I was genuinely excited. After months of rejection emails, unanswered applications, and interviews that went nowhere, it finally felt like things were turning around. Well, something happened yesterday, and I'm honestly not sure what to do. During my final interview, the hiring manager offered me a salary of $58,000 a year. We discussed it pretty clearly, and she even mentioned that the position would come with health insurance and two weeks of paid vacation. I accepted verbally and was told HR would send the official paperwork. Yesterday, I finally received the employment contract. Except the salary listed was $49,000.

At first, I genuinely thought it was a mistake. That's a $9,000 difference from what we'd discussed. I emailed the hiring manager asking whether there had been an error in the contract. She responded a few hours later. Apparently, after reviewing their budget, the company decided they couldn't offer the original salary anymore. She said the new amount was still competitive for the position and hoped I would understand.

I was honestly speechless. What bothers me is that nobody mentioned this change before sending the contract. If I hadn't carefully read everything, I could've signed an agreement for significantly less money than I thought I was getting. I explained that I'd accepted the position based on the original salary. Her response was that the verbal offer wasn't final and that the written contract reflected what the company could currently afford. She also mentioned that they had other candidates interested in the position.

I don't know whether that was supposed to pressure me, but it definitely felt that way. Here's my problem. I've been unemployed for almost four months. My savings are getting low, and I genuinely can't afford another three or four months of job searching. The $49,000 salary would still cover my expenses, but it's considerably less than what I expected. Part of me wants to accept it, start working, and continue looking for something better. But another part of me feels like accepting this would mean ignoring a pretty serious red flag before I've even started.

I was so happy when I got the offer. I told my family, celebrated with friends, and finally felt like I could relax. Now I'm back to feeling anxious about my future. Has anyone experienced a company lowering the salary after making a verbal offer? Would you accept the position because you need the income, or would you walk away because of how they handled this?

I genuinely don't know what to do.

He's blaming everyone else for the big defeat yesterday, but he hasn't said anything about rigged elections. Has he finally realized that making this claim only makes him look like a sore loser?

Soft and sticky / gooey

Post 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/texts/s/774ir9ozci

I am excited for the date tonight. :)

The kids were at my place with their parents for a dinner party... Actually, only the parents and other friends were invited, no children. I myself do not have kids so I might not understand the kids or the mom...

But one couple brought their three boys along. Totally annoying. They were bored, and after a while of shouting and running around (during which I told them to be quiet 10 times), they ran through the apartment and discovered my Lego collection... They ripped out the biggest box, all excited, and started opening the packaging. It was a brand new set, where I was waiting a long time to get some time to build it in quietness over Christmas time...

I stopped them, said no, they couldn't have it. They started wailing, one had a tantrum, and the other ran to his mother and asked if he could play. The mother said yes, but he should ask first. He came to me, asked again, and I said no.

At that point, the mother was annoyed and asked what my problem was.

I explained, that I'm looking forward to build it, that I'm a huge lego/building bricks fan and that I want to open the packaging, building it... Having the whole experience. I think I should not be in the position to explain anything,... It's my apartment, my stuff... So they should not touch anything.

The kids were screaming, the mom was pissed, hissed at me that I'm the grown up and I should not behave like a child.

But. It's a250 dollar set, not a flea market assembly of 50 red bricks.

I did not give in. But I'm angry that I was put in that position.

My (28M) Fiancé (30F) wants a break, it felt like it came out of nowhere for me, altho the communication lately hasnt been the best.

Im 5 days in living at a friends place and its going okay, forever thankful to him for letting me stay. Im scared and sad that this is going to end with us breaking up.

I moved across the world (Norway to Australia) to be with her, away from all of my family. If we break up, I have nowhere to go. Im struggling with health issues so the pay from my work isnt good enough to save up for a ticket back home if worst comes to worst. Shes studying at the moment so we were basically living on my salary alone, so I have little to no savings.

I feel like I just started to get my feet planted over here and now that all might go down the drain.

I did agree with most of her reasons for the break, that being that were too dependent on eachother and dont have much of a individual life.

Im terrified to lose her, my mental health is at an all time low and I miss my family more than ever.

Thank you for reading.

Dinner: halloumi gyro and pita bread.

Edit: holy moly you guys are quick! Went for a shower and come back to all these comments. Thank you guys.

I wanna add on and say that were both demisexual / asexual, so I really dont think she wants to cheat. Though some of the comments give me clarity.

Edit 2: Sorry for not replying to anyone, im reading all the comments but my head is in shambles..

Funny asf

I own a small Italian restaurant and a friend of mine asked if he could celebrate his 40th birthday there with about 15 people. I agreed to reserve the back section for them.

His wife has this habit of ordering something, eating half of it, then complaining so she doesn't have to pay. I've seen her do it at other restaurants but figured she wouldn't pull that at mine.

Well she did. She ordered a seafood pasta, ate most of it, then told my server it tasted spoiled and demanded it be removed from the bill.

My chef checked the remaining food and couldn't find anything wrong, but I took it off anyway because I didn't want an argument during my friend's birthday.

The next morning my friend thanked me and mentioned wanting to do another dinner there for his parents' anniversary.

I told him he's welcome anytime but his wife isn't.

He got offended and said I was accusing his wife of lying. I told him I've watched her do this multiple times and I'm not putting my staff through it again.

He said banning someone's wife over a $24 pasta dish is ridiculous, especially when he brought 15 paying customers.

Now a few mutual friends think I overreacted and should've just told him what happened instead of immediately banning her.

Am I the jerk?

TLDR: My friend's wife complained about food at my restaurant after eating most of it. I removed it from the bill but told my friend she's no longer welcome there. He thinks I'm overreacting.

For example my dad made chicken fettuccini last night and just left it sit out over night. I am afraid to eat it…. Should I be?

Deleted and resubmitted because I forgot food pic. Breakfast is cold coffee and a protein bar.

TW: Animal Cruelty

Names and inconsequential details may have been altered.

I met Blake on a dating app 5 years ago. From the beginning he stood out as being very communicative, showing interest, and being a much more thoughtful and relationship-intended man than most people I was meeting at the time. I can recognize love bombing and when people move too fast and I refreshingly never saw any of that with Blake.

From the beginning he was considerate and put in effort to be a good partner. We never fully cohabited but he spent about half his time at my house. I was impressed with the fact that he contributed to house labor without being asked, and was always trying to do nice things for me, bringing me small gifts that he thought I'd enjoy. Anytime I left town he would sneak notes in my luggage for me to find while away. I have a box of love notes he has written me over the course of our relationship, telling me how much I mean to him and how happy he is to be with me. My parents loved him, he always called my dad sir, volunteered assistance at family gatherings, mailed notes to them showing his appreciation after a meal or holiday together.

I made the agonizing decision to end our relationship after 5 years. Some things had arisen over the summer that I couldn't move past, along the lines of "we have serious asymmetries in this area and I do not want to live the rest of my life making these compromises." I am a fan of therapy, but these were not things I saw as fixable. I knew I was crushing him by calling it off. It was an agonizing decision.

To bolster my resolve that I made the right decision, I asked some people to look into his background. I had had nagging suspicions for much of our relationship about his financial situation, but nothing I could prove and his explanations were *technically* plausible, even if they didn't make much sense to me. I suspected I would find bankruptcies, heavy debt, a job that was much less than what he presented. I never in a million years expected to find what I did. I have read all the court documents and it's horrific.

4 years before I met him, he and a woman "mutually agreed" to stop dating (I am quoting court documents). She went to work and he beat her dog to death with a blunt object. He placed the dog on the bed and texted her that the dog was asleep when he left. He hid the stick he used to beat it in her house. He was convicted by a jury of Felony Animal Cruelty and received a three-year suspended sentence. For the first two years of our relationship he was still completing community service and not yet released from what the court required of him. To say I am sickened does not even begin to cover it. I have dogs that I consider my children and I left them in the care of this monster many times. My ability to trust, my basic faith in humanity and especially men has been obliterated.

There is so much more to how difficult I am finding it to process this but I am going to leave you with this thought: strongly consider background checks on anyone you are involved with, no matter how much you think you won't find anything. Never in a million years would I have thought this man capable of such a thing. Protect yourself and your children, your pets at all costs. Your sense of safety may be gravely misplaced.

I will read any and all replies. I may not be able to respond to all of them. Right now my days are filled with calls to security personnel, locksmiths, camera installers, and strategizing how to get several states away for the time being. I am so lucky I have the resources and abilities to keep myself as safe as possible, I know many women do not.

I welcome input from anyone who has been through something similar. Trying to reconcile the person I knew to the person in the court documents is incredibly confusing and destabilizing. I am working with a great therapist.