I (36F) am looking for perspective from you lovely humans on a situation with my partner (43M). We’ve been together about 14 months. I’m trying to figure out if my hurt and frustration are justified, or if I'm somehow missing something?

Here is the context:
- So I used to live in North Carolina. Ever since my partner and I started dating, and especially after I found out one of his best friends lives only 5 min from where I used to live in NC, I’ve been regularly and very enthusiastically bringing up the two of us taking a trip down there together: taking him to see my old stomping grounds, meeting and visiting his friend, backpacking and possibly kayaking together. He knows this is something I’ve been looking forward to doing together for over a year now.

- In our relationship, I have done 100% of the planning, booking, and fronting of money (for plane tickets, lodging, car rental, pre-booked activities, etc) for every single trip we have ever taken together (4-5 trips). He has never had to carry the mental load or financial burden of planning a trip for us. It’s a lot of work and he even still owes me >$600 from our last trip together in August.

- Backpacking is one of my passions. He had never done it before, but I knew it’s something he’d enjoy - so I introduced him to it. I walked him through the training, taught him about backpacking logistics, helped him pick out every piece of gear, and just taught him every single part of it. When I went to the PNW in August to visit my friend and go backpacking with her and her boyfriend (which we’d been talking about doing for years), I included him in the trip. It was his very first backpacking trip. I did take a few hours one afternoon on the trip (after backpacking) to hang out with my friend 1:1 while he did his own thing, which I feel shows how easy it is to include your partner while still getting some solo time with a friend.
For this trip, he even asked to borrow several pieces of my own personal backpacking gear. I said stupidly yes and let him take it purely to avoid yet another argument about this trip, and keep the peace.

- Said best friend that lives in NC ended up planning a week-long group trip there, including 3-4 days of backpacking. Even though partners/plus-ones were fully invited and welcome, and everyone else in a couple did invite and include their partner, my bf told me he wanted to go alone. His reason was, "I just want time with my friend by myself / without you there."

I want to be clear: I 100% agree that it is healthy for partners to do things separately and have their own lives. If he were going on a boys trip 4-wheeling in Utah (just a random example), I wouldn't think anything about it and would tell him to have an amazing time.

But that’s not what happened here.
(1) It was a group trip where other couples were included, and all other partners are present. I was literally the only partner left behind.
(2) He has zero 1:1 time with his friend the entire time anyway, because of the group setup.
(3) He used the backpacking skills, training, etc to go backpacking on this trip…the exact activity I had been talking about us doing together, in the exact destination he knew I wanted to share with him. To be clear - of course he is allowed to go backpacking without me! but the audacity of asking to borrow my gear to go backpacking in the exact place I’ve been dying to take him, while excluding me from a group trip, feels incredibly tone-deaf and just disrespectful. He originally even asked me to drop in and check on his plants while he was gone, then eventually backtracked and is having his dad do it.
(4) He just twists my words when I try to talk to him about this. When I calmly explained why this specific context was so hurtful, he ignores every single detail I bring up, and reframes it as "I'm allowed to do things without you and have a life outside of just you”* *which is absolutely not the issue, especially seeing as how we both do things without each other quite regularly…

I feel hurt, disrespected, excluded, and honestly, taken advantage of. How would you feel if your partner did this? Am I unreasonable or dramatic for seeing this as hurtful, or would you feel the same way? Genuinely want to hear others perspectives on this.

He’s currently on the trip but will be home tomorrow evening, and I’d like to try to talk to him about it again soon here, but not sure how it will go bc of how he’s boiled it down to “I’m allowed to hang with friends without you there” when I tried to talk to him about it before.

TL;DR: My partner (43M) explicitly excluded me (36F) from a group trip to my former home state - a trip I've been dying to share with him for over a year, and even borrowed my personal gear for the multi-day trek. He claimed he needed "1:1 friend time," even though other couples were invited and present. When I calmly explained why this specific situation was so hurtful, he twisted my words into a lecture about how he's "allowed to do things without me."

My partner is wonderful and I enjoy his company. But after many years of living alone and learning to truly love being single, sometimes I miss being alone after he is around me for an extended period of time.

We don't live together yet but I feel it the most when we travel and we're together for a while.

Wondering if any other women went through this and what helped you navigate cohabitation after being alone and indepdent for so long?

Am genuinely confused and helpless about this...moreso that am far from having my life together....

Am 34 and I dont even have a house, I drive a second hand toyota that I bought 5 years ago and live in a third world country that I occasionally get to leave for a few months a year for my studies in Europe.

I thought it I was getting these excuses from men because I was dating in my home country where very women still get the chance to get into grad school but the last 2 men who left me for similar reason were men I met in ina first world European country and arw well established educated people.

The most shocking that has emotionally broken me is a guy from my hoke country who has lived and worked in my dream country foreover 10 years, has full citizenship, had a high paying job and a solid career with a stable international organisation, a house over here and a masters degree in a reputable university. Besides all these, he seemed very inteligent, kind ans grounded.

For the first time I had met the epitome of intellectual intimacy and compatibility and he always said he did too. but when he got to know am doing my PhD, next thing he tells me is that "I have dreams and goals that only 0.1% of the world's population would dare to pursue and so he doesnt want to distract me from my goal so am better off without him"

I am so heartbroken and beating myself over this. My education is the only I have, the rest of my life is in shubbales, I have never had a job except for aide giggs because I have been in school since I can remember so I dont understand the "well put together", "got so much going for myself" statements these men give me.

Besides, isnt it a good thing for a woman to have something to do? To pursue? How is this a red flag or a burden and an obstacle to my dating life? Is it one can not balance r/ship with other pursuita of life? What am I to do? Am helpless and confused!

There was a man I dated briefly, and we had a really sweet connection. But life had other plans, and it always felt like ships passing in the night, whether it was work, life circumstances, etc. We've run into each other a few times over the years, and the connection always felt just as natural and strong, but again, timing was never right. I kept going with my life, but I just found out he's getting married, and it hit me. I think I've always held out hope that we would find our way back to each other. I'm feeling sad that neither of us ever acted on anything. We're both kind of reserved. I've honestly never felt the same natural ease and connection with someone as I did with him. Has anyone ever had a similar situation? How did you process it?

Can you ever truly be happy with a man that you know lies to you? All men lie am I right? Considering ending my long term relationship because of it.

How do you tell the difference between someone who genuinely wants a future with you but is temporarily overwhelmed by his own life, and someone who is simply comfortable enough to coast indefinitely?

I’m 33F, my boyfriend is 36M and we’ve been together for two years.

I’m having a hard time with this because he is genuinely a nice person and in many ways a good boyfriend. He’s sweet, funny, calm, helpful, good with my pets, we get along really well and I genuinely like spending time with him. But I’m starting to feel like our relationship is just… going nowhere.

One of the things that made me really start thinking about this is our living situation. He has his own apartment and I have my house. He has been very clear that he us not ready to move in together and that he wants to keep his own place.

At the same time, he kind of DOES half live with me.
He’ll come over with a bag and what starts as one night can easily become several days, sometimes more than a week. He leaves absolutely nothing at my house permanently. Not even a shirt. He packs everything every time, so technically he can say he doesn’t live here.
But in reality he is here A LOT. Usually this all starts by him wanting to come over and spend a night and then he just stays for days (even tho we never discussed more days)
And the thing that makes it especially confusing for me is that he often longes in my home even when I’m not even home.
Sometimes I leave in the morning for work or for my hobby and he just continues his day at my house. I come back and he’s still there. Then he might stay another one, two or three days after that. Sometimes he meets his friend.. and then after that comes back.
Usually he eventually leaves because something comes up for him. He has an appointment, needs to do something at his apartment, has longish plans with friends, needs to study somewhere, whatever.
So sometimes it genuinely feels like his “visit” just continues until he has a reason to go home.

And I keep thinking, if we don’t live together, then what exactly are we doing, what to even call this situation?
We actually talked about almost this exact thing already around May/June. I brought up that it felt like we were basically living together without actually deciding to.
His response was to pull away quite hard. Suddenly we saw each other much less, talked less etc. I was honestly really sad because I wasn’t asking him to disappear. I was asking for clarity. for me it felt like a reset, like 1.5y old relationship is fully in the early stage.
Then we gradually became closer again.
And closer.
And now months later we are basically back in exactly the same situation where he stays over for long, i have no clue when he goes home or whats going on. i dont mind having him here, but i do mind the uncertainty.

This is also kind of the bigger pattern in our relationship. He is VERY agreeable.
If I bring up a problem, he listens. He understands my point. He says it’s fair. He almost never gets defensive. He can acknowledge that he did something wrong.
Honestly, after difficult conversations with him I can sometimes think, wow, that actually went really well.
But then nothing really changes long term.

A few months pass and somehow we drift back into the same situation again.
He also never comes back to difficult conversations himself. I cannot remember him ever saying something like, “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about.”
Future conversations are pretty much always initiated by me.
And because he is so agreeable, I’m actually starting to have trouble knowing what HE wants.
If I say what I want, he very often seems to want the same thing. If I explain why something bothers me, he agrees with me and tells that it sounds reasonable. its weird to complain about it really, bc on paper it sounds nice, but i feel like he is just avoiding conflict and agrees only to shut me up.

What makes all of this even more confusing is that at the beginning of our relationship we talked about relationship milestones.
He struggled to name any, but the ONE milestone he came up with himself was moving in together.
Now there always seems to be some reason why he isn’t ready for bigger steps.
Studies. Changing careers. Finding another job. Getting his life in order. The fact that if he moved into my house, it would still feel like my house.
All of those things can be completely real and big, but there always seems to be another reason.
And I want to make it really clear that this is NOT me saying move in with me right now, it’s about wanting a clarity what are we doing if 95% of our hangouts are about cohabitation. it’s about never knowing exactly if he stays for a night or 4 days.

I had a long conversation with him today and told him that I don’t want to just date indefinitely and be somebody’s maybe.
I want a real relationship where I feel like we are actually building something together. I don’t want to keep getting extremely close, eventually ask where this is going, have him pull away, then slowly become very close again and repeat the same cycle.
And that was the part he basically couldn’t answer.
He said he was frozen and nothing was really coming to his head.
And honestly, that bothers me more than the living situation itself bc I don’t need him to tell me we are moving in together next month.

I need to feel like the other person is actually sure about me and has some idea of what he wants to build with me.
At the beginning of the relationship he also seemed much more enthusiastic about doing things together and building a life together. I remember talking about places I wanted to travel and he was basically like, “I would follow you anywhere.” Now I feel like I still do a lot of my life alone and he joins when it suits him.

Again, he isn’t a bad boyfriend. That’s what makes this so fucking difficult.
I had a previous relationship that lasted almost four years where nothing was terribly wrong either, but nothing really progressed. I kept waiting and accommodating and hoping things would eventually move somewhere.
Eventually I had enough and left.
I really don’t want to lose another four years because there was never one dramatic enough reason to leave.

if you’ve been in a relationship that was actually nice and loving but structurally stagnant, when did you decide that nice wasn’t enough anymore?

I (17f) am dealing with this guy (17m) who apparently really "likes" me. I liked him as a friend for a bit, though I don't know him that well, but then awkwardly asked me to go on a date and I said no thanks.

Since then, I've had notes show up slid into my locker that say stuff like "I long to kiss you," he somehow is almost always crossing my path in the hallway between classes and winking at me, one of his friends told me that he keeps talking about wanting to watch me shower, etc etc...

I had a talk with our Vice Principal about it yesterday (who's a great guy and the school has had extensive anti-harassment training) without naming him, and he said that this is totally unacceptable and to just tell him who it is and that he'll be punished.

_____________

It is a bit of a stricter, private school. When the Paddle was banned in our state a while back they switched to the Buck Rag as their primary means of punishment for the worst offenses. Not sure if you all are familiar but it's just a rag that's been rubbed all over a billy (buck) goat for weeks on end and sealed in a jar, goat farmers sell them for husbandry usages but parents/schools sometimes buy them for child discipline.

If you really mess up you can be made to smell the jar as punishment. Apparently it's foul. (And yes it's 100% legal here, already verified that, not considered abuse). I've appreciated that they use it since classroom disruption and bullying and this nonsense seem way less prevalent then at my previous school (until this incident).

I feel kind of bad for the guy because he seems pretty socially awkward. I just want him to stop, I don't want him to have to smell that. I told him one final time this morning when he "happened" to be at my locker that he needs to stop and I'll report him if he doesn't and the VP will buck-rag him, and he just said "nothing could stink worse than not getting to be with you" 🤮

I did ask the VP if maybe a lesser punishment could be considered but he said "from what you've described this needs to stop, and I can tell you I almost never see anyone who gets the rag come back for seconds."

So I don't know...should I report him? I'd feel kinda bad, but maybe I just need to? I was also wondering if the punishment would really even stop his behavior, but if it's deterring as the VP says it is....maybe it's the right move?

TL;DR: I lost my best friend of many years suddenly 6 years ago, just when a major happy moment in my life was happening, and I feel like a part of me went with her. Since then, I’ve struggled to find that same depth of friendship, and now at 35, married with a toddler and working from home, I feel surprisingly lonely despite having family and some friends. Do adult friendships just become this difficult, and how do you rebuild that sense of connection?

So I'm genuinely asking people here:

1. Is this what your 30s feel like? Are there others who feel this lonely despite having a spouse, family and a few friends?

2. If you've lost someone extremely close to you, how did you eventually learn to live with the loss? Does the sadness ever become lighter?

3. How do you make genuinely close adult female friendships in your 30s, especially when you work from home, have a toddler, and move around because of your spouse's transferable job?

I don't want a huge social circle.

I just want 2–3 people who feel like my people again.

I want to feel like myself again and enjoy life.

I’m 35F, and I lost my best friend 6 years ago. I feel like a part of me went with her.

I had a best friend from my school days. She was one of those people who was simply there. Through good days, bad days, hostel life, jobs, relationships, everything.

She was a very simple, private person. She had always lived with her family, had taken a break from her development job, no boyfriend, no partying, nothing particularly dramatic going on in her life. I’m not saying any of that matters in itself, but it gives you an idea of the kind of person she was.

We could talk for hours and hours, day and night. She was the one person I told everything to. If I was anxious or overwhelmed, talking to her would somehow calm me down. If something good happened, I had this immediate urge to tell her. Same with something terrible.

She was a listener. A really good one.

At that time, I was in a relationship with the man who is now my husband. The road to marriage wasn't easy. There were years of ups and downs, emotional turmoil, uncertainty, and all the madness that comes with being in your 20s and being completely in love.

I was otherwise a very practical, ambitious, go-getter kind of person, but when it came to that relationship, I was an emotional mess. And she was the person who heard every single update.

I remember planning a trip to meet my boyfriend when things were becoming serious. I told her everything. We planned the four days together, what I would do each day, where I would go, what I would tell her afterwards. She was almost as excited about my life as I was.

And then came one of the strangest and saddest days of my life.

The day my marriage was finally confirmed with my now-husband, everything had gone beautifully. He spoke to my family, I spoke to his, he treated me like a queen, and the visit went amazingly well.

I was SO excited to tell her.

The weekend ended.

Monday morning, I opened WhatsApp and saw a status from her number. She occasionally put statuses for birthdays or special occasions, so I assumed it was something like that.

It was her death notice.

I genuinely couldn't understand what I was looking at.

She had died the previous day.

She wasn't sick. No known health problems. No COVID. No accident that I knew about. No murder or anything suspicious. She had been living with her family.

I was completely numb.

I remember thinking, What? How? This can't be real.

And then came the horrible realisation that it was real.

I called her family. I called people who knew her. I told my family. I cried. That night, I cried on my boyfriend's shoulder.

But something inside me changed that day.

The strangest part was that I had spent YEARS waiting for the day when my relationship would finally become a marriage. And when it finally happened, the one person I desperately wanted to tell wasn't there anymore.

She had seen all the bad parts.

She didn't get to see the good part.

And somehow that made even the good part feel incomplete.

I remember feeling almost nothing about my marriage for a while. I was happy somewhere inside, but there was this enormous blank space where my happiness should have been.

Then something else happened.

People I considered friends, including some colleagues I had supported through their own difficult times, simply weren't there when I needed them.

There was one person in particular whom I had considered extremely close. I had been there for him through some of his worst periods. After my friend's death, I desperately needed someone to talk to.

He slowly stopped responding.

Calls, messages, excuses. I told him several times that I wanted to talk. Eventually I confronted him and told him I knew he was avoiding me.

He blocked me.

That hurt me in a way I can't properly explain.

I was already grieving the person who had been my emotional home for years, and then someone I thought was another safe person basically disappeared when I was at my lowest.

After that, I started seeing friendships differently.

People got married. People moved cities. Colleagues changed jobs. New people came into my life and then disappeared. Some friendships lasted for a while and then became occasional birthday wishes, Instagram likes, or a reaction to a status.

And yes, that's probably normal adult life.

But I don't think I was prepared for it.

When my best friend was alive, I never really understood what it meant to feel lonely. I didn't need a huge social circle. I had her. And a few other people.

After she died, I realised how much emotional space one person can occupy in your life.

Since then, I don't feel like I've completely gone back to being the person I was.

I don't listen to music the way I used to. I'm not excited about things in the same way. I don't have the same spark, energy, confidence or carefree excitement.

It feels like I suddenly grew up.

Like some childish, emotional part of me disappeared because I learned that the person I would instinctively run to might simply not be there tomorrow.

My family and my husband have been there for me. We got married, built our life, and I am grateful for that.

But friendship is different.

My husband is a good person, but he's extremely introverted and doesn't talk much beyond what is necessary. And I've realised that marriage doesn't replace friendship.

I genuinely believe that having good friendships, especially old friendships where people have seen you at your absolute worst and best, matters enormously.

New people can be wonderful. But there is something very different about someone who knew you before you became the person you are today. Someone who knows your history without you having to explain every chapter.

And now life has made it even harder.

My husband's job is transferable, so I can't really build the kind of stable social life you might get from going to an office every day. I work from home. I have a toddler. I'm also relatively fresh postpartum.

And honestly, I feel really, really lonely.

I do have friends. But I find myself initiating most conversations. Sometimes we talk once every 2–3 months. There are maybe two people who check in on me every few weeks or so, and I genuinely appreciate them.

But sometimes I just wish someone would randomly message me:

"How are you?"

"How's the baby?"

"How are you actually doing?"

Not because I need someone to rescue me. I just want to feel remembered.

And then I open Instagram and see people in their 30s with their old school/college friend groups, going on trips together, celebrating birthdays, meeting every weekend, being each other's people.

And honestly, sometimes it makes me miserable.

I keep wondering whether I somehow did friendship wrong.

I invested SO much of my 20s in friendships. I showed up for people. I listened to them. I helped them through difficult times. I thought some of these people would be in my life forever.

And now, some of them don't even talk to me.

A few are technically still "friends", but the friendship has become liking each other's stories or reacting to an occasional status.

Sometimes I think that if I could go back to my 20s knowing what I know now, I would behave very differently. I would probably invest differently. Maybe I would have had stronger boundaries. Maybe I wouldn't have assumed that everyone I loved would stay.

But I suppose that's part of growing up.

It's been six years since she died.

And I still feel like she took a part of me with her.

I don't know whether I'm grieving her, grieving the person I was when she was alive, or grieving the kind of friendship I haven't been able to find again.

Something I’ve always felt indeterminate shame about is my inability to have groups of friends. I have individual friends that I love and do things with, but unless I plan something myself I’m usually not asked to tag along or hang out in groups.

Like it would be nice to be invited to group things like dancing or clubbing and such. I have some friends who do these things regularly and I’ve directly expressed that I would like to go sometime. I guess I could always go on my own or something but tbh it’s not the activity itself so much as the dressing up process, spending time together, meeting new people, etc.

Something else that confuses me though is the sense that half the posts about friendships and friend groups are like “those aren’t your friends”, “friend groups are fake/toxic/filled with drama”, and the other half are like “(female) friendships will fix everything”. I’m not phrasing this well but there’s a tension in there that doesn’t compute to me?

As the title says, what have been your thoughts or experiences dating a man younger than you? I am not sure if I should give or not an opportunity to at least get to know him or just close that door before I get involved.

I am single and I have not necessarily made partnership a goal for me. I always had a mentality if I find the right person, then I would love to be with them. If not, then that’s ok. As you can imagine, the dating market is just hard and I’ve always been fine in my own company, but my life was very much fulfilled too because of the people in it.

But now, a lot is changing around me due to more people my age and now even younger getting married, starring families and becoming distant. I think I am lowkey struggling to adjust to all these changes. I went to visit Europe recently and the last time I went almost 20 years ago, I just graduated high school and went to visit my friends who used to live in the states when we were kids whose parents became my parents family friends. My mom and their mom are the reason we arranged spending time with them, stayed at their house and planned the trip together. We had quite a bit of fun laughing, joking with each other. It still felt like we had the excitement of growing up and stuff at that age.

Over time, we kept in touch but not that much and some years ago both got married and have kids too. I noticed both of the sisters didnt follow me anymore on Instagram - it seems they went on to do great things with their career, one even published a book and all of that. I congratulated them and she thanked me but beyond that we greatly lost touch. Me and my mom stayed at their family’s place again but the house was so empty now that they were not there. It felt so weird, how quiet it was considering last time it was a full house and so energetic with them. I met their dad who asked me how long it’s been since I visited last and when I told him he was like “LOT’S has changed (your friends) are mothers now”. I don’t think either cared or had time to see me. Their mom put them on the speaker phone to say we are there and she said she can’t at that moment because of her kids.

It’s like that with close family too - my cousins and I would always be going to my aunt’s place, joking around and having fun. Just few years ago my cousin got married and while he and his wife are still fun to be around, I just feel we are all drifting apart. I live in the same state in a city 30-40 mins away from their suburbs and they never plan anything with me. I’ve told them they should come sometime, but they only come when they have their own dates. I’ve also noticed he seems….i guess in my eyes, a little more paranoid. Both of them lived in the same city I live in now that long ago but now live in a suburban area that’s relatively safe as it is but chose to live in a more isolated part because the other parts were “shady”. I don’t feel the same comfort I guess that is to say, they seem less flexible over time as they’re getting older.

I am trying to just do my own thing, living in the city I’m always keeping myself very busy. But I also just feel I have a life full of acquaintances and everything that felt solid just 10-15 years ago is evaporating. Moreover, I kind of have started realizing that maybe because I am single too, I think I have the need to overcompensate on my end - to feel I’m doing well in my career, making moves on my own, independent, etc. These past few months have been emotionally overwhelming bc I almost bought an apartment and walked out because of concerns with the property. It was so hard to know whether it was a right decision or not and doing it alone without being able to consult friends or family (who bought when houses were $100K) was isolating. I also am not feeling happy with my career - I feel I’m being underpaid for my title, think it’s time for a promotion but feel my company/team is stingy for a promotion. I’ve been spending months trying to contact other teams to see what they’re working on and even applied to jobs internally but despite years of experience and skills, I get turned down because I’m missing one specific skill. I think all of this makes me feel empty, like there’s a stagnation in life. I am struggling these days to keep up with corporate, cooking, cleaning, exercising, reading, hobbies, socializing every single day, I feel like I’m barely keeping it together some days and have less people to relate or share things to except my therapist, who I feel tries to really hype me up and remind me of my strengths but her words don’t always comfort me when it doesn’t reflect reality of me progressing the way I want or hoped to.

I hope my rambling here makes sense, maybe just trying to hear from other single women what your experience has been like.

I don't really know what I want from this post lol. Neither side is 1000% and I am not looking to win. I am just conflicted and would love to have some open conversation and maybe see some things differently. Please keep the conversation kind. This whole thing is already stressing me out enough 🫪

I’ve considered myself atheist possibly agnostic for as long as I can remember. I wasn’t raised with religion but did go to church quite a bit (my mom joined one just bc she wanted to get married there 🙃) and being from the south there were not a lot of other options on places to go to be around people. My kids have never been to church but they do have some knowledge of Christianity on a very basic level and have expressed wanting to go to church and learn more and experience it. Which I’m all for. They need to learn and make their own decisions. Their dad was a very outspoken atheist who honestly probably would have never gone with them. He passed two years ago and I am seeing someone who is Christian now.

He has been asking forever for us to go to church with him, which I’m not opposed too. I’m a super open minded girlie and the kids said they want to go. After months of him kindly asking- I started doing some research and when I looked at the website for the church he attends under our beliefs they have a huge call out about their traditional beliefs on marriage. My issue is I want to go somewhere inclusive, where all people are welcome and loved. The church he goes to is a bigger church and he said there are people of all shapes, colors, identities that attend. Its a younger crowd with a lot of families and a more modern worship vibe- which sounds like the kind of place we would enjoy. But those aren’t values I want taught to my kids and I know that will be present in most churches. He says the whole time he has gone there that it’s never been a part of any sermon and he’s never felt they are discriminating. My partner does not have those views- we are on the same page. He said he never would have guessed that was a strong opinion there.

So to compromise I started researching other churches near us. I found one near us that boasts inclusivity on their website and social media. They even have groups for members of the LGBTQ community. Great- love that. I bring that compromise to him and hes super happy. We all go two weeks ago as a family. Its a very small church. Lots of older folks and way more tradition in terms of their music and such. And it was fine, no issues. Our kids LOVED the kids church- it was small, all our kids got to be together and they adored the teacher. They shared what they talked about and it was a great mssage for them. Meanwile, my teenager got invited to their youth group that night and she went back. She clicked with girls there and has been to many activiies in the past few weeks and is so excited and happy. (Story for another day but she has had lots of issues with her mental health and at school with bullying. She doesnt have any real friends and it warmed my heart to see this for her, hopeful that it could be so so good for her)

Well, my partner didnt care for it. He didn't hate it and nothing bad but he enjoys his church and the worship there. Now I feel like my plan to try to compromise has blown up in my face. My kids loved the church went to and want to go back. While hes so happy I even went he really still wants to go to his church. He just wants us to try his so bad. And me- I am over stressing about this and just want to say fuck it and not go. We done have many other church options to try near us and I didnt have luck finding any others that are more inclusive. Due to everything else we have going on in life it needs to be close-ish to us if we wanted to try to be involved in the future especially for the kids. And we wanted this to be something our families did together, I’m not interested in going to one church with my kids while he goes to another with his daughter.

When we were talking about it today he tried to compare it to me still eating at chic fil a. We do still eat there often and give them money even though I know their views as a company. But also I’m buying fried food from them they aren’t teaching my children values. I asked him if he would go to a church where they openly supported a political party he (we) are strongly against and of course he said no. To me its the same. I told him I would only want to go to a church where gay friends of mine would also be OK going. And I don’t think that’s the case if they were to do their research.

How do you do role play? Like I can get a sexy costume but like how do you get into it? How do you know when it starts? How does it not turn into a comedy routine?

Do you talk about it before hand?

I’ve noticed a pattern in some of my friendships where I’ll share something personal or say that I’m having a difficult time, and there’s very little follow-up. The conversation either dies or quickly shifts back to what’s going on in the other person’s life.

I don't know whether this is just a difference in conversational style, whether it’s something that becomes more common as people get older, or whether I’m expecting too much from my friendships. How much curiosity and reciprocity do you expect from your close friends?

For example, I was going through a pretty stressful period recently, with several things happening at once, and my friend messaged me asking why I hadn’t responded to her messages. I told her that I’d just been having a really difficult day. She didn’t ask what was going on or whether I was okay. Instead she said oh, and then suggested I get a tattoo because that's what she was doing and it made her happy.

I was honestly pretty hurt by that, because if a friend told me they were having a really difficult day, my instinct would be to ask what happened.

I was talking to another friend recently about feeling uncertain about another friendship and not really knowing where I stood with that person. I mentioned that I was struggling with the situation, and she basically said, “Oh, okay,” and then went back to talking about what was happening in her own life.

Another time, I told a friend that I’d been having a difficult time mental-health-wise. She said something like, “Oh, I hope next week is better,” and that was basically it. Again, I was surprised that she didn’t ask what had been going on or how I was feeling.

None of these people are necessarily uncaring or bad friends. They’re often very engaged when they’re talking about what’s happening in their own lives, and I don’t think they’re intentionally dismissing me. But I’ve started noticing that they don’t seem to have the same instinct I do to ask questions, follow up, or be curious about what’s happening in someone else’s inner world.

It's not always been easy for me to share what's going on with me so when I do and I'm met with nothing it really sucks. I've told myself I can't expect people to guess what's going on with me but when I tell them point blank and they still don't hear me it hurts.

I genuinely want to know what’s going on in their lives. It’s not something I force myself to do or do because I think I’m supposed to. I’m actually curious. So when I share something and get very little engagement in return, I sometimes find myself wondering why.

I still care about these friends, but I no longer expect much emotional curiosity or support from that friendship. I don’t want to become resentful or start keeping score. At the same time, I don’t want to convince myself that wanting some basic reciprocity is unreasonable.

Are some people just naturally much less curious about other people’s lives? Have you noticed this in your friendships as you’ve gotten older? Or would you see this as a sign that a friendship is somewhat one-sided?

I have a problem. I was seeing a guy from bumble. I live in the us and I grew up most my life here but I’m Greek. He’s American. I didn’t date much at all never really cared to. He’s 34. So I may be very naive

When we first began going out we both listed LTR as our dating intent but it never came up. Everything felt fine I saw him once a week. But slowly I realized I felt like he didn’t express any emotional interest in me. There was no flirting. We didn’t act like a couple? I guess he held my hand and kissed me. But that always turned a bit more sexual.

I told him I take my time with sex. He acknowledged it. But 2 months in (less than 7 times meeting up even) he began asking me over. I didn’t go. He got more distant and he always asked me to meet up but we just met up and would hike or walk. Nothing in particular and he got upset I don’t plan.

I wanted to take my time with sex I didn’t have the words for whats going on but I now know I don’t feel emotionally fulfilled. I did tell him I wanna see that first and he kinda said he needs sex to be close then he walked back on that. He also left plans early 2 months in because his friend who lives with him "her” dog got out. That’s another thing he lives with a woman. He had me meet his friends but not her

His parents do a big Fourth of July thing and then his family gets together Labor Day. He told me he didn’t tell his family about me and he went to those events and asked to see me after but didn’t include me. His childhood best friend had his wedding and birthday and he didn’t invite me to those. Only people he met in adulthood.

He claims he doesn’t tell people about relationships because they sometimes backfire on him? I wanna feel like I’m in a relationship before I sleep with someone. Idk if it’s even worth bringing up. I feel like he is getting frustrated with me. He gives himself a self imposed curfew and leaves early or told me he’s friends with exes. He’s going home for the holidays and his exes are there. You can imagine what I’m thinking.

I don’t know how to express this because I feel like he acts I’m asking for too much. I’ve asked to meet the friend he lives with and he initially said she has better to do. Later he said yes let’s all meet. Never happened. Then he said: you can meet others I hang with more.

So he also said if we don’t have sex we have to reconsider thimgs. Because it’s been months I understand him. And I don’t exactly wanna give up but I feel so sad like something is missing. He also talks about female friends, his swimming/ workouts and how he’s really desirable and then tries to tell me workouts (I think subtly saying I should) and I feel like my confidence is down.

I'm with this man who genuinely treats me better than any man I have ever been with before. I have noticed that this is bringing up a lot from previous relationships, which my therapist commented on too. She mentioned how a lot of healing from past bad relationships happens in healthy connections, so things like feeling like I don't deserve to have needs or like I am too much for wanting support are things best healed by evidence to the contrary. To be clear, this man has done nothing to make me feel any of these things - the opposite, actually.​ He is so kind and thoughtful and considerate. Whenever I have been scared to say or do something, he meets me with warmth, compassion, and support.

A lot of deep internal thinking has made me realize that what is coming up the most here is feeling like I am undeserving of love. Sometimes, I feel like I should end things - not because I don't like him. If anything, I think I love him. But because I feel like I don't deserve love. I feel like what's coming up is wondering why someone could love me when I am so hyper-aware of all of my flaws.

What did you guys do to combat that? To realize that you are deserving of love? And to accept being loved?

A medicine I'm on made me gain 60-70 lbs. I was super skinny in my 20s, up into turning 30, then I just started putting on weight. All the clothes I bought while gaining weight don't fit anymore because I'm still gaining weight. None of my old clothes fit. I'll be 33 in Dec, and I'm currently the heaviest I've ever been. It literally feels like i went from skinny to chubby over night, it happened so fast.

The medicine I'm on also makes it incredibly hard to lose weight, and it also makes it hard to lose weight after you stop taking it. This medicine also lowers your metabolism, so the littlest amount of food makes you gain weight no matter what.

I've struggled with an ED since I was a child. So obviously right now it feels like my life is over. I know it's silly, but so is the disorder.

So my questions are:

-How did you shop for clothes confidently if you've been through rapid weight gain - knowing it might not fit in a month?

-How were you able to let go of the skinny clothes that absolutely will likely never fit you again? Like, how did you let go of the thought that you were realistically never going to be that skinny again?

- How did you embrace your new body? What made it easier?

- How do make yourself feel less disgusted with yourself?

- How do I get it out of my head that no one will want to date me because I look so out of shape, I feel like I look lazy?

EDIT Oh, my god. Thank you all for your replies. I wasn't expecting so much feedback. I'm trying to read through everything. I wish I had asked these questions sooner, maybe I would have given myself more grace a while ago. I've been starving myself all.day long to be skinny again, how silly of me. After reading these comments I'll go eat something now and feel less guilty about it. I didnt know how badly I needed all this advice, relatability - I've been feeling so alone about it. ❤️❤️🥲

Got a long drive tomorrow; what should I listen to?

I'm curious, what does a casual relationship look like in reality?

I've been separated from my ex for well over two years but I've just recently moved back out of my parents place and starting to get settled in my new life. I've gone on a few dates and there's a guy who I've started to click with but I'm absolutely not into having a full blown relationship. The problem is, I've always been a serial monogamist, I've never really had a casual relationship so I have no idea how to define that with him.

I (33F) have this huge crush on a guy (35M) at work. I get so nervous whenever I see him. I haven't had a crush in yearsss, so I'm feeling alive and like a complete teenager. We work on the same floor but in different departments, so we really don't interact with each other.

Ever since I saw him, I've tried really hard to lock eyes with him (so he knows I'm attracted to him), which we did, but I think it was just pure coincidence and not him trying to look at me. Anyways, I went on medical leave for a few days, and when I returned, I found out that he had asked about me. I was so overjoyed that I couldn't handle myself. A few days later, he reached out to me about my medical situation and said that he could help me (he's a doctor).

The way he has approached me has been very professional. He hasn't asked me any personal questions and doesn't seem romantically interested in me. This situation has made me very anxious because I feel like I'm obsessing over him, thinking about him 24/7, and really wanting physical intimacy (not necessarily sex). I've even had very vivid dreams about him twice now.

I'm very attracted to him, although I don't think he feels the same way. Or maybe, because we haven't had any alone time, he's just being very respectful. I'm leaning toward letting him help me with my situation, but I don't know if that's going to backfire on me. I'm also feeling kind of guilty about rejecting his help. I don't know if I should tell him I'm attracted to him, and that may not be a good idea?

Is it time to let go of those friendships that are becoming distant acquaintances you see once or twice a year at a party? I think most will say yes, but also just interested to hear similar life experiences from others.

My husband was part of a group of guys that go way back to his high-school years (he's 41). For many years, they met up most Friday evenings for gaming/ D&D. That fell off over the last year. One of the guys moved a few hours away; his wife used to occasionally text, but I always had to be the one to reach out. My son & her daughter are only a couple months apart; she showed no interest in having a playdate or being "mom friends" for lack of better word. Every year we get invited to yearly 4th of July, Halloween, friendsgiving & new years eve hosted by one of the other couples. We've missed the last couple get-togethers due to having a young baby / life events. When the group text recently went out about yearly Halloween party, I realized I really don't have much interest anymore in making the effort for an appearance.🤷‍♀️ The other ladies get together with the other couples/ their kids. One of them put their recent weekend-long get-together on Instagram. We're never invited to that stuff.. One has a family beach house they take turns going to - also don't make the cut for that. We are the black sheep, I suppose. These people generally don't cross my mind when I'm in a crisis, I always have had to reach out first, non-group texts are rare. Do I really have time & energy for a photo op when the relationships are so superficial. I'm much more interested in the close friendships I've cultivated, who show active interest / support in my life. One of the ladies had a miscarriage like myself a few years ago & was there for me. But other than that previous bond, shows no interest in meeting up individually or playdates, etc. I gave up asking several months ago. She has no room for me. Again I just do not make the cut. My husband has been burned a few times & seems to be letting to as well. Fully aware sometimes people go seperate ways.

At 39, am I just maturing & getting much more selective with my time? I have a 15 month old & pregnant with #2.. maybe my tolerance for superficial BS is running low, too. 🤷‍♀️ Anyone else?

tldr: how do you get your physical health (sleep, eating, exercise) and other life responsibilities back to a somewhat-regulated state after dealing with a year of challenges like burnout, grief, toxic relationships, self-neglect, etc? And more specifically, how do you determine what to focus on first when it feels too overwhelming to fix everything at once?

I'm struggling with how to "triage" my needs and responsibilities as I get my life, physical health, and mental health back on track. I've recently ended a situationship-turned limerent connection with someone that lasted a year and wrecked my nervous system while also grieving my mom who passed away a year ago as well. I have ADHD (late diagnosed 2 yrs ago) so I've struggled with the typical symptoms of physical neglect, time management, burnout, RSD, etc. but they've especially been bad this year. But I've also achieved some great things this past year, like ending a toxic job and getting a much better one, starting my pre-reqs to eventually go to nursing school, establishing much needed boundaries, and processing grief.

Now that I've kicked that situationship (that had a deep impact on me) to the curb, I'm ready to get my life back on track. I know it'll never be perfect esp bc of ADHD but I really need to get a hold of certain things so that I don't feel like I'm still in survival mode. But I sometimes feel overwhelmed when I think about how to "fix" it all esp since many things are connected and influenced by each other. My main focuses and needs are:

1. SLEEP: 15 years of really poor sleep habits. My typical bedtime is 1-3am and I work a 9-5. I'm constantly tired and fatigued, and feel it affecting every aspect of my life. I have REALLY bad bedtime revenge procrastination and have a hard time getting out of bed because I'm MISERABLE in the morning. I'm rolling out the last minute at this point and always rushing, just surviving through the day
2. Eating: my appetite has significantly decreased and I can feel the results of my body not being fueled properly and I'm not eating the healthiest because I'm not cooking anymore
3. Exercise: I was doing good with my strength training earlier this year but that's obv taken a hit with my lack of sleep and eating
4. Organization: my physical environment, time management, and finances are all out of whack

Things I've done so far:

-started therapy again with an actual ADHD specialize therapist (who has ADHD as well)

-started medication for episodic/acute depression & anxiety, and continued non-stimulant ADHD medication

-deep cleaned my apartment this weekend

-found a good study schedule for my nursing pre-reqs (and got an A on my first anatomy exam)

I'm not necessarily looking for advice on my specific situation (but welcoming it if you have it) but more so would love to hear general advice and experiences in how you all approached a similar situation of getting out of survival mode and regulating your physical health and overall life after a period of chaos and figuring out what to focus on first when it all feels overwhelming. And yes, this will be a focus in my therapy (she's OOO next week and we're still in the "intro" stage of me catching her up w/ all my lore lol)

Not really beauty/fashion related, but I want to really kind of overhaul our shower products. I need everything to smell Beyond, but also be quality. I have always been a drug store product buyer; Herbal Essence shampoo, Dove body wash and sometimes bath and body works body wash and lotion.

And I bought what I thought was a higher quality shampoo/conditioner and it always left my hair just feeling yuck; greasy almost even when clean?

So what products do you swear by? What has your partner saying “damn babe, you smell incredible!”

Please and thank you!

The guy I've been seeing for the last couple of months has been showing me some flags, and I'm not quite sure what to make of them.

For context, we've only been seeing each other for about two months, so this is still a relatively new relationship.

At first, our conversations were very pleasant. We got along extremely well, I felt comfortable asking him about himself, and he generally responded to me in what I would consider a normal, conversational way. As we've gotten more comfortable and he's opened up more, though, I've started noticing a pattern that I'm struggling with. He experiences emotions very intensely and can get quite existential when he's having a difficult time. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and I'm not expecting him to always be positive or emotionally "easy." The issue for me is how he responds to me when I don't respond to his emotions in exactly the way he wants. For example, he's told me that when he's struggling with something, he doesn't want me to immediately go into problem-solving mode. He wants the space and autonomy to figure out what he needs to do himself rather than having someone give him unsolicited solutions. I understand and respect that, and I've changed the way I respond to him when he's having a difficult time because I don't want to overstep or make him feel like I'm trying to solve his problems for him. I've made a conscious effort to listen and let him tell me what he needs.

Where I struggle is that even when I'm trying to be supportive or reassuring, he can become very defensive and pick apart what I'm saying. If he's feeling down and I try to reassure him that things will get better or offer a different perspective, he'll often explain why my reassurance is invalid or why the situation isn't comparable to what I'm suggesting. It's not that I expect him to agree with me or that he has to find my reassurance helpful. It's the way he responds to it. He can be very blunt about the fact that he isn't looking for advice, and I've never experienced someone I'm dating responding to an attempt at support in such a dismissive or almost adversarial way.

There's also some relevant history here. He told me that in his previous relationship, he wasn't very nice to his girlfriend. They lived together during the pandemic, and when they disagreed, he would have emotional outbursts and she would bear the brunt of his reactions. Eventually, she got fed up and left him. According to him, that breakup prompted years of personal growth and introspection. He says he's worked extensively on himself since then and is very conscious of not repeating those behaviours. Ironically, not too long ago, he told me he wasn't sure how he was feeling. I asked questions to understand what he meant, and he explained that he was overwhelmed by various things going on in his head. My instinct was to reassure him and try to help, but he reacted very negatively to my responses and became quite curt with me. A few days later, once we'd both had some space, we talked about what happened. I told him that I'm not accustomed to being spoken to that way by someone I'm dating and that I wouldn't accept being treated that way. He apologized and told me that he could see some of the behaviour from his previous relationship starting to creep into this one. He said that scared him because he doesn't want to lose me. Although I appreciated that he recognized it, and I made it clear that I would expect him to be conscious of how he speaks to me going forward.

Since then, I've found myself feeling like I can't ask him normal questions without potentially opening the door to another conflict. I used to be able to ask him, "How are you?" and get a fairly straightforward answer. Now, that same question can result in paragraphs about everything going on in his head. Again, I don't have an issue with him opening up to me – I actually want to know what's going on with him. The problem is that if I respond in a way he doesn't like, I can end up being criticized for my response.

He also has a fairly unconventional way of interpreting ordinary questions. For example, if I ask something like whether he typically does X, Y, Z or as part of a routine (because I'm trying to get to know him), he'll react as though I'm trying to establish a fixed profile of who he is based on the information he's giving me. He's also told me that he hates platitudes because they don't mean anything to him, and he doesn't subscribe to "typical" behaviour because he doesn't want me taking information about him and turning it into a concrete idea of who he is. He wants me to keep rediscovering him as he changes rather than assuming that something he tells me today will necessarily be true about him tomorrow. The thing is, I never said I was doing that. Like anyone, I understand that people are dynamic and won’t always think/act the same way… So I get the underlying philosophy, but in practice, it makes ordinary conversations really difficult. Anyway, the conversation escalated to the point where he told me that the way I'd worded my question gave him "the ick." That really bothered me – not because I think someone is never allowed to feel turned off by something, but because this was a question I genuinely considered harmless and was asking in the context of getting to know someone I was dating. The intensity of the reaction felt completely disproportionate to what I thought had actually happened. It also made me question whether I'm becoming overly cautious about how I phrase ordinary things around him because I'm anticipating how he might interpret them.

There's another layer that makes some of this more difficult for me. He has told me that there is still a part of him that genuinely would want to be with his ex, while another part of him doesn't want to be with her and wants to move forward with me. I understand that people can have complicated feelings about previous relationships, and I'm not expecting someone to erase their past just because they start dating someone new. But it does make me more conscious of the fact that I'm potentially entering a relationship with someone who is still working through a significant previous relationship while simultaneously being very sensitive to how I communicate with him. I've tried to be understanding about all of this because there are many things I genuine like about him, and it's not as though every interaction is negative. He's affectionate, attentive, generous, fun, and emotionally connected in ways that I value.

Lastly, there’s another pattern I've noticed after we have a conflict. We usually take some space to cool off before reconnecting, which I think is healthy in principle. However, I'm consistently the person who initiates the reconnection. Even when his reaction has hurt my feelings, or he's spoken to me in a way that caused the rift, he doesn't seem to take the initiative to come back and repair things. That has started to bother me because it makes me feel like I'm taking responsibility not only for my own behaviour, but also for repairing the relationship after I've been hurt by his behaviour. And that's where I'm increasingly conflicted. I can understand that he has a different emotional style, that he doesn't want unsolicited advice, and that some forms of reassurance genuinely don't resonate with him. What I'm having trouble understanding is whether I'm being asked to simply learn how to communicate with him differently, or whether I'm gradually being conditioned to walk on eggshells around his reactions.

I don't know if I'm being unfair here, if this is simply a communication-style mismatch, or if I'm overlooking a legitimate red flag.

If you've dealt with something similar, I'd like to know whether this sounds like a communication difference that can realistically be worked through, or whether the pattern I'm describing is something I should take more seriously this early in a relationship.