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ORIGINAL:

My (F53) soon to be ex husband Roger (47), whom I forgave for his affair, came home with a baby four months ago. His girlfriend (22) could not handle it anymore and brought the baby to him at work and left. To the best of his knowledge she is in Spain.

I allowed him to stay so long as I didn't have to do anything. Anything.

Well about a month ago Roger had a heart attack. It didn't kill him, mores the pity, but he is very weak and incapable of doing anything for himself. Since he isn't up and about he cannot care for his child. He also cannot drop of and pick up his son at daycare.

I have been helping but I'm done. My kids are full grown. I shouldn't be having grandkids any time soon. I do not have any desire to care for a baby.

I told Roger that I want a divorce, and I contacted the mother's parents. I know the father through friends. I said they had until Friday to come get their grandchild or I was calling Child Protective Services.

They just left with the baby. But they scolded me for being so cold towards a baby that had done me no harm. I view that child differently.

Roger is recovering and I will be moving out. The house is in his name but I have never contributed to it. I have the equivalent of twenty two years of rent and interest put away. And as per our prenup my savings are my own.

I work and I don't need anything out of this marriage except myself.

My kids tried telling me to stay and help their father. I said that they were welcome to come over and help him with cleaning himself and the baby. Both declined what I felt was a fair offer.

I do not feel that I am acting badly however Roger, our children, his child's family, and a few mutual friends think I am. Perhaps writing this out and seeing the responses will give me clarity.

UPDATE:

I am no longer divorcing roger. There were complications from his heart attack and he has passed away. I am conflicted. He was the love of my love but also a cheating piece of trash.

To the best of my knowledge the mother will not return from Europe. The child is currently with her parents. They asked me what I wanted to do. I recommended adoption. Not that I adopt the child. That they put the child up for adoption.

They didn't like that suggestion.

Neither did my children.

They said i am being cold and cruel. I suggested that since the child was related to them and not to me that they step up. Neither has accepted that suggestion either.

I was the sole beneficiary of Roger's estate so I imagine lawyers will be involved in getting the child some sort of support. I will pay whatever is ordered by the court out of the estate. I will not pay one cent out of my money.

That is all I have to say on this matter.

I am not OOP. OOP is and they posted on

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. See rule 7. This sub has a 7-day waiting period so the latest update is at least 7 days old.

Editor's Note: when OOP says the word "rapport," she means "repertoire."

June 11, 2024

So before I even start I want to say I AM NOT A HATER. I love the arts so much. I wanted to be an actress when I was a kid as well, until I saw what it takes. My father has been in the entertainment industry for 30 years he has been a comedian, producer, television writer, actor anything under the sun my father has done it. As a child, I have helped my father a lot: acting in audition tapes, watching his shows, helping him promote, reading his tv scripts, listening to his comedy bits. Me and my whole family even did an episode on the discovery channel. I have done and seen it all.

My father is now a really great comedian. He’s not world famous but he has some videos that went viral, and appeared on a few tv shows. However, he has shown me what it takes to become an actor. That is to become viral!! Multiple times agents have turned down my dad because he doesn’t have 50,000 to 100,000 followers. It was heartbreaking because my dad had this amazing rapport, but since he is not internet famous he gets cast aside. Don’t get me wrong he makes pretty decent money now, but nowhere near Kevin Heart or Gabriel Iglesias.

Now I saw my bf's little cousin and she was talking about how she is bouncing around careers. She is thinking about either becoming a musician, actress, or animator. Her cousin went to Juliard and has been on broadway, she is a huge hero for her. I told her honestly as a person whose family has been in the entertainment industry I would say do animation. Nowadays they are looking for people to go viral, and it can be very difficult to become an actress unless you were a child actor. I also explained how people are getting turned down if they don’t have at least 100,000 followers.

To add to this his cousin does not have a rapport. She has done a few musicals for her high school but that is about it. She has not taken acting classes, she has not participated in an acting program, nor does she have an internet following. She is only 16 but I was just trying to show her the reality. Out of all that, I believed animation would be a wonderful segway into the entertainment industry. However, she still wants to try to get into an arts school and build an acting rapport through her university. I said alright you do what’s best I suggest that you try to find an acting program while you’re still this young.

My bf then tells me “Why did you tell her that? That’s not true!”

I was like EXCUSE ME!?? “Um yes they are. That’s LITERALLY why my dad has been turned down from several roles, along with HUNDREDS of other actresses”

He said “No you can go to a University and build connections and become a theater actress that way, being an influencer isn’t acting. That’s not what there looking for.”

I responded “ THATS EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR!! They want a fanbase to buy tickets to their movies and shows that’s why they want people with a following.”

After that, I left. I was not about to have him mansplain to me a subject OF WHICH HE HAS NO FUCKEN EXPERIENCE!! I wasn’t trying to be rude to her. I thought I was just trying to give her the best advice. Was I truly discouraging?

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My BA is in Speech/Theater. I went to school with people who now have Grammys, Oscars and Emmys. I know others with nominations in them all. I know people who made it to Broadway, know a guy who is a really, really big deal in the Marvel Universe and know a ton of award winning writers.

None of this means anything in terms of return on investment for a degree.

And even if you get all those accolades, you can still be living in a box under the overpass.

But, you can't convince a young artist the hard facts. You warned her. Now leave it alone. Smile and nod at ever musing of the dream. If you have the time, buy a ticket to her show, post a congratulations. When the inevitable comes, just say I told you so to yourself.

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I have been trying to explain this. Tell me as a fellow person in the entertainment industry do you believe that there was some truth to what I am saying? And that my partner is being extremely naive?

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O I left the industry almost as soon as I began because there is soooooo much truth to what you are saying. I was in acting and music a very long time ago before influencing was a thing. I vividly remember the rumors going around about Puff (before he became Diddy) and to never be alone with him, don't sign to him, etc. Within the writing world, which I dabble in occasionally now, some publishers want you to have a large following to publish your book.

Then you go through all of this to make pennies on the dollar because pay is not the same. Pennies for millions of music streams. Pennies for millions of views on streaming services. Writing on a show now condensed to a few weeks vs months to the point you don't even qualify for health insurance because you either don't work enough or didn't make it.

She would do better by doing exactly what you said, creating her own platform and going viral. She would at least keep 100% of the profits vs pennies she has to split 5 ways.

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Question - what do you think rapport means?

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It’s like building a name, presence, brand, or gaining experience

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I think you meant “repertoire” rather than “rapport”?

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YES THANK YOU THAT WAS THE WORD!!

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NW

I teach theatre to youth. The most difficult is knowing that even IF a kid has that “IT factor” their chances are slim. If that child can dance, sing, play an instrument, then it goes up. Add in them knowing more languages. Being adorable or cute or very pretty.

Bonus points if they are visibly a child of colour.

Extra bonus points if they can actually act!

The industry is tough as nails.

Parents want the best for their kids, and I tell them to ensure the child gets an education with a degree to fall back on. There is no guarantee. Never, ever. Go to school, work hard and fingers crossed.

I shot several pilots, was an understudy for a huge musical that came into my city. But, my “break” never came. I am grateful for the time I have had trying for it professionally, I now work more in community theatre and enjoy knowing I always have a place here.

You did your best. The most difficult is trying to explain to someone how hard it actually is.

Especially when they have no clue and the fact that if they fall into the “pretty” category they will hear how “easy” it is.

I have a student right now, she got an agent. Has done some commercials, modelling. She HAS talent and an IT factor. Her agent wanted her in L.A. for pilot season, which I agreed with.

But… she flakes out too much, so much so, her father has told her post secondary school would be better until she matures enough and realizes that it is a business that needs to be worked on every single day, a lifestyle to live in. I also agree with him. She currently has no drive right now other than it can be fun for her, she says she wants it, but…

And that is another thing. Your drive has to be there. Every day. Every moment you have to want to continue going, like your dad does.

You did your best OP. It is best to leave it alone. Unless the cousin seeks you out for assistance, guidance, or support, just leave it in the past.

If your BF brings it up, simply state you have spoken from a place of wisdom of observance and knowing.

Continue to move forward. All the best!

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Natalie Merchant was talking about how people don't want to book her because she doesn't have a large social media following. We're talking about one of the most talented singers.

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YNW Lots of people react poorly to being told that their dream or their family member dream is harder to attain than they want to believe. Your boyfriend, and possibly his cousin, didn't want to hear the truth, and lashed out because of it. They're wanting to substitute real reality for the reality that's in their heads, which says the cousin is about to be the next huge hit with almost no work.

If I were you, I'd wait a bit to cool down. then write him an email explaining briefly how the industry works, and how you know that's how it works, and then explaining that his mansplaining was both, wrong, insulting, and hurtful, and that you want an apology. Say you're sorry that the reality of show business is harsh, but that's reality, and him throwing a tantrum isn't going to change that. Hopefully your boyfriend will pull his head out of his ass. If not, then you'll have to figure out how to navigate a larger problem with your guys' relationship. Good luck.

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I got a scholarship for theater. One of my professors pointed out the average salary for theater majors after graduation was 6k. Most of us changed majors. I know one guy who didn’t, moved to NYC, got a job at Starbucks. Saw him in a JG WENTWORTH commercial a few years ago.

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I work in entertainment law. Everything that came out of your mouth was the gods honest truth and though you can never spare the determined (otherwise LA would run out of waitresses), you can mentally prepare her for life in that industry.

If it was hard for me to just be a paper pusher behind the talent - I can only imagine how world crushingly hard it is to be the actual person in the spotlight. I don’t even wish it upon my children or the children of my enemies.

Do us all a favor - be a dentist or something.

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Dude you should read all the comments telling me about how you don’t need a media following from people who have 0! Experience in the industry. It made me laugh so hard

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It takes a near Ivy League degree, a social presence, a near perfect LSAT & GPA, judicial clerkships and nepotism connects just to be an agent - and that’s just being the mfer that writes the contracts. I got in as a clever diversity hire with work ethic, and I know they know I’m a DEI pick.

What y’all do is crazy. And the speed in which you can go hot to not - especially with the break neck velocity of Reddit criticism is wild. Couldn’t be me. Stardom can’t be wished upon. But then again, stranger shit has happened in Hollywood and Broadway.

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I recently missed out on two projects … why? Bc the kids of two famous people got my job instead. Why? Bc the kids of famous people tend to always go into wardrobe. And instead of bing a paid hired position like it should be… they are using them as interns. And they can afford to be interns bc their parents are super famous actors.

Also lots of people are currently struggling after the last two strikes. They are losing their health insurance bc they didn’t work enough hours bc of them.

And we still don’t know if IATSE will come to an agreement or there will be strikes.

The industry is about to get a lot harder.

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People need to learn their own lessons.

People rarely react to the reality of situations with with grace and patience. She’s also young. Add youth into the mix and honestly, nothing you may say will sink in now. It’s all about making sure our young ones have soft places to land when they fall.

You’re not wrong with your message and the info/guidance you gave. You’ve said your piece. Now drop it.

It’s her life to live, not yours. We can guide and advise but we can’t choose for others.

Update (Same post, 1 day later)

The argument made the house a bit heated for a while. Usually, I come back and try to work things out or have a more understanding perspective. However, this time I couldn’t! I just felt so disrespected that he would try to mansplain to me a subject he knows nothing about!

Eventually, he came back and apologized to me. He said, “I am so sorry, I don’t even know why I tried to argue with you. I truly don’t have any experience in this field, and what I did amounted to nothing.”

I said, “Listen, I understand there are a lot of things I don’t know about. That’s why I always try to listen and understand when you have a different opinion. But this! This is the one thing that I KNOW FOR A FACT! Why can’t you just take my word for it this one time? It makes me feel like you can’t trust what I tell you.”

He said, “I know, and I was thinking about that as well. You almost always engage with me in these kinds of conversations, and it should not have been hard for me just to say you’re right because you are! I am your partner; I shouldn’t be making you feel like you don’t know anything because you know WAY more than I ever could. I guess I’m just used to always talking that way with my family and you. I am very sorry, but I am going to work on it.”

So I decided to forgive him. However, he owes me boba today 😂. Also lastly the word was not Rapport it was Repertoire!

Reminder: I am not OOP. Do NOT comment on Original Posts. No Brigading! See rule 7.

I am not OOP. OOP is and they posted on

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. See rule 7. This sub has a 7-day waiting period so the latest update is at least 7 days old.

Trigger Warning: mentions of past abuse, threats of suicide, suspected abuse

Mood Spoiler: super sweet and palate-cleansing

June 18, 2024

So for background, my past relationship was very abusive (on her part), it started with lovebombing and moving forward ridiculously quickly, then onto her threatening to take her own life, pointless arguing 24/7, lying about things like going into a Psych ward, making me stop being friends with several people, cheating etc.

Luckily, I got out of that over a year ago after two years of going through it. Fast forward to now, my current girlfriend is an absolute sweetheart. She spoils me and treats me amazing, we currently live together and have cats, and our personalities mix so well and I hope I treat her just as well as she treats me. However, a big part of how we display love, at least I do is physical playing. I tickle her, we like to bump into each other on sidewalks to throw each other off, we do that “taser” thing to each other (where you poke under the rib cage) when we’re caught off guard and I like to try to hide and scare her. She’s never vocalized any discontent with anything and the things she has I immediately stopped doing.

However, I saw a post on TikTok today saying physical abuse tends to start these ways as a form of “testing limits” and as someone who’s been on the receiving end of that and was raised by abusive/narcissistic people, I haven’t been able to stop overthinking it. I mean, the comments were off on the post so maybe it received a large amount of backlash but I have no way of knowing and maybe I am abusing her without realizing it. What should I do?

For context, the post said: “Did you know physical abuse can start as flicking, poking, biting, tickling, squeezing, throwing things, knocking you off balance, and laying on you?”

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For context the post said: “did you know physical abuse can start as: flicking, poking, biting, tickling, squeezing, throwing things, knocking you off balance, and laying on you?”

This is true. However, the difference between your relationship and the kind the post describes is that in your relationship, you both consent to and enjoy these behaviors, there is not a power imbalance, and you are not doing these things to maintain power and control over her or to cause her fear and intimidation.

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You're not testing limits. You are playing with your girlfriend. There's a very big difference. People testing limits tend to:

*Not respect when you say no

*Whine, cajole, coerce, and guilt when told no

*Make it so unpleasant to say no that the other person stops saying no, then slowly escalate their behavior

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She’s never vocalized any discontent with anything and the things she has I immediately stopped doing

This is the difference right here. The testing limits abusive kind don’t stop doing it when they’re told it’s unwanted.

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I think it would be fine to remind her that if she ever felt uncomfortable with your poking, pushing, tickling, etc, to let you know and you'll stop immediately.

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I did tonight, after she was done with her bath I showed her the TikTok and we talked. She gave le some reassurance and I feel a bit better. I just overthink a lot and I know there a lot I do that I do need to work on as a result of past abusive relationships.

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Op you Sound like a delightful human being. Your concern shows that you aren’t abusing your partner because you stop when she shows she doesn’t like something and you’re loving and caring towards each other. That’s respect and abusers don’t tend to have respect for the person they are abusing. To make yourself feel better, maybe you guys can talk about it and set limits or boundaries about how “far” your playfulness goes so you’re both comfortable and aware of each others limits. Best to you both!

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Thank you very much from this, posting about this in the end has been a really positive experience that promoted a really good conversation with my girlfriend. I definitely feel a lot better now

(OOP's girlfriend):

i love you <3

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Not even an alt account is safe with this one…

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Wait stop this is so cute 🥺

June 19, 2024

After that post received an insane amount of attention me and my girlfriend  wanted to address a few things.

First, there were a lot of comments calling the post fake, honestly I wish. When I posted it yesterday I wasn’t exactly having a great time and was dealing with a lot. She didn’t “find the alt account” per se, but I did forget she knew about it. She knew I posted something on Reddit and went and found it herself while she was in the bedroom. I can’t confirm that this wasn’t some whole plot for upvotes lmao but if this helps at all here 

Before addressing any of the negative leaning comments I did want to say thank you, a lot of the replies made me feel way more normal with how me and her interact and it prompted a really good discussion with her about boundaries and things that we like/don’t like. Also, we’ve both loved reading everyone’s replies, she really is the sweetest human ever and I truly don’t know I got so lucky with her.

Lastly, There were a lot of comments that were almost mad that I “took advice from a TikTok”. Yesterday I made this post while I was having a bit of a rough moment. For some background I was raised by an abusive parent, spent years dealing with custody battles, narcissism etc and just about a year ago got out of a long term abusive relationship. I think anyone that grows up with that is going to have the fear of “growing up to be them” and with me that’s certainly still the case. My girlfriend is great, and I overthink a lot about how I treat her because she treats me so well. So when I saw that post, everything considered, it did shake me up a bit.

To wrap it up, I’m feeling a lot better now, we’re both laying on the couch together reading everyone’s replies, and to the people that asked I will certainly update once we’re married.

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Another good step in the right direction. Now take the next and most important:You need to seek therapy for yourself.

While a good relationship is about support and reassurance, your gf can't be your only source for this. Your trauma, self doubt, the lingering effects, and your coping mechanisms are your responsibility. Constantly using your gf as your main source of support will wear down any relationship, no matter how wonderful, and cause resentment. It's also a form of abuse.

You sound like a great person, who's found a great person, don't let your past ruin it by not doing everything you can to overcome it.

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I'd rather my partner be concerned he was being abusive unintentionally and we figure it out than my partner be abusive unintentionally but not have the self awareness to realize. Be proud that you care about your significant other enough to look inwards with a critical eye and ensure that you are treating her how she deserves to be treated. Next time you have concerns, talk to your girlfriend and express your concerns for your own behavior and ask how she feels about and trust what she says. You two are a small amount of work away from being a perfect couple, honestly my only notes are don't talk to reddit, talk to her and trust what she says. None of either of y'all's comments give me the impression that you guys feel unsafe talking to each other so treasure that and talk it up. You two are incredible and I hope y'all go all the way as long as you both are happy. And stay goofy. 🩷

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Ah congratulations to self awareness, maturity, and general empathy and concern towards your loved ones! Did you know they have to teach this to college students in a class called success is college? It’s insane. I am happy to see you concern and resolve thereof. While the sneaky part of your girlfriend snooping for ur post probably wasn’t great… I’ll admit that I am also a woman that would do this. The fact that it didn’t end in an explosion or argument IS great. I hope you too stay healthy and happy for a very long time!

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i needed to make sure everyone was being nice and not saying that he was abusing me, apologies, but i did not have the most faith in reddit lol

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Hahahaha still confused on why you looked, what exactly did he say that made u know he posted?

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he was being weird and i think i saw a reddit notification and kinda put the pieces together or somethin like that. i do just know him really well and i just knew (he’s wrong i asked if he posted it he didn’t tell me right away)

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To be fair, and I honestly should have addressed this, her finding it was after we talked about it, and after I told her I posted it on Reddit. It wasn’t really a sneaky thing after I’d already expressed I put that out and I wasn’t offended by it at all. I get your concern though 100%

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Not really much concern here from me! I don’t see it as super unhealthy. Some of us are just naturally born detectives. Thanks for clarifying though as to how she found out ahahahaha!!!!!!

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I've noticed an ongoing problematic trend in relationship subreddits, literally any post that mentions a male being abused is called out as fake, yet we have posts where a woman's partner literally acts like a cartoon villain or worships his mother like a god and is blind to his mother's abuse and it is the bible or some shit. I've also noticed that there is an extremely loud minority that will literally twist the narrative and LEAP to conclusions just to make the guy seem bad.

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this was why i looked for his post in the first place. i was scared people would feed into him being anxious and make him think he was actually abusing me lol

Editor's Note: Although OOP has said he will update when he and his girlfriend get married, the issue he posted about is resolved, so I am marking this concluded.

Reminder: I am not OOP. Do NOT comment on Original Posts. No Brigading! See rule 7.

I am not OOP. OOP is and they posted on

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. See rule 7. This sub has a 7-day waiting period so the latest update is at least 7 days old.

June 10, 2024

Last summer my friends and I planned a group family cottage trip for the 1st of July celebrations.

One of our friends has 5 kids, while the rest of us either has 1-2 kids or No kids. There are 4 families. Last summer our friend with 5 kids basically dumped her kids on the rest of us to watch. Her husband basically ditched her and his kids to drink with the men and join activities.

One incident of this happening was when my husband and I arranged for him to get some time with the guys, while I planned an intentional hike/scavenger hunt through the woods with my two little ones.

My one friend with the 5 kids heard about it and asked if her 5 kids could join me, while she could take a quick nap and then she would come get them later. I wanted to say no but then she already told her kids about it and they were excited to go. So I didn’t want to say no to them. Well, she never joined us later, I couldn’t handle all 7 kids, especially with her kids being super energetic. I got back to see her chilling with the men. When I asked her, why she didn’t come get them, she said got distracted and forgot.

My other friends were saying how because she is more my friend, that I should not invite her this year. They also don’t want to spend this years cottage trip babysitting or breaking up fights among her kids.

On the weekend my friend with 5 kids was asking me if I had booked the cottage yet. I haven’t because, I want to talk to her first.

Would I be the asshole if I told her to make sure if she plans to go to not dump her kids on others? Or, would I be wrong to not invite her?

What should I do instead? I am open to suggestions.

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She WILL dump her kids on you again.

You SHOULD tell her she is not invited this year.

‘Hi friend, unfortunately, we don’t have room this year for you and your family.’

Or

‘Hi friend, unfortunately, I cannot take on extra child care duties this vacation, and you (and your spouse) have proven that you will say one thing and do another when it comes to your kids. Your behaviour last time made it so I couldn’t enjoy the vacation and I am determined to enjoy this one. We can discuss what plans for next year look like, but this year I am devoting to my family.’

Read the book ‘I feel guilty when I say no’

I too am a people pleaser and this book has helped tremendously.

Edited to include the husband.

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OP may want to rephrase that her friend and husband, left the rest of the group to do their child care

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Yeah, everyone is hating on the friend (and the friend does suck), but the husband also is a jerk who neglected his kids selfishly.

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This is awesome, except I would take out the, “We can discuss what plans for next year look like…”. Don’t set yourself up to have to have this conversation again. She’s made her bed now, so she can lie in it with her five kids.

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Just be honest. She knows what she is doing, she is doing it. I get that she needs some social time in her life but not at the expense of everyone else around! If she can’t maintain her kids, then she shouldn’t be invited. You don’t need to give her a chance, she already had one and she showed you. She forgot . . . about her five kids . . . Really? She was outright taking advantage of the situation. Be honest. She isn’t really your friend, a friend would not do that to you, or to a group of others. You are better off without this “friendship.”

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Nobody else wants her or her family there. They've made that clear to you, so YWBTA if you invited her and her family in any way, shape, or form. Full stop.

I would just tell her there's not enough room this time round, and nobody is available to watch her children the entire weekend.

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You're so right, if OP invites her bad friend OP will will end up alienating her other friends because the bad friend refuses to take care of her own children. If OP invites her it may be her last year with the group Her friend blew it and didn't own up up to it she will do this again. Op can just tell her in a nice way that she and her husband placed too much of a burden on others with their childcare demands and it didn't work for them. Vacations should be relaxing and OP didn't get any quality time with her own family because the friend dumped her children on OP.

June 10, 2024 (8 hours later)

I am super thankful for all the advice. Your advice aided me in my conversation with my friend. It didn’t go well but it was expected. Below is how it went:

We were talking on the phone and I brought up the cottage trip. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I was wondering if you wanted to plan together another fun activity we can do this summer, just your family and mine. Maybe a bonfire at the beach in August because it was a little more work with the extra kids last year at the cottage.

She was open to it but thought I wanted to cancel the whole trip. When I told her I was still planning to go with the other families, she was confused.

Things she said:

• Muskoka (where we are going) was the highlight of her kids summer last year and they were excited to go again.

• her kids will be so disappointed.

Me: I apologized and told her how last year it was a little hard. I explained why it was hard and gave her a few examples of what happened last year and she didn’t view those situations the way my other friends and I did. For example, with the scavenger hunt one, she said she honestly forgot and didn’t understand the big deal, if my kids were also having fun. I told her, the big deal was that I didn’t have fun and it took time away from me spending it with just my kids.

Her: What’s the point of a group vacation if everyone is doing their own thing.

I told her that coming together to do bonfires, bbqs and stuff is fun but we also come up here to spend time with our individual families and all of us chipping in towards a nice cottage, allows us to do that.

She then went into a rant about how different she and I are because she believes that if all the children had fun at the end of the day, that’s what she cares about most. When you decide to have kids, you give away your freedom for your children and everything becomes about them.

Our conversation wasn’t going anywhere really, so I told her that I just don’t want to have to think about multiple children on a vacation. The only children I want to think about are mine. I also don’t think it’s fair for my other friends to have to keep an eye on her kids when that’s not what they planned to do.

Next thing she says is that she understands and didn’t mean to put her kids on us but it’s hard, also with her husband not helping, how she deals with her kids every single minute of the day and the one week in the summer where she wants to relax a little, the world does not let her. If she is drowning and asking for a lifeline and no one helps, then what is she supposed to do. She knows its no one’s fault but her own but she wishes, she could meet someone who could selflessly help once in awhile because that’s what she would do if she saw someone in her situation.

Then goes into another rant of all the ways she’s helped people despite her situation.

I say I sympathize with her but that unfortunately I can’t be that person for you because I have to put my family’s needs first. That I will never be the person that will let my family suffer, even for a little while for the sake of wanting to help someone else. Asked her if hiring a nanny for the week on the trip was possible to help relieve some of the stress.

That was when she got mad and said that I am just like everyone else who will never understand and hung up on me.

Later she send me text saying:

I just wanted to say that I am not mad that we are not going. It’s more so the fact that you already decided that you don’t want me there without giving me the chance to come up with a solution. It’s clear that you see my kids and I as a burden. It just hurts that all this while you claim to be my friend and want to be there for me but then ditch me after you built up my hope for a friendship. Suggesting me finding a nanny is crazy. You know that I couldn’t afford that. Those who’ve had an easy life will never understand. And It’s like they say, no one really cares. Enjoy your trip. I have a lot to think about.

I haven’t responded and I don’t plan to. I just feel as if everything I have done for her is not appreciated. I have been the listening ear for to vent to. I’ve invited her family over lots of times for dinners. My husband helped drive her and husband around a few times when they didn’t have a car. I got my friends on board with letting her not pay her share for the cottage booking and had her only chip in for food. She also knows that my life has not been the easiest.

I booked the cottage now and I’m excited for the upcoming trip with my other friends.

Relevant Comments:

:

I'm so proud of you for taking a stand for yourself. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome. She had five kids with a non-helpful life partner. Most people get the memo after two. Of course she is trying to guilt you. Her family got a free vacation and she got unlimited free babysitting.

:

Sounds like you approached it as maturely as you could, and it was never going to have a happy ending because you were not going to give her what she wanted - a break from being a mom.

:

An all expenses paid break. Everything was free for her family only while everyone else chipped in extra to cover them.

Even worse, she acted entitled to the free babysitting and and was not thankful or appreciative.

:

She is full of shit. She goes on a rant about “what she cares about most. When you decide to have kids, you give away your freedom for your children and everything becomes about them.” And then in the next moment “deals with her kids every single minute of the day and the one week in the summer where she wants to relax a little, the world does not let her”. From the very last she is trying to guilt you and not take any responsibility. It is gross that she uses her kids to  manipulate other people, “her kids will be so disappointed.”

:

I don’t think she even realizes how toxic she is becoming. She goes on and on about stuff that contradict each other and I am starting to realize that now. She’s just as much exhausting as her children. My last wish for her as her former friend is that she learns to stand up to her husband. All this resentment is not good for her.

:

Lmfao! Well done lady! She's so full of shit and you didn't stand for any of it!

All of her problems are consequences of Her choices. She chose to have 5, FIVE, kids with a guy who doesn't help, and without the funds to hire help. She chose to foster her kids off on everyone else last year, then cries unfair when she's called out on it.

She'd help out anyone who needed it? Sure Jan. But did she take all the kids on any hours long outings last year? Nope. You and the others did. She's drowning and asking for a lifeline? Nope. She didn't ask. She lied and manipulated.

She can plan her own camping trip for her kids. My mom did. Boke, single patent, 2 kids. She found a community and joined in. She needs to find a church, a neighbourhood group, hell. If one doesn't exist- Make One. Don't use your friends as free unconsentual childcare then cry poverty when they rightly complain.

Editor's Note: OOP says she's not planning on responding to the friend, effectively ending the friendship, so I am marking this as concluded.

Reminder: I am not OOP. Do NOT comment on Original Posts. No Brigading! See rule 7.

***I AM NOT OP, OP is and this was posted in ***

Original:

AITAH for missing my daughter’s birthday and my wedding anniversary for the birth of my sister’s baby?

My wife (31F) and I (33M) have been married for 8 years, and we have a 6 year old daughter.

My sister (31F) was married to her husband, but because of his infidelity, they are now looking for divorce. My sister was pregnant with her first child, but she did not want her husband in the delivery room with her. She called me and asked if I could come for emotional support because she was nervous about childbirth.

I of course said yes. She lives in a different state,  and I was going to go there for a week. But when I told my wife about it, she said that that I would be missing my daughter’s birthday, and our wedding anniversary (they’re both a day apart). I knew I would be missing those days, but I didn’t think it was a big deal and I told her we would celebrate the anniversary when I came back. And I didn't really need to be physically present for my daughter’s birthday. I could just FaceTime her. My wife then asked why my sister couldn’t call anyone else for emotional support, and I told her that was a really selfish thing to say. 

I was there for the birth of my sister’s baby, and everything went pretty smooth. When I came back I was really happy, and I started making plans for the wedding anniversary, but my wife seems a bit sad about everything. I know it’s because I missed the anniversary, but I really don’t see what’s the big deal when we can celebrate it on another day. I understand my wife considers it a very important and special day. But it’s just a day, and it doesn’t mean anything in significance compared to the birth of my sister’s baby.

Am I the AH?

Update (1 day later)

Update: AITAH for missing my daughter’s birthday and my wedding anniversary for the birth of my sister’s baby?

Link to original post for anyone interested: 

Wow, that was a barrage of onslaught. I read a lot of the comments, and most people think I was an AH which I did not expect but it opened my eyes that I may have been neglectful to my wife. I want to provide a quick update but also first provide some more background and clarify a couple of things.

I read a lot of comments misinterpreting what I said on my last post. Of course, I think my daughter’s birthday and our anniversary are very important and special occasions. I just meant that compared to the process of going through childbirth during a stressful time, it seemed insignificant to me. My sister found out only a couple of months ago about her husband’s affair, it was horrible. When she called me, she was really worried about how the stress was going to affect labor, she was actually worried she was going to die because one of her friend’s mothers died during childbirth. She was panicking and I had to calm her down. Of course I was going to go, whether it was for a week or a month or however long.

A few comments asked why my sister did not call our parents. Both our parents passed away in an accident when we were really young and we were taken in by our loving grandparents, who we’ll always be grateful and thankful for. Both our grandparents have also passed away. Besides, my sister and I have always been tight. 

Why didn’t I take my daughter and my wife with me? My daughter’s birthday party was set up and the invitations had already been sent to friends and family. Besides, the last thing I was thinking at that time was a family trip. 

Now getting to the update, yes, I do realize after reading the comments that the way I went about everything was wrong. I shouldn’t have called my wife selfish. And I should have put more effort on our anniversary. I only called her and didn’t send her any gifts or flowers on our anniversary, and that’s my fault. I had a discussion with my wife a couple of hours ago, and I apologized for everything, and told her I would make up for it. She actually seemed very happy after the discussion, I think it’s because I apologized and took accountability which admittedly I haven’t done recently. I reassured her that our anniversary is they day I will always cherish the most.

I didn’t speak about my daughter much in the last post because there wasn’t really much to say. She did have a great time at the party. Yes, she missed me, but she’s really happy I’m back now. 

***I AM NOT OP, PLEASE DO NOT HARASS OP***

Please remember the No Brigading rule and to be civil in the comments.

I am not the OOP. The OOP is posting in

Ongoing as per OOP

1 update - Medium

Thanks to for finding the latest update

- 15th May 2024

- 16th May 2024

1 New Update

- 25th June 2024

AITAH for not telling my wife about an incident with her best friend

I want to be very sensitive when writing it here, but I have been dealing with unbearable guilt and wanted to know if what I am doing is wrong. I really do not want to trigger anyone, but I will be writing about a very sad situation.

I (33M) have been married to my wife (31F) for 6 years and we have a 3-year-old kid. We are very happy together and I am lucky to be married to a very kind and smart woman. My wife's best friend Ana (fake name for anonymity) has been living with us for the last 6 months.

I wanted to talk about Ana to give a full context of why I am making my decision. Ana is my wife's best friend since school days. Ana was living in the city with her boyfriend, and we live in the suburbs of that city. They seemed happy together and were in relationship for 2 years. However, my wife noticed bruises on Ana's hand last year and asked her about it. Initially, Ana dismissed it as work related injuries. My wife kept on probing, and we learned that Ana was in an extremely toxic and abusive relationship. Her boyfriend lost his job last year and became extremely controlling and abusive towards her. He constantly accused her of cheating (Ana denies it), made her link her phone messenger to his computer and started micromanaging finances. There was an incident of domestic violence that was the final straw and my wife, and I had to rush to the hospital to look after Ana.

Since Ana's parents are mostly absent from her life, my wife asked me if Ana can stay with us for a few days. We are three people living in a 4-bedroom house and have two spare guest rooms. I of course agreed to it and told her that Ana can stay with us as long as she wants. I think the incident completely broke Ana and she would just start crying randomly and completely shut down. It was really sad to see Ana in that state. She had to leave her job due to mental issues and stayed at home in the room all day. My wife is very kind and took care of Ana like she was family and made sure she felt loved. Ana is also thankful to my wife and I to help her in her worst time, and helps around the house and with our kid (though we never leave him alone with Ana). Ana, now is coming back to normal, smiles sometimes and has started looking for job again.

Now onto the incident. Last Friday, my wife and I went to work as normal and dropped our son at daycare. I had a doctor's appointment at noon and came straight home from there as I did not have a lot of work in office. I made some lunch, and then went to my room to sit in my bed and reply to all the emails. Ana was in her room, and I did not talk to her after I came home.

Around 2pm, I heard Ana's room door open and her walking in the hallway. Suddenly, our bedroom door opened, and Ana walked in topless and just in her underwear. I was shocked and not sure how long I was staring at her. But after a few seconds, I blurted out "I am sorry!", and she quickly covered herself with her hands. She was apologetic and started explaining herself. She said she just wanted to borrow my wife's clothes because her laundry was unwashed. It was super embarrassing to have conversation with her in that state and I looked away. She again apologized and then went out of the bedroom. The incident lasted less than 2 minutes.

After a while, she again came back into our bedroom (fully dressed) and apologized for the incident. She said it was really embarrassing and she did not know anyone will be home. I said it's ok and I should have told her I am back early from office when I came home. She asked me to not mention about the incident to my wife. She said she feels embarrassed she walked around the hallway without clothes and that I saw her in that state. I said it's ok and lets forget about it.

I have not told my wife about the incident and it's been 5 days. It was just a benign incident, but I somehow feel guilty about the whole thing. I feel more guilty that I am lying to my wife by omission of the truth. However, I feel that if my wife takes it the wrong way, it may strain her relationship with Ana, and I really feel bad for Ana what she had to go through. I also do not want to make Ana uncomfortable in our house by telling my wife about her barging into our bedroom in that state.

Am I the AH in this case for not talking about this incident to my wife. I am afraid that if Ana tells it to her first, it will make me look really bad and guilty. However, if I tell her, I do not want her to blame Ana for any of this and not help her in time of her need. Can someone please help me on how I can tell my wife about this?

Comments

Icy-Doctor23

YWBTA if you do not tell your wife. Never keep secrets as a team with your house guest against your wife!

fallingintopolkadots

If she really was just walking in to get an item of clothing (assuming she and your wife have that kind of clothes sharing friendship) and she was truly not aware that you were home, then this really doesn't sound like a big deal at all. It's a bit concerning that Ana is so worried about it, granted she is coming out of an abusive relationship. It really shouldn't have needed to be kept secret, and it's clearly bothering you to do so.

"Hey sweetie, I had an awkward moment with Ana the other day that she felt really embarrassed about and didn't want to tell you, and I tried to honor that, but I feel weird about keeping such a benign snafu quiet. I came home from work early that one day and went straight to the bedroom to hang out. I knew Ana was home, but I hadn't said anything to her to let her know I was home too. I was minding my own, when she came in to borrow an item of your clothing and she was topless because she didn't know I was home or in our bedroom. She was extremely embarrassed, I averted my eyes immediately, she explained about the clothes and apologized -- it was awkward all around -- and then she exited and got dressed. Do you have any questions or concerns?"

OOP: Thanks. This is really helpful. May be I am overthinking this, but I have read that in these situations, the victim's trust in men is very fragile. Would it be horrible if I tell my wife after I told Ana I would not mention about this incident? Should I talk about this with Ana first?

CymruB

Your wife and your relationship takes priority

Update - 1 days later

I wrote a post yesterday about an embarrassing situation that happened between my wife's best friend who is currently staying at our house. I was not sure how to bring it up to my wife and you guys really helped me a lot in understanding the urgency of telling my wife. I also got some cool ideas on how to bring up the subject without making it awkward for anyone. For everyone saying Ana was doing it on purpose, I did not agree with it as I am an extremely average looking person and woman don't chase me. However, things since last night have been just crazy and I think I am spiraling a bit. Sorry for the long post.

So, I decided to tell my wife last night as soon as she came home about the incident. I liked the idea of jokingly bringing up casually so that we both can laugh about it and then forget it. Last night, when my wife came home, I made sure I stayed in our bedroom. I asked Ana if she could stay with my kid downstairs. As my wife was changing, I asked her if Ana still borrow her clothes. Ana had to borrow them regularly when she first moved (long story). My wife told me yes and she has told Ana she can take anything from her closet if she needs it. I asked my wife if Ana told her about the funny incident from Friday. My wife said no, and I told her the whole story about how I came home early, and Ana came in the room almost naked to get her clothes, and how embarrassing it was for both of us.

As my wife was listening to this, she completely froze and turned pale. She started murmuring in Spanish (which is her and Ana's native language). I don't understand Spanish really well, but I understood the words "hombre casado" and "orta vez". I asked her if she is ok, and she sat next to me and asked me to explain everything in detail. I just told her it was nothing and she must have not heard me coming in. I was trying to laugh it off, but my wife had water in her eyes. I kept on telling her it was not a big deal, but she kept on asking me for more details. She asked me how Ana talks to me. I told her that Ana barely talks to me since she moved in except few words here and there.

My wife then asked me about three weeks ago when my wife had gone to visit her parents for four days. Ana did not want to go with her and stayed back. I told her that Ana was just acting normal. She or I would cook dinner after I got home from work while the other took care of the kid. The only thing different was Ana generally spending her evening in her room. However, when I was sitting in the living room watching TV after the kids slept, Ana came and sat on the sofa next to me but did not talk to me. I asked her if she wants me to change the channel or stream something she likes, and she just said she wanted to get out of her room. However, she did not flirt with me or do anything unusual. I kept on telling my wife that it was just an accident, and I really did not understand why she reacted so emotionally to it. My wife refused to answer and just said ok and agreed with me. However, she told me I should have told her about the incident sooner and should not keep any secrets from her and gave me a big lecture. I told her that I did not think it was a big deal and thought Ana would tell her, but glad I brought it up.

After dinner, my wife messaged Ana to join us, and she came out. While talking, my wife brought up the incident and told Ana that I mentioned about the incident, and she does not need to feel embarrassed. Such things happen when we are all in the same house and is not a big deal. Ana was firstly taken by surprise, but then told my wife she was just scared to tell her because she thought my wife would judge her because of her past. My wife gave her a stare, and she quickly changed the topic.

At night, I asked my wife what the hell was going on. I told her to please not keep any secrets from me, and if she does not tell me, I will directly ask Ana about what her past has got to do with anything. My first guess was Ana might have had a thing for me before we got married or something. But my wife was very reluctant to answer and kept on trying to change the subject and cuddle. However, I kept being persistent, and she finally spilled the beans.

Apparently, when Ana was in her early 20s, she was in relationship with a married coworker who was twice her age. It was a kind of sugar daddy relationship, and he told her that he was in an open relationship (or that's what Ana told my wife) and he would leave his wife in few years once the kids go to college. This makes sense now, because Ana is very pretty (like Miss USA level), and I never understood why she was single for most of the time I knew her. She eventually ended that relationship and started dating her boyfriend Jim, who turned out to be an abusive asshole. My wife said she suspects Ana was still involved with the older guy while in relationship with Jim, which explains why he kept on accusing her of cheating. That is why my wife became emotional when I told her what Ana did because she was worried Ana has no boundaries regarding married men. My wife said that Ana always looks up to us and praises me for being such a loyal partner and how lucky my wife is. My wife was a worried initially when she brought Ana home, but her actions from the time when my wife was away clearly show that she respects the boundaries, and it must have been an accident. My wife told me she is grateful I let Ana live in our house and observe what a healthy and happy marriage looks like.

Today morning was even more weird. I got up early as I could not sleep well and went down for a cup of coffee. After 5 minutes Ana walked into the kitchen and told me she was relieved my wife did not overreact to Friday incident. She said I am a good husband and gave me a hug and peck on the cheeks. She has never hugged me in the last 6 months. She seemed to be in a happy mood and was making small talk with me while having coffee.

I cannot believe my wife did not tell me such a huge detail about Ana for all these years. It's completely possible she cheated all through the relationship with Jim, and my wife is just covering for her all along. She even kept it a secret from me (after giving me a lecture about how we should never have secrets), and I don't know what else she is hiding. Everything just seems very confusing at this point. I feel angry at my wife for lying to me all these years for Ana. I also now see Ana differently. I am also worried that me trivializing the incident to my wife might have sent wrong signals to Ana.

Comments

Full-Friendship-7581

Uh, also tell your wife about the hug and kiss on the cheeks.

TW1TCHYGAM3R

This might be normal for some cultures but right after what just happened? That's a red flag.

balancedbreaks

This!! Ana is playing the long game. She has gotten away with everything so far. Now she will just keep pushing the boundaries. Of course, she will do it slowly so OP will think it was all unintentional.

VegetableBusiness897

She is def testing the boundaries, working the edges.... To see how much she can get and how far she can go. Can't believe OP didn't straight arm her across the kitchen...unless??

OOP: I have not told my wife yet. Things were a bit icy between us since yesterday as I am still upset at her for keeping secrets from me for all these years. I know its Ana's personal life, but I feel a bit betrayed that for all these years, she knew Ana was with a married man and never even mentioned it to me. We had a talk in the evening, and she apologized, but then we both dropped the subject and took our son to the playground as the weather was finally nice and had an amazing time.

However, I plan to tell her as soon as we both are alone at night. As I said in the comments, I do not think she will mind since it's not uncommon for her friends to give a quick peck on cheeks when saying hello. Infact, I was not comfortable with it at the start, and now am used to it. Her mom, cousins, friends, everyone kisses me. There are also weird rules, where married women like my wife just hug, but non-married friends give a kiss (unless you family). Also, only girls give a kiss, but men don't kiss girls on cheeks (I learned that the hard way). I am not Latino (Columbian to be exact) and may be someone who is familiar can explain the rules here so people who don't know the tradition won't misinterpret it as anything sexual.

Also, I never keep anything from my wife, and hence I felt so guilty about my actions over the last week. I am sure I will mention it to her before the end of the day.

New Update - 6 weeks later

I wrote a few posts a month ago regarding my wife's friend Ana accidently walking into our bedroom topless to get my wife's clothes while I was in the room. We addressed the issue the next day, but I learned more about Ana's past and why my wife was uncomfortable due to the situation. My wife and I talked to Ana and told her it was not a big deal and we all decided to move on from the incident.

After I posted the update, lot of you advised me to tell my wife about Ana hugging and kissing me (on the cheek) the following morning. I felt uncomfortable with the situation and the comments really made me nervous. Most of you were reading my post as a telenovela or a start of a porn movie and the comments were really not helping calm me down. You may not like this part, but I just decided to get off Reddit for a while and try to think through the situation on how to tell my wife.

I felt that my wife treats Ana as family and just like her sisters. I have known my wife's sisters since they were in their early teens. I have had similar incidents happen with them all the time, and I never made a big deal out of it. There were so many times we had to tell them to keep their tops on when sitting in our backyard pool area when they were younger, and God knows how allergic they are to wearing pants around the house. However, I just treat them as they are my sisters. I decided I need to do the same with Ana and treat her like my wife's sisters. I also wanted to communicate that clearly to both Ana and my wife so they we don't get in such uncomfortable situations anymore.

That night, I was talking to my wife and decided to put a positive spin on the incident that happened early morning. I asked my wife if she noticed anything different with Ana. I told her that she woke up early with me today and greeted me with a hug and kiss and also helped me make breakfast. I told her that I am glad she finally looks happy and is returning back to her old self and how proud I am of my wife that she is such a kind-hearted person who helped a friend in need.

My wife seemed happy with my comment and started saying that she also noticed Ana was chattier in the morning and was cleaning her room and talking about applying for jobs again. I told my wife that I feel Ana is like one of her sisters and I am happy she also considers us as family and is comfortable around us.

The next few weeks were great. Ana started waking up early in the morning around the time I woke up (5am). We always had coffee together and had nice chats. She also helped me with breakfast and getting lunch boxes ready. She asked me if she can join my gym and if I can teach her some resistance training exercises. Her therapist told her it would be good for her to workout.

So, we started going to gym 3-4 times a week in the evening before picking my son from daycare. It's nice to have a regular gym partner and someone to geek out about the daily protein intake. I also told her when we were cooking that she is so much less annoying than my SILs and I wish she was my SIL. She just smiled at the comment.

Ana has already had a few interviews and also contacted her old job who seem interested in hiring her back. She told us two weeks ago that she will be looking for apartments. We already saw two apartments in our suburb and hopefully should finalize that soon. My wife jokingly told her that her dating prospects are going to be bleak if she stays in our suburb, but Ana told us that she is going to stay away from relationships at least for a while now and work on herself. Plus, she enjoys our gym and loves spending time with our son.

About the hugging and kissing, I think I have decoded it. A hug from Ana is normal and I get one every morning. However, I think she kisses people on cheeks as a way to say thank you. Things are really looking positive for Ana and we are very happy that she was able to get thru a bad patch in her life. She had isolated herself from everyone after the incident seven months ago. However, she plans to join my wife and son on her summer trip to my in-laws in few weeks, unless there are any updates on the employment front. I just hope the best for her and am glad that I did not make a big deal out of the situation. I am also glad to have such a kind and understanding wife who was there for her friend in need.

Comments

SaraLebowski

If this works out for you guys, that's great. For me it's such huge red flag, that she wakes up same time as you, joined the same gym as you and want's to spend a lot of time with you plus is looking at places to rent near you. Maybe it's because I've seen too many stories like that end in a horrible way. Again, if it works out for you guys it's great, to me it's one red flag after another and seems like a start of something fishy.

Unlikely-Candle7086

Glad I wasn’t the only one. It sounds like they are dating now. I found the whole thing full of inappropriate red flags too.

ASweetTweetRose

100%. Totally dating. It sounds like he spends more time with Ana than he does his wife. He never once mentioned the time he spends with his wife.

Anisaxxx

I felt uncomfortable reading how much she’s inserted herself in your life. There’s still red flags waving and you’re either stupidly oblivious or you’re enjoying the attention that you choose to be oblivious.

Potato-Brat

The more I read, the more it made me think of the movie "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle".

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. The OOP is posting in and

Concluded as per OOP

1 update - Medium

- 11th June 2024

- 25th June 2024

AITA for taking away my brother's plus one and inviting his girlfriend myself?

I kind of know I am the asshole, but I need to know how bad it was.

My brother is 29 and has been with Lia for about 2 years. We all like her; she is super nice. I am getting married next April and sent an invite to my brother's apartment. We decided to send invites to households and not individuals. For example, our aunt received an invite for her family and not for each individual.

Last Thursday, we met at my parents' place. It was just the core family because of some tax reasons, lol. While there, I asked my brother about Lia's dietary restrictions. I know that she is a vegetarian for health reasons and that she cannot have certain raw vegetables.

He said that she wasn't going to come and that he was taking his girl best friend, Amanda, instead. Now, their relationship is weird af. Amanda has always been stringing my brother along, in my opinion. He always denies having feelings for her, but let's be real here.

Amanda would date other guys, blow off my brother, then when things were on the decline with her partners, she would be attached to him again. Her last boyfriend broke up with her right around the time my brother, his then ex-girlfriend, Amanda, and her ex were supposed to travel to Spain. What did my idiot brother do? Go with Amanda alone because Amanda was uncomfortable with his ex-girlfriend. Obviously, he acted blindsided when his girlfriend broke up with him. I didn't even say anything anymore because it's all so weird.

So, when he said that, I asked if Lia already had other plans. But my brother said that Amanda had asked if she could come because it would be an opportunity to finally see the old gang (we were in the same friend group in high school). I told him that I would have invited Amanda if I wanted her there. Amanda is mean and cold. She always makes disparaging comments about other girls. At every event, around one hour in, she will make some sort of scene that either has her running away crying or sitting mad at a table telling everyone to "leave her alone" and then making a cryptic comment about something "hurting her."

I told my brother I was revoking his plus one and Amanda was NOT coming to our wedding. He accused me of being misogynistic and bigoted because I don't understand opposite-sex friendships. Which is BS. My husband has a female childhood friend who is his best woman. I love her too and she has been amazing. AND SHE RESPECTS FUCKING BOUNDARIES. She always includes me and made a huge effort when I started dating my fiancé to integrate me into the friend group.

Anyway, I said my decision was final. He could take it or leave it, but I would be inviting Lia myself because I like her. He screamed at me and told me to keep out of his business. I said to get rid of his weird fucking feelings for Amanda. He is mad at me. My dad said is none of our deal. My mom is furious with my brother. So Aita?

Edit: to answer some questions

The invite was addressed to the "smith's." Funnily enough, Lia had the same last name as us. Granted, we have one of the most common last names.

Yes, they live together.

The tax thing is nothing huge. My parents have a small buisness but are really bad at keeping track of all their receipts. So every month we go and help them. We digitalis the receipts and put them in a bookkeeping software for the accountant

Amanda is in the comments. Say hi!

Comments

Prudent_Fold190

NTA

I have think bottom line is you don’t want Amanda at your wedding because she causes a scene and brings a negative energy. I think you are well within your right to say she is not allowed at the wedding.

You can invite Lia yourself but by the sounds of your brothers behaviour who knows if they will even still be together by then. Even if they are I wouldn’t count on her sticking around if he keeps prioritizing Amanda over her.

OOP: I like Lia like genuinely as a friend and would like her there. I should honestly just have invited her officially, too. I should have honestly have been able to forsee David would do this.

Prudent_Fold190

I don’t think it’s too late. Tell your brother it’s Lia or no one. It’s your wedding you don’t have to have people there you don’t like.

AllegraO

At this point David needs to be told that if he doesn’t quit whining about this, OP’s gonna invite Lia INSTEAD of him rather than WITH him.

Divyaxoath

If OP likes Lia that much just invite her regardless. Edit: I have came to the realization that this sounds sarcastic. It's not. Lia sounds 100x better than the brother fr

PlaceDue1063

NTA; primarily because you say you intentionally did NOT invite Amanda and that you two no longer get along, despite previously sharing a friend group.

He doesn’t get to bring someone intentionally not invited to your wedding. Unfortunately you can’t control his obsession with Amanda and he likely has to keep destroying relationships before he finally gets that he is prioritizing her over his relationships.

OOP: I gave given up talking to him years ago. I always feel sorry for the amazing girls he brings home, tho. I still talk to his ex. She helped me with .y career. Lol. He is going to end up alone

StatisticianLivid710

Maybe you should invite all his awesome exes, give them a table up front while he’s in the back!

Silmariel

NTA

But just to be safe, tell Lia she is invited even if she isnt with your brother anymore at the time of the wedding because "lets be real here" she can do alot better and its just a matter of time before she realises that and dumps him. Let Lia have a +1 so she can enjoy herself :) That would make her feel truely welcome.

Your brother is a major asshole, and I dont blame you at all for not wanting his side piece at your wedding. I also wouldnt blame you if you didnt want him at your wedding.

OOP: She can so much better. On paper, my brother is pretty great. Amazing job, financial stability, he volunteers at animal shelters and cares about his appearance. And when he is not drooling for Amanda, he is generally really nice and loving. But bro.

snickerdoodle_25

It’s confusing then why he and Amanda aren’t together. They seem to be into each other. Or does he really like Amanda but she uses him as a placeholder and doesn’t reciprocate his feelings? If that’s the case, he needs to put distance there so he can move forward or you’re right, he will be alone until Amanda gets married to someone else.

OOP: It's so weird, man! Idk. She is jealous when anyone spends time with him. I once told him to ask her to have a one-sided open relationship where she gets to do what she wants, and he waits at home for her because he already does that lol

Fatigue-Error

He's her backup plan.

Redditors suspect Excellent-Count4009 is Amanda

Excellent-Count4009

YTA

If he has any sense, he simply will not come to your wedding - that's the correct way to handle AHs like you.

And - if he has any sense, he will go no contact with you AH.

OOP: Yeah I wouldn't mind lol

Excellent-Count4009

Well, if you don't mind your brother and dad not coming to your wedding, that's fine.

But the way you handled it makes you the AH: NOT inviting your brother would have been fine. Giving him an invite, trying to dominate him and decide his relationships for him, and then uninviting his +1 because YOU want to decide who his partner is - that's overstepping.

OOP: My dad is not mad at me, dude lol. He thinks it's unnecessary drama. He doesn't like Amanda either so he is just keeping out

**Judgement - NTA**

Update - 2 weeks later

I listen to Two Hot Takes every day on my commute, so it was a huge surprise when you responded to my post. Thanks for your insights.

Regarding the invitation, I now realize I shouldn't have phrased it as inviting a single person. I thought inviting households would be cute and less pressure for guests. Lesson learned, LOL.

Here's an update I'd like to share with you.

After the confrontation, I didn't hear from Lia or my brother for about two days. During that time, Amanda reached out to me upset about my Reddit post. She called me an asshole and insisted that "Lia is not the only special woman in my brother's life." She argued neither Lia nor I have the right to be selfish with my brother's time, asserting she existed before Lia or any of his girlfriends and would outlast them all. She ended with a presumptuous statement that she would surely see me at my wedding. I was fuming!

I chose not to engage with her other remarks but instead sent her a clear message: "Hello Amanda. You are not invited to my wedding. If you want to see 'the old gang,' please organize a coffee date when they're all in town. Should you appear at the wedding, you will be escorted out, peacefully by staff or with police involvement. Please refrain from contacting me or my husband."

Amanda responded with more emails, mostly vague threats and name-calling, and turned to Instagram to indirectly target me. She tagged me in posts, making my username small so people wouldn't notice me tagged but would see it in my notifications.

She also used an "ask me anything" sticker on her Instagram story, where I'm pretty sure she asked herself leading questions. Highlights included questions like, "What's the perfect outfit for a wedding?" with a photo of herself in a dress captioned, "This... but sadly I'll never get to use it :)" and "What is your pet peeve?" followed by a rant about nosy people who think they have the right to control others.

She flooded her story with "sad quotes" about no longer having a "girls' girl." She tagged me in every single one. Of course, I screenshotted them all, lol.

Some friends reached out when Amanda started spreading a different story, claiming I originally invited her but later disinvited her because Lia hates her and pressured my brother to do the same.

The cool part? Not one person believed her. Many of our old high school friends have cut ties with Amanda, and the few guys who still talk to her are more linked to my brother. They reached out to let me know Amanda was spreading rumors. The girls in the group blocked her after she vented to them, which led Amanda to start bombarding their phones. My brother panicked, thinking I'd started a campaign against her.

Speaking of my brother, he called and texted me multiple times, furious that I excluded Amanda and even blamed me for any harm she might come to. He went as far as calling our mother, saying Amanda was depressed and threatening never to forgive me if something happened to her. My mom advised him to call for a welfare check if he was genuinely concerned because he, as an individual with no training, wouldn't be equipped to handle such situations.

The biggest development is that my brother got kicked out of his shared apartment. Lia called me to say their relationship might not continue and that she might not feel comfortable coming to the wedding. I understood her decision and offered an open ear. We met for coffee, and she recounted their ugly fight. Without going into all the details, Lia didn't hold back. She made my brother read every single text out loud between him and Amanda and sent a copy to one of her male friends, who replied, "Lia, WTF? This is not okay." She used this as evidence that their interactions were, at best, inappropriate and, realistically, an emotional affair. When my brother begged her to stay, she asked him why, knowing he would always choose Amanda. He swore he wouldn't, but his immediate response to a hysterical call from Amanda about "me bullying her" proved otherwise. Lia left while he comforted Amanda in another room. Later, she texted him that he needed to move out while she was away. It's her apartment, and she didn't want to see him until certain conditions were met: cutting Amanda out completely and seeking therapy to address his unhealthy patterns. The fight spanned two intense days.

Lia found solace in your podcast and the comments here. She described it as surreal but helpful. She sends her greetings and wants people in similar situations to know a few things: don't fear being alone because being with someone who's not good for you will make you feel lonelier than being single, never enter a relationship with a "I can fix him" mentality as it usually ends in heartbreak, prioritize yourself, and while trying to work things out is noble, don't depend on it as the solution.

That's pretty much it. It sounds convoluted, like a soap opera, but my day-to-day life has surprisingly been calm. I think my brother really needs to mature and either commit to Amanda or realize he's being strung along.

And to Amanda: Please grow up and leave me alone

Comments

ManufacturerNo6126

Thank god you stayed Strong and Lia got out. Your Brother and Amanda are totaly banana

writing_mm_romance

So Amanda is keeping your brother as a backup plan and he's willing to throw away every relationship he has romantic and otherwise to keep her happy.

Hopefully he comes to his senses before he ends up a sad, broken, lonely man.

MamaNyxieUnderfoot

Nah, I bet they feed off each other, and make everyone around them miserable.

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

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

Youtube link to the full Prime Day ad on Megan Thee Stallion's YT channel:

:

(-11) I love Megan, but for me it's a bit too blatantly an advert for Amazon.

That’s kinda the point

I get that, I just don't like it.

I agree. Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Amazon is a horrible company and I’m disappointed that Megan is promoting them.

Because it’s a literal ad and it’s supposed to be blatant??

I'm not annoyed about the ad being blatant, I'm annoyed that she is choosing to advertise Amazon, a notoriously terrible company.

people are a bit too comfortable with their artists selling out completely. absolutely soulless.

you will survive

:

(+66)

(-21) A part of me wonders if she knows what vocaloid is or if her agent thought it would be a good controversial pick that would get the incels talking. Honestly it seems as though a lot of things rappers have been doing recently have been more to generate controversy than their genuine interests. It's always been like this but it's just got worse. Interestingly enough, no one here seems to care.

I can't say for sure about Vocaloid, but Megan has always been a huge anime fan so I wouldn't put it past her. She's spoken about her love of anime on many interviews and even did a Crunchyroll collab iirc.

Oh now this is something I never knew about. Wow that's pretty interesting. Good for her.

lol I only know about Megan because she's a weeb who keeps cosplaying in public and people react to her constantly cosplaying anime. I'm sure she knows who Hatsune Miku is

Oh this is my first time ever hearing about this.

(-22) I got this thing called a job where I’m there for 40 hours a week. If you think letting the Hollywood types get further and further into the anime industry is good then your smoking crack.

Hey incel, Megan the Stallion has been a anime fan since she was a teenager in high school, and she's not a "Hollywood type"

And you still aren’t able to touch grass? That’s not good

(-13) And you still can’t comeup with an actual rebuttal and just use a months old tiktok comeback.

That’s because your point doesn’t even warrant a rebuttal since it came out of your a$$

(-13) It didn’t come out of my ass. You see how bad Hollywood is doing these days? Even crappy isekai Anime series are more bearable than what Netflix has to offer. But yea lets let the Hollywood crowd get closer to anime. Also if were talking about asses you definitely are a fatass. The people who say go touch grass are the ones who play valorant or overwatch all day.

Nah, I don’t play live service game, that’s as much of a waste of time as bitching and moaning about a celebrity liking anime/cosplaying and acting like it’s such a huge threat to anime somehow…

(+/-0) It’s a PR event from Amazon corporate because they’re trying to get into the anime industry. I mean maybe you’ll “bitch” in 10 years if Hollywood gets tangled up enough into the industry and anime properties start going to shit.

(-51)

She's done a bunch of anime cosplays lol. And she's not the only celebrity to do so. What's the issue?

(-30) She’s another narcissist celebrity who thinks they are god. We got enough of those ruining shit in America. Keep them away from Japan.

You think Japan doesn't have any narcissistic celebrities lmao? That's how it is with any industry with famous people, a lot of them are assholes. And Megan isn't really one of them. Plus it's just cool to see something that was once a niche hobby be repped by a very famous celebrity

(-20) Japan definitely has bad celebrities but theres nowhere as much celebrity worship as there is in the USA. The worshipping is so bad we have dumb articles like this pop up. If you think Megan is better than the rest than you just don’t pay attention to the types of people the pop industry is full of.

1. her doing this isn’t going to mean shit in Japan, save for maybe some people appreciating the cosplay, it’s not gonna “ruin” your precious fandom
   2) she’s just into this stuff, celebrities have hobbies too, fuck off

(+2) Ever hear the saying give them an inch they take a mile. Celebrities have hobbies but she’s doing this for business reasons. This whole PR event was pushed by Amazon. It’s obvious that Amazon, Netflix and the US Hollywood industry wants a piece of the anime industry.

-

one:

Nah the way this is actually true 😭
There's an old interview from her high school where they cancelled a convention bc it fell on the same day as prom or something

[removed] Nah the way this is actually true
Did you use both your brain cells to figure that out? Jfc…

Angry liddo man

two:

[removed] They aunt Jemima off syrup bottles cause of complaints but it's ok to dress like a slave???

There is a difference between an individual choosing to dress a certain way and a corporation using slave imagery to sell corn syrup. Don't be a potato.

Becoming Potatoes

[removed] Oh really, what about when Trudeau went to a party wearing blackface. It was a custume that he CHOSE as a chose not to make money but people wanted him to give up his job and wanted an apology for his chose. It appears black people can do whatever they want with repercussions like blonde wigs, Gerry curls, white face, etc and nobody says nothing. What about putting a statue for George Floyd? The man was an out and out criminal and done nothing for the USA except rob it.

three:

[deleted] I recently saw umbra on 60 second docs (snapchat, youtube show) so I think they've hit it mainstream! They are also located in Vegas so it makes sense as they have easier access to stuff like celebs.
It could be that she directly wanted an umbra wig bc she saw their video. Recently umbras accounts have been skyrocketed with views/followers too so im p sure they're mainstream as far as cosplay creators go. Or maybe her team looked up wigmakers and found theirs account

I definitely wouldn’t classify them as mainstream imo ahaha I mean obviously still very famous in the cosplay community but outside of that no one in public is going to really know about her, wig making is still a VERY niche type of hobby, most people still don’t even know who Hatsune Miku is in my experience and I live in a pretty anime forward metro type area. I haven’t even heard of 60 sec docs!
either way they’re obviously getting more popular and it was still a shock to see Megan use them ahaha very very cool stuff

[deleted] They have over 300k followers on instagram, and have tens of millions of views on their Reels since the past few months which means there has been a sudden shift from the average cosplay audience to a casual Reels viewer. I dont use tiktok but after a quick search it has 400k followers (followers on tiktok often means less than IG since it is easier to get followers)
Compared to other cosplay icons like Kinpatsu (495k) Kamui (over 1m) Yaya Han (601k) & Stellachuu (526k) to name a few, this would definitely make umbra known to a lot of casual viewers. I wouldn't say they're necessarily famous like the others, but it does mean they are on the brink of becoming a mainstream creator. These other creators have been in the public eye for many years, even decades to receive this much publicity.
Like I said before, short form =/= fame. But it does mean more people have seen specific videos to have seen their work.

sure but i still don’t define them as mainstream, those numbers don’t really mean much, most of those views are cosplayers or the like and even if a more disconnected person sees one of her videos I really doubt they’re going to think about her much past that lol Again like, not even 1/10 people you run into irl would have heard of her more popular yes, but not mainstream, not even remotely
I’ve also never heard of a mainstream wigmaker, like it would probably be different if umbra herself did full cosplay and actively marketed those but, I really don’t think a wig maker will ever be particularly mainstream like Megan herself or even miku because of how niche wig making is in the first place in mainstream society. Popular in those specific communities yes, but not a mainstream name.
Edit: I can’t reply to you if you block me/delete your comments lmfao You did not say what I said, you said because of her numbers she’s mainstream or about to hit mainstream. I said I don’t think she will ever actually be able to be classified as mainstream. It is not a household hobby lol she will never be that popular, it will probably always be fairly niche but popular in those communities like I’ve said. Those numbers still aren’t considered making it mainstream. stupid ass argument

[deleted] I literally just said that.
Now you are arguing semantics. I am referring to mainstream content. As in, the average Reels user who picks up their phone would have seen their videos.
Nobody is saying they have reached celebrity status. None of the most famous cosplayers have really reached celebrity status. You have to admit how truly fascinating it is watching a cosplay creator reach videos with tens of millions of views, though, because it means celebrities have seen their work.
God, I hate reddit. Why do I ever log onto here.

[deleted] You put words in my mouth & started Reddit trolling about semantics. Very mean person.
What would Miku say about your behavior 😔

Uh okay dude lol if you say so, I’m just backing up my points and not insulting you lol god forbid I respond to someone actively arguing with me with valid information and experiences. Plus you did say those things in your first comments? I can’t double check because again, you deleted them. Word your arguments better if you think I haven’t understood what you’ve replied with. have a great day
weird definition of trolling

[deleted] Has it ever occurred to you that not everything online is an argument, and some people are genuinely passionate about things? There was no argument & I am not interested in arguing. When I clarified about my comment, you kept pressing, so I deleted the comments. Yet you still kept persisting by editing your own comments to antagonize me.
It is not everyone's duty to reword their comments online just to please you. Miscommunication happens. I genuinely love cosplay, wigmaking, & Miku as they're my greatest passions, and I love talking about them !

you also kept pressing? and insulted me? I wasn’t really rude or directly insulting at any point. Just responding with what I know. I’m allowed to disagree with you, I don’t really know what to tell you. Anyone is allowed to post their opinion or disagree with it online. Just sounds like you can’t take criticism of any kind. You keep replying to me and rather aggressively so I don’t know why you don’t expect me to respond lol

four:

[removed]

boy i sure do wonder what you could’ve possibly been implying here

[removed] Oop. Here come the POC to look for racism where there isn't any. Are you gonna start playing the victim too?

the fact no one mentioned POC and that's what you went straight to, implies that's exactly what you meant. freak

[removed] Harsh words from a high schooler. Ouch. That hurts me sooo much.

I haven't been in high school for nearly a decade...? anyway you clearly thrive off internet discourse. what's the point in provoking people? are you that bored?
why not just enjoy what's very obviously, a really good cosplay
If the "trashy people" even bother to look into miku, who says they'd like it? esp if they're so "trashy"

[removed] Then don't talk like a highschooler. Who tf even says "freak" anymore? What is it, 1992? Jesus.
Lemme go cosplay Lando Calrissian complete with a wig then. Or maybe afro ninja, with an Afro wig. That should go over well, right?
Money can buy good cosplay. I'm not impressed that a rich person paid another individual for high quality cosplay shit. That's tacky. I've seen better shit people have made themselves.
Trashy people just like what's popular. They have no real options. They go with the flow. So if they're really into Megan here and then see she's into Miku they might get into it just because it's the "thing to do".
The general public is full of full idiotic people just following each other around, copying each other's ideas.

you're reallly sad

[removed] Says the person who tried to tell me off and is now wasting their own time replying lmao.
Also kind of crazy you said "You're really sad" cause that's the same thing I said to your mother after she saw you post birth. Poor woman was never the same again.

I am not The OOP, OOP is

OOP Has since deleted their account

Am I the asshole for asking my husband's best man to wear a tuxedo?

Originally posted to

TRIGGER WARNING: body shaming, manipulation, controlling behavior, bullying

  June 12, 2024

I (26F) am  getting married to Mark(28m), a handsome, responsible, intelligent man with a kind heart and a great sense of humor. My sister Jennifer (23F) is going to be his "best man."

Jennifer is best friends with my husband Mark (26m). He's known her more than twice as long as he's known me. We only really met and talked at any length about 3 years ago or so. They were co-workers together at her high school job, and she's been a part of his gaming group since then. They went to the same college, and they're coworkers again now working for his friend John's (42m) company. Mark was in college for the better part of a decade getting two undergraduate degrees and his PhD, and Jennifer ended up doing the same major as him, likely due to his encouragement. She's thinking about her masters in the same field, but they both work full-time now. 

In addition to being coworkers and playing dungeons and dragons together, they also game online, and they hang out all the time. They've gone to conventions together, either as part of a group, or just the two of them. They do local classes and events together, and Mark helps Jennifer with her photography and editing.

While she has a solid full-time job she likes, Jennifer still has aspirations of being a model/influencer. She loves fashion, and she's also into cosplay.

After we got engaged, we were at a family dinner, and I was talking to Mark about the wedding party, and I mentioned that even though I have two sisters, I wanted my own best friend Helen (26f) to be my maid of honor.

Mark said that was great, because he actually wanted to ask Jennifer to be his best man. Jennifer immediately and enthusiastically agreed. Being a female best man is just the kind of thing She'd love. Obviously, even if that meant she wouldn't be one of my bridesmaids. She also knew that between our other sister and some of my friends I had too many people who needed to be bridesmaids and Mark was worried about being short on groomsmen. 

This was all fine and well until later on when we were talking about what people were going to wear. I picked out my dream wedding dress, and I coordinated the bridesmaid dresses, and Mark was going to have his groomsmen, most of which were other gaming buddies in tuxedos. I had to talk him out of putting them in cosplay/renfaire stuff. However, Jennifer was going to wear a dress. 

Jennifer is a very tall, very attractive woman, and to be perfectly frank, she has a large chest.

The dress that she wants to wear was designed by one of her friends online, and while it's not white or anything (It's mostly red and black and pretty well matches the other groomsmen) And it's formal and fancy, it definitely shows off her figure. I wouldn't say in a slutty way at all, but it just does. She would also, as best woman, stand out from the other men on the groom's side, especially in the heels she wanted to wear with the dress. 

After dropping a few hints here and there and broaching the subject of each side of the wedding party matching and women's tuxedos, I gently requested that Mark have Jennifer wear a tuxedo rather than the dress and shoes she wanted and he had previously liked. 

When they gave me pushback, I pointed out to Jennifer that she might be too exposed or she might distract people with such a flashy dress.

Jennifer gave me a dirty look and said, half under her breath, "are you fucking serious?" And before I could react, she just said "fine. Fuck it. You're the bride. I'll wear the fucking tuxedo."

Mark sighed and half said some things about it being ridiculous, but then when I asked him what he said he just said, "Okay. It's whatever. It's fine." 

Since then, Mark and Jennifer have been passive aggressively making fun of my concerns, with them doing things like Mark comedy ogling her chest, or her making all sorts of boob jokes. She's done things like ostentatiously covering up her chest with her hands when she moves past people while saying things like, "gotta guard the girls, wouldn't want to knock anyone over". Both her and Mark keep making fake Freudian slips about her chest or her figure, and Jennifer even pretended to lose her balance and fall over because "her boobs were too heavy".

They pretty much just do this when I'm around. They seem to think it's hilarious. 

They've made it very well known that Jen is really disappointed about not getting to wear the dress and that her seamstress friend is upset about it too, and Mark has seemed a bit distant and disinterested in wedding planning.

I was looking over some tuxedos for women and making some suggestions to Jennifer, about ones that aren't too tight in the chest or hips, and she just showed me the one that She had already picked out and said, "is this fine, or did you want to further micromanage my specific tuxedo?"

We started to get into a fight, and she accused me of being a bridezilla. When I told her she was being a bad sister, she said that she wasn't the one who was being body shamed and told what to wear. I told her My requests weren't body shaming, and she said that they were the same thing.

My parents completely took Jennifer's side and said that I should just let her wear the dress. Obviously, she showed it to them too, and they thought it was beautiful. They like her friend too, and her friend has done clothing and costumes for / with her before. 

My father said that I should at least stop bothering her about the tuxedo if I'm going to make her wear one, and then I should just let her go with the one she picked. The one she wants though is very high visual impact and it is also very tailored. She said she can match it to the colors but I feel like she'd still stand out. 

When I tried to get Mark to weigh in on this, he just said, "It's your wedding, do whatever you want. I guess I'll tell her to do whatever you want." And I obviously don't feel like he's very invested. I feel like he's not on the same page but he just doesn't want to argue. He's always like that. 

Even though we both have good jobs, both Jennifer and I still live at home with our parents, because housing is ridiculous, and it's been awkward around each other. I've been staying over at Mark's a lot over the last year, and I was supposed to be officially moving in, but he's been kind of cool and passive about it recently. 

Everyone seems to be acting like I'm the asshole here, even though Mark and Jennifer are the ones being passive aggressive and unreasonable. I almost feel I should have just made Jennifer a bridesmaid right off the bat or told Mark that it didn't make sense for him to have female groomsmen.

Am I the asshole for wanting my husband's "best man" to just wear a normal tuxedo?

  June 19, 2024

There is not going to be a wedding. 

John (42m), of all people, Mark's (28m) boss and gaming buddy noticed my(26f) post, as it got way, way more attention than I ever expected.

We've only ever met a couple of times and hardly ever talked before, but he reached out to me with,"This is "John" lol call me". So I called him from the parking lot after work.

John says he’s been married for about 20 years, and he's tried to give Mark relationship advice. He doesn't think we're a good match. He told me that I should talk to Mark and that Mark has been unhappy with our relationship and extremely unhappy with the wedding planning, even to the point that it's a running gag amongst him and his friends. 

I got into it a bit with John, because to be fair to me, Mark's ideas have been ridiculous. Just some of the things he asked for, and which John, Jennifer(23f), and his buddies thought would be "Cool",

He wanted the wedding party to have custom swords/daggers and amulets. He wanted them to have the swords during the ceremony and he thought people would like fantasy amulets. 

Mark had told me that John was willing to pay for the bridesmaid dresses if we had them done by Jennifer's costumer friend. I told him no, because I wanted normal, nice bridesmaids dresses from someplace reputable and that the bridesmaids could buy them themselves. John told me that he had offered this as a bit of a bet with Mark.

Mark wanted to serve mead at the wedding, he said that his friend, John, could provide it and that he made mead in his basement and had tons of it. I obviously said No, because why would I want mead at my wedding, never mind some guys' basement mead? John got a laugh out of this at the time, and talking to me, because he's a nerd who likes to laugh at his own jokes. Apparently, he's very proud of his "basement mead", and They like to make toasts with it. "Basement mead" has apparently become a running gag in their games, as John insisted on telling me. Frankly, John seemed kind of tickled with himself just because he was speaking with me. 

Mark wanted the band at the wedding to play classical covers of video game and superhero music.

Mark wanted the reception to have a "jester" who would wander around doing magic tricks and asking people riddles. 

Some lady that Mark and his friends know asked if she could be an elf at our wedding and wear her "forest gown", and Mark said he'd ask me and He described it as some kind of green Greek toga dress with leaves and elven writing on it, and that she'd have elf ears. It's a wedding not a costume party, so I don't even know why he would ask that.

I mentioned this stuff to John, and he recognized all of it and some more things to add besides, because Mark would always vent to them about the wedding plans, and John just agreed along saying that I was constantly shooting down all of Mark's ideas. 

The point is that all of Mark's ideas were completely ridiculous, and that I wanted to have a wedding and not a Halloween party.

John laughed when I brought this up to him and said that these ideas were "awesome" And thatI was just being “too boring”. 

John said that he thought we weren't a good match, and that he's told Mark that he needs to talk to me. I asked him if he thought Mark and Jennifer were a good match, and he just said yes. I asked if there had been anything between them, and he said no. He said he's "100% certain" they've never hooked up, because, "Mark doesn't have the poker face for it," especially with as much as him and the other group members rib them over it.

He said that Mark is too oblivious for his own good and that the week after her 18th birthday Jennifer said, pretty much straight to Mark, "I'm 18, so you can fuck me now," and Mark just laughed it off as a joke. It does sound like something she’d say because Jennifer does love making inappropriate sexual jokes. John thought there was more to it though. They've had their characters date each other in games. He said they've been “the very model of chastity” since Mark has been dating me. Once at an event Jennifer was supposed to kiss Mark, but instead she kissed the palm of her hand and then had him kiss her palm. John is fully confident that neither of them would cheat.

I went over to Mark's house, because he hadn't called or texted in a while, and he basically confirmed everything John said. 

Mark said that I "stressed him out" when I was over, and he wasn't sure about me moving in because thinking about it gave him anxiety. He didn't like any of my ideas for our house (It was his childhood home, and he's resistant to changing anything. He just has his stuff everywhere and wherever. He kept trying to talk about giving me "some rooms" or "some space" when it's supposed to be "our" home where all of the space belongs to both of us) He was extremely frustrated about the wedding planning and he felt like He didn't have a say.

He said the dress Jennifer wanted to wear was just about the final straw because I told him he could pick the outfits for the groomsmen and I told him Jenn could be in a dress as long as it matched. She really loves the dress, and she got it from her friend, She and John and apparently all of his buddies warned him that I'd "find some way to have a problem with it".

He says that I "talk him in circles" Whenever he tries to choose or change anything, even though all of his suggestions are ridiculous. And he said he'd just about given up caring by the time I complained about the dress, so he didn't bother fighting about it.

He said it upset him the way I was "body shaming Jennifer about her figure and her breasts". He thought I was being jealous and controlling, and that I had been a bridezilla ever since he proposed. 

When I asked him why he even proposed, if I apparently give him anxiety and he doesn't even want me to move in with him, he said he felt like he was pressured to either propose or break up, and he hoped things would get better and that he didn't know if he had a good enough reason to break up. 

When I told him that I never pressured him to propose, he said that all of my friends and family know that I consider it a goal to get married before I'm 30, and he brought up a document on his phone where he had taken notes about what kind of proposal I wanted from all the times I had talked about it. He said that he started the document because of how obviously important it was to me to have a perfect proposal and how often I talked about what I wanted. He proposed because he felt like he had to either marry me or dump me if, "I was going to have time for my plans".

I don't think there's anything wrong with having a timeline for your life, and I wanted to start having kids by my late 20s or early 30s at the latest. I mentioned all of this to Mark again, and he said that that was fine, for me, but that he was kind of on the fence about if/when to have kids, and he mentioned that Jennifer isn't sure about having kids at all and certainly isn't in any hurry about them, but I told him that doesn't have anything to do with anything and that Jennifer is just being shortsighted. 

I asked him if anything had happened between him and Jennifer, and he said no, and I believe him.

I asked him why he wasn't dating Jennifer, and he said that at first she was too young, and then he was seeing someone, and then he was dating me, and he said that he values his friendship with her more than anything. He said that his friendship with Jennifer was "worth not getting to be with her that way", and that she's too attractive to want to be with him.

Apparently, the only reason Mark even started dating me is because he tried flirting with me at a family party we were at, and he said I seemed into him. He doesn't think of himself as handsome, but he is, and He's got his PhD, a great job, and his own house at 28. He's definitely a catch. He didn't agree And he said he's only ever dated his high school prom date, a girl who was kind of his girlfriend until she graduated and left, and me.

Mark apologized and said that he wanted to put a hold on any more wedding or moving plans, and that he wasn't sure about the relationship. I had already started crying, but then I broke down and he apologized again. He said he was "sorry for messing up my plans" And that he kept hoping things would get better. I left as soon as I felt like I could drive.

By the time I got home, Mark had already texted Jenn "your sister is crying. Sorry" and the two of them had been on the phone the whole time, And of course my mom knew And she tried to comfort me but I could just tell she wanted to say I told you so, because she had been warning me I was going to drive Mark away, and she thought he was better with Jennifer too. 

Jennifer said that she tried really hard to have this work out, because she just wants Mark to be happy and that she had tried inviting me to gaming and for Christmas before last she bought me a switch with games Mark likes and that she was sorry stuff happened this way. She accused me of not really liking or caring about Mark and just wanting a "generic husband". When I told her that wasn't fair she mentioned the same stuff from the wedding planning and a bunch of other stuff from our relationship that she said made Mark feel ignored or suffocated. She said that the only reason I liked him was because he ticked boxes and always gave in and let me have my way. We started arguing, but our mom stepped in before we could get into it too bad.

I asked Jennifer about what this meant for her and Mark and she said he is absolutely her best friend and nothing is ever going to change that and that she loves him. When I asked how she loves him she just said that's not a discussion she wants to have right now. Our mom said everyone needed to cool off and that was enough for Jenn to step away and drop the subject.

One of the commenters on my original post asked why I was “marrying my sister's boyfriend”, and my mom asked very nearly the same thing. She questioned how I had started dating Mark just about as soon as his age gap with Jennifer stopped being awkward and she implied I shouldn't have been dating him in the first place. That's not fair at all. It's not like he's her property, and Jennifer can clearly just go get whatever man she wants. It's not like she had any kind of claim on a man just for knowing him.

Even while she was trying to comfort me and saying that things will be alright, my mom wouldn’t stop implying that I was wrong for going after Mark in the first place or criticizing me for how the relationship went. She said that Mark wasn’t the man for me, and I could tell she meant that he belonged with someone like Jennifer, as if I’m not good enough or what I want doesn’t matter.

And then I caught her talking to Jen about how things should be fine and how *she* should try not to be to mad at *me* as if I was the one in the wrong or I should be apologizing to her.

Jennifer just kind of went on like normal and went ahead and went to go game with Mark and her friends the next day. I know they've been chatting online like normal.

I gave Jennifer Mark's ring to give back to him, And then I had a missed call from him while I was in the shower and a text that said, "Okay. I guess we are broken up then. I'm sorry."

I don't know if I messed this up or if everyone else were the assholes here.

Sorry this was so long. A lot of stuff has come out.

I feel like I'm definitely not going to get married by the time I'm 30.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

One person argues that their favourite character isn’t gay but it would totally be ok if he was, but he’s not so stop saying he is

Thread 1

Thread 2

Thread 3

I am NOT the Original Poster. That is . He posted in and his own page.

Mood Spoiler: frustrating for outside reasons, but hopeful for OOP and his wife

Original : June 17, 2024

I (21M) have been deployed for the past 10 months and I will be getting home in 1 week. My wife and I’s plan was for her to be the only one to know what date I was coming back, so that when I get leave we can go back and surprise all of our family and friends.

My wife (21F) visited home a couple weeks ago for a family event, and while she was there she spent a day with my mom and 2 younger sister (hs age). My mother is very pushy and hates surprises. So much so that me surprising her by coming home would make her mad at me. My wife and I knew we would eventually have to tell her because of this, but we’re waiting until the last minute because she would have told my sisters if she knew my date. Well, while my wife was there, my mom pushed and pushed. Telling her that she wouldn’t speak to her, let the girls go places, and she had to know so she could take days off work. My wife gave her a week range of my leave (a couple weeks after I get back) so that she could request off.

Well, my mom texted me today Telling me that she would be here for the welcome home when our plane lands. I asked if she cleared this with my wife, seeing as she apparently planned to stay with us in our 1 bedroom apartment, and she said no. I asked if the girls knew and were coming, and she said no.

My mom has done a few things that presses between my wife and I, so I lost it on her. Told her I wouldn’t be giving her the date that I fly in, that if I wanted her there I would want my sisters there as well. I stopped there until she started complaining that she was a single mom who raised me on her own, and that I should want to see her first. That’s when I told her I didn’t want her in my house at all when I first get home. I am a married, grown man now, I don’t need my mom, I want to see and spend time with my wife first and foremost. She pressed further saying “I’ve been here for u since before u were born, she’s been here for 4 years.” Eventually trash talking my wife, saying she doesn’t even have a real job and doesn’t contribute. My wife is a nanny while she is in school, and she gets paid well, so she absolutely does contribute more than enough.

This is where I may be the asshole. I told my mom that I was tired of her badgering, that I wanted to come home to my wife and be alone in our home with our pets. My wife and I would not want to host her, and we wanted the house to ourselves so that we can have sex wherever and whenever we please because we haven’t seen each other in so long.

My mom cried. She’s sending me long paragraph texts every few hours about how she doesn’t know where her caring son went, about how I need to let my wife go because I use her for her body, about how all I care about is my own pleasure, and I have no care for my family at all.

So Reddit, AITA? I haven’t responded to the messages my mother is sending, but if I get ideas from the possible comments, I might

Relevant Comments:

Commenter: Good job finally standing up to her. Stop giving her info and stop talking to her. “Mom until you learn to act like an adult and stop trash talking my wife to me, I will not be communicating with you. I am very disappointed in you and how incredibly selfish and immature you are acting.” Don’t make your wife deal with this jerk.

OOP: I haven’t given her info. She told me she was coming for my plane to land and she didn’t even know when that date was. The only info she got was from my wife, and was quite literally worded as “he will likely have leave within these few weeks, but those weeks could change.”

Could she find you at the airport?

OOP: She won’t be able to even if she wanted to. The runway we land on is on base.

(to a different commenter): She literally cannot get onto base without me or my wife with her, or my permission for a visitors pass. I won’t be giving that permission, so she can try everything she wants. She’s not getting in.

Commenter: You need to tell your CO and XO about your mom. Do not put it past her to try contacting your unit to get information on where you are, when you are, and how you are coming home. As embarrassing as it is, you've got to protect yourself here and probably go low to no contact with your mom for a while.

OOP: She did this in basic training. Called the base I was at SO MANY TIMES that they had to pull me from intake to call her and tell her to leave people alone. After that, I knew she didn’t need information. She doesn’t even fully know my MOS.

Commenter (part of a longer comment): She's an example of a manipulative parent. Here's a paragraph from a article about manipulative parents, and their signs : "Parents using emotional blackmail will often threaten to withdraw their love or approval if the child does not comply with their wishes. This can manifest as guilt-tripping the child, making them feel responsible for the parent’s happiness, or expressing extreme disappointment when the child does not meet their expectations."

OOP: That paragraph fits what she’s been doing to a tee. What confuses me is none of my mom’s behavior like this started until we got married. Before, when she was my gf, she always wanted her around, joked about trading me and my wife, invited her everywhere my family went, now it bothers her when we spend time together and she isn’t invited when she thinks she should/can be.

Commenter: She's jealous of your wife. She want's to be close to you (platonically, of course). I've heard cases like these. She obviously cannot grasp the idea of you becoming an adult. You need to tell her know your not her little boy anymore.

OOP: I have. It didn’t work much, so I just started going LC. Mostly keeping it about my sisters, if we will visit, and of course this because I wasn’t willing to just let her think she could step in on me and my wife. ESPECIALLY without consulting my wife first, considering she is the only one home taking care of our place right now

Commenter: sounds like a tough situation, man. i had something similar with my in-laws once - it's not easy to navigate family dynamics sometimes. do you think she'd respond better if your wife talked to her instead?

OOP: No, I think she would go after her more honestly. After her telling my wife she wouldn’t speak to her or let my sisters spend time with us if my wife didn’t tell her when I’d visit home, I think having my wife tell her she isn’t welcome would go just the same if not worse.

Not only that, but my wife is a people pleaser. She extremely sweet and would do anything to accommodate anyone, even if it isn’t what she wants. She’s getting better about having a “stronger spine” as she calls it, but I don’t want to put her into a position that would make her uncomfortable.

If my mom went to my wife herself, I would want my wife to stand up for herself, but I don’t want to ask her to do that for me.

Commenter: OMG, you need to go either NC or very LC with your mom. JFC, wow, that's just...wow... been there..mom was the last thing I thought about when I got back from deployment. I mean God forbid you get stationed overseas. What will she do then fucking move in? You need to nip that in the bud now.

OOP: I already don’t contact her much outside of for my sisters and neither does my wife. Our plan when my contact ends is to move to a base even farther from home, where we would have to fly for visits. That would take our amount of visits down a lot because we travel with our pets, but they’re both large dogs and we don’t want to put them under a plane, and plane tickets on top of pet boarding is expensive. If people would want to see us, they would have to come to us.

Oh and my mom refuses to get on a plane ;)

Commenter: NTA. Your mom is way too involved in your life. Has she always had such an unhealthy attachment to you?

OOP: After reading the comments and thinking back on how things have been when I was a kid to now, it seems that when our dad passed away I became her stand in.

(to a different commenter) She practically expected me to be a “father figure” to my sisters starting at 8. Even now, I have my mom’s calls blocked because when my sisters are in trouble, she calls me and tells me to talk to them instead of dealing with it herself.

OOP is voted NTA

Update : June 19, 2024 (2 days later)

A few people asked to stay updated, so here is the first one. Spoiler alert, it’s not necessarily a fun one.

Unfortunately, because of another wife sharing our flight date all over Facebook, our return has been pushed back an entire month.

I called my wife to let her know, and we are both devastated. I only had enough time for one phone call, so I asked my wife to let family and friends know, including my mother.

Yes, I know many people might not be happy about that, but again. She didn’t recieve a date, my wife’s text to her was just that I would not be returning until a month later, or more.

My mother’s reaction to that news has truly solidified what many comments were telling me. I was raised by a narcissist. Her text back to my wife was “Oh, that’s great! That is actually is much better timing for me!”

My wife’s response to my mother was: “Do not say that to (my name). He is devastated that he will be gone longer, and he has been talking about wanting to be home asap since just a few months in. I wish you wouldn’t have even said it to me, as I’m devastated by his return being delayed as well. It is extremely selfish for you to be glad he is away from home for even longer simply because it works better for you. I have never in my life heard of a mother being glad that her child will be overseas longer than what was planned.” After that, she blocked my mom. Her shiny spine is really developing!

I have not reached out to my mother, and I will not be doing so. I won’t block her, as with my sisters being minors, I would like for one of us, my wife or I, to have at least some line of communication in case of some family emergency. However, I will not be texting or calling, and any of her texts or calls will not be answered unless I consider them an emergency.

There were a few questions and deeper explanations from my original post, so I figured I would go into them deeper here.

My father passed away when I was 6. Ever since then, my mom has sort of relied on me when it came to raising my sisters. Even with them being high school aged, it continued. When I went into the military, my mom got upset, saying things at home would be just terrible with me gone, that she didn’t know how she would handle my sisters on her own, and that life would seem more pointless without her son in it every single day. When my wife and I got married and moved to my first duty station, she begged to trade my sisters off, sending one of them to stay with us every few weeks, where they would stay in our living room. She even told us we would need to purchase a hide-a-bed couch for it to work out. Obviously, that had never happened as I told her my sisters were my sisters, and her kids. It was not my responsibility to raise them.

My mom and I were very close when I was growing up. I considered her one of my best friends, and someone I could always go to. That changed when I got married. I also realized that some of the things she did were not healthy or good parenting moments.

My mom started purchasing condoms for me when I was only 12. She was very open about sex with me, and was not one to shy away from it. She was completely fine with me having sex at such a young age, which did lead me to being a bit of a man-whore. Before my wife, I constantly snuck girls in, snuck out to hang out with girls, and whatever else. My wife was the first girl that I brought to my house during the day, introduced to my family, invited her for dinner. My wife was also very strict with her views on sex when we started dating. We were friends before, so she knew I was a bit of a player. Where I viewed sex as something fun, she viewed it as something that should only be between 2 people who truly love each other. She was not down for it until a few months into us dating, and I was willing to wait for her. We still snuck around, but when she snuck me in, we quite literally played Mario cart, watched movies, and hung out all night.

When this part of me changed, it changed something about my mom for some reason. She did used to ask about girls I was sleeping with when I was in high school, but when she asked about my wife when we started dating, and I told her we weren’t doing anything like that, she got frustrated about me “lying.” She stopped buying me condoms, which I was fine with because I didn’t need them in the beginning and when I did, I was 18 and completely fine buying them myself. Before my wife and I ever did have sex, she would come in my room and scream about how she didn’t want me having sex under her roof. I thought that she just realized that encouraging a minor to have sex wasn’t ok.

My mom also liked my wife when she was just my girlfriend. This always confused me until I read people’s comments. Her going from loving her, inviting her to everything, asking where she was when she wasn’t with me, to trash talking her didn’t make sense to me until people in the comments of my last post clarified that it was the fact that she was my wife. Her being permanent is what my mother doesn’t like.

And as far as “cock blocking” my mom has happily done that since we’ve been married. She screeched and hid her face when I kissed my wife at our wedding, she begged us to sleep on a pallet in her living room on our wedding night (we didn’t), she tried calling 3 times a day when we first moved (once around the time I usually got off work, once either during or after dinner, and once at night. Sometimes while my wife were mid tango, sometimes when we were already asleep.) it was very rare that I actually answered these calls, and when she realized her calls were muted they faded away. She FaceTimed seemingly once an hour on our 1st wedding anniversary, again, I didn’t answer. Her wanting us to host her when I 1st got back was not her being clueless. She knew what she was trying to do.

Now that I have a new return date, my mother will not even know the possible weeks I might have leave. She won’t need to, I do not plan on seeing her outside of maybe going out to eat with her, my wife, and the rest of my family. My wife will be organizing it, and will be able to ask my sisters about days my mother is off work.

That’s all I have as far as an update right now. I may post more before returning just based on how things go. I can imagine I will have plenty of an update when I do actually return.

NOTE: I am NOT OOP. That would be , who originally posted this to . Credit goes to for suggesting this BORU.

Spoilers: invasion of privacy, allegations of domestic violence, violation of restraining order

(June 10, 2024)

Throwaway because I have to admit something really embarrassing. I (24m) just had a bad fight with my gf, Ana (24f). We met early in college, started dating 2 years ago and then moved in together 3 months ago. I always thought we were great together. She's smart and funny, we've had the best talks and have similar views on science and politics. But we moved in together and she got upset because I take long showers. I don’t like to talk about it but I’m a hairy guy. Think Luther from Umbrella Academy. I quit sports when I was 13 because I couldn’t deal with what the other guys would say about how much body hair I already had by then. So I shave my whole body and yes it takes a while. Ana and I have never talked about my shaving but she has to know I shave from feeling the stubble.

So Ana started questioning why I spend so long in the shower. I should have just told her but I was too embarrassed to say it takes a while to shave so I said I just like thinking in the shower. Then yesterday while I was in the shower she used a screwdriver to pop the bathroom lock and caught me shaving. She put her hands on her hips and told me I was wasting water and I yelled at her to get out. She didn’t leave and lectured me more on wasting water then I shouted again a LOT louder for her to get the fuck out. It freaked her out and she slammed the door behind her.

I was mad and took a few minutes too cool down and think about what I was going to say to her, but when I got out she had locked herself in the bedroom. I could tell she had her back against the door and was crying. She said I scared her and that she I showed her that I wasn’t the kind of man she thought I was. I told her she had scared me, and that it didn't even make sense why she did it because we don't even pay the water for our apartment. She got more upset and said I didn’t even understand the problem because I showed her that I could be violent and abusive and I just needed to leave. I tried to keep calm and asked her to come out so we could actually talk about what happened, but she just kept saying I wasn’t who she thought I was and I had to leave.

We’ve argued about ideas but never had a fight before, and I swear I’ve never yelled or cursed at her before that. I hate fighting with anyone and am normally the more calm person when our friends have things going on. I feel like my whole world just suddenly fell out from under me. I don’t think this was my fault but I also think none of this would have happened if I wasn’t so self conscious about the body hair issue, or maybe if I had just been honest from the beginning and told her why I take long showers. I’m sure this relationship is over now and things are going to be messed up for a while, but I just want to know am I the asshole for causing this whole mess?

There is no consensus bot, but OOP is generally found to be NTA.

(June 18, 2024)

I am a complete idiot. I’m writing today hoping to save someone else from making the same stupid mistakes I made. I’m trying to think of where to start because after this last weekend I don’t even feel like the things that happened in my first post even matter anymore.

Basically my gf Ana popped the lock the bathroom while I was shaving in the shower to yell at me for wasting water. I shouted at her to get out which scared her bad enough that she told me to leave our apt because she was afraid I could hurt her. People here warned me to be careful with her after that but I thought I knew Ana better than anyone on Reddit and I thought for sure we would be mature and talk about everything once we were both calm. I sent her a text and said we could talk whenever she was ready about what happened or that if she just wanted me gone then we could talk about that too and come up with a plan to separate. I waited but she never texted back.

Then at work on Friday I got called to the front desk. There was a police officer waiting for me there and at first I thought something terrible might have happened. Instead I got served a restraining order. The whole time I was being served I got confused and I don’t know what I was thinking. I know I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what the cop was telling me. After he left I did the stupidest thing anyone could do after getting an OP and I texted Ana. I asked what was wrong and if this was a mistake because from my end this was just a huge misunderstanding and that if we could just talk I knew we could clear this all up. 2 hours later two police officers came all the way up to my desk and I was arrested. Like handcuffs and everything in front of everyone I work with and I was dragged out of the building and taken to jail.

I have NEVER been in trouble in my life and I never once thought I’d end up in jail just like that. I got processed like a full on criminal. I didn’t know what else to do and I called my parents when I could to let them know what happened. My hometown is like 6 hours away but they found a lawyer and then drove over as fast as they could overnight to bail me out. Right now we’re all staying in a small hotel while we figure out things with the lawyer and I can’t even process how things got here. I’m supposed to have a meeting with my boss and HR on Thursday and I have no idea if I’m going to still have a job.

All I can do right now is give others a warning to take things more serious than I did. Especially getting something like an OP. Even if you think there’s no way it could be real or valid don’t be an idiot and question it like I did. Go straight to a lawyer!

OOP added the :

I'm still so confused as to how things are where they are, and there's a lot I don't know, but I had a meeting with my lawyer after he got the report on how I got a restraining order. After everything that happened originally two weeks ago the police were called. They spoke with Ana and some neighbors at my apartment complex, and two people told police in the report that they heard me yell "fuck you" and then they heard loud bangs. I know the fight we had didn't happen the way those people said it did but my lawyer says it's going to be hard to defend against multiple people who said that happened. There's also something about photos of bruises but I have no idea when or how that happened. My lawyer thinks the biggest problem is the neighbor's report and I think they just didn't hear everything that happened through the walls the way it actually did so we have to try and find someone who will say that they heard me shout I actually shouted and that should help a lot.

On the bright side I had the meeting with my job and my manager really defended me. We all agreed that it was a lot of drama that never should have happened at the office, but as long as I don't end up with a felony on my record I will get to keep my job.

So the big issue now is that Ana has a lawyer, my lawyer is talking to her lawyer, all communication has to go through them, and I'm hoping we can find a way soon to get all of this under control.

Thank you to everyone who sent their thoughts and ideas of what to do after my last post. I'm sorry I just haven't been able to bring myself to read through them after everything that happened, but I'll try and get caught up on them over the next few days.

I am not The OOP, OOP is

AITA for not letting my BF drive my dads Ferrari?

Originally posted to & OOP's own page

TRIGGER WARNING: financial exploitation, negging and bullying

  Apr 5, 2021

My dad is wealthy, not like mega rich billionaire wealthy but pretty damn wealthy. My dad owns this Ferrari v12 super car that he LOVES. He takes it out to drive a few times a month when he can and usually likes to take it to a local track. He's very protective of that car and doesnt want anyone driving it. He let me drive it once at his track, and I had like a race car driver instructor with me but honestly I am sorta afraid of it. It's really powerful and just more car then I can handle.

Anyways I'm dating this dude and he saw my dads car when he was over and he asked me if he could drive it. I told him he would have to ask my dad cause its his not mine but that I dont think he would let him because my dad doesnt really want anyone driving it. Anyways he left it alone. He brought it up to my dad later but my dad said no. My dad said he let me drive it once at a track with a race driver in the passenger seat and that he just didnt trust anyone else to drive it.

So my dad went out of town and now my BF is asking me to let him drive the car while my dad is gone. He keeps asking me where the keys are and can he just take it for a spin and I keep telling him no and its making me uncomfortable he keeps asking. Finally he got mad at me and called me a bitch and said I should be supportive of him that I should understand he doesnt have a rich family and will probably never have this oppurtunity again and that if I loved him I would do this for him. I dunno. I get that he doesnt really have another oppurtunity to drive this car but like its just a car and my dad would be really pissed if I let him. AITA? I believe I might be the AH because my BF can't afford a car like this on his own and I feel bad that I'm denying him the oppurtunity to drive one which is something he really wants I am denying him his dream.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

MonkeyBirdWeird

NTA. Do not let him drive that car! It is not worth violating your dad's trust over some dude, and let me assure you, he is just some dude. I grew up poor, and on behalf of all poor people he does not have a right to someone else's possessions. Imagine if you gave him the keys and something goes wrong, imagine how your father would look at you as a person. Is this clearly selfish dude worth the relationship with your dad? Don't let this idiot gaslight you. Breakup with his ass.

OOP

He keeps telling me if I love him I'll let him drive it. But yea I worry, worry he'll kill himself with it or like trash it and my dad will be really mad at me.

9mackenzie

Then you should run from him. He is clearly showing abusive tendencies and is manipulating you.

OOP

I'm hearing that a lot is it really that bad?

~

JudgeJanus

Your boyfriend isn't named Ferris Bueller, by chance? 

To paraphrase the movie, you are not ready for this much heat.  If your boyfriend damaged the car, he has no way to pay for the damages, if you are minors, his parents could sue your father, if he gets hurt in the car.   And he's behaving like a toddler.  Who would let someone who is this immature, drive ANY car???

You are NTA.   But the same way your Dad upgraded his ride, you may want to seriously consider a boyfriend upgrade.

EDIT: A lot of people are calling this abuse and a red flag and honestly I never really thought it was that bad. I just thought teenage boy wants to drive fast car. Like it really didnt register to me that it was abusive or manipulative.

EDIT 2. So that people know I did take the keys and put them in my dads safe about 30ish minutes after this post went up. A lot of people have mentioned he doesnt see a long term relationship with me because he said "this is the only chance Ill get" I honestly didnt register that but yea its got me thinking.

EDIT 3 I guess I have to watch this Ferris  Bueller movie now. I'll probably invite some of my girls over for an 80s movie night.

Edit 4 cant go through all the comments right now I have to get to class but yes I get the message loud and clear and I will come up with an exit strategy. Also any recommendations for 80s movie night? Ferris Bueller obv

Edit 5 Good news and bad news. Good news heard your message loud and clear and today he really showed who he is. Bad news I have more shit to deal with from him. We are over after this. I cant even...

it was too long for an update post in Aita

VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE

  Apr 6, 2021 (next day)

Some background. I come from a wealthy family and go to private school. He comes from a middle class family and goes to public school. I'm 18f hes 18m and we both are seniors in HS. My dad has a Ferrari my BF wants to drive while my dad is out of town my BF is pressuring me to let him drive it while my dad is gone. My dad doesnt let anyone drive that car. He only let me drive it once at a racetrack with a racecar driving instructor with me. MY BF says if I love him I'll let him drive my dads car. But I dont want to let him because its not my car its my dads. So its becoming this big fight between us and I locked up the keys to my dads car in the safe just to be sure.

Then I started thinking about other things he does and maybe its not as innocent and playful as I thought. He teases me a lot about being a "spoiled rich daddys girl" he never says it in like an angry mean way but he says it a lot. Honestly I never really thought too much about it because its not entirely off the mark. He also tells me a lot that I dont know what "the real world is like" because I grew up in a spoiled rich bubble and honestly thought maybe he was also right about that too cause I did go to private schools my whole life and I have never wanted for anything and my college is paid for and everything. So like I definitely try to remain aware of my good fortune. He also sorta shows me off to his friends and calls me his "hot rich gf" and again I just thought it was sorta playful and harmless. Now I dont know though.

He is really being pushy about this car, and now he's texting me about throwing a party at my house now that my Dads gone but like I really dont like that idea either. My dad trusted me a lot to stay home alone while he went on his trip. I begged him not to send me to my moms and he though cause I'm 18 I'm mature enough to handle this so like I dont want to just ruin that by letting my bf take his car out and trashing his house with a party. But my BF is being really pushy.

TLDR: My BF makes a lot of "joking" comments about being from a wealthy family and I'm starting to think I'm just a status symbol to him

Edit things have gotten a lot worse today. We're so done now.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

dswpro

He wants the ferrari more than he wants you. Tell him your dad is staying home, so sorry, no ferrari. Don't have him or anyone else over while your dad is gone either. Earning your father's trust is far more valuable than your BFs fake love, or any party you may have. You will probably not know this guy after you go to college and he joins the army. He really sounds envious, not confident in himself, and like a user. Otherwise he would not call you spoiled. Spend zero time with him this weekend. See if he whines. Prepare for college. There are actual men graduating from colleges every year and you can do better than Mr. "red flag".

OOP

Yea I starting to think now is a good time to break up. I start at Stanford in the fall and he isnt going to college so we'd be long distance. It just sucks. he was my first bf and I hate for it to end this way.

~

luvmyvulvaxoxo

What does your dad think about your bf? Has he given you an opinion?

The worst thing I did in high school was ignore my family’s warnings that my bf was a piece of shit. I thought he was my first love. And looking back I realize he was just a manipulative ass... I bet you’ll feel the same about your bf in 5 years.

OOP

My dad mostly keeps his opinion to himself. I dunno what he thinks. But my mother hates him. Utterly hates him. But my mom. Shes not like my dad. She did grow up rich and comes from many generations of family wealth. She has this thing about class and status and didnt like him because he was "beneath me"

  Sept 18, 2021 (5 months later)

Ok so it seemed a lot of people had things to say about the original and its sister thread in Relantionship_advice so I figured you all would want a conclusion to this shitty trilogy. So here it is the final part of this crappy trilogy.

For those that just want the conclusion I'll save you the trouble of going through the whole post the TLDR he never drove the car and we broke up.

For those interested in the whole story here it is:

Some background on our relantionship. First off I paid for everything all the time. Anytime we went out on a date I footed the bill. I didnt think much of it because I have so much and he doesnt so I thought it was pretty natural and just being a good gf to foot the bill. I drove him around everywhere. If he wanted something he would often guilt me into getting it for him. Sometimes this was things like 200 dollar jordans, or 50 dollars for weed for the weekend. I got him a new samsung galaxy phone for xmas. He never got me anything. Not once. Not even a hand made gift or a small thoughtful gift. Not even a flower he picked. It didnt need to be elaborate or expensive but he didnt even get me something to show he was thinking about me. I dont want to try and measure a relationship based off material things though so I let that go.

He would often tease me and make fun of me for being a spoiled rich daddys girl and for going to an expensive exclusive private school. He made fun of me because my dad bought me a mercedes but he never had a problem with me driving him around in it. He would make fun of me for taking school seriously, for maintaining a 4.0 for turning down parties or other things because I had papers to write or tests to study for. He would often tell me I didnt know what the real world was like because i grew up in a wealthy neighborhood, around wealthy people and didnt know what the world was really like. I honestly kind of felt he was right about that. I did grow up a lot more sheltered then average people and with a lot more. Most people dont get mercedes for their 16th birthdays or ski trips to the alps or summer trips to st barts. I know thats not normal. I honestly dont really know what normal is. So i took his word that I had a sheltered life and he knew better about the real world.  He introduced me to his friends as his hot rich gf which I assumed was supposed to be a compliment. He never said these things in a way that seemed overtly insulting. He always said it as a joke with a smile. So I trusted that he cared about me. And that this was all just differences in our upbringing. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I was probably naïve.

Funny thing about the whole "real world" thing though. he never dealt with the tragedy that we did. he didnt lose a family member to cancer. he didnt have to watch his older old brother waste away from cancer and die at 13. He never had to watch his parents cry when they thought I wasn't watching. I did. Money didnt save my brother. I was 10 when that happened so I've always known that no matter how rich you are life doesnt care. Bad things can happen to anyone and money cant always save you.

Then I posted the thread on AITA. I got a lot of replies about how he was abusive and manipulating and using me. I started really thinking about it and in light of what literally everyone was saying these things started to seem a lot less innocent and playful then I had been taking them to be.

The night I posted this pretty much while this thread and its sister thread were going on I got a text from Ex about throwing a party at my house while my dad was gone. I said no. I've been to high school ragers and I know what happens and I dont want my house trashed. So I tell him this and he gives me a line he often used with me about needing to have more fun. I told him I didnt think cleaning up my dads wrecked house sounded like a lot of fun. He left it alone...or so I thought. I had been talking to some people in reddit chat about putting together a plan to break up with him safely but this next part forced my hand.

The next day I was in school and one of my best friends came up to me and she was sorta mad and wanted to know why I didnt tell her about the party first. I was...surprised. I told her there was no party and I wanted to know where she heard that from but I knew where it ultimately came from. She told me she had heard from her friend that went to my EXs school and that everyone there was talking about it and it had spread to this school. I knew it was him. So I called him. He admitted that he had told everyone I was having a rager and he started telling everyone this when he was at school the previous day...BEFORE HE HAD EVEN ASKED ME ABOUT IT! I was livid I told him he had no right to just invite his entire school to my house without even asking me first. We got into a big fight about it. Then he told me what he really thought of me. NGL I was sort of devastated to hear this.

He called me boring and basic, spoiled and entitled. And now he wasnt joking. He said i had a stick up my ass and needed to learn how to lighten up and have fun. He said I was a daddys girl and I cared more about grades and impressing my father then anything. He accused me of being Olivia Jade and having my dad buy my way into college. That one really stung because i worked really hard through High School to get accepted into a good University. And it was also just like WTF cause here he is making fun of me for working too hard in school and at the same time saying I didnt earn my spot. So which one is it? Anyways we fought and he said a bunch of nasty things to me. Finally I told him if I was so boring he could find a new and exciting girlfriend to drive him around and pay for everything because I was done.

I wish it ended there. But I still had this party rumor that was now flying around at least two schools. I didn't want to call my dad about this. I wanted to take care of this on my own, take care of him on my own. I didnt want to admit to my dad that I made a really poor choice in dating him. I didnt want to have to have my dad bail me out the week he leaves. I wanted to show I was mature and grown up enough to fix this on my own. But I just didnt know how to stop all these people from showing up. So I swallowed my pride and called my dad after school and told him everything. I tried not to cry but I did. My dad was mad but he wasnt mad at me. He did thank me for telling him and reassured me I had done the right thing. My dad made a call to a friend of his at the sherrifs office. This part I feel some kinda way about cause I know how people feel about the police right now and I know that this is something that really shows off my privilege. I doubt this would have happened for many other people but the sherrifs told him they'd post a deputy on our block over the weekend. My dad also sent a pair of bodyguards for me for the weekend to make sure no one tried to break in. He said I was allowed to have a few friends over the weekend but keep it clean no raging parties of course and no mess etc you know standard parent stuff. That week a few of my close friends stayed with me after school while I cried about all this and they helped me spread the word that there was no party. Friday came along and a few of my friends came back home with me after school. We decided we'd do an 80s movie night like I mentioned and we did put Ferris Bueller on the list. We closed the gate put up a sign that there was no party. Private security showed up like my dad said and we bunkered down for the night and watched a bunch of 80s movies. There were a few people that did show up but they were chased off by the locked gate and deputy hanging out on the block. I think we were able to dissuade most of them from showing up. I dont know how many because I just stayed inside with my girls watching movies and tried to ignore anything happening outside.

I felt and continue to feel really shitty about it all. First off I feel like I wasted a lot of peoples time. I know the police have more important thigns to do then babysit me and my house from teenagers. I know those bodyguards had more important people to protect then a teenage girl from a party. I know that most people could never be able to manage this. It all drove home just how priveldged I am and honestly how my ex was right that I do live in a different and sheltered world from everyone else.

And then theres the murder of my social life lol. I'm single now with no date to prom and I caught a lot of shit from a lot of our mutual social circle over this. I've been called spoiled and basic, snitch, karen and becky. Even some of the kids in my school were dissapointed. I know lots of kids in my school that will or have thrown ragers in their parents houses so even among some of my friends it was sorta expected I would. So besides my closest friends I'm pretty much a pariah now. But whatever, in the end I have 2 months left till graduation and then I'm out. Next fall I start college out of state and all this will be behind me.

BTW As for Ferris Bueller cause I kept hearing about it. I DID watch it. I thought Ferris Bueller was an asshole and then I realized what an asshole I was for dating a dude who was essentially Ferris Bueller. I was honestly embarrassed when I saw how similar they were and how head over heels in love with him I was.

After all this stuff happened I told my dad how the weekend went. I sorta teased him and said wow dad you will go to really great lengths to protect your stuff. And he said he wasn't protecting his stuff he was protecting me.

I want to thank everyone who responded and especially the people who spent time chatting with me. I really didn't see how bad he was for me.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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I am not The OOP, OOP is

AITA for putting in a claim to my late father’s death benefit

Originally posted to

Thanks to for suggesting this BoRU

TRIGGER WARNING: death of a parent, verbal abuse, attempted financial deception, family upheaval, ableism

  Apr 27, 2024

Hi, I am looking for advice.

My father passed away on the 1st of March very unexpectedly and obviously this has caused a lot of heartache.

A few days ago I received a letter through the post from a policy through his work where it was stated that my father’s sister had put in a claim for the death benefit as she was next of kin at his work. I am next of kin legally and also would like to state for the record that me and my father had an excellent relationship. She never mentioned the policy to us or wrote down on her form that my father (did not) have children which it clearly asks and instead sent the form as if she was his only relative.

The company found out that I existed only because I am the informant on his death certificate and has asked if I wish to make a claim. I contacted my aunt about this and she has doubled down and said that my father would have wanted her and her alone to receive this large sum of money and has told me not to put in a claim.

I am putting in a claim regardless and told her this and it has caused a huge rift with her family. So much so that a cousin contacted me and said that my dad would be ashamed of me for putting in a claim and then went on to attack my autistic 24 year old brother, telling him that my father would have been ashamed of him because he was unable to carry his coffin at the funeral.

It just seems that this has gotten completely out of hand and I along with my brother are being attacked over money. Surely the company wouldn’t have contacted us if it were his wishes to give her 100%.

(Edit: I also forgot to mention that my aunt said she received an email from my dad’s workplace saying it was his wishes to gift this money to her and she had a signed document from him saying this, but when I asked her if I could see the document she sent me a blank template of wishes from the company website which had no writing on it, no expression of wishes and no signature from my dad which is confusing.

We also told her that we may not receive anything in the final decision which we are fine with, but it potentially could be split even between me, my younger brother and her. She wasn’t happy to even consider it going three ways either. And that is where the abuse began from that side of the family.)

I just don’t know and this has been keeping me up at night with stress. AITA? 

UPDATE: I phoned the company this morning and they have NO RECORD of an expression of wishes that my father wrote. Only that she was next of kin at his workplace. So she not only lied that it was my dad’s wishes for her to have this money, but she also lied that she received an email from the company stating this. The woman on the phone said you are his daughter, you have a right to make a claim. And also to tell my brother to put his claim in which he will be doing now.

ADDITIONAL INFO FROM OOP

1.

Her daughter sent my brother vile voice notes telling him that my dad would be ashamed of him because he couldn’t carry the coffin due to his autism, that he is lazy and should get a job when he can’t work and that he is a thief. It has made my brother so distraught that he is refusing to put a claim in as he thinks my father hated him when this is not true.

My dad loved the bones off my brother. Those words never left his mouth. All lies.

My dad may not be here to protect him but I am, and I’ll always protect him.

2.

My brother received an apology tonight from this vile cousin. She said she couldn’t sleep, eat or go into her work as she has been sobbing about the disgusting things she said to him. Not that this makes a difference. What she said about that beautiful boy is unforgivable.

To target her own autistic cousin about things out of his control is insane.

My father took care and adored that boy from the moment he was born until he took his last breath. I have blocked this side of the family and will never speak to them again.

I will be contacting the company again on Monday and will ask if they have a copy of these supposed wishes. I have also filled out my claim and posted it today, so hopefully I have more answers soon.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Forward-Wear7913

NTA

It’s just ridiculous that your aunt thinks she should get the money instead of her brother’s children.

Did your father have a will and an executor?

I would be worried that she’s also getting her hands on other property that doesn’t belong to her

OOP

I’m glad I’m not crazy for thinking the same thing.

No my father didn’t leave a will as he said to me a couple of months before he passed that everything would be going to me and my brother anyway. Obviously he didn’t plan for this chaos to follow. I’m currently in the process of becoming executor of the estate and all details are already with a solicitor. I am in Scotland, so the process takes a while.

However this death benefit falls outside the lines of his estate and is classed as a separate benefit altogether. I have been informed by one of his good friends and work mates that workmen at the site my dad was employed at were trying to find beneficiaries as they didn’t have a note of one which makes me think that she has been lying.

I have sent across an email to his employment asking for documentation of these supposed wishes he had filled out. Hopefully I hear more on Monday as probably won’t get a reply on a weekend.

  Apr 29, 2024

I just thought I would post an update to the absolute hell that me and my brother have been put through in regards to my late father’s death benefit.

I phoned the company today and they have told me that my father had NO expression of wishes form. So not only did my aunt lie about being the beneficiary on his expression of wishes form, but she also just blatantly lied about even receiving an email with these details. They do not exist. She was only listed as a next of kin through his work, not as a beneficiary. She is not entitled to a thing as she claimed she was, and so the hurt and confusion both me and my brother have suffered was for nothing.

I don’t understand how our own family could put us through this, but people are right when they say snakes come out of the woodwork when a death happens in the family.

My brother was not going to put in a claim but now he is. I hope she feels the guilt ripping through her not only for this, but for the disgusting things her daughter said to my autistic brother.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

mustang19671967

Remember a lawyer is your friend if you need help I’m in a different country so our laws are different

OOP

The laws are different here in Scotland. I am executor of his estate but this death benefit falls outwith this, so it is up to the company to deal with claims and split benefits. A lawyer wouldn’t touch this, not that we need one now that we are aware of the truth.

IceBlue

If you’re the executor why couldn’t you get into his house when your aunt could? You should sue to get the items back or the value of the items if she sold them.

OOP

I could get into his house but I have my own house. I let her stay in his house as a kind gesture so she could stay the night in preparation for the funeral. And then when we went in a month later to sort some of his things, that’s when we realised what had been taken.

We did pull her up about it and she was crying down the phone saying she just wanted to keep things for her brother’s memory. So I left it at that, even though I knew it was wrong somehow I felt guilty. And now I realise she has been manipulative from the start.

~

Whose_my_daddy

I’m so sorry you have such disgusting family. Cut them off, even get restraining orders if necessary. Be sure the rest of the family knows what they did. Just curious: there’s no hint of foul play, is there?

OOP

I’ve cut ties with them all. The only decent one out of the bunch is her son/my older cousin who has been nothing but respectful and is also horrified at what she’s done. No definitely not, unfortunately my dad was ill with diabetes for a few years then got the flu while at work and it caused his heart to stop while in hospital receiving treatment. No foul play, just a horrible illness that stole him from us.

ADDITIONAL INFO ON THE AUNT

My aunt also went into my dad’s house as she was staying in there for the funeral before travelling home again. But in that short space of time, she had taken several money boxes he had used for spare change. We don’t even know how much were in them, but they were STACKED with change. She took his guitar, his amp, his kitchen knives, his iPad and one of his leather jackets that my brother wanted to keep.

We couldn’t even enter the house to look at anything never mind take things. It was only a month after the funeral that we were able to go in the house and see what had been taken without permission. She has been horrible since the start.

I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather, families can be ruthless.

&

We cancelled his bank card the day he died, however I know when we were visiting him in hospital she had his wallet and gave it to me. When he was still alive on a ventilator she told us we should take his card to use for fuel payments for going back and forth to hospital.

We obviously DID NOT do this especially since he was dying and could not consent. She gave me the wallet that day. Once I am executor, I will be seeing if she used his card in the days leading up to his passing and I will be filing a police report if there are any charges to the card in the period she had hold of it.

FINAL COMMENT FROM OOP ON THE SITUATION

They are already blocked. I don’t be speaking to them ever again.

NEW UPDATE

  June 19, 2024

AITA for putting in a claim to my late father’s death benefit UPDATE

Hi everyone, I just thought I would give an update on the situation.

My aunt put in a claim to receive my father’s death benefit from his workplace in April behind our backs and stated that my father had written wishes for his money to go to her and her only. She said she had a copy of an email with his signature signing over 100% of this to her but when asked she never sent us a copy of these supposed wishes.

We later found out this was a lie, there were no wishes and the only reason she was able to put in a claim was because she was listed as next of kin at his workplace. Not as a beneficiary of any kind. This caused a huge rift within the family (you will see details from the original post, and also a second post on my profile) and ultimately ruined relationships that will never be repaired.

Even when we offered to split it three ways, she wasn’t having it and doubled down on the fact this money was hers. Then her family began attacking us over social media.

My brother and I received nasty abuse as we put in a claim, were told my dad would be disappointed in us, that he would be ashamed and that the payment was to go solely to her. My brother who is autistic was told he was disgusting for not carrying my dad’s coffin, even though this emotionally would have destroyed him beyond repair. He was told he was nothing like my dad and that my dad called him “a shit son” which is a LIE. He is an amazing young man, and my dad would have been proud of him for even being able to attend the funeral. And also for cutting his hair for the first time in 11 years to make our dad proud. I’ve reminded him of this as these nasty words have stayed with him, causing him emotional turmoil thinking that my dad hated him. He is getting better emotionally now with support from me, my mum and close family friends and realises our dad had nothing but love for him.

Well, after a couple of stressful months I’m happy to say that my brother and I received everything, and she got nothing. Not a penny.  We have not split the money with her and will never speak to her again. My brother will live comfortably now, and will be taken care of which is what my dad really would have wanted.

Thank you to everyone for the support in the original post who put my mind at ease and reminding me that I was not in the wrong.

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Originally posted to & OOP's own page

AITAH for testing my husband's fertility behind his back?

Trigger Warnings: death of a loved one, possible fertility issues, emotional manipulation, invasion of privacy

: June 11, 2024

Me (f33) and my husband (m31) have been together for 4years, married for 1 year. Last summer, when we got married, we decided to try for a baby and I stopped my birth control.

I already have a daughter of almost 7y old from my previous relationship. This relationship lasted 9 years and unfortunately ended 6 months after she was born because I caught my ex in an affair from almost a year. It wasn't hard to get pregnant, I got pregnant within a month after quitting birth control, carrying the pregnancy to full term was, I've had 6 miscarriages before my daughter.

One evening, when my, now husband, boyfriend, daughter and me were at my mom's place for dinner and the topic kids came up, she (my mother) jokingly said to be ready because I get pregnant fast after stopping the pill. I don't know how, but the talk came to how it actually happens that women get pregnant while they take their pill, he said to not believe it would happen if you didn't forget it somewhere. He had 2 long relationships before that and it never happened that they were late or whatever. (Yes this seems ridiculous to remember but wait)

So, fast forward to last summer, I stopped birth control at the beginning of June. I'm not mid twenties anymore so I didn't think any of it when October came and I still wasn't pregnant. Maybe my body needed longer to adapt or something. Still, at the end of October, I went to the hospital and got everything checked. I'm fine, fertile and absolutely able to get pregnant normally. I wanted to bring this up to my husband, to get him checked out too.

Then our world crashed.

My daughter was involved in a horrible accident and passed away one week later.

We did our best to support each other, which didn't aways worked out how we wanted to. We fighted a lot, cried even more, ignored each other, loved again. I'm sure that some might know the rollercoaster. We both still go to therapy and finally, almost a year later, we don't break down in tears anymore while remembering something about her. I even managed to give away one of her toys last week to the neighbours kid. (That's a huge thing, keep in mind that her room is still the same as when she left to school that morning.)

All this time, our mind wasn't set on getting pregnant, but I also didn't start birth control again. We did have sex on a regular base. Don't judge us here, we were really trying to keep at least that connection while it felt like we were losing each other in the grief. It helped us becoming closer again and reminded us that we loved each other.

The more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed that I still wasn't pregnant yet. I bought a home test for male fertility. I pretended to spill his sperm on me 'by accident' and went to the bathroom 'to clean myself up'. I collected it in the jar, and did all the steps for the testing. It doesn't give an exact result. It just gives 'positive' for when there are enough cells to be considered fertile, or 'negative' when there are not. The test came out negative. I did the same thing again 2 weeks later. Again negative.

I brought it up, several times, to get him tested at the hospital, which every time resulted into: we're just stressed, ofc it won't happen.

Now we got into an argument 2 days ago. We were both bad mooded from work, so the vibe wasn't great to begin with. He talked about a baby room he saw online that looked pretty, and I said again that he should get himself an appointment at the hospital, that we might need help to get our wish fulfilled. He said that there was nothing wrong with him and blamed it on stress. At that point I rolled my eyes and was even more annoyed than I already was when coming home. I stood up and ended the conversation with: I need to go to the store tomorrow to buy tampons because I will need them this weekend. He commented: you're always so negative, no wonder it won't happen. I just replied with: I home tested you. Twice. You can't. It won't happen. But sure, no one needs doctors, it's just stress.

He looked as if he was hit by a truck. He started yelling, later on crying. I get that I shouldn't have brought it that way. Now he's calling me the asshole for even having the audacity to home test his sperm without telling him. AITAH?

AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was YTA

Relevant Comments

Richard_Ovaltine: I feel incredibly sorry for what you and your family have been through and I don't think you were entirely wrong for home testing him. YTA however because you brought it to him in the most terrible, backhanded, nasty mean way possible. You should've handled it delicately but instead you threw a gigantic issue in his face and told him in the worst way it's his fault.

If I was him I'd probably think about your comment every single time I thought about my future kid.

jmilred: YTA here. That is a major violation of trust and privacy. Hospitals and doctors are on a different level than home kits. If you would have asked him to voluntarily do a home kit out of curiosity, the resulting conversations would have been very different.

On a side note: I am very sorry about what happened to your daughter. I can't even imagine what that must be like. Are you sure you guys are stable enough to bring another child into the world? This may be another point of contention for him. He may not be 100% ready for that right now but is leaving it up to chance/fate. Medical intervention is a completely different ballgame.

brokenhousewife_: Yes, YTA. I'm sorry about your daughter, I truly am, and I hope you are seeing a therapist. However, this is a major violation, not once, but twice. In saying that, grief will make us act in ways that looking back, I don’t even recognize the person I was grieving. I hope you two can seek a therapist and work through it.

: June 19, 2024

Okay.. First of all, thank you to the people who had some genuine advice. To answer some of the questions, it is not a money thing. My husband makes 7 figures a year, I obviously don't but I still earn a nice pay. I was, and still am, certain that he did not had a vasectomy.

To those who demanded in pm that I sent the documents to prove that my daughter died, I will not send them. To those who judge me for grieving wrong because I'm sometimes stressed from work, my job saved me from drowning. It gave me a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning and kick myself into breathing again. Don't come at me how I should be ashamed of myself for 'not grieving the right way' when you have no idea how it feels to be dying on the inside, daily, over and over again.

The 'i hope he gets all in the divorce' people, I'm sorry to disappoint you all, unless someone cheated, we have a prenup. I would walk out well provided, because in contrary of some assumptions, I am a good wife. (No, the cheating clausule isn't there because one of us did already, we have it because his mother cheated on his father and walked away with millions for being unfaithful.)

We went to therapy again, and obviously brought this situation up. Yes, I am the ahole for bringing it up during a fight. However he even admitted he might have done the same if it was reversed. Apparently, he also noticed that I still wasn't pregnant and was honestly just scared that it would really be his 'fault'. He always wanted a family and kids, and it became more and more clear to him that something wasn't right but was too afraid to get it tested and that I would leave if he was indeed sterile. I will not. Good and bad times, we promised each other that and for some that actually has a meaning.

We did the home test again, together, with the right collecting methods. Unfortunately it came back negative. He has made an appointment at the clinic and can go there in 2 weeks to get his sperm checked properly. We will see from there how it goes.

Sorry that it isn't the most exciting update, but it is what is. We will still continue our therapy and work on healing together.

Thank you for those with real advice and I wish you all the best in your life.

(One more thing, I'm not trying to get a replacement kid.)

Edit: spelling

Relevant Comments

OOP responds to the possibility of having low numbers of her eggs and get herself tested

OOP: I got an ultrasound at the beginning of my cycle and the blood test to see if I still have enough eggs. (Last year October) Eggs are still present, more than average at my age, the blood test confirmed that. Depending on how his test comes out, we decide what we do next. There is no real pressure, as I said, we don't want a replacement kid. At this point, we take it step by step.

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 , account now suspended

Originally posted to

Mom opened several accounts in my name and tanked my credit score. Now she’s saying I should be grateful to her for giving me $30,000 in debt. Need some guidance.

Trigger Warnings: financial fraud, possible identity theft, manipulation

: May 1, 2024

This all started about a year ago when I was about to graduate college. I got a bill in the mail for a credit card which I knew wasn’t mine. I’ve always paid my one credit card on time and it was from a different company. My mom said she added me on her credit card as an authorized user, which is why I received that bill. This ended up being red flag number one.

Fast forward to about a month ago and I’m looking into new apartments as I’m moving for my job. I found one I liked and applied for it, not thinking anything of it as my salary was well over their minimum requirements. I received an email saying my application was denied. A few days later, I got a letter in the mail explaining it was due to my credit.

I figured it had to be a mistake so I ended up taking a look at my credit score for myself. This was I think the first time doing it since I got my credit card a few years ago. I was floored when I saw my score - 490 - and I had several accounts in collections.

After some crying, I decided to call the electric company which one of the collection accounts was for, and they confirmed the address was my mom’s current address. I got in touch with one of the credit card companies I saw and the listed address was the same. I really didn’t want to believe my mom opened these accounts so I called her about them last week.

My mom claimed to have no idea about the accounts and said I probably got hacked. She had never really done anything to betray my trust in the past so I (foolishly) believed her at the time. One of my friends said I should report it to the police or otherwise I could end up owing tens of thousands of dollars. I made a police report and gave them all of the information.

I called my mom and told her about the police report and she said I needed to call and cancel it because it wouldn’t do any good. She tried saying it was just wasting their time and I should call it off and just ignore it. Of course I told her I couldn’t do that because I didn’t want to be on the hook for what ended up being around $30,000. She said I had to do it because she opened the accounts.

We went back and forth for about 20 minutes and I was pissed. She finally said I just needed to “take the hit on this one” and declare bankruptcy. She literally told me I should be grateful to her for letting me go to college so I should cancel the police report before they find out it was her. Between scholarships, grants and a small amount of student loan debt, she didn’t pay for anything at all.

I’m kind of conflicted, I don’t really want my mom to go to jail but from what I’ve read, declaring bankruptcy would basically prevent me from doing anything with my credit for a few years and it would take a full decade to drop off.

There are 9 accounts total with 3 in collections. What would you guys do?

Comments

CDIFactor: You did the right thing by filing the police report. Her denying responsibility and then deflecting to you are signs this isn't the first time she's done something like this. You should follow the steps at identitytheft.gov and freeze all of your credit bureaus immediately. Dispute all of the fraudulent accounts as well.

June 19, 2024

Update to my OP: Mom opened several accounts in my name and tanked my credit score. Now she’s saying I should be grateful to her for giving me $30,000 in debt. Need some guidance.

It's been several weeks since I posted but things are starting to get better for me with my credit, though my family isn't happy with it.

I didn't cancel the police report as I wasn't going to "take the hit" on $30,000 in debt that wasn't mine. My mom and I have always gotten along alright growing up and even through college when I'd come back home for the summers. I didn't hear anything back from the police after the initial report other than a call from an investigator a couple of days afterward. He didn't really give me too much other information. I disputed all of the accounts with the credit agencies and a couple of the accounts are already gone with the police report number.

On Monday, my sister calls me and tells me mom has been arrested. Apparently she was on her way to work when she got pulled over and the cop immediately addressed her by name. She was told she had a warrant and was arrested on the spot. She spent Monday night in jail and saw a judge yesterday - 4 counts of felony identity theft (the actual name for it is something else in legalese), at this point, the police still hadn't contacted me.

She ended up getting released on recognizance as she has never been arrested in her life and her only ticket was for expired tags 20 years ago. She hasn't called but I've received calls from both of my sisters, my uncle and my grandfather. The calls ranged from telling me I should drop the charges to one of my sisters absolutely screaming her head off at me. I ended up calling the police yesterday and speaking with a different investigator about the situation. He said it looked like the warrant came out a couple of weeks ago and an officer probably ran her plate and the warrant was connected leading to the traffic stop. He said it looked like everything had been turned over to the prosecutor's office and for more information I'd need to speak with them.

I tried calling my mom and there was no answer, I tried texting and the same thing, even though it shows read. I'm unfortunately still conflicted about sending my mom to jail. She's been in there a night already and from what I was told, she didn't take it well. The prosecutor's office isn't open today but I'll be calling tomorrow. Any advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Additional Information from OOP

OOP: I forgot to add but I was able to find an apartment for my new job, which I start in a couple of weeks. The fact that I made the report made the apartment application process work out.

Comments

MtnMoose307: Do not contact your mother. This case is now in the legal system. If she does try to contact you, do not reply, answer, or acknowledge.

Good for you. YOU had no choice to do this. I can't believe your family isn't buoying you up. Go no contact. She was arrested for a VALID complaint. There's no reason or excuse for what she did to you.

Hang in there.

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 +

Previous

[New Updates]: Ex gf wants to place our baby for adoption, not sure that I can

NEW UPDATES MARKED WITH ----

Trigger Warnings: unwanted pregnancy, abandonment

Editor’s Notes: due to the lengths of the earlier posts, they have exceeded the character limit. So I made a TL; DR, for each of OOP’s prior posts to the latest updates. This is in order to fit all posts in one BoRU. For the full text bodies and relevant comments from older posts, please see the previous BoRU linked

RECAP

: September 17, 2023

OOP is 23M, his ex-girlfriend is 20. They met in college. He has graduated while she has 2 years left of schooling. The girlfriend is 21 weeks pregnant and would like to place the baby for adoption. OOP didn’t know she was pregnant until she reached the 14 weeks mark. GF informed OOP she wanted space to make her decisions and chose not to tell him until after 3 months.

Once OOP was informed of the pregnancy, he has the guilt on the fact he got his ex-GF pregnant. Said he would support her decisions on what she wants to do next. The thoughts of fatherhood and panic has kicked in a bit for OOP. When he was told of the possible adoption, OOP feels sick and wondering if it was the right thing to do for the ex to consider about. He doesn’t think he could consent to the adoption idea, and it was getting uncomfortable for him for days. OOP wonders if he was in the right mind and position to be a single father if the ex-GF doesn’t want to be part of the baby’s life.

: September 22, 2023 (Five days later)

After getting lots of advice and thoughts from the original post, OOP comes back to share lots of thoughts he had on the details about his ex-girlfriend wanting to give their baby up for adoption once the birth happens. He has been having regular communication with her about adoptions and if he agrees on this before the next steps would be taken. OOP is still struggling with the facts on his ex-GF not wanting to be a mother. He started to have second thoughts about the adoptions because he felt uncomfortable about having other people raising his child if the adoption goes through.

Ex-GF thinks OOP is being insane for wanting to take the single father path. OOP’s mother said she would support his decision even if she was unsure if he knew what he was doing.

- September 29, 2023 (Seven days later)

OOP has another update. He chose the solo custody of his child and won’t be consenting to the adoption. Has not been in the communication with his ex-GF after informing her he was against the adoption idea.

OOP is in contact with the proper people as needed to make sure he has done the legal process of being a single father. He has gone through the putative father registry (legally in a number of states) which is the sole means for establishing the right of notice. Meaning if the ex-GF tries to give the baby up for adoption, OOP would be notified immediately. He acknowledges he would to establish paternity once the baby arrives and he is doing the legal route as needed.

Ex-GF is still not speaking with OOP, but he will talk with a lawyer in order to deal with the communications when necessary regarding the custody of the baby. She is being stubborn per OOP because she still didn’t want to be a mother and wanted OOP to sign over his rights to give the baby up right away. OOP is choosing to give ex-GF time and space to process the whole thing because she is not willing to do a prenatal paternity test to confirm OOP is indeed the father.

OOP gives his thanks to the redditors for comments on his prior posts. They have provided significant information for him to consider about and how to move forward with his decisions on being a single father. Noting that ex-GF is close to 23 weeks and the due date is far away, OOP mentions the ex-GF has been doing the interviews with adoptive families. OOP is already looking into what steps to take in order to support himself and his child once the baby is born. Working on budgeting and saving money and checking for childcare and other necessities.

- October 15, 2023 (almost 3 weeks later)

OOP posted on a different sub regarding being a single dad and asked for advice. He gave a recap on his prior posts. Ex-GF’s pregnancy was unplanned, but OOP and she broke up before she told him at 14 weeks mark. She didn’t know she was pregnant, still very young at 20 and in college. OOP, 23, already has graduated and started working remotely with a company for few months now.

After ex-GF told OOP about her pregnancy, she was all for adoptions, but he wasn’t. OOP has tried to convince himself on the adoption being the best option, but could not. He decided to take the legal steps and go onto the single fatherhood path of his life. Working on creating plans for his future with his baby girl, such as childcare and other important necessities.

OOP took care of the legal proceedings as needed, talking with a lawyer to cover his bases as a single parent. Ex-GF is mad at OOP for ruining her ideal adoption plans. Wanted him to consent so she could give the baby up. OOP is trying not to make things too hard for ex-GF, but he could not stick with the thoughts on adoptions. OOP has support from family and friends. First one in his friends group to have a child, they think he’s crazy, but respecting his decisions.

: January 6, 2024 (3 months later)

The baby girl arrived on New Year’s Day. OOP wasn’t informed of her birth until 5 days later. He is upset because he wanted to come to the hospital to provide support. Was disappointed that he didn’t get to see his daughter at her birth. Recaps the details on having broken up with ex-GF before he was informed of her pregnancy. Both now live in different states during ex-GF’s pregnancy.

OOP reviews the details from his prior posts. He and ex-GF were not on the same page of placing the baby for adoption. He decided he would be the single father and raise his baby. Ex-GF still didn’t want to be a parent; and has no plans to be involved in the baby’s life. OOP has been working for the past few months to get ready for the fatherhood along with taking legal steps as needed. Ex-GF didn’t want OOP to be in the delivery room and said she would let him know when it was time.

Ex-GF sent OOP a picture of their daughter, which she wasn’t due for another few weeks, but healthy and only had to spend an extra day at the hospital. The baby went home with ex-GF and her parents before OOP could bring her home with him. OOP informed ex-GF if she changes her mind on being a mother, he is willing to move closer so he can help take care of the baby.

OOP had to make changes to his plans after learning of his daughter’s early arrival and the unexpected timing. Was going to have his mother coming along to pick up his daughter. OOP’s sister would be accompanying him to see the baby. He is relieved to know that he has done the legal processes and can speak with his lawyer if there are changes to be made regarding the custody of his daughter between himself and the ex-GF.

: February 3, 2024

OOP has a new update. He has been home with his daughter for a few days already and getting settled. After his daughter’s early birth, he and his sister traveled to meet the baby. Ex-GF’s family is having the hard time with the details on OOP having the solo custody instead of placing the baby for adoption. OOP shares the fact which ex-GF still didn’t want to be involved in the baby’s life. He lets his ex know that if she changes her mind, he is willing to work out a plan regarding their daughter.

Since OOP wasn’t be able to be at the hospital within 3 days of his daughter’s birth, he had to take care of legal documents to record the baby’s last name and deal with a paternity affidavit. Ex-GF signed everything and has given a first and middle name to the baby. OOP had no problems with that. Regarding custody, OOP explains about the paternity affidavit which allows him and ex-GF to agree joint legal custody. He had to submit a paternity test to the court which was a part of the affidavit. Ex-GF confirms she wants OOP to have full legal and physical custody of the baby, but the form allows them to establish joint legal custody due to the laws in the state where ex-GF lives in.

Since the baby is here, OOP has taken the proper steps with the help from his lawyer to do the appropriate paperwork for the court to amend the changes made. OOP will have physical custody because he is now the primary caregiver. Ex-GF has acknowledged the necessary process of taking care of the legal documents for the court to recognize OOP as the father and caregiver in his current state.

OOP provides a cute update on his daughter. Getting adjusted to the reality on the baby being his and he being a father now. She has her father’s eyes. Shared the common things of the baby’s loves and hates at her current age.

----NEW UPDATES----

: March 29, 2024

I officially have sole legal and physical custody of my daughter! Took a while for all of the paperwork to be filed and approved, but everything has been finalized and it’s such a relief. Even though her mother was cooperative, I was constantly worried she’d suddenly change her mind (or her family would convince her to change her mind, since I believe they have a strong influence over her) and accuse me of taking off with our kid.

I’ve posted in a few groups over the course of all this, but to sum it all up - my ex-gf (21) and I (24) had an unplanned baby. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant until after we broke up and I had moved to a different state. She wanted to place the baby for adoption but I decided I couldn’t do that. I’m currently parenting my daughter on my own. She still has legal parental rights but is not involved in any way.

My daughter is almost 13 weeks old. I think I was meant to be a parent and for some reason the universe deemed it to happen now instead of when I always thought it’d happen later in life. I still have no clue what I’m doing most of the time, but I’m happy and I love my daughter so much. I think we’ve both come a long way in the past 3 months.

I had to go back to work earlier this month. Unfortunately, I’m still in the wait list for a few daycares that are going to be the best options for me cost-wise and location wise. The only one that had an opening for her age was out of the way as far as my workplace goes and was at the very top of the budget. Let’s be real, daycare in general is nearly out of my budget but I’m going to make it work. My workplace is letting me work from home a few days a week as I transition back to work. They all know the situation and have been very accommodating. On the days I go into the office my grandma is watching her for now.

I admit, I actually felt really depressed when I had to go back to work. As much as I was looking forward to the adult interaction again, I was sad. I might have actually cried once.

I hadn’t heard from her mother since I brought my daughter home for the first time. I did have to reach out to her a few times regarding the status of some paperwork that we filed but I did not mention the baby, send unsolicited photos, etc. I know she said she doesn’t want to be a mom, but I guess I found it weird that she never even asked about her once.

Now she’s reached out. I’m assuming that the custody stuff may have played a part. I don’t really know. She asked if I could send her some pictures, and I did. Then she asked “What if I want to see her in person?” Well, ok. But I told her she’ll have to come here. I don’t have any PTO time and I don’t think it makes sense for me to have to travel states away with a baby for her to see her. She said she doesn’t know when she’ll have the money and time to do that. I told her I don’t know what to tell her then. It seemed like she either wanted me to go to her or for me to pay for it. I can’t do either of those things. How do I still feel bad for her for some reason?

Relevant Comments

OOP having his support system and if they help him with his daughter

OOP: My family isn’t far away. They take turns coming over occassionally to give me a little break.

Unnecessary_Timeline: You’re doing everything correct. It sounds like she chose to give up a parenting role in the child’s life, and you facilitated her request while also being a parent.

If she now wants to be a parent, literally all of the effort has to be on her. She must make the trips, pay any potential support, accrue supplies for a newborn child, etc. She has to show effort and commitment

You keep living your life, and when she asks to see the child, do not overly burden yourself to accommodate her.

Also, in a legal sense, you should not leave the child alone with her. It sets a precedent for her gaining some custody in the future. Make sure you are always present during any time she is with the child. But do give her things like pictures or videos when she asks.

If she wants her own parenting time without you present, you need to make her go to court for it.

It sounds harsh and it is harsh. But it’s the reality of what is best for the child. You cannot give her any slack because that’s how “rubber band parents” are created. And having a parent who constantly enters and leaves your life is far more harmful than not having that parent at all.

: June 19, 2024

I’ve posted several times, but it’s been a while. I don’t have much time to post or respond to the messages I receive here anymore, but I’m on vacation this week (my daughter’s first trip to the beach) and I have some free time. Honestly, I guess I’m feeling really good and just a little bit petty and wanted to share an update as a response to everyone who said I wouldn’t be able to handle it or that I’d be begging/forcing my child’s mother to be involved.

I don’t expect anyone reading this to remember anything about my story. Long story short, my ex gf from college got pregnant and planned to place our baby for adoption. I really did try to accept it and go along with it, but I couldn’t wrap my head around having a child out there. I’ve been raising her as a single parent without any real involvement from my ex. I accepted that this would be the case and I respect her choice. I have a very supportive family, so I have help in that way for sure, but nobody is raising my daughter for me.

My daughter will be 6 months on July 1. She’s doing really well for the most part. She’s been diagnosed with Sandifer Syndrome, which is something most people, including myself, have never even heard of. She has uncontrollable muscle spasms after eating due to acid reflux, which her originally pediatrician brushed off and made me feel like I was just worrying too much or overreacting to here colic and severe projectile vomiting after meals. Luckily, this isn’t a life threatening illness or something that should affect her for the rest of her life. It should clear up by the time she’s 1-1.5 years old, if not sooner. She’s already doing better with some diet changes and some other changes on my part as far as feeding positions, frequency of feeding, etc. She’s doing so well now that the doctor is holding off on putting her on medication and thinks she probably won’t need it. She developed a secondary condition called torticollis, which is essentially short right neck muscles that cause her head to turn to side, so she’s going to weekly physical therapy for that and thankfully it’s something that can be resolved and isn’t a lifelong condition or anything like that. I feel bad, even though I’ve been told repeatedly that none of this was caused by anything I did. Rationally, I know that, but I’m finding that a lot of feelings you have as a parent aren’t always rational.

She goes to daycare now, just started a few weeks ago. Prior to that, my grandma was watching her during the day, so I was really lucky to have that help. I’m still learning to be comfortable with dropping her off at daycare. Before she was born, I thought “daycare, no big deal.” It’s hard to trust total strangers with your kid who can’t at least talk to tell you what’s happening all day. Not to mention the cost, but having my grandma watch her for the first few months allowed me to save up a very tiny bit.

I’ve paid off credit cards and have vowed not to use them again, so I have that credit in reserve should I ever have any big emergency. I’m definitely budgeting, my sister is into couponing and sales and knows how to get all the deals so her help has been invaluable to me financially.

My daughter’s mom isn’t directly involved at all. I don’t resent her and I haven’t tried to force her to be involved or even asked her to do anything. She contacted me a few months ago and wanted to come here to visit our daughter. We live states apart now. Around the time I started occasionally sharing pictures with her. We don’t really talk about how she feels or is handling any of it. Sometimes I’m curious about how she feels but really it’s none of my business. She went back to school and is focusing on that now. She never came to visit (she wanted me to pay for it, and I told her no - it wasn’t even totally a matter of not wanting to, but I don’t have the money for that). She sent me a really nice, long text on Father’s Day. We don’t talk unless it’s to give her a little update when she asks. I guess feel kind of mixed about sharing the updates and photos, but am trying not to be an asshole about it.

I guess that’s all I really have to share. Pretty boring, but maybe that’s a good thing. I received several Father’s Day messages from people here and didn’t think anyone would even remember me months later, so thanks to everyone who has been following this journey and been kind and supportive.

Relevant Comments

Dalton402: It sounds like you are ace'ing parenting.

Make sure you have a plan if your daughter's mom wants to be part of her life. I am feeling regret on her part from what you gave written.

OOP: I feel a general sense of sadness from her whenever she messages me, but have tried to accept that it’s not my job to make her feel better about any of this. I can be cordial and even understanding to some degree but I need to let go of tiptoeing around her feelings. I don’t know how we’ll navigate if she has a change of heart, but I know it’s a possibility. I have sole legal and physical custody, but legally she is still my daughter’s mother.

JournalLover50: Question why did you break up?

OOP: We have some very different beliefs about the world. I was also graduating and wanted to move closer to where I was from and neither of us was interested in a long distance relationship. I didn’t know she was pregnant when we broke up.

Consistent_Ad5709: You sound like a happy father and you're adjusting well.

Keep enjoying the small moments because they grow so fast.

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 OOP. The OOP is posting in

1 update - Medium

Trigger Warnings - OOP was likely neglected by his mother + mentions of finding her overdosed

- 16th June 2024

- 26th June 2024

AITA for asking that my cousin wears clothes around the house?

I got removed from my parent's house by social services last week because my mom is going through some issues at the moment and is too depressed to leave her bed. I was first placed in a group home for 'foster children' though I don't think I'm a foster child because my mom is still caring for me she is just going through something at the moment.

I personally think I would have been fine staying at home because I'm very mature for my age, everyone tells me. But my grandpa reported my mom to social services which is why I got removed.

After being at the group home for a few days my uncle finally got permission to take me in for a while until my mom is better. I don't know my uncle that well, he's my dad's brother and since my dad died I haven't really had much contact with his side of the family.

My uncle lives with his two sons who are 11 ('Oliver') and 9 ('Jamie'). I've had to start sharing a room with Oliver and Jamie shares with my uncle since there are only 2 bedrooms in the house. I hate this because at my proper house I have my own room and I just don't understand why I can't stay there. I've had to be removed from school because my uncle lives so far away and they're not able to get a place for me until September which means I am just sat at home doing nothing all the time. I just hate it here.

When we're home Oliver never wears clothes, sometimes Jamie too but he usually wears underwear. But the second that Oliver gets home from school he just strips completely. It makes me feel so uncomfortable and weird because why does he feel he can expose me to that? I don't like seeing it and it just weird.

I mentioned this to my uncle and he basically told me to 'deal with it', and that this was 'Oliver's house first'. I told him that I think it's weird and it makes me feel uncomfortable. He doesn't understand how much of a change this has been for me. I don't even want to be here, and it's so weird that Oliver just won't wear underwear at least. It's not like it's a big deal? I don't want to see him undressed all the time.

Especially when I invited my friend Max over, Max felt so uncomfortable that he left early when he was meant to stay for the entire day. I'm not allowed to go over to his house which just makes it worst because now it's ruining my friendships.

Comment Thread 1

Commenter:

How old are you? Reach out to your social worker and explain that everyone in the new house walks around naked and you don’t feel comfortable there. They will most likely try to find some other accommodation. It will not be a quick fix though.

OOP:

I'm almost 15

Commenter:

You will not be allowed to live alone. But they may be able to move you to another home. Keep pushing for it. If the social worker will not help, escalate it. State that you feel you are being sexually harassed by your cousins and uncle by being forced to see them naked. You can go so far as to say your uncle supports it.

It may get messy and your family will blame you. Don’t let them make you feel bad for this. You did nothing wrong and are having a bad situation forced on you because of mistakes others made. None of this is your fault. You will survive this, and you can potentially have a better life if you are able to separate yourself from them.

Comment Thread 2

Commenter:

I am so sorry you are going through this. It sounds really hard. Is there a social worker monitoring your foster placement? I’m wondering if there is any adult other than your uncle you could speak with about this.

OOP:

I don't really have anyone else, I have my grandpa but he’s not responding to me

Commenter:

Any way you can live with grandpa?

OOP:

No, I can't. I was told it wasn't a suitable placement for me

Comment Thread 3

Commenter:

NTA

Why can't you stay at your grandfather's house?

OOP:

I don't know, but for some reason they told me it wasn't a 'suitable placement' whatever that means. I can't even contact him so I have no clue

Commenter:

Likely means they asked grandfather and he declined

Update - 10 Days Later

Update: AITA for asking that my cousin wears clothes around the house?

Hi guys, I just wanted to say thank you first off for all the support you guys gave me on my last post. I have a few points to update you guys on.

My uncle and I spoke about my cousins and my uncle for once I think was really nice and reasonable. He apologised to me said he was stressed with work and all the change and he shouldn’t have taken it out on me. He said he shouldn’t have said it was Oliver’s house first because now it’s all our house. He said he’s going to speak to my cousins that they need to wear underwear around the house or a dressing gown.

I told him I really was feeling lonely and depressed and that I wanted to get back into school. So we went back to my social worker and told them I really wanted to be put back in school and I’m feeling really depressed just sitting around the house. They managed to find me a place at a local school which I started last Monday.

Things have gotten better and but over the last few days I’ve been trying to organise a meet up with my mom but she isn’t answering my texts/calls and I’m getting a little worried about her. Last year I found her overdosed and had to call the ambulance and I’m really worried she has done something to herself again. I’ve texted and called my grandpa also but he’s not responding.

Does anyone know what I can do? Can I call the police to go and check on her?

Comment Thread 1

Commenter:

I’m glad to hear things are a little better. Are you from the UK?

If so call the police on 101 and ask for them to do a welfare check on your mother. Give the details that you are in foster care and that you have caught your mother attempting to commit suicide in the past. They should do a check and update you/your social worker who will update you.

OOP:

Thank you I’ll do that on the walk home from school today. My lessons start in 10 minutes so I won’t be online again until later today

Commenter Thread 2

Commenter:

Talk to your uncle about your worries about your mum. He is your guardian temporarily. You should also have a case worker assigned to you. I suggest talking to both of them about your worries about your mum. Either one of them can call the police on your behalf regarding a welfare check. Unfortunately the police don’t always take minors seriously in these kinds of situations.

OOP:

I think someone told me on the last post that my social worker is my case worker because I think case worker is just the American term for it but I’m not sure.

Okay I will get back in contact with my social worker today if I can’t get the police to do anything. Thank you

Commenter:

Ah, OK- are you in the UK? In that case I think your social worker should be the one to contact. They can contact the community mental health team if necessary. I wish you all the best; it must be awful being so worried about your mum.

OOP:

Yeah I am. It’s all I can think about at the moment so it’s really worrying me I just keep reliving the day I found her.

I’m really mad at my grandpa because he’s the reason I’ve already been forced to be removed from my mom so I can’t look after her and now he’s not even responding to me.

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 genuinely dont know how to use reddit

I am not the OOP. The OOP is posting in

Concluded as per OOP

2 updates - Long

- 4th May 2024

- 15th May 2024

- 23rd June 2024

AITAH For telling my wife she's free to find a hotel room if she doesn't want my daughter here?

My daughter Ana is 16 years, she was an 'accident' when I was 24, Ana's mother and I were never together as a couple 'cause it was a one-night stand but we have maintained a friendly and healthy co-parenting since she was born and we became good friends.

My daughter's has been living on another continent for a few years with her mother and stepfather, but she wants to comeback because she doesn't feel comfortable there and misses her family and friends, Ana doesn't knows their lenguage well and it's still hard for her to learn it fully so she feels really lonely there since it is different to speak your native language than to make friends by speaking a foreign language from 0.

I spoke with my daughter's mother and we thought it was a good idea to let Ana live with me, her room is now my home office but I can easily put together a room for her again. We didn't confirm anything, I talked to my wife about it first and I was sure that she was going to be okay with that because we literally talked about that possibility before.

The problem is that my wife doesn't want that to happen, my wife and Ana have never been close because they only meet in person for our wedding when I was able to pay a ticket for my daughter to come (That was the last time I saw my daughter in person too, plane tickets are too expensive), but they do tend to talk a little bit when I make video calls with Ana everyday but not too much. Ana also talks to her brother and he likes her a lot even if they just see each other in video call. My wife says Ana is not going to feel comfortable in a house with strangers and I told her that we are literally her family and she said no, she and our toddler are not Ana's family because they barely knows her in person.

It honestly hurts me that she thinks that way but I understand her point of view, altough our toddler IS Ana's brother and it really annoyed me that she said that because our little one really loves his sister even if they just see each other online. I had an argument with my wife about it and I ended up telling her that my daughter will always come first of all, because it's true, for me my children will always come before any other person and she knew very well about my daughter when we married.

My wife got angry and said that bringing Ana home would change how we handle ourselves and that she doesn't want to be a stepmother, she said that Ana lived with her mother in another continent so it's not the same as having her right here everyday. I told her that no one is asking her to be a stepmother because I will be the one who take care of her as always (My daughter used to stay many days and even months with me and I was the one who took care of her, I'm not going to give my wife all the work because I was a 'single father' for a long time and I know how to take care of my daughter.

I work, I clean, I cook, I take full care of our son when she works and wants to go out and do something just like she does with me. We both support each other in raising our son, I don't know why many people is so shocked about the fact that I take responsabilidad of my own child) but that if she doesn't respect my daughter's presence in the house and hates it that much then she has all the freedom to go to a hotel room. I was a big idiot because those words obviously ended up really bad and we had a worse argument.

My daughter has every right to live in my house if she wants but my wife doesn't wants that, I really love my wife but my biggest focus is to give the best to my children and I would love to have my princess here after years.

My wife hasn't been talking to me at all and she's very angry, but she does continue with the same stance that she doesn't want Ana here at all and I know i will get angry and we will end up arguing again because I'm not going to leave my daughter alone neither.

Edit: My wife always knew that Ana lived with me several days a week when she was still in the country because I talked with her about that and the possibility of Ana's family returning to the country if things went wrong, that would have meant that Ana would come back to live with me for many days or even months like she always did, my daughter used to come at my house everyday too. My wife agreed with that years ago when we talked about that, but now admits that she thought my daughter was going to stay out of the country with her mother because their business is going really well.

ThrowRA because my daughter uses reddit too. I changed some data to not make it too obvious.

Edit2: Guys, I've been reading the comments non-stop for two hours and I have too much to think about. Thank you very much for the advice, whether bad or good this is helping me to reflect on several things that I did not take into account. But please don't be so harsh because I'm a real person haha

Comments

Bewitchingchick

Your wife doesn’t want to be a stepmother. Full stop.

She doesn’t want anything to do with your daughter. She’s going to be awful to her.

I would reevaluate my relationship had anyone told me this.

*edit, the fact this woman doesn’t realize she IS a stepmother already is absolutely insane and fucked up.

horrorbepis

Yeah, I feel like people might get confused. Not wanting to be a step parent? Totally understandable and fine. You just met someone, they have kids, you’re like “Oh, that’s not where I want to go. I don’t want to be a stepdad” totally fine. You marry someone with a child already and a weird living schedule and arrangements and you don’t “want” to be a stepmom? Gigantic red flag.

ProfPlumDidIt

Tbh, your marriage is over.

Your wife openly doesn't want your daughter around and, even if she claims to change her mind to keep the marriage, it would be a lie. Even if she tried to pretend, people pick up on it when they aren't wanted or liked, so your daughter would literally feel your wife's dislike.

You cannot bring your daughter into a home with your wife. It would harm her.

ScarletAngel313

My dad remarried when I was young and I would stay with him for the summers. His new wife treated me like “the other woman’s child” and constantly made it known I was a burden and she couldn’t wait until I was gone. Not going to lie, that messed me up for years. The difference here is that you’re fighting for your daughter and actually making her your main priority, but I feel like your wife might be like my stepmother. Just something to consider if you decide to stay with your wife.

Update - 11 days later

(I'm sorry but I decided to delete the post because a weirdo started to just spam my private messages with different accounts and I don't know if I can put the account on private or something like that, I don't use this site too much but a bot started sending me messages asking if I needed help so I think my account could get banned because of that person doing this and I'm too old for this so I just rather post the update here where i can at least close the comments. Guess the post will be here if someone cares)

First of all I want to clarify that I am from a third world country, here it is really expensive to get a plane ticket and if I travel I must do it with my wife and our son too so it is TOO much money that we cannot pay. I let my daughter's mother take her to another country because like every father, I want her to have better life opportunities, I don't think that makes me a bad father but I guess the minds that have always lived in privilege don't understand. The last time I could afford some tickets was for my daughter to come to the wedding. Not all of us have the privilege of paying for a plane flight.

I've been thinking a lot and in fact I'm the AH because of the way I treated my wife, Even if most of the comments agreed with me, I don't think it was right to say that to the woman I love even though I was angry.

I apologized to her for what I said and the way I said it but I told her that I don't like it when she ignores me and gives me the cold shoulder when I try to talk about our issues and the fact that she denied the familiarity between our son and daughter was just cruel, she apologized for it and said she was angry and said things she regret.

I made it clear to her that Anna is coming because no one can forbid any of my children to live with me, Not only morally, but legally I am totally obligated to give my daughter and son a house, she tried to argue but I asked her how she would feel if we divorced and my new girlfriend refuses to let our son live with me just because she didn't sign up for it. I asked her if she would appreciate a man who abandons his children for a woman more than a man who cares about his children, if she would feel confident knowing that she is married to a man who abandons his children that easily.

My wife said no, that obviously she knows how much I care about our children and hates the kind of mans who abandons their kids, that she knew she wanted to have a child with me because she saw how even though my daughter was so far away I made video calls to her every day and we always help each other with things around the house. Then I asked her why she rejects the idea of my daughter being here and she admitted being jealous of Anna, it is something that I have noticed in the past. For example, for one of my daughter's birthday I sent money to her mother to buy her a dress that was quite expensive and my wife just said 'I guess you will buy our son something just as expensive' it was my mistake to let those comments pass and think they were just a weird joke.

She said that she doesn't want my daughter to come and took time away from our son, that bothered me and I told her that if we had two children my time would also be divided and that as a father I can give the same attention to both, Changing our routine doesn't have to be a negative thing and she knows that Ana is not a problem teenager.

We talked a lot And I explained to her that I just want to make everything work for both of us, I apologized if I made her feel bad with the way I treated her, and I told her that I want to really hear what things are bothering her so we can understand each other better, we agreed to have better dialogue and communication about this kind of things. My wife admitted that her jealousy is wrong and feels embarrassed about it but it's how she feels and she feels awful for feeling like that, I told her that feeling isn't right, being jealous of my daughter isn't right and I told her that it would be okay to start going to the psychologist if we want to fix this because I'm not going to leave my daughter live in a place where she doesn't feel loved, my wife accepted after talking about it a lot these days and she wants to work on herself about that because doesn't like feeling like that about a little girl and knows it's wrong.

My wife and daughter always had a nice treatment, when I make video calls with Anna, my wife usually talks a little but not that much, I think my mistake was not offering my wife to make video calls alone with Anna like Anna does with my toddler sometimes. My daughter really likes my wife and calls her 'auntie' even if they don't know each other too well, so I don't want her to know how my wife really feels about her.

I offered my wife to teach her how to play the same video game I play with my daughter so they can play together and get to know each other more, I know Ana would love that! They both have a lot of same intereses, she accepted and said she loves me and wants to try it for me and for our toddler.

If I leave my wife I would be breaking my son's house, he's my baby too and the last thing I want is letting adult matters affect him, I don't want to do that and I love this woman, I want this to work and I'm going to do my part for it but the first moment she treats my daughter badly, I will end things with her and I clarified that to her and she was right with that and promised me to work on this.

I still haven't confirmed anything to Ana's mother about the date on which our daughter can come since I need to fix the room for her first and I want my wife and little girl to get to know each other better, talking about it with my psychologist, he told me that the best thing is always to get them closer little by little before Ana comes to live here. This last four days my wife and Ana have been talking longer and I told Ana that we could teach my wife how to play with us, Ana feels really comfortable talking with my wife and they started talking about random things which I feel out of because I don't understand about the things they talk about, but I'm pretty glad to see that they actually have things to talk about.

I suppose a lot of people are going to call me an idiot for not divorcing my wife because that was what most of the comments told me, but it's not all that simple as "Yeah, we argued so let's get divorced and have 50/50 of custody" And I personally think it's been better for us to have spoken up like mature people instead of just getting divorced.

Seeing that my wife has opened up to me and is trying to work things out, I prefer to give this a second chance and hope that she can see my daughter as her friend and even as her family if she allows it to herself. "Your wife is going to treat your daughter badly" No one can read the future to say that but I can work to make that future not happen, in the meantime I prefer to maintain a positive approach since my wife has never behaved badly with my daughter and my daughter knows that if she feels uncomfortable, she knows she can talk about it with her mom, stepdad, or me as we always teach her to talk to us about anything that makes her uncomfortable. Ana has a sharp tongue so I doubt she'll stay quiet if my wife makes any comments that make her uncomfortable.

I'm not going to force them to be bestfriends, I want them both to flow on their own. I'm also not going to use my daughter as a free babysitter as many in the comments suggested as a supposed solution And both she and her brother can live in this house as long as they want.

Edit: In the previous post several people said that my wife also made a post here but it's false, she doesn't use this site

Edit: I don't understand why, but I've been getting a lot of Notifications from that bot from a redditor who thinks I need help and private spam messages from different accounts created literally today. I really don't know who's doing this and I don't understand what's the fun of annoying like that, just block me.

Update - 5 weeks later

I didn't really think about updating again but I remembered that I have the account and I thought "Why not?" since I have free time in this moment while I take care of my toddler.

My daughter and my wife's relationship is going very well, they both make video calls to watch some series together that they both like, they have even started to have inside jokes that I don't understand but I think that's something good although to be honest now I feel a little left out (just joking).

My wife has been going to the psychologist (and me too, I want both of us to get better together) to work on her insecurities and problems because she knows that feeling jealous of my daughter is not good at all and a few weeks ago she talked to my daughter about her feelings towards her and apologized, my daughter was quite surprised to learn that my wife felt this way but accepted the apology and told her that she understands her. I left them talking alone that day so they have privacy and after that they have had a closer bond, my wife said that my daughter told her that she will always respect someone who is sincere and wants to be a better person.

In the previous post many said that I decided to bring my daughter without talking about it with my wife before but that's LITERALLY what I did, I never confirmed anything to the mother of my daughter until I spoke with my wife (I was never the partner of my daughter's mother, Btw. Many comments mentioned her as my ex wife but we were never anything).

The talk about bringing my daughter back was paused because I wanted them to know each other better before living all together but my wife started to talk about how she wants to decorate the bedroom and rejected all my ideas because they're too "boring for a girl" So she's having fun re-decorating the room with our toddler who's really happy to see his sister in person.

We still didn't arranged a date because my daughter's mother have to talk with her high school for the problems there and everything and I have to prepare everything here too but all is going well step by step.

Comments

Muted_Piccolo278

Well done on supporting your wife as she navigates her new role and giving them time to get to know each other

ChrisInBliss

Happy things are improving! Hope whenever she moves in with you everything stays good. Also dont stop the therapy appointments whenever she comes. Your wife is going to need their help during that time. May it be with jealousy or just helping her interact in person with your daughter.

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

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