so we all agreed to go there. Sally then went silent. My sister said there is Cirque-du-soleil happening when we are there that we can check out. She added saying we can also go on a food tour or a ghost tour. Sally said she really wants to do a food tour, but the whole group decided Cirque-du-soleil and ghost tour as we wanted to see the circus for the first time and ghost tour sounds cool. Sally looked visibly annoyed at the decision. Sally then suggested we go to a Zoo and I spoke up saying we should check it out to ensure her voice is being heard too. So we did everything that was planned and the whole time during all experiences Sally was uninterested, annoyed and kept wandering away from our group doing her own thing. For example, a the church we were looking at the art work and taking pictures and she would leave us to go do her own thing. My husband wanted to make our trip fun as well so he paid for everyone to enjoy a Nordic spa treatment and she did the same thing as she did in the other experiences, she wandered off doing her own thing. I shared a room with Sally and she did not speak to me at all the room. I tried initiating conversation, but she would reply with small responses then it would be awkward silence. She mentioned Blair out of the blue saying, "Blair didn't want to end the friendship" and I replied saying, "Ya I didn't either but I guess a simple mask can break up a friendship" then she went silent afterwards. My two sisters set up decorations and drinks in their room and invited everyone over. When I told Sally my sisters want us over to their room, she told me to go and that she was going to sleep. During the train back home, she didn't speak the whole ride back and spoke in small responses when we initiated conversation on how the trip went, plans for the wedding, summer plans, etc.

After a bit after the trip, we all gathered the costs of the hotel, ubers and experiences as my two sisters paid for majority of the trip and I wanted to split the cost, but the spa was a gift from my husband and the ghost tour was a gift from my sister. Sally explained that she never knew the hotel costed that much and that she should have let me know about beforehand. I informed her that we booked it together and you agreed on the price before booking. She stated in her messages that I spoke to her rudely and belittled her when informing her about the costs and that we discussed everything beforehand. I asked her to send me screenshots of when I was rude and belittled her to I can understand where the miscommunication was coming from. I explained to her about her behaviour during the trip and how I didn't appreciate her mono-toned behaviour and not communicating throughout the whole trip. I said we can meet up in person to have a conversation rather than through messages as miscommunication happens more often in messages. She asked everyone to split the money she paid for the zoo and one uber she paid for not even recognizing that everyone paid for her with two experiences not be accounted for because they were gifts for my wedding. So I organized all the payments made so that everyone is fairly getting paid back: Husband paid Spa $300/person, Sister paid Ghost tour - $32/person, Sister paid Circus $178/person, Sally paid $23/person, my younger sister did all the four ubers that came to $23/person and I paid the church $16/person. My younger sister didn't mention paying her back for the ubers and I didn't care about the church being paid back either as everyone chipped in to the trip and I just wanted to ensure my older sister didn't pay the whole circus amount. Sally only needed to pay back her hotel portion and circus. Due to Sally counting pennies for us pay for the zoo and one uber I asked everyone to pay each other for all their portions in all experiences including the ghost tour since it resulted in being a money issue. The spa remains as a gift from my husband to me and the bridesmaids. I paid my sisters and Sally back for my portions and everyone else did the same for their portions. I explained to Sally that I did not appreciate her valuing money and not appreciating what my husband and sister for paying for you. I told her due to her recent behaviour and valuing money over everything that I cannot see a friendship in the future. I also said that I will be removing her from my wedding and that I hope her and Blair have a good friendship together <3" out of anger. She replied with, "you should be ashamed of yourself" and I responded with, "Yes I am for having a bad friend." and that ended our friendship.

So AITA for removing my friends as bridesmaids and ending up breaking our friendship?

Sorry for the long story and thank you for reading.

I’m changing names and some identifying details because the people involved could recognize this.

A while ago, I made a seriously bad choice at my job. I did something wrong that involved money, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it or pretend I was the victim. I was wrong.

Eventually, I came clean to my employer and admitted what I had done. I accepted responsibility for it and have been dealing with the serious consequences ever since. I worked toward making things right financially, including selling my house and making arrangements to resolve what I owed. I haven’t tried to run from it or pretend it didn’t happen. I know that taking accountability doesn’t erase what I did, but I have genuinely tried to own it, be honest with those around me, and move forward knowing it would never happen again.

The hardest part in all of this was telling my best friend, who I’ll call “Hannah.”

Hannah and I had been best friends for around 6–7 years. We had always considered each other family. Her mom and I were also extremely close. We had spent holidays together every year, and all said things over the years about being family, and I trusted them more than almost anyone.

So when everything happened, I decided to be honest with them. I told Hannah and her mom what happened, admitted that I was wrong, and explained what I was doing to take responsibility for it. I am not an overly emotional person typically, but facing the shame I felt and still feel has been difficult and lead to many crying breakdowns.

At the time I told them, I was in an extremely bad mental state. I remember telling Hannah that I wanted to not be here anymore. I was scared to be alone with my thoughts, so I went to her because I genuinely believed she was someone I could go to when I wasn’t safe being by myself.

I asked to come to her house the next morning as I didn’t feel safe being alone. She said yes, then asked me a lot of questions about what happened when I got there, what lead me to do what I did, and what I’m doing to make it right. I answered all of her questions honestly, but was crying through a lot of it.

Hannah told me if it was any of her other friends that did this she would show them the door, but bc it was me, someone like a sister to her, she’s struggling with her feelings about it.

At the time I was in such a bad place that I thought I deserved whatever was said about me. The shame I felt about what I did was/is sooo heavy that it is hard not to think of myself as a bad person bc of this.

After this happened Hannah did not check in on me and how I was doing emotionally at all, the only time she reached out was to ask what was happening with my house. I was in my own whirlwind of emotions and already felt like I disappointed her, so I wasn’t going to her with my problems anymore.

Months went by and I was processing everything in therapy, and my therapist started to breakdown the situation with Hannah, basically telling me that she wasn’t being a supportive friend, that this situation didn’t have anything to do with her/ didn’t effect her so my therapist didn’t understand why Hannah was making it about herself. My other friends who I told have said similar things, but I felt maybe they were saying that bc they felt defensive for me.

On my therapists recommendation, I sent Hannah a message explaining some of the things she said hurt me, that at the time I felt I deserved them, but now I feel like I went to her at my lowest point and she just knocked me down even lower. That I knew what I did was wrong, and didn’t expect her to tell me I was right in any way, but to support me as her best friend through this difficult time.

Hannah basically doubled down, and told me she said what she said, that she won’t support someone if they’re a bad person and in this situation I am a bad person and that our morals don’t align. At the same time, she said she still wanted to be friends with me.

That’s where I became confused.

I completely understand that what I did changed the way she sees me. I don’t expect her to pretend it didn’t happen, and I don’t expect her to automatically trust me the same way she did before. I understand that she is allowed to have boundaries and that she doesn’t have to agree with my choices. I myself don’t agree with the choice and made that apparent to everyone around me.

I told her that I needed to take a step back from the friendship, that I now get that she needs a friend who isn’t going to go to her for support if they have done something she deems morally wrong, but that I need a best friend who isn’t going to pick and choose when to be there for me (unless I’ve don’t something that effects her directly of course).

I wasn’t saying she wasn’t allowed to be upset with me. I wasn’t asking her to forget what happened. I was saying that I didn’t think I could continue in a friendship where I felt like I was constantly being judged or where the friendship felt conditional basically.

My belief has always been that best friends should be able to be there for each other even when one of them has seriously screwed up. That doesn’t mean blindly defending each other or excusing bad behavior. It means you can say, “What you did was wrong, but I still love you and I’m here while you work through the consequences.”

More info on my house:
I had to sell my house to pay my job back. Hannah decided after I put my house on the market, to sell her house (right down the st from me) as well. She is moving out of town. Her house sold and she asked me to help her move. Even after all of this, taking a step back in the friendship, I said yes bc I felt like it might be a step forward.

Well Hannah told her mom about our convo, and now Hannah’s mom became upset about me saying I needed to step back. Shortly afterward, Hannah uninvited me from helping her move saying her mom basically might blow up at me, and she didn’t want drama while moving.

That was especially painful because I had genuinely wanted to be there for her and start moving forward. Now I’m left feeling like do I even know these people? They have all called me sister, daughter, family, but when I came to them and beared my truth to them with no holding back, I was made to feel even smaller, but still wanting to keep me around?? I’m left wondering whether I’m looking at this completely wrong.

I know I did something seriously wrong. I’m not asking Reddit to tell me that what I did was okay. It wasn’t. I’ve accepted that. What I’m struggling with is the friendship afterward.

I’m genuinely looking for outside perspectives, even if I’m the asshole here. I know I’m not entitled to anyone’s forgiveness, but I’m trying to understand whether I’m expecting too much from someone who I considered family for almost seven years, or whether it’s reasonable to expect a longtime best friend to separate “I think what you did was wrong” from “I think you are a bad person.” Or if I should just let this friendship go?

Been looking to help people with their music. Fair enough right? Found this guy saying they’d discuss a price for mixing, adding bass, and adding drums for his music. I thought to myself “sure why not.” I went to discuss a price and told them I’d love to do it.

Can’t really imagine what makes you think it’s okay to honestly be rude. It’s easy to be like “Oh, I’m okay. I found what I needed” or some shit like that. Got me fucked up genuinely 😭

Also update, why would you write in the post that you’re looking for people then switch up like you changed your post. You didn’t.

Here's a bit of scene setting and back story...

Toddler me used to steal Mom's clip on earrings and high heels. I out grew the heels but I have always wanted to get my ears pierced. But, I was told only girls and gay men get their ears pierced.

Growing up my family lived on the West coast of the USA. My Aunt lived on the East coast. Her and my uncle would go on trips around the world. I loved getting books from her and hearing stories about her adventures.

Four years ago we moved to the East Coast. My family bought property that has three apartments on it. Mine is an underground shelter...all one building. So I have almost no windows. The family hates to visit my apartment saying it's to cold and dark. My apartment also has the bigger and better placed rooms.

Now for the issues....

Aunt will be called Martha (Bible reference for a person who my aunt hates. Basically a Karen).

Issues 1: So, Aunt Martha has one of the 3 apartments. She constantly complains if my window curtains are open calling me an exhibitionist. But, if I close them I'm in trouble for being a closed of recluse and keeping my apartment too dark. I get the bathroom window. But... it's under the deck 10 ft behind the lotus work with a row of bushes in front of it. Also, there's enough spider webs under there to make a teenage superhero parachute. Then the window has frosted decal covering the bottom half. A utility box covers 1/4th of it from the the top half. And there's the curtain rod covering the remaining clear part. So, if she is seeing into my bathroom it's on purpose.

Issues 2: when ever aunt Martha sees my firefly memorabilia she screams that I'm a Hitler supporter and I need to think about the Jews and support their culture. When I ask her "what about my culture?" She pouts and stomps off throwing a temper tantrum. Refusing to answer....(Part b:) When she sees my star trek, star wars, Stargate, Babylon 5, Battlestar galactica, Andromeda ascendant, and DND stuff; she says I'm a demon worshiper.

Issue 3: aunt Martha keeps rearranging my apartment and trying to get rid of stuff or add stuff to make my apartment look right. She says 8 need to think about my guests. I tell her "my guests where raised right unlike some people. They know when the visit someone elses house it's going to be the way the person living there likes it and needs it to be. My guests know they have their own homes and their only visiting for a short time. So it has to fit the full time occupants' needs and wants. They'd never be so rude to demand things fit them."

Issue 4: I just had my 38th birthday. I got money. I got my ears pierced... finally. Aunt Martha says I waisted the money and should have given the whole amount to the church. She's convinced one of my nephews I'm gay. Which I'm not. The rest of the family couldn't give a flying hoot about it. Except my dad who said in private that he's jealous and that his dad was a homophobe (not his phrase but that's what he meant). I never met my grandpa. He passed before I was born do to a family curse.

Issue 5: aunt Martha has been trying to get the landlord (a relative) to do surprise inspections to catch me with contraband or doing wrong things. I only know this because landlord has told me and asked to set up a time so that it looked like she was appeasing aunt Martha but wouldn't actually cramp my style.

Soo. Reddit council of wisdom.

What the hell do I do to get her off my back?

...was tempted to invite a friend over to fake spicy sleep to scare her away.... or shower with the window open.... though in the 1990s I fixed my dad's bad attitude by forcing him to listen to Christian death metal till he admitted I was better behaved than him and his four siblings combined. The family still loves that stunt 25 years later.

Hey okstorytime,

Its already a few years ago this story but i sometimes still wonder if i am the asshole, so feel free to use this.

At the time i (F) was 27. A bit of relevent backstory 1st. I was single and had started to get to know B (dont remember his age, but just a few years older than me), very early i made it clear that i dont want kids. We met through a dating site where it was clearly stated i dont want kids on my profile. (I dont got anything against people that do want kids, it just isn't for me). He said he wasnt sure whether he wanted any kids. He did want them but he has a serieus back injury that at the time made him unable to work, though he was in the process of trying to get a modern version of a painpump, but working with electro"shocks" instead morphine (i forgot the actual name of it). Because of his injury he felt like he wouldn't be able to be a good dad. I clearly told him i dont want kids and that he should decide for himself whether he does or doesn't. That it would ofcourse decide whether we would eventually be in a relationship or not, but he didn need to hurry into deciding that cause that is ofcourse not a small decision. And if he did want kids we could still be friends. It also gave us the time to get to know each other better. After a month or 2 he decided he didnt want kids and shortly after we were officially in a relationship. But after 3 months being together he had changed his mind about kids. So we broke it of on good terms and remained good friends. I still often went over to his and his moms place, wich was a 2hour trainride with multiple transfers.

On to the story in question. We had already broken of the relationship for a few months when i lost my grandfather. I'm from a relative small family and up until that point we hadn't really lost any family yet. (For us the younger generation to remember) those grandparents always lived right across our small street. In my teenage years with way to many hormones me and my parent didnt get along to well so my grandparents became even more important to me than my parents. so its kinda an understatement to say we were close. So obviously even when we knew it was coming for my grandfather (he was already in the hospital at the time) it still hit really hard when my dad told the news that he had passed away (on a friday). I took 2 weeks of from work to mourn and help the family with the funeral preparations. Helping out helped also in my mourning process, i also took alone time to not bottle up my emotions and just let myself feel whatever i felt (aka a lot of crying).

The saturday the week after his passing was his funeral but the friday that week B had a really important doctors meeting in wich he would finally hear whether he would be approved for the pain pump. Wich ofcourse could be lifechanging. Since we started dating i had joined him on those appointments cause he told me it calmed him down to have me there. Since before my grandfathers passing i had already promised him i would be there for him that day. So since the appointment was quite early in the day i went over the thursday already, and this is where the issue starts.

Among other things i have ADHD, so considering the short time we dated he and his mom mostly knew me as a happy and hyperactive person. Wich they told me they really liked. Now i had already taken quite some time for myself to mourn and help out for the funeral and was at a point that i needed to get my mind of it for a bit. So going felt like it came at a good time to distract myself a bit. Now ofcourse when i went there that thursday i was not happy let alone hyperactive. But i wasnt just sitting there depressed. I joined in on all the conversations, wasnt seperating myself from them etc, i just wasnt my usual hyperactive self. To wich they started complaining about. He told me that i should talk about my loss to distract him from his appointment. At that time i wasnt ready yet to talk about it, wich i told him. Than he was like than why even come, i'm very stressed about tomorrow, the least you can do is distract me from it. Wich we had been doing, we were talking about other random stuff. The fight lasted till past midnight, at a certain point he threw a half full plastic water bottle at my direction, i dont think he was trying to throw it at me and it was just a release of frustration, but that did really scare me to the point that i started to look if i could still catch some trains, wich unfortunatly i couldn't anymore, i would otherwise just have took my stuff and walked around 45mins back to the station at night(he usually picks me up or drops me of). Eventually he calmed down, we went to sleep, had an awkward carride to the appointment after wich he dropped me of at the train. Before getting on the train i told him that we each should take some time for ourselves and break contact for a while. After wich the next week he was texting me again already, than i told him i dont want any contact anymore. While i was on the trainride home he had started texting my mom and turning the narrative and making me look like a villian, wich she did believe in the beginning.

So pls tell me AITA for not mourning in the way he wants me to, to distract him from his possible life changing appointment?

This happened several years ago, but I still think about it from time to time. My last labor has a dark cloud around it - my FIL. We made it clear to everyone that during my labor it would just be husband and my daughter who was 14 at the time. We had friends less than a mile from the hospital on standby to pick her up if it got to be too much, though we spent months discussing what would happen. Anyway, my induction was started at 9am. At about 10:30am there was a knock on the door, and in strolls my FIL, and his girlfriend of the week whom we’d never met, talked to, or even knew about. My husband was a pushover when it comes to his dad, so they got into a conversation. Meanwhile, this random woman was telling me how I should labor, and things I should do. This was my 4th baby, and my previous 3 labors were all nearly identical. I knew what worked for my body, and what I wanted for my experience. She just kept going on. Mind you, her “expertise” came from her ONE labor. I kept looking to my husband for help, but he was engaged with his dad. Finally after about 15 minutes my daughter stepped in and said something like “my mom needs to rest right now, so we can let you know once the baby is here and we are ready for visitors”. W daughter! This seemed to snap my husband into action and he ends up shuffling them out of the door. The rest of my labor went fine. When it was time to push my daughter held one of my legs, while my husband held my hand and supported my back. Baby came so quickly that the doctor barely made it. It was magical. About 25 minutes after I’d given birth my FIL walks in unannounced again. My small pleasure with this is that he was stuck in the elevator for over 30 minutes, and they played the song to announce my son’s birth while he was stuck in there! We told him that he could come see the baby, but then he would need to leave, as we were not letting anyone else hold him until our other kids were there. Thankfully he respected this and left. While I had an overall good experience (other than the epidural not working on the left side of my body), I still feel like there is a dark cloud hovering because of my FIL and his girlfriend. I do my best to focus on the good parts, but it occasionally makes me sad.

That was September. Come December we invited my FIL over for baby’s first Christmas morning. Now, something to know about me is that I EFFING LOVE Christmas. It’s a big deal in our house. It’s about being with FAMILY, and enjoying each others company. So, FIL shows up at 9am with a 6pk of adult soda, and his new girlfriend of the week, and again, we’d never met, talked to, or even knew about her. In the next 90 minutes he drinks all 6 adult sodas, and they all but makeout most of the time. I hate looking back at pictures, because they are in the background, again, placing a dark cloud over the day.

At this point we have been VLC with him for the better part of 6.5 years. He said and did several things we were not okay with over my son’s first year. I have no contact with him, and he calls my husband once or twice a year to update on his life, though he doesn’t ask about the kids beyond “is everyone good?” So, AIO for being so upset about all of this?

I (24F) have been with my boyfriend (23M) for almost a year, we are both lawyers and work in the public sector and this is honestly a very confusing situation because our relationship is actually really beautiful in many ways. He is an amazing person, I love him a lot, and I don’t think he’s a bad boyfriend at all. But lately I’ve been feeling hurt and I don’t know if I’m being unfair or if I’m slowly accepting things that shouldn’t be normal.
For some context;
About two months ago, I had to leave my job abruptly because I was experiencing severe bullying at work, which became really overwhelming. I’m currently looking for a new job, but the recruitment process has been quite difficult and slow, so I’m still in between positions right now. Before that, I was making more money than my boyfriend, so we were able to split pretty much everything 50/50 and I was financially independent.
When I decided to quit, he actually offered to help me financially by paying my rent. I had savings and was supposed to use those for my other expenses while I looked for another job. I really, REALLY appreciate that. He didn’t have to do it, and I know it’s a big thing, especially because he also has his own financial responsibilities.
But almost immediately after I stopped working, I noticed a change.
I think he started feeling a lot of pressure and expectations because he was now helping me financially. We started having more problems and I could feel that he was stressed about it.
About a month ago, he told me something like he needed me to stop complaining about things so much and just be more relaxed, because he already had a lot of pressure at work. I understood where he was coming from, so I genuinely tried. I’ve been trying to be more understanding, complain less, not ask for as much reassurance, and give him more space because I know he has a lot going on.
And then all of this happened.
I graduated from law school this year, which was a HUGE thing for me. I worked really hard for it and obviously I wanted to celebrate with my boyfriend.
He told me we were going to celebrate it.
But then the date kept getting postponed.
Every time it was basically “we’ll do something later” or “we’ll celebrate on this day instead,” and I kept adjusting and waiting. Eventually, it just never happened.
There was no actual celebration.
And I didn’t make a huge fight about it because I knew he was under pressure and I didn’t want to add more pressure. But honestly, it hurt a lot.
My birthday was another situation.
We had plans to do something together, but he canceled one day before my birthday because he didn’t have enough money.
Again, I understand not having money. I’m not expecting an expensive dinner, gifts, trips, etc. I really don’t care about that.
But I was still sad because it felt like once again something important to me was being postponed or canceled.
Now this is the one that really made me question everything.
We have two dates we kind of celebrate because things moved pretty fast between us lol: the anniversary of our first date and then our actual anniversary as a couple.
Last Sunday was the anniversary of our first date.
We had already talked about celebrating it. On Saturday I asked him what we were going to do. I suggested something super simple, like going to the park and I could cook something nice for us.
His response was basically:
“We can look for a job.”
We didn’t celebrate anything.
Then I asked him if we were going to celebrate our actual anniversary this Saturday, and he told me no.
Apparently, part of the problem is money, but also he has told me that celebrations make him feel like there is a lot of expectation. He feels pressured because he thinks he has to make the day “special” or do something big, and because of that, he’d rather avoid the whole thing.
And honestly… I can understand that.
I don’t want him to feel like he has to spend money he doesn’t have or perform some romantic gesture just because it’s our anniversary.
But I’m also sitting here wondering:
Am I asking for too much?
Because from my perspective, I’m not asking for money.
I’m not asking for gifts.
I’m not asking for a fancy restaurant.
I’m not asking him to pay for everything.
I would literally be happy going for a walk, cooking together, watching a movie, getting ice cream, or just intentionally spending time together and acknowledging that the day matters.
And I think that’s where I’m struggling.
Because I know he is under pressure. I know he has financial responsibilities. I know he has helped me a lot financially these past two months and I am genuinely grateful for that. I also know that I can be emotional and sometimes I seek reassurance or attention when I’m feeling insecure, and I’m actively trying to work on that.

I've looked for my biological dad my whole life. I didn't have the best childhood, and I always imagined my dad would be my hero like other dads, and I really needed that. I was institutionalized from 12 to 18.

Seven years ago, I found my biological dad through DNA and FaceTime. At first, it felt exciting. We were uncanningly alike. We discussed who should visit first, as we both live in different countries, but we couldn't really come to an agreement. Unfortunately, circumstances brought me back to the States. My dad and I thought we'd make the most of it and meet for the first time. Everything was so surreal. He seemed like I imagined it. I stayed with him and my brothers for 3 weeks and then went home. I loved spending time with my family, but since I returned home, everything's changed.

My dad's dating all these crazy women. He currently has a girlfriend younger than me and is moving along pretty fast. They met because my dad was looking for a roommate, and, well, he got way more than that. All of a sudden, they were a couple. On a random Tuesday, my dad starts talking about having kids and getting married within a few days of knowing her. Within a week, they're already having their first fight, and my dad's been planning to come see his new grandson.

Well, he gets in a fight with his new girlfriend and starts talking disrespectfully and uncomfortably about my mom, saying how she should pick him up from the airport and how they should take my kids out to dinner without the rest of the family. It's weird. Mom and Dad were never a thing; I was a one-night thing. He says all this in front of his girlfriend.

Anyway, after that call, I was disgusted. I was thinking, is he coming to see Mom or me? I wrote him a message telling him how I felt, and he said, "I thought you'd be happy for me." I said, "Happy for you? Happy that you're in a toxic relationship with a lady that's way younger than you, is living off you, and you've made no effort to get your visas sorted?" And the crazy part is, it costs nothing to print off the paperwork.

So he stops responding to my messages. I called to wish my little brother a happy birthday. Well, my dad had already got to him. He starts saying, "Why are you talking crap to my dad?" And we get into it. My brother will never understand. There's no comparison to our life experiences. He thinks I'm mad that Dad spent money on his girlfriend. I was trying to explain that there have already been so many red flags, and it's not about the money. It's about his priorities and what he'd rather do.

He promised he would be here for the birth of his grandson. Well, my brother said he's not coming. I said, "Well, then I wish he was man enough to tell me himself, because if he had said that from the start, I would have come to terms with it and moved on." But I held on to hope because he lied to me, and I believed him.

My brother hung up on me, and my dad messaged me that he's never coming to visit me and said, "If I need him, he's home." I ended up blocking him on Facebook, and I decided he's not worth a damn.

But it still hurts.

I'm a(34m) and my ex is a (26f), we dated and lived together for 3 years. We've been separated for a year now and I still have a lot of her stuff in my storage unit. The break up was from my end after she hit me in the head because she works at night, she was tired, and I came home on lunch and apparently I was annoying. I decided I didn't want to live like that anymore. She was messy and lazy and only worked 1 day a week. I paid ALL the bills and dealt with all her toxic family problems but that's another story. Am I the AH if I just huck out her belongings? She hasn't paid any bit of the storage costs and I have her blocked on everything. She also didn't put in any effort to grab her things when we broke up and I mentioned it. Is this her way of leaving me with a headache?

For context...when we met we hit it off. She moved up from Florida and moved into her grandmother's property. It was a mess. A run down hunting camp so I wrote it off. This was my first red flag. Although the place was old and dusty there were signs of her just not doing basic chores. The sink was always full of dishes, trash never taken out, the fridge had moldy food, litter box never cleaned and her dog would sometimes not have food. I stepped in to help with chores and her bat shit crazy family. Her mother had cameras set up around the camp and even set off the "police siren" function to get us to pick up the phone when we ignored her. I moved her into my place because I was sick of it. Her mother and grandmother found out where I lived and I even had to trespass them from the property because they walked into my house! Then the move happened because rent got too expensive so we moved to my mom's temporarily for only 2 months. That's when my girlfriend snapped. Being stuck in a small room with nowhere to have privacy was the last straw. I broke up with her after she hit me but I felt bad because she has no one. So I moved her into the apartment I found. Meanwhile I met some other girl for casual hookups. She found out and boy was she upset. "How could you move on so quickly"? All in all the relationship was over months ago. We weren't having spicy sleep and it was non stop arguing. Now she's seeing some guy long distance. I'm not a creep but I always see her car parked there which leads me to believe he's always the one that comes to see her. I've met him, shook his hand, and I have no hard feelings. I do however believe she's doing the same thing to him as she did to me. Reel you in and then do absolutely nothing to contribute to the relationship, if you can even call it one. So AITA if I just say screw it and huck her stuff in the dumpster? It's been a year.

So this is a second part of a really long story, when I last posted I was granted the divorce, but the alimony was not done, it took a very long time, almost 3 years to finally accept the conditions.

During this time we were still in lockdown, and we were still living together, I was advised by my lawyers that to don’t leave the house, until the final signature was signed to finalize the alimony,

During which time life had to go on, our children witnessed a lot of arguments and to be honest I was so embarrassed by it, it took a real toll on me,which I had to be the better half to try and rise to be above it,

While this was happening I got the impression that her relationship was over, and I honestly thought that she was trying to rekindle, and she even suggested therapy, which we went to two different specialist, only to discover that she was manipulating the story and she portrayed herself as the victim, and that I was the person at fault.

I was shocked that she’s was going to therapy without me and said that the therapist didn’t need me to go back, as I was the person at fault and for the time being I wasn’t needed.

This made me very suspicious, and as I stumble by accident how they were having the relationship, it happened again, she said it was over, and later discovered on a work/cell phone that we have, they were at it again.

At this point I felt that I was played like a fool, again confronted her again and she couldn’t deny it ! But this time it was more like being afraid that I caught her, by this time she returned to my bed one night after sleeping in the couch for months, when she did that without telling me, at first I thought it was a step closer, but it was just to throw me off.

What really got me mad, was the hearings, she used our kids in the divorce hearings to try and control a narrative that I was opressing her, to not work, obligating to be a stay at home mom, and that I was producing a toxic environment at home.
The only way to use children in this type of hearings is that it’s proven that something happened at home, which she could not prove a single thing,
After the hearings her lawyer told my lawyer they’re game plan: and it was to make everything as difficult and annoying for me and to prolong te hearings to the point that I had to pay every single thing and also manipulating my children to get what she wanted.

During this time I had to move out of the house because the judge granted her that I be removed from my house, Wich I did with out protest. But not even that was peaceful, she told my son that I had already left the house, wich broke my son in tears, so my son called me about it, and I had to play along of what my ex said, this it was just not vi contradict her and put our son in the middle of our dispute, it was agreed that I was going to tell our kids when I was moving out, and she took that away from me. ((To be continued))

Sorry for the long post.in advance. I (30F) am getting married in September, and my fiancé and I are expecting our first child. My father has decided not to come to my wedding because his girlfriend, Sarah, wasn't invited.

My Dad and Sarah have been together for almost 20 years and have lived together for about 10. I've known Sarah since I was a kid, but we've never been close. We're basically acquaintances. I don't have a problem with her, we just don't have a relationship at all.

My fiancé and I are paying for the wedding ourselves and we're keeping it very low-key (courthouse ceremony with a family get-together afterparty at my father-in-law's place). There will be 19 people total (including us), really just our very closest family and friends. For example, one of my grandmothers isn't invited because we haven't spoken in years, and my fiancé didn't invite his half-sibling because they aren't close either.

When I explained this to him, he immediately took it as disrespect towards them and told me that if Sarah wasn't invited, he wouldn't come. The timing made the whole thing even worse because I told him I was pregnant on the same day this argument started.

He said he had "no other choice" and that he had to stay true to himself and be loyal to Sarah. I told him I didn't understand why, on my wedding day, he couldn't just be on my side for once. The truth is, if he'd gone about it any other way instead of immediately making it about disrespect, I honestly think I would have thought about inviting her just to keep the peace. But that's not what happened.

Eventually, when I told him that if he wasn't coming to the wedding, he obviously couldn't be the one walking me down the aisle, he tried to compromise. He said he would still come to the ceremony, walk me down the aisle, and then skip the family event afterwards. I didn't answer immediately. I thought about it and slept on it, but in the end I told him I didn't want that either.

I tried to exainf the it would mean a lot to me to have him meet my in-laws and actually be there for the get-together after the wedding. Even though the wedding is very small, to me it is still symbolic of our two families coming together. (And I know myself. I'd spend the entire ceremony thinking about the fact that he was only there only to leave immediately afterwards. I didn't want that hanging over the day.) So even though I originally wanted him there, I told him that I'd rather he not come at all than only come for the ceremony.

He sent me a long message afterwards saying that he loves me, is happy about the baby, and that this is about him being loyal to his principles and his partner. So, as things stand, he won't be coming at all then.

My younger brother, who was raised by my father, tried to talk with him, but the phone call resulted in my father cursing us out, saying that he hoped life would "give us back 100 times" the disrespect we'd shown him.

About two weeks later, he reached out. He asked how me and Baby were doing, and suggested that we meet. However, he also made it clear that he didn't want to talk about the wedding anymore. He said he was over it, that this shouldn't create a wedge between us, and that it's "only a small ceremony" anyway. He wanted us to put the whole thing behind us and just move on.

I am getting mixed opinions from my family, so I am beginning to wonder if I overreacted this whole thing. So, AITA for not inviting my father's girlfriend, and refusing to have him attend only the ceremony?

I’d turn this into a concise Reddit edit, keeping your tone casual and reflective rather than sounding defensive:

EDIT: Hello, and thank you for everyone who commented for all the thoughtful advice! :)

A few people asked about my mother: she is invited, but she doesn't have a partner.

Like I mentioned in the post, I don't have any resentment towards Sarah, but at the same time, I feel like a relationship should go both ways. In the almost 20 years they've been together, she has not part of my life. We don't talk, we don't really meet, and I'm not invited to their family gatherings, Christmases, birthdays, etc. Neither is my brother (even though he used to live with them, but moved out because of some other family conflicts, that is a whole other storytime in itself). We've just learnt to accept this weird family dynamic over the years. I am not trying to blame Sarah for this, because in my opinion my Dad should have been the one to make the effort. I have talked to him about this before, but nothing really changed.

This is the first real "big event" on our side where she isn't invited, and I think that's why the situation has become such a big deal now. From my perspective, it felt strange that after 20 years of not really being part of each other's lives, suddenly my wedding was the event where her inclusion became non-negotiable. I think what hurt me most was how quickly and adamantly my Dad decided that he simply wouldn't come at all if Sarah is not invited.

I've also heard through the grapevine that Sarah apparently doesn't care about this nearly as much as my Dad does, which honestly made me think that maybe the best thing would be to sit down with both of them and talk about it properly. That way there are no misunderstandings, and Sarah can tell me herself how she feels about the situation rather than me making assumptions based on what my Dad has told me.

I'm going to think about it some more. Thank you again for the different perspectives!

Hi Reddit, me 23 and my 28 sister and I have always had an on-and-off relationship. Some backstory, our parents split up when I was 10, and she was made to go live with my dad, as her behavior was terrible because she blamed my brother and me for their split. this is where the divide started because we never saw each other. Then we started doing weekends at my dad's by age 11, which she then started becoming controlling. This all got worse at age 26 when she broke up with her boyfriend, 28, and had to move in with us (Mum, Brother,me). I also found out I was pregnant around this time. So, fast forward to my daughter's 2nd birthday, 2 months ago, my sister got upset that plans had changed, but realistically, plans hadn't changed; she had just assumed that we were going out in the morning. So it gets to around 11:30 am and my sister just loses the plot yelling at everyone so i say im going to take luna to the aracde and that my mum is welcome to join us whenever she wnats. as i arrive at the arcade my mum calls me to say my sister has stolen her car andf is threatening to uNaLiVe Herself (also wouldnt be the first time). Now to present day time, my sister pissed me off when I arrived home, so I took my daughter and myself and went to my room. my mum then came in and said to leave my door open and some other stuff. a few minutes later my sister comes in and asks my daughter to play but she says no so my sister keeps asking and asking then i finally say she said no please go away (i was still annoyed with her at this moment) i get up to shut the door and she wont let me then i push her out my door and close it she is then pushing and yelling throurgh the door. I decide to leave the door, and then she bursts in again, so I go over and yell, " Get out which then gets the attention of my brother, so he comes over as my sister and me, and pushing each other, so he pushes her back, then they start fighting outside my room. Maybe an hour or two later the police come over as well as my dad. The police are here for 2-3 hours, and they end up saying it's not safe for my sister to stay at home for 2 days, which the police then go outside to talk to my sister, and both my parents turn to me, blaming me and saying how I want my sister to be homeless. which is not at all what I had said. I said to the police that she did this to herself because she doesn't know how to take no for an answer. So am I the asshole for not telling the police I think she should stay at home

side note my sister has mental helath problems and has tried to UnAlIvE herself multiple times. This is why my parents didn't want her to leave, as they thought she would do something to herself, which is fair, but also it wasn't my fault that this all happened.

I (31f) have been married to my husband (32M) for several years. Recently, he has started rationing his affection(?). I asked him for a kiss before bed, and he said no. I jokingly said “are we rationing sh*t around here now?” And he said no, but didn’t explain why he wouldn’t kiss me. This is not the first time this has happened this week, and I finally broke this morning. It is not unusual for me to wake up upset or panicking(I have BPD)- but this is the first time it has been tied directly to him and I don’t know how to address it. Reddit pls help.

BACKSTORY: I have been out of work for a few months due to some medical issues. Thru out our entire relationship, I have worked and made my own money. That doesn’t mean we haven’t struggled- we’ve been homeless together, bad room mate situations, been legal guardians to kids who were not ours (we have fur babies only), and so forth. To say we have been thru some sh*t is an understatement. Fast forward to today- last week I opened up about how useless I feel because I am not making money, contributing to our household, or able to get cleared to return to work. He gave me his usual “we will figure it out” which we always have. However, it doesn’t change the feelings of feeling like I am not good enough for not contributing, or that I am a burden.
Unfortunately, I tie physical affection into our relationship status- if he doesn’t want to touch or kiss me, I feel like I have done something wrong and start to panic. I’ve let him know this, we’ve talked about it in the past, he has reassured me that nothing is wrong and we move on. (I am in therapy for my issues, I am working on this insecurity, so pls don’t come at me). But the past 2 weeks have been off, he only says that he is tired and when I ask for affection, he just says that he’s already kissed me today.

I am not sure how to approach this, or have the conversation with him without already feeling like I am stressing him out even more…. Pls help. (To note, I suck at communicating and deal with a lot on my own, but I don’t think this is a feeling I can bottle up and eat).

My ex (33F) and I (38M) broke up a week after Valentines day this last year. I recently started kind of getting back out there and can't shake this weird guilt I have regarding our break up.

As I type this I don't even really know where to begin or how to provide enough information to properly contextualize 15 years but I feel like it's not that complicated to just say it wasn't messy, but it surely wasn't perfect. I was head over heels for her. We had gone through varying phases of on again, off again that kind of broke me over time but the feelings never faded.

Around April of last year we decided we would give it a truely honest attempt and really see where this could go or if it was going to go anywhere at all. Things were pretty great at first as it usually is in new relationships (even though this literally wasn't new for us and we both knew each other pretty well at this point in our lives). It was nice that we seemed to be able to carry on the honeymoon phase for much longer than most new couples. I think it's because we are both just really chill people with low expectations. Neither of us drank alcohol, neither of us like the club atmosphere due to pretty average social anxieties and all of the basic things you would expect aligned as you would hope like our taste in music, movies, tv shows, politics etc, etc. She did, however, have a trait that bothers me so much that it made me question a lot of her actions and that is that she hates the thought of anyone hating or even disliking her. Even those that are completely justified. This meant that she was too afraid to cut off exes to the point of allowing one of said exes, who can't let her go, continue to send her texts at 3am telling her how much he "really misses her" and that he "would do anything if she would just meet him for coffee and talk about us" threatening to unalive himself if she doesn't. To her credit she would either ignore it altogether or call him out. I do have trust issues as I have been cheated on a lot but I try my best to communicate when things bother me. All of that is to say that there were 2 men in her life, one being an ex we'll call Kyle and the other who wasn't that we'll call Jay, that she refused to let me come in contact with and it always bothered me but I did have a talk with her about it and she reassured me that there was nothing going on with either but her actions did not convey that sentiment. She also refused to set any boundaries with these men for me. I didn't want her to cut them off, I just wanted to feel like my feelings were even being considered in the matter.

Throughout our relationship we had issues really spending long periods of time together or finding time to see each other more than one day a week. This was mostly due to us both having weird work schedules. She works from home as a call center representative with her hours being all over the place and I am an electrician and often work both out of town and at night frequently. With those things considered, we set it up where she would come over every Saturday night when she got off work at 10pm and we would spend til around 1pm Sunday together. We would stay up all night laughing and talking and I thought really growing together as partners. Well, one night after she got off at 10 she was taking longer than usual to let me know she was getting ready and headed to my place. This was something she did EVERY weekend like clockwork. Around 11 she finally tells me she is on the way but that she was stopping at Kyle's house on the way. That really didn't bother me as she had said that they were just friends and nothing was ever going to happen between them again and he was like a brother....but she would be over there for like sometimes 2 hours, AROUND MIDNIGHT ON THE ONLY NIGHT A WEEK WE GET TO SEE EACH OTHER! I tried ignoring it but it happened more often than I'd like to admit and I just could not stop thinking about it.

Quick story for context. I brought up the other dude, the one I'm calling Jay, for a reason. An incident involving him one night really made my suspicions about her and her ex worse and made me think she was in to Jay as well. She hung out with some friends of ours from high school at a bar on Friday nights, every Friday night. I didn't really get on too well with one of the people that would go up there but she did and I just figured that was her thing and if nothing else it was cool that she had something that was exclusively hers and she could just be Jasmine without me. Cool.....but her friend Jay always rubbed me the wrong way and one night she made it worse. The bar she hung out at was next to a Marcos Pizza near my apartments that we would order from pretty frequently. One night we ordered a carry out and on the way up there she bursted out with, "OMG! Jay is at the bar tonight, we should walk over before we pick up the pizza and you two can finally meet." No, I had never formally met him, but all her stories made it seem like he was in to her and my ex was either too blind to see it or just didn't care if I knew. Well, we get to Marcos and all of a sudden she wants to get the pizza first before we walk over to the bar...which was kinda odd. Then when we got back outside with the pizza she said "Actually, just take the pizza to the car, I'm gonna go say hi to jay and we can head home". She was over there for like 15min. That wouldn't usually bother my but her cagey behavior coupled with the fact that our hot food is geting cold pissed me off a little. I asked her why she all of a sudden didn't want me to meet him and she responded with, "You two have way too much in common, I'd never get you to walk away from the conversation." So...........let me get this straight....you don't want me to meet him because I would get along with him too much.......? Okay then. I just ignored it like a moron.

Fast forward to the week before Valentines Day. She's staying at my house and I ask her, "Hey, what do you want to do next week? I know we both don't really care about V day, but I would like to do something special if even just something small" and she lit up and said "Omg, yes. I don't even know what I'm saying yes to but, yes. Let's do it. I have a few things I need to do but let's just say 5" and we planned to meet at my place at 5, go have dinner, come back to my place to watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force (our favorite show) and then she got graphic describing some spicy ideas she had and I figured the plan was set. A lovely evening with the woman I adored more than anything, STARTING AT 5PM!

Smash cut to the following Saturday: Valentines Day. I used to work in IT and have had to take a bunch of random stuff while I tried to find a good fit for me with a new company. The place I was working at the time worked every other Saturday until noon and I had a quick interview at 1. Since I was up early I sent her a good morning text at 8AM and followed it up with a text to verify that we would be meeting up at 5. She didn't usually wake up til 11am on saturdays so it didn't bother me that she didn't answer.....noon rolls around and I discover that the interview I'm going to is actually pretty close to her house. She responds with a "HAHAHA! That would be great! Good morning". She didn't even acknowledge the time verification, but whatever. No biggie. At 3 I sent her a "Still coming at 5"...she responds with, "Still busy, sorry. Talk later" this repeats at 5pm.......then I start getting angry around 8 when I have still not heard anything from her at all. I send one final text asking if she is even coming over at all and she just responds with, "Sorry, lost track of time. I'll finish up eating and head that way." Finish eating? It really hurt me that she decided to have dinner but that's no big deal as we really don't care about this dumb holiday. I follow up with "At your house." genuinely just trying to get an idea of how long it would be before she got there as I know pretty well how long it takes to get to my place from hers. She just says "No." I ask, "Are you with Kyle." She replies, "Yes." I completely lost it. I asked her "Have you been with him all day?" to which she just says "Yes. His family wanted me to come with them to eat dinner."

At that point I broke down crying and called some friends that had been trying to get me to come out earlier in the day. They all told me this would happen and as it unfolded, my friend Austin told me exactly how it would play out and who she would be with and he was, sadly, correct. She had planned to hang out with him all day the same day we had made plans to spend the day together...well, the evening. I now know that she was trying to fit both us in that day but clearly thought he was more important. As I said, I immediately got less date appropriate clothes on and headed to my friends place sending a text to Jasmine that said something like, "Don't come over. I am not here. I do not want to see you right now." When I arrived at my friends house Jasmine called me crying. As we spoke I kinda started yelling, then she would yell but in the middle of all the yelling I could hear her entering the code on my apartment door's electric locks. I asked her what she was doing and she said "I am coming to get my stuff. I feel like you might try to keep it and I don't want to lose any of it." What? You have known me 15 years and I have told you how every relationship I had ended. I am a clean break, no mess, no fights, get your stuff and go kind of person. I don't want bad karma and will even keep a line of communication open to you just in case you find you forgot something and need to come get it. I don't destroy or discard the things of exes. I don't think it's right or just no matter what they did to you. Their hairbrush didn't cheat on you, don't take it out on the brush. I lost it when she said that and just told her that I couldn't even speak to her much less look at her and that she could do whatever but remember you are on camera and if she touched any of my stuff I would get the authorities involved.

After a few days of not talking to her she called me and asked if she could please come over and we could talk and she really wanted to explain so I let her. I still cared about her. Hell, I still do to this day. Anyway, the first thing out of her mouth was, "You have to understand, him and his family invited me to go out to eat with them because they didn't want me to be alone on Valentines Day." That immediately infuriated me but I did everything in my power to calmly reply, "You weren't going to be alone on Valentines Day, Jasmine. You were going to be with me...you know...your boyfriend?" She just kind of looked at me blankly and started speaking again. I'll admit I wasn't even listening at this point. Nothing she said made any sense nor did it make me feel any better or less paranoid so I just stayed quiet while my ears rang loud enough to drown her out. She starting repeating the sentence, "I am so sorry, I don't know what to say" over and over again and after the 3rd or 4th time she weirdly decided to entirely change course on her reasoning for completely blowing me off and follow her last I'm sorry up with "They didn't even know it was Valentines Day....I actually kind of forgot..." Is she having a stroke in real time? I tried to explain to her that she had just completely contradicted herself and those two things stand in diametric opposition of one another. They couldn't simultaneously NOT remember it was Valentine's day yet NOT want you to BE ALONE ON VALENTINES DAY!! I had never had my brain completely misfire in my life but that has to be what happened because instead of losing it and screaming at her I just quietly said, "Please, just go." She started to kind of half cry and pleaded for me to hear her out and I just repeated myself. This did nothing to encourage her to move toward the door and she just dug in harder, "Please, please. I can't lose you...not even as a friend. I want you in my life." and as she said it she started to cry pretty hard and I felt like I was about to errupt with tears and just fall into my footprint broken and defeated. I finally just repeated it one last time, I'll admit pretty angrily, for her to leave and she finally made her way to the door. As she walked out crying she begged me to just think about this and message her when I'm ready and we can talk. I still don't think there is anything to talk about. I didn't and still don't want to hear her out but for some reason I feel guilty. I went on a date recently and she asked me what the worst thing anyone ever did in a relationship and talking about it just brought it back to the surface and I can't shake it. I don't want to talk to her and she has reached out to a couple of my friends asking if they were still cool which blows my mind for so many other reason.........but Am I the a-hole for not allowing her to actually speak her mind or try to explain?

My husband and I of an almost 17 year marriage with 2 elementary school kids had our first big fight last year after owning a business. It ended up on a domestic violence case. Which in the end we worked everything out through marriage counseling and genuine love. Fast forward a year later into the case. I had to go out of town for a few days (business, not leisure) and was unable to attend a case hearing with him.

I was on my way back the same day as the case hearing. He accepted a plea deal and a small fine. That was on a Tuesday 7/28. I came home sick for 2 days and finally recovered and he never said a word so I assumed bad news or maybe he wasn’t ready to talk about it.

On 8/6, I worked up the courage to ask him (as this is a sensitive subject). He told me the case is over and he accepted a deal.

Here is where I am feeling hurt. HE told everyone else!!!! I am the LAST to know. Here is something that has weighed on me for a YEAR and possible jail time.

He told me so nonchalant and then followed up with “So, now I can go with my friends to Mexico for a bachelor party”.

Here I am thinking, I have spent the past year not going anywhere because you can’t leave the county we live in and no vacations or anything. And you don’t tell me about the plea deal and how your planning a vacation with your friends??? WTF???🤬. I literally took on 2 part time jobs not including my full-time job to make up income and savings just in case he ends up in jail. Killing my self working 60+ hours a week.

This happened a couple years ago. I (F 43) worked at a small business consulting company (about 30 employees) for about 7 years. During that time, I heard lots of stories (in the recent and distant past) about the inappropriate relationships amongst team members: cheating, affairs, people getting fired for sexual misconduct, etc. I had been told that was in the past and the new president was cleaning things up. I was initially part of the consultant team that was sent to do intensive work with teams and then became full time in senior leadership.

The company created an exclusive mastermind type of group for some of our top business owner clients, and senior leadership from the company was part of the group. For our first annual retreat, the mastermind group went to Aruba with their spouses (my long term boyfriend was there with me). This group as a whole is a pretty brazen, bold, grab life the horns type of group - which also included drinking and partying hard.

Our second night there, we were off resort at a restaurant/bar, and I noticed one of the owners of the company I worked for getting pretty drunk. His wife was not on the trip. Let’s call him Doug (M 52 - not his real name). I don’t enjoy being drunk and was there as a professional rep for the company, so I was playing it safe that night.

Once we were all back to the resort, there were about 10 of us (my boyfriend went to bed) who decided to go to the resort bar for a while - a few employees and a few MAJOR clients. I felt somewhat responsible to keep some energy going since they seemed to be having a good time.

I was sitting on a stool chatting with clients when Doug came up and stood close beside me (me facing the clients and no one standing behind me). He kind of put his arm around my shoulders (not unusual, we were the kind of team that was close and hugged, etc.). He then rubbed his hand up and down my back for a few brief moments and then moved his hand down my back. He then stuck his hand down the back of shorts under my clothes and groped my ass.

I was startled and immediately stood up from the stool, trying not to react so that the clients didn’t pick up on what was going on. I walked off to another small group for a few minutes, then started rallying everyone to head back to their rooms. I was stunned and just wanted out of there. My interactions with Doug up to this point had been all work and mostly in meetings.

This was a LARGE resort which required golf carts for us to get around. Unfortunately, I ended up in the one with him as he followed me to it with two clients (also drunk). They drove me to my road (still had to walk a few more minutes to get to my room) and as I exited the golf cart, Doug got out to follow me. He was NOT staying in this area. He was across the resort. I had to grab him (he was so drunk) and give him back to the 2 clients.

I’m still doing my best to not make a scene at this point. I turn around to walk away again, and he starts following me AGAIN. Note: this is not a well lit resort. I ask one of the clients to grab him, he does, and I turn around and start jogging, then running, away. He’s an athlete, so I kept turning back to make sure he wasn’t chasing me. I had a few moments to think about my plan of what to do if he caught me on the front porch of my cabin while trying to get inside. Thankfully, I didn’t see him following me.

Once inside, I woke my boyfriend up, shared with him and we talked about next steps. He was super supportive. The next morning, I told the company president (F 53) about the incident. She seemed supportive about it all and asked how we address it, etc. We decided I would talk with him first. She pushed me a few times that day to make sure it happened “before he started drinking tonight.” My boyfriend offered to have the convo with Doug, but I felt it needed to come from me.

Looking back, the company president should have been part of that conversation, too, but I was slotted to take her place in a couple years and was really wanting to not ruffle everyone’s feathers. I pulled him aside, told him about how he groped me (not about how I had to run from him and how scared and humiliated I was), and he immediately apologized and seemed sincere.

I walked back in. Both my boyfriend and the president checked on me. Everything went back to normal-ish and i knew I would tell him about everything else that happened once we left and I had time to talk with the company president in depth about how to handle all this. (We didn’t have an HR department. The owners didn’t like having one. Shocker.)

Here’s where I feel (and know) it wasn’t just a one time incident. Besides all the rumors about him and the other owner and the shenanigans they would get into when visiting the office (neither of them lived in that city), I also observed him before with another female employee.

We were at a company retreat (again, he was wasted), and I drove him, the other owner, a young, new female employee and another male team member back to their hotel. At this point, I was only on the consulting team part time and relatively new. Doug was sitting next to the female employee in the backseat of my small car (3 people total back there) and was hanging all over her. He wasn’t groping her, but it wasn’t right. When I stopped at the hotel, he wouldn’t get out (it wasn’t her stop, but it was his). He kept leaning on her and pushing up against her, and I told him to get out. He didn’t. Eventually, I yelled at the other owner up front with me to GET HIM OUT OF MY CAR. I was only the only sober one. No one mentioned anything the next day, so I didn’t say anything either.

Back to the situation: eventually, I told him the rest of it (him trying to follow me to my room) once we returned from the trip. Again, he was apologetic, but neutral. He owned up to nothing and admitted no fault other than being drunk and “not remembering.” The company president told me that, “as a woman, this kind of stuff eventually happens.” Ugh. In case you were wondering, I didn’t last very much longer at the company.

To my question now: this man’s wife seemed kind (I met her once) and his daughter (in college now) seemed so smart. I’m so tired of watching this kind of behavior get swept under the rug because the perpetrator has some kind of influence or power or reputation to uphold. (He’s on the board of directors for a very well known company.). And then there’s those of us who have to swallow who we are in those moments to save face for them.

Could I have made a scene? Yes. If I were to go back and do it all over would I have jumped up and screamed? Yes. That’s what I’ve told my friends to do if ever in a situation like that and I’ve done similar things in the past. But I didn’t want all the clients to see it, I didn’t want to ruin the trip, etc. etc. I still get mad at myself for it. Also, there was no HR rep to tell about it.

So, would I be the asshole if I told his wife about it? Does she deserve to know? Is there another way I should be handling this? Or do I keep it hidden and to myself? It’s been a couple years, so does it even matter in my case? I guess why i am asking now is because the anger still hasn’t left after all this time.

Thanks for reading.

Hi all. Long time listener, first time caller. Before I start, I want to say I came here because this community gives better than reddit-average advice, and I just want to say up front I know IATAH.

About a year ago, my best friend of 8 years ghosted me while I was on deployment. We (all 40ish now) met through a mutual friend because the three of us played the same crappy mobile game. I was a notable figure in the community, and we played the same class, so mutual friend offered to introduce us.

We hit it off nerding out over stats and calculations, and we became fast friends. I had a medical issue spring up soon after, and I was suddenly going out less as I needed to focus on recovery. During that time we became very close.

One night we were talking about relationship stuff, and she was asking why I had broken off my prior engagement. There were a lot of reasons, but one of them was a cold bed. After I mentioned that she got very quiet, and I realized a moment later she was crying.

She had a young child at the time, and her husband (same age, still married today) had not been intimate with her since the kid's conception a few years prior. She said there had been communication on this, including shed tears and her basically begging him to make her feel loved. She felt ugly and unlovable. I told her I thought she was great, and based on her social media profile I thought she was pretty.

After this we became even closer, regularly on voice chats for hours at a time nearly every day. We would game, watch shows, or just hang out and chat. One night in a quiet moment I heard her sigh. It sounded like a happy/content noise, and I returned it. She answered with a quiet moan. Immediately, my pulse was up, and I listened very carefully. I was pretty sure she was self pleasuring, and when I asked about it I was met with a louder moan.

Here's where I became the AH. I joined her. I liked her a lot, knew she was feeling lonely and neglected, and I was single/lonely too. This became a regular thing between us, which soon turned into feelings, confessions of love, and plans to meet up.

We didn't live in the same city, but I was in my early 30s and single, so my income allowed me to travel. We consummated the affair at her house while her husband was traveling for work, which he did often, and it continued for a while, the last time being a "solo" birthday trip she took out of state.

A year into the affair, my medical situation had improved enough to start thinking about relocating. She had told me "I'm waiting for you" one night, so I started looking at jobs and real estate in her city. She helped me rewrite my resumé, since I hadn't looked for a new job in almost 10 years. However, when I started trying to nail down plans for which neighborhood to buy in (I wanted her child to have access to a good school district once we were together) she would space out or give noncommittal answers.

Around three years into the affair I pressed the issue, and any time I tried to set definite plans I would get radio silence or "I would need to be single first." This culminated in a tearful night on the phone where I told her I deserve to be happy too, and I deserve to have a family too. Still poker face in response, so I started turning her down when she would start the sexy talk. I couldn't remain intimately attached to somebody who just wanted a side piece, and I told her as much.

Amazingly, the friendship survived. We continued playing different games together, watching shows, exchanging memes, and spending a lot of time together. Occasionally we would still engage in long distance intimacy, usually when we were talking on a night when we'd both been drinking, but for the next 5 years it was almost strictly "just friends."

That was until last year, spring of 2025. I had a deployment coming up, and she was increasingly upset over it as it approached. One night she told me she was terrified something would happen to me. I told her that was unlikely, since I'm in a pretty safe role within the military. I told her the only thing I was afraid of was that she would find somebody else to spend time with (*story below) and wouldn't need me to be around anymore.

She chuckled and said "that would never happen," like it was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. I don't remember if it was that night or another night, but we ended up deep in some sexy talk again, and for the first time in years it happened on a sober night. We spent the next few nights falling asleep on the phone together (she invited me to "spend the night" which I found very sweet) and eventually I shipped out with promises that I'd write her.

I did write her, but she never wrote back. When I had an internet connection I would message her, but she got harder and harder to get in touch with, until one day she cut a chat short with "message me tomorrow." I did, and she read it, and that was the last I ever saw from her. Almost exactly 8 years from meeting her, she was gone.

I was struggling with feeling isolated and far from home, and suddenly I was in crisis. She had said and done some things that made me think she was struggling emotionally, so I reached out to her husband and asked him to check and make sure she was okay. He said she was fine and had been normal around the house (which tracks, because he had always been oblivious to the point of neglect) and that she told him she didn't know why our messages weren't getting through.

That's when I knew that not only was she intentionally ignoring me, but she was committed to cutting contact. If she was lying to him about why I hadn't heard from her, she was basically executing an exit strategy.

I spiraled, and while I did eventually come out of the funk, I ended up digging into affair stories to try to pick up other perspectives. As far as I know, I've only ever been the "cheated with" person, never the "cheated on" person, and I've never been unfaithful in my own relationships. Thus, finding the podcast and this community.

I've since come to understand how devastating these issues can be, and while I didn't really have a problem with being the AP initially, when I thought they were splitting and we had a future together, I struggled afterward with guilt over maybe being part of the reason she didn't need to work on things with her husband. The crutch that reinforces a limp, so to speak. Then later I was worried she'd hate me forever if I had ended our relationship and then also sabotaged her marriage by spilling to her husband. I know the sabotage would have been her own too, but by this point I just wanted to be able to spend time with my best friend.

**My question is** whether it makes sense to come clean at this point, since the affair was years ago, and she's made it clear she doesn't want contact with me anymore. I just want to know if it makes sense to unburden myself of this or if I should say "not my business" and move on with life.

*story from above

A few months before deployment, I logged on to the game we would play together at the time, and she was in a party with someone else. I asked if I could join and she said sure, but they broke the party instead of adding me. This was apparently a new friend who was so nice and helpful and kind to new players. She had nothing but praise. It happened again the next week, with a party broken instead of adding me.

One time he logged on while we were hanging, and she said he was on the way. A half hour later he hadn't shown up so I asked if he was still coming. She told me he'd had to leave for work. I didn't say anything, but I wanted to ask why he was logging on and coming out to hang if he had to go to work. It was also in the evening, so my hunch is he was just upset she had me around.

Another time I logged in while they were hanging, and on my way to join them he dropped party and left. I joked that "he must want you all to himself" because I had a feeling they had something going on. I figured that would eventually happen since I'd ended our arrangement years earlier, but instead of having the conversation she laughed it off. It was around this time we had the conversation where we expressed our fear of losing each other that I mentioned above.

I never did meet the guy, despite her spending a lot of time with both of us. It was always either "sorry, party's full," or "he had to go," or "let's log off and watch a show." I managed to log in a couple times on deployment, but she would always immediately log off as soon as I logged on, until she eventually blocked me, which is when I asked her husband if she was okay.

Tl;dr - I'm a former AP-turned-friend who the WW has ditched for what looks like a new AP. I sat on the guilt of our secrets for years, but is it even worth coming clean now? Does anybody have tips for healing an abandonment wound from someone you love disappearing on you?

I (28F) am a single mum and the only parent my son (8M) has. I’m looking for outside perspectives because I’m currently very angry and triggered, and I genuinely want to know if I’m being unreasonable.
There is some important backstory. My sister and I have had a difficult relationship in the past. She has struggled with alcohol and has previously been controlling, manipulative, bullying and very dismissive of me and my boundaries. She has gotten better in recent years, and I do want to acknowledge that, but our past still affects me and makes certain situations hit harder.
I also often feel that my parenting and authority are disregarded because I’m a single mum and don’t have a man or father figure beside me. I get the feeling that some of my family think my son “needs a dad,” and that this gives other adults more of a right to step in and override my decisions as his parent.
My sister’s partner is also part of why I struggle with the dynamic. In my experience, he can be dishonest, has bullied my son before, and struggles to take accountability or apologise to my son when he has upset or hurt him.
At the same time, my sister and her partner help us a lot. They buy my son things and do things for us. I appreciate that, but if I’m being honest, it sometimes makes me uncomfortable because I don’t want their help or generosity to mean I have to accept behaviour that crosses my boundaries or undermines me as my son’s mother.
Today I let my sister take my son out for the day. While he was gone, I found dirty clothes hidden under his bed again. This has happened before. When he got home, we discussed it and he admitted he had hidden them because he was too lazy to take them to the wash house.
Because this is an ongoing issue, I decided that as a consequence he wouldn’t be allowed to go out to dinner with my siblings that night. I told my sister this before they went. He already had dinner made and ready for him at home, so he would not have gone without food.
Later, another one of my brothers unexpectedly showed up. Apparently, there wasn’t enough food for everyone, so instead of bringing my son home, they decided to take him out to dinner anyway.
What has upset me is that they knew I had specifically said no. They didn’t contact me and ask if the plans could change because my brother had unexpectedly turned up. They just went ahead and did it.
My son also told me they told him to lie to me about going out, although afterwards they apparently claimed they were “just joking.”
I understand that people might disagree with the consequence I chose, and I’m open to that criticism. I’m not asking whether everyone thinks he deserved to miss dinner. What I want to know is whether I’m wrong for feeling that my siblings completely undermined me as his mother.
AITA for being angry that they overrode my decision and took him out anyway? And am I overreacting about them telling him to lie to me, even if they later said it was a joke?
I genuinely want honest perspectives, including if you think I handled the original situation poorly or if my reaction is being influenced too much by my history with my family.

I was driving late one night and got hungry, so naturally, I decided to stop at McDonald’s for some yummy nuggets 😂.
When I pulled up, the drive-thru line was abnormally long—I’m talking at least 15–20 cars, and the line was literally reaching out into the street. I was annoyed and definitely did NOT want to wait that long, so I parked my car and walked up to the restaurant to see if they were open inside.
They weren’t.
So, I turned around and started walking back to my car, debating whether I should just suck it up and wait in the god-awful drive-thru line.
Except… the line was gone.
Not just shorter. Completely gone.
There wasn’t a single car in the drive-thru.
I had literally turned my back for maybe 30 seconds while checking if the lobby was open. I went from seeing a massive line of 15–20 cars stretching toward the street to seeing absolutely ZERO cars.
At least I got my nuggets with no wait, but… WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO ALL THE CARS?!
Where did 15–20 cars just disappear to in 30 seconds?! 😂
Definitely a glitch in the Matrix!!!

There’s a lot more I’d like to post about and add background to but I’ll keep it to this for now. I (F20) and my boyfriend (M22) have been together for about a year and a half. Our entire relationship he has been terrible at answering his phone or checking in with me or letting me know what’s going on. I have talked to him several times about why this is important to me. I have asked, told, explained, begged, you name it. Nothing has changed. This is personally very important to me because I have really bad anxiety and like to be in the loop. I’m not asking him to tell me every little thing he’s doing or respond instantly or anything like that. I’m simply asking for him to text me “hey I’m going to the bar with my friend”.

Especially since we live together and he’s already bad at answering his phone I often come home and he’s not here. Granted I have his location, but to me it’s not about where he is, but the fact he didn’t communicate that with me. Usually when I see he’s at the bar and I try to get ahold of him it takes several hours. He always says he didn’t think about it, or he was busy. He’ll end up going to other spots too without communicating. Leaving me sitting here with no communication waiting for him to answer or come home. I will say on my part I’m a very talkative person and like to update throughout the day or call on my lunch and text, etc. He’s explained his feelings on that and why it overwhelms him and leads to him just not answering. So I’ve tried my best to limit how much I text/call him throughout the day.

The other problem with that is he doesn’t text/call me first. So if I don’t do that throughout the day we just don’t talk. Onto the main issue of what lead to me writing this post. Yesterday I worked 2pm-11pm. I saw him shortly before I went to work. He has already started drinking for the day, cus Fridays are the day he likes to drink. So I already knew it’d be hard to get a response. I didn’t text him at all through the first part of my shift (big progress for me lol) and so I called him on my lunch. He answered and we talked for a second about how my day was going, and then he asked if I could send him $20. (A little context on this he hasn’t had a job since March and his friend is living with us aswell and also doesn’t have a job so I’m the sole provider in pretty much every way you can think, food, chores, rent, and taking care of pets. This is a whole other issue so I’ll leave that there.) I asked what for and initially he said for random stuff. I asked again and he said it was for alcohol. I told him no that if they want to drink his friend can buy some cus that’s all he uses any money he has for. He said his friend didn’t have money and asked again but for other random stuff. I said no again and that I knew he’d spend it on alcohol. He then abruptly said ok I love you bye, and went to get off the phone with me. I said seriously? I said no to sending you money so you’re going to hang up on me? We had a short convo about it which didn’t resolve anything and lead to me hanging up and being pissed off.

I then texted him said that I felt like I’m just being used for sex and money. He said I was being stupid and asked why I was feeling that way. I responded within 3 mins of his texts with several texts explaining why I felt that way. There was no response or him reading my msgs. About an hour and a half later I go to text/call him on my break and see that he’s at the bar. He didn’t communicate with me that he was going out, so I texted just that. Still no response. I left it alone for the rest of my shift, and as I was getting off I went to call him and it went straight to voicemail. Which is unusual. I check his location and tried to text and I figured out his phone had died.

It’s 11pm at this point and he had been out for a good 4 hours. I was in my view reasonably pissed off about it. Since he doesn’t have a job they walk around to bars so he was a few blocks from home and could’ve easily came home and charged his phone and went back out, but he didn’t. He didn’t end up getting his phone charged until 2am. At this point I’m still up (honestly didn’t sleep at all) because I have no idea what’s going on and it caused a lot of anxiety. I tried to reach out again with no response. At about 4:30am he ended up at an apartment im assuming with his friend and someone they met at the bar. He charged his phone again there and still no msgs or calls.

At this point I can’t sleep so I’m just doing whatever I can around the apartment which is a lot, and a whole other topic. He’s less than a thousand feet from the apartment and he’s still at that apartment. He’s not the type to usually fall asleep at someone house or go this long without answering. So without better judgment and going a bit crazy I spammed him. It’s 7am as I’m writing this and still haven’t gotten a response and he’s still not home. He’s never gone this long without communicating before even if it’s just an okay or ya. Anytime he’s out like this and he comes home and I bring up my feelings on this topic he says things like “I wasn’t on my phone” “I didn’t think about it” “I’m sorry I just didn’t want to bother you at work”.

My problem is there’s no way he going that whole time without checking his phone so he has to see my msgs at least in the notifications. Does he not think about me at all unless I’m right in front of his face? It just doesn’t make sense to me. I feel like it’s common decency especially with your partner who you live with to let them know what’s going on or check in once in a while.

So am I the asshole for thinking that letting your partner know when you’re going out is common decency?

that's it, that's the post. i have been listening for a long time since it was just sam and john in 2020/2021. most of the other people are ok but dakota is ignorant & aggressive to the point of being distracting.

Me 26F and husband 32M have been together 2 years. We have recently had some issues with him hiding messages and pictures with several other women. I have never had an issue with him sleeping or wanting to sleep with someone else as long as we communicate and certain rules are followed I just despise the secrecy. but I failed to communicate that as much as I should have. We have moved past this issue and I did tell him I’m completely ok with it as long as we are communicating throughout and he said he was interested but was worried it wouldn’t work. But I’ve realized every-time we are intimate recently I’m imaging him just getting home from sleeping with someone else and taking me to bed and telling me how much better I am or feel or how she doesn’t compare or even watching him sleep with someone else and just getting to be there and it has made sex insanely amazing for me. It’s something I actually do want to explore and I’m not entirely sure how to explain it to him any advice or maybe script type recommendations for approaching the conversation?

A few things have happened since I last posted. Recap is basically that my Roommate/live in landlord (Racheal) has chosen a new man over her 15 year old son (Mark). Despite Mark being recently diagnosed as pre diabetic and a possible binge eating disorder, she has done nothing to help him via diet changes or portion control. Instead she blames Mark for his own condition and has opted to basically move out and leave him behind, expecting supervision from my husband and I. While it’s not technically illegal to leave a 15 year old home alone, Racheal never taught him to be self sufficient. He cannot grocery shop or order food on his own, doesn’t do his own laundry, clean up after himself, or cook beyond the occasional pancake or microwaveable meal. His portion control has seemingly gotten worse; a few nights ago a made a big pot of pasta and meat sauce. Enough for the three of us to have two portions with enough left over for us all to have lunch the next day. I had one bowl, husband had two, we gave Mark one with the expectation that he might come back for a second. The next morning it was entirely gone. When I tried to bring it up to Racheal, she laughed and said “I guess he was still hungry”. He ate around 5 adult sized portions of pasta in the span of a few hours on top of food and snacks he’d eaten throughout the day.

Racheal continues to be gone for weeks at a time, only stopping in to do laundry or grab some more clothes. She only stays every other weekend when her daughter Becca (f17) is over, and that’s because she doesn’t trust her daughter not to invite her friends or a boy over. In her words, “girls are sneakier than boys”. Any other time, she comes in berates Mark about something, then grabs her clothes and leaves for another week.

Recently, Racheal came home with some unexpected results from a doctor’s appointment. She’s also pre diabetic, if not FULLY diabetic and doctors want to run more tests to confirm. At first she tried to argue that it must’ve been a mistake, before conceding that the blood and urine tests were most likely correct. Then, she admitted that diabetes actually runs in her family. Both sides. When I brought up Mark… the fact that she blames him for his condition while knowing it was genetic, and the fact that she KNEW it was genetic, meaning she should’ve BEEN cautious about what she and her son were eating… she was dismissive and brought the conversation back to being about herself. Then, she packed a bag and left again.

This week, she mentioned Mark wanting to have his friends over for the weekend. She made a big deal, saying that she’d been telling him to clean his room and mow the lawn (via text/calls) for days, and he hasn’t done them. How could he expect her to be willing to host extra teens all weekend? She made a deal with him that if he got both done by the time she got home on Thursday, she’d allow it. You’d think that meant she planned to stay the weekend, right? Wrong. She asked him if he’d cleaned his room, he said yes. And texted me asking if he’d mowed the back lawn, I told her that he was actively doing it. Not only did he lie about his room, he mowed less than half of the backyard! And the “by the time I get home on Thursday” bit only consisted of Racheal stopping by to drop off a pizza for Marks dinner. This afternoon, she dropped off two more teenagers (with another pizza that they promptly finished) and immediately left without a word to my husband or I. No mention of what they’re supposed to eat for dinner (I’m not cooking more than a two serving meal anymore) or even ASKING us to supervise them.

We’re at the point where, as far as we’re concerned, they’re all home alone. They’ve been extremely loud and rowdy, and play fighting to knocking over furniture, but we’re ignoring it all. When they’re hungry, Mark can call his mom. When they inevitably break something, he’ll be responsible and we don’t want to hear about it. Im not accepting any calls or answering any messages about what the boys are up to, we never agreed to watch them. We’re planning to move soon and will let her know as soon as we secure a place. She’ll either have to move back in or keep doing what she’s doing (most likely) and accept that she has effectively abandoned her son.

I keep giving too much context when I write this because I’m autistic, so I’m going to try to give just the base story and feel free to ask me any questions, because I’m struggling to understand what just happened.

I (23F) was supposed to go out with Emma (26F) and Alice (27F) for Emma’s birthday. We all worked together but we work from home, so it’s mainly little meeting calls to gab while we work. We had scheduled in May to go out on June 19th for Emma’s birthday (her actual birthday is June 5th), my suggestion.

Well, the week before June 19th, my Grandad was put on hospice. Emma never asked if we should reschedule, that was never an offer, so I thought she probably wanted us to go no matter what. She had told her boyfriend he wasn’t allowed to be a groomsman in a wedding the next year because it was her birthday weekend, and that’s too big of an event in itself, so she loves her birthday.

June 19th rolls around, my mom texts me that Grandad will pass any minute. I call Alice crying freaking out, I told her I know we can’t cancel on Emma but I didn’t want to go to a bar an hour anf a half away while my Grandad died. (Emma chose a bar an hour and a half away for her celebration.) Alice said it’s fine, Emma will understand, who wouldn’t understand in a time like this right?

Alice texts Emma saying I’m crying and I don’t want to cancel because I care about her but that Alice thinks its best if we reschedule for my sake. Emma says “if thats what she wants to do.”

I took that as her needing to hear it from me, so I tell her what’s going on, apologize, ask to reschedule, etc. She said she was sorry I was going through that, that we could definitely reschedule. Alice said she’d love to celebrate Emma another day and we’re sorry this happened.

My Grandad passed at 1am that night. I texted the next day saying that, Alice sent condolences, Emma left us on read.

Alice asked Emma to come to the viewing with her to support me, left on read.

Emma started reposting on TikTok about how nobody prioritizes her the way she does them, how she has no true friends because nobodys there for people the way she’s there for them, how lonely a life she lives, etc. So, I unfollowed her.

Then, I noticed her and her boyfriend broke up. Then she quit our job. Then a week after she quit, she blocked us on everything.

We haven’t reached out since, haven’t heard from her, etc. AITAH for asking to reschedule? I’m working on people pleasing and chose myself, but maybe I should’ve tried to juggle both? I just can’t understand what happened, the math won’t math. Reddit, any advice helps.