I am not The OOP, OOP is

My childhood bully has became my coworker and she's bullying me again

Originally posted to

Thanks to for suggesting this BoRU

TRIGGER WARNING: bullying, verbal abuse, workplace harassment

  May 18, 2024

When I(18F) was in fifth grade (age 10-11 for any non-Americans), there was these new twins who moved from the other side of the country to join my class. For some reason, these two kids did everything they could to make my life miserable. I think it's because I was socially unaware and a bit odd as a child, but I'm not sure. The boy twin was this very big kid who would regularly beat me up and the girl twin would humiliate and spread rumors about me. Of course, the teachers never did anything about it.

Luckily, these two went to different middle and high schools, so I wasn't bullied and I had a pleasant time in school after that. Most kids were not happy about going to middle school, but I was excited for them to stop torturing me. However, last month, I got a job at a new grocery store in my neighborhood. However, last week, the girl who bullied me got a job at the same grocery store.

At first, I thought "It's been seven years, she probably changed", but just now a few coworkers asked me "Did you really have sex with the manager so you could get hired here?" I shouted at them "NO!" and asked them where they heard that, and they said "The new girl told us"

I don't want to go through this again. I am genuinely considering switching jobs to get away from her. I feel so lost and helpless.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

thrwaway070879

HR is your friend in these situations. She's making it a hostile work environment. Get a notepad and write down every time with the date and time and what the incident was. Keep a record of it.

If you work at a small store with no HR then go to management but skip management if you have an HR go to HR first. 

I'm almost positive your manager doesn't want the reputation of being a sleaze and making 18 year olds sleep with him to get hired. If he's a decent person at least.

OOP

The store doesn't have an HR but I'll talk to my manager when I see him

  May 20, 2024

    The last few days have been pretty chaotic. First of all, I found out the new girl at my workplace, who was my childhood bully, was spreading another rumor, claiming that my boobs were fake. I took the advice of most of the people in the comments of my post, and sent an email to my manager, telling him about how she made up a rumor claiming that I slept with him to get hired. He responded, saying that this is a very serious issue and that he wants me to come into work tomorrow to get my side of the story, because my bully had a shift then. The manager came in, looking absolutely furious. My manager spoke with her, me and a few of my coworkers to see what was going on.

After my manager spoke with my bully, I saw her leaving. She came up to me, said "Fuck you, you tattletale slut" and left. I asked my manager what happened with her at the end of my shift. He said "I spoke with her about the bullshit she was spewing. She tried acting innocent, but everyone I asked said that she was the one who made that shit up. She's fired, we don't have to worry about her anymore." I was kind of hoping that she would throw a temper tantrum, but that didn't happen.    I finally stood up to her, thanks to the advice and words of support from Reddit. I'm pretty sure my past self, the little girl who had her backpack stuffed in a shit-filled toilet on her 11th birthday, would be so proud of me.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Little_Yesterday

Some people never really move past high school

OOP

Even worse, in her case, she bullied me when we were in fifth grade

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I am not The OOP, OOP is

AITA for not knowing about my SIL's allergy and my husband's reaction in front of his family?

Originally posted to

TRIGGER WARNING: physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, domestic violence

Thanks to for suggesting this BoRU

  May 18, 2024

My husband 36M and I 30F have been married for 6 years. We have two kids (4F/2M). I'm a SAHM now. We didn't discuss this before marriage but when I gave birth to our daughter I just couldn't manage working. taking care of our daughter. and doing all the house chores. There were times when I needed help at home but I felt like I couldn't ask for help because I wasn't bringing in any money. It was also very difficult for me to be financially dependent on my husband. I never asked for anything for "me" because he sometimes voiced how he felt a lot of pressure as the sole provider.

Fast forward to 3 days ago. His younger sister lives in another country and comes to town once or twice a year. last week she told him she would visit. My husband and I invited the family for dinner. We were all having a good time when my SIL started coughing and had trouble breathing. It was then I knew she was horribly allergic to peanuts (I later knew that she had gone into anaphylactic shock a few times before).

We all rushed to her side to help. I then got slapped on the face from behind (not so hard but it did sting) I was facing away from my husband so I didn't see it coming. I tried to explain that no one told me before (I had only seen her a few times after the wedding and never cooked for her). He was yelling at me the whole time I was trying to explain myself. When I told him that he knew I would be doing all the cooking for tonight then why didn't think of telling me about it. He pushed me down the couch and smacked me on the arms/back and the back of my head. His family rushed to us and stopped him. They checked if I was okay for a minute then went back to my SIL's side. His older brother stayed by my side to ensure I was okay and to see if I needed anything. After a few minutes my husband came back to the living room and acted like nothing happened.

My BIL asked him if he had told me about their sister's allergy before and he didn't answer. I told him I never knew about it until now. My in-laws checked on me one more time and then excused themselves. Only his older brother stayed with us.

He asked me if it was the first time my husband laid his hands on me. I couldn't answer with my husband sitting across from us. He suggested we take some time to process and think about what just happened. I left that night with my BIL and took my kids with me. I'm still with him and his wife (my family lives in another country). both my BIL and his wife suggest I stay until my husband realizes what he really did. My husband did apologize but said he panicked and was scared for his little sister (they are very close and growing up he was like a father to her) He kept repeating that if I cared enough about his family I would have asked him if anyone has any allergies since I was the one cooking for the night and he blamed me for his brother reaction.

I don't know where to go from here. I have no relatives in here to stay with until I sort everything out. I only have one friend and can't stay with her.

I grew up in a house where being grabbed by the face or arm was normal. But what happened that night was a little too much. I want my kids and I don't want to lose them over my decision. My husband suggested couples therapy yesterday. I'm thinking about getting a divorce or should I just let it slide and start therapy? I really have to think about it all because I know my family won't support me with my decision and I will be on my own.

Edit: My sister in law is okay. She's not angry with me for what happened. She even texted twice to check on me and the kids and apologized for not mentioning her allergy before (his family has always been good to me).

RELEVANT COMMENTS

DisillusionedCat

Well, definitely NTA

But this worries me:

"He asked me if it was the first time my husband laid his hands on me. I couldn't answer with my husband sitting across from us."

So this wasn't the first time, was it? Please consider if you can ever feel safe with your husband before you think about couples therapy or anything else.

I'm sorry this happened to you and wish you a lot of strength, OP.

OOP

it wasn't but he never slapped me before.

Thank you 🙏🏻

Aggravating_Style544

That means he is escalating.   It will only get worse.   He has isolated you from work and friends by making it impossible for you to leave the house.   Are your BIL and SIL able to help you find a safe way out?

~

Good_Focus2665

NTA. The fact that BIL is taking your side should tell you that you need to leave your husband. You will need to start preparing for single life. He was abusive before by putting so much pressure on you that you had to quit your job. He has slowly been escalating it and now it’s come to this. It’s not going to get better. You need to be strategic if you want to leave. 

OOP

I think I will just agree to couples therapy as a delay tactic until I get a job and try to plan my exit. I can't survive financially right now. Thank you 🙏🏻

trixxievon

Never take abusers to therapy. They only get better at hiding it because therapy teaches them how

OOP

I know but I need time. Right now I can't even support myself financially let alone two kids.

  May 20, 2024

I was hesitant about posting on Reddit at first but I decided to give as many details as possible and put myself out there to get outside insight and to make sure if I'm to blame for what happened to my SIL. Up until my post got a few comments I was still sure it was somehow my fault but I'm glad I posted about it here🙏🏻

Most of you suggested I stay with my brother in law. I couldn't bring myself to ask him for help (if I can stay with them until I sort everything out). Last night he asked me if it's okay to talk about it now. I told him some things because I couldn't lay it all out. I told him that it wasn't the first time and nothing was new to me that night except for the slap. I asked him if he can help me find a safe way out because I'm scared to go back and need help looking up for resources. Both him and his wife assured me that my kids and I are more than welcome to stay with them until I get back on my feet. They made it clear that they're willing to help us in any way possible. BIL said I have the right to decide what to do about it that he could even drive me to report my husband if that's what I want but just don't get him involved. I get it. I thanked them for everything and promised them to try and find a job asap.

He also mentioned that my MIL offered to pay 3 months' rent and childcare if I’m planning to leave but he thinks it’s better for me to stay with them for now and promised he will make sure my MIL follows through once I find a job because it will be more helpful then since it will be hard taking care of the kids and working.

He told me to never feel like I owe them something because I would've done the same for them (I met my husband through my BIL when I worked with him for 6 month) and that he doesn't want my children to grow up wondering why no one loved them enough to step up and help their mother. Or end up abused or being abusers in the future. His words made wonder If he referred to his own brother as an abuser then why am I still trying to look for ways to justify it or accept the blame.

Although I'm not planning to get the police involved but my BIL's wife is helping me document everything. She took pictures of the marks the moment we made it to their house. She's also helping me get him to admit to everything that happened that night and before. to this moment I have two texts and one recorded call (along with other pictures I took before). I don't know why I ever took them because I never planned on doing anything. She said even if I'm not planning to press charges now I could document everything just in case for later and citing safety would be enough reason for my delay.

As for my family I called my parents this morning and they weren't happy with what I told them. It's nothing I didn't expect. I knew they would not take a divorced daughter with two kids in. My cousin called me later and was so sad to hear about my situation and promised to send me some money to help. I'm not gonna lie. I never asked for help before but when she offered I found myself ready to accept. I really want to make things work for my kids. I don't want to lose them.

By the way both my BIL and his wife on top of letting me stay with them without any financial contribution. They do things. if I cook my BIL or his wife do the dishes (they both work and share the chores) yesterday I only did the laundry and some cleaning around the house and they insisted I do nothing for dinner. While I'm glad to have some time to rest throughout the day. I can't shake the feeling that I should do more since I'm not paying for anything.

I also want to mention that I'm planning to see a lawyer this week to understand my options and start the divorce process. I'm hoping this will help me take the right steps to ensure the safety and well being of my kids. I'm also planning to start looking for a job this week but I need to get my documents first.

I'm beyond thankful for everything my in laws doing for me but I'm still scared and I don't know what I'm even scared of precisely now that I decided I won't go back to him. But yesterday I couldn't close my eyes and get some sleep. Whenever I close them I imagine my kids getting hurt. And if I'm being honest I still feel like at some point I will mess everything up but I hope I don't. Thank you for taking the time to read my post and all the advice you gave me 🙏🏻

Edit: I'm sorry I just realized I've been referring to him as "my husband" instead of "soon to be ex-husband" I'm still adjusting.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

OMGoblin

Yeah talk to a lawyer, because child support and alimony are meant for cases like this.

IDK why you are so afraid of losing your kids, it's not going to happen. He's responsible for you and the kids, even if you divorce (until you get on your feet enough to be financially independent). This is assuming a country with decent marriage laws like most of the US has.

Anyways, you seem fine with being abused, but think of your children and grow a spine for them.

OOP

I'm not. Maybe it took me 3 years to realize it but I know better now and trying my best to ensure my kids safety and well being.

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I am NOT the Original Poster. That is . She posted in

Do not comment on Original Posts. See rule 7. This sub has a 7 day waiting period, so the newest update is 7 days old.

Trigger Warning: verbal abuse; child neglect

Mood Spoiler: sad but hopeful

Original : May 17, 2024

I'm in a really tough spot and could use some perspective. I (28F) have been dating my boyfriend, Alex (31M), for about a year now. He’s been wonderful and supportive, especially through some difficult times. One of those difficult times involves my relationship with my older brother, Tom (33M).

Tom and I have always had a complicated relationship. Growing up, he was the golden child and I often felt like the family doormat. He would tease me mercilessly, make fun of my interests, and generally treat me like I was beneath him. Our parents rarely intervened, often brushing it off as typical sibling behavior or even enabling it by saying things like "boys will be boys" or "he's just joking, don’t be so sensitive."

This dynamic continued into adulthood. Tom still makes condescending comments, dismisses my achievements, and often expects me to drop everything to help him out, all without any gratitude or reciprocation. I've tried to talk to him about it before, but he just laughs it off or accuses me of overreacting.

For context, I work at a museum in our city, a job I’m really passionate about but Tom often belittles. He thinks it’s a waste of time and constantly tells me I could do something more “useful” with my life.

Last weekend, Alex and I were at a family gathering. Tom was in rare form, belittling me in front of everyone about my job. I was trying to brush it off as usual, but Alex wasn’t having it. He stepped in and told Tom to stop treating me like a doormat and to start respecting me as an equal.

Things escalated quickly. Tom got defensive and the situation turned into a heated argument. Alex called Tom out on all the times he’s treated me poorly and accused him of being a bully. Tom fired back, saying Alex didn’t know what he was talking about and should mind his own business. Our parents tried to diffuse the situation but ended up taking Tom's side, saying Alex was overstepping and causing unnecessary drama.

Now, Tom is furious with me. He says I should have stuck up for him and defended him against Alex. He claims that by not doing so, I’ve betrayed our family and humiliated him in front of everyone. My parents are also disappointed, feeling like I should have controlled the situation better.

Alex feels bad that things got so heated but stands by his actions, saying someone needed to finally call Tom out on his behavior. I’m torn. On one hand, I appreciate Alex standing up for me, but on the other hand, I feel guilty for not defending my brother in that moment.

AITA for not sticking up for my brother? Should I have done something to defuse this situation?

ETA: I wanted to add that part of why I didn’t defend Alex more strongly is because, whenever I did try to say something in his defense, my parents just bulldozed over me. Every time I tried to speak they'd yell over me, which brought back all the feelings of clamming up like I did when I was younger. It made me freeze up and just stand there, especially since it seemed to only make Tom even angrier. I felt trapped, not knowing how to diffuse the tension as it got worse and worse. I’m working on it but it's not easy, especially in situations like this. By the end of the entire thing I was just standing there crying and Alex took me to our car to go home. I've been fielding phone calls from my parents and brother since last weekend.

I know I'm not responding to people but I just posted this on a whim and just put it away.

ETA 2: Hi all, I just woke up to more comments. I'm just writing this edit to say I'm going to visit my Aunt Amy tonight to discuss what happened. She hosted the get-together and has always been someone I can turn to for help or advice when I need it. She and my uncle usually do step in to diffuse these situations when they're around but they were both in the kitchen when this happened. Aunt Amy understands the family dynamics better than anyone so I'm hoping she can give me some clarity.

Also, please stop DMing me saying that Alex should leave me. Alex has been incredibly supportive and we’re handling this together. I appreciate everyone’s concern and I understand people not liking that I froze but it's what happened. I love Alex, and he's been amazing for my self-confidence but I still struggle with it around my parents and brother.

OOP is voted NTA

Update : May 20, 2024 (3 days later)

Hi  again everyone,

I wanted to write a quick update now that Sunday is over. Original Post 

I ended up talking to my Aunt Amy and Uncle Joe last night when I went over for dinner as I mentioned. They have always been a safe haven for me, and it was really comforting to hear their perspective. Amy and Joe told me that my parents have always been wrong in how they treated me and that the way they let Tom belittle me is not okay. They said that whenever they tried to stand up for me, my parents would not let them see me and Tom.

One instance they brought up really hit home for me. I remember not getting to see Aunt Amy and Uncle Joe for a few months after my mom and Amy got into an argument. This happened after Tom ruined some of my favorite books, and Aunt Amy tried to defend me. She told my mom that it wasn't fair for Tom to face no consequences and that I deserved better. My mom got so furious at Amy's interference that she decided to cut off contact for a while. I think I was 7, I didn't fully understand why I suddenly couldn't visit them anymore, but I remember being upset and even more isolated.

Joe explained that this is why they always tried to take me on outings whenever they could. It was their way of giving me a break from the environment at home. It hit just seemed to hit me all at once while we were talking. They’re the ones who took me to the zoo, a movie, or just a walk in the park, all my happy memories as a kid were never with my parents. Honestly, they’re who I think of when I think of what a parent should be.

After our talk, I've decided to go no contact with my parents and Tom for the time being. I need to focus on what I want and what’s good for me. My aunt and uncle also promised they’d run interference for me so I don’t have to deal with them.

Also, Alex proposed to me yesterday morning. I honestly didn’t expect it, but I’m so happy. We’re going to be visiting his family over the long weekend to celebrate and my aunt and uncle are going to go with us. I don’t know what’s going to come of cutting my parents and brother out but I’m glad I’m doing it.

This will be the only update I give on this on Reddit. Anything else will remain between myself and my family.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is

Originally posted to +

Previous , ,

[New Update] - My mum asked me to watch my siblings for a week. It’s been 9 weeks.

NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----

Editor’s Note: removed relevant comments from older posts to make more space for new updates here

Thank you to for letting me know about the new update!

Trigger Warnings: children neglect, abandonment, mentions of alcoholism, child abuse, child trauma

Mood Spoilers: frustrated, depressing, hopeful but crushing

RECAP

: February 21, 2024

My mum went out two days before christmas and then text me 12 hours later saying she would be gone for a week and for me to have the kids. She hasn’t come back since. So almost 9 weeks. I have heard from her 3 times total and she is saying she isn’t coming back any time soon, she just keeps sending money.

My siblings are 16, 13, 12, 9, and 7. I’m 19.

I’m surviving looking after the kids by myself and tbh not much has changed because I did most of it when my mum was here anyway. We live with our nan but she doesn’t help with them really either, and my older siblings are long moved out.

I guess my question is, is my mum being gone a serious issue legally and with social services? I don’t want to risk the kids going into care (been there done that when I was younger) so I haven’t told anyone that she’s gone. I’m scared of what will happen if people find out so I don’t want to even ask the question irl

: February 29, 2024

I spoke to my mum on the phone and told her i want her to give me custody of the kids since she is refusing to come back or say when she will be back and i’m done with her bullshit. We argued for like an hour but in the end she said she would do it after i told her I was going to call the police on her

Before speaking to her i spoke to a lawyer and i should be able to get legal guardianship through a parenting order which will go through court. My 22 year old brother said he will move home and help me under the condition that my mum doesnt move back as he refuses to be around her. His income and input will help a lot and he seems serious about wanting to be involved with parenting and taking care of the kids especially our little brother as he needs a male role model badly

If we cant get custody then my nan should be able to. Either way my mum is very unlikely to keep custody unless she suddenly decides she gives a shit (i would bet my life she will never give a flying fuck)

Getting legal custody is the outcome i want so I’m relieved it seems like a real possibility

Now i’m just trying doing a total overhaul of everything with the kids because i think they need a lot more structure, discipline, rules, routine than they have had until now. I have realised i dont really know anything about good parenting so i have a lot to learn. Maybe i will get some books. Until now our house has been more like a house share with everyone doing what they want and running around feral rather than anyone really guiding the kids. I grew up even more feral and i dont think its a good way to be raised. So i’m starting a bath and bedtime routine for the youngest two, and a curfew for the teenagers. Because rn the 12 year old goes off on his skateboard and will just show up again at like 10pm on a school night. I’ve also been giving them much better food than they usually have and its been rough to get them to eat healthy but we have made so much progress already.

Any advice on instilling rules would be welcome as I dont think it will be easy and i have never had any kind of actual parent role model in my life

EDITOR’S NOTE: OOP has appeared into the BoRU after it was posted. I have received her permission to share her comment

OOP:

thank you sm for all the helpful comments here and messages offering help/advice (i will reply to them all when i can)

Rn I’m putting all my energy into the new routine and trying to sort out legal guardianship so we can get money for the kids etc. Everything else is a problem for later on when we are more settled. My older brother came up last weekend and tbh it was nice but weird bc the younger kids dont even remember him and they pretty much clung to me for the entire time bc having a man in the house is strange for them. But after he left they said they miss him and liked having him here. He’s been sorting his shit out this week and is coming back tomorrow with all his stuff and will be working remote from our house. Me and him have spoken a lot and i think we will be able to get on the same page with the kids and make it work. I’m worried about some things with parenting differences but we will figure it out. I’m trying not to seem controlling but its hard to adjust to someone else being very involved when I have been looking after them by myself. I know I need him though.

My nan was actively trying to undermine me and we had an argument, then my brother got here and he had an argument with her in the first half hour. So she has gone to my aunts for a while. She is still paying the bills here but if she stops we will be ok with my brothers money and mine. My brother wants to take the kids and move house but I am not even thinking about that until everything else is sorted out

Now that things are actually changing our older sisters are more interested and have been messaging me so they might help as well

The kids are not taking the new routine too well but we are making progress so I’m trying to stick with it. I made a meal plan and have stuck to that all week. My 9 year old sister told me she likes rules which makes it feel worth it. The teenagers are kind of a nightmare but Im trying to persevere with them. 13 year old was being horrific and I lost my shit which made her have an emotional breakdown and now she’s been a lot better. 12 year old has taken it ok ish he just tells me I’m a loser all the time and asks for his skateboard back a million times a day but I know he knows where it is so he is being pretty good considering he could just take it back if he really wanted. 16 year old is hell. 7 year old has like 3 tantrums a day and wont eat or sleep so she stresses me out probably the most

my mum hasnt called anymore but is complying with giving us custody and told her friend its the best thing thats ever happened to her. I cba with her and if she tries to come back i will do everything i can to keep her away from the kids

: March 14, 2024

Hi! Not sure if doing multiple updates is ok but I have had a lot of messages since the BORU post and think it will be easier to update people who are interested like this as replying to all is hard

Thanks to advice here we have realised that getting kinship is a better choice for us financially than getting legal guardianship. This wasnt mentioned to us by the lawyer or social services so i’m so grateful for everyone here as we will have so much less financial stress on kinship and we will get access to a lot more services for the kids

Things are already seeming so much less scary. My brother has come home to help me and is working remotely for his same job which is ideal. He has been amazing at making it all happen so fast and packing up his life to move back. He is still back and forth at the moment but should be here full time besides a few days a month where he has to be there in person.

Our oldest sister has said she will send some money every month to help us but doesnt want to be involved other than that. I understand why and am very grateful she is helping. Honestly it hurts a bit that she refuses to talk about the kids or anything but she is doing what she can handle rn i guess. Our other sister is working fifo right now and has suggested coming back on her weeks off to help out but I’m not sure if that will actually happen or work well in reality. My brother doesnt get along with her very well and says he doesnt think living with her again will work

The kids are still struggling with the new rules and we have had some issues. 16 year old hates me so my brother is trying to take over with her bc I am bored of fighting with her

The others are doing better but still so difficult. 7 year old wont sleep which is the hardest thing right now bc then i cant sleep and I’m tired af. She has meltdowns when shes tired and shes always tired now so shes always having meltdowns. Idk what to do with her. Everything i try to make her sleep doesnt work that well. She says she doesnt know why she “cant” (wont) sleep so idk where to even start My brother tried to get her to bed and she just cried and screamed for me

12 year old is listening to our brother which is the best thing to ever happen because i was really worried about handling him since he listens to me NEVER.

13 and 9 year old are easier and not stressing me out too much

So we are kind of divide and conquer now. My brother handles 2 and I handle the other 3. I have found out I am very protective of the younger ones and find it very difficult to let my brother discipline them so it causes less problems between us if i deal with them

Still early days and hoping consistency will fix a lot of the smaller issues.

Long term we want to rent somewhere bigger as our nans house is very cramped and making things harder

This is long and messy, sorry!! Just wanted to update everyone who has asked and thank everyone again for the advice

: April 4, 2024

Back with another update for those who asked! Cant believe its been over 3 months now

We applied for kinship and have had the provisional approval and the home inspection and some interviews. We’ve got a couple more things to do/still ongoing and then we should be good! We got our first payment which has been SO GOOD and really made me feel much more optimistic about everything bc we will be able to actually do something other than just survive. The case worker pretty much told me they dont want to have to find placements for this many kids so us keeping them is their much preferred option which is reassuring

My mum hasnt contacted me for a while. We thought she might show up on easter bc holidays are usually her time to cry about how much she misses our dad, and she usually prefers to ruin everyones day with that. But she didnt come thank god. Our nan is still at our aunties bc she cant stand to be around us apparently. Bc me trying to feed them good food and not let a 7 year old disappear for hours on bicycles with kids 3+ years old than her is just me thinking im better than my nan!!!

A lot of people said to trying cosleep with 7yr old so i have started doing that. It’s helping a bit and she actually will lay down so thats a win but she still cries a lot and tries to get up. She also does a death grip on me so I have kind of accepted that i have to go to bed when she does. Its not the worst thing ever bc i have been looking things up and reading online whilst i lay with her when she eventually calms down.

I’ve ordered melatonin to try. I share a room with 16yr old and she doesnt want 7yr old in there but its kind of tough. I cant do anything about it until we can move house which isnt going to be soon. Its not the most peaceful night with her in there bc she kicks me and wakes up at random times trying to chat or crying but we are getting some sleep.

She slept in my single bed with me from 4 months old until she was like 2 (I clearly knew nothing about safe sleep but my mum had sold the crib to try to annoy my dad so she actually had no where else to sleep) and i havent told her that bc I dont want to tell her her mum didnt care that she didnt have a bed, but she seems to remember bc she said “we used to have sleepovers in your bed a lot didnt we”🥺 Also i got 16yr old earplugs and told her she can sleep in 7yr olds bed in the other room if she prefers

I do my best to try to soothe 7yr old in general. She had one of her crying breakdowns last week and said she didnt feel safe or happy. Then she said she wishes i was her real mummy. I told her I am her real mummy bc I’ve looked after her her whole life and I won’t ever leave her. She seems a bit happier since then. Im going to get a photo of us for her to have in her little purse she carries everywhere. She’s pretty sentimental so she will like that. Yesterday she asked me if me and our brother are married lol obviously I said no and she said “i just feel like you are my mum and dad”. I hope thats a good thing even if it is a little weird. She is definitely bonding with him too. She always wants me to carry her around and when I say no bc I’m busy, he offers to do it and she lets him now. She used to ignore him. Seeing her snuggle into his neck and actually relax is the cutest thing. Makes my heart happy bc I remember wishing I had a dad who would hold me and i’m so glad she is getting all the love❤️❤️❤️

Me and my brother have had a few disagreements over discipline. He is pretty strict and usually thats a good thing bc they need it tbh but sometimes I find it a bit much. Biggest disagreement was when he smacked 9yr old and I lost my shit. We grew up with a lot lot worse and ngl i have smacked them before but I dont want to be doing that anymore. Bro thinks there’s nothing wrong with 1 smack on the bum. I would just rather we dont go there. He said he wont do it again and i dont think he will. He wasn’t angry when he did it so im not really concerned about it and he apologised to 9yr old. We’re just still trying to figure out discipline. Our dad used an electric cord as a whip so one smack on the bum is practically gentle parenting to us. I have read enough to know we dont want to be doing any physical disciplining though

Worst thing ive had to do is give the youngest 2 suppositories. My sister gave me money to take them to the gp bc i was worried about them and couldnt find any for free and didnt want to wait for kinship. Turns out they are both malnourished underweight and constipated af. And they’ve missed some vaccines. For the constipation we tried medicine and more fibre and more water but no bueno so it had to be the suppositories bc the doctor said it was verging on severe. I tried to explain it to them and make the whole thing easy but it turned into quite the drama. 9yr old was easier but still took me a while. 7yr old was impossible and everyone got too stressed on day 1 so we left it and she was still not complying on day 2 so my brother had to get involved and pretty much had to hold her down. Bc I called the doctor and she said either we do it or i take her in and they do it. So we had no choice really and i still feel horrible about it. I’m obsessed with what they’re eating now bc I do not want anyone going through that again. But i will say they are a lot lot better since. They arent getting tummy aches and they arent so grouchy. And it has helped 7yr old with her sleep for sure

We are getting the other 3 to the doctor next week. We will do telehealth after but i want them to see someone in person for the first appointment. After that the next thing on the list is dentist. We have looked at therapy and should be getting telehealth sessions soon. So far all 3 teenagers have said they arent doing therapy but I will try to make them at least try it

16yr old is still difficult. She took my ID and she was going out whenever she liked. But my brother grounded her and she has actually listened and not tried to sneak out

The other 3 are doing ok. No big issues with them tbh they are adapting pretty well i think. I try to talk to them all about everything when i can and they all seem to understand whats going on and trust that we wont be going anywhere and we just need them to cooperate with us so we can get through. My little brother J(12) is obsesssed with older bro. I used to have an issue with J going out every evening for hours and was so stressed about trying to keep him home and safe but Matt being here has basically eliminated the issue. J just wants to be around him allll the time and Matt has somehow got this kid thinking doing homework with him is the BEST thing ever

Sorry this is so long again! Idk how long i will keep doing these updates but for now everyone is so incredibly helpful that i will carry on posting bc i always need more advice

The advice and support from everyone in the comments and pm has been amazing and has actually helped change our day to day life for the better so thank u sm internet strangers ❤️

: April 14, 2024

My previous posts explain eveything but short version is our mum left right before xmas and im now looking after my 5 younger siblings

16yr old has been a pain in the ass the whole time. So unhelpful, permanently grumpy and arguing about everything and winding up the younger ones just to be annoying. Basically making my life harder every chance she gets.

She got her phone confiscated today bc she was videoing our little sister having an emotional meltdown and laughing at her. Later on whilst I was putting the phone away I saw a message from our mum pop up saying some horrible shit. My mum hasnt messaged me in weeks and 16yr old hasnt mentioned messaging her at all so i was like wtf.

Took me a few attempts to get into her phone but i got in and saw sooo many messages. Mostly her begging our mum to come home and our mum either ignoring her or telling her to come to the city shes in rn. 16yr old sent her so many messages saying our younger siblings need her and our mum replied saying i think i know hwo to raise them better so she is leaving me to it since i dont want her here. Most recent one was 16yr old asking why she doesnt care about us and our mum basically saying she has better things to do than sit here and listen to us all tell her everything she is doing wrong all the time

I knew she was having a hard time but reading her messages to our mum has broken me and i just want to stop her hurting so much💔💔💔

She basically hates me right now so comforting her is very hard bc she will not open up even a bit and whenever i speak to her about it she acts like she doesnt care. Idk what to do or say to her😭

Meanwhile my older sister just calls me periodically to tell me she wishes she could help but she cant bc of a list of reasons including but not limited to her not being able to face being around our youngest sister bc our parents said she was her replacement and older sis cant get over it. Which is like, ok, but baby sis just turned 7 and big sis is almost 25… so at some point she needs to try get past that and realise its not the little ones fault. And big sis is struggling bc she feels like im her kid apparently and she wanted me to come live with her when i was younger but i ‘chose’ to stay here and ‘let my mum get away with not parenting’. But the alternative is my siblings being neglected and abused like we were. Anyway fr i dont have time to be dealing with her emotional issues on top of everyone elses. And she’s whining to me like oh i had to take time off work bc i’m having a hard time mentally. Which makes me feel soooo great when I am working my ass off to feed 5 kids and dealing with a million behavioural issues a day and dont have time to do anything

Before everyone starts shouting “therapy”… yeah its in the works. Trying to get telehealth arranged but its taking forever. We cant afford anything else so thats the best we have for now. Until then its good old fashioned just get on with it and try not to fuck the kids up anymore than they are already

----NEW UPDATE----

: May 20, 2024

Another update bc my inbox is still flooded and I cant reply to everyone so just going to say it all here for you guys and anyone else who wants to know. Been like 5 months now.. jfc

Firstly thank u for all the nice messages and offers of help and stuff. I really do appreciate it and sorry if i havent replied but i have had literally 100s of messages and its kind of overwhelming for me. I have read most of them and am still trying to reply to more but its a big job

Currently things are going ok. Big things that have happened/are happening-

My older sister (the second oldest) is coming to visit soon. The relationship between her and my older brother is kind of strained bc of some shit that happened when they were younger and the 3 older ones all lived together for a bit after leaving home. Honestly i think it was just a shit show having 3 damaged teenagers living together in a new place with no support. I dont have time to be the mediator though so just told them if they cant get along then my sister will need to leave bc the kids dont need any more drama and my brother needs to focus on being a parent. She’s coming bc she wants to, and she said she wont cause any drama she just wants to help. We’ll see how it goes anyway but Im lowkey dreading it. Last time I saw this sister was years ago though so i’m trying to not think she’s going to be the same as she was when she was a teenager

We have started planning to move to WA. My brother is desperate to get out of our town and not have to worry about our parents showing up (he gets a lot of anxiety about it, he doesnt like me being at home without him being here). His job will help him move over there and he has been set on it for a while now. We will be able to transfer over there even with the kids being on kinship care which is basically the only thing i was worried about. But thats confirmed we will be fine to do it so now i’m on board with it. Wont be any time soon but hopefully end of the year we can move

Financially we are doing pretty good. We have the kinship money, mine and my brothers wages and my older sisters have been sending money consistently. My brother is good with money and we are able to save some. I was able to buy the kids a small present each to cheer them up on mothers day. They have like barely any toys so the little ones are psyched to have some things to play with and have been being feral outdoors way less this week. They have been playing lego and barbies like normal children

7yr old sleeps so good when I give her melatonin. I dont do it every night but when I do its like a mini holiday. She sometimes wakes up mad but I can deal with that when I have actually slept. Other nights when she doesn’t have it I either keep her downstairs and hope she will fall asleep on me or my brother whilst watching TV, or I go through the emotional bedtime routine of her crying and saying she doesn’t want to go to bed whilst I read the same 3 stories until she chills out. She is doing better at school again now. It was pretty bad for a while (obviously bc she was permanently exhausted and surviving on literal air only bc the kid wouldnt sleep or eat).

Right now 9 and 13yr olds are doing the telehealth therapy sessions. 7yr old won’t speak to the therapist so she’s having indirect help through me. 12yr old hates it so my brother is trying to learn techniques to do with him to help him. 16yr old refuses which I was expecting anyway. Tried to force her to do it and that didnt go well. So again I just try to give her indirect help. I had some 1-1 time with her recently and she was different in a good way. She lets her guard down when the younger kids arent there. Like she can be vulnerable or whatever. She said “thank you for looking after us” to me on MD.

Havent seen any more messages on 16yr olds phone from our mum, she has completely stopped messaging any of us. The last thing she said to me was she doesnt know why I’m turning her kids against her. Kinda hilarious tbh but just proves she is deep in delulu land.

On mothers day 7 year old went outside 4 times before 8am to “make sure mum isnt coming down the road” and she has been crying about our dad, not sure why exactly, when I ask she just says shes worried about him. 9yr old gets annoyed with her and tells her to stop crying because our dad is a bad person. She is also very defensive of me and my brother and tries to police all the other kids and tells them to behave and be nice to us and dont argue/backchat/misbehave. I think she’s concerned we will get fed up and leave. Ofc i reassure her we wont and she doesnt need to tell the others off. Its kinda funny anyway tbh because she is no angel herself

Their diet is a lot better. We still have issues every meal of every day but overall its better and they are doing well with trying to eat new things. Years of ramen and chicken nuggets has obviously been horrible for our bodies. But they all have at least 1 fruit or veg a day and have real dinners. They like pasta bake so thats the new ramen around here. My brother cooks curry and tries to get them to eat it but that doesnt go down so well. They like when he makes chicken and potatoes. 7yr old likes Bluey pouches of vanilla custard and would eat those for every meal if i let her

My oldest sister is still a pain in the ass and wants to talk about our trauma all the time. She just has more time to dwell than i do. I have no time to dwell. I asked her to please not message me unless its positive or helpful. Her reply showed she really is just jealous that i am giving all my time and energy to the kids but i really dont have it in me to look after an adults emotional needs as well. She sees me as her kid and she wants to see me but doesnt want to see the younger ones. Like she asked me to come visit and leave them with my brother for a few days. Im not going to leave insecure kids who are permanently stressed that i will leave for good. Imagine how stressed they would be the whole time. She also thinks i am babying them. But im just treating them like children. Mostly its just annoying that she is like this but its also partly upsetting because tbh there is nothing i would love more than for her to meet and love 7 year old. For me it would be like my ‘mum’ meeting my child. Bc my oldest sister raised me when i was really young and 7yr old is the only one of the kids i have fully raised since she was a tiny baby and my mum told me she didnt want her

Anywayyyy i am trying not to get to caught up in everything with my older sister because i have enough going on with alll the kids.

My grandma is still at my aunts house and very unhelpful. But shes not bothering me much so thats ideal. She mentioned wanting my cousin to move in here because he got kicked out by his girlfriend and has no where to live. But fuck that fr. He’s a creep and a drug addict so no way is that happening. over my dead body

Okkkk this has taken me like 3 days to finish writing and i have probably forgotten some stuff but really just wanted to say thanks for the support and i’m not ignoring my messages i just am busy and overwhelmed

Relevant Comments

CultureNovel6746: You are an inspiration; it would have been so easy, in one sense, to walk away and live your own life away from all this. That you love your siblings enough to pour so much into them even when they're being difficult or horrible to you tells us a great deal about who you are.

It looks like one-on-one time, when you can afford to do it, is best with 16yr old. It would give her an opportunity to bond a bit with you as something other than an authority figure.

Is there anywhere your older sister could stay nearby when she visits? An old friend of hers or a current friend of yours? You are both apprehensive about this visit, she clearly cares about you and probably still sees you as the young person you were when she left. Some space might make it a bit easier and less likely to end in drama.

There's a community out here who cares for and about you; reach out if you need help.

All the best.

OOP: Thank u!! The sister thats coming to visit isnt my oldest sister, shes not the one causing all the drama. That one wont come visit bc she cant be around the kids apparently. It’s the second oldest thats coming. Theres not really anywhere else she can stay. We will see how it goes but i’m going to be really blunt with her about how things need to be and her and my brother need to forget their issues

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is . He posted in .

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. See rule 7. This sub has a 7 day waiting period- ergo, the latest update is 7 days old and not newer.

Trigger Warnings: death of a child; drunk driving death

Mood Spoiler: incredibly sad but also sweet

Original : May 15, 2024

My son was smart. Smarter than me. I almost requested a paternity test because he was so damn intelligent. THAT IS A JOKE.

My ex and I divorced when he was about 12. She remarried when he was 14. I did when he was 16.

I had an RESP set up for him. That's a education fund in Canada. As long as he went for post secondary education he could use the money for anything.

I always told him that I was okay with him not going to university. That way I could use the money I had saved up for him to go to Belgium and buy some beer from monks that only allow you to buy one case.

He knew I was joking and he always played along. He wouldn't let me get his goat.

When he got accepted to McGill it was the proudest moment of my life. I took him out for a beer to celebrate his achievement and mourn the loss of my trip to Europe.

My son was struck and killed by a drunk driver in March. I'm dealing with it. My ex is dealing with it. My wife has been nothing but my rock in this. She is holding me up.

I was dealing with the funeral arrangements and everything when my ex came to talk to me about his money. She knew he had a scholarship and was just going to use the money for living expenses and an emergency fund. She asked me what I was going to do with it.

I said I was going to do what I always said I would. I was going to Europe to drink beer. She asked if she could have it for her step son. I thought about it and said no. Her husband is a decent enough person but he made it clear that he wasn't responsible for any expenses for my son. Beyond food and shelter and stuff obviously. Like I said he is decent.

I said I was not going to do that. I was going to go drink beer in my son's honour.

She says I'm wasting thousands of dollars. And I guess I am. I have to give back the government portion of the fund. But I don't care.

My ex thinks I'm being stupid and irresponsible wasting my son's money like this.

I don't care.

My son would laugh his ass off if he knew I actually did it.

Relevant Comments:

Commenter: Did your ex contribute to this fund? That’s important to know.

OOP: Not money. 

(to another commenter): I probably put in 95% of the principal. Not counting what the government put in. 

(to one more commenter): It was my folks, her parents, and cash birthday and Christmas gifts from when he was little. She never put in money. That doesn't in any way minimize the fact that without my ex our lifestyle would have been impossible. 

Commenter: NTA but Jesus Christ, I am so sorry.

Can you tell us more about your son? Share your favorite story about him, what he wanted to do for a job, your favorite activity together.

OOP: My son wanted study microbiology and immunology. He has thrown for a loop by the pandemic and he wanted to make sure it didn't happen again. He talked about a lot of stuff that went over my head. I'm a baker. I understand yeast. 

He loved the Habs. I would get us tickets at least once a year. (In response to "what are the Habs": Nickname for The Montreal Canadiens. The hockey team we cheer for.)

He loved kayaking with me. We are so close to so much water.

Commenter: Maybe it was all your yeast that inspired his passion for microbiology 😉

The thing I wish the most for you:

That this trip lets his memory brings more joy that he lived than sorrow that he’s gone.

OOP: I remember teaching him how to make his own sourdough starter. I still have his and I will use it forever I think.

Commenter: I dunno if your son would have liked Aussie beer but me and the boys on the line at work (restaurant kitchen) have cracked open Great Northerns in his honor. Your story deeply touched a group of Aussie chefs, we've all texted our dads. Enjoy your trip dude, sounds like it's definitely what your son would have wanted.

OOP: He enjoyed a Victoria Pale Bitter before. I did as well. 

Commenter: Nta but why is your ex wife not helping with the funeral arrangements? That’s her son too…and now shes here acting like a vulture. Block her and dont give a flying fish abt her. Her current husband didnt treat your son like family so why should you be his kid’s ATM?

OOP: No. Her husband is a decent person. He has his own son to look after. My son had two parents. My ex's husband is a good person that was never cruel or abusive towards my son. He and I had a good relationship. He is a good person. The reason I took care of the funeral arrangements is because my son lived with me to finish high school. I was responsible for him. We still lived in the Eastern Townships. My ex and her husband just moved to Montreal last year. He was going to live with them while he was in university. 

Commenter: From someone who lost her 15 yr old sister to a car accident this really tore me up way more than I thought it would. She was killed a month after her 15th birthday & had just been accepted to a private high school with a full ride scholarship she had been trying for. The acceptance letter sat on her vanity in her room for years after.

You are NTA if anything far from it…. the ex wife even asking is a huge one.

Please go to Europe & celebrate his life! It’s the only thing that should be done with that money.

If you have a Venmo/cashapp etc I would love to also buy you a beer.

I’m truly sorry for your loss.

OOP: Thanks for the offer. I'm going to update when I'm there. I would appreciate it if you had one with me instead. 

Editor's note: Most of OOP's comments are responding to people offering to meet up and/or helping plan the trip. It's a rather wholesome side to reddit.

He did have this exchange in response to being cautious on reddit:

Commenter: Dude, I don't want to sound callous, but never send money to people posting stories on these subs. Most of them are made up, and some are made up with the express intention of scamming people out of money.

OOP: I agree. That's why I thanked him and asked that he share one with me virtually when I'm there. 

OOP is voted NTA

Update : May 20, 2024 (5 days later)

Hi everyone. We are on our way to the airport and on our way to Barcelona. We will be going to be in Europe for a month. The visit to the monks at Westvleteren will be the last part of our trip. Two reasons. I don't want to lug beer bottles all over Spain, France, Belgium and Holland. Also I am putting it off for as long as I can.

For those of you that asked my son's name is Ryan. He was an amazing kid. I don't know if he got his love of the microscopic world from me. I did teach him how to make his own sourdough starter and I will be keeping his alive to make loaves and waffles with. His ashes are in our yard, on Mount Tremblant, on the shores of the St. Lawrence and I will be taking some to Belgium. My grandfathers have many friends buried there and I think they would approve.

I thank everyone that offered to buy me a beer. And while I appreciate the offer I'm pretty sure my liver, and my wife, would not have been happy with me. I will be with the monks on the week of June 23rd. If you would like to join me in a toast with your favorite drink of choice I would love that more. I love knowing that people all around the world know about my son and he would love knowing he was toasted in such a manner.

I spoke with my wife, my ex wife, her husband, and his son. I invited them to join us, at my expense, for the last week of my trip. My wife's stepson was friends with my son. I didn't know how close until we spoke. They are gaming buddies. They spoke almost every day playing online. He gave me a picture of my son I did not have. It is a picture of the two of them age about 14/15 at my ex wife's wedding to his father. My son looked great in his suit. I cried. He did too. We had a very awkward but heartfelt man hug. Then we laughed. They will be coming to say goodbye with us.

After talking to my accountant and my lawyer I was told that I could not have transferred him the value of the RESP. I have decided, after talking to my wife, that we are going to give him enough money to cover one year of tuition. Even after my trip we will have money left over. I'm trying to do some good with it. I also said that he could call us any time he needed since he will be attending school close to us. So funny he got accepted here and my son was accepted there.

I want to thank everyone who shared their condolences with me. I want to especially thank everyone that helped me plan my visit to Belgium. I know we won't see each other but you were invaluable.

I don't think I will have much to say after this. Maybe I will post an update after the trip.

Editor's note: I have a reminder on my calendar to toast to Ryan on June 23 if anyone else wants to join.

I am NOT OOP. OOP is

Originally posted to

Previous +

[New Update]: I [30M] think my wife [29F] is in love with her female best friend.

NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---

Trigger Warnings: infidelity, emotional manipulation, emotional abuse, mentions of homophobia, physical abuse, commenter abuse, victim blaming

RECAP

: November 9, 2023

I have been married with my wife for seven years and we meet eight years ago in a church meeting and we became friends.

My wife is a quiet, kind and beautiful woman, any man's dream therefore it was obvious that I fell for her instantly although she always behaved with what I thought was shyness, not wanting to cuddle with me or only kissing me on rare occasions we both were raised in Christian Families in a part of our country that is really religious, but unlike me, her parents were always the type who follows the Holy Doctrine really seriously so she has a traditional way of thinking about religion and how women should behave so I always tought that it was because of that her behavior is like that.

Sometimes I think she looks like a robot, she's nice and kind with everyone but a couple of times I saw her staying all quiet staring into space like if she was dead, over the years I began to take it as something normal on her personality because she always refused to go to the psychologist and always said that she's just like that, until two months ago when she found out that the woman who was her best friend in high school was coming back to the town, I never saw her so happy and alive. I felt happy for her, thinking that what she needed was a female friend.

My wife never used to leave the house but since that woman is staying in the town she has been going out as much posible, She became a different person but not in a bad way, but she looks full of life and to be honest I never saw her smile as much as when she tells me that she will go out with her friend for a coffee (for the record, I'm sure she's not sleeping with her because she doesn't know how to lie and her behavior with me never changed).

I'm not going to deny it, days ago I started to feel jealous of that woman, that she is the reason why my wife smiles so much and is on her phone all day, out of pure curiosity three days ago I entered her FB and some albums were public, she had a lot of álbumes and I found pictures of her and my wife during High school, that woman was hugging my wife as if they were a couple, in some of the photos they were holding hands or looking at each other with bright smiles which is something she never does with me.

Her family hates gay people although my wife never talked ill about them but just avoid talking about the topic wich now makes sense to me. I don't know whether to confront her because maybe I'm just thinking too much or maybe she's in love with her ¿ex-girlfriend?.

The only thing I'm sure of is that she only looks happy talking about that woman so I don't know what to do

Edit: I'm sorry if I write something wrong, English is not my first language.

Relevant Comments

yetagainitry: Yes she does love her friend, because she's her friend. All I saw in your post was a woman being excited that a close friend she hasn't seen in years is coming back, and that there was a picture of them hugging. I'm assuming all this paranoia is from your religious upbringing cause all i'm seeing is two women are friends.

If you should be asking anything it's why didn't you see the clear lonliness your wife was feeling before this friend came back into her life?

OP: I referred to the way they held hands especially because my wife and I never held hands, When we started dating every time I tried she told me to not hug her or hold her hands because "she doesn't like romantic things", I always respected her boundaries about that so I did get confused when I saw her in pictures like that with another person.

We do have a healthy relationship in feelings terms, when I notice she's off we talk although she never wanted to see a psychologist but she likes to talk about why she feels weird that day but but always ends up saying that that's her personality , we have been always close friends since we meet but it surprised me when I saw she actually likes being hugged by someone

Particular-Use-6913: I think that’s pretty odd. Surely at some point your paths would cross, even if you weren’t wondering.

Does your wife give an explanation as to why the friend wouldn’t care to? I don’t know many people who wouldn’t want to meet their best friend’s significant other.

OP: Same, that's why I feel it's odd My wife just says that her friend isn't interested in meeting me and closes the conversation, I feel that if I insist on asking the reason we would end up arguing and I always prefer to avoid that

I know her friend left the town to live in the capital and sometimes people become elitist after living there but that wouldn't make sense since I lived half my life in the capital and while my family is religious, I was never the strict religious type so I don't get why her friend doesn't want to meet me

Editor’s Note: The update was created in a separate post which was later deleted. OOP has posted the update under his original post

: November 9, 2023

Thanks for the advices in my previous post, although I got few replies everyone was very friendly.

I decided to confront my wife and ask about the photos with her friend during high school, everyone in the post said that they are most likely just friends and made my mind feel more in peace thinking that I was overthinking but when I showed her the photos she began to breathe fast in what I think was a panic attack, I helped her to calm but then she got upset because I sneaked in her friend FB, I knew she was trying to change the subject because she loves to do that so I got serious and told her to talk. After a few long minutes full of her trying to change the topic, she ended up telling me everything: Indeed, she and her friend used to be a couple during high school and friends since Kindergarten, they kept the relationship as a secret pretending to be only best friends until my wife's parents found out and beated her up separating them, her friend moved to the capital that year and they never saw each other again but for what my wife said and showed, they never stopped loving each other.

In some point of the conversation my wife stopped calling her friend by name and without realizing she started calling her "Mi amor" wich hurt me because in all years married she never called me like that, I asked her if she was cheating on me with her friend and said that they never kissed or anything but I'm sure she's emotionally cheating me (She doesn't know what's that concept so she really believes she's not doing anything wrong)

The reason why her friend never wanted to meet me or even go to our wedding is because she hates to see 'her' love married with a man she doesn't even like and living a lie, ouch. I asked my wife if she loves me and said yes but like a best friend, yes, my own wife just friendzoned me. She cried a lot saying that she's really sorry for lying to me, when we meet we really clicked as friends and she told me that her parents insisted her to marry me so she could 'heal', that explained why she never liked to hug, cuddle or do anything romantic with me; It wasn't because she was shy but because she didn't liked me.

I wanted to lose my temper and yell at her, I wanted to cry and even run away because I was patient and empathetic with all the times she rejected my affection and I felt alone, I've even been thinking for years that maybe I'm a bad husband and I was treating her badly without realizing it, feeling insecure about my own personality but she assured me that I was never the problem. I didn't cried or yell, I just left the house and came to my sister's house, we didn't talked about divorce or anything like that, I even think my wife doesn't see any problem with what she did with her friend but I'm sure that I don't want to spend all my life in a loveless marriage with a woman that will never love me back.

I'm sorry for the long post, I'm just venting at this point but I feel like I wasted all my youth, I didn't expected to update so fast but I needed to talk about that. It's not like I don't feel bad for her, I do, but now I feel even worse for myself.

Pd-I had to delete the first update because I had to edit some things.

Relevant Comments

AlpineJ: Has she tried contacting you since you left?

OP: No, not at all. But at least for today I don't want to talk with her neither

kingthunderflash: You need to divorce her and go completely NC. You deserve so much better than that toxic woman who has lied to your face for years. I’m sorry OP.

OP: I'm sure that I will divorce her although I still didn't tell her that because I want time alone. I feel empathy for her and always saw her as a kind woman but the fact that she used me totally changed my perception of her. Thanks for your words:)

: November 13, 2023

Maybe nobody remember my two first posts but I wanted to at least post a final update because I'm really thankful for all the kind comments and advices I received, they're helping me a lot.

I come back to my house the day after my last update and my ex-wife was there laying in the couch, the first thing I said when I entered was "We're going to divorce" Maybe that wasn't the best way of saying it but she have the habit of changing the topic when I want to talk about serious things so I didn't wanted her to do that this time.

She crearly didn't expected that and started to cry and have an anxiety attack saying that we can't divorce, that I can't do that to us but what hit me harder was "There's no point in us breaking up, the fact that I don't love you doesn't change anything" wich is true, I realized that our relationship was always like that, her treating me just like a friend and me accepting that kind of trait.

She said that she never cheated or anything like that even if I explained again what's "Emotional cheating", I told her that she's not even attracted to mans so there's no sense in staying married because we're just not for each other and asked her if she still loved that bestfriend and she didn't denied it but kept insisting that we shouldn't divorce. I can understand why she was so desesperate but it made me feel used, like if I was her pathetic beard who she can always use as a shield for herself or a dog who will always be happy with the smallest token of affection. I don't need her signature anyway to get a divorce so even if she doesn't want to, we're 100% going to break up.

I told her I'm not going to take her out of the closet but if anyone asks I'll just say the truth avoiding the sexuality topic because I don't want people gossiping and assuming things that didn't happened. The lands and basically all the things of the house are mine and maybe I'm an asshole for this but I told her that I will not give her anything because it's all mine and I inherited the land from my grandfather, at this point she just looked sad and defeated so didn't complained or anything (Although I will get advice from a lawyer to be sure). I told her that she can stay until december in the house and she answered that she will be probably have to come back to live with her parents wich actually made me feel bad because my ex-in-laws are not good people but for what she said, she's still talking with her bestfriend so luckily she's not alone, the conversation finished awkward with me just leaving.

For now I'm staying at my sister's house, I can have time for myself since she and my other sisters are out of the province for a concert, I didn't talked with my ex-wife after that day and she didn't tried to contact me but I know that she told my ex-in-laws about the divorce because they wanted to contact me to ask why we're divorcing but I just answered that "These are things that need to be resolved only between her and me".

So this will be probably my last update because i will go NC with my ex-wife after the divorce, we don't have childrens (Sometimes she started talks about having a baby and now I feel really relieved of always saying that I didn't felt ready, maybe something in me was already telling me that she wasn't for me) so we don't have anything that tie us together.

I have been going to the psychologist since I was a child so I think that has helped me a lot to channel my emotions, many in the comments said that I shouldn't have empathy or things like that for her but we're both broken people that suffers from a religious trauma and I know how bad that mess to people's mind and heart.

Some people in the coments where confused about why I stayed with her when she clearly didn't loved me romantically but I don't know, maybe I always justified her actions because somehow I felt identified with her, maybe I have a hero complex or maybe my sense of duty is too strong that I felt internally tied up with her and responsible of making her happy as her husband even if she always rejected my romantic love. I don't know, that's something I will talk and work with my Psychologist.

Also I received questions like why I married with her In the first place and she was the one who said "We should marry" And I was inmature and young at that time and because we got along well I tought it was a good idea.

For now I just want to divorce and then spend time with my family. In general I feel numb and weird, I haven't cried yet and in the session of yesterday my psychologist told me that he thinks I already grieve the relationship long time ago even if I didn't realized it. I don't feel like I lost a wife but like a lost a close and good friend and company, not a heartbreak pain but a betrayal pain. Anyways, I don't want anything to do with her anymore, maybe I'm being a bad person for abandoning her knowing the type of life she had but I can't save a person who doesn't want to be saved and I'm tired of trying. For now I will just say goodbye maybe not to a woman I saw as the love of my life but to a woman who helped me and was a good friend for years.

I'm really thankful about the kind comments people left (even some mean ones wich make me think that maybe I'm too quiet with how I reacted, that's something wrong? I was never the temperamental type), I'm sorry if the update is a boring one and not about me starting my villain era but that's not my style haha. Thanks everyone!

: November 30, 2023

Hello! It's been a while since I posted and sadly the mods deleted the two times I tried to post a final update, I don't know if someone is gonna read this but my sister (she knows about the reddit posts) showed me that someone posted the story on tiktok, sadly I read the comments and beside the account changed A LOT of things, I also read all kind of comments assuming things about me that are fake.

I want to clarify some things: 1-I never married her because I wanted a submissive woman, we were both like best friends... I don't know why I read comments saying that I wanted a housewife when I didn't, many times I offered her to work with me but she never wanted to look for a job or study something so I didn't insisted because we were doing well financially.

2- I wasn't going to "Open the relationship" for her, luckily I realized I deserve so much better, and to be honest? I already give up too much things for her to give up also my life. Maybe some people is okay with having a loveless marriage but not me, not anymore.

3- I read a lot the comments saying "He should help her, he should be generous with the divorce" But how do you help a person who doesn't want to be helped? I tried, for years to help her and now all I do is keep hearing about horrible things she did behind my back that I don't really want to talk about.

4- "She used you because she was afraid of coming out" I understand that, I do, but I deserved that? I deserved to be used? I deserved her to even use my money to buy things for her "bestfriend"? I don't think so. We live in an open country, even one of my sisters is lesbian and married and I know I would've helped my soon to be ex-wife in a past if she confessed that to me.

5- We married but she had countless opportunities to tell me the truth, she never cared to see me feel insecure about her, instead she kept insisting that we should have a baby, now I realized that she wanted that to make sure that if we divorced she would get something since she never worked or studied.

6- I found out her bestfriend have a wife and a baby so no, my ex-wife is not with her and the situation became even more messed up but honestly I don't want to get into that. My ex keep insisting that she never cheated on me with her physically so I think I believe her in that, at least.

7- I also suffer from religious trauma and a trauma doesn't makes you a bad person, that's something that's inside.

8- Nobody forced her to the marriage, in my country nobody does that. I asked her why she wanted to marry and she said that her parents told her that she needed to heal and she said I was "a good man for her", that's why she used to insist a lot in getting married.

So if anyone wants to know how everything ended; I'm getting divorced But it's a tedious and lengthy process, I'm keeping the house, the car, everything, I'm selfish? Maybe, but I wanted to think of myself once in a lifetime, working for those things is hard and I dedicated my life to building my house. Mi ex-wife is currently living with her brother, she never asked me how I was, neither when I left the house after finding the truth, but I did check if she was fine sending messages the first days asking how she was feeling, I suffered a mental breakdown a few days ago because she keeps sending me texts saying that we should comeback together, we should have a child (I never wanted to have a baby with her and she insisted a lot of times in that) and that "It doesn't matter that she doesn't love me, she never loved me and we lived well so I should go on with the marriage for her", it make me realize she's only trying to make me feel guilty So that just made me understand that for her I'm not even an human, maybe I'm not even a dog at her eyes so I just blocked her number. I understand she's anxious because she doesn't have anything but it's not like I've never told her to finish a career so to be honest I just give up on her, I'm too tired of this situation.

I don't really know what's she's going to do with her life but I don't care anymore, My psychologist made me realize all the narcissistic traits she has, I want to move on with my life because I deserve that and because I'm tired of being used.

So yeah, i don't know if someone is going to read this but I want to leave this post here because sadly people likes to distort the story

----NEW UPDATE----

: May 20, 2024

Hi, it's been a long time and my other posts here got deleted so I give up in trying to post a final update and forgot about this site but today I saw that someone posted it on a site and I think is good to post an update because. I saw that there are people who keep sending me private messages asking how I'm doing. (I deleted the first post to Edit a few things)

I'm finally divorced, I thought it would take at least eight months to complete but it was faster than I thought since in my country it takes the signature of only one person for the divorce to be completed. She started making things complicated for me when she realized that we were really going to part ways, she even made up that I had cheated on her when I had only said that we were going to divorce because of differences, that way no one would ask, not even her parents who now think that I'm the one who cheated but I don't care. But as I always say; I got tired of trying to understand her and her actions.

She started to bother me a lot, even coming to the house and I didn't wanted to deal with her anymore so I just gave her a few of the furniture and appliances in the house even though I paid for everything, it doesn't matter, she was a housewife so after all she deserves her share in the divorce and I know her, She would have kept insisting and I was so feeble-minded at that point that I just wanted to stop seeing her forever, to be free of her.

I guess she came out of the closet herself because now she's dating an older woman and living with her as far as I know, I don't know if she lied to me and I don't want to know it, I don't want to know if that woman is another lover she had, I don't want to know how much they know each other, I don't care, I don't want to hurt myself with that. It's her life so at least now she's being herself. My sisters wanted to go and beat her up when they found out but I told them not to go or she could take advantage of that. I found out about a lot of other things she did behind my back but I don't want to talk about it, just that I'm a big fool.

I hope she can finally be happy and stop using people for her own good, since I know she wasn't happy with me and I wish happiness for myself too.

About her best friend, I really have no idea what happened to her, my sister knows that woman's wife and to this day they upload photos together with the baby. My sister couldn't talk about it to that woman's wife because, well, she doesn't have any proof.

I've been feeling good, I'm not going to lie and say it's easy, I think people on Internet have more empathy for my ex than for me when I talk about this haha but I think now I don't care anymore and I rather this je that way because I reject being a victim, I have my family and friends being my biggest support. I used to hide a lot of things from my psychologist because I knew that he would tell me that those things are wrong and a big part of me didn't wanted to hear the truth but a few months ago I was totally honest with many things that happened in my marriage, he scolded me a little but has helped me to see all the abusive things that I suffered, even if it was not something physical I think that mentally they damaged me a lot. I'm not going to play the victim because I refused myself many times to get out of there and keep trying like a fool. I don't see myself as a victim, I've been a victim before and I don't want to feel that way again

I've been going out with my friends to clubs, having married so young I lost part of my youth because I had to work, study and keep a house so I've been really enjoying partying. Less than a month ago I started dating a girl, it's nothing serious but we enjoy each other's company. It's weird to be with a woman who makes me feel ¿appreciated? And she doesn't look at me with boredom when I talk, I'm really quiet (Some people called me sexist for saying that being quiet is a good thing, but I never saw it as a flaw) but she's too talktive so It's always good to have a talk with her. My ex-wife and I had almost no intimacy, I have a trauma and it was hard for me to feel comfortable being intimate and now looking back, I thought my ex just wanted to make me feel comfortable but now I see that she used my trauma as an excuse to not touch me. Every time I tried to get comfortable, she would just say, "You know? Let's stop this or you'll have nightmares later.", I was very stupid too to believe all that, she just didn't wanted to touch me. But thanks to this girl I've started to enjoy myself and feel comfortable.

Not many things happened honestly and I doubt many people would mind about this but I tought it doesn't demage me to post an update, after giving the appliances and furniture to my ex, she just totally stopped talking to me. I've been focusing on myself, I feel like I'm too young to be divorced anymore but I feel good, I feel like this has been my biggest sign to start again and I want to move forward for myself and my family. I think I learned a lot about this as painful as it still is.

Relevant Comments

Intelligent-Ad-4568: So she came out of the closest, is dating a new woman.... What happened with her parents? I thought they were homophobic? Did she move in with his woman?

OOP: I don't know what happened with her parents, I've always known them to be very closed-minded people but I don't know how they reacted. I don't know anything, only that now she has a girlfriend and they live together

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP, OOP is

Originally posted to

My entitled mom wants me to pay my creep step-brother's student debt

Trigger Warnings: emotional abuse and manipulation, bullying, mentions of child neglect, verbal abuse, animal abuse, peeping tom, stalking, sexual abuse, pedophilia, death of a loved one

: May 11, 2024

I (29F) have an older Step-brother, Chris (42M) who has been a nightmare since the day my mom married his dad.

Let me give a bit of background: Our parents married when I was 4 and he was 17. Both our parents were widowed. After their wedding, we moved to the US since my mom had American citizenship through marriage. I was born in the US too, but after my dad died when I was 1, my mom and I moved back to Colombia. Step-dad got his residency through marriage and my step-brother because he was a minor.

My step-brother wasn't a big fan of me. My only memories of him are just constant bullying. He would be left in charge of me since he was studying locally and lived with my parents, but mostly his 'babysitting' really meant things like locking me in the guest bathroom or the shed outside. He would steal my lunchbox whenever he was the one who dropped me off at school. He even began to harm my pets. I have an old cat that has been with me for almost 22 years. He tried more than once to run her over with his car. My parents never believed any of it. He's the classic golden child. My mom absolutely wanted a son instead of a daughter, so my step-brother took priority over me.

The bullying just kept getting worse and creepier. He had this long key for the bathroom. The door was designed in case it got locked by accident, one could open them by inserting a long stick or key through a small hole on the outside. He would use it to walk in on me showering. My underwear would disappear sometimes and I know for a fact it was him. He also started taking pictures of me sleeping. One night I woke up to him taking care of himself next to me while I slept. I yelled obviously. My parents came over, but he wasn't in trouble. I was for 'tempting him'. I was 14 when this happened. He was 27.

No one helped me and he got bolder until he did something I am still in therapy for when I was 16. It got to a point where I called my biological half-older brother Sam(48M and son of my biological father's first wife) to see if I could live with him and his wife, Sandy, during my last two years of high school. When Sam found out what was going on, he confronted my mom. My mom didn't care and just told him to take me so long he never asked her for money. Done and done. My brother and his wife became my legal guardians and took me in with my cat and the old family dog since I didn't trust leaving any living creature with Chris around.

My parents never checked on me. My extended family from my father's side knew what happened and they immediately got together to ensure I could finish school well and go to college. I don't know my maternal family at all.

Thanks to my paternal family, including Sam's mother and her family, I got my bachelor's and master's, no student debt, and work as a nurse practitioner. I still live with Sam, his wife, and their two kids, and I pay a small rent. Neither Sam nor his wife expected me to pay anything, but that's the least I can do for the two people who have taken care of me for 13 years. For anyone wondering why I didn't move, it's incredibly expensive where I live and Sam insisted I stay with them until I save enough to buy my own home.

Things seemed okay until my mom messaged me recently. She had not messaged me since I was 18 when she told me she no longer had any responsibility to me. In this message, she sounded overly friendly, telling me how she missed me and asking how I was doing. I was a bit creeped out but decided to be nice, telling her about what I had done since leaving her care. She seemed very interested since apparently she knew I was a nurse, but not what kind I was. She began asking me about my salary. I didn't tell her anything about it, but that it was enough to pay the bills.

My mom then began texting about Chris and how he was barely making any money due to his student debt. Apparently, Chris never finished a degree, jumping from career to career. He is now working in my stepdad's used cars business as a salesman, but most of his pay went to pay the substantial student debt he got over the year.

I told my mom how sorry I was that Chris was having a hard time and wished him luck. That's when my mom finally got to what she wanted: She texted me I needed to pay his student debt so he could finally begin to 'make the money he deserves like the man of the family'. I just turned off my phone.

When I got home, Sam was surprised since I was usually the last to arrive. Sandy wasn't home yet. I told Sam what happened and showed him my mom's text messages. I don't think I've seen Sam this angry ever. He told me to block my mom, stepdad, and Chris if I had not done so yet.

After talking with Sam and Sandy, I called my boss to ask the next day and the one after off. This gave me a 4 day weekend including the days I'm normally off shift. My boss was more than okay with this and told me to just take it easy and let her know if she could help.

This backfired because the next day my mom and Chris decided to come to Sam's house to speak to me. I was alone since Sam and Sandy were at work, and the kids were at school. I immediately called Sam and told him what was going on. He told me not to open the door and that he was on his way.

My mom spent the whole time screaming that I 'owed them' for raising me and that my 'sweet brother' deserved the money. Chris was going around trying to find a window or door unlocked. There wasn't any since the windows have safety bars and the only other door is in the closed garage and one in the yard. The yard one was locked and just in case I locked the one in the garage.

I won't post what he called me when he saw me from one of the windows, but basically, he pretty much told me they should have thrown me away when I was a baby since I grew to be a 'b'. He pounded in one of the windows so hard, he actually cracked the glass.

Eventually, he gave up and went back to the front door, clearly trying to kick it down. I didn't have anything to worry about, the door was a security door, but I was still very scared. Between yelling, threatening, pleading, and insults, I finally heard Sam screaming to them to get lost.

I only saw things from the window; Sam pretty much dragged them both off the porch. They got to a point I couldn't hear, but I saw my mom and Chris pale and look scared before they pretty much ran to their car and drove off way past the legal speed limit.

Sam came in a bit after and immediately went full overprotective brother mode, asking me if I was okay. He kept saying sorry and hugging me. Sandy arrived almost immediately after and she looked like she was about to commit a felony.

Apparently, Sam threatened him with filing charges for what he did to me when I was 16. My brother's ace: my stepdad was willing to testify against his own son. That seemed enough to get Chris off our backs, but not my mom.

Since then, it's been 3 days, and my mom has sent texts, called non-stop with various numbers, and rallied a group of people who are supposedly my maternal family to harass me for money. She claims that money should legally be hers since she's my mother. That it's my late father's missed child support.

Sam is helping me find a lawyer to get a restraining order on my mom and I plan to take my step-dad's offer to testify by pressing charges against Chris. I can't say I can forgive him for not stopping his son, but I appreciate he's at least trying. I don't know the details, but Chris did something to a relative of his dad and since then they had a really bad fallout. I took my boss' offer and will be on vacation for a few more days.

But here it is. My vacation days are getting eaten up and my therapist might need a therapist after. Thankfully my dark sense of humor and supportive paternal family are keeping me somewhat sane.

Relevant Comments

United-Manner20: Change your phone number- it’s super easy. You can either do it from an app on your phone or call customer service to your phone provider. She can’t harass you if she doesn’t have your telephone number even if she calls from unknown numbers she’d have to know your number first.

OOP: It's something I plan to do, but I can't immediately. I use my phone for work.

DryBite9885: Love, take a breath. You’ve been through a lot in a very small amount of time. Breathe. I know you need it. I’m so sorry your own mother is doing this to you. It sounds like Sam and Sandy are helping you do everything correctly though. I’m so glad you have them to back you up.

: May 14, 2024

I didn't think I would be making an update so soon, but my mother is unrelenting.

To the people that were so kind and gave me advice earlier, thank you so much. It really helps to have people show kindness in difficult days. I follow with the advice to freeze my credit and I will be getting a new phone for personal use. Will have to keep my old phone for work for a little.

Now to update on the situation: We are going through with pressing charges and might do a civil lawsuit for two years of child support my mother owns. We are not sure yet of our chances on it, but my brother San wants to go scorch earth.

As for my mother, she began a new campaign. She's been posting about me false accusing my step-brother Chris of SA. She's been accussing me of being a 'temptress that tried for years to sleep with my brother' and even got a few relatives, who I just found out are my aunts, to join in saying they were witnesses. I never met these women in my life.

My step-father actually commented in her post saying my mom was lying and accusing his own son of being a p*do. That's how I found out what was the big fallout between them. Step-brother went after one of Step-father's nieces. I don't know the girl's age, but she has to be about my age if I'm thinking of the right person. If not, she's younger than me.

A lot of my biological father's relatives have also gone into social media to call out my mother, saying she had always claimed she was an orphan and had no family, while now she has three sisters.

It's a mess, I'm just watching for now and being a stay-at-home aunt. My nephews love it since we go out after they finish homework for crazy shenanigans. My boss has helped me with some paperwork for leave of absence and I should be off for about 6 weeks. After I'll be mostly working from home for a few weeks.

Not the greatest update, and to be sincere things are not fun. But its nice to spend time with the kiddos at least.

Also, forgot this: No, my mom is not likely sleeping or in a relationship with my stepbrother. Some people had mention this. My mom always wanted a son. I was a disappointment because I was born a girl. She treats my brother like he's her real son and I think she truly loves him as a mother. She made sure to tell me how disappointing it was for her when I was born.

Relevant Comments

gemmygem86: Screenshot all she says and save it

OOP: My brother got it. I have her blocked. I would post them, but there's a lot of personal information that will be hard to blur. She put the whole rant over a picture of us as a 'family'. So it would be hard to blur faces.

: May 17, 2024

I was recommended to post here but wasn't sure were to start. My mother was widowed when I was 1 years old. My biological father was much older than her, she was a second wife with 20+ age difference. After that she remarried her hometown sweetheart and adopted his 17-years-old son.

My dad was American, mom is Colombian. I was born in the US, then we moved for a few years back to Colombia, and we returned to the US when I was 4.

My whole life my mother constantly complained about the fact I was a girl. She would say things like: "If you were a boy, maybe we could have gotten more from you father' or 'girls are so useless'. All I was for her was the problem child. She took my inheritance and squandered it. Mostly on things for my step-brother.

Whenever she had guests, she would always introduce me and joke how I ruined her body and wasn't even worth it since I was a girl. Most her friends thought I had some kind of mental illness because of her lies about me being mentally 'behind' (she used the r word). She would often blame it on my gender, though. Saying because I was born a girl, I was clearly inferior.

During holidays, I would be left behind with a sitter. I was just too much of a 'problem child' and would ruin things for my 'sweet brother'. We only have one family picture from when I was 5.

If I got anything nice with my own money, my mother would take it from me if it was something like make up or clothes, saying I wasn't attractive enough or worthy enough to have such nice things. I should just stick with a plain face since it will make it easier for me to find a job when I was done with high school. She had no intentions of letting me go to college.

But the worst part is she never protected me. My stepbrother is a predator. At first he just bullied me. Stealing my food, locking me in dark places. When I hit puberty though, he began to do worst things. Walking on me when I showered, even if I locked the door, stealing my underwear, watching me sleep, and he even SAed me when I was 16 and he was 29.

My mother blamed it on me, saying I was tempting her poor sweet boy.

I was saved by my biological half-brother and his wife. They took me in at 16, finished raising me and put me through college with the help of my paternal family. Even my father's first wife pitched in and has always been kind to me. She's more a mother to me than my mother was.

Now I'm 29 years old, I have a good career as a nurse practioner and I'm saving to buy my own home. My mother found out about this and has been demanding I give her my money because she is my mother and my money should be hers. She also demands that I pay my abusive step-brother's student loans.

Since I refused to fall on my dear mother's demands, she has now gone online to post I am a 'temptress' that is trying to ruin her son's life and that I refuse to pay her back for all the care and love she gave me over the years. She even had some women that are supposedly my aunts join her in this. I never met any of my maternal family. As far as I knew, my mother was an orphan. Now I suddenly have three aunts that have seen how bad a person I am.

: May 20, 2024

So, this might be my last update on the mess with my mother and step-brother since we're finally starting the legal fights, but I finally had a good laugh.

In my previous posts, I haven't said a lot about my biological father. He died when I was one year old, so I never really met him. I have one picture of him holding me when I was an infant. I mostly know him from stories from his family. What I do know is he was a man of means. He had a lot of assets that he had carefully divided in his will. Not like so rich I'll never have to work type. Just rich enough that I would be able to live comfortable so long I worked and did right by my finances.

I was not aware he had made sure to leave me with anything. Neither did my half-brother Sam, his son with his first wife, I'm the daughter of an affair partner turned second wife. My understanding was that anything I inherited was wasted by my mother to buy things for her predator step-son Chris who she prefers to me. He was my abuser growing up. In her words: "Daughters don't need inheritance. Just marry a wealthy old man like me."

Well, since my mother and Chris have been harrassing me lately, we drove to my dad's lawyer to get some things we need from my dad's records for the lawsuit we are planning. He's a sweet older man, kinda looks like my dad a bit, and was my dad's best friend. When we met, he received me with a hug and told me how happy he was to finally meet with him. His wife was there too and she also gave me a big hug and told me we needed to have dinner at their place.

Once we all caught up, we found my mother had been faking receipts to get money from my trust. A lot of it. Some of it from when I was under Sam's guardianship. And she's not the executor of my trust, she had to provide receipts for anything. She's been sending receipts 'for me because I'm still in medical school'. I finished school in 2021.

Well, her meal ticket not only got torn, and now she's in big trouble. Because this is fraud and basically my hands are tied about pressing charges or not. She claims me as a dependant on her taxes, so my dad's lawyer would refund her for her expenses. He basically told me there's just no way we can keep this just in civil court. He had to contact IRS and the police. Doesn't help she's been using my social security number for some things she shouldn't. (Thank you for the people that advised me to freeze my credit. You guys saved me for sure.)

I probably won't be able to post for quite a while. And I'm going to be incredibly busy. I'm just mentally exhausted about how much has happened. I wouldn't have done anything about my mom using my trust if she had left me alone. I wouldn't even know about it because the trust is set for me to take over it with proof of marriage or graduating college. And since I didn't know about it, I never sent the required paperwork to take control. She could have milk it dry if she left me alone and just kept sending fake information.

I am in the process to get what's left of my trust. There's quite a bit in it and should be enough for me to get a house or condo if I mix it with my savings, and still have left over to invest or do other things safely. I might wait for a while to buy anything though. I don't know how safe it would be since my mom still has my social security number.

Relevant Comments

m2cwf: It doesn't sound like OP can drop any charges - mom didn't just defraud OP, she defrauded the IRS and the executor of the trust (or the trust itself, not sure if that's a thing), she committed identity theft. She's in trouble for sure, as OP says it's largely out of her hands and the big guns are going after mom now.

OP I hope she gets all the consequences she deserves, and you get all the justice that you deserve for dealing with all the mess and harassment!

OOP: You pretty much said almost word by word what was explained to me. I could drop the civil lawsuit, but I won't. The criminal stuff is out of my hands.

In the wise words of every person with two braincells to rub together: Don't f with the IRS.

Vegetable-Cod-2340: Honestly I’m a little surprised she hadn’t already used any of the money she already stole to pay off his student loans.

Op, I can only recommend that you use some of that money to outfit your new home with the top notch security system.

Once you have access to your trust , you’ve cut off her money and that matters more anything , it may tip her over the edge.

OOP: In part the reason why I plan to stick with living with my brother Sam until we have a better idea of what is t he safest way for me to move on.

SalisburyWitch: Question: is she a US citizen? Any legal problems could lead to deportation.

OOP: She is. I know my step-dad isn't. Not sure if my step-brother went for naturalization. He was a resident since he came to the US as a minor.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I want my coworker to stop giving me “psychic messages” from my dead family members

Originally posted to Ask A Manager

TRIGGER WARNING: death of loved ones, death of pets, harassment

  Sept 18, 2023

I’ve worked at my current company for six years. In that time, I befriended a coworker (Rebecca) who, to be honest, seemed very lonely but was sweet. We had some things in common and she sat with me at lunch sometimes. We’re completely remote now, but the two of us would still occasionally get together to go on shopping trips, ren faires, etc.

Eventually she became kind of pushy about wanting to be included in every outing I ever mentioned. I managed to always let her down gently, but it started to feel like I was the only person who ever wanted to hang out with her.

On our last outing, it was a decently long drive. Rebecca took up a large portion of the drive telling me about how she had gotten really into this one “psychic” on Tiktok who offers paid classes to “train your psychic abilities.” She went on and on about this, and asked if I would want messages from my mom, who died over a decade ago. I told her it was a sweet thought, but no thank you, because that’s really not my sort of thing. During this conversation, she also told me about how she was taking a ton of unpaid time off of work and became behind on many of her bills, some of which were possibly going to collections. But she was still taking Tiktok psychic classes. Being trapped in a car with her, it was way too awkward for me to really speak my mind about it. Plus, I felt like it wasn’t really my place.

This year has been very difficult for me in regards to loss. My grandmother, who I lived with, passed suddenly. Very recently I got a new puppy, who tragically passed in a horrible accident not even a week after I brought him home. It was extremely traumatic for me, but most people around me have been very caring and thoughtful in normal ways.

But … Rebecca. After my grandmother passed, she almost immediately sent me an unsolicited “message” from her, telling me how she was at peace, etc. I was freshly grieving, so I just told her thank you. A few months later, she sent me another “message” she’d received, telling me my grandmother is proud of me and other vague things. It was a random message out of nowhere after having not spoken in a while, so I just thanked her again and moved on with my day.

But then I went through losing my puppy. I received three separate messages from Rebecca, telling me, “He’s with your mom and grandma, they’re all happy and they love you.” This was less than 24 hours after losing him. Then, last night, she sent me another message giving details about how my dead family members are playing with my dead dog, and very specific behaviors my dog is doing, like spinning around and barking, and how my grandmother found it funny. I finally lost my patience. I thanked her for thinking of me and caring, but said I did not ask for messages from the great beyond and do not want to hear any more. She apologized but also sort of excused her behavior, saying she “doesn’t mean to upset me more” and that “sometimes I keep getting the messages over and over until I pass them on.” For the record, she met my grandmother maybe twice, briefly, and (obviously) never met my mom, or my puppy. And, shockingly, she never mentions any of my other passed family members or pets.

Is there a way I can shut her down more assertively if she tries this again, without saying something like, “Please stop pushing your Tiktok psychic scam crap on people who don’t ask for it”? I don’t want to completely cut off my relationship with her, though we’re not in the same department anymore. I also feel bad because she had come to my grandmother’s service to support me, which I appreciated it, but I also feel at this point she has way overstepped some boundaries. I tend to have a lot of trouble enforcing my boundaries without people taking it really poorly, so I’d love some kind of script for this!

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Commenter

This might be an unpopular comment, but I have a medium who I see fairly regularly. There is a whole opening/closing ritual that is part of every session and she would NEVER contact me out of the blue to tell me one of my dead relatives had contacted her. That just isn’t the way it works.

OOP

I have no issues with people doing these sorts of things for themselves! I enjoy tarot card readings and even got a psychic reading at a ren faire because the lady offered me a discount. They can be very spiritually helpful, especially in difficult times. But they’re supposed to be pretty personal and private things, right? The fact that I’ve been remotely open to this stuff before is probably what made her think I’d be ok with this giant unreasonable leap in Psychic Shenanigans…

  Sept 18, 2023

Hi everyone, OP here. Thank you all for your kind words and support. I was pretty sure I was in the right, but needed some reassurance/advice for any possible future… situations. The one commenter who called me out as a people pleaser, you’re definitely not off-base! It can come with a lifetime of being treated like a horrible rude monster for being like, “hey can we not discuss my severe phobia that will make me lose consciousness within seconds right now? please?”, lol. I’ve done a lot of “sacrificing my own wishes/well-being for the sake of helping out/being nice to other people” and it’s something I’m definitely working on.

Feeling “mean” toward people (enforcing boundaries I’ve clearly set or stepping back from friendships with people I don’t even particularly enjoy being around) still feels like my worst nightmare. But I’m getting better at realizing it’s not my job or responsibility to be friends with everyone just because they’ve enjoyed my existence in the past, or we have like 2 things in common.

  Dec 13, 2023

I’m the letter-writer who had a coworker who was giving unsolicited messages from dead family members and pets I’d only very recently lost.

I don’t have a very exciting update, but I guess that’s a good thing. Since I wrote in, I haven’t had any issues with Rebecca trying to send me messages from the spirit world against my will. She’s taken a step back and we’ve definitely gone back to more “work friend” stuff — like she very occasionally asks how I’m doing, and chats to me about video games she’s playing. I’m keeping my plans with friends off of public channels so she can’t insert herself into them.

This is a relief, because in my personal life, I had to have my other dog of 14 years put down last week. It wasn’t sudden and I was prepared, though of course it’s still very difficult. Rebecca hasn’t said anything to me other than offering me normal condolences.

Something I didn’t mention in my first letter is that, only two days after I tragically lost my puppy, I actually wound up finding another (of a different breed). He had already been picked out of his litter, but the woman who was supposed to take him had her horse suddenly die that morning, so she decided against it. Just an awful weekend for pets. Though of course I wasn’t at all trying to “replace” the dog I lost, having this little guy has been such a comfort for all I’ve been going through, especially after losing my other dog. We’re both doing great, and it seems life is finally calming down.

I know I posted in the comments of my original letter, but I want to just give another thank you to everyone for the support and kind words. I really do love the AAM community. I attached a pic of my puppy Sammie for everyone’s enjoyment, if that’s allowed! 

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

I am not the OOP. The OOP is posting in

Concluded as per OOP

Thanks to for finding this BORU

1 update - Medium

- 13th April 2023

- 30th June 2023

Neighbour & his friends kept stealing my packages so I got them arrested and evicted

I had a problem neighbour for so many years.

He’d terrorise the area, he was a drug addict and dealer (which is his business, but don’t make it my issue), thus we always had unsavoury people popping up, breaking into houses/cars, stealing packages etc. I know it’s to do with him because he had previously admitted that it was his friends doing it and I’ve seen CCTV from other neighbours showing his friends damaging cars etc.

He’s stolen bank cards that came in the mail, makes the most obnoxious amount of noise that wakes me up and his friends/fiends almost always ring my bell in the dead of night, around 2/3AM. I’ve shouted at them so many times and have argued with him too.

My neighbour has also been in prison multiple times for various things, including very serious crimes, so he would do well to keep his head low as a free man, you’d think.

We live in an house converted into apartments, where there are 4 apartments and a main area downstairs to walk through/where Mail goes. He’s always leaves the main door open, which id ask him not to, so his friends can come and go. Sometimes they’d kick the door down and trash the area.

Whenever I’d get a package & I wasn’t home, the shitty couriers would leave the package unattended in the front garden or the main area outside my door, despite me instructing them not to. My package would be stolen by my neighbour/his friends in SECONDS. This went on for years and when confronted, he’d deny it but I knew it was him (other 2 apartments are old people who I am friendly with who also dislike him).

The issue is I never had any proof. I once called the police after he wrote a note to me apologising for his friend stealing my package, but that went nowhere.

This time I wasn’t going to let my over £250 worth of stolen packages go amiss. I put up a camera in the main area. I saved the boxes from some other packages and placed an apple and some plastic bags in there for weight, set them outside, and within 5 minutes they were stolen by his friend who hadn’t seen the camera. Gotcha!

I called the police (who commended me on my set up skills) and they came over, but by the time they did the guy had left the building (with packed bags that were definitely filled with drugs to sell). They told me they’d look out for him.

A few weeks after, I get a call from the police about it. I also tell them I’m absolutely certain he sells class A drugs and has been terrorising the area. They tell me they’d pay me a visit.

5 days go by and at 7AM I get a call from the same officer asking me to open the door quickly and quietly. I do, and she tells me to go inside, but not before I see about 15 plain clothed officers hiding behind a wall. I look through the peephole and they all storm inside, boot down his door and arrest everyone inside (it was basically a crackhouse) as well as seize BOXES of drugs.

This was all caught on the camera I bought, so I sent the footage to the landlord. The police also gets in touch with the landlord, and thus my neighbour is evicted on top of it.

This was a month ago. None of his mail has been picked up, and I’m getting a lot of joy out of this.

Moral of the story? Keep your hands to yourself.

Comments

Zoehpaloozah

Some people are jut dumb. We have a guy in my street who sells drugs, but he refuses to touch things like Meth or heroin etc. He deals weed, MDMA and small amounts of coke I believe. But he is adamant on not disturbing the rest of the street, we’ve heard him telling off customers for blocking driveways and so on, and outside of his ‘work’ he does a lot of good neighbour shit. Like in winter he’ll shovel snow for his neighbours, he’ll take in parcels and come around to drop them off once he notices people have returned home, he likes working on his car and I know he’s helped out two older residents in the street with some engine work for free to save them a trip to a garage. It’s like, we know he’s doing illegal stuff, but he’s a damn decent neighbour and the street pretty much has an attitude of not reporting him when he isn’t bothering them yaknow? And it’s working cause the guys been there for like 10+ years lol.

Chris__P_Bacon

I'd have no problem at all with that guy. He seems like a fairly conscientious fella.

draeden11

Man knows how to run a home business!

unabsolute

I'd invite him over for a BBQ

**Judgement - NTA**

Update - 5 days later

I previously posted about my neighbour who kept stealing my packages, so I set him up.

Well, turns out he currently has cancer and has between 2 weeks to 3 months to live.

Our housing officer came over to tell us (quite jovially) that just as he had a court date set to evict him officially, he received the news that he is dying.

Apparently it all happened pretty fast. He was undiagnosed while living here. My guess is that the copious amounts of hard drugs took a toll on his body.

So that’s the end of that! I do feel for his family. But other than that…

ETA: I’m not saying the drugs caused the cancer!!! I’m saying that his drug use weakened his body to a point where the cancer could move aggressively and quickly.

Comments

lianavan

Cancer doesn't automatically make you a saint.

Tots2Hots

Getting evicted from life as well.

EzAwnDown

Off to "package thief heaven."

OOP: AKA an urn if he’s lucky. He’s also killed someone lol. NoHeaven4U

Editor's note - there was a deleted third post which is not recoverable

I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

I am not OP. That is who posted to

Apr 26th, 2024

First of all I know I made I big mistake. I know I hurt her but hear me out and be honest with me if I still could fix what I've broken or not. I'm Russian so don't mind my English. I'm using a throwaway.

I 32M started to date 29F in 2021. We had a great relationship. She's calm, sweet and considerate. We dated for a year then moved to another city. Everything was going great. We made new friends and built a life there. Problems started when a male best friend of hers decided to move to the same city and found himself a place right across the street.

Things started to change. He would visit almost everyday, my ex was people pleaser. I tried to make it clear to her that it's getting annoying and that I don't like that guy but she couldn't bring herself to tell him or set some boundaries. He was handsy and flirty in a way I couldn't stand. She would hint that she's not comfortable and he would behave but 5 mins later he starts with his usual. And she end up telling me that he mean nothing and he's like this with everyone.

Fast forward to 2023. We found out she was pregnant. I was over the moon and both of us was extremely happy and excited. He stopped visiting and after like two months or so he moved back to his city. My ex and I had mutual friends. That's where one of our friends started connecting dots and started telling me how she had suspected something but kept quiet because she didn't want to be the reason a two people separate but can't hold this anymore. And played with my mind.

She said that my gf and her best friend probably had a thing going on based on the way they used to act whenever we were out with our friends. And how it's strange of him to leave just as she got pregnant. She suggested that I don’t put the baby on my name until a paternity test has been completed.

I told my gf about this and she didn't take it well. She broke up with me instantly and after a few weeks agreed to the paternity test thing, but she made it clear that nothing will change, that she will never forgive me and won't ever come back to me if I ever regret what I did and ask for forgiveness. I told her we could just forget about the test but she insisted. Our boy came few days ago and we did the test.

Yesterday I got the results. And yes, I feel my chest terribly tight with regret. I didn't drink or eat anything, I couldn't even bring myself to go to work today. What do I do now? When we broke up I never stopped helping throughout the pregnancy, she refused almost everything but still I was always there for her. Deep down I knew that baby was mine but the damage was done and I went with the plan. What to do now? How do I make it up to her? I know she would never come back to me. But how do I properly apologize? Just what to do now?

Edit: Alright thank you all for your opinions, I knew. And I know now what an ass'hole I am. I know I fucked up. But I never said I was planning to ask her to come back to me since I know I hurt her badly and in no place to ask such a thing. I also made it clear I had no problem with taking responsibility as a dad I don't know why i got called names about it in the comments. I'm happily ready to do everything in my power to be the best dad to my son and of course financially too. Also I did try to explain and genuinely apologize before even the test but she wouldn't listen. I'm ready and never gonna stop trying to apologize to her for the hurt I caused and I will always be there for the mother of my child. As for now. She just gave birth I won't add up with my problem. I will be there for her until I feel like it's a good time then I will ask to talk about it.

Edit: for people asking how did I brought up the test. We talked about it home. I asked if she still thinks that her best friend behavior is okay, she said yes. Then I tried to reason with her by asking her if it were the other way around would it be okay for her to see another girl being that flirty and handsy with me. then she say "you don't have a childhood friend that I knoew of". Then I went and told her if he's behavior is still okay for her then would it be okay for me to ask for a paternity test. She said if I don't want kids I should've told her before and that she have no problem to go back home (another city) and raise her baby alone. That's where I lost it and said something along the lines that she's going after her best friend and asked if this is was their plan(wrong of me I know). She broke up with me instantly. And just like I mentioned in the post. Few weeks later she called..

Last edit: the mutual friend is married. She didn't make a move or anything but she's an ex friend now.

For people asking what the male friend did to make me this insecure. Well whenever they're sitting beside each other he would keep running his hand up down her arm, ankle, or back (based on the way she's siting). He would compliment her body or when she change her hair color he would ask her to go back to whatever color he loved to see on her.. (he could be really just too comfortable with his female childhood friend but I thought he could at least behave a little now that she's in a serious relationship). Also some of you asking why I didn't talk the guy directly. I didn't want to make her feel like a controlling freak so I tried to communicate with her and let her handle it

-The way I handled the whole situation was wrong. When I accused her for planning to go back to her city town just to be close to him, was wrong of me too.

Added comments

OP

Thank you. Believe me I'm not trying to make her go back to me and I know I'm in no place to ask her such a thing after what happened and the hurt I caused her. All I'm trying to know is how to apologize to her for the paternity test part. Because this the only thing I'm sure of, I'm sure that I broke her heart by asking for a test while the baby is mine. As for other things, I regret them all but I feel like I had a reason.. as for now I'm trying to do just what you said, to be there for her and help with the baby and make sure she have everything she needs

Commenter

You should have manned up and told him to stay out of your gfs house

I can’t believe you let a guy be flirty with your gf in front of your eyes

Are you a man?

OP

If I told you I had to punch him one day and kick him out for getting handsy with her and she shrugged it off casually, you will also blame it on me and accuses me of having anger issues too, right? but now I'm not a man?. But before that I really made it clear that's her best friend's actions is too much. And all I got is "he's like this with everyone". What was I supposed to do? Strangle him so I can be a man enough?

May 4th, 2024

Thank you for your comments in here I did read some and also the private messages 🙏🏻

Just like some of you advised me. I decided to do my part as a dad and also take care of the mother of my child and never try to talk about anything for now. I work 8 hours a day, I go back home, take a shower and go to her mother's house to help with the baby until 12-01 Am then I go back home, rinse and repeat.

She's staying with her mom currently so I try my best to do my part, her mother always been good to me, even when we broke up she called me and asked if I'm okay.. so since she's helping with my son, I order dinner for them every day (I'm bad cook) and try to help around the house when my son and ex asleep. I buy things for him and made it clear that I'm more than happy to buy whatever they ask me to because I still don't know much about the whole situation. That's all I can do for now.

Three days ago her mother was showing me how to change his diaper properly. Which I nailed it. Anyway she went downstairs and was just me, my ex and our baby in the room now. She said "I'm sorry" almost like a whisper. I asked her what for and she said nothing. I didn't want to press the issue and changed the subject. Two days ago she was on her phone texting with someone. After a few minutes she told her mother that the best friend visiting tomorrow to see her and the baby. Then she turned to me and asked me if I'm okay with that, I said why wouldn't I be, then she said she just thought that I might not want him to see the baby. I told her it's her baby too why would that be a problem for me? Anyway yesterday I was at work when my ex texted me asking if I can stop by one of her favorite places and bring her a steak, I said of course. (the place close to my work and I used to buy her food on my way back home often). When I made it to her mother's house I saw the best friend car parked. I'm not gonna lie I really didn't want to see him and if not for the food I wouldn't have went in because part of me was afraid of what I might see.

Well her mother was happy to see me but more happy than usual if that makes sense. My ex and her best friend were sitting beside each other on the couch. He said hi and kept scrolling on his phone, I handed her the food and went on with my routine with my son. But I couldn't help but notice how he kept his hands to himself. How he didn't throw inappropriate comments. They talked and laughed and everything just like before but without being handsy and flirty. I was getting ready to leave when my ex's mother said I look tired and can stay for the night if I want to. I didn't cause it will be hard for me to go back to my place in the morning to get ready for work.

I can't stop thinking about what could she have meant by "I'm sorry". Why did she ask me If I was okay with her best friend visiting? I'm trying my best to forget about what happened and focus on co-parenting amd nothing else but can't seem to stop thinking about things.

Anyway I just felt like getting it off my chest and giving an update.

Thank you to the ones that gave advice without being rude about it.

May 8th, 2024

The day after I posted an update, I was on my way home when I got a call from my ex's mother, she told me to not order or bring anything for dinner and she seemed a little off. Anyway when I made it to her mother's house, my ex was breastfeeding so I went to help her mother set the table. Both my ex and her mother didn't talk at all and you could feel that something wasn't right.

Her mother started a conversation about fatherhood and said something along the lines of "you're a good dad yourself, I wouldn't have dreamed of a better dad to my grandchild" my ex mumbled "Yeah wait until he disappear before his son even turns 1 year" (like my father did) I felt myself shaking with rage, her mother snapped at her instantly. I said nothing as the baby was in the same room and didn't want to wake him up with raised voices, I quietly left.

Before I even made it home she blew up my phone with texts and missed calls. She was begging me to answer her call. I did. She apologized for bringing up my father and said she was angry at herself for everything and instead of trying to fix things she just made it even worse. She then said that she can't say this face to face and asked if I can just listen to her without cutting her off until she finishes. She apologized about how she didn't stop her best friend from ruining our relationship and that she now realizes how wrong the way both of them used to act. I Didn't say anything I just kept listening to her.

She also mentioned that her mother made her realize how the flirting and touching were too much for any man in his right mind to accept. She talked and talked and I listened until she got everything out and asked her the question that been eating me up because I really needed closure to put everything behind. I asked her if anything happened between them when we were still together, she said no but the night he came to see the baby he admitted to having feelings for her which made her realize that the way he was handsy and flirty with her wasn't innocent.

I went the next day to see my son, I had a conversation with her mother about everything, she advised me to not let anything get into the way of my relationship with my son, I reassured her that my son well-being all I care about and nothing can affect the way I care about him. She also apologized for what he daughter said and validated my feelings. Later my ex asked if both of us could start therapy to work out everything properly for the sake of our son so we co-parent the best way we can. She looked more relaxed and herself for the first time after everything and apologized again for bringing up my father and how she hate herself for it.

That's all I don't think there will be any more updates. This it for me, both of us decided to do what best for our son.

For people advising me in the last post, I already went the legal route to get my legal rights to my child, I just forgot to mention it.

I will delete the posts and my account this week I just wanted to let you know how things went since I already shared my problem with you. Thank you for your opinions especially the ones that tried to see things from my perspective and tried to be kind to me.

Edit: she dropped her friend that what she said when she was talking about when he admitted to having feelings for her.

Added Comments

Commenter

Are you still hoping to get back together or just coparent ?

OP

I don't think I want to go through something like this again. Then again bringing up my father while she knows how hard opening up was for me but I did it for her was something I never expected of her, I'm nothing like him.

Commenter

I'm usually very generous and understanding when it comes to women and how some of them are mistreated. However, no way would I side with your Ex or give her sympathy. Yes, there are AHs who ask paternity out of nowhere but that wasn't the case. Another man was flirty with her and your ex invalidated your feelings when you brought out the boundary-crossing. You even tried to reverse the roles, and she further dismissed your opinions. Because I know, if the roles were reversed, no woman's alarm bells wouldn't go off. You had every right to question her and the paternity. Even if she has problems establishing boundaries, she shouldn't have blown you off when you were adult enough to bring out the issue before asking for paternity.

And now look, you were right along to suspect her friend and even she regrets it. Her own mother sides with you. I'm sorry that you had to go through your ex's fool-hardy attitude and while I'm not sure if you two will get back together, I do sincerely wish you'd meet a woman who doesn't dismiss your concerns like she did. Or deflect to insult you, after discovering, she was wrong. Because often, if the genders were reversed, we'd be calling the ex a shitty man; through and through. All the best!

OP

You will get downvoted for this but I respect you for being honest with your opinion. What most people would not understand. I genuinely apologized many times for my mistakes but no matter what I'm wrong here. She dismiss my concerns and I'm wrong. I give her the space she asked and I'm wrong. She tells me about how her best friend admitted to having feelings for her, she try to hurt me by bringing my father up and still I'm wrong for everything.

I am not the original poster. Please don't contact or comment on linked posts

I am not the OOP. The OOP is posting in

Ongoing as per OOP

1 update - Short

- 23rd May 2024

- 25th May 2024

AITAH for refusing to let my 20 year old daughter have her car back after she drove drunk?

Two days ago, my 20 yr old daughter drove drunk to get herself some food. I was working in the backyard and thought she was inside watching golf with her dad. When I realized she had driven after drinking that afternoon, I immediately got in my car, picked her up, and drove her home.

She is supposed to be returning to college any day now to start an internship there and I am adamant that she cannot have the car anymore until she earns my trust back. She can fly back to college and once there take lyft, ubers, public transportation, whatever, just not her car, which is actually NOT HER CAR AS IT WAS PURCHASED FOR HER BY HER DAD.

Problem is that her dad disagrees with me and wants her to have the car back. This is the same guy who called her while she was out driving drunk and all he did was tell her to "get home safely". He'd been drinking that afternoon and was also in no condition to drive.

She says she doesn't really remember what she said in the car after I picked her up, further indication as to her level of intoxication. AITAH for fighting her dad to not let her take her car back to college after this?

Comments

NillaGorillaaa

NTA, your husband is enabling some horrible decisions here

OOP: 100% agree

-GreyWalker-

A coworker is out because a drunk driver just killed her god son, his wife, and their 1 year old child. I really don't have anything else to add other than I hope you stop your kid from killing someone.

mustang19671967

Really your husband thinks it’s ok to give your daughter her car back after showing she will Drive drunk tonget food let alone parties every weekend at school. I would also make her take one of the courses the courts make drunk drivers take . Husband is a jack off and my guess at that age was driving drunk

OOP: Agreed. And and he still does at age 58. In fact, he's golfing tonight with his golf buddies and, more often than not, he drives home drunk. No wonder where my daughter gets it. For this and many other reasons, I'm done with this marriage.

mustang19671967

I’m Not the best dad, I stopped drink 27 years ago, wasn’t a Problem . Only drank with friends but never had a drink and drove . My one daughter doesn’t drink the other gets Mad and won’t get in car if friends are drinking and have a car. Will Call at 2 am or Uber . I take marriage seriously But could Never stay with someone who Continually does that

OOP: I'm curious to see what he does tonight since, just before he left to go golfing, we had a family meeting about her drinking, her drinking and driving, and if she'll be able to have her car back. He drives home drunk...

**Judgement - NTA**

Update - 2 days later

Behind my back, her dad (stbx) found her keys, helped her pack the car and tried to get her on the road before I got home from work. My Ring doorbell kept alerting me so I eventually saw what was going on. I rushed home from work, blocked her car with my suv, and called the cops. Before they could get there, he jumps into my car, fights me to turn off my car and was able to prevent me from blocking her. My arm got scraped in the process of him fighting to turn off my car. Ultimately he overpowered me and she was able to drive off. The cops were too late and off she went, 6 hours away to college, with her car.

I wasn't really injured so I declined to press charges against him but I demanded that he leave, and told him that our marriage is over. He's now staying elsewhere for an indefinite period of time.

She's planning to go to AA, therapy, group meetings, get an accountability partner, a breathalyzer and an ignition interlock. I hope she does all those things. I just wanted her to do them without her car bc I don't trust her.

Sadly, her dad and I are not on the same page. I feel incredibly betrayed by him for doing all this behind my back, for not communicating with me about his intentions to give her the car back, and for letting her have the car back despite all the evidence showing that she can't be trusted with it.

He says I'm overreacting, that they have a plan and that he trusts her. I don't. I think he's a coward and I pray that his cowardice and stupidity doesn't get her or anyone else killed.

Also wondering how to go about trying to stop someone from driving drunk when you're not physically with the potential drunk driver. Do the police actually do anything about it if you call them?

Comments

Magdovus

Did you tell the police your concerns about her drink driving?

OOP: Yes

Magdovus

If they documented it properly that may help with any liability you have

PreparationScared

I’m sorry. She’s not likely to go to AA, therapy, group meetings, nor to get an accountability partner, a breathalyzer, or an ignition interlock. That’s quite a list of promises she made. Since her father enabled her by giving her the car, there is nothing you can do to keep her safe.

I urge you to contact for yourself. They provide help and support to the loved ones of problem drinkers and you can find many people who have been in your situation.

Ks26739

Also interlock devices are EXPENSIVE and have a monthly fee. No way she's going to be the college girl with a blow and go willingly.

Strict-Knowledge-535

Your soon to be ex obviously didn't get the "united front" memo parents need to adopt when their kids are making poor choices that will hurt them or someone else.

The fact that your 20 year old, who cant legally drink needs AA should be a big glowing neon fucking sign for him.

NTA for being the only actual parent she has.

opinionatedOptimist

Agreed.

I’m kind of bouncing around but I’m a 24 year old with a DUI (on probation). When I was 19, I received my first charge for underage drinking/public intoxication. By 21, I had to fully withdraw from alcohol in the ER, being carried out of my house with a BAC over .3

Alcoholism is horrifying and dangerous. It at best affected my hormones in possibly a permanent way (as I am now medicated for hormonal acne that I never had before heavily drinking) and at worst, nearly killed me. The damage my downfall did to my loved ones and those close to me is one of the most devastating things I have witnessed in my life.

OP’s husband is being horrifically negligent and enabling.

I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

I am not OP. That is who posted to and who posted to

May 18th, 2024

I (26M) proposed to my (24F) girlfriend of 6 years last month. She obviously said yes and we’ve been working on wedding details (ex: save the dates/invitations, venue, caterer…etc) since. We got to talking about who we would want in our wedding because she wanted to do a special “proposal” to her side of the wedding court, and she said she wanted to have her best friend since childhood be her “maid” of honor.

The thing is, her childhood best friend is a guy (24M). They lived on the same street when they were kids and have been friends since. My fiancée and I met in college and her friend was there too, so I’ve known him for as long as I’ve known her. At first I didn’t really like him because he was always hanging around her, but after she and I started dating and I was forced to be around him more I kinda started to tolerate him.

He and my fiancée saw each other a lot, but he and I have never really hung out one-on-one before. One time when we were left alone together he tried to get all tough and did the “if you ever break her heart i swear…” corny threat talk. He’s a small dude so it made me laugh more than intimidate me. After that I got the feeling this was a situation where he liked her but she didn’t know.

I asked my fiancée if she and him ever had feelings for each other, and she said no, then let me know he was gay. I’m not homophobic or anything, so it’s not like I don’t want him in the wedding because of that, it’s just that I think it would be better if her side of t party was all girls. She and him already did everything together, not including him in our wedding wouldn’t hurt their friendship.

I told her that and she got defensive, saying that if I could have a girl in my side of the party (the girl being my older sister who practically raised me), she could have a guy. I said that it was a different circumstance, and that I wouldn’t allow her best friend to be her man of honor. She got really mad and said it was her wedding too, then stormed out. I got a text from her sister a few hours later saying she had gone to her parents house and told them what I had said.

They thought I was being an asshole because I never liked her friend and am threatened by him. I have tried to talk to my fiancée since she left but she hasn’t returned my calls or texts. I really love her, and I don’t want to loose her. I just dont want her best friend to be a part of our day. AITA?

edit: It’s come to my attention in a previous comment I made, I have created the worlds thinnest argument. I said that my fiancée made was unwillingly to compromise on things such as the groomsmen’s neck pieces and blazers, and as such I was in the right to be unwilling to compromise about her best friend. I stated in a few other posts that there were other things she didn’t want to compromise on, and someone suggested I make a list so here it is:

1.) When we were deciding our wedding date and location, she wanted to do it in spring in an open field. I wasn’t onboard with this as I have terrible allergies and spring is when it’s at its worst. She shot down any alternative I gave her (alternatives being things done closer to summer or in summer) and said it was Spring or nothing. So we went with spring

2.) Instead of going with a DJ like I suggestion who could play a mix of her favorite, my favorite, and general upbeat dance music, she said that she really wanted a live band that specialized in her favorite genre. I asked if we could just give the DJ a longer list of her songs in her favorite genre and tell him to pick from the list often, but she said no and that a live band was going to be better. So we went with the band

3.) In my culture there is a few traditional wedding ceremonies that I wanted us to partake in. Some included a kind of “parade” that leads the groom and his family to the brides house where they present her and her family gifts, a hair cutting ceremony (I made sure to tell her her actual hair would NOT be cut), and finally a knot tying ceremony where the guests wish us a long happy marriage. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with these ceremonies, and said they would be too much time and effort, since it would be like having two weddings. I tried fighting for these more than the others, but she was firm on doing things traditionally.

4.) She wanted the groomsmen to wear bow ties and blazers even though I wanted the necktie and no blazer look

5.) She changed the color scheme from the originally agreed upon black, gold, maroon, and forest green to pink (or i think it was rose), yellow, white, and pastel blue because the decorations would look better in the field. When I said we already printed invitations with the previous colors on them, she said we could throw those out and get reprints.

Added Comments

Commenter

I really hope this is a rage bait post. To not be able to see the hypocrisy in having his sister (whom he’s known his whole life) on his side, but DEMAND that she not have her male best friend of decades on hers is absolutely insane. If I were the fiancé, I’d call the whole thing off because OP’s empathetic skills are clearly nonexistent.

OP

The difference is I’d be having legitimate family in my party. Somebody who, like I said, has practically raised me and has been there for me since birth who I want by my side. I know you can argue that her and her best friend are “technically” family with how long they’ve known each other, but that doesn’t actually make them family

Commenter

It’s her wedding as well so he is family to her. Don’t worry. You won’t have a fiancé anymore at this rate

OP

he’s not legitimate family, so it really doesn’t count. he can be included in her family section of the guests that doesn’t matter. but breaking it down and splitting the hairs, he’s not biologically family

Commenter

YTA. It’s obvious that you have a huge chip on your shoulder about your fiancé’s best friend just because he’s a guy, so now you’re using this “girls only” thing to get him out of the way. Also, “girls?” You’re not in high school going to prom. You’re getting married. They’re women. You’re sexist and jealous and seem way too immature to be getting married. I hope she sees you for what you are and gets away from you

OP

I don’t understand why everyone so hung up on my verbiage. Aren’t women also girls? Are they not one and the same? I’m not trying to get him out of the way for any sexist reason either. It’s just more traditional if she chooses all women to which she agreed upon in the past. She only started thinking about having him in her party after I said I wanted my sister

Commenter

Then why are you not traditional and picking only men for your party. Hypocritical much? Insecure and prob lost your fiancé. YTA

OP

i’m breaking the tradition for someone who is family. someone who has a right to be up their with me on one of the best days of my life

OP

if she had a brother and wished for him to be her man of honor i would agree in a heartbeat. breaking tradition for family i can understand but breaking it for a friend is a little much. im just not comfortable with that

May 19th, 2024

I (24F) was recently engaged to my (26M) fiancé after 6 years together. We got into a fight a couple of days ago because he wouldn’t let me ask my guy best friend (24M) who I’ve known since we were kids, be my man of honor. I ended up walking out and went to stay with my parents for a few days. I told them what happened and they agreed that he was way out of line.

I went back earlier today after I thought he had enough time to calm down and when I came home he looked glad to see me. He apologized for stepping out of line and I said it was fine and that we still had time to ask my best friend to be in the wedding. He kind of looked down then said that we should call everything off. This really surprised me and I immediately said no.

He then admitted that while I was gone he posted to about what had happened and that even though he was deemed the controlling AH, he also realized that I was one because I had basically hijacked the wedding planning. I asked how he could think that and he pointed out how I chose to have the wedding in spring even though that’s a bad time for him and that I changed up the wedding color scheme and what his groomsmen would be wearing without talking with him first.

I said that those were practically minor things and we didn’t have to call off the wedding for it. Then he said I was insensitive for rejecting his cultures traditional wedding ceremonies and didn’t even considering doing them. He had brought to my attention some traditional ceremonies people do at weddings in his culture, and while I appreciated him bringing it up to me, I decided against doing it because it wouldn’t fit the vibe of the traditional wedding I wanted.

I told him I only wanted to do a traditional American wedding and that he already agreed with me that that’s what we were doing. Then he said that me having my guy best friend be my best man was untraditional. I pointed out I let him have his sister be part of his wedding party because he wanted some part of his family included, and that since he was breaking the tradition so could I.

He got really sad and looked like he was about to cry and said that me breaking the tradition was like a slap in the face after I rejected his traditions, and that I just didn’t respect his culture at all. That is not the case at all I greatly respect his culture. I told him I understood how mean it sounded but it’s my wedding too so I get a say in what we do. He kind of laughed and got up and said he wanted to take a break and left.

I dont know what to do I don’t want to call off the wedding at all. I tried to find his reddit post but I think he was using a throw away, though granted I am too. I love him so much and I want to be with him for the rest of our lives. I don’t know how we’ll get through this.

Added comments

Commenter

I don't know if you two are compatible

OP

Up until this point I would have disagreed with you. When we met in college we were studying the same thing so we crossed paths often. We became friends and found we have a lot in common in terms of interests and lifestyle, and we had a great relationship up until the proposal. We’ve talked about marriage before and we seemed to be on the same page about a lot of things. I don’t know where it changed

Commenter

sounds like you are controlling and you. brushed off his complaints as no big deal. If the date, groomsmen outfit and color scheme are minor details, than they shouldn’t have been changed. Disregarding his family traditions is a major detail and if you are willing to disregard them for a wedding, how does he know you won’t for other events? The wedding is one day, if you don’t let him have a say in that, he’s right to take a break and reconsider.

OP

I understand where you’re coming from. I’ll be honest and tell you that I haven’t celebrated a lot of his cultural events besides New Years (he’s Cambodian and they celebrate their New Years in April I believe). He and his family had a falling out after he started dating me (his family didn’t approve of a foreigner), and only recently have they reconnected. His sister though was different she didn’t care I was American, and she stuck by his side as his only family member.

I guess I disregarded the traditions in the first place because he never immersed me in his culture enough because he kind of cut ties with that side of himself. I was uncomfortable with the idea of being surrounded by his family that doesn’t particularly like me during the ceremonies, as both his parents and my parents would be involved. I didn’t want to feel like an outsider on our wedding day

Commenter

I think your ex is right. You haven’t considered his preferences and in fact you minimize his requests (calling them “practically minor”) and aren’t respecting his cultural traditions. It sounds like you’re more interested in a wedding than an actual relationship and marriage.

OP

Of course I’m interested in the wedding. I’ve been dreaming of my own since I was a child. But I don’t value it more than I value my relationship with him. We didn’t get that far into the planning but for our honeymoon I was going to suggest going somewhere he and I have always talked about going to. We would have eventually gotten to a place where more of his ideas would be acdepted

commenter

Babes, you literally chose your wedding over your fiance. You broke up because of plans for the wedding. You broke up because you couldn't compromise anything you wanted for anything he wanted. 

You chose the wedding over the marriage. 

commenter

I read his post yesterday and yours today... YOU BOTH SUCK. I think he wouldn't have put up the stink about your male best friend being in your party if you hadn't been so controlling, but that's moot because you're incredibly controlling and don't understand/care.

You are selfish and self-centered. You seem to think only your tastes and desires matter for your wedding, forgetting that your groom is a person and not just a prop at your wedding. The fact that you even say "let him include his sister" is grounds to break up with you in my opinion.

Neither of you are mature enough to marry from the little bit you have each written. In both of your posts you both sound fairly unpleasant to be around but you are definitely the harsher of the two. He's a whiner and you are Attila the Hun. Both of you need to grow up and learn what's actually important in life: how to grow together.

Don't get married, mature first.

OP

do you happen to have the link? i’d like to read what he said

OP was linked to the original post and the amithedevil post

I am not the original poster. Please don't contact or comment on linked posts

I am not the OOP. The OOP is posting in

Concluded as per OOP

1 update - Medium

- 18th May 2024

- 20th May 2024

AITA for never telling my Mother I married into money?

I (34F) have a difficult relationship with my Mother, she had me when she was 17 and was addicted to various substances when I was growing up. She'd leave me with whoever would watch me for days on end and i'd end up mostly raising myself. I left home at 16 and couch surfed with various friends until I was able to get my own place. At 25 I met my now Husband and we got married three years later.

His family is the polar opposite of mine and are incredible, so loving and warm, I honestly consider his parents mine and call them Mum and Dad. They also happen to be quite well off but that isn't something I care about, I mention it because it matters to the story.

Last year my Mother reached out to me after a decade of not speaking to her wanting to reconnect and introduce me to my little sister who was 2 years old, I was confused as I hadn't even known she'd been pregnant, but it seems she'd been a change of life baby. I thought maybe she'd turned over a new leaf and if not I wanted to make sure the kid was ok. At first it seemed like things had changed and she was trying, this illusion lasted for the first few visits over six months then she broke down, told me she couldn't do this, and asked me to take my sister.

My husband and I had a long talk about it, we'd been struggling with fertility and had been considering adoption anyway. We told her if we were doing this we were doing it right, and we had his families lawyer ensure it was a legal adoption and airtight which took several months, My in-laws adore her and consider her their Granddaughter. They've even set up a trust-fund for her.

We have allowed My Mother one supervised visit per month so she's not totally cut off from my sister but it was during these visits things went badly as she saw how she was dressed and the toys she had, and realised they were expensive. She began to rip into us for hiding the fact we have money and how if we'd just given her money she'd have not given us my sister as she could have taken care of her better.

I told her while we have some money its mostly my husbands parents money not ours so she had no right to know about it, also that I wouldn't have given her money anyway as I didn't trust her. She broke down calling me a selfish bitch who'd never considered how hard things were for her.

I now feel some guilt, my Husband has told me if I want to make me feel better he'll give her money but that seems like a bad idea as she'd likely use it badly or blow through it then expect more. Despite this though I do feel bad, maybe I should have tried to help her more now my luck is better, or maybe I should have been honest with her. AITA for keeping this from her?

Comments

Dependent-Aside-9750

NTA. If hubby wants to pay for something, it can be a treatment program for Mom to get the help she needs, but youare mist definitely NOT the ahole. Mom is trying to manipulate.

OOP: I tried many times to try to get her to get clean over the years before I cut off contact, she had no interest and I don't think that has changed at all if I thought that she'd even consider it i'd be having him do that if he truly wants to spend money on her.

Dependent-Aside-9750

Yeah I'm not surprised. It will shut down her whining pretty quickly, though, if that's all you're willing to pay for.

PKripper73

Don't give her a Penny, she'll come back for more, and you know she will deep down.

OOP: Yeah I do, I want to help her despite how she was with me growing up but I know that's not the right way to go about it, just this has brought up a lot of old feelings I thought long gone and guilt.

mrmayhem8100

Your mom doesn't want the money so she can take care of your sister. She just realized she lost her chance at a free meal ticket before she gave her up for adoption

**Judgement - NTA**

Update - 2 days later

I got some really good feedback from my post and it led to my Husband and I staying up most of the night discussing what we wanted to do and a decision was reached. It wasn't an easy one but we have a child to think of now and she has to come first.

We blocked my Mother on every social Media, we changed our phone numbers and we reached out to the family lawyer to get in contact with her to inform her that all visits have been stopped after how she spoke to me in front of my sister. She has to get clean for at least a year with weekly tests if she wants to see my sister again. My Mother can contact our family lawyer if she needs help with the tests but beyond that she gets no help from us unless she wants to go to rehab which we will pay for, directly to the rehab not her.

My Husband, Sister and I have also moved in with my In-Laws for the time being as my Mother knows where we live. We will be looking for a new place and my In-Laws are aware of the situation and that we are cutting all contact for now. Honestly my In-Laws are delighted to have us staying with them, when we arrived the guest room my sister is using for now had an army of Squishmallows on the bed they are her current obsession and my FIL makes sure to bring a new one each time he sees her I always think she must have them all now and each time i'm wrong, how he keeps track of what she has and doesn't have I don't know as he never buys doubles.

We are settling in well, we are even planning a small Holiday with just my Husband, sister and I to get away from the stress we've been under, nowhere abroad as she doesn't have a passport yet but we'll be fixing that soon as we want to take her to Lapland for Christmas.

All in all we're doing alright though I admit I am feeling very conflicted and guilty over this even though I know it's the right choice it just doesn't make it easy.

Thank you all so much for your comments, and advice on the original post.

Comments

Efficient-Tax-8398

Really uplifting update. Thank you. I wish you and your family well.

dougan25

Husband's family sounds like amazing people.

xomiranda

Grandpa is my favorite. Not only getting her a squishmallow every time, but keeping track of what she already has! These men love that little girl. It makes my heart happy.

I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

I am not The OOP, OOP is

My wife is addicted to the gym and it’s ruining our marriage

Originally posted to &

TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity, physical violence, anger management issues, emotional manipulation

Feb 1, 2024

My wife is 30 years old and she’s always worked out and been in shape, but lately I feel like it’s becoming excessive.

She used to regularly work out at a gym when she was in college. At some point she stopped going to the gym, I think lately just due to her schedule, and preferred to work out at home or go for runs outside.

About 18 months ago she announced she was going to get back into the habit of going to the gym. She now had a job where she’s able to make more time for it. It started off normal, but slowly became more and more frequent. She signed up for classes on the weekend (both days), she started going to the gym every day, then it became the morning before work and then again later in the evening. Every single day. If she’s stressed, she goes to the gym. Experience some sort of life crisis. She immediately heads to the gym. We have an argument - runs to the gym.

She’s 4 months pregnant right now. I’m kind of surprised we even had time to make a kid. I understand that it’s safe for her to work out, especially since she was already in the habit of doing it before she got pregnant, but the intensity is not slowing down.

If she misses one of her normal gym session she becomes so irritable, like a junkie not getting her fix. It’s just bizarre. Truly a case of too much of a good thing.

Of course she gets upset when I voice that I feel it’s becoming an unhealthy obsession and that I miss spending time with her because she’s there so much. She has all of these friends and this whole circle of people there that she seems to prefer spending time with over me. Why don’t we work out together at the gym? The gym is her time, she says. This isn’t a case of me feeling insecure because she’s in great physical shape and I’m a fat slob. I work out and am in shape - my job really requires me to stay in shape so I can’t let myself go if I want to.

I genuinely feel her gym habits are unhealthy. She’s over exercising, for one. There is such a thing. But worse than that, I feel it’s becoming a way for her to escape everything else in her life. She never actually fixed anything that goes wrong in her life. She just runs off to the gym to get some sort of mood boost and then that’s it. She also never gets anything else done in a practical sense because how can she when she’s at the gym so often? It’s to the point where I have to do every chore and if food is getting made I’m going to have to do it. I don’t expect her to do all of those things, but it should at least be a shared effort.

People we know have even commented about it to me. They’ve said things about how she seems different, how she “sure is at the gym a lot,” and many of her friends and family barely see her anymore. Some have even suggested she’s having an affair with somebody there.

Please tell me that this doesn’t sound normal to you. She insists this is perfectly normal.

Feb 11, 2024

I posted not very long ago about my wife’s addiction to the gym. A compulsion, if you will. She spends most of her free time there. She often goes twice a day, and sometimes even 3 times if we have a fight at night and she needs to run off instead of actually talking to me.

She won’t let me go to her gym and she refuses to go to mine. Her gym is her place, my gym is my place, and that’s just the way it has to be according to her. I’d love to have her come along with me. I’ve invited her multiple times.

She’s about 18 weeks pregnant right now. This is our first baby. She worked out like crazy prior to the pregnancy and she continues to just as hard now.

I truly didn’t think she was cheating on me. People suggested it in the last thread and I laughed. You can tell she’s at the gym a lot, she’s in great shape. So she’s obviously going there. I felt really confident about the cheating issue and when I posted 9 days ago I wasn’t even considering cheating.

I’m embarrassed to admit that after reading a lot of the comments on my last post, I thought maybe I was being overly confident about her fidelity. She usually always has her phone on her, but she left it in the kitchen counter and as stupid as I felt, I decided to do a quick swipe through her texts. She had a current text conversation going on with a guy. I recognized the name. The same name of a guy from the gym she mentions a lot. She’s friends with a lot of people there, went to one of their weddings last fall. I wasn’t too terribly concerned until I started reading the texts. Never wanted to know what the guy’s dick looked like, but I know now.

She was only out of the room for literally about a minute or two, so I had to scroll fast. I was furious. I asked her what the fuck that conversation was about. She started yelling at me for looking at her phone. I told her she’s acting so weird and the gym obsession was really bothering me so I just decided to look, and was ashamed that I did, but that’s I thought I’d find nothing all. She said “it’s nothing! It’s nothing!” Didn’t look like nothing to me. She sure seemed pretty interested in this “nothing.” I wanted to know if she’s been fucking him. For how long? She kept saying no. I left the house because I was so furious, but not before I slammed her phone on the ground and shattered it. She was calling me all sorts of names for breaking her phone. She hit me on the back as hard as she could. I left. Went to my brother’s house. My brother and sister in law were shocked, although my sister in law was one of the most vocal ones about my wife’s gym obsession being weird and bringing it up to me constantly.

I went home. She was in bed crying. She obviously couldn’t call me or anyone else for that matter. She was laying it on thick, “I don’t know if you’d ever come home.” Give me a break.

I took her phone to get repaired tonight. She doesn’t deserve it but I still feel like an ass breaking her phone.

I still don’t know how deep it goes. She won’t admit to anything beyond what I saw. Was it sexting (bad enough) or more? I’m convinced it was a lot more, but she refuses to hand over her phone and is now trying to act like I’m this terrible monster who is abusing her because I broke her phone. Not my proudest moment, but I honestly wanted to body slam her after she punched me. I have never and would never actually touch her like that.

Feb 12, 2024

Not sure if posting something in my profile will be seen by anyone, but I don’t feel like making another update in a subreddit.

Today my wife asked me to stay home from work so we could “talk.” She laid in bed all day yesterday trying to get me to feel sorry for her, but I paid absolutely no attention to her and ended up leaving the house to go to my family’s Super Bowl party. I wasn’t in the mood to go but I wasn’t going to sit at home with her. It really bothered her that I left. She kept texting me things like “Who just leaves like that? When something like this is happening, who is that cold and callous that they just leave to go to a party.”

I stayed home today to talk to her. She was full of tears, she’s “so sorry.”

According to her, she really was going to the gym twice a day because she likes going there, that’s where her friends are, makes her feel good, it’s “fun” for her. She met this guy there and he started flirting with her. Everyone likes him. He’s one of the most popular guys there. I didn’t realize there were popular people at gyms.

She admitted that she flirted back but didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t reciprocate very much at first, but he gave her “butterflies” and she just found herself flirting back without thinking. She said it felt like when she had a crush on somebody when she was in school when she was younger. They started texting. At first it was just friendly and nothing sexual for several months, but she’d feel giddy every time she got a message from him. She was really attracted to him, but told him that she was married and there could never actually be anything between them.

According to her, he kept flirting with her anyway and said “sure, we won’t cross the line.” Until they did cross the line. She said she had tried to resist it for a while, but then one day they kissed. She admitted to enjoying it but also feeling that it was wrong. She must not have felt that bad because she slept with him for the first time later that night.

She described it like falling in love with somebody for the first time. All she could think about what him. Is she in love with him? She doesn’t know.

Is this baby mine? She thinks so but there’s always a small chance it could be his. He always uses a condom so she doesn’t think it’s his baby but they were sleeping together at the time she got pregnant.

She loves me. She can’t help that there’s just this huge spark between the two of them.

She doesn’t know if she loves him. She doesn’t know if the baby is mine. She doesn’t know why she did this. She doesn’t know what she thinks we should do.

The nail in the coffin is when she said “You would really leave me if it’s not your baby would you?” She had the balls to ask me that. I told her of course I’m leaving her and I wouldn’t raise another man’s child. She seemed shocked. She said “really? With everything we have and all our history, you wouldn’t even consider it?” She can’t be serious. I told her no I would never consider it.

She agreed to get a DNA test. She tearfully agreed, like I’m supposed to feel sorry for her about it?

I don’t know who this woman is. She was crying the whole time, but not tears of an ashamed or sorry person. They were tears for herself and meant to try to make me feel bad. Feel bad for what? That her heart is apparently so torn?

RELEVANT COMMENTS/ADDITIONAL INFO

OOP

She’s ruined my life, but I just feel numb right now. I barely feel anything at the moment.

It would have been bad enough for her to have an affair and cheat on me. But she couldn’t have stopped when she found out she was pregnant? At least I could have walked away if it wasn’t for this pregnancy. Maybe a still can, but I won’t know for sure until I get some test results. She’s almost positive the baby is mine. Im stuck dealing with her forever then. My child will grow up with divorced parents. Their mom will be the gym bike. Maybe she’ll even take off to live near her family and take my kid with her. Oh but then she couldn’t be near the guy who gives her butterflies and fucks her in gym changing rooms. The thrill, the excitement, how can I even blame her?

She’s ruined fatherhood for me, whether this is my kid or not. If by some chance this isn’t my baby and I’m able to completely break free, how will I not think of this one day when I start a family? I was so fucking happy to have this baby with her. I was really excited, even though we hadn’t planned for it right now. We have names picked out. I’ve been there for everything and now she does this to me. Not only me, but this poor kid regardless of who their father is.

~

OOP

She’s saying “I’ll never go back to the gym again. I’ll never talk to him again.” But she can’t say whether she’s in love with him or not? What kind of idiot does she think I am?

TTIsurvivors

She still thinks there is hope to save your relationship? Jesus Christ.

OOP

Yeah, I believe she still thinks there’s a chance I’ll agree to raise another man’s child with her. She doesn’t take me seriously when I say there’s no way I’d do that. She is dependent on me. She probably wouldn’t leave me if I knocked somebody else up and wanted her to play mommy. I know that sounds terrible and it’s nothing I’d ever do but I feel like she’d be mad and she’d go screw somebody else to get back at me but she probably would be too scared to actually leave me. I don’t feel the same way about leaving her. I’m sad to leave her. I don’t want this to be our reality. I can’t even say that I completely hate her yet. But I won’t raise another man’s child. If she feels so strongly about that guy and he’s so wonderful, go get together with him then and leave everyone else alone.

~

She was practically on her knees yesterday saying “I won’t go back to the gym. I won’t ever contact him again.” I feel like that doesn’t really mesh with the fact that she doesn’t even know if she’s in love with him or not. She obviously still has very strong feelings for him, which are probably coming more from between her legs than her actual heart but doesn’t really matter either way to me.

I think despite anything to do with him, she’s dependent on me in a way. For stability, maybe. Just out of comfort, maybe. We’ve been together since she was 20 years old, so I’m just this familiar person I guess. She has her gym friends out here but other than that she has no family or friends out here. She makes pretty good money, but I make more and all of our benefits are through me. Even with her good salary, it would be difficult to survive on her own as a single mom here with all of the daily living expenses, or at least live anywhere near the level she wants to live at.

~

Today is the day she was crying all night about how she’s ruined her life. She seemed genuine, like reality is hitting her, but I didn’t pay any attention to her at all. I just pretended she wasn’t there.

I did ask her if she’ll get blood drawn for a paternity test. I asked her to please not hurt me further by keeping me in limbo about that for months. She said she doesn’t want to.

OOP on if he got a lawyer and if he ever met the AP

I’m meeting with a lawyer next week and will see what they advise.

How can she parade me around when I’ve never been allowed to go to her gym? I’ve met two of the people, a slightly older married couple.

Yes, I met the AP. Last summer he called her because he was drunk at a bar and couldn’t drive home, so he called her to come get him. I didn’t think it was a good idea for her to go pick somebody up late at night, so I went with her.

I want her out of the house but I don’t necessarily want her to fly back home to where she’s from just yet. If this is my kid and she gives birth out here I’ll be in a much better position. If she leaves and goes home to her parents, she could very well be allowed to stay there and that would be considered the baby’s place of residence.

She missed a few days of work, but she has gone to work since all of this happened. She was having a meltdown this morning and I left for work. She told me had to go in late today and when she got there everybody was making her food and tea and stuff. She obviously didn’t tell them what really happened.

How long the affair was happening

She claims they’ve been sleeping together since the summer. Thats just what she claims, of course.

Feb 22, 2024

My life has been reduced to a trashy daytime talk show.

The woman who was once my wife, who I considered a classy woman, has turned into complete trailer trash.

Today she announced that she’s moving in with her affair partner from the gym. She’s pregnant, might be his kid, might be mine. She’s too embarrassed to go get blood drawn for a paternity test.

She spent about a week trying to get my attention, to get me to talk to her, to get me to beg her to be mine. I didn’t fall for any of it. I’ve largely been ignoring her and when we have to speak I keep it very brief. We’ve been living together this whole time, but I’m in a different room now and functioning separate from her in all ways.

So, her pouting and trying to get me to pay attention to her and give her a gold star for not going to the gym for 5 days in a row didn’t work. Today she texted me to say she is moving in with him.

Somehow I still care about this person. I’ve already met with a lawyer though. I can care about her as a human being and possible mother of my child without being married to her. Still, it stung to hear her say she was going to be with him. I told her it wasn’t a smart move to leave the house. I’ve even told her she should probably meet with a lawyer. She doesn’t care about anything I have to say. I don’t think she needs to move in with anybody. I actually feel bad for her that she can’t just be on her own.

I asked her if he actually knew she was pregnant and wanted to know what story she’s been telling him this whole time. She said he knows and he doesn’t care if it’s my baby, he loves her and wants to be with her. Bizarre. You can’t find anyone else? Somebody who isn’t a married, pregnant woman? Why would you take that on? Doesn’t make sense to me. He’s scum but he’s good looking scum who apparently is gainfully employed and owns his own home, so you can’t tell me that my married, pregnant wife is your only option here. I just can’t imagine being a single guy like that and wanting to put up with this baggage when I could have other options.

And if this really is my baby then what? They’ll live with my wife and this weasel 50% of the time?

I don’t know how my life turned into this mess. And she thinks it’s embarrassing to have to go get blood drawn?!?!

Feb 29, 2024

My wife moved in with her AP last weekend. She didn’t take very much at all. Most of her stuff is still in our house. I still get the feeling she was just waiting for me to beg her to come home, but I didn’t reach out to her at all after she left.

It was a strange mixture of relief, anger, and sadness. I don’t think I ate at all until last night. Just never felt hungry. Drank a little too much. But I’m fine.

I’m posting this update because I’ve received a ton of messages from people and honestly it’s emotionally draining to respond to each one and to have to type the same stuff out. I just don’t feel like talking about her that much.

So this morning she texted me to say her AP wants to get a DNA test done, so she’s going to do it. Look at that, didn’t matter when I wanted one but now that he has requested it she suddenly thinks it’s a great idea. She asked if I wanted to submit a sample because it’ll be cheaper to have 2 dads tested as part of one package. I don’t even care about the cost at this point, I just want an answer.

I don’t have to see or interact with them at all. I just have to make my own appointment with the lab to get my cheek swabbed. So this Saturday I’m going to do that and we should have the results within a week.

I’ll take what I can get at this point because it’s better than her dragging this out for another 20 weeks.

So that’s it. I’m fine. I’m going to work every day. Trying to function. Just feel stuck in limbo. I miss her. Honestly, I hate that she’s there with him. It makes me sick. Part of me does want to beg her to come home. It’ll be even worse if I find out that it’s my baby and she’s there with him. Unless he drops her at that news. I won’t let myself beg her. I won’t play any of those games with her.

RELEVANT COMMENTS/UPDATES

March 8, 2024

TTIsurvivors

Have you gotten the paternity test results?

OOP

At 11:00 this morning I got the news that I’m the father. I feel incredibly conflicted right now.

jacobe_bryant8

Is she asking to come back home? Or is she still planning on staying with the other guy? Regardless this is a rough situation I’m sorry for you bro.

OOP

We haven’t talked.

jacobe_bryant8

Understandable but I think that you should try and set up a meeting with her somewhere public to discuss the pregnancy and the future in general with her. Whether or not your marriage is going to end the kid is still going to be a big part of your lives so it would be best to see where both of you stand in that regard. Also I recall you saying earlier that you think that your wife would listen to what her affair partner would say to her (or something similar to that) so now that it’s not his kid I would be concerned about him pressuring her into getting a abortion. So I think you really should talk to your wife about your unborn child and whatnot.

OOP

We definitely need to talk, but I got the news in the middle of a work day so I wasn’t in the mood to have a full blown conversation with her. I think I need to sort of wrap my head around the reality of it all before I say too much to her anyway.

March 15, 2024

My wife has been having an affair with a guy she met at the gym for at least nearly a year. She’s around 22 weeks pregnant right now. She was somewhere around 17 weeks when I discovered she was cheating. She maintained that she was positive I was the father, but then refused to get a paternity test done to ease my mind.

We recently had a paternity test done (at the request of her affair partner) and it proves the baby is mine. It’s been very mixed emotions for me, very up and down. Originally I thought I just wanted to be completely done with her and not have any lifelong ties in the form of a full blown human being we shared, but I was sort of happy or relieved when I got the results. I’d already had it in my mind that I was going to be a father for months before I found out she was cheating. Sometimes I just have moments where I can’t believe this is my life, that this is the situation that my kid will be born into and I hate her for it.

She’s still living with him. All of her belongings are still here in our house. I refuse to do the work of packing everything up for her. She doesn’t seem concerned about taking any her things, beyond the essentials.

After we got the news that I’m the baby’s father, she texted me to say she’s glad I’m the father and that she knows I’ll be a great dad. She was texting me new baby name ideas last night. She’s tried calling but I ignore the calls. I only speak with her via text. This morning she asked if she could come by and get a few things. I told her it was fine, as I’ve been advised by my lawyer to not prevent her entry from the home, but I told her that he better not be with her.

So who shows up with her? The scumbag boyfriend. He walks right on into the house behind her like it’s no big deal. She ran upstairs to get the stuff she wanted and he and I were just left standing there in the living room. He told me it wasn’t her fault that he was there. She told him I didn’t want come but he forced his way along. He wanted to talk to me, supposedly, to tell me he “understand how I must be feeling.” No, you don’t know. He told me he knows I probably don’t believe him, but he genuinely loves her and knew he probably wasn’t the father. He accepts it and then tried to assure me he won’t try to take my place with the baby and hopes we can just get along since we’re both going to be in her life now. He “promises” that she’s fine, he’s looking after her. I told him that I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what he wanted with a pregnant woman who is having another man’s child, that I found it weird. Then I told him if he didn’t get out of my house I’d punch him. I went upstairs and she was trying to find somebody things in the bathroom. I got mad, asked her why she brought him along, and told her I find it really strange that he still wants to be with her now that he knows he has nothing to do with this baby - and that I refuse to let him have anything to do with my child. She said he talked her into coming and she’s sorry and never meant for any of this to happen but she’s in love with him now. He is supposedly what 30 year old her is looking for, not me. She’s setting up a nursery in his house and I can set one up at my house and she has no intention of trying to get full custody or anything like that. She doesn’t want to keep me from being involved in my child’s life. How generous of her.

She went back downstairs and I followed her and he was still standing there in the living room and I just walked up to him and punched him. He stumped back and fall into a table. She yelled “What the fuck?!” and ran over to him. I don’t even care at this point. As if he’s going to call the cops? He deserved it and it wouldn’t have happened had he just left like I told him to.

Several hours later she texted me to say she was sorry about today. He really meant what he said and he’s actually a good guy and he cares about her and he respect me. Wtf? He respects me?! He was screwing my wife in the gym locker room! I was like you can’t be serious. She said “Fine! I’m trying to have a mature conversation about this. I can’t help that we fell in love. Believe it or not, I’m not trying to hurt you and I want everything to be amicable.”

This guy stole my wife and he’s stealing my kid too. Sure I’m the actual father but now they’re setting up a nursery together in his house? I’ve tried to not feel jealous or sad. I’ve tried to maintain the thought that he’s the trash man who picked up my garbage. Sometimes I feel that way, but the truth is that I loved her, and still love her. I don’t want to stay married to her on principle alone, but this is devastating to me.

Apr 10, 2024

My wife? is basically 26 weeks pregnant now.

There actually hasn’t been much drama with her and her AP. I was away for a long weekend last week and it was nice to just get away from home for a while.

Only really annoying thing that’s happened is that I told her I’m being in the delivery room, not him. After everything she’s done, she owes me that. It’s not his baby. He has no right or reason to be there. I will not be the one waiting outside when my kid is being born.

She said yeah she agreed and she never planned to have him in there with her. I asked her if she’d told him that and she said no. I told her to tell him he’ll have no part in it. Well she told him and apparently he didn’t like that and he started trying to convince her why he should be there. Next thing I know she’s telling me that he really wants to be there and she’s the one giving birth so she should be able to say who she wants there and she wants him there. I suppose he’ll start making name suggestions soon and will try to overrule names we’ve had picked out for our future kids for years.

We’ve talked a little bit and she told me I can have our house and the dog in our divorce. I’m requesting that we sell the house and split the profit. I already that written in the paperwork. I’m not buying her out of our house - a house that I’ve made all the payments on anyway. I have a much better credit score than her and less debt. I compromised a lot because she liked this house. I’d rather be able to get my own place based just on what I want and with no reminders of her. And there was already no way she was getting the dog. I already had proof that I “owned” him though so she wouldn’t really stand a chance of having a court award the dog to her. It’s the one thing I told my lawyer I wanted above everything else (not including any custody issues surrounding my actual human child). Honestly, her AP can have her, but he will never ever have my dog. Not to mention my dog is 100 times more loyal than my wife and some might even say better looking too.

So with the idea I won’t be living here in this house for much longer after the baby is born (if everything moves quickly), I decided I will still prepare a nursery here anyway in case anyone wants to try to accuse me of not being invested/prepared for fatherhood. I’m trying to look at the positives. It doesn’t matter what colors she likes or what themes. I can do whatever I want. Honestly, we’ve been together for so long and have lived together for most of our adult lives. It sort of nice not living with somebody but sort of lonely too. I have friends and family, but it’s hard to feel in the mood to go out or hang out with people too often. They always ask me about everything that’s going on and it’s just like I’m tired of that being the topic of conversation.

I got a promotion at work, which financially would have been better had it happened after the divorce, but I’ll take what I can get.

I feel like I’m living in this limbo right now and a lot of what I do is always framed around “how will this affect me in the divorce?”

Admittedly I spy on them on social media sometimes. Guess I’m hoping to see he’s been in a motorcycle accident or something now that the weather is nicer. Hasn’t happened yet, but he’s starting a new company and once that’s up and running I can always get all my friends and family to leave 1 star reviews everywhere. Have to find ways to have a little fun.

Sorry that I don’t respond to a lot of messages or comments. Sometimes I just take big breaks from looking at Reddit since it can be depressing af.

Editing to add something I forgot. She told her family that we’ve split up and that she’s with this other guy now. Her sister reached out to me to say how sorry she was, her sister is a dumbass, that sort of thing. She told me that my wife was complaining about her AP. She the sex is over when he’s done and apparently he’s really selfish with sex. He doesn’t do extra little things for her that she’s used to me doing, like clearing the snow off her car in the morning and heating it up or offering to make her food after a long day. He doesn’t speak her “love language” and he hangs out with his friends too much. This made me so happy to hear. She’s secretly miserable and I find that absolutely delightful.

NEW UPDATE

May 19, 2024

I’m still alive. I’m mainly posting here because several people have reached out to me and were concerned that I’d taken my own life. No, I’m not on the brink of ending my life. I think I’m doing better than I have since all of this started.

Around the time of my last post, my story blew up and I was getting messages from people who saw it on TikTok and YouTube. I had to take a step back because it was a little overwhelming. I have over 100 unread messages here. I appreciate it but it was a little uncomfortable at the time, and I got to the point where I didn’t really want to talk about the situation with my wife and her AP anymore.

So as of today, our baby is due in less than 10 weeks. We’re in the home stretch now. I don’t feel prepared at all. All of this other stuff has just been so distracting.

I started working on a nursery. It’s not done yet, but I have the floor finished and the walls painted. My ex-wife was impressed with the color scheme and furniture I chose. She’s not legally my ex-wife yet but I’ve started calling her that. It sort of makes it easier.

I also packed up a bunch of her stuff. Originally I refused to spend my time packing up her things, but eventually just said screw it and started packing it. I’m at the point where it’ll just be easier to not see all of her stuff around here. Why did I leave it for so long?

She came over to get some of the boxes I packed up. She came alone. Things were fine between us. I loaded the stuff into her car. We didn’t argue. At one point she started to tear up and said she fucked up. I said yeah she did, but there’s no point talking about it now. She shit all over our marriage. She has her muscle bound asshole to go home to now anyway so who cares. She said “I know, but it’s not the same.” I told her nothing has been the same since she decided to fuck him the first time.

Supposedly he’s going to “let” me be in the delivery room when my baby is born. I didn’t even argue it when she said it like that, but inside I was boiling at the idea of him letting me be there for the birth of my child. She says she talked to him and he agreed it wouldn’t really be right to not allow me to be there. I’m going to take what I can get if it means being there for the birth of my child. I’m going to try to just ignore him for the time being. She was acting all sweet and laying on all of the “I really want you there. I really need you there” stuff and I know mentally I’m not in a place to be that cold to her when she starts acting that way. I’m trying to be indifferent more than anything else but it’s so hard when she’s actually around and starts looking at me a certain way and making me feel bad. She invited me over to see the nursery they have set up at his house. I’m not sure I can bring myself to go into another man’s house and look at the nursery set up for my kid.

I did ask her if she was truly safe there though. I don’t know why, it’s just been bothering me. As pissed as I still am, I don’t want to find out he’s mistreating her and I definitely don’t want my kid to be going into an unsafe household. I haven’t told her about anything her sister has told me. They probably won’t last but as of right now there’s a very good chance my newborn baby will be going home to his house. It kills me to think about. It’s almost soul destroying to think about if I dwell on it too long.

She says she’s fine. He genuinely loves her. He’s great with kids. He accepts that she’s having a baby and that this is part of the package. She insists it’s not weird because she wasn’t pregnant when anything started between them.

I asked her why she did it…why did she ever let anything start between them in the first place. She said “I don’t know.” Then went into “I don’t want to talk about this” mode and left pretty soon after. Typical behavior from her - just run away.

Overall I’m doing ok. I’m not sitting here depressed and drinking a bottle of scotch every night anymore. I mean on occasion, but for the most part no. I feel more used to my new normal now, and that’ll all change yet again pretty soon.

ADDITIONAL INFO

There is a draft of a custody plan now, but the court won’t approve anything until after the baby is born. Right now she’s in agreement but there’s plenty of time for her to change her mind (or for him to convince her to change her mind).

She plans to breastfeed, but with agreement that she’ll pump and the baby can drink from a bottle when not with mom. Everything I’ve read says a baby ideally needs to spend time with each parent frequently, without gaps that are too long in between, and it’s best if each parent is feeding, changing, bathing, etc. during their time. At this time she’s in agreement with all of this. I can say that she’s not said or done anything to indicate she wants to restrict my time with the baby, other than the whole delivery room thing. She seems to want me to be involved in that respect. I hope she sticks to her word. If not, I will be fighting it through legal means.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

I am not the OOP. The OOP is posting in and his user account

Ongoing as per OOP

3 updates - Long

content warning: sexual assault

mood spoiler : overall positive

- 17. Jan. 2023

- 19. Jan 2023

- 1. Feb. 2023

- 26th August 2023

- 23rd May 2024

My (37M) wife’s (34F) sister (29F) tried to kiss me and now my wife is spiraling. Help me.

Sorry for how long this is, tl;dr at the bottom. As the title says, my wife’s sister made a pass at me at a recent family gathering and I have no idea what to do. For context, I think my wife “Jenna” is absolutely gorgeous but she has some really negative body image issues. This is in large part because of her sister “Mary” who is very conventionally attractive, as opposed to Jenna’s more unconventional but (imo) striking beauty.

Mary was a successful model until a couple years ago and now works in the fashion industry. In our early days of dating when I would tell Jenna she’s beautiful, she would always say “just wait until you see my sister”. When I did finally meet her family, she would randomly press me for weeks to talk about her sister, whether I thought she was more attractive than her, etc. I always told her the truth, that I think Mary is attractive in a boring way, and that I think my wife is much more beautiful and interesting to look at. She wouldn’t let it go until I confronted her about how uncomfortable it made me and asked her what was going on.

This is when she told me that she always had a chip on her shoulder about her looks because of being compared with her sister growing up. They fell into the classic “smart one/pretty one” dynamic their whole lives. She also said Mary had a habit of being flirty with all of her exes, and warned me that it would happen to me eventually. She then started sobbing and begging me to not cheat on her with her sister, to which I forcefully said I would never cheat on her with anyone, let alone her sister. I’ve been crazy about my wife since day 1 and there’s literally no woman on earth who could come close to her.

I honestly didn’t believe her about the flirting at first, I assumed it was just an extension of her insecurity, but I was wrong. Whenever we get together with my wife’s family, Mary always finds ways to touch me and make little innuendos/comments about me or my body. It’s super uncomfortable for everyone, especially my wife, and I’ve called her out on it before. She’ll cool it for a while but eventually start doing it again. It’s been six years of this, and every time it happens my wife is upset for days and I have to do a lot of reassuring.

Onto the current problem. A few days ago we were at my MIL’s birthday party, and Mary asked me to help her grab some things from the garage. As soon as we walked into the garage, she turned and pressed me up against the door with her whole body and started trying to kiss me. I immediately pushed her off and asked her what the fuck she was doing. She started giggling and saying she was just “doing what we both have been thinking” and kept insisting “you know you want to”.

I told her she was out of her mind and ran out of there. I went straight to my wife and told her we were leaving. The whole ride home she was asking me what was wrong, I wasn’t sure whether to tell her because I knew how much it was going to hurt but I also thought Mary would probably try to spin it as me making a move on her so I knew I had to just say it. I told her everything and she cried the whole way home.

For the last several days Mary has been calling and texting my wife doing exactly what I thought she would do, even telling my wife that I said she (Mary) was “the hottest girl I’ve ever seen”, which I had to assure my wife a million times that I did not and would never say even though she believes my account of the situation.

She’s been a complete wreck the last several days, she’s hardly eating, she pulls away from my touch when I try to hug her or just hold her hand, she says she feels “hideous” and “disgusting” and I don’t know what to do. This is the lowest I have ever seen her, and it hurts to see how much she’s hurting. I have no idea what to do to help her heal from this. Reddit, what should I do?

Tl;dr: My wife’s sister tried to kiss me, and this is triggering deep-set body image insecurities for my wife. How do I help her?

Comments

Honest-Illusions

All family gatherings that include "Mary" must now be non-attendable. Your wife knows what an awful woman her sister is and hopefully the rest of the family does too. To be honest, your wife's sister is evil. You have reassured your wife of your love and faithfulness. Your wife is incredibly insecure about herself, so obviously a professional may be in order for her and yourself to talk to. You love your wife, so stand by her, and be there to support her.

OOP: My in laws definitely enable her behavior, she’s the golden child, they brag about her constantly (even though my wife is literally a neuroscientist). Their mom was a pageant queen and she was their dad’s much younger trophy wife. Honestly we may have to go no contact with all of them

Update - 2 days later

I got a few requests for updates so here it is. I first want to thank everyone so much for your advice. It was extremely helpful and gave me a lot to think about. I’m especially thankful for the folks that asked me how I was doing. I realized that I have literally never had a chance to check in with myself after these things happen, and I’ve actually been holding a lot of frustration and resentment about it all. I’ve been harassed for years and it has either been brushed off or it’s been eclipsed by the impact it has on my wife. I don’t blame her for it, but this has been a good lesson in me not burying my feelings for the sake of others, even for her.

I also want to clarify a couple of things that came up. Several people asked about how my wife’s family feels about all this, and I explained in a comment that her parents are toxic and treat Mary as the golden child, even though my wife is a freaking neuroscientist, amazingly talented musician, speaks three languages fluently and another two conversationally… my wife and her family are seriously the only people who don’t seem to understand how exceptional she is.

I remember meeting one of my wife’s family friends and talking to them about her research, and they said, “oh wow, her parents just told us she works at a university.” Whereas my parents literally introduce her as “the family genius” to everyone. It makes me so fucking angry to think about how her asshole family has stolen her shine her whole life. She’s literally a Renaissance woman but all they care about is looks and money.

Some folks asked me why I would ever put myself in a situation alone with Mary given everything she’s done. I have no good answers for that other than I never thought she would actually try to do anything. That possibility just didn’t exist in my head. I realize now that I should’ve seen this would happen eventually, and that I should’ve been less concerned with keeping the peace and more concerned with shutting Mary’s shit down before it escalated to this point. Hindsight is 20/20.

Anyway, onto the update. The night I posted, I told my wife that if she wanted to try to repair her relationship with her sister I would respect that, but that I don’t feel comfortable being around her for the foreseeable future. I said Mary has obviously been deeply jealous of my wife her whole life because she is a hollow, ugly person whose entire value has an expiration date while my wife actually has substance. I said that I think her whole family is toxic and has done nothing but put her down her whole life, but that only she can decide whether she still wants them in her life.

I also told my wife that while I don’t blame her for her emotional reaction, her insecurity is something that she needs to work on for our relationship to be healthy. What Mary did was sexual assault and she’s been sexually harassing me for years, but I have consistently put aside my own feelings about this problem because of how it affects her, and that has prevented me from getting the support that I need, too.

I told her that her reaction only serves to punish herself and me for her sister’s behavior, and there’s no reason to give her that kind of power. I also told her something that a commenter said that really resonated with me: the only people who have ever considered her second best are her and her family. Everyone else sees her for who she really is.

She was crying the whole time and agreed that she needed to go to therapy to work on her insecurity. We were able to find a therapist who specializes in body image/self-esteem issues to work with her individually, and we’re looking for a couples therapist too.

My wife sent a message to her parents and sister that explained exactly what happened and told them she would reach out to them if she ever feels ready to repair their relationship. We blocked all of them everywhere but Mary has of course been spamming my family and our friends with nonsense, claiming I attacked her, I’m a drug addict, I abuse my wife, all kinds of bullshit that thankfully nobody believes.

My wife is still down in the dumps but I can see that things are getting a little better. She’s eating and sleeping more and she’s cuddling with me in the mornings again which is nice. Now I’m planning a surprise getaway for us this weekend. We’re going to one of our favorite places and I’m going to wine and dine her and try to make her feel like the goddamn queen she is.

I want to thank you all again for your help. You really helped me understand the severity of the problem and again, thanks for helping me connect with my own feelings about all this. Y’all are the best.

Tl;dr: Wife & I are going to therapy. We’re going no contact with her family for the foreseeable future. I’m going to woo the hell out of my wife this weekend.

Comments

phenomenation

you’re an absolute legend. she’s found herself another genius who knows how to navigate life without infantile drama. i wish you both nothing but the absolute bestt

OOP: The only genius thing I’ve ever done is marry her. I’m a pretty average dude tbh so I have no idea how I snagged her. Sad to think her low self-esteem probably played a part but I do work hard to be a good husband every day

Update2 - 3 weeks later

So I guess my original posts got reposted onto TikTok and some other subs here on Reddit so I’ve been getting tons of messages asking for updates. It feels like things are mostly settled, and I’m really hoping this will be my final update.

First I want to say that I’ve gotten so many questions about who Mary is, and I’m just not going to say. Suffice it to say that she’s never been household name famous, but she made a living solely on modeling for about a decade from what I understand, so she must have been popular enough that fashion people might know her. I really don’t know how that whole world works. But imo it doesn’t matter how many names you drop, you’re not famous if you don’t have a Wikipedia page.

Also got lots of comments that (mostly) jokingly called me a simp, and I can’t argue with that. I totally am a simp for my wife. She’s the coolest. I hope you all find a love that makes you feel this way!

Okay, I think that’s it. Here is the actual update.

My wife loved the getaway weekend, we had a blast and by the end of it she said she felt like herself again. For a few days after we got back things were really quiet, so we were hopeful that Mary had finally given up, but I felt uneasy about it all.

Many of you warned me that Mary would try to interfere with my work and while I initially dismissed it, I figured I would reach out to my boss just in case. I’ve been working at the same company for almost 10 years and she’s heard me vent about Mary before so I didn’t have to explain too much. My boss just reassured me that she knows my real character and would let me know if Mary tried anything.

As you predicted, Mary did try to contact my boss a couple of days later, and the following is a recounting of what my boss told me. Apparently Mary said that I needed to be fired because I was a predator and claimed to have “proof” that I assaulted her. My boss said that was a very serious accusation to make and asked Mary to explain what proof she had. Mary claimed there was a camera that caught the whole incident, and my boss asked her to send the video.

Then Mary got flustered and said the police had it, so my boss asked her to send over a copy of the police report. Then Mary said it had a lot of private information in it, so my boss asked her to redact the private information and send it over. Then Mary said she didn’t feel comfortable with that, and my boss told her that she could not take action against an employee based on word of mouth from a stranger. Then Mary shouted at her about victim blaming and hung up.

Unfortunately that was not the end of it. Last Wednesday, Mary somehow sent an email from my personal email account with a dick pic (not mine obviously) to the entire office. My best guess is that I must have left my email logged in on one of my in-laws’ devices, she’s definitely not smart enough to actually hack me. And I know this is completely beside the point, but of course she chose the weirdest-looking dick I’ve ever seen. I played team sports all my life, I’ve seen a lot of dicks, and this was something else.

It’s honestly kind of funny to think about Mary Googling “gross penis” or something and sifting through hundreds of images to find juuuuuuust the right one. I had to apologize to everyone on staff and thankfully folks were surprisingly understanding. It’s actually been kind of a nice bonding experience with my coworkers, I honestly didn’t consider myself to be super well-liked in the office but it feels like everyone has been going out of their way to be kind to me and it means a lot.

Anyway, at this point it was clear we had to escalate things legally. I really wanted to avoid it but she forced my hand. My wife and I have a lawyer friend who helped us draft a cease and desist letter outlining her continued harassment and the material and emotional damage this is causing us.

My wife then sent a message to Mary and my in-laws with a copy of the letter and made it very clear that we would pursue criminal and/or civil proceedings if her harassment continued. My wife’s mom then called her crying and begged her to “just let it go” and “leave Mary alone”.

My wife calmly explained that Mary is the only person responsible for this whole situation, and that their parents have always enabled her awful behavior. She also said something she later regretted but I think was pretty badass: “Mary is going to stick you two in a nursing home and steal your money the minute she has the chance, and you deserve it.” After the way her mom reacted, my wife is firmly settled on cutting off her family completely.

This happened on Friday, and on Sunday Mary’s best frenemy “Anne” sent my brother a message on Facebook to say Mary is going to leave us alone and to please not sue her. I told my brother not to respond, then just sat and enjoyed the idea that Mary was out there somewhere freaking out about the potential of having to actually face the consequences of her actions. It must be such a strange feeling for her.

Since then, we haven’t heard a peep from the grapevine. It feels like things are finally starting to go back to normal. My wife is starting therapy next week and we’ll be starting couples therapy in a month or two; she wants to do some work on herself first. She’s also taking a short leave from work to rest and recharge. I’m so proud of her for standing up for herself with her family and finally putting her mental health and wellbeing first.

Thanks again for everyone who offered advice! This was a messy situation but it definitely would’ve been messier without your help.

Tl;dr: Mary tried to get me fired so we sent her a cease and desist. Now Mary’s running scared, she and my in-laws are out of our lives, and we’re doing much better without them. My wife is prioritizing her wellness and I am one proud simp.

Update3 - 7 months later

I forgot about this account completely until today and logged in to see so many comments and messages asking for an update. It’s honestly touching to see how many people care about this situation and want the best for me and my wife.

This will be a brief update, I don’t want to make this a regular thing and the original situation has resolved enough that I am hopeful this’ll be the end of the saga.

Mary and my in laws have pretty much left us alone. My MIL still tries to contact my wife every now and then but she’s made it clear to her family that if the first words out of their mouths aren’t “I’m sorry,” she isn’t interested in a conversation.

As you can see, the past six months have made my wife a BADASS. She has done some amazing work in therapy and her confidence is growing all the time. It’s not just with her family - she’s more comfortable asserting herself at work, with strangers, with friends, etc. She’s even stopped putting up with some of my shit! To be fair that “shit” is stuff like my leaving my socks everywhere around the house, but I’m seriously proud of her for telling me to cut it out.

I’m becoming a more responsible and supportive partner because she’s able to communicate her needs and expectations without feeling guilty about it. And I’m able to communicate things to her without intense emotions fully eclipsing the conversation. I didn’t mention this in my earlier posts, but my wife does struggle with rejection sensitivity even outside of her family.

Often if I brought up something that I felt needed to change, her emotional reaction to feeling like she did something “wrong” would be really intense and instead of dealing with the problem, it would become about regulating her emotions. Now my wife has really good coping tools that allow her to talk about the problem without thinking she is the problem.

And the biggest update… she’s pregnant! We have a baby girl due in February. I am shitting my pants with excitement. We are going to love her so much and teach her that she is more than her beauty. She’s going to have happy parents who love each other and work through issues as a team. The toxic cycle will be broken.

Jenna’s family doesn’t know and she’s not sure if/when she’ll tell them, but if she does there are going to be strong boundaries in place for how they can be a part of our daughter’s life. And it’ll start with family therapy. For now, she has one set of grandparents that will go to the end of the earth for her, and that’s more than enough. My family has been absolutely incredible in their support and their so excited for us. Things are looking better than they ever have.

That’s all folks. Thanks again for your support on this wild journey.

Tl;dr: Mary and in-laws have mostly left us alone. Jenna is a badass now. We’re having a baby and soon I’ll have two queens in my life. Captain Simp, over and out.

Comments

Taliesine_

I love how you're simping (aka supporting) your wife, you're an adorable couple. Congratulations on the pregnancy, keep on with being an awesome supporting husband !

In laws (60F, 79M) are begging for forgiveness. Should my wife (35F) and I (38M) keep the door closed? - 9 months later

Hello everyone, I have come here for advice before and you were all incredibly helpful, and I could really use some support again.

You can check my post history for the full story, but tl;dr: last year my wife (“Jenna”) and I had to make the decision to go no-contact with her whole family. Her sister (“Mary”, 30F) sexually assaulted me, in-laws defended her, and after some legal wrangling they finally left us alone. The situation wrecked my wife’s self-esteem and tested our relationship, but we made it through.

Jenna and I had our first daughter in February. She’s amazing and we’re doing great. We ended up moving away from Jenna’s home state (NY) to mine (MA) to be closer to my family, and they’ve been incredibly helpful with the baby. We have not seen Jenna’s family since cutting contact and blocking them everywhere, and we didn’t tell them about the baby.

Yesterday we received a letter in the mail from my MIL and FIL. No idea how they got our address. Apparently my FIL has been diagnosed with late-stage cancer and is being told he could be dead in weeks. In laws went on about how sorry they were for the way they handled the situation with Mary. They also apologized for the way they’ve treated my wife her whole life (again, check post history but basically Mary was the golden child and Jenna was an afterthought despite being super accomplished). They ended by saying they recently heard about the baby through the grapevine and want to meet their grandchild.

To me, the apology seemed genuine. They went into detail on what they did wrong, apologized and expressed remorse, and explained what they should have done differently. They said they hoped to earn our forgiveness with time and were willing to do family therapy to heal our relationship.

Jenna is not having it. She feels like it’s too little too late and doesn’t want to respond. She also suspects that they’re lying about FIL’s cancer and just want to pressure us into reconciliation so they can meet the baby. It seems ludicrous but I guess I wouldn’t put it past them.

I want to respect my wife’s feelings around this, but I’m worried that if the cancer is real, she may regret not taking this opportunity for reconciliation before he dies. I expressed this to her but she is adamant and I haven’t broached the topic since.

My instinct is to wait a few more days until the shock wears off to talk about it again. I just don’t know what the best way to approach it would be. I certainly don’t want to force my wife to do anything she doesn’t want to do, but I feel like she’s not thinking clearly about this right now. It also must be noted that our baby is still struggling with sleep and we’re both tired and emotional all the time, so I feel like this might be influencing how she feels about all this.

What should I do here? Should I try again or just let it be?

Tl;dr: In-laws are attempting to reconcile after claiming FIL was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Wife does not want to consider it but I am worried she will regret it later on.

Edit: People, stop being mean to me. I too am tired and emotional and my feelings are getting hurt. I am not forcing my wife to do anything. I brought it up one time. I know this is not about me. I don’t personally care either way, I just want to support my wife. I intend to tell her I am here to listen/talk about it if she wants to but I fully support her decisions around this. She has a great therapist she trusts and I’ll be here to support her however I can.

Comments

Leaf-Stars

Respect your wife and her decisions regarding her family. It’s that simple.

OOP: To be clear, I will absolutely respect whatever decision she makes. I just feel like the news is so fresh and we’re in such an emotionally complex place as it is that she may not be thinking clearly about it. A similar situation happened to a friend of mine and he regretted it for years, actually turned to alcohol pretty hard for a while after. My wife has worked really hard to improve her mental health and I worry about how the regret might set her back. Although I suppose if her family is actually lying/manipulating us that would set her back too. I just don’t know. Would it be terrible to bring it up again in a few days just to see if she feels differently?

Edit: I’ve also thought about asking my parents to take the baby for a couple of days so we can get away and recharge. Maybe just getting my wife in a better headspace would allow her to think things through more carefully/less reactively

I asked her one time and haven’t brought it up since, I am not “badgering” her, and I’m here to figure out how to support my wife in whatever decision she wants to make

Leaf-Stars

You say you’ll respect whatever decision she makes but you’re not. You’re second guessing her.

OOP: I hear you, and maybe it’s not about asking her if she feels differently so much as giving her space to talk about her feelings around it some more. But maybe it’s better to let her do that with her therapist first and just let her know I’m here to listen/think through stuff if she wants to talk about it more. To be 1000% crystal clear, if we never speak to/see them again it will be no skin off my back, they’re terrible, I just want my wife to be okay

cassanthrax

I was summoned to the death bed of an estranged parent, but I did not go. I had already grieved that relationship years before, and I didn't see any point in reopening old wounds just for his comfort. He had already been dead to me, and I was OK with that. Years later, I still don't regret my choice to stay home. I would not have benefited in any way from attending.

Your wife has already lived this, she knows better than anyone what her parents are like. Just support her, and don't judge if she has no regret at all. She's had a lifetime to deal with these people and has walked away. All her mourning and regrets may already be finished and done.

Princess-She-ra

100%

Your wife knows what she's talking about. She understands that if (and that's a big if) your FIL passed without reconciliation, she doesn't get a do over. She's ok with that - please respect that and support her

(That old "father/mother/grandma is dying and the doc says she won't make it past Christmas/Thanksgiving/Easter" is the oldest trick in the Narcissist Handbook. I'm not saying he isn't sick, but it's possible).

Whatever you do, whatever you feel, please don't go behind your wife's back, because the second oldest trick in the Narcissist Handbook is that they will reach out to you privately and try to get you to connect with them. Be prepared to block them from every new number they try, and make sure to tell you wife if anything happens.

OffKira

"They said they hoped to earn our forgiveness with time."

Not to be crass but whatever, if he's literally on death's door... "with time" is somewhat disingenuous because he doesn't have time.

In a few days, sit your wife down and stress you respect her, you respect any decision she makes, you are just concerned about the long-term consequences here, which is fair enough. However, even if she comes to regret not accepting this apology, it is her regret to carry - you should point it out, but out of concern for her, because honestly, fuck her parents.

Just make sure she understand you are her partner, you're her rock, and whatever she wants here, you're there for her, you just don't want her to regret anything (maybe don't mention the kid thing, she's allowed to both be stressed because of the baby and feel any such way about her parents). Hold her hands and assure her you do not care about her parents at all, just her. Hug her, kiss her, and be there for her.

BTW, even if she were to reconnect with her father and the, question mark, weeks before he dies, she could still come to regret that decision.

We all choose our regrets sometimes, and there is much to regret in every which direction here. Your wife has been burned her entire life, and she's understandably suspicious and wary of getting burned again. She knows what parents she's had her entire life again - and she may well have mourned their loss a long time ago, before the estrangement.

Good luck, man.

OOP: This was really helpful, thank you so much. I will give it time and let her lead the way.

I hadn’t thought about that “earn it with time” thing — like if he actually is about to die what time are they talking about?

And reading from other people that this is a common manipulation tactic makes me feel more strongly that my wife’s instinct about them lying is correct

I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

**I am NOT OP. The OP of this story is **

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, ableism.

Mood Spoilers: Just fucking depressing.

, Posted December 21st, 2021

This is an AITA post as well as an asking for advice one. Sorry for the long text but please read the whole thing as there are many important details in it that I couldn't fit into the TLDR.

My husband (59m) and I (50f) have/had three children, James (27m), Kate (23f) and Stephen (20m). When he was 6, Stephen got diagnosed with autism and we did everything to accomodate him and get help. He kept telling that he doesn't want any help and wants to be treated like a 'normal person'. We always tried to reassure him that he needs it to archieve the same results as other kids and he should accept himself and be proud and not listen to society or other people (by the way everyone was always super accepting and did their best to accomodate) but Stephen wouldn't listen and said that he's as competent as other people and was it before he got diagnosed and we started treating him 'like a subhuman' too. Whenever someone would try to help him he immediately started to explain that he doesn't want or need any help and came up with excuses.

As he grew older Stephen distanced himself from other people because he didn't want anyone to know him as an autistic person. He even asked us to let him change schools and not tell anyone at the new school about his condition what we of course didn't allow. By the time he was in his early teens he fell into a really bad depression and became suicidal but refused to take medication or go to therapy to treat it because at that point he wouldn't accept any help from anyone at all even if it wasn't for his autism. Stephen claimed that the cause of his depression was the special treatment everyone gave him and he just wanted to live as normal person. He tried to make a compromise that if we let him go to a different school where no one knows about his autism and stop treating him differently he will get treatment for his depression. By then James, Kate and a few of Stephen's teachers were encouraging us to let him do it and but we still said no. When Stephen was 15 he attempted to kill himself by hanging.

At 18 he finished school, got accepted into his dream university, moved out and cut off contact with my husband and me (he still kept talking to his siblings). He left us an angry goodbye letter in which he claimed that we ruined 12 years of his life, that we are the reason why he's still depressed and suicidal and that he hates us with a passion. He said that now he finally won't be known as a 'crazy, stupid and awkward person who needs help for everything' and can lead a normal life. We tried to call him and sent him letters and emails but he didn't answer. Recently we visited him at his university but he wouldn't talk to us and eventually threatened to get a restraining order after which we immediately left. We haven't heard much about him since then but from what his siblings told us he was doing better now although he still suffered from depression.

Anyway, today he committed suicide. From what we know he overdosed on medication. Kate (who told us the sad news) says that we shouldn't have given Stephen any special treatment or at least stopped when he told us to and that by treating him differdntly we basically drove him into suicide. She said that we've failed as parents and she will consider cutting contact with us too because she doesn't want people like us as parents. James agreed with her and said that we should at least acknowledge our mistake. Kate packed her stuff and left shortly after (she originally planned to stay for New Year's too) saying that if we want to keep a relationship with her we should admit what we did wrong and learn from it. We however think that it's the fault of society with its standards and expectactions, and Stephen's own fault because he wouldn't accept any help.

We're absolutely devastated. Is Stephen's suicide really our fault and what can we do to save what's left of our family?

TLDR: Our son was diagnosed with autism as a child, we got all the help we could but he didn't want it. In his teens he became depressed and suicidal. He cut contact with us when he moved out. Today we found out he killed himself and our children say that it's our fault. Our daughter threatens to cut contact as well. Are we really to blame for his death and what should we do?

, Posted November 28th, 2022

Tomorrow would have been the 21st birthday of our son who took his life almost a year ago.

My husband and I (60m & 51f) have/had three children, Stephen (20m), Kate (24f) and James (27m). At the age of 6 Stephen got diagnosed with autism and we did everything we could to get help and accomodations. Everyone was super accepting and did their best to accomodate, and we always told him to be proud and not care about social norms, but Stephen still refused to accept any help and demanded that we stop treating him 'like a subhuman'. No matter how many times we told our son that he needs help to get on the same level as other children, he wouldn't accept it.

As he was approaching his teens, he gradually isolated himself from the world. He had no friends, no hobbies and avoided spending time with us, although he didn't mind spending it with his siblings. He avoided other kids at school and as soon as he got home, he would lock himself up in his room, and only went out when absolutely necessary. When he was 10, he also began to refuse to celebrate his birthday because 'it reminded him that yet another year has gone by and everything is still just as bad'.

He ended up getting depression and suicidal thoughts and blamed it on the 'special treatment' we gave him. We tried to get Stephen therapy and antidepressants but he refused because at that point he wasn't accepting any help at all - even for things that had nothing to do with his autism. When he was 15, he tried to kill himself by hanging, but luckily, he survived. Stephen tried to make a 'deal' that if we let him go to a different school where no one knew that he is autistic he would accept treatment for his depression, and even a few of his teachers as well as his siblings told us to let him do that but we didn't allow that because we didn't think that he would get through school without help.

Right after graduating school (he was 18 at the time), our son got accepted into his dream university (the University of Oxford) and moved out. We didn't even know that he had applied to university and only found out from the goodbye letter he left. It was a very angry and hateful letter - he said that we ruined 12 years of his life and went on a rant about how much he hates us. He cut off all contact to us (but kept talking to James and Kate) and blocked us everywhere. We tried to contact Stephen from other numbers/emails and sent him letters but he never answered. According to our other children, he was studying chemistry and biology (he always expressed an interest in those and science in general growing up, and in his last years with us also said that he wanted to get a PhD and become either a pharmacologist or an organic chemist, although we thought that would be to hard for him) and had even made some friends.

My husband and I visited him at university at the beginning of last November but he wouldn't talk to us and even said that he will get a restraining order against us if we don't leave him alone. About a month after that, he attempted suicide again, this time by overdosing on medication, and unfortunately, he successed. Kate blamed us for his death, saying that he repeatedly told us how much he didn't want to be treated differently but we never listened. She has since also cut off contact because she 'couldn't and didn't want to forgive us for killing her brother'. Our other son has also been visiting and talking to us much less since then. In just a couple of months, we have lost pretty much all of our children.

We tried to distract ourselves, but with Stephen's birthday coming up, we can only think of him and our other children, even if they have abandoned us and he didn't like to celebrate his birthday.

, Posted December 12th, 2022

We miss him so much.

Our (60m&51f) daughter Kate (24f) completely stopped talking to us about 10 months ago. She did it because according to her, we are to blame for her younger brother's (21m) suicide, which happened about one and a half months prior to Kate cutting off contact to us. However, at the time of his suicide he has already also been no contact with us for over a year (he left for university, stopped talking to us and blocked us everywhere immediately after graduation and we didn't even know he had applied for university) with the exception of one time when we visited him at university, and even then he didn't talk to us.

Kate's other brother (27m) still regulatly talks to her and we've tried to get him to get her to talk to us again but he refuses because he thinks that Kate 'doesn't have to talk to us if she doesn't want to' and he also believes that our youngest killed himself because of us even though it doesn't make any sense. She doesn't talk to any of her other relatives, we've reached out to her on social media but she didn't answer and although we knew where she lived until recently (we visited but she was never home) according to her brother she has moved to NYC this September because she enrolled into a PhD program at some university there, so we don't even know where she lives now.

What can we do to get Kate to talk to us again?

, Posted December 18th, 2022

My (51f) husband (60m) has had a drinking problem for somewhat over two years now. He usually drinks vodka and occasionally wine and has 2-5 shots of vodka on weekdays and sometines up to a ehole bottle on weekends. When he drinks wine, it's even more and he will even have an entire bottle during the week. When he's drunk, he is extremely angry and although he doesn't get physically aggressive, he screams and yells a lot, and I basically don't get any real time with him, with the exception of he occasional few hours on a weekend, because he gets drunk as soon as he gets home on workdays and often starts drinking by around noon on weekends as well.

His drinking problem comes in waves. With my help, he has managed to get it under control multiple times, and although he would still drink almost every day, it was usually nowhere near enough to get him drunk, but it always gets worse again.

He only began intensively drinking about two years ago when our youngest applied to university without us knowing and then cut us off when he went off to said university. My husband felt very angry and betrayed (and he still is) and that's when he resorted to alcohol. Before that, he would only drink on special occasions like holidays, parties and datenights, and even then he almost never had enough to get drunk.

I feel like I've lost him since his drinking problem began (at least during the 'waves' when it's really bad) because he's drunk most of the time and then all he does is just scream around. What can we do to end his drinking problem?

**Reminder - I am not OP**

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/

Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole

Trigger Warning: substance addiction, child neglect

AITA for never telling my Mother I married into money?

: May 18 2024

I (34F) have a difficult relationship with my Mother, she had me when she was 17 and was addicted to various substances when I was growing up. She'd leave me with whoever would watch me for days on end and i'd end up mostly raising myself. I left home at 16 and couch surfed with various friends until I was able to get my own place. At 25 I met my now Husband and we got married three years later.

His family is the polar opposite of mine and are incredible, so loving and warm, I honestly consider his parents mine and call them Mum and Dad. They also happen to be quite well off but that isn't something I care about, I mention it because it matters to the story.

Last year my Mother reached out to me after a decade of not speaking to her wanting to reconnect and introduce me to my little sister who was 2 years old, I was confused as I hadn't even known she'd been pregnant, but it seems she'd been a change of life baby. I thought maybe she'd turned over a new leaf and if not I wanted to make sure the kid was ok. At first it seemed like things had changed and she was trying, this illusion lasted for the first few visits over six months then she broke down, told me she couldn't do this, and asked me to take my sister. My husband and I had a long talk about it, we'd been struggling with fertility and had been considering adoption anyway. We told her if we were doing this we were doing it right, and we had his families lawyer ensure it was a legal adoption and airtight which took several months, My in-laws adore her and consider her their Granddaughter. They've even set up a trust-fund for her.

We have allowed My Mother one supervised visit per month so she's not totally cut off from my sister but it was during these visits things went badly as she saw how she was dressed and the toys she had, and realised they were expensive. She began to rip into us for hiding the fact we have money and how if we'd just given her money she'd have not given us my sister as she could have taken care of her better.

I told her while we have some money its mostly my husbands parents money not ours so she had no right to know about it, also that I wouldn't have given her money anyway as I didn't trust her. She broke down calling me a selfish bitch who'd never considered how hard things were for her.

I now feel some guilt, my Husband has told me if I want to make me feel better he'll give her money but that seems like a bad idea as she'd likely use it badly or blow through it then expect more. Despite this though I do feel bad, maybe I should have tried to help her more now my luck is better, or maybe I should have been honest with her. AITA for keeping this from her?

Edit: I posted an update, thank you everyone for your comments

Relevant comments:

Commenter: Don't give her a Penny, she'll come back for more, and you know she will deep down.

OOP: Yeah I do, I want to help her despite how she was with me growing up but I know that's not the right way to go about it, just this has brought up a lot of old feelings I thought long gone and guilt.

Commenter: NTA. If hubby wants to pay for something, it can be a treatment program for Mom to get the help she needs, but youare mist definitely NOT the ahole. Mom is trying to manipulate.

OOP: I tried many times to try to get her to get clean over the years before I cut off contact, she had no interest and I don't think that has changed at all if I thought that she'd even consider it i'd be having him do that if he truly wants to spend money on her.

: May 20 2024 (2 days later)

Hi everyone, this is an update to my post which you can find here:

I got some really good feedback from my post and it led to my Husband and I staying up most of the night discussing what we wanted to do and a decision was reached. It wasn't an easy one but we have a child to think of now and she has to come first.

We blocked my Mother on every social Media, we changed our phone numbers and we reached out to the family lawyer to get in contact with her to inform her that all visits have been stopped after how she spoke to me in front of my sister. She has to get clean for at least a year with weekly tests if she wants to see my sister again. My Mother can contact our family lawyer if she needs help with the tests but beyond that she gets no help from us unless she wants to go to rehab which we will pay for, directly to the rehab not her.

My Husband, Sister and I have also moved in with my In-Laws for the time being as my Mother knows where we live. We will be looking for a new place and my In-Laws are aware of the situation and that we are cutting all contact for now. Honestly my In-Laws are delighted to have us staying with them, when we arrived the guest room my sister is using for now had an army of Squishmallows on the bed they are her current obsession and my FIL makes sure to bring a new one each time he sees her I always think she must have them all now and each time i'm wrong, how he keeps track of what she has and doesn't have I don't know as he never buys doubles.

We are settling in well, we are even planning a small Holiday with just my Husband, sister and I to get away from the stress we've been under, nowhere abroad as she doesn't have a passport yet but we'll be fixing that soon as we want to take her to Lapland for Christmas.

All in all we're doing alright though I admit I am feeling very conflicted and guilty over this even though I know it's the right choice it just doesn't make it easy.

Thank you all so much for your comments, and advice on the original post.

REMINDER: I am not the original poster. Please do not comment on linked posts.