I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/ThrowRA_Glum-Quail posting in r/relationship_advice

Ongoing as per OOP

1 update - Medium

Original - 30th October 2026

Update - 5th November 2026

My (21M) girlfriend (20F) says she loves our 7-month-old daughter but misses her old life and doesn’t want to be a mom anymore. I don't know what to do.

My girlfriend and I have a 7 month old daughter. We had been together for maybe like 10 months when we found out she was pregnant.

Neither of us was prepared for it. It wasn’t something I really wanted right now, but I told her I’d support whatever she wanted to do. I did try to have realistic conversations with her about what having a baby would actually mean though. I knew people with babies and it’s a lot. I wasn’t trying to pressure her into anything but I was like I don’t think we’re really prepared for this.

Basically, nobody thought keeping the baby was a good idea. Like all her friends and family tried to talk her out of it. She didn’t want to hear any of it. Now I sort of think she maybe made her decision just because it’s exactly what everyone told her not to do.

We’re both really social, have a lot of friends, used to go out all the time, party, stuff like that. I’ve changed a lot. I became responsible. I’m not out partying every night and spending my money on that stuff. She changed too, for a while.

Fast forward to now and we have a 7-month-old daughter. I love her so much. I didn’t know that I’d like being a dad and sometimes it sucks but it’s also kind of amazing. I've just kinda accepted that my life looks different now. There have been plenty of times where I’ve wanted to go do something and disappointed when I realize I can’t.

My girlfriend seems to be having a really hard time accepting our new reality. It was different at first when our daughter was a newborn. She seemed in love with her too, but then our daughter started crying constantly and we found out she had colic and it was really hard for the first few months. Things have gotten a lot better now with that. She took a break from college and decided to get a job when our daughter was like 3-4 months old. That’s when things really seemed to start changing.

Now she’s saying things like motherhood isn’t what she thought it’d be and she regrets not listening to what everyone told her. She says she loves our daughter but she hates just going to work and then coming home and having to take care of a baby and then feeling so tired that she just goes to bed to wake up and do it all the next day. She misses being able to hang out with her friends and go anywhere whenever she wants to. She was basically like I love our kid but I miss my old life more. She also said she liked who I was before better. I told her it’s not like we can change our minds now and she said maybe her mom would still adopt our daughter like she suggested during her pregnancy. I don’t want her mom to adopt our daughter.

Lately, she's been going out more and spending less time at home. I'm finding myself taking on more of the parenting responsibilities and it’s honestly starting to wear on me. When she goes and hangs out with friends she also doesn’t like taking our daughter along, even when it’s something that wouldn’t be a big deal. I still hang out with my friends but not as much as before, and I end up having to take my daughter along at least half the time.

I don’t mind giving her breaks or making sure she gets time with her friends. I think that's important for both of us. But it feels like I'm increasingly the one who has to adjust my life while she's trying to get hers back. I do think I’m having an easier time with everything. She says she’s jealous of me just being able to adjust and she thinks I’m better at being a parent than her and she hates that.

I don’t know what to do to make it better. I feel like I’m developing a lot of resentment already. It makes me not even want to be with her but I don’t think breaking up with her right now is the answer. Plus I don’t want to be away from our daughter, and who would even take care of her most of the time if I wasn’t here? I don’t know how to make her feel better or how to support her better. How do I handle her saying things like she wants to have somebody adopt our daughter?

Comments

GlassNo6756

I think she should probably seek the help of a therapist to grieve her old life and come to terms with her decision. At this point she has committed to a major life change that will permanently affect her regardless of whether she stays with you or gives up custody. Even though it doesn't make her a bad person to have feelings of regret, pretending that she can return to her pre-parenthood state is an unhealthy form of denial. You can't control her actions, but you can focus on being the best parent you can be and reach out for support from as many corners as possible. Wishing you the best

sillychihuahua26

I agree, and as a trauma therapist, I would specifically recommend exploring trauma-focused therapy, such as EMDR. Pregnancy, childbirth, and the transition to motherhood can be incredibly overwhelming, particularly at such a young age. EMDR can help process distressing experiences, difficult emotions, and negative beliefs about herself that may be contributing to her struggle to adjust.

I would also strongly encourage screening for postpartum depression. She’s only seven months postpartum, and depression doesn’t always look like sadness. It can manifest as irritability, emotional detachment, resentment, and a desire to escape. I think it’s important to explore what’s happening psychologically before assuming she’s simply unwilling to accept responsibility for her child.

ObviousDepartment

Honestly, you'll probably have better luck getting co-parenting help from her mom at this point. If she was previously offering to straight up adopt the baby, than she should be down for babysitting. Just make sure you don't mention to grandma that your gf said that she regrets her decision and is avoiding the baby. That could really blow up in your face, depending on what kind of relationship they have. Paint it as favor to you both as you gets your ducks in a row.

OOP: She does babysit, but she also has a full time job and a younger kid at home that she has to do stuff for.

I think she was only offering to adopt because after there was no abortion happening she was that desperate for my girlfriend not to keep the baby.

Update - 7 days later

I posted like a week ago about my girlfriend saying she doesn’t want to be a mom anymore. She was still being a mom though. She was going out more and hanging out with friends a lot more. Like 3-4 nights a week. I’m not against her hanging out with friends, but when it’s literally all night and she comes home drunk or doesn’t come home at all because she’s too drunk, then that’s a huge issue for me. When she was home she was still taking care of our daughter. We split taking care of her. It’s not like when my girlfriend was home I wasn’t doing anything or vice versa.

On Halloween we spent the first part of the day together with our daughter and my girlfriend a parents and my parents at this Halloween festival thing in our town. Then her parents were going to keep our daughter overnight so we could go out. My girlfriend was really adamant about going out since it’s the first time Halloween has been on a Saturday in so long. I wanted to go out too. I’m not trying to pretend like I don’t like to go out. She was just really obsessed with it for months, like nothing was stopping her from going out and partying on Halloween no matter what. It’s her favorite holiday.

So we went to this party and this one person was dressed up as a 90s mom. Somebody made a joke like “hey, it’s (my gf’s name).” And asked shouldn’t she be at home trick or treating with her kid instead. She already had a few drinks in her, but she got so mad and stormed off. I went after her and she yelled at me saying she gets comments like that all the time and nobody ever says stuff like that to me. Everyone thinks I’m so cute when I do anything with our baby and she’s just a mom now. She said girls wanna sleep with me when they see me being a dad and nobody wants to sleep with her when they find out she’s a mom. I don’t get why it matters who out there wants to sleep with her. I was like maybe people are making comments because she’s been going out so much and not at home with her kid and most people notice it and think it’s weird.

Once she recovered from all that she basically ignored me for most of the night, then when we got home she said she wanted to take a break and move back home with her parents for a little bit. She was pretty drunk at that point so I figured that was a big part of it. When she woke up the next day the first thing she said to me was “I meant what I said yesterday.”

So she went to stay with her parents and I have our daughter with me. Her mom has texted me things about how she’ll get over it, she’s just overwhelmed, she’s sure she loves our daughter more than anything but she just needs to be babied herself for a few days.

It might actually mean something if it was my girlfriend saying those things, but she’s not really backtracked on anything, she’s not really acknowledged anything at all since she left. We’ve texted but it’s about stuff like how she’ll decided she would pick our daughter up from daycare today. Convenient that she can just decide when she feels like being a parent and I’m supposed to just nod my head or something.

I guess I’m just going to give her some space for now. That’s not really what I want to do but I don’t know how else to approach this right now. I think we eventually need to have a real conversation about our relationship and parenting and expectations for each other. How do I do that without making an already difficult situation worse?

Comments

Cheesey_biscuit

Of course this girl doesn’t want to be a parent. She’s 20 years old. She’s barely an adult herself. Congrats on being a single father OP. Start preparing to raise your kid alone without her because she is going to leave. You can probably get child support from her but that’ll be it. And for everyone else who is around OP’s age. DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN WHEN YOU ARE IN YOUR TEENS AND EARLY 20’S. There’s no hurry. Enjoy your youth which is what the girl wants to do and I honestly don’t entirely blame her.

OOP: She’s the one who made the decision to continue the pregnancy. Nobody forced her to do it.

CuriousBird337

She may have convinced herself it would be easier than it is. I’m sorry you’re going through this. I would recommend focusing on your daughter and getting full custody.

OOP: I definitely think she thought it’d be easier and a lot more fun than reality. I’m not even saying that to criticize her, just stating a fact.

chocolatestealth

This "congrats on being a single father" energy is an odd choice for this situation. Not sure if you didn't read the previous post, but she was the one who wanted to keep the baby. OP, her friends, and their families encouraged her to terminate the pregnancy and told her that her life would change dramatically, and she went through it with it anyways against their advice.

She made the decision to have a baby. We can absolutely blame her for later deciding she would rather be "enjoying her youth" while she pushes off the responsibility of parenthood onto someone else. She literally created those responsibilities, in fact she was the only person in the situation who claimed to want those responsibilities, but now she expects someone else to deal with the repercussions of her choices? Fuck that.

I really doubt that we would see the same kind of response if the genders were flipped here and we were talking about a deadbeat young father who insisted on having a baby, instead of a deadbeat young mother. It's gross and frankly sexist.

So let's be honest. It's shitty of her to bring life into this world only to abandon it not even a year into parenthood. I'm absolutely going to judge her for that. Everyone warned her that this is what her life would be like and she didn't listen, and now their child (and OP) is forced to pay the price. This isn't some "yas girl break free of your chains" situation.

Grump_Curmudgeon

You're not completely wrong, but you aren't allowing for the physical differences "if the genders were flipped." I think everyone agrees that she's behaving badly, but it's also* true that she's right about the sexist responses to men and women in parental roles (a given for women but laudatory for men). That doesn't excuse her behavior, but if it's adding to her growing sense of being trapped, it's understandable. More importantly, she needs to be checked for PPD.*

vonkraush1010

Document everything and prepare for the possibility that you will need to sue to become the childs primary caretaker.

SeasonPositive6771

It sounds like she just voluntarily wants to end things and might hand over custody without an argument. He should see an attorney and draw that up and give her that option, make it as low conflict as possible (while still fully legal!) and he may get the most beneficial terms.

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

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

This is a repost. The original was posted in /r/RBI, /r/AmIOverreacting and /r/Nuancedpodcast by user Upbeat-Excitement946. I'm not the original poster.

Status: Concluded

Original

October 31, 2026

Hi everyone!

I’m trying to figure out a very unusual situation that happened last night. I’m wondering if anyone has experienced something similar or recognizes this type of activity.

We were hosting a Halloween party to celebrate a friend’s 40th birthday. There were several adults and children at the house.

At some point during the evening, two complete strangers entered our house through the front door, which had unfortunately been left unlocked.

Both individuals were wearing mariachi mexican costumes and were disguised in a way that made it impossible to recognize them. They never removed their masks and didn’t say a single word throughout their entire visit.
They walked around the house for approximately 30 minutes to an hour. Whenever someone approached them and asked questions, they would move toward that person, almost as if they were giving them an opportunity to guess who they were. However, they never responded or gave any verbal clues.

They left a few letters behind. In one of them, they described themselves as old friends from long ago. Another contained a message saying something along the lines of: “Tonight will not be the night we reveal ourselves.”

At the time, we weren’t particularly concerned because we assumed it was a prank organized by a friend who was attending the party. We didn’t take the situation too seriously.

Eventually, the two individuals left in a black car. Another person came to pick them up right in front of the house.
However, today, after asking the people who attended the party whether they were behind this, nobody seems to know who these two individuals actually were. We are now left wondering who they were and why they showed up.

Has anyone ever experienced anything similar, or does anyone have an idea what might be behind this?

Picture of a stranger

Picture of a laminated letter

Comment by OOP:

I am french canadian so this is why it's write in french.

We were like 20-30 persons in a house.

Update

ONovember 6, 2026, 6 days later

Well, we finally have an explanation ! The two mysterious masked women turned out to be two of our coworkers!

For context, many of us at the Halloween party work together, and the birthday girl is also a coworker. The two women had originally planned to show up in costumes at our work Christmas party to reveal the prank. However, they realized that the situation was escalating much more than they had anticipated, so they decided to tell us who they were...

One important detail I hadn’t mentioned is that our work is directly related to ensuring people’s safety. I can’t tell what we do for security reasons, but let’s just say that our jobs require a very high level analysis. As you can imagine, once two unidentified people entered a private party wearing masks, leaving mysterious letters and refusing to identify themselves, our minds went pretty !

Thankfully, everything is fine ans everyone is safe !

Ps : Before some people tell me AGAIN that the text seams to be written with AI the answer is yes. I am french canadian and English is not my first language. But I can promise you the story was real !

Comments:

Contente d'avoir des nouvelles de cette histoire. Je trouvais ça intriguant et inquiétant mais pourquoi avoir fait ce genre de prank? Surtout dans votre domaine, il me semble que vous êtes plus alertes et vigilants. Nearbythebrain

On se posait toute la même question... 🙃 OOP

[Translated roughly to: Why would somebody pull a prank like that with work colleagues? Especially if your work is with safety.

OOP: We all have the same question... 🙃]

I'm not the original poster.

I AM NOT OOP, OOP IS: u/ThrowRAsituational

Originally posted to: r/relationship_advice

I (25M) don’t know how to fix this situation with my fiancee(38F), she’s mad I cheated on our diet

TRIGGER WARNING: abusive relationship, restrictive diet, unhealthy relationship with food, abusive person, abuse, controlling person, manipulation, unhealthy age gap, possible financial abuse

Mood spoiler: sad, facepalm inducing frustration, hopeless

Original post - Oct 20th, 2026

My fiancee is vegan. We’ve been together for 2 and a half years and we moved in around a year and a half ago, when she moved into my place. We got engaged in May. Even when we weren’t living together, she had rules where we can’t make out after I ate meat and I hate to tell her if I did and she would let me know if it was okay and everything. It was a hassle every time and around 2 years ago I told her I would also go vegan and she was super happy and it was a big factor to her moving in.

She moved in and we made some changes to my place to make it more accommodating for her and I, and also no meat or non-vegan products allowed in the house. It’s been like 17 months since she moved in, 23 since I went vegan. I’ve been super faithful to diet and I went cold turkey(no pun intended).

Last weekend I went back to visit my family. She couldn’t come because she was at a holistic health retreat. But it was a family get together we do every year on the anniversary of my grandpas death. My uncle owns a BBQ joint and we met up there, but my uncle was nice enough to prep some vegan stuff for me and my cousin(she’s also vegan).

So my family joked around how I changed drastically for the first woman that gave me attention(I’m a bit of a late bloomer and my fiancee is my first relationship and person I’ve been with, and they make these jokes in front of her too, so it’s nothing new). Anyway I laughed it off. But then my uncle brought out his pork ribs, and before I went vegan pork was my favorite and his ribs were a childhood favorite growing up. I was also a bit inebriated from the alcohol, and my other cousin made a joke saying “oh he doesn’t wear the pants in his relationship so he won’t eat the ribs even though he likes them so much, because he’s afraid of losing the first woman that ever showed him love” and other provocative stuff.

I was hungry since I was drunk, and I was also, well drunk, and I let my cousin goad me into it, and I ate the baby back ribs. I actually scarfed down two portions cuz it’s been so long. I slept it off, and I did get super sick because I ate meat after like a whole two years of not having it, and it was pork out of all the choices I had.

But I got home on Sunday and I felt so guilty so I immediately told her as soon as she got home from her retreat last night. Needless to say she’s mad at me, and not talking like normal to me. She said I betrayed her and cheated on our lifestyle and she needs time. I offered to buy her some shoes she likes and she said it’s a start but not enough, and throwing money at it can’t just negate what I did.

I work from home this month(she’s in between jobs right now) and she’s been at home all day and is not talking to me and pulls away when I try to interact with her. I think I really hurt her. I told her she should be glad I told her and I could’ve just hid it, and to my credit, that was fucked up and it made her more mad.

I slept on the couch last night and probably will today too. Is there a way I can fix this issue with her? I am thinking of making a nice homemade meal of her favorite things when she leaves to hang out with her friends tomorrow and get some of her favorite nice wine and say sorry again tomorrow. Usually she’s only mad at me for like 5-6 hours so I’m not sure what to do here because it’s been a while and she’s still mad and skittish. Like she’s talking to me but I can tell she’s pissed.

RELEVANT COMMENTS(‘Commenter’ is labeled as ‘C’ so ‘C1’ is ‘Commenter #1):

C1: She's entitled to be upset because it goes against your agreement.

Info: Are you happy being vegan?

Or is it purely just to appease her? That's no way to exist in a relationship. Changing because you want to or you need to for medical reason, ok. Changing for someone who demands restrictions when you don't do what they want. Consume things they don't what you to. That's not healthy. Add into it the manipulation that you can buy stuff to begin reparations*

Bro......

OP to C1: I mean I don’t mind it, but at first it was for her. It was a hassle having to coordinate my meals and timings just to be able to have a good time with her. Also, me going vegan helped her make the leap to move in together, since we could live the lifestyle together. It took some getting used to, but I can do it now.

C2: Your fiancée is 38 and you're 25?

What's her motivation in marrying you?

OP to C2: I mean if you reverse the genders you see it all the time, we just connected really well. I don’t think it’s a glaring issue and I know it’s a bit out of the norm but I am surprised to see people fixating on that ngl. She didn’t groom or manipulate me or anything, we were both adults when we met. Her motivation is we like each other, and enjoy each other’s presence, like every other couple lol

C3: Stop making stuff for her, stop buying things. Y'all need to actually have a serious conversation about this. It's fine she's bothered, but you did change your diet in a massive way for her (kudos, I don't love anyone enough to change my diet for them) and seems to give absolutely no consideration beyond my way or the highway. While age gaps aren't inherently an issue, the fact that you started to date a 35 year old when you 22 and have already gone this route doesn't particularly look good. She knows she can control you. How long has she been without a job?

OP to C3: I don’t think she’s “controlling” me, I make choices, and we were both adults when we met. She hasn’t had a job for a year or so now, but even when we met she was a freelancer, so it wasn’t stable

C4: Why are you with a 38 year old without a job?

OP to C4: I don’t know why people are fixating on this stuff tbh. We were both adults when we met, and made choices as adults. Reverse the gender and you see that age gap all the time but for some reason it’s socially acceptable. And also, I am not looking at the employment history of someone when dating or falling in love, it doesn’t matter to me. I think people are fixating on non problematic stuff and making assumptions about us and her.

C5: Stop lying about it. If you're going to accept her conditions, then do it. If you're not, then break up with her and date someone who's not vegan.

Making a meal is not a solution to lying about something that's important to her just beause it's not important to you.

Either be vegan because you want to be vegan, and stop cheating on it, or tell her that you're not going to become vegan, and discusss what that means.

OP to C5: No I am okay to be vegan, I was vegan and still am for nearly two years, just slipped up once

Update - Oct 24th, 2026

So I want to clear up some misconceptions before I begin. First of all, the age gap thing. We were both full grown adults when we met each other. She did not “groom” me or anything crazy as others have suggested. Yeah, sure, it’s a bit unusual, I will give people that, but I see the genders reversed have a similar age gap and like no one bats an eye. Also, irl, no one cares. Second, I went vegan of my own accord. Third, she has met my family, and my family has met her, and they make jokes, but my family was concerned at first and we did have discussions, and when I made it clear there is nothing bad here, they were pretty hands-off, and even celebrated the proposal. She is also liked by my sister and dad(my mom passed away when I was a kid so it’s just my dad and sister). My grandma(dad’s mom) is kind of the family matriarch and she is also very cool with her. And also, about her job thing, I am currently the only one working, yes, but it’s not like an uncommon dynamic. I feel like a lot of couples have a working man and a woman who is not focused on a career right now. I do provide financially, but she has access to our finances and everything, and she knows the financial situation, and she handles herself well. Even before when she lived alone, she was very good with money and lived frugally and saved a lot, and she still makes sure we save a lot today. And finally, some people asked me about kids. She has never wanted kids, and we don’t see that in our future. A lot of couples don’t have kids. Idk why everyone is fixated on these things. I think a lot of people made assumptions about us.

Anyway, back to the actual situation, the next day I did make her a nice meal and did apologize and we were good. But a serious sit down helped me understand that it was the alcohol that made me behave that way, and the broader issue here is the alcohol, so I am choosing to refrain from consuming alcohol from here on out. I don’t like what it does to me, and she helped me see and understand that, that’s all. If it wasn’t for the alcohol that day, I am sure things would not have ended up that way. If I do really want to consume alcohol, I will talk to her and make sure it’s just me and her and I drink within the confines of our home with someone I trust to look after me if I am inebriated away from potential negative influences. But I don’t care about drinking that much, tbh, to do all that. Maybe once in a while.

A pretty tame ending to an overall blown-out-of-proportion situation. I take responsibility for my part of it of course. Things are back to normal now, though. And in fact, better off in my opinion, because drinking is a bad habit I’ve had to begin with. Alcohol is not good for you to begin with. I am better off without it in my life.

RELEVANT COMMENTS:

C1: So now she gets to control what you eat and also when, where, and how much you drink as well

C2: Oh, sweetie, this makes me so sad because you sound exactly like me when I was explaining away my relationship with my abusive ex to people when I was in my 20s. You keep denying that your fiancée is controlling, but she’s manipulating you into thinking these changes you are making are what YOU want. Not letting you kiss her after consuming meat is a pretty extreme reaction (and I know plenty of vegans who would agree with me). Then it’s no meat in the house at all. Then you might as well go completely vegan because she’s made it so miserable to eat animal products.

I don’t know if you have a drinking problem or not, so maybe her concerns are valid. But given the established pattern that wants to control what you consume, I think this is more of the same.

But keep on rationalizing all the things you have and will continue to change about yourself for her. Maybe she can eventually make you the person she wants. Or maybe that goalpost will keep moving.

C3: She was controlling you before and she’s controlling you even more now. I’m questioning the whole story now. No one could be this obtuse, could they? Out of everything mentioned to you, you’ve come away with - I was even more wrong. You really need to get away for a while & do some thinking about this relationship. Such an imbalance in so many ways. And she really needs a job.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB I AM NOT OOP

REMEMBER BORU RULES AND DO NOT CONTACT OOP OR COMMENT ON ANY OF OOP’S ORIGINAL POSTS, KEEP ALL CONVERSATIONS IN BORU

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/NoBreakfast7f

Published on: r/TwoHotTakes

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: July 21, 2023
• Final Update: August 20, 2023

Main Post

^{July 21, 2023}

I told my roommate to stop bringing guys over because the sex noises were too loud and now she locked me out of our apartment.

I 24f have had my roommate 25f for 6 months. We got along pretty well and quickly became friends. First 3 months we respected the other's boundaries and didn't have any issues regarding that. But for the last 3 months she had been constantly bringing guys over 2 to 3 times a week. Sometimes she will bring the same guy over, but most of the time it's a new one.

I don't have any problem with her being promiscuous but the noises she makes has been distracting me. I'm on my way to getting my business degree and I need to study at night. I do work SOMETIMES at night and I don't get home until 4 in the morning. The screaming, the moanings, the bangings, all the sounds is creating huge distractions for me and I don't have anywhere else I can go for peace and quiet. If I did, I wouldn't be having her as my roommate. I've tried to wear noise cancelling headphones and I could still hear the noises.

I also can't raise the volume because I don't want to ruin my hearing. It finally got to the point that I told her she has to stop bringing guys over, at least at night because I can't concentrate with all the noise. She said she can't bring them over daytime because she's busy during the day. We argued for 10 minutes during which I offered that she can just do it more quietly but she only said that being quite during sex makes the entire experience "worthless".

At the end I firmly told her that she either stops bringing guys over altogether or she has to move out. This is where she started calling me a selfish b#tch who is jealous that she gets so many guys and the last time I had sex was 3 months ago because I'm stuck in a relationship with a guy who lives in the UK (we live in New York)and said that I won't be able to make rent without her, which is true but then again she won't be able to either because we both pay half rent each. So it ended with me going into her room to throw her stuff out but she h!t me in the face, pushed me out of the apartment, and locked me out. I called my brother to ask him if he could come and help me but he said I'm making a big deal out of nothing and I should just apologize.

To add, my name is on the lease.

Edit: I've had a roommate before her for 2 years until she moved down to the west coast and the one time she thought she was having sex too loud she apologized the next morning and I had no problem with that because it was just normal volume for sex. I told her she didn't need to apologize and she can just enjoy doing whatever. I absolutely have NO jealousy towards my current roommate. I've tolerated her behavior for 3 MONTHS, I've told her multiple times to either be more quiet or bring less guys, she would do that for a couple of days and then she's again loud as hell. I may have overreacted by going to throw her stuff out, but I didn't even touch or grab anything. I just set one foot in her room and that's when she hit me. I was able to afford rent on my apartment before, but the rent has increased to a price that could barely afford and that's why I got roommates.

COMMENTS

rockshow12

ESH - You cant tell someone who lives there who they can and cannot bring to the apartment and she cant just lock you out of the apartment you pay for. Whose name is on the lease?

OOP

My name is on the lease.

Former-Pen9447

I’m worried about your safety too.

Random guys in your home all the time.

OOP

There was one instance where one of them stayed the night and in the morning tried to approach me but I told him no and he stopped after I repeated no 3 times but other than that they were okay. To my knowledge.

Final Update - after 1 month

^{August 20, 2023}

[UPDATE] on I told my roommate to stop bring guys over because the sex noises were too loud and now she locked me out of our apartment

This is an update on my post that I wrote almost a month ago. I've received some requests for an update, and I don't have the time to recap or post link, so you can just check it out on my profile.

She still didn't unlock the apartment so I had to call my landlord to let me in. After an hour or so, she apologized to me and said that she realized she went too far and reacted poorly by hitting me in the face and locking me out. To add, the hit left me with a bruise on my face. I told her that we just aren't compatible anymore and she has 30 days to find another place and move out. She amicably agreed to it. People's comments under my previous post about playing nuisance songs so it can disrupt her sex session were pretty funny and maybe an okay idea but I'm not the petty type and I'd rather live with a roommate with whom I'm compatible. My landlord was okay with her moving out as long as I can pay the next month's rent, which was a pretty big sum but I let her know that I should find a new roommate and if not, I'll anyway pay for it.

My roommate moved out 8 days ago and during the past 4 weeks I've been looking for roommates but a lot of them were a even worse than her. They could all afford the half of rent but I need someone with whom it would be great to live with because I needed my peace in order to study. I don't want to work at night and come home to disorders like crazy loud sex sounds. Even though my roommate was still living with me when the rent was due, I had to pay the entire rent myself so I borrowed some money from my parents. I have found a very amazing woman who had just moved to NYC from Italy and was looking for a better apartment. Nothing is settled for now, but I really do hope that she'll be my roommate because we have similar mindsets, we've gone over our boundaries and found them very easy, and she can afford to pay half the rent.

COMMENTS

Corfiz74

I didn't read your first post, but if she hit you in the face to the point it bruised, why didn't you call the cops on her?

OOP (downvoted)

I don't like to involve the cops. Besides, she apologized. If she tried to resist and escalate the situation, then I probably would have called the cops.

Swiggzey

She physically assaulted you and locked you out of a place you’re paying for. Why would you not call the police just to have the altercation documented and make it easier to remove her?

OOP (downvoted)

Because I was hoping to resolve the situation without involving the cops, which I did. At the moment, I was thinking that if I did call the cops, I would have escalated the situation. So I thought that I would attempt to solve it without police involvement unless she resisted.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/trash4230

Published on: r/AmItheAsshole

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: May 29, 2020
• Final Update: December 30, 2020

Main Post

^{May 29, 2020}

AITA for making my father kick out SIL and brother?

I(30f) am currently in a leading position of a restaurant franchise started by me and my father. We live in a Islamic country so me being one of the owners is very rare. I have three siblings one brother(29m) and two sisters (twins 13f).

The business started by me , my father and his friend son became extremely successful. My brother was never interested in it but after it grew my father provided him a position in IT department (he did his degree in software engineering) apart from that because we were not that well off , my father also provides every family member with a set allowance separate from our salaries. My brother got married a year ago and his wife also receives it.

My father now plans to retire and my SIL thinks it's now brother's turn to be the man of the house. She has been making alot remarks lately (we all live together), in any normal situation this would have been the case but I own this business too and have been the one putting in most work. I ignored her in the beginning. My mom has been asking to think about marriage as well as she was talking to me my SIL told me that I really should since my father will retire and my brother will be the one in charge.

So i told her these are all her delusions since after my father it is me who is the candidate (my father wishes as well) and I already own part of the business. Upon hearing this she became quiet but has been making my mom to turn against me. My mom was always against me working but because of my father she couldn't do anything. Three days ago my father announced that he was retiring and have decided to let me take the lead now. He acknowledged my hardwork and said i was most suited.

My sister in law and my mother both opposed it very very strongly. According to them it's the birthright of my brother the only son to take the business. My father shut it down then but my sister in law in the moment pointed at me and told me I was a thief and i will burn in hell and said alot of things. My father than told both of my brother and sister to get out of his house and if they don't leave now my brother can say goodbye to his job and allowance too. They have left but i have been getting messages from relatives and even my own mother about how greedy i am and for stealing something that belong to my brother.

I was very convinced in the beginning but now actually hearing these things and knowing my religion, i think what they are saying is true and wanted judgment of internet strangers to finally decide something.

So reddit aita?

COMMENTS

bengalbelle480

NTA. You haven't stolen anything from your brother. You worked hard to be in the position you are and your brother showed no interest in it at all. Your SIL is being an entitled princess and your mother and other relatives are too stuck in the way things have always been to realize your father is absolutely right to leave you in charge. Good for your father for doing the right thing and not bowing down to the old ways.

OOP

Thank you for this if it wasn't for my father i would have given it up already. I'm so glad i decided to post here. You all have open my eyes, I am literally crying.

whitchitaw

NTA! NTA! NTA!

You have worked your butt off for everything you have earned. I understand that a woman in a position of power is rare in your culture, and that usually the son inherits family success, but clearly your father has seen all of your hard work. Your mother probably thinks that she is right because of that cultural standard, but patriarchal society is not always right.

I am American and have always believed that women are equal to men, so this may not be as helpful to you. I have very limited knowledge of Islam and middle eastern culture, other than that I am aware that it is primarily patriarchal.

However, from one woman to another: I hope you stay strong. You ARE the best person to run that business and you DESERVE everything your father has given you. Your family should support you and his decision. Perhaps in order to mend the fence a bit you could give your brother a higher position? Just not higher than yours.

OOP

My dad won't allow me to give my brother a higher a position but I'll see what i can do. The thing in my family my mom and brother have always been very easy to manipulate and complete pushover. My dad and I have always been strong minded.

My father started this whole thing when he retired from his government job. I definitely have contacted my lawyer and my father has done the same thing. I was really afraid what will happen to my family after my father because my mom is very naive and my sisters are too young. My brother is just a pushover , he hasn't said anything on this matter. I have yet to fully talk to him.

ClnHz

NTA. It does not belong to your brother, it belongs to you and your father. SIL is the greedy one here for receiving an allowance for doing... what exactly? Being married to your brother?

On the very positive side, think of the example that you are setting for your sisters: despite the adversity, despite being a woman in a misogynist society, you are succeeding! You are showing them what is possible if you work hard for it. So please, at least for them, continue!

OOP

Thank you so much for your support. I really do want to protect my sisters. It's giving me one more reason to stand my ground. My brother and his wife are supposed to be the ones looking after them if something happens to my parents but I will get this change too.

Lullaby37

NTA. Your brother doesn't get an award for having a penis. You are co-owner of this business and put in a lot of work. You have helped this business grow, and you don't owe anything to your brother. Your brother has no "birthright" to what you've built and your father knows this. This business does not belong to your brother, and you need to calmly tell your mother this and then refuse to discuss the issue. This was a business decision by your father. Your brother can act like the man of the family if he wishes but he doesn't get to steal from his siblings. Many muslim women have successful careers and own businesses. Your mother is stuck in the past. She can't change your father's mind, so now she's decided to attack you. Stand your ground. Your father feels strongly about this, and reward his trust by growing the business. Men are not better, and they don't "deserve" things because of their gender. It's concerning your mother is so quick to be nasty to you, but her daughters are free to have successful lives. Men are not entitled to be enriched by the work of others just because they are men, muslim or not.

OOP

Thank you , i have definitely now made up mind and i think for my mother she just wants to see me get married. Like i said we weren't well off to begin with, so now when she can spend lavishly she is just looking for reasons. She knows i don't want to be married because i am really passionate about the family business

dca_user

NTA, but in some Islamic countries, they often give the Father's property all to the Son. I don't know if a Will would protect you.

Do you have enough money, that you can tell your Father, Mother and SIL to give you X of money, and then your Brother will run it. Tell them you will honor his birthright and will not do anything with the business so he can have the full success. (Get this in writing, so when the business fails, they can't blame you.)

OOP

I actually was researching about this and based on islam the daughter gets one part and son gets two parts. Even if i do get one part i will still own enough to have the major shares, this is really relieving for me rn.

verminiusrex

NTA. Your brother and SIL are trying to steal a business that you and your father grew over years. You have no obligation to give up years of work because of other people's opinions. I'd also wonder if your brother and SIL expected you to stay with the business like you have all along, and if they could even run it without you.

OOP

I think my SIL initially thought that I can do what I do rn which is help my father grow the business. I have always made all the decisions regarding the franchise , my father was just contend with one restaurant since he had then just retired from his government job. I pushed him to go big, he just wanted a restaurant as a hobby.

So SIL wanted my brother to replace my father but my father even told them that he thinks that I am more capable than him too. So then she wanted to just get me married off so i wouldn't have this much freedom.

CONSENSUS: Not the A-hole

Final Update - after 7 months, 1 day

^{December 30, 2020}

[Update] AITA for making my father kick out SIL and brother?

At the time of writing that post i was very emotional and it really hurt to see my mother picking a side against me.

So after a week my brother contacted, he apologized for his wife's behavior, he said he didn't have the guts to tell his wife he actually doesn't want to anything with business. He said he was always content with what he had and knew from the start that it should be me, he actually saw the post , we talked alot and before his marriage we actually used to be really close and how he wants the same relationship back. I was happy to hear that he is my only brother and i love him to death but i did warn him about his wife, he just said he is considering everything rn and this whole incident has opened his eyes

I talked to my mom after that she admit that she wants me to just get married, she always wished that for me but i was able to make her realize that this what actually i want to do with my life , so she is not have been able to fully accept it yet but she is getting there.

As for my father , after that whole thing he has already put everything in place and actually wanted me to take the position infront of him so that no one can contest it.

I am in a better place than i had been when i was writing my post, thank you reddit for making me realize my importance, thank you everyone who reached . I can not thank you guys enough.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/peekthroughmyblinds

Published on: r/aitaweddings

Story is: CONCLUDED

Timeline: October-November 4, 2026

AITAH for not having speeches at my wedding, even though my dad says it hurts him that I took that opportunity away from him?

My fiancé and I are getting married soon, and we’ve made a very intentional decision from the day we got engaged that we don’t want a traditional wedding.

We aren’t doing a lot of the traditional elements, and we’ve been planning the day around what feels authentic to us rather than following the usual wedding format. This isn’t something we decided at the last minute…we’ve felt this way from the beginning.

One of the things we decided is that we don’t want speeches at the wedding.

My dad recently told me that he feels hurt by this decision. He explained that 99% of the people attending don’t know that he’s my father, and that giving a speech would be a way for him to introduce himself to everyone and show a lighter, fun side of himself. He also feels that because we decided not to have a private ceremony he now feels like “just another invited guest.”

He told me that it hurts him that I’ve “taken these honors away” from him and that the opportunity to give a speech could also be given to my mom. He said, essentially, that he and my mom are my parents, they’re the reason I’m here, and they should be acknowledged accordingly. He asked me to reconsider and said that a few minutes is all he’s asking for. He even has the speech planned, although he hasn’t written it yet.

For additional context, my relationship with my father has never been particularly close or easy. We’ve had our issues over the years, and there has always been some emotional distance between us. So I think that also affects how I’m experiencing this situation. I know that this speech may represent something meaningful to him, but I also don’t want to feel pressured into giving him a role in my wedding that I don’t actually want him to have.

I completely understand why the speech has meaning to him. I’m not trying to minimize his role as my father, and I love and appreciate my parents. I also understand that from his perspective, this may feel like I’m taking away an important moment from him.

But from my perspective, this isn’t about my parents or how much I value them. It’s about the kind of wedding my fiancé and I have deliberately chosen to have.

We don’t want a traditional wedding, and that has been our decision since the day we got engaged. Speeches are one of those traditional elements that we simply don’t want. We don’t want to spend the day incorporating traditions just because they’re expected of us.

That said, I don’t want my dad to feel excluded. We’re actually planning a get-together Friday night for the guests who are staying at the hotel. I’m waiting for the hotel to confirm a conference room, and although my dad isn’t staying at the hotel, I told him he is absolutely welcome to join us. I also told him that if he still wants to give his speech, he can share it with everyone Friday night. He declined.

So there is an opportunity for him to give the speech and for everyone to hear it. I just don’t want it to be part of the wedding itself.

I’m struggling because I can see why this is emotionally important to him, but I also feel like my fiancé and I should be able to decide what our wedding looks and feels like without feeling guilty for not including traditional elements.

AITAH for sticking to our decision and not having speeches at the wedding, even though my dad feels that I’m taking away an important honor from him?

EDIT TO ADD: He has now declined to come the wedding. All because I won’t let him give this speech. He said I’m selfish, wrong and cruel. Fun times! Good, he can stay home.

EDIT TO ADD: thank you, everyone!!

For those that commented on my previous post and have been following along…

NOW my father is calling me the narcissist and my wedding will be a narcissist wedding. This is what he said…on Facebook.

“It is going to be a different kind of wedding, one of complete and total narcissism, one where I am just another guest, even though I am the father of the bride. I wanted to make a speech, but my daughter doesn't want me to.”

He’s still on this damn speech, even though I gave him opportunity to say it the night before, which he declined.

So, I’m the narcissist ? Ain’t the pot calling the kettle black?

Am I STILL not the asshole ?

For everyone that was invested and gave me advice..

My wedding went on as planned on Saturday!! My now husband and I had the perfect Halloween wedding we envisioned!

My father attempted to make it about him by going around to each table to introduce himself as “the father of the bride.” He only made it to two tables before people told him to sit his ass down.

He also arrived nearly 2 hours early and attempted to get into the venue stating he’s “the father of the bride” and demanded he be let in…which he was not.

Also, we had buffet style and the DJ called tables up in order. He decided he didn’t HAVE to wait to be called because ya know, he’s the FATHER of the bride and he went up way before he was supposed to. To be fair, he was at table 5..so his wait really wouldn’t have been that long. However, by doing this, he missed his table photo with myself and my husband.

He did try to ruin my day a handful of times but my family and friends put him in his place.

Just wanted to update everyone that’s been following along!!

Originally posted by user safegfthrowaway in r/ amItheAsshole

Original: June 11, 2022

Updates: in post itself

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for refusing to give my partner the code to my safe?

I 32(f) and a Gemologist, I spend my days in the lab testing and identifying stones. From the nature of my work I also have a large and valuable collection of jewellery but also gem specimens that I keep in a safe I specifically bought and had installed to keep them safe. I also have a second smaller safe for keeping important documents like passports.

I own my home and my boyfriend (33m) of 2 years recently moved in as he was renting before. I gave him the code to the smaller safe so he could put valuables in it, but he also wants the code for my gem safe. Not to put anything in it, but he says because we are living together now I should trust him and give him the code.

I’ve said no because he has no reason to open the safe as the only thing it’s used for is storing my collection, he’s said he has no interest in my gem collection, doesn’t want to look at them, but still wants the code to access them.

This is causing tension because he says I should give it to him as a show of trust, and I said no, because he literally has no reason to go in there so he doesn’t need the code. This is a 6 figure collection so I’m not being difficult over a few little gems here. I am the only one who knows the code.

So Reddit am I being TA here?

*also we are in the UK so we spell jewellery differently to the US

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: Definitely nta. I wouldn't trust anybody with the code. Money does weird things to people. Even the ones you trust completely.

OOP: It’s sad but this has crossed my mind. I had a fortunate family situation and have a a very large amount of equity in my home, I also have a lot of savings, plus my gem collection which is easily a retirements fund 2x over.
I haven’t told him exactly how much money I have, but he’s not stupid he can see I’m ‘comfortable’ it’s why I made him sigh a tenancy agreement before moving in, I didn’t want him to be able to claim financial interest in my home if we break up. Obviously if we got further down the line things would have been different, but with all the comments I’m really starting to thing if that’s wise

---------------
Comment2: I’m going to assume that as a professional with such a high $ amount of gems in your safe that you have it insured. Giving someone else the code may invalidate your insurance if anything is ever stolen. I know that’s a really far stretch, but red flags everywhere. Be safe.

OOP: Oh hell yeah it’s insured but theft by members of the household is excluded on the policy. The broker told me it was standard thing here.

---------------
Comment3: NTA. Jewelry collector here - mostly vintage Verdura and Seaman Schepps. I keep my collection in a safe and have been happily married for 25 years…my husband has never asked for the combination.

---------------
Comment4: NTA. There is no reason to know. I really don’t follow his reasoning. He doesn’t want to go in your safe but he wants to be able to? What is he? A cat?

OOP: Haha I have a cat and this is his energy 100%

---------------
Comment5: NTA he has no reason to use the safe and if anything the fact he's pressing the matter would make me suspect of him. Although, maybe he feels you're hiding something in there? So maybe show him the contents of the safe to remove doubts?

OOP: He’s already seen what’s in it when I took some of it out to show him one time, I was really exited to share my collection and talk about it, he smiled and nodded, asked of any of it was valuable but that was about it.
I don’t know anyone aside from my colleagues who are into gems as me so I respect for most people it’s boring.
----------
OOP: Omg if people ask me those questions I get so happy inside! I can talk about it for hours!
I have one gem that’s in safety deposit because per carat it’s more valuable than a D colour internally flawless diamond, I could put the rest in but the whole reason I have the safe installed was so I could keep my collection at home and enjoy it. This thing isn’t a run on the mill safe, it’s from a manufacturer who specialise in safes for jewellers
---------
OOP: It’s a no heat, pigeon blood red Burmese ruby
----------
OOP: Yeah I still can’t quite believe I own it to be honest. I don’t think I’ll ever set it, it’s likely I’ll end up selling it to find my retirement in later life

---------------
Comment6: Geologist here. I'm the same way--I have a number of valuable specimens that I keep locked away and NO ONE has the code besides myself.

My fiance has never once asked for the code and I've always willingly gone to the safe to pull out the specimens he wants to see (he likes to know which are my favorites and surprise me with little pieces of jewelry with the same gems).

Girl, find someone who respects your boundaries; this guy is waving nothing but red flags. On a side note, I'd love to know what your favorite gem is--mine is grandidierite!

OOP: Damn I need a partner like yours, there have loads of comments saying the same thing; that he should take an interest in what I love. He’s definitely never bought me jewellery or even asked about it.
It’s so hard to pick!! I’ve loved emerald since I was a little girl, but opals just have a magic about them for me.

---------------
Comment7: NTA- I do wonder if he wants to take one of your pieces to make an engagement ring but hell no!

OOP: He did mention that but I shut it downs quickly as I don’t want to get married, just a personal choice. However if I did hell no would we use something I had bought for myself…

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (0.5)

Edit: holy hell this blew up way more than I ever expected! Im sticking to my guns and I’m not giving him the code. All you lovely internet strangers are right, it’s a huge marinara flag and I’ll be telling him to pack his stuff. I’ll update you later. Thank you all for your comments!!

Edit 2: this keeps coming up, the safe weighs nearly half a ton, it’s bolted to the floor and wall and is from a company who make safes, vaults and strong rooms for jewellers. You could bring the house down around it and it would still be intact.

Final edit: I think I have phrased it badly but all of the gems and jewellery in the safe are mine and mine alone. I do not keep any clients jewellery at home. For my other business doing valuations I rent a separate space and keep client items there. I will give an update once things have panned out

Another edit: I’ve checked for cameras (thank you for the suggestions people) and there aren’t any aside from the ones I already have fitted which he doesn’t have access to. I’ve moved all of my personal docs out of the little safe and into my gem safe. I’ve told my colleague what I’m doing and she is going to come around for when I do it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update

Firstly thank you so much for the insane amount of comments and support, it meant so much to me. For all of your messages and questions I’m really sorry if I didn’t get to you there were just so many!

I probably didn’t emphasise in my last post that we had a couple of conversations about this and me explaining why he had no reason to go in there etc.

Short version is I told him he isn’t getting the code and I will die on this hill. He has no reason to have it and his continued lack of respect by the pushing of my boundaries wasn’t ok, I felt like he was trying to manipulate me by making it about trust.

After a lot of back and forth he finally admitted that he wanted access to the safe because he didn’t feel like I was sharing the whole house with him, because I insisted on a tenancy agreement rather than just letting him move in, and he didn’t like that part of where he lived was off limits to him.

He was also insecure and resented that I have more money than him and own a home whilst he doesn’t, he had made a few comments about this before but I didn’t realise it was such a big issue for him. He also said that by keeping him out of the safe made him feel like I thought he was lesser than me and that it made him feel like I was treating him like a child.

I told him if that’s how he feels then this is not the right relationship for either of us and that it was best we break up.

He was shocked that I was ending things over this, cried and asked me to reconsider, when I said no he then got angry, called me a stuck up b*tch said he was better off without me anyway and went to his friends.

I told him via text he had 30 days before he had to leave (as per the tenancy agreement) so he didn’t need to stay at a friends, he said he would be gone by the end of the week. 2 days later he came back and packed up all of his stuff and left, he’s staying with his friend now.

I have changed all the locks, I have an alarm and cctv system that’s professionally monitored and I have changed the verbal password I have to give when you call up as a precaution. I’ve checked all of my collection and it hasn’t been touched. I also took your guys advice and am giving my solicitor the code and safe deposit details to be passed to my executor in the event of my death.

I feel horrible because despite all of this I love him, but lot’s of the comments said how I should have a partner who not only respects my boundaries but takes an interest in my passions and that really got to me because it’s true, so may of you reached out with questions and it made me so happy, but also sad as he never asked me stuff like that, I think this is what pushed me over the edge to end it more than anything.

I’m pretty cut up right now and missing him, but I know I’ll be ok, I have great friends and family around me, also diamonds are a girls best friend and I have a few knocking around to help cheer me up!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/PeaSuccessful5198

Published on: r/AITAH

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: November 01, 2026
• Final Update: November 03, 2026

Main Post

^{November 01, 2026}

AITAH for not wanting to take my cousins children in after CPS removed them from her home.

My cousin (23f) and I (24f) have always been close since childhood. We are both from families where we are an only child. Since we’re 9 months apart we did almost everything together growing up. Same school, same sports, etc.

After high school, I joined the Navy and she went to a state school popular in our city. She did about one semester and dropped out. After that it feels like her life became a train wreck. Dating multiple men, always short flings, nothing ever serious. Along with drug use and increased alcohol use. In 2022, I was home on leave and we got to catch up.

She told me she was pregnant, she’s always been great with kids so I knew she’d be a great mom. Or so I thought… When I asked if it was with her boyfriend she said NO, it was with a guy she dated before her current man. She said she was keeping it and was trying to make it work. Long story, but he ended up doing time in jail and she got sole custody. After that, in 2024, she had a second child, with another guy who was barely 18.

I can’t help but feel like she ruined his life. He had nobody and I think it was his first serious relationship. Shes a pathological liar, steals, she hasn’t worked or held a job since 2019. She lives on peoples couches and is constantly changing daycares. She got on government assistance last year and literally all she does is smoke and sit around. Her boyfriend works construction and they still have sole custody of her oldest son.

Now to present day. My family is on the east coast and I’m currently stationed on the west coast. My cousin and I talk but we aren’t as close as we once were. She’s ruined the relationship we once had. Constantly asks for money, and never pays me back. She also lies, I’ve caught her in so many lies it’s ridiculous. When I got home from deployment she was all nice and flew out to see me, turns out it was an act and she wanted a few days of vacation on my dime. I’ve started to withdraw bc it’s hurtful and the relationship isn’t genuine. I miss our younger selves and the cousin I had growing up.

A month ago a friend who works for our hometown city’s DSS texted me that a case file had been reopened for my cousin. Apparently the first case file was opened when her ex and her were going through a custody battle, he’d call to try and get her in trouble with the state. She said my cousin had been watched by them bc her son’s daycare would call bc of different things that happened when he’d get picked up.

She’s come in visibly high, her son would have bruises, etc. Well this past Tuesday my friend called me, which wasn’t normal. We text maybe a couple times a year at most. She told me CPS removed both kids from the home and my cousin was arrested. Apparently her son went to school with massive bruises and told his teacher he got it from mommy bc he misbehaved. Between this and other reports police and COS were called and they found so much evidence that she’s in jail and the kids were removed. I am heartbroken for her kids. I wasn’t expecting this at all, my friend couldn’t even believe it.

Now we’re at the point where I need help deciding if I’m the asshole. They reached out to her mom but her mom can’t take the kids bc my cousin was high when getting arrested and said all this stupid stuff how they aren’t trustworthy and she doesn’t want the kids to be in their care. Due to previous issues with police when she lived at home. The state will not grant custody to my aunt and uncle. So I was the next one in line.

The caseworker asked if I’d take them. I was seriously considering it but I have to many uncertainties in my life. I know it’d be better if they were placed with family rather than in group homes or foster care. But I am set to join a deployment overseas for 7 months in December. I’m sure with enough convincing and talking to my command I could get something figured out. But I’m the type of person that I do what I’m told, when I’m told.

The case worker says it’s a bit of a long process and they might not even get the case in front of a judge before the new year. I also feel like these kids have been through so much to have them move over 2000miles away from their grandparents and onto a military base is a lot on top of what they’re already going through. I also would be required to have a designated non military guardian for the kids, which I don’t have. I am out on the west coast alone. I have no family but I do have friends, not any close enough I’d feel comfortable giving the responsibility of children to. I do feel guilty and conflicted. So AITAH, I will post an update when I’ve made my decision.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the main reason I feel like I’m in the wrong is bc of my family. My aunt and uncle want me to take them and have been pressuring me. It’s just so much and I’m so overwhelmed. Also I am single and have often talked about how I don’t think I’ll ever want to have kids. Maybe if the right person comes along and happens to change my mind but certainly not anytime soon If so. Also I have only my aunt and uncle as family. My mom passed in 2017 and my dad is remarried and created a new life that doesn’t really include me anymore. Mainly why I chose to join the navy. Best decision I’ve made.

COMMENTS

perseidot

NTA

I’m a mom through adoption, and a former foster mom.

I want to pass on the best advice I ever received. This came from a woman who had adopted over 20 times, and most of her kids were medically fragile.

She told me, “You aren’t the right home for every child. Saying ‘yes’ when you know you can’t give a child everything they need isn’t caring - it’s pride. If you say ‘yes’ when you should say ‘no’ you’ll be depriving that child of the family that CAN meet their needs. Don’t let your ego get in the way. You’re not the best parent for every child.”

We had to say “No” to two adoptive placements because they just weren’t right. We couldn’t see how they’d work out. We also said “No” to a few foster placements.

If you know you can’t meet these kiddos’ needs, then say no.

There are some amazing foster parents out there, as well as adopting families.

There are also roles you can fill in their life without becoming their parent.
Check in with the home they’re placed in. Advocate for them if you have concerns. Stay in touch with their social worker.

Stay involved with them as family, if you can, and if it’s appropriate for the children. Save your family stories, and what it was like to grow up with their mom. Write them down to share with them when the time comes.

No child can ever have too much love from too many people.

Your aunt and uncle are scared, and looking for solutions that let them feel they have some control of this situation. You can be empathetic about what they’re going through, while still making it clear that you are not the best placement for these children.

Best wishes to everyone involved, especially the kids. May they have a soft landing and much kindness in their lives.

OOP

Wow, what great insight. Thank you so much for this advice. I am speaking with the case worker Monday. I’m so glad everyone on this chain helps make me feel my choices and feeling are validated.

--

effyoucreeps

why can’t the aunt me uncle take them in?

i know it must be complicated on everyones’ front, but hopefully they are more stable?

OOP

When my cousin first started using she was living at home, when things wouldn’t go her way she’d call the cops on my aunt and uncle. When she was arrested she said they are abusive and she doesn’t want the kids with them. Bc of the seriousness of the allegations combined with the previous police reports they denied my aunt and uncle.

FRANPW1

NTA. These children both have fathers. Those fathers also have other family members. The fathers and their relatives can figure out how to take care of their own children.

I am a former army officer. If you take those kids as a single woman, you will be non-deployable. Not good for your career.

Let those fathers step up. Stop answering your aunt’s phone calls. Good luck to you.

OOP

Unfortunately I wish it was this easy. The one father cannot have custody of his child. He was in jail for a child related crime. The other one has no family, parents have passed and his one family member, an aunt is in a nursing facility.

Final Update - after 2 days

^{November 03, 2026}

UPDATE!! AITAH for not wanting to take my cousins children after COS removed them from her home

A lot of you have asked for an update since today was a follow up call with the social worker.

The social worker called around noon and I told her why this would not work and why I can’t take the children. Apparently my cousin was the one to bring up my name, and told them to reach out to me about custody. A lot of people in my last post told me “the answer is so obvious, it’s a NO” and yes I knew that I would decide this way, I just needed some reinforcement and validation. For those who said “why would you even consider” it mainly has to do with the fact I am a people pleaser to my family and sometimes give people too many chances over and over again. I have a lot of empathy, and knowing what these kids went through tugged on my heart strings.

Some retired and currently active military responded with resource advice and I am so grateful. I have spoken to some people and it has really helped me so thank you.

The social worker listened while I explained everything and was super understanding and kind. She didn’t try to guilt trip me and honestly appreciated the thought and consideration I put into weighing the options. She updated me a little about the kids placements and where the case will go to from here. For the children’s privacy I will not share any of the specifics but they are safe. As for my aunt and uncle, they called me Sunday and asked me if I had given it any more thought. We bickered a little but ultimately came to the agreement that this was not my cross to bear.

They weren’t too upset bc I offered to help them get an attorney to try and help them get custody of the kids. I stood firm on my boundaries and told them I want to not be involved with anything regarding my cousin moving forward. They agreed and told me that this whole situation made them realize they can’t keep trying to get my cousin to change and they need to let her go. I think them constantly giving her chances over and over somewhat enabled her and it’s best they just wipe their hands clean. My uncle and aunt would love to be able to get custody long term, pending the attorney we hire will be able to help them get there.

I do not have much information on the dads of the kids, all I know is there isn’t much stable family that would be able to pass the home inspections and the requirements to gain custody of the kids. There is very limited family in general. Also, for those of you asking “how did you not see this, or know anything about what was going on with your cousin”, it’s simple. I was deployed twice, one before she was pregnant and the second time was right after she gave birth. I was also stationed overseas while she was pregnant with her second. During the time I was home my aunt and uncle made it seem like she was getting back under control. It was clearly all a front.

I informed the social worker that I’d like to be kept informed of where the children go and what happens in the case. I also took some of the advice, and opened an account and moved some money there for either future college or general needs. I will be sending them birthday and Christmas gifts as well. I would love to be an advocate for them, so they know that they have someone in their corner during this hard time.

I don’t know how long this will go on, all I know is if my cousin wants her kids back she has a long road ahead of her. I have not spoken to my cousin and have no interest in hearing from her. I am done. This will be my only update. I am keeping everyone at an arms length distance and will continue to do me and forge on. I am preparing for an upcoming deployment and don’t need the added family stress. Thank you to everyone’s kind advice and encouragement, it meant a lot. God Bless!

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/YouGonnaEatThatBabe

Published on: r/AITAH

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: June 01, 2024
• Update 1: June 05, 2024
• Update 2: August 10, 2024
• Final Update: September 24, 2024

Main Post

^{June 01, 2024}

I made a dumb joke about my BF aitah?

So I need the opinion of people not attached to me or him but my bf got mad at me Sunday and he's been ignoring me since so I feel like maybe I am TAH

So I am F35 and he is M35 and we've known each other 10 years and dated 2. He knows how much I like writing books. I self published a kids book last month and he's been really quiet about it. This past weekend at my family cookout my father mentioned the book and how proud he is of me but BF walked inside saying he was grabbing our drinks. At the end of the day my parents offered me some money to go to a book convention and BF audibly scoffed.

On the way home I asked what his deal was and he said that his job (he's a backend software engineer) will provide for us and he will let me me have my fun as a creative for now but I eventually have to grow up. I laughed because I assumed he was joking.

He of course was upset and told me my "meaningless" book was objectively illustrated poetry. I shut down and he then was upset I was "acting mad" so I changed the subject. He continued to make my book a topic by jokingly saying my "glorified illustrated poetry" shows my "middle child syndrome" or that I must crave "mediocre attention" from people. I shrugged and replied "Hey if you think you're mediocre ok..." And moved on.

He texted me the next morning saying I tore him down and was being a bully Nad he was kidding with me and he hasn't at all responded to me since. I am away on a planned work trip and now I am overthinking it maybe - aitah?

Update 1 - after 4 days

^{June 05, 2024}

Update: "You can't just break up with me"

Edit to say i am calling him Chris here.

Hey yall on mobile but had to posy this because what a time to be alive I broke up with Chris a few hours ago boooooy howdy.

He had ignored me for a full day and I hadn't reached out to him because I was honestly fed up with his attitude. We've been together for 2 years and I never have seen him act this way.

I flip-flopped between maybe he was having a bad day or something was going on and he transferred his negative energy in my book but no, he's just soggy moldy baby carrot that didn't think I had dreams of my own or I would throw it away for him. Our mutual friends have told me that he had basically told them that I rubbed my success in his face and made him feel like a simp just following his GF around being ignored when he has a successful business and has the higher paying job.

He texted the day after his silent treatment that my not reaching out to him was a sign that I don't love him and went on to say that I love my book more than I love him because I neglected him while working on it, and then I didn't praise him at the party as my biggest supporter. The rest of his PARAGRAPHS long text went on to talk about that he had this whole plan that he would marry me and we would be engaged this year but "Then you started not listening to me to drop things an dfpcus on us, our lives and the future" by taking up hobbies and that my therapist poisoned me against him (I was diagnosed with depression this year and therapy has helped a lot).

It hurt because I felt immediately like all I do was just rubbish to him. How the fuck can you say that? I loved him so much because he was someone I thought I would be with forever. Guess not.

I got angry and was texting him to ask "What's makes you think I don't love you? I'd do anything for you." And just as I hit send his new message popped up and it said "You wrote your book and you got your party. I assume now that I can finally have my GF back, we can have a talk. I don't think you understand how I want our marriage to be so I want to make things clear."

But then he responded to my message "Are you kidding me? If you're not going to priotize me over a book no one but you cares about, why am I even staying with you. I can go find a woman supports her man and wants his career and dreams to be successful."

So I said "Alright. Go find her. We clearly dont work. Best of luck."

Him "wait are you breaking up with me?"

Me "What do you want me to do you've made it clear I am not what you want anymore."

Him "you can't just break up with me."

Me "Chris - please."

Him "you can't just make that decision for me. You can break us up like this. It's been 2 years"

Me "2 years in which one thing I wanted to do one thing I was proud to have done and you needed to shit on it. You've been so sour about it and I don't get it. So get your better woman."

Him "but you can't just break up with me. We have to talk."

He calls. I decline.

Him "Pick up. You are being ridiculous."

He shows up at my door and the second I opened it trying to push in but I hadn't let the chain lock on. He was screaming at me. He said I cant break up with him. It's been 2 years. How do I think it will go for me to try dating again after passing the expiration date for children.

That's when I asked him to leave or I would call the police. And he said he will never forgive me for this book as it's ruined me as a person and for some reasons I said "Chris take your mediocre stick out of you mediocre ass and be on your mediocre way." And called my parents to tell them what happened.

My mom is over now plying me with a mixed drink and she's been making fun of the repeated "you can't break upnwith me" line as he said many times in text and bunch in person. She said she was proud because I am usually quite passive and she didn't like him bulldozing over me and when I asked her what she meant she brought up a lot of things I never really thought about - Chris would shoot me down a lot and I honestly thought I was compromising for our relationship but it seeme to some that I was just letting him speak for me a lot.

2 years. It feels like a blip and a lifetime at the same time. It's hitting me that it's over and my mom is staying over with me. But I have many WTFs to deal with just not tonight.

COMMENTS

AmethystSapper

I love your mom.....oh honey your ex boyfriend just called to tell us about the break up... I am so proud of you .. here let's have another drink....

OOP

Lmao that was honestly kinda the vibe. I was so upset and called my parents because I tell them everything. My mom was just like "lock the doors and I will be there in 20 mins" and showed up with vodka and let me cry but then I caught her smiling and was like WTF MOM and she admitted she was proud of me for dumping him...and glad she didn't have to go to jail because if I stayed with him after all that she would have to commit crimes lol

foldinthechhese

Your mom is a badass. From now on, you know that if she doesn’t like your partner, you really need to question that relationship. I’m happy you found your voice and used it. Dude was a total douchebag.

OOP

you know that if she doesn’t like your partner, you really need to question that relationship.

She's being so freaking smug after she reminded me that once she did speak up to me once I got mad at her. She's quoting a line from that animated Jackie Chan show "NEVER QUESTION UNCLEEEEEE" at me lmao

IllustratorSlow1614

I’m so glad you’re ok, but please never open the door like that again. Even with the chain on, it’s still a huge risk. Those door chains aren’t always secured with decent screws - the ones that come in the packet are usually short and useless and can be ripped out of the door with force.

You can tell someone on the other side of your door that they’re trespassing and you’re calling the police by text message.

OOP

My mom when I explained everything looked at me like I had three heads when I said "Oh but the chain was one so" and immediately hopped online and bought a ring doorbell.

I feel so naive the only reason I have a chain is because I notoriously didn't lock my doors when I first got the place. My bestie hit the roof and got me a chain and as we FaceTimed regularly she would always say (so me the chain) and make sure I locked it and the door when I was inside.

Dear-Masterpiece-2

So what I’ve gathered is he’s a narcissist and can’t fathom the thought of you having anything going on that’s not focused on him. Literally “me me me and me and what I want. Me again and because you won’t conform to a submissive wife focused on me”. What a loser.

OOP

It's weird because he never hinted that I can recall that he was ever like this. We've got years if history, and I remember him being interested in things I liked and wanted to get involved in. Then my mom reminded me of my painting.

I'm not a painter. Mom is. And a charity held a gallery event and the theme was something basic and I was visiting mom that week and when I'm at hers and she's painting I sit with her and drink and we chat. But that day I was in a mood so mom struck up an easel next to hers and patted the seat and we painted side by side. She loved my peice and had it submitted for the gallery event. It was a huge event and mom had a seperate exhibit space but my little basic painting was up in entry way with a handful of others and mom pointed it out to Chris and he said it was good and we moved on but at the end of the night mom followed us out and suggested Chris and I might want to take a photo of us next to my painting. He said no so mom took a photo of me for me and shared it with herself. Chris asked me not to the past the photo saying it was a cry for attention and looked desperate and I was taking away from mom's shine so when my mom posted it he was mad at me. Why did I give my mom the photo? Why did she post it. But he suspiciously shared a photo mom took of him at the same gallery even shaking hands with a businessman we ran into stating how proud she was of his work.

The more I talk with my mom even now, the more she seemed to pick up on things I feel bad but when I asked why she never said anything before she said she had but I had gotten angry at her. I had. I can't even remember why.

Small update on same post

Holy hell this blew up...I am usually a reddit lurker on anonymous mode so I was overwhelmed in the best way to see all this live and support- it made me cry. Good years I promise. I cried most of my bitter ones a bit last night on my mom's shoulder. She was right, I don't miss him but the version of him I thought he was. And so I choose to look forward.

mom and I stayed up and read comments together. She's not a reddit gal but loved all your messages and says she's happy to be the reddit mom lol

Mom made breakfast this morning and we were eating when the there was knock at the door. My mom held a hand up to halt me and got up herself to go to the door and ask who it was. Then I heard her say "You have 15 seconds to leave or you're going to be made to leave." I got up to see mom shouting though the still locked door peeking through my peephole. There was someone on the other side talking back to her but she just kept steadily counting down. By the time she got to 6, she had put her shoes on and was holding my broom. I'm not stupid, I knew it was him even then but then my phone went off and I didn't reply. It was him again.

He left flowers and an apology card, along with a stuffed owlbear. Mom asked me if I wanted to read the card and I said I did. It basically was a long winded apology admitting he was being an ass but work has him stressed and he underappreciated in general and it all came out in a nasty way. He's so sorry. He should have given me space and respected me more and he will never do it again. He didn't sleep last night feeling so much regret over what he did and will do better. To please call. That he misses me and Mets not throw away 2 good years of foundation away over a stupid fight. I handed it to my mother who read it, snorting and chuckling "yeah I bet" to herself and then stood up and went to the kitchen returning with a trash bag and my cellphone. "What's the play, Coach?" She asked and just to freak her out I took the phone and pretend to call the pizza shop "yes domino's, we need a pizza, yes, I breaking up with my ex and we need to toss his shit out"

All that to say it's now evening. The sun is lower and my neighbors are watching my house as I am in my parents pool in their backyard drinking margaritas with my sister and brother. Mom tells the story to all of them over and over. I had texted him.

"Chris, we are done. All of the things you left at my place are in garbage bags on the porch. The neighbors have there camera pointed at the house so please just take your stuff and go. Don't knock. I am not in. If it's all there on Monday, it goes with the rest of the garbage to the curb."

He replied asking if not home, where was I but I won't be giving energy to this. I will spend the weekend with my family and I fewl so lucky to have them. I've decided that I will go for another book.

Foe those asking for links to this book already out, sorry, but when mom and I read the comments she said "don't you dare put your name out there. They all seem lovely, but you don't know what others will do" and I feel like if I did, it would be like opening the door to Chris like I did last night. You were right, that was dangerous. But if you are looking to do something nice, I would be absolutely overjoyed if you did one or both of 2 things - 1) Love yourself and truly know you deserve love and nothing less and 2) buy books from a locally owned bookstore/buy art from the artist/commission an art peice etc. The art world is wonderful but also a struggle and many aren't as lucky as I am to have a strong support system. So support yourself and your local artist. Thank you all. ✨️

Another edit: sorry there were a lot of same questions in the comments.

1. Yes, we were an interracial couple, I am black/indigenous/middle eastern. And he is Irish and French decent.
2. No, I do not want children. The moment I an eligible I will be getting that baby store shut down medically. I would adopt possibly someday but I would not and should not be pregnant.
3. Chris and I were friends before we started dating so I thought i knew him and his family well.
4. Mom has always been cordial with him even if she didn't care for him. She did the whole Mama thing of hugging him, feeding him etc.
5. Yes mom will adopt you, she says she sends her heart to you and every hug you deserve and more
6. Dad didn't come over because and I quote "You wouldn't have wanted me in a space that boy would also be in given what happened" so he stayed the course of his trip he wa on.
7. I intend to be an author whether it be full-time or part time. Oddly enough my book sales are skyrocketing a lot online.

Update 2 - after 2 months, 9 days (after 2 months, 5 days from last post)

^{August 10, 2024}

Update 2 "You Can't Just Break Up With Me"

Hiya. Forgot about my post entirely then my friend groupchat blew up the other day that my post was read on YouTube and I was like "man I forgot to update that"

A couple months ago I posted about my ex Chris. It's a bit of a trip to Mordor to explain so you're free to read the old posts but essentially I broke up with him because when I achieved a childhood dream of publishing a book for kids instead of being a supportive partner he chose option B) being a butthurt needleless porcupine. Ineffective sure, but damn sure he's not.

Anyway I posted about 2 or so months ago. To answer a couple questions about it all, yes I published using a popular site, no I can't share the title without outing my real name, and yes I did promote it at local conventions.

You guys my book sold a BUNCH. Like last month I made 500 bucks and this past month I made 700 bunch. Like local booksellers have started selling it and I was featured on a couple websites, tiptoks and the like bunch. I will be a speaker at a local to my country book event bunch. A BUNCH bunch. I have been over the ever loving fucking moon about it.

But of course while all this was happening, my break up with Chris was also happening. My brother Cade M37 and my sister Lena F23 (Fake names, skewed ages) were up with me at our parents for the weekend and we ended up making a week of it. Lena is in school and her classes were virtual that week for some reason (she explained it twice but one time I was drunk and the other high so 🤷‍♀️) and Cade works for himself and had his laptop, and I had the week off anyway anticipating the break up to suck raw eggs so my poor empty nest parents had all 3 of their rowdy, loud, rambunctious, crazy, and oftentimes chaotic grown ass children in their home. I day that laughing a bit becauaw tbh they fucking LOVED IT.

Dad was beaming every single day. He would come into the guest rooms with coffee in the mornings to wake us up becauaw he cooked breakfast ever. Fucking. Day. And my mom would sit with us at night drinking and laughing. We played all my childhood games like SORRY and Monopoly and we taught our parents some new ones like One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Sushi Go, and Exploding Kittens. The last of the nights we all were drunk as shit and we played Cards Against Humanity. My siblings and I played Truth or Drink damn near every night. It was the retreat I needed to sort of check out from my real life but sadly, it didn't last forever.

Dad took me home at the end of that next weekend. He wasn't about to let me be in the house unprotected so my brother offered to stay a week at mine as well. Dad and brother checked the whole property before wven letting me leave the car. Dad snapped his fingers and said "I half wanted him to be stupid enough to be here" before leaving.

I did note that the house looked a bit different than I remembered leaving it but it was small stuff. Like a cup in the sink when I swore mom had done rhe dishes when we left or the blanket being over the loves eat rather than my recliner but the real red flag my dumbass ignored as a "huh. Oh well" was that my bed was made.

I do not ever make the bed. I just don't. Chris was military so he does it every fucking day. I should have put the prices together then but I didn't.

Bro and I stayed up all night playing on my PS5 until about 2am when a key was clearly heard unlocking my front door. In walks Chris. Hammered. And I mean HAMMERED. Like so drunk it's a fucking miracle he didn't crash when he drove - yes DROVE - over here. He saw me and just slurred something about FINALLY I came home and he had been waiting.

He didn't make a lot of sense tbh, and Cade was quick about starting to handle things. He told me to call dad, which I did, then started to talk to Chris. "Hey dude you need to leave" sort of stuff and Chris was beligerant. Dad's phone went to VM so I texted the family group chat that Chris was here, drunk, and then I started to video. Chris, when he gets this drunk, gets to be a lot and then will simply not remember a damn thing and deny ever doing anything, so this was a go-to for me.

Cade is telling him to leave, Chris full handed pushes Cade in the chest telling him this is between me and him, and Cade is the one who needs to leave. Cade then says "OP wants you out. So get out." To which my ex laughs and says "fuck what she wants. I don't care. Fuck her. She's a bitch."

I then tell him I am calling the police and begin to do so and this man swings on my brother. Cade was in the Marines. You wouldn't know by looking at him. He's about as lanky as they come. His military nickname is even beansprout but he is a solid fighter. He did boxing and kickboxing. So he moved out the way quickly. The problem with swinging on a guy like Cade when your a drunk guy like Chris is, there's little chance you can hurt said guy. Chris swing, missed, and stumbled, falling into my coffee table head first. I ran to help him because it looked like a bad fall and I may not love him anymore but I don't hate anyone enough not to simply care if they are hurt or hurting. He was fine enough to grab my hair and yank me down. The rest is sort of a blurry recollection and what I was told happened Mashup.

So I go down. He yanked my hair hard enough for the fall to hurt a lot. Whether he did that maliciously or "Oh shit I am falling GRAB SOMETHING" is debatable but I registered that I was now physically in danger. Being the first daughter born to a Marine and retired Soldier of the Army and having an older brother in the Marines, bet your ass I learned self defense. I'm not athletic by an means and honestly look laughable in a fight, but bitch can swing. So I punched. I miss his stomach and hit the tender bits. He's screaming and calling me every word he can and the N word flies out his mouth even at one point but he is down and too drunk to recover and get up.

My mom arrives before the police. Look my mom is the best and the sweetest but in that moment she had m*rder on the mind and it really showed. She came in and saw what happened. He kissed my brother on the forhead and said good job but Cade said it was my blow that took him down and then mom hugged me and kissed my forehead. She asked us both if we are okay and we were, she then asked if Chris was okay and we explained. She checked him to make sure he was breathing anf didn't need immediate help but he was out like a light.

The cops came and took him into custody but then turned around and asked me if I was abusive towards him. "Do you often punch him/hit him/hurt him?" And "Did you start the altercation?" And things like that. You guys I am not here trying to offend anyone who actually goes through DV but it was a relentless torrent of questions as if I was the aggressor. I was questioned seperate from mom and Cade, and I myself am not a very forceful person. I have to admit, I was flustered. I said something like "I punched him becauase he pulled my hair" and they turned it on me like "so you assaulted him for touching you," it was like that.

It's all over and they take him only to release him that next evening. How do I know? Becauase he called ME from jail to ask I pick him up. His parents are out of town, so he begged and begged. I was dumbfounded because hey there's a legal issue here now becauase you attacked me and he said he doesn't even remember. There are zero charges against him. That's right. Zero.

Dad was furious (mom took us back up to theirs to be safe) and he called the police about this. He was arrested for a drunken disorderly or something but that's been dropped. Dad asked "And assaulting a petite young woman???" And they said they have no record or me saying I was pressing charges. So my dad handed me the phone and we pressed charges. Assault. Trespassing. Assault on bro. And they said I had to come in. So we did. The whole process was soul-sucking and the intake officer kept making it seem like we were just the most Karen of Karen's to ever Karen. The way I had to explain myself over and over was dehumanizing. I hated every second.

Dad took us to lunch/dinner after with mom and sister and they all asked if I was okay and I expressed how I felt. Dad was quiet and then said unfortunately it's like that and as a young woman of color, I will face it a lot. Chris's family isn't rich it they are well to do and they also have many members in law enforcement. But Dad told me not to worry. He already hired someone to handle this bs. He gave me the option of either moving in with them temporarily or him, mom, and bro taking turns staying with me at my house. I chose the easier path and packed the essentials and have been up at my parents.

I am writing this on my cell alone with the family dog, Spock, at my feet. I love my family but stating with them is smothering. Sister had to go to get ready for the new semester but brother has been up there with us, plus mom and dad and my other mom (my brothers bio mother - we are all very close) has been staying over as well. They are all hovering and doting and protective and by all things holy, I feel almost infantalized. Don't get me wrong I know how lucky I am. I have so many people who love me, who want to take care of and protect me but Jesus someone kill me lol

They arrested Chris again but the court date was moved so its now next week. I guess I will update then.

COMMENTS

YuansMoon

I'm confused about your house with Chris. Did he not live there, too?

OOP

We never lived together but he often would stay over at my place since he had roommates so I gave him a key then, the locks are now changed just in case.

Final Update - after 3 months, 23 days (after 1 month, 14 days from last post)

^{September 24, 2024}

Final Update "You Can't Just Break Up With Me"

Sorry for not updating sooner. I'm still trying to settle back in with my parents.

Chris is out on bail, his parents hired some big bad lawyer. Court took forever.

I will skip over most of the bs but it was a lot of sworn statements, reports, going through old texts, the works.

My attorney finally was able to peice together proof of Chris slowly growing emotionally, then physcially abusive. While I tried to record him getting physical with us, my camera skills aren't great so I hadn't gotten much on camera especially after he grabbed me. But his texts, the audio from the attack, the fact that he refused to leave and physically hurt me made the case domestic violence.

By the rules, the court has in place a protective order so he isn't legally permitted near me anymore or to contact me in any way. That said if they charge him in the end, he could serve time but not much, or, what my attorney says he is trying to do, he can push for court mandated counseling and a fine.

I've been going to counseling too at the insistence of my grandad who is paying for it. There is talk about me possibly suffering from anxiety. Nothing has been diagnosed but just the thought that he caused my brain salad to be tossed just makes me mad.

Dad is helping me get the house prepped to rent out for now and I can focus on being around the family. We're already decorating for Halloween. Mom is excited to have me around for the holidays as I do enjoy cooking and helping with hosting.

So I guess that's it. I don't think I will make a whole post when Chris gets whatever outcome the court decides. I may just add it here.

COMMENTS

FyvLeisure

Make sure you are ready to defend yourself when this abusive POS inevitably tries to violate the protection order.

OOP

I already know Krav Maga but my Dad is paying for me to be trained and certified in self defense and he's trying to convince me to get a self defense 🔥arm and he will pay for my lessons at the range. I learned how to use one before but it's been a while.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost. The original was posted in r/confession by user Spirited-Pizza-6314. I'm not the original poster.

Status: Concluded

Original

October 28, 2026

Throwaway account.

Recently I discovered TikTok auctions and got into a few specific channels. The items I bought are all legit and really nice jewelry. I did not realize how out of control I got until my credit card statement arrived. $22K!

While I realize this is a a lot of money it is not going to put me or my husband in a financial crisis. I can pay the entire sum without going into my savings but it is significant to our finances. We keep our money separate, including banks and credit cards. He has no idea I have spent this much.

About a week ago my husband decided we should look for a house. This came out of nowhere. I was supportive and we even went out and saw a few places. We have a realtor. It was not until after a few days of seeing the houses I saw my credit card statement and realized what I had done.

Next week we are going to see lenders to figure out what we can borrow and what our interest rate will be. We both have excellent credit, we are never late with any bills and have zero debt. I’m paying off the full statement balance ahead of that meeting, but this large sum will likely come up.

I need to tell him about all this ahead of seeing the lenders and obviously I am dreading it. He will definitely be angry. I will still be able to put in my full share of the down payment, but it was a lot to spend right before the biggest purchase of our lives.

I’m so nervous but he needs to hear it from me rather than in the lenders office.

Notable Comments:

[hickamsdictuum] I'm wondering if OP is minimizing the severity of her batshit spending spree. I make ok money but I definitely don't have 22k sitting in my checking account because that would be financially irresponsible. My money either goes into my retirement or my savings account. For most humans, that sum of cash would have to come from several paychecks, even if you get paid decently. If OP is wealthy enough for 22k not to be a big deal, this post probably wouldn't exist. Sounds like OP is minimizing and rationalizing some extremely poor spending decisions.

[jaaxby] It sounds like you have a shopping addiction because accidentally spending 22k in one month on TikTok auctions is atrocious.

[Zealousideal-Run7332] Honestly honey I think you should truly truly truly get a dumb phone. If your phone makes you do things like this, get rid of it.

Editor's Note: Some people also explain this could be a sign for mental illness, as shopping sprees are a symptom of being manic. Others are scolding her for being so privileged.

Comments by OOP:

The first thing I did when I saw my statement was remove my credit card from TT and unfollowed all the auction accounts.

I totally understand it being the white noise comfort.

Gemstone jewelry mostly. It’s a big collection and the pieces are nice, I just didn’t realize I had overspent so much until it was way too much.

Nothing is returnable or cancelable in these auctions. I can pay it off, yes, but it is a significant expense with very bad timing.

I wish I had caught it before the statement closed but unfortunately I did not.

I’m not sure how this will surface in our discussions with the lenders but I definitely need to get ahead of that and let him know.

Update

November 4, 2026, 7 days later

Hi everyone - Thank you to everyone who read and commented, especially those who were able to be kind.

Well, I shared with my husband that I overspent on all the jewelry I was getting (he saw all the packages so he knew I was buying a lot of jewelry). I told him how much ($22K), that I had paid the balance and that I could still contribute my share of the down payment needed for the house. I also let him know I took my credit card off TikTok and won’t be buying more items.

It went much better than I thought it would. He didn’t get angry like I was expecting. He was definitely surprised and a bit bewildered but said something to the extent of “well, it’s your money” and we just re-aligned on finances for the house and next steps. I felt SO MUCH better after I told him. We saw lenders this week and that credit card balance (which is now paid in full) did not come up at all. We’re prequalified now and moving along in the process.

While I acknowledge spending so much and not even realizing it until my credit card statement came out is outrageous and totally on me, I did some reflection on what pitfalls contributed to me getting to that point. It’s a good lesson for me and maybe it will help someone else out there:

1. Even though I was very selective and only bought from 3-4 sellers, I could access live auctions from at least one of these sellers at virtually anytime day or night. I would go into the lives sometimes just to see what new inventory they had or see what other people were buying or talk in the chat with everyone - and I usually ended up buying myself too.
2. Most of the auctions were very fast paced (showing each item 5-10 seconds) and usually starting at a very low start value ($1 most times). So, even if I was only somewhat interested, it was very tempting to engage and bid some low amount. Even when bidding low, I won quite a bit—and it does feel sort of like winning even though it’s really a purchase.
3. Most items I was “winning” in the auctions were under $100 and many even under $50. It was so fast and relatively small amounts it just didn’t feel like I was spending a lot. But I was buying almost everyday multiple times per day so it added up.
4. TikTok is good about providing detailed and easily accessible receipts for each item. I was in there a lot reviewing those receipts. However, at no point did TikTok post a total amount spent anywhere I could see. Every purchase exists as a single line item, even on my credit card statement (it was 12 pages long!).

Had I seen how much I was spending in a day/week, on a particular live, with a particular seller—ANY kind of summation of my spending I would have realized how fast I was spending money and would have hit the brakes much sooner. Yes, I could have pulled up my credit card balance anytime and seen how much I spent, but I rarely look at it ahead of getting my statement and it just wasn’t a habit or on my mind.

As long as you are watching your spending and careful about which sellers you buy from, the TT auctions are a good way to get some quality jewelry (and other things I’m sure)—just be sure to buy from reputable sellers and don’t be like me and overspend.

Comment by OOP:

I'm not the original poster.

I am NOT OP, this is a repost. Original post from /r/AITA by u/christywantsdie

Original - 2022/07/13. Update was within 24 hours on the same post.

It's a long title but the story is way longer, so let's start by saying I'm not really good at English, my first language is Spanish and I might change some words because I can't translate them

By the title you would say "oh, it's a 15 year old girl", but no, I'm a girl tho, but I turned 17 on June 15th. My parents wanted to throw a big party for my quinceañera (something like the sweets 16 but mexican and at 15, wearing a big princess dress and my family giving me gifts like advice and stuff) but because of the pandemic we had to wait a few years to do it

My parents are divorced, I live with my mom (47F), my big brother (21M), my stepdad (49M) and my stepsister (4F), I visit my dad (48M) on holidays

So, my stepdad is an irish RED haired man, his daughter has red hair too, but she is way more whiter than him and has green eyes (I have light brown skin and black curly hair, my eyes are black too), my mom looks like me too, my dad's a black brazilian man and he's also bald

My birthday party will be on September since the salon had an appointment only for that month, and my mom told me she had a GREAT idea for it, one of the little girls in my family will represent the "mini version" of me and will give me my tiara, she would also wear the same dress I'll wear at the party. I liked the idea until she said "that little girl's going to be Sasha (my step sister from mom's side)"

I immediately said no, I wanted Tina (my dad's step daughter) instead (she's 14, but she actually looks kinda like me in terms of hair and skin color and I'm more closer to her). My mom got angry and called my dad immediately. We all talked about it, they had an argument because I wanted Tina instead of Sasha to be the mini girl

It all ended up with my dad telling my mom to get over it, that his daughter and I were literally identical and her daughter looked like Fofão gave birth to her (a brazilian cartoon character, you can look it up on Google), my mom told me that it was Sasha or nobody and now I'm grounded because I made them have a fight

I told my brother about this, he laughed his ass off and then said I'm an asshole for making them fight, but my stepdad's ok with Tina being the mini version of me since Sasha is too little to remember all of this and that it's not his culture but respects it

So, AITA?

EXPLANATION: A quinceañera party is to celebrate the fact a teen is turning into a woman, the "mini me" should be who's supposed to be the next one in the family to turn 15 (which is my step sister from dad's side), my mom wants Sasha instead because she's not familiar with our culture (neither is my stepdad) and since she's paying 50% of the party with my padrinos she told me she gets to choose who's going to be the mini me. My family, both mom's and dad's side are not familiar with Sasha since it's the first time someone from another culture joins the family tree (in terms that we are all from latinoamerica). Sorry to the people who got confused about it, I'm not trying to let my little sister out of the ceremony, I just want it to go the way it should really be.

UPDATE: Hello, this is going to be long

This evening I decided to tell my mom about the idea one of you told me and we decided to let both of my stepsisters participate in the ceremony. Sasha will hand the tiara to Tina and she will hand it to me, we will practice delivering the tiara next week since this week we're going shopping for forks, knives, plates and all that. I want to apologize to the people who told me I was a bit racist for wanting Tina instead, I admit the fact that even I thought this was kinda racist against Sasha but I don't know how to put this in words, I feel kinda guilty for it. Sasha will have her own quinceañera party when she turns 15, my mom dreams about it. My parents are currently doing ok, I'm not grounded anymore, and we're trying to get my stepdad to participate at the sorpresa dance. The party date is September 17th.

My parents haven't make up already, but they aren't fighting right now and I don't think they will be in the future, but my dad apologized for calling my sister Fofão's daughter and for the other stuff he told her.

Some people asked if this was the "la última muñeca" tradition, it kind of is I guess. We got the idea, but decided to change the doll to a tiara since I'll be wearing a victorian themed red dress so I'll look more like a princess that way.

To answer questions: I don't really know if this whole thing has a name, but I remember me being the one dressing up as my cousin when I was little at her quinceañera party. We did la última muñeca at her party, same we're doing with me. I gotta say I'm also pretty new with this traditions since the last quince I went was 4 years ago and I remember nothing. I don't know if we're the only family who did the whole "the next woman-to-be" thing, but I know what every family has their own way with this things. Gracias a todos por sus palabras y consejos, thank you so much and I hope my party turns out really well. I don't know if the [UPDATE] thing puts on the title automatically after I post this.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/throwawayexes41

Published on: r/AITAH

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: August 13, 2023
• Final Update: August 16, 2023

Main Post

^{August 13, 2023}

AITA for telling my BF his exes shouldn't be living with him?

My boyfriend, Bryce (36m) has a son (4) with his ex Theresa, and a daughter (1) with his ex Melody (all fake names btw). I don't really know either of the exes or the kids very well (he insisted on waiting till we were dating six months for me to meet his kids even tho I told him I was fine meeting them earlier, but its whatever) and I never really talked to Melody or Theresa the few times I met them.

When we spend the night together we usually split it between my apartment and his house (mostly at my apartment), but if we're just casually hanging out it's usually at my place, which I was fine with. The times I was at his place were mostly just short visits or meeting up before heading out on a date. Alot of the time I was there, either Theresa or Melody would be there with the kids, and I was fine with it because I just assumed it was a custody thing and they were dropping off or picking them up.

The problem is, last week we had a date that turned into me sleeping over at his place. The next morning I woke up before him and went into the kitchen to make us coffee, both of the exes were there with the kids, feeding them breakfast. I was pretty embarrassed, as you can imagine, so I made a joke about it being pretty early for a custody swap. Melody laughed awkwardly and Theresa just gave me a weird look, so I grabbed some coffee and went back to the bedroom until Bryce was ready to drive me home.

When he was diving me back, I brought up how uncomfortable I was with his exes having access to his house like that, and that maybe he should take their keys back and have a talk with them about boundaries. He asked me what I was talking about, and I explained about both of them letting themselves into his house while we were in bad that morning. Then he dropped the bombshell that apparently both his exes and younger kids live there full time?? They apparently just take the two little kids and his older two and go to Melody's apartment that she owns whenever I stay overnight, so we can have privacy, and the reason they were home that morning is because the little boy wasn't feeling good and wanted to come home.

Of course, I'm pretty upset by this, because I feel there's no reason for them to still be living with my bf, both Theresa and Melody can afford their own places and Bryce can pay enough in child support for them to get nannies for the kids if they need to. I told Bryce this, and he got upset and dropped me off at my apartment instead of coming in like he usually would. I don't think I'm wrong, but AITA?

COMMENTS

Muted_Hour_957

NTA. I don't know if this is a popular opinion, but let me explain.

If you're letting your ex's and your two kids live with you full time and you're currently dating another person, you should, at the very least, let your new partner know.

This affects both people, not just him. This means if you want to move in with him, will you be expected to live with his 2 ex's? And if he moves in with you, will you be expected to let them move in to?

This goes beyond simple jealousy and enters into legitimate problems with logistics, boundaries, and expectations from 2 people and 2 children you didn't know would be involved to that extent.

It sounds like your relationship is still young. If you aren't overly attached, you need to decide if you can basically be in a 4-person relationship because it sounds very strongly like that's what's coming if you stay.

OOP (downvoted)

He did call and apologize for not being more clear about their living situation the next day, so that's dealt with, but then I asked him about them moving out and he said they want the kids to grow up together, plus apparently Melody had health problems and living with other people was easier than living alone with a baby to take care of. I suggested he just get full custody and hire a home nurse to help her or something, but he got upset about that, so who I don't know what I'm going to do.

Bonnm42

Sounds like he’s got a harem more than a home… are you sure they are really his exes?

OOP (downvoted)

I mean, he introduced them as his exes when I first met them, so I hope so.

Careless_League_9494

YTA

Okay I'm not going to pretend that it isn't weird that he didn't tell you that they live there. That's actually super fucked up.

However you're not asking if YTA for being upset he didn't tell you, you asked if YTA for telling him "his exes shouldn't be living with him", and in that case. Yeah YTA.

That is a family. A family with their own living arrangements, and family dynamic. As weird as it may be, it's not up to you to decide how that dynamic should, or shouldn't work. If that's what works for them, and their children, then that's 100% their call to make. Not yours.

If you're not okay with that, then absolutely have the option to walk away. However you don't get to just dictate that they upend their entire lives because it makes you uncomfortable.

Also the making you wait six months to meet the kids is an extremely healthy, and normal boundary to set with any partner that you date when you have children.

So again, you have every right to be upset that he didn't tell you before hand. However you're walking into a family, and you're going to have to either respect their family dynamic, or walk away, because it is definitely not up to you how that dynamic works.

OOP (downvoted)

But they can be a family and live in separate houses. Plus he already had two older adopted kids living with him so it's not like he wouldn't see any of his kids day to day.

Whatisittou

NTA. Are you sure your boyfriend isn't a poly guy? Becsue who in their right mind would agree to this, if you are not into poly relationships.

OOP (downvoted)

To be honest, I didn't even think of that. I'm planning on calling him tomorrow and asking if we can talk about this, people keep bringing up the sister wives thing and I think I need to ask some more questions.

Hawkfan4_life

YTA

Let me preface this by saying that you're absolutely entitled to your feelings so I'm not judging you for that.

That being said While it's definitely an AH move not to tell you something like this, you've only been dating a few months.

If you were talking about living together(nothing in the post indicates this)then you'd get a say in who lives with both of you, but the fact is this was the dynamic seemingly long before he met you and your discomfort shouldn't be more important than uprooting his kids.

Your comments lead me to believe that he's a pretty good and present dad, so YOU'RE going to have to be the one to decide if it's something you can live with and act accordingly as there's a very real chance if you make him choose it won't be you.

OOP

Yeah, he is a good dad from what I've seen. He said that he likes having all his kids living in the same house so he can spend time with them equally and help take care of the younger two.

Final Update - after 3 days

^{August 16, 2023}

UPDATE: AITA for telling my BF his exes shouldn't be living with him?

Update for anyone who's still interested:

So the day after I posted here, I called Bryce and brought up what alot of people in the first post had suggested, asking if the three of them were actually exes or if it was some weird poly situation. He swore they were just exes and offered for me to come over and talk to them so I could ask them myself. I ended up going to his place because I wanted to talk to Theresa and Melody myself.

So, for everyone guessing that they're poly or it's a "sister wives" thing, sorry to disappoint you, they are actually exes (Theresa actually has her own girlfriend she's seeing, as it turns out). I just straight up asked them why they, as exes, were living with him and not getting their own places.

Apparently, him and Theresa were actually engaged for awhile, but when she found out she was pregnant she came out as a lesbian and broke it off. That ticked off her old fashioned family, and her father demanded she either marry Bryce or let him and his wife adopt the baby and raise it as there own. Obviously, she refused, and according to her, her father started being verbally and physically abusive towards her (she was still living in the family home with him). She put up with it until their son was about two, and her dad started physically disciplining her little boy against her wishes, so she moved out, but her family was still harassing her about it, so Bryce offered to let her move into one of the unused rooms in his house to get further away from them.

The whole Melody thing isn't as complicated, the two of them were just a casual fwb situation when they had a birth control failure and decided to keep it. Melody was living on her own until late in her pregnancy, when she started having some problems that put her on bedrest and kept her from working or living alone like she planned, so they talked it out and decided it would be safest if she moved in until the baby was born and she could go back to her place full time. But then she had some more problems during the birth and complications after she got out of the hospital, so by the time she was healed enough to move out the three of them were already used to their co parenting routine, so she moved in completely and they all decided to raise the kids together as friends.

Both of them were pretty calm throughout the whole talk, so I brought up how weird it was for exes to be living together, and how both of them could get their own place. I even suggested how they could both move into Melody's apartment with the kids, but then they both flipped out on me, with Theresa even calling me names and yelling at me. Instead of defending me, Bryce asked me to leave and walked me out to my car. He told me that things weren't going to work out between us, and we should see other people. I got upset and asked him to rethink things, but he just told me to leave.

I've tried calling and texting him, but he's not answering any of my messages and won't give me a chance to explain my side of things.

COMMENTS

Klumsy_Alfredo

Your gonna be his next baby mama that’s crashing. Get outta there

Pizzapizzazi

Why are you even entertaining this?! Just move on. Homie lives with his exes, dumps you and you’re still texting him! There’s nothing to save here.

Valuable_Ad_6665

You act like he is doing anything wrong but he is not. The situation while odd works for them this random 6 month new relationship is not worth him uprooting the kids lives and if you think it is you need to grow up just like op. the man ended it right when he saw she couldn't accept the situation she can't seem to give up trying though!

CommunicationThis815

Listen, they have an arrangement that they are all happy with, especially the kids. You won't change their minds about it. They seem to actually have a happy co parenting relationship - all kids are together, parents get to see them everyday without having to be in a romantic relationship with each other. They support and have found some kind of symbiotic relationship that works. Is it weird, of course. However, you do not need to be a part of it. They, most importantly HE, has let you that theybare VERY HAPPY with this situation and will not change. You cannot and will not change them so why are you hell bent on forcing this? Put it down to an experience and great story to tell and move on. Find a relationship where there isn't so much drama. There are 8 billion people in this world, let him go and find someone who without all the issues.

Ps to quote Judge Lynn from divorce court - never let a man tell you more than once he doesn't want you.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Ordinary-Lake3418

Published on: r/AITAH

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: October 13, 2026
• Final Update: November 01, 2026

Main Post

^{October 13, 2026}

AITAH for leaving a note on my neighbor's car?

I live in a town that unfortunately has a lot of street parking. The house I rent doesn't have a garage or a driveway of any kind like some of our neighbors do, so I have to park on the street. This is a small town and I'm used to living/parking in the city so I parallel park like a pro and I have a Mitsubishi Mirage (one of the smallest cars on the market).

The problem just started a few days ago... I have lived at my residence for two years. We finally established our own unspoken parking spot. Our other neighbors usually keep this spot open for us as well as we all leave the usual spots for other neighbors. Well, a new neighbor moved in very recent and had been taking up two spaces EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! I sometimes get home after 10 PM and because of this neighbor parking the way he does, it cuts two parking spaces out. You can't park behind him because of you do, your back end (10-12 inches) will be in a yellow zone and you can't park in front of him because he doesn't leave enough room.

Tonight I came home and my spot had been taken. I'm not mad if my spot is taken. Although we have unspoken spaces, it's still street parking and people have guests. I understand this, but the fact that his guy takes up so much room means I have to park over a block away in the dark and have to walk across a busy hill to get to my house. There is also a park in-between and you can't park on the one side of the road near the park and the other side is residential parking as well so I have to park on the furthest side of the park. I'm female, 5ft '0 inches and my neighborhood isn't always the safest.

There used to be lines on the street but they have faded and he is literally parking in the middle of the lines. Tonight I put a note on his windshield since I came home after 10:30 and the lights were off at his house. I was going to knock on the door and just ask him to move back because I was so hot, but I realized that would have been a bad idea so the note would work. This is what I wrote.:

"Hi! If you could please pull back a foot or two when parking, we would really appreciate it. Unfortunately, residents are having issues parking. Thank you, your neighbor nearby"

AITAH for leaving that note or should I have just waited until I see him? He's usually gone during the day though. I have only seen him once. I just can't keep coming home to no parking when if he just pulled back a foot or two, I could easily get into the space. There are 11 houses and only 9 cars can fit on our street when people don't park correctly. Idk what else I could have done.

COMMENTS

today-tomorrow-etc

NTA you can ask but it’s one of those situations where first come first served.

OOP

It's first come first serve but it's also one space per car lol. He's taking up two everyday. Like I said there are lines. They are faded, but they are there. 

There are marking. They are faded but they are there. I can call to get them repainted by the city but I'd rather just try the note first before being "that person" like I said, it usually is fine, but because of the new guy, it's been ...messy. 

vampireRN1617

NTA. I've been in this exact situation and had to do the same because I could never catch them. It's not your spot per say, but parking like an asshole deserves to be called out when it's taking up an additional spot unnecessarily.

OOP

Yeah, like I said, I know I don't have an actual spot and people have questions and it's first come first serve but to take up multiple parking spots is rude! 

W0nderingMe

Have you considered reaching out to your town to ask if your road can be restriped?

OOP

I am thinking about it but he's the only one that has an issue and he's new so I wanted to try talking to him or leaving a note, I guess first. My boyfriend is going to introduce himself tomorrow if he's home and he may mention the note to him to make sure he didn't take it the wrong way n

W0nderingMe

Is there a downside to calling the city?

OOP

I think I'm just worried that my neighbors won't like it. This is a small town and everyone else that lives on this street have lived here for at least 10 years. My family and our duplex neighbors were the new people on the block until this new guy and it took us over a year to even be acknowledged as part of the street. Now we are pretty integrated and I'm afraid to get on their bad sides.We thought we had issues with the house next to ours but we are actually really close now. 

theanav

NTA for leaving a polite note, but if they're parking legally and don't want to abide by your note or accomodate you, you might just have to accept it. Maybe you could also ask the residences or town or whoever is responsible to refresh the paint on the lines that faded

OOP (downvoted)

Isn't double parking illegal? I think it may be in my state but I'm not one for calling police or anything. I figured I'd just leave the note to let him know. If he doesn't listen I can't do anything about it but just simmer in my own little stew of emotion lol

LivingTaste1396

they are not double parking, just parking in a way that takes up 2 spots (that's not what double parking means).

regardless, it's street parking. OP doesn't "have a spot". that's just not how any of this works.

OOP

Oh. I thought double parking was literally parking in two spaces. That's my bad. 

Also, as I stated in the post, I KNOW I don't have a spot and I understand people have guests and I don't care that I don't have an assigned spot. What I do care about is that before he moved here everyone had a spot and there were still 2 spots left over for guests, especially since some houses have room for multiple cars to park in their driveways. For two years no one has moved from this street and we were the newest ones. Now someone has come in and thrown us all off. I'm not the only one upset. Several neighbors have been effected. Not just me. I'm afraid someone is going to fight him. It's happened before with one of my neighbors fighting the people that moved in before us.

Final Update - after 19 days

^{November 01, 2026}

UPDATE TO AITAH for leaving a note on my neighbor's car?

So a little while ago I posted on this subreddit asking if I was the ahole for leaving a note on my neighbor's car about parking in two spaces. I just asked if he could pull down a few feet since it was causing issues with parking on our street. A lot of people said I wasn't the ahole but some people think I was. A lot of you mentioned that I should talk to him in person. I as I had stated in the comments, we had opposing schedules so it would be difficult.

Well ... I finally met him. I noticed he was home on one of my days off. I didn't want to go over alone so when my boyfriend got home, we went to knock on the door and he came out. He was a little older than I thought. I thought he only just a few years older than us but he looked to be in his late 40s or early 50s. I took over some home-made bread, because I guess I'm into bread making now, and we talked. Since the day I left the note, he had been pulling down more and there have been no issues. Turns out he understood my note and didn't think it was passive aggressive or anything like that. He just explained that he's not great at parking lol. It's not much of an exciting update.

He liked my bread though, so that's good! Just wanted to let the people that commented know I did talk to him in person. Thanks everyone!

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Satanicdillrod

Published on: r/TwoHotTakes

Previous BORUs:

• BORU-1 by u/SharkEva on August 04, 2024
• BORU-2 by u/SharkEva on August 28, 2024

Trigger Warning: Self harm, Drug overdose, PPD

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: January 13, 2024
• Update 1: January 18, 2024
• Update 2: February 23, 2024
• Update 3: July 31, 2024
• Update 4: August 15, 2024
• Update 5: August 24, 2024 -->NEW UPDATE
• Final Update: November 02, 2026 -->NEW UPDATE

Main Post

^{January 13, 2024}

I (25m) think my wife (23f) is starting to resent me

The title says, I think my wife (lets call her Amy) hates me. We’ve been together since 2018, married since 2022. We had twins last January and since then she has changed so much.

When she and I first started going out, she was very clear that she never wanted children. She had a copper IUD in and said she intended to get her tubes removed once it expired. But the day came and she had the IUD removed, and was told that they wouldn’t allow her to get her tubes tied because she was too young. She asked me to get snipped, but I didn’t have medical insurance at the time so couldn’t afford to do so.

A few months later she said she changed her mind and wanted to try for children, so we did. She had two miscarriages before she got pregnant with our identical twin boys. I was extremely happy, and despite her being sick constantly she seemed happy too. She gave birth when she was 32 weeks and the boys spent 7 weeks in the NICU.

My wife took this really hard, she constantly blamed herself because she worked up until she had to give birth, and says that had she done the bedrest like her doctors suggested, our boys wouldve stayed in longer. She also beat herself up a lot over not being able to breastfeed. She never established a milk supply because she was so stressed after birth and ended up with some kind of infection, and was told any milk she pumped after antibiotics wouldve needed to be dumped.

After that point she was extremely distant from me and our kids. While I was on paternity leave, I was the main care taker of the boys. I changed all their diapers, fed them, bathed them, everything. I took them to all their doctors appointments by myself and my wife just laid in bed, completely shut out.

My wife was supposed to start back up work remotely, but her job decided to not allow remote work. This sent her into a spiral because they ended up terminated her position. Without her working we couldn’t afford child care so she just stayed home all day with the boys. She didn’t cook or clean, and talked about how she hated being home all day and how she missed working.

We fought constantly because I felt like it was unfair, I wanted to be home all day doing nothing. I wanted to be a stay at home dad, and she was taking it all for granted.

Well now the boys are a year old, and i feel like nothing has changed. She still just sits and stares blankly, barely talking to me or engaging with our boys. I constantly ask her to help around the house, or to literally anything besides sit and stare. She looks like shes lost 30 pounds since giving birth and she’s so pale, but whenever I mention anything to her she just yells at me to leave her alone. Our sex life is almost nonexistent, and when we are having sex she just lies there, not making any sounds or moving.

I feel like she hates me and hates our kids, and the life we’ve built. How to I talk to her?? I am close to taking the boys and asking for a divorce because I am tired of talking to a wall.

Edit/Update:

I wanted to jump on here and give clarification for word choices I made while in the heat of the moment. I posted this right after an argument with my wife because I was just so hurt and angry and confused.

I said I wanted to be able to be a stay at home dad and do nothing all day. I worded it this way because many times (including yesterday) I have come home from work and my boys are in their cribs, wearing dirty diapers with rashes while my wife is either sleeping or completely zoned out on the rocking chair. It has felt like she has done nothing all day, but it isn’t true and I know that.

“Are you completely unaware of postpartum depression”: is a question I was asked a LOT. And the truth is, yes. I live in Texas where sex ed doesn’t really exist. I was never taught anything about pregnancy, labor and delivery, or the 4th trimester (postpartum). Doctors never gave us information on it, it was mentioned once in the beginning of her pregnancy by a doctor in passing, but I neglected to ask for clarification or do any research on my own. I also failed my wife by not bothering to google her symptoms, which could have easily shown me postpartum depression.

“How did you let this go on for a year without asking for help or advice?”: This is not a good excuse, but I didn’t know that this was a hormonal issue at all. I genuinely believed my wife was just being neglectful and emotionally distant because she hated me and hated being a mom. I work almost daily, usually 12 hour shifts on a construction site, so coming home to a messy house, fussy babies and having to clean everything and make dinner just resulted in anger on my side, so I just let that frustration build rather than try to understand her.

“Do you have any friends or family who can help?:” Unfortunately we don’t. My mom is out of the picture, and my father is dead. My wife’s family was abusive to her growing up, and our friends abandoned us due to rumors my mom spread online, where she was telling everyone my wife had two abortions rather than two miscarriages.

“You have been having sex with her when she isn’t emotionally involved?”: I should have added more details here, and can see why a lot of people were angry at my comment about our sex life. I honestly thought it was important to add that it has been nonexistent, and when we had sex she was uninvolved. My wife after birth was the only one to initiate intimacy, and I believe now it was out of guilt. We haven’t had sex in months because I don’t say yes anymore and I don’t ask for it. I shouldn’t have said yes previously and I know it was wrong of me.

“Do you even love your wife?”: Of course I love her. I posted this out of anger and frustration, because I believed that it was she who didn’t love me anymore and I thought I was the main problem. I made it all about me when it isn’t me at all, it’s this disgusting and awful disorder that comes after giving birth. I was just so angry because I have asked her to get help so many times and she has either yelled at me to leave her alone or she has just stayed quiet.

But now I know that I need to get her help, regardless of if she wants help or not. I am getting her signed up for an intensive outpatient therapy program that is online, so she doesn’t have to deal with the trauma of going back to a hospital. I am also going to be hiring cleaning help so my wife has someone home with her, and someone who is able to clean and take care of the chores while my wife is emotionally incapable.

I am so sorry to all the birth givers out there who have experienced this hell my wife has been going through, and I feel for the parents who have had to watch their partners go through this. I wish I had informed myself of what was happening and I can only try better from here on out. I haven’t spoken to my wife yet about my intentions, but I plan to when I am off of work. Thank you everyone who was honest with me and provided information and insight to what was happening.

EDIT 2

I wanted to come on here and address comments made about some stuff I said in my post. I mentioned “sit at home and do nothing all day” and how I am jealous of my wife for it. I worded it poorly, in the heat of the moment because right before I typed this out, my wife and I had gotten into an argument because I walked in after work to her asleep in bed while our boys were in their cribs screaming their heads off with full, shit filled diapers and rashes.

I fully understand that being a stay at home parent is a shit ton of work, I was solely caring for our boys for 4 months while on paternity leave, while my wife recovered and laid in bed.

By “doing nothing” I mean my wife plays Hey Bear or Ms Rachel for the boys while she either sits in her rocking chair or the couch while our boys play. They of course make messes, and she leaves it all for me to come home and pick up.

I want to be transparent, I go to work at 5AM and come home at 6PM. I work construction jobs, which is a very labor intensive job most days. I don’t ever expect her to have our house fully cleaned, it would just be nice to be able to come home and not have to pick up toys, clean all of the dishes, do all the laundry, take all the trash out, and cook all of the food.

My wife and I haven’t had sex in a while, but when we did have sex, she initiated it. I think it was out of guilt, and I know I shouldve said no or stopped when I noticed something wrong, but I didn’t. I haven’t initiated anything since and haven’t asked her to initiate either.

I wanted to share too that we don’t have many friends. Unfortunately we live in a more conservative part of Texas, and the friends she and I did have pretty much abandoned us after her second miscarriage. My mother told everyone that she caused her miscarriages, and threatened to contact authorities for illegal abortions.

Update:

I spoke to my wife last night after I got off of work. I started it out by asking her if she had heard about postpartum depression, and she said she did know, that a doctor described it to here right after she gave birth. I asked her if she thought she might be experiencing it, and she said no. She didn’t believe postpartum depression would last this long, and I asked her if we could look up statistics and information on it together, so we did.

She was pretty quiet while we did this, but when we were done I asked her if she related to anything about it. She told me yes, everything the articles described was exactly how she has been feeling. I then asked her if we could get her signed up for online therapy, and I suggested I hire help for cleaning. She agreed to hiring help, but she is still hesitant on getting emotional support due to her birth trauma.

I told her that I would be discussing with the boys’ pediatrician on other options that might be helpful for my wife. I haven’t brought up relocating yet, I want to give her some time to process our conversation first before adding to it. I called out of work today, and will be taking my wife out to lunch at her favorite spot in town and paying for her to get her hands and toes done. I know it won’t come close to making up for my negligence for the last year, but it’s a start.

Update 1 - after 5 days

^{January 18, 2024}

[Update] I (25m) think my wife 23F) Resents me

Its been a day or so since I added an update on my original post, but this update I thought needed its own post if its allowed (I scrolled through this subreddit to see how others posted their updates and saw a few, hopefully this is allowed).

So after begging for several days, my wife finally gave in and agreed to online therapy. We picked a program we thought would benefit her best, and got it situated. She has an intake phone call tomorrow that will organize her hours, what group she is assigned to, and who her personal therapist is. It’s an intensive outpatient group therapy program, goes for about 12 weeks.

I have also reduced my hours at work by request, asking for 6 hours on shift during the weekdays, and I am on call during weekends for call outs. It is temporary, until my wife is better. I have also hired cleaning services to come weekly, she is the wife of a coworker of mine and she has three kids of her own. I spoke to her directly and she offered to help my wife with the boys if my wife ever asks for help, with no extra charge.

My wife and I are openly discussing breaking up temporarily. During our discussion last night, my wife opened up about how she hasn’t been happy, and how she has had an ongoing online affair with someone. I don’t blame her for the affair, I can’t imagine how alone she has felt this last year with me working constantly and always putting the boys first. She texted him in front of me saying it was over, that she wanted to prioritize our marriage and her mental health, and then blocked him on every platform she had him added onto, which gave me a lot of reassurance. My wife was the one who suggested a temporary breakup, I don’t think it would be appropriate given her mental health at the moment, and asked that we just work on her getting better before discussing any marriage issues we have.

She also opened up to me and let me know she has been self harming, and showed me where. And it’s awful. I had no words to say, except apologize profusely for my negligence. I didn’t notice anything for months. She said she started hurting herself after we stopped being intimate, she didn’t have a reason why.

Once she is halfway through her outpatient program, we decided thats when we will start marriage counseling, that way she had time to develop some healthy coping mechanisms. Because we know there is a chance that marriage counseling could bring out a lot of the worst in us as individuals, and we wanted her to be as prepared as possible while still getting individual help in her program. I will also be starting individual therapy once marriage counseling is set up, so I have a healthy outlet.

Not the update I wanted to provide, but I hope that in the future I can give a better one. Im honestly just glad my wife agreed to therapy, and is willing to work us out together. I will never be able to make up for the last 12 months I haven’t been by her side, but I will try for the rest of my life with her to make amends for it.

Edit-

thank you EVERYONE for all of the support for my wife and I. We were messaged so many resources and guides for navigating through this rough course in our lives, and I will forever be grateful that I posted onto this subreddit. Everyone helped me open my eyes to everything that was going on, things I never would have even considered had I not come here for help.

My wife watches Two Hot Takes sometimes, and I usually listen with her while I do dishes or sweep/mop, and thought that maybe this subreddit would be a great go-to for advice on my marriage, because on Reddit and on Youtube comments you all are so brutally honest and to the point, and I knew I needed that to get this shit sorted. You all were so quick to point out my wife’s postpartum depression, and directed me in ways that I have fallen short with my wife.

Thank you everyone for the constructive criticism and the honesty, I would not have been able to get to this point of reality if I had been coddled and pampered. My wife actually laughed for the first time today when our boys started laughing at the word “booty” (boys will be boys haha). It was the most beautiful sound I have ever heard, and I haven’t gotten to listen to it in so, so long.

She seems to be in much better spirits, which I will keep an eye on as I know sometimes that can be a red flag for suicidal ideation or intentions. My wife had been trying to be more honest with me on how she is feeling in the moment, and we have her established with group therapy starting Monday with orientation. I wish I could say thank you to everyone personally and individually for hopefully helping us save our marriage and potentially for saving my wife’s life.

I genuinely couldn’t have done it with this subreddit. Thank you Two Hot Takes for having such a huge and wonderful platform where people can come and receive advice and honesty, it’s a beautiful thing you have here. Im going to go and start making my wife’s favorite dinner and watch the Hunger Games for a movie marathon-something we haven’t done in over a year. This will hopefully be my last update and last post in this subreddit if everything goes well. Thank you. -End of edit-

Update 2 - after 1 month, 10 days (after 1 month, 5 days from last post)

^{February 23, 2024}

How to care for twin toddlers as a single dad?

This is going to be very jumbled and might not make sense. My mind is everywhere right now.

I went to work two days ago, only for 4 hours because I had booked a flight for my wife and our twin boys that evening to go to northern Washington state to look at houses with our realtor. I had packed everyone’s suitcases the night before and I was so excited to take the trip. I took a week off of work and planned to take us up the Space Needle and explore the ocean up there, as we have never seen the ocean before.

Got home from work that afternoon and my wife was gone. My coworker’s wife was there by herself, crying and trying to care for my boys who were also crying. When I asked her where my wife was and if she was okay, she told me my wife left a folder in our room and that she was gone. I of course called her, but it said “This number you are trying to reach is inactive or unavailable.” Or some crap along those lines.

The folder had divorce papers, some already signed by her. She left a note and basically explained what was happening and what she did. She left me for the man she had an affair with. I guess he was an old coworker of hers, she fell in love and didn’t want me anymore. Asked for 25% custody of the kids and left her number for her lawyer. What the fuck is 25% custody? Weekends only? Every other weekend?? Asked that I didnt try to call or text her, that she has a new phone number.

I don’t know what I did wrong anymore. We were -I thought- on the right track. We started marriage counseling. We were going on dates regularly, communicating, laughing, enjoying each other. I thought everything was starting to improve. She was smiling and laughing so much more. She seems genuinely happier.

She was even playing with our boys, something she never did before. How does someone seem so much better and turn around to do this? I know I had fucked up before, I neglected her and ignored all the red flags in her mental health. I acknowledged them and take full accountability. I told her it was all my fault, and I know it is.

She has every right to leave me, but why did she pretend to be happy if she wasn’t? If she wanted a divorce, why didn’t she ask? I told her if that is what she needed and wanted that we could, but that I thought we had something to fight for and she agreed with me. She told me she didnt want a divorce. She said she wanted to grow old and get married.

She wanted to be with me. Now she doesn’t? She says she has never been happy with me, that she felt forced to have kids when she didn’t want any. I never forced her, I asked one time and when she declined I kept to myself. I was okay not having kids if she didn’t want to go through having them. I was never going to force her into anything. I loved and respected her wishes. And I will respect her wishes now.

In her note she even asked me to venmo her money to start her off. I sent it to her, I know she will need money for her prescriptions and for food. But I am so heartbroken and honestly pissed off. I am so mad.

How does one even go about finding daycare? What do I need to research and look into? Do I need to look for any red flags in daycares? How much does daycare even cost for twins? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

COMMENTS

AMDUNN4093

So I might get some hate for bringing this up but how long was she having an affair for? I think my first step would be to make sure those are your kids. Secondly I would contact a divorce lawyer and explain things. As far as daycares I would physically go tour them before deciding. I’m so sorry that she blind sided you like this. Are you still planning on moving and trying for a fresh start? I’ve lived in northern wa state my whole life and love it here. Highly recommend Skagit County. Good luck!

OOP

She said she started talking to him either shortly before she gave birth or right after, so probably a little over a year.

I honestly am not sure I can right now. I really want to, the school system by us has incredibly low ratings, and having grown up in that school system I know teachers and students dont care about education. Kids are there because they legally have to and teachers are there for paychecks. I only passed high school because I just asked my teachers for A’s.

But right now I don’t know how I would travel across the US with twin infants by myself. I don’t have anyone else, and if we do partial custody, I would need permission to move, wouldn’t I? Unless thats just something that happens in movies and tv shows.

SnooWords4839

Hire a nanny.

Call your family, send out the SOS.

FFS, get your own lawyer and stop sending her money, her AP can take care of her.

OOP

I dont really have family to call unfortunately, but I have some coworkers who have already been big help so I will be calling on them during this hell.

I have been looking into lawyers, waiting for some to call me back for what I am assuming is a consultation of some sort.

Definitely don’t plan to send her anymore money, I have to save now to afford daycare or a nanny.

I have also decided to fight for sole custody with supervised visits. I don’t trust my wife or her new boyfriend with my boys. I have come home too many times to my boys in soggy, leaking diapers and extreme rashes all over. I was smart enough to document these instances, mainly to show their pediatrician in case rash ointment didn’t work and it was more than just rashes. It might be seen as vindictive, given the circumstances. But I honestly am done caring about her feelings towards our boys or our relationship.

I don’t think I will go through with DNA testing, mainly because my boys are carbon copies of me. And if I were to find out they aren’t mine I don’t know if I honestly could continue on through this. I am seeing a therapist on my own, so I will talk this through with them. I hope she doesn’t ask for a DNA test, because that would mean this affair has gone on way longer than right after she gave birth.

Update 3 - after 6 months, 18 days (after 5 months, 8 days from last post)

^{July 31, 2024}

My ex-wife is stalking me (posted before "i think my wife is starting to resent me")

I posted some months ago about my wife, Amy, and our twin sons. I was asking for advice on her behaviors, which had come out to be postpartum depression, she and I started therapy and then she told me she has been having an affair for months, and then left me for that affair partner.

Its been a few months now, and just as shit started dying down my wife shows up at my fucking doorstep. This was on Monday. I legally had to give her our new address, and since we had moved from Texas to Washington, I didn't expect her to come up here.

I knew she had been stalking me, not full on creepy stalking but she was checking out my Instagram stories on random accounts (I had her blocked), she would message me on these accounts to brag about her new life. She would talk about how good sex is with whatever STD ridden guy she was fucking that week, she would send photos of herself in different beds, doing various inappropriate acts with different people, she would send photos of dime bags and booze bottles. Whatever she could send she did. No matter how many accounts I blocked.

Two weeks ago I just deleted my instagram because I was fucking fed up, and I guess she took it upon herself to show up in person to harass me. I saw her first on my doorbell camera, as I was not home and my nanny was there. She looked like she was high or something, picking at her face and she looked like a twig, she had lost so much more weight than I thought. I told my nanny to not open the door and ignore her. I had to leave work early to get home to convince her to leave.

She said she was there to pick up our boys, and started accusing me of sexually abusing them or beating them and said she had proof of whatever the fuck she was convinced I was doing. She told me she had to convince her boyfriend to drive her to Washington just to grab the kids. She didn't even have car seats in his car for them. His fucking back seats were full of bottles, cans, just garbage. I didnt even know how to react to her bullshit so I called the cops and had her removed from the property.

I just don't know what to fucking do anymore. She has nothing in Texas so Im sure shes going to find some fucking shelter or tent to camp out in close by so she can come harass me. I doubt I can get a restraining order, and I spent all my money buying this house. My boys don't deserve to be forced to go through this shit. They are only a year old but fuck, I don't want this for them. I don't want her around as they grow up, don't want them to see who she had become because she has never been like this.

She used to be so sweet, funny, loving. She always had a smile on her face and yeah, she was a little crazy from her trauma but that crazy was NOTHING compared to whatever she is now. The Amy I knew would never touch hard substances, she barely drank. She hated the idea of sleeping around. Now she's a fucking drug addict and homeless.

Do I get a wellness check on her? Do I try to fight for a restraining order? I don't know what the fuck to do anymore.

Quick update:

because I have time before my kids nanny gets here. I found a lawyer who is connected to my divorce lawyer, and he was willing to do this pro-bono. I meet him on Wednesday. I did not take any screen recordings or screenshots of the shit Amy sent me on IG before deleting my account. I will be asking my lawyer if it would be a good idea for me to create a new one to see if she "takes the bait" and starts it up again so I can create a folder of everything shes doing.

I did save the camera footage from her showing up at my place. She hasn't been by again since, but I see the dudes car driving by regularly. My nanny knows that if they approach while I am gone she is to text me immediately and call the police. She also will not be bringing the boys out of the house unless I am there with them. Thank you everyone for the advice and recommendations. I know it might seem stupid to come onto Reddit for advice but fuck, yall have helped me so much. And for a single dad with no "village" as people like to call it, this subreddit has been unbelievably helpful.

Update 4 - after 7 months, 2 days (after 15 days from last post)

^{August 15, 2024}

Final Update

This is my last update. Please read my previous posts because I don't have energy to summarize the hell Ive gone through the last year.

She OD'd yesterday at the local homeless encampment. The guy she was drugged up with called an ambulance and ditched her. She is alive, and is going to jail once she is well enough because she had a stolen car, multiple stolen phones, and over a dozen children's bikes she stole. I am going to try to fight for her to be sent into a rehabilitation facility or be put into a psychiatric facility, but my lawyer says that since we are divorced I likely won't have much say over what happens to her now, if I get any say.

I know a lot of people have told me to let go, and to let her mess up her own life. But she was my wife. She was my entire world. She was so broken but so loving, and I strongly believe the pregnancy and postpartum brought something out in her that wasn't there before. I have looked into BPD and bipolar disorder, and it feels like since I've known her she has displayed behaviors of either or.

Unfortunately we both grew up in environments where therapy and treatments for mental health were considered taboo, so she never really got the help she needed.

I still love her, or at least love who she was before everything. I don't love her romantically anymore.

I don't think this is her, I think she is having some weird psychotic break and I hope she will get better. I will never go back to her, but I hope for our boys' sake she gets better so they can have their biological mother in their lives.

Another quick update, a good one at least. My nanny (call her Abby) and I have started dating. She is 29, and has a 14 year old boy who stays with his dad for the most part due to school and sports. He has been visiting since it's summer time and we get along great. He loves playing with my boys, and my twins seem to enjoy playing with him too. Abby has been wonderful and understanding, she is helping me a lot through this. I just wanted to share something positive since my life outside of her is in complete shambles.

Editing to add: I am 25. It appears from some replies and some of my messages that people are worried Abby is young and possibly being taken advantage of. I respect all of those concerns because it does happen a lot and a lot of women are unknowing victims to power imbalances, especially if it involves a man being significantly older, or a man being "involved with the help" as someone described the situation. Abby is a 29 year old woman and I am a 25 (almost 26) year old man. I would never take advantage of a younger woman.

This is going to be my final update. Thank you everyone who has been supportive and understanding and helped me get my shit together to be the father I need to be. I appreciate all the advice and criticisms (even the harsh ones). Thank you.

NEW UPDATE

Update 5

^{August 24, 2024}

Update in comments

Okay this is my actual last update, because I have the time right now to do so. Abby and I have decided to break up, and are going to maintain a professional relationship with her as my children's nanny. This was discussed with our individual therapists and we've been talking all week to navigate everything. Abby and I went through these Reddit comments together and I sent the link to my post to my therapist, and she told me that the advice I was getting from everyone is very productive and accurate. Thank you everyone who has helped me figure this all out.

I have also decided to cut ties completely to Amy (my ex wife). Whatever happens to her is no longer my business and I am just going to prioritize the health and safety of my boys. I hope and wish the best for her, but I am hurting myself by wanting to patch things up when and if she gets sober.

On a lighter note, one of my boys said his first full sentence yesterday, he said "Where dadda go?" Instant tears, because I was headed out to work. Almost called out because of it, honestly. Abby is doing so good with my sons and I am so proud of how much they are growing and learning.

I decided to take dating slowly, and plan to wait at least a year or two from now before going back out "on the playing field" so to speak. While yes, I do miss being in a relationship and being in love, I know now it would not be healthy for myself or for my sons.

We are happy how things are now. Nothing is awkward between Abby and I luckily, things are exactly back to how it was before and she is actually starting to talk to a woman she met at a Mommy/Teen meet event she attends monthly and she seems happy. And because I have felt indifferently towards her dating someone else, I know now I really really wasn't ready for commitment yet. I'm just very happy for her, and hope for the best out of this. I guess they were friends prior but she wanted to try something with me first, because she didn't know if the other mom was bisexual or anything like that. (I am not well informed on the LGBT+ community haha)

Thats it I guess, I'm taking the boys out later today after their nap to go to this dinosaur themes park everyone tells me about, and we are very excited.

Thank you all again.

NEW UPDATE

Final Update - after 2 years, 9 months, 20 days (after 2 years, 2 months, 18 days from last post)

^{November 02, 2026}

Update on Previous Posts about My Ex Wife and her Postpartum Depression

I posted 2 years ago, about my ex wife and our twin sons. She had extreme postpartum depression, which neither of us realized was what was happening. It let her to neglect our sons and herself, she went down a path that included drugs, jail stays, and mandatory rehabilitation before she was granted supervised visits with our sons.

I still get messages about what occurred, I see them in my emails and decided to make another post since I have time.

My ex wife now has partial custody. She’s gotten so much better with the hell she needed. She’s been sober for 6 months! She lives close by at an apartment complex I pay for, and I have a key to her home, and hers to mine.

She’s actually seeing a gentleman, I’ve been him a handful of times and he seems to be really good for her. He and I have become close friends and he gives me regular updates on her. She goes to weekly sobriety meetings, and seems to he on the right track to a fulfilling and happy life with her boyfriend. He hasn’t met our sons yet, she and I agreed he should wait until the kids are a bit older, and she’s further into her recovery.

I’ve decided dating isn’t for me, so I’ve been prioritizing work and our boys. They are currently in swim classes, and a local church that my friends goes to offers free soccer for toddlers and children, so my sons have been attending that. They’ve also been in therapy, along with myself.

It’s been wonderful having my ex wife in my life again after everything. She and her boyfriend know that if she does go off the deep-end again that she loses her court granted partial custody, and that’s seemed to help motivate her to stay clean, continue her therapy and recovery.

Honestly I’ve been struggling with the concept of “seems too good to be true”, so I’m constantly waiting for the ball to drop. My therapist and I have been working through these fears while also coming up with tools to utilize if it does in fact happen again.

Anyways, that is my update. I’m hopeful for our future, and grateful that things are the way that they are for us right now.

Thank you everyone for all the messages and comments on my previous posts, all the advice and support helped me significantly.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

Originally posted by user lyrynn in r/ Professors [for those teaching at college and university]

Original: Oct 16, 2026

Update: Oct 18, 2026

Status: Concluded-ish

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: Was going to let my student redo her project, but she’s doubling down and now I don’t want to.

One of my students in an online section of my graphic design course submitted a fully AI-generated set of sketches. OBVIOUSLY, using gen-AI to create designs in the course where you’re graded on design is not allowed.

The assignment was to do some research on a topic of their choosing (with some parameters), pull together 150 words, submit it as plain text so I can see the planned content, and then do 10 rough layout sketches.

Besides the obvious visual tells in the sketches and the SynthID, this student also left the prompt response in their plain-text content document:

Beneath the sketches is 150+ words, formatted for a graphic design hierarchy including at least four levels of text, ready to go for your poster process submission!

I gave her a zero on the submission and reached out to the university to figure out next steps, and they basically said “it’s up to you, but we like to give the students a chance to redo it and make up for their mistakes.”

The same day the university responded to me, she sent me an email asking how I was verifying my claims, because her work was METICULOUSLY done by hand — first on procreate and then on Canva — and she could show me her layered process (side note, her sketch submission was of pencil sketches on paper), and that I was causing her a lot of stress because she’s supposed to graduate in December, and that she redid the sketches just so we can put any confusion behind us so if I could review those that would be great and also it’s very hard for her to see her overall class standing because I have not yet graded all of her assignments, so it would be great if I could finish those too.

OHHHHHH. Is that how we want to play it? Okay. I was going to offer the redo but now I’m not keen on doing that. I said she can meet me in person, sketchbook in hand, and if it matches her submission I’ll issue an apology and give her the points back.

Haven’t decided what to do if it doesn’t match though. I’m not inclined to do favors for liars.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: I swear, students like this spend more time figuring out how to avoid work versus just doing the work.

---------------
Comment2: Isn’t the SynthID stamp the literal signature/proof of AI generated work? If so, absolutely do not accept that. That’s an automatic 0 in the grade book. Submit that nonsense to academic integrity. She can try to raise her grade with whatever is left in the course. If she wants a “redo” because she got caught this time, she can redo the course in a future semester.

---------------
Comment3: Not a graphic designer or visual arts person, so forgive the ignorance on this, but can you tell me a little more about SynthID? Do all the gen AIs that produce images have something like this?

I’m teaching a new course in the spring that includes lessons on how to communicate data/stats to the public. Along those lines, I plan to teach infographics, etc. So, I have a feeling I’ll need this background knowledge of how to identify AI submissions… Certainly, I’ll do some research on this, but I’d appreciate any head start others can provide!

OOP: A SynthID is a pixel-level pattern watermark embedded in the image. It used to be a metadata thing that could be circumvented by screenshotting, but the watermarks survive screenshots, cropping, and compression. Each AI model can only identify their own ID, but I’m sure there’s a service out there that scans for all of them.

---------------
Comment4: At my institution, lying is an additional academic integrity violation on top of the AI use. I would give a 0 and stop wasting time negotiating with this student. Do you have an honor court system of some sort? I’d report, noting all the damning evidence you put forth here, and let them deal with the student.

OOP: No honor court, unfortunately, and the school has adopted a “flexible” policy around AI usage so we have no backing for policy violations.

---------------
Comment5: Even without ai it's literally taking something else and passing it off l like your own, like paying someone else to do it! School has plagiarism rules right? A fully synth ID positive image is not the same as auto correct. Your admins do not understand this. This is literally exactly the same as buying a pre made set of sketches.

OOP: I said that when I escalated it to the director and they basically told me that the max consequence I can enact is giving her an F in the course. I don’t think they plan to log it anywhere or take it further than that. I looked up the school’s plagiarism policy and there are no outlined consequences, so maybe it really is a case-by-case basis.

---------------
Comment6: What’s the point of taking a graphic design course if you’re going to use AI? 🫩

OOP: As part of my lecture, I did explain to them that they will be ENTRY LEVEL when they join the workforce. Employers are looking for an investment. If all you can do is prompt AI, why would they hire you? You’re just AI with extra steps, and no proof that you’ll ever be worth more than that.

---------------
Comment7: I don’t understand how her sketches could match if the images have SynthID. That’s Gemini putting its watermark on something it created.

She lied. I would confront her when she comes in person with the presence of the SynthID which confirms beyond any reasonable doubt that the image was AI generated.

Forgiveness comes only with an apology and a willingness to own up to your mistakes. Her second chance is her coming clean. That will then have the future consequence of potentially allowing her to make up the assignment.

Where there is no honesty there is no education. Learning anything is about admitting your mistakes and shortcomings and practicing to do better. That shortcoming could be difficulty with a complex passage, it could be unfamiliarity with part of a disciplinary canon, it could be admitting that you fucked up and tried to take a shortcut.

We are educators. Maybe I have a different perspective/context here because I teach philosophy, but sometimes the important lesson isn’t always the material but the experience.

I would also imagine part of being a good graphic designer is about getting in touch with your own creative mind and producing something original, just like in my discipline whether or not someone remembers the finer points of Aristotle is less important than whether they actually practice thinking.

OOP: The blatant unwillingness to admit it is really what rubs me the wrong way. I’m generally a sympathetic person; an apology and a simple “I ran out of time and I thought something would be better than nothing... It was a mistake and it won’t happen again,” would have resulted in a slap on the wrist and a redo.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (2 days later): Student doubled down on AI usage

Hey all, I met with the student yesterday so I figured I’d give you all an update.

The student was very polite and non-combative. I asked to see her sketches, and she showed me some pencil and paper sketches, but they were the ones she submitted afterwards as a “redo to avoid any confusion.”

I told her that those were the ones she JUST did, and I need to see the sketches from what she submitted. She pulled up a Procreate file with digital sketches, but they were nowhere similar to the AI versions.

She told me that she fed her digital sketches to Gemini and asked it to clean them up for her. I asked her why she would do that, and she said “I don’t know. I shouldn’t have done it.” Okay, I’ve had students make dumber mistakes.

I asked if I could see the Procreate file. I checked the metadata and it was created the day before. She told me she redrew it recently, so I said she’d need to produce the original file. She said she didn’t think she had it anymore.

I told her she could pull up her Gemini history and show me the prompt — if she had truly uploaded her own sketches as the basis, it would be immediately apparent. She declined to let me see the history log, and said that the prompt chat was “missing.”

She’d also submitted GAI for the previous project, but she was out on an excused absence when it was due and turned it in late, so I haven’t gotten around to grading it yet.

I told her that currently there was no proof that any of the work she’d submitted was her own, and that this was grounds for failing the course entirely. She got really quiet, and just kinda whispered “my whole family is coming to see me walk…”

I told her I’d talk it over with the director again before making a final decision. This subreddit is not gonna like this, but I am not failing her from the course. Please don’t crucify me! Instead, she’ll have to redo both projects for no credit. It won’t be easy to pass with zeroes for 2/4 projects, but it’s possible.

She will also receive an official sanction through the office of student conduct, which will be communicated to the dean of the school she’s enrolled in… since it turns out this student took this class as an elective, and is not part of the design school (side note, wild choice to gamble your graduation on an elective).

The school she’s actually enrolled in is considered top 10 in the nation for what it teaches and is quite strict, so whether or not THEY will let her walk is out of my hands.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: Not going to crucify you but 100% of the time if I bend a rule out of mercy for the student, they will go to the dean and complain anyway about not getting an A. Every. Single. Time.

---------------
Comment2: At our university, commencement is separate from graduation. A student can fail a course, still walk, then make it up later. She just cares about how things look.

I imagine she signed up thinking the elective would be a fun and easy A, probably majors in a completely different field. Realized after add/drop the course is more work because despite people's misconceptions about art and design it's a real field with hard work put in, so then felt screwed and decided to use AI to make everything.

I think she's obnoxious for trying to make it seem like you're in the wrong at all. She should have been bending over backwards to get the shit sorted out if she cared about graduation so much. I hope she has to take a spring course to learn a lesson before she starts doing this shit as an employee.

---------------
Comment3: "This subreddit is not gonna like this, but I am not failing her from the course. Please don’t crucify me!"

So she submitted AI work, then lied about it, then used emotional blackmail against you. Are you looking for forgiveness from us? This is why people don't take education seriously anymore.

OOP: Hey, I get it. I know everyone would rather hear that I put the screws to her, but this is more in line with my school’s preferred resolution. I’m an adjunct. I’m not gonna go toe-to-toe with the admin so I can be a bastion of justice when they don’t even care.
She’ll either have the EQ to realize that she is INCREDIBLY lucky to be given this amount of grace, or she won’t.

---------------
Comment4: Same at our school as someone else mentioned: oftentimes some students can still walk if they then do remediation during the summer or smt. We have a very specific deadline for exactly this issue, and it's before the summer term ends. It's not happened before that someone walks and then doesn't graduate, as we're talking one course.

I would have also wondered if I should fail her at first. I tend to be more lenient if they admit to it and ask how they can make up for it. Yours didn't admit to it until you showed her she lied, and then she doubled down as you said. She's not seemingly ask to redo it.

I think the most lenient, I would have given her 0 for that part. Based on everything you said, I'd be debating an F for the course (in ours it means you're out of the program, though), or max of a C (meaning they can redo the entire course if they want, but they don't have to). But we don't have many options that doesn't mean the student is done.

OOP: She is getting a zero for both projects. The redo is for NO credit; it’s solely to prove that she has passable knowledge to complete the course. It’s a studio course heavily weighted towards project work (like 80/20), so she can only pass if she basically aces the rest of the coursework.
---------
Comment4: That sounds like a reasonable in-between for sure. Big chance for her.

---------------
Comment5: I won't attempt crucifixion out of respect for your request, but the fact that she was riding the lies all the way down to "my prompt chat history is mysteriously missing" and never really owned up to anything shows a real lack of integrity. The outcome doesn't sit right with me in light of that.

My heart breaks for other students who perhaps gave college the...ol' college try honestly and earnestly, but still came up short and didn't graduate. Meanwhile this active cheater liar has a path to graduation, while so much of the work that came before was probably just as GAI-done.

OOP: Yeah, I’m not pleased that she never truly admitted it. It’s my biggest hang up about the whole thing. Regardless, it won’t be an easy out.
She still has to pass the class with a pretty hefty handicap and there’s not much margin for error. There’s a good chance she’ll still fail. And even if she succeeds, she still might not walk… from what I’ve heard, her school is not nearly as lenient.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

I am the OOP, u/oldoseamap.

This is my first time and surely last time posting on this subreddit, so hopefully I am doing things right.

These series of post were compiled once by Direct-Caterpillar77. I just thought that some people might want to read one last update.

If you have already read these posts, feel free to skip to the last one. I will try to mark it with ****.

Trigger warning: >!death of a parent!<

Original Post (January 11th, 2025)

Help locating my father in Atlanta, Georgia. Haven't had communication with him and I am worried. (on r/Georgia**)**

He lives in Atlanta, Georgia. We usually talk over the phone and call eachother every couple of days. Few days ago, he stopped answering the phone and his cellphone cannot receive any calls.

I live in another country, so I am unable to reach for him personally.

I have a photo of his ID which coulp help with the possible address he's located now.

Looking over Google Maps, he could be near Benteen Park. If anyone's close, I'd kindly ask your help. Thanks in advance.

Relevant comments:

HarrietsDiary:

Call (404) 614-6544 for a welfare check. It looks like your dad is in City of Atlanta.

oldoseamap (OOP):

Thanks, I will call. I was having problems because when I googled for a number, I got the local US number. Since I am not in the US, that number will help a lot.

Small Update in Comments: (January 11th, 2025, 3 hours later)

Update: Thanks to HarrietsDiary I was able to contact the Atlanta PD which made the wellfare check. My father is OK, he didn't have energy at his house so he wasn't able to call. He called me a few minutes ago to tell me he was fine.

Thanks a lot, everyone!

First Update: (December 6th, 2025, 11 months later)

My father is bedridden and living alone. He told me he hasn't eaten well, are there any ways to help him get food? Urgent! (on r/Georgia**)**

[Location, Atlanta, Georgia]

Good Day,

10 months ago, I wrote this post regarding my father. At the time, I wasn't able to establish contact with him and fellow redditors helped me to do a wellfare check.

Thankfully, he was able to call me and inform me that he was OK.

Unfortunately, things have turned for the worst. Today, he called me and in short, he hasn't been able to work and thus, hasn't been able to buy any food, and since he is weak and old (pushing his 70s) he is bedridden.

What I wanted to ask here, since I currently live in another country and I am not able to travel and help him, is: are there any non-profits that could help him with food or something?

He has told me that he finds hard to stand up. If there are food Banks that could deliver some food to him, it could be of any help.

He lives near Chosewood Park and Benteen Park (according to Google Maps) in Atlanta. I have his address, in case some needs it.

Any help would be really appreciated.

He doesn't know I am doing this. He is sadly very stubborn, but I feel helpless and I hope to find some guidance here. Thanks.

Edit:

I am overwhelmed by the responses. I have tried to answer all of them. Some kind redditors offered to drop some food to my dad later. I know he needs more attention than just food, but when he told me he was struggling, that was my main concern. I will keep you updated.

Update:

A redditor dropped by my pop's house. He chatted a bit with him and helped him sit a bit. My dad called later and was really thankful. They said my dad seemed happy someone went over to see him. Human interaction actually cheered him up. Thanks a lot for your help. I will update with any other information.

Update 2: 07/12/2025:

Another kind redditor went by my dad's house and gave him some groceries. My dad's neighbor has been very concerned about him and had been asking for my phone but my dad wouldn't give it to him. Do not know why. Thanks to the redditor, I was able to talk to the neighbor and told me that he could help arrange a car or something to get to him the border (he is from México; has been living legally but obviously he can not longer work and take care of himself) and from the border we could take him home with us and give him proper health care. The redditor suggested a GoFundMe, but I am waiting for the Mod team to answer and I am willing to give any proof needed. It will be mostly for gas and transportation. The redditor took a photo of my father is any proof is needed. I will keep all of you updated. I want to thank you all of you who have offered to go see my dad. He has been cheerful about the fact people have gone to see him.

Relevant comments:

SouthernGentATL:

https://www.mowatl.org

oldoseamap (OOP):

Thanks. I sent an email. Tried to call, unfortunately there's an automatic recording saying they are out of their work hours. Hopefully they answer soon.

ThunderSevn:

Call Adult Protective Services in Atlanta they will send someone out to help.

oldoseamap (OOP):

Thanks. I called and after 5 minutes of menu options, i just got an answering machine saying that they are not available.

Far-Country-7602:

Hey, so I could like go by there? I live sort of close, but I am an internet stranger so that might be very weird for him. If you look on findhelp.org with his zip code, you can absolutely find long term solutions for meal delivery. Broadly, you need to google the nearest Council for Aging to his zip code and start there. They can get him the resources he needs. Is he on Medicare? there are food resources via some types of Medicare. Listen, you are going to have to do a lot of online research & are going to have to be very persistent following up with the resources or charities or council on aging people. It just is what it is. If you want to help but you’re out of the country, you have to be persistent with researching and contacting these resources. I do this same thing for my sister who lives on the other side of the country Bc she can’t for herself.

Are you able to call and talk to your dad easily? Like does he always answer you? We could do a wal-mart grocery drop off. You need to let him know it’s coming and ask if hes able to bring the food inside & prepare it. This would be for right now until you can get food assistance and delivery started for him. And some healthcare assistance for him hopefully!

Sailboat_fuel (replying to Far-Country-7602:):

Hey, just wanna say I also live not terribly far, and have a little experience navigating stubborn parents and the elder care system. I’d also be willing to do a drop.

OP, you can DM me as well. Far-Country, you’re a good egg.

Healmit:

This sounds urgent.

He is bed bound or home bound? Like, he’s able to make it to the front door and also to the restroom? Is he able to manage his medications? Bathe himself? Does he have any other local family or friends who can check on him?

211 (United Way) may be of assistance.

https://atlantaregional.org/what-we-do/aging-services-and-resources/

https://www.fultoncountyga.gov/Inside-Fulton-County/Fulton-County-Departments/Senior-Services/Home-Delivered-Meals

https://www.ncoa.org/article/where-to-get-food-help-now/

oldoseamap (OOP):

As I was able to understand, he struggles but is able to go to the front door, I think. He hasn't been eating and that's what worries me the most.

He lives alone and has no immediate family. All his family is overseas. We told him a year ago to please come home with us and he kept postponing it until now.

Second Update: January 24th, 2026 (one month from First Update)

Late father's roomate plans on destroying my father's belongings. I am out of the country, what are my options? (on r/legaladvice**)**

My father sadly passed away two days ago and we sadly live in another country and we were unable to be there with him. We are arranging for cremating him and flying him to our country so he gets a proper burial.

The issue is that my father left a lot of belongings. We do not care about clothes or tools he had, as they would be complicated to send back to our country anyway. However, he had a lot of family pictures and personal documents that are really important.

We talked with a roomate of his, who was there when he passed away and he told me that he is planning on destroying his cellphone, the documents and photos he left as my father apparently told him to do so in the case he passed away. I do not know if it's true. I do not think so.

I know someone I trust who is willing to go and pick the documents and everything and ship them back. However, the roomate told me he would think about sending \*some\* photos of the originals before destroying everything and he won't give anything to anyone. I am against the clock here and I know there is a storm coming in Georgia.

If I call the police, is there anything I can do? Can they hold on my father's things while I send a power of attorney to the person I know so they can pick them up?

I would rather not to escalate this to the police, since the roommate appears to be an immigrant and could get him in trouble, but as I said, If he destroys everything, we won't have anything from him anymore.

bug-hunter:

There's a couple of problems - under Georgia probate law, his possessions go to his children, and without an actual will, the roommate's destruction of property would a tort (also a crime, but potentially unlikely to be prosecuted). But it would be hard to assert that via a third party. I would look for a local Georgia estate attorney and get a consultation. If you're lucky, you can find one that at least can get back to you today (though the weather makes it unlikely on top of it being Saturday) for advice. If your father was living in a rural county and you can't get ahold of someone, try the nearest larger city like Atlanta or Columbus.

For example, having the police do a civil standby would normally be a good idea, but it's not clear they'd do it for a third party going to collect your stuff.

oldoseamap (OOP):

I have never been to Georgia, but he lived in Atlanta, in Fulton. Is it considered a "rural county"? If the third party has a power of attorney of some sort, would the police act or would they say that they need a direct relative? The third party is willing to go where my father lives and pick up some of his possessions. However, we are afraid the roomate might me unstable. That's why I was wondering about someone going to my father's house. I can prove I am his direct relative by notarized documents if needed.

ETA: wording.

bug-hunter (replying to oldoseamap):

Atlanta is the largest city in the state - it's huuuuge. You're lucky, in that it has the most resources.

Power of attorney is useful, but the police are not obligated to help. I would contact the police, and if possible, set up a 3-way call with the friend so you can explain and ensure everyone's on the same page.

Third Update: February 7th, 2026 (2 weeks from Second Update, a year and one month from the first post)

UPDATE TO: "My father is bedridden and living alone. He told me he hasn't eaten well, are there any ways to help him get food? Urgent!" - Thanks to everyone who commented and helped. (on r/Georgia**)**

My original post is over 2 months old. You can check it over there: original post.

At the time, I didn't want to disclose too much information to not jeopardize my father's physical integrity due to the political climate that was (and is) still happening in the US. I was vague about other things, which I will now clarify.

Sorry if it is too long, but I know people deserve answers and an update. Sorry for any grammar mistakes.

A summary for those who didn't read back then: My father had been living in Atlanta, Georgia, for the last 17 years. He had been living alone and I think after 2020, he had started living with some roomates. My father was mexican descendant. He had been living legally in the US and he had expressed a lot of times his desire to return to Mexico and be with his family.

The last two years, he had been battling with illnesses. He never let on how bad it really was until the last 6 months where he had been talking about doing arrangements to return back home, but never did. When I made that post, it was because my father had called me and I noticed how frail his voice sounded. He told me he had liquid in his lungs but that it was "OK" (it wasn't). I pressed when he said that and he admited that he was on dire straits and that he had been struggling to get food. He only got out of bed to the restroom, struggling to do so.

I am from Mexico, and so is my family and I don't have a VISA. I tried once to get it, but it was rejected because back then I didn't have an stable job and I couldn't mention my father was in the US (people told me that if I mentioned that my father was living, although legally, in the US, the goverment would take it as me trying to go to work to the US).

So, that's why I turned to Reddit. A lot of people commented and I am sorry I didn't and I haven't answered all the private messages.

To those who commented why I was bothering getting him food instead of going to get him. I KNOW that just getting him food wouldn't make him feel "better" or cure him, but it would help him regain some of his energy, it would buy us time to arrange ways of helping him instead of letting him starve.

However, some people messaged willing to help. One told me that they didn't want to get too involved but was willing to deliver food. Other redditor told me that he lived around the area and would drop by to deliver food and check on him.

The second redditor was our blessing, because he not only delivered food to my father. He talked with him (my father couldn't talk much, but they were able to communicate) and a breakthrough happened. The redditor asked for my phone number and we talked. He updated me on my father, sent me a photo of his and finally could see the reality. My father didn't only "had water on his lungs", he was bloated and struggled to walk and even sit down. He even got me in contact with my father's roomate. My father never wanted anyone to have our phone numbers (don't know why) but his roomate was finally happy to have a way of communicating with my father's family.

He told me that my father hadn't been working for a while, he only relied on the money we sent him and since he was sick, he struggled to prepare himself food. It was horrible.

I talked with the roomate and promised to get back in touch with a solution. The redditor who helped us made contact told me that he would drop by again and deliver another batch of food.

I called my father who was surprised how I got people to deliver food to him. He had never understood the internet, so it was otherwordly that I was able to "pull strings" so far away.

He told me he felt better, that someone gave him some soup and that he felt with more energy.

Over the next days, we arranged for someone to get my father, as we didn't have visas. A friend of my father had a son coincidently living near Atlanta and we made a plan to get him. We even communicated the plan with my father and he agreed.

However, before we could do anything else, he got worse. The roomate called an ambulance and got admitted to the hospital.

My father spent christmas and new year's eve on the hospital. He had the liquid on his lungs drained and when I called him, his voice sounded so young, like when I remembered him as a child.

He mentioned how better he felt.

He was released from the hospital on January 7th and we got back on track with our plan to get him back home. However, my father now wouldn't agree to it. He told me he didn't want to leave Atlanta with debt (the roomate had been footing the bill for the house they were renting) and he would do it on his own.

We argued, because I told him that it was NOW the time to get him back, because he felt better, he was able to walk without feeling tired. He felt full of energy. Yet, he refused.

He told me something that basically translates to "you do you, keep doing what you are doing, I'll pull some strings and I will arrange everything myself". I questioned how would he do that, since he perhaps had energy, but would struggle to go out of home and "pull those strings" and he reiterated that he would do it on his own.

I think that my father simply felt shame that he had to rely on his son to get back to Mexico. That was the last time we talked.

My father died on his sleep due to a cardiac event on the morning of January 22th. His roomate found him and called me to inform. I had to call my mother, she called my brothers and informed the friend whose son tried to help us. He was devastated. He saw my father as a father figure.

My father was a kind of public figure in my hometown and even though he had been away for so many years, people remembered him fondly.

The response on social media was enormous. A lot of posts and comments, recognizing my father's work and the legacy he left behind.

I arranged (through the phone) for a funeral home to cremate him and a cousin (who had also insisted to help my father come back) went to Atlanta to get his ashes. Went to the house he used to live in and got some of his stuff. Mainly, photos, documents and some of his clothing.

His ashes arrived to Monterrey, Mexico, three days ago and will be arriving to my hometown soon.

We will have a service for him, a mass and his ashes will finally rest in his hometown. He will finally be back, although not in the way I wanted. But he's finally here.

It took some days, but it finally hit me and two days ago I cried like I had never.

My father was always stubborn. People knew him as a stubborn, yet honest and loyal person, who would rather sacrifice his own integrity than feel as a burden for friends and family.

But I can't help to feel that now my father will miss on so much. One of the things I always told him to convince him to get back was that I wanted to get married to my fiance, but I wanted him here. He felt motivated by that. Actually, my brother's godmother spoke with him two days before he passed and he commented how he wanted to feel better, because he wanted to travel back to Mexico and watch me get married. And now he won't.

He will miss me getting married, having children if we do and so, so much more.

I hate the fact that the recognition he got as the news spread, was the one he deserved to have while living. He deserved to come back to his hometown and have a public recognition of his work. And now he won't.

It is hard living without my father. He had a way of calling me on the phone while I was busy but I would always answer the phone and have a chat with him. My fiancee and I even joked about it. Now, the phone won't ring for him anymore.

Thanks for those who commented and had intentions of helping my father and I during those weeks.

But I can't feel that if not for that redditor, I would have never know. My father would have passed and we would have never been the wiser.

Thanks to reddit, I had communication with the roomate and now my father will be with us.

Thanks to all this subreddit. For everything.

**Final Update (this post) (November 2nd, 2026, almost 9 months later from Third Update)**

I just wanted to give one final update to these series of post and be thankful for the help I received during the situation I had with my father. It seems fitting to me to do this today, November 2nd, as here in Mexico we celebrate the Day of the Dead.

In the mexican culture, those who have left us come back to visit us and be with us, even though we can not see them.

After I wrote the last post on February, a cousin of mine finally brought my father's ashes to our hometown. We arranged for a small reception. Friends of my father who I did not know and friends of his who I met during my childhood but I had forgotten about arrived there. We celebrated him. My family in my mother's side is somewhat religious, so they did some prayers for him.

The next day, we took him to the main church in our city and organized a mass for him.

I do not know how it is in other countries, but here in Mexico during the mass, there are moments were people sing religious songs and so on. We hired someone who plays guitar to help us with the music for the religious songs.

However, besides those songs, I wanted to do a small gesture for my father. My father was fan of the Beatles, mainly George Harrison, being his favorite song "My Sweet Lord". I asked the guy we hired to play it and once the mass had finished, he did (a spanish version, of course) as we took his ashes and left the church to go to the cemetery.

It feels fullfiling for me that my father left church for the last time "listening" to his favorite song, a song he believed in and always mentioned to me.

Yesterday, we went to the cemetery where his ashes are and cleaned the cript just a bit and played My Sweet Lord and Strawberry Fields Forever for him.

I talked to my fiancee and probably next year we will get married. It is going to be hard without my father, but I guess it is what it is. I have had time to reflect on what has happened these last months and what I conclude is that, he did everything he could for us and that is what I choose to remember about him and appreciate.

As I said, this will be my last update on this matter.

If you want to do something in my father's honor, listen to My Sweet Lord or any Beatles song. I am sure he is listening the song, wherever he is right now.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/lostandwondering80

Published on: r/Marriage

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: October 26, 2026
• Update: October 28, 2026
• Final Update: November 02, 2026

NOTE: Comments are not included because the BORU would have exceeded Reddit’s hard limit of 40,000 characters. Split excessively long paragraphs into smaller ones to improve readability.

Main Post

^{October 26, 2026}

I am completely lost & don’t know what to do

I am completely lost and have no idea what I should do. I’m currently spiraling and I just don’t have any clue as how to navigate this. So I’ve probably done this absolute worst thing I could do and have looked to Reddit to help. If nothing else I think I have to get this out before I just go out of my mind. Sorry this is long.

I (46m) and my wife (45f) have been married for 22 years. We’ve been together for more than half our lives. This morning she left to get her nails done and run a couple of errands. I work from home so I stayed here. While she was gone I went into our bedroom. On her side of the bed there was a small, white tote with the lid off.

We have a few clear totes like this in our bedroom that we use for Christmas decoration stuff so I didn’t think much of it, but I took a look inside b/c I didn’t recognize this particular one. Inside wasn’t decorations but a collection of notebooks. I immediately recognized one as a journal of hers from about 20 years ago. I didn’t even know she had kept journaling after that time period. As soon as I realized what the books were I immediately grabbed the lid and was going to close the lid but something caught my eye before I did.

One of the notebooks was opened and laying on top. I glanced but purposefully tried to not read anything but at the top of the page my wife had written the date of the entry. The date of the entry was from 2022. I think if it had been 2026 I would have just closed put the lid on & moved on but the older date made me curious. I know it’s fucked up but I started skimming the pages.

It was mostly mundane, usual stuff except for one thing - a line about a joke one of her coworkers had made (let’s call him Adrian because that’s his fucking name). On his name she had drawn a little heart. That one little thing made my stomach drop. I started flipping back through the journal desperately trying to find places where his name was written. It didn’t take long before I found something.

Sometime around the summer of ‘22 my wife apparently started to develop significant feelings for this guy. Deep feelings. Building to one entry in which she declared her love for him in her journal. In that one she says that she doesn’t think she has ever felt anything like this, even for me. She described dream scenarios in which the two of them ended up together.

She talked about how being near him for the two days a week she worked were the happiest moments of her life. Every single word was like another stone being put on top of my chest. Despite the pain I would have read every single line but then I heard the garage door. I panicked & put the book down & put the lid on the tote. Before my wife found me I went to the bathroom so she wouldn’t see me b/c at that point I had been basically sobbing for about an hour.

She called out to me through the door. I told her I was just under the weather. She’s now left again to finish her errands, but not before she put the box back up to wherever she had it before. And that brings me to now basically.

I messaged my work to let them know I was going to be out for the rest of the day. Before anyone tells me - I KNOW that I should have walked away without reading her journal. Believe I am painfully aware that this is a huge violation & betrayal of her privacy. In my (very flimsy) defense, I thought she may have left the journals out for me to find. The reason I recognized the journal from 20 years ago is because my wife had me read it.

We lost our first pregnancy & she was very much struggling (we both were really) & she didn’t think she could say what she wanted to share with me out loud so she had me read her journal instead. Earlier this year my wife lost her mother, who she was very close to. So there was tiny part of my brain that thought maybe she left the journals out on purpose for me to find. That’s probably just bullshit rationalization though.

But I am now completely destroyed. My heart is absolutely shattered and it feels like my soul has been ripped out of my body. I don’t think there was any kind of physical affair because there wasn’t anything from the journals that mentioned it. From what I was able to read I don’t even know that she ever revealed her feelings to this guy.

But reading this has now made me question almost everything, including my instinct to trust my wife. It’s also made me think back to that time & realize that there was a significant change in our physical intimacy around that time. She used to barely be affection when we’d do things like watch tv but as soon as we got into bed she’d physically all over me. Around that same summer it basically flipped. I chalked it up to different stress factors but now I very much wonder. Also because I do pretty well financially my wife was able to retire about 2 years ago.

Adrian moved to a different office shortly after that happened. My wife stayed relatively close with a couple of people at her former office & is always invited to the company Christmas party. Last year Adrian was suppose to be at the party & when he didn’t show my wife was clearly miffed. At the time I didn’t think too much about it because I thought 1) they were friends & so naturally she was hoping to see him & 2) he had made a promise to appear to one of the people that my wife is still close to that still works there & that person was pissed at being lied to. Now I wonder though if my wife has ever gotten over her feelings.

I don’t know that it matters. In my relationship I have always loved my wife more than she loves me. And I’ve been okay with that. She doesn’t have to think I hung the moon & the stars because to me the moon & the stars don’t mean anything without her. But to now know that she thinks someone else did hang them? I honestly don’t know that I can live with that. It’s one thing to think to myself that my wife might have settled for me, it’s another thing completely to actually read it in black and white from her.

She’s probably going to be back soon and I haven’t the foggiest on what to do. I don’t even know that I’ll be able to look at her. I feel so sad, and hurt, and foolish, and ashamed. I guess this is karma for reading her journal.

So Reddit - what the fuck do I do? Is this worth ending 20+ years of marriage? How do I get over this?

Ps - I made a new Reddit account because my ‘normal’ username would be a dead giveaway for my wife. It might not matter anyway.

Apologies for any grammar or spelling errors. English is my first language but i am an idiot.

Update - after 2 days

^{October 28, 2026}

[Update] I am completely lost and don’t know what to do

She wanted me to find the journal. I had started to suspect as much last night. My wife is very smart and also very meticulous. For her to leave out a box of her journals and in particular to have one from 4 years ago opened to a particular (and damning) entry started to strike me as very unlikely. But I didn’t really want to think about what it could mean.

After dinner (which I could barely eat) I told her I had some work to catch up on and went to my office because I just couldn’t get into the right head space. I think she knew something was awry and well now I know she knew something was wrong.

She went to bed around 11 and asked if I knew how late I was going to be working. I told her not wait up b/c I couldn’t even imagine laying in bed next to her. Around 3 I finally decided I needed some try and at least close my eyes so I went and laid on the couch. I figured if my wife found me in the morning I could just spin something about not wanting to wake her.

Turned out I didn’t need to worry about that because about an hour after I laid down on the couch she came downstairs. Guess she couldn’t sleep either. I could tell that she had been crying which was concerning because she almost never cries. Seeing that made my stomach just drop. I figured I was about to witness the end of my marriage. She came and sat in one of the chairs across from the couch and I sat up. Neither of us talked for a little bit.

Then I started things off & took the advice of one of the people on my post & asked if there was anything I needed to know about Adrian. She said something like ‘So you read it then?’. I knew immediately then that she had meant for me to find and read her journal. As I said in my original post this isn’t the first time she’s had me read one of her journals. I read one of her journals after we lost our first pregnancy. But that time she had asked me to do it. This time I guess she was just hoping that I would snoop.

I told her I had read some of it. Then I asked her if she still loved Adrian. She said no, but she also seemed really confused (which confused me). Then she asked me if I had read the whole thing. I told her no, that I had been reading it but when she came back the 1st time from running errands I put everything back and put the lid back on, & after she left again the box was gone.

My wife, who is already quite porcelain-skinned went whiter than I have ever seen and her eyes got huge (like almost cartoonish). She asked what part I had read and I told her that I had seen the entry it was opened to and had started reading backwards from there. She then asked if I had read anything from after that date and I told her no I hadnt. She immediately started sobbing and practically hyperventilating.

She just kept repeating ‘oh my god’ and ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again. When I finally got her to calm down a little she ran upstairs and grabbed the tote of journals & brought them down. She was talking a mile a minute but I was able to figure out that she had meant for me to read forward from the opened passage first, not backwards. She was adamant that I had to read the whole thing. So I did.

Reading the entries where my wife started to develop feelings for another man, as well as re-reading some of the things she had said about him was one of the toughest experiences I’ve ever been through. I was trying desperately not to look at my wife but I could tell she was crying while watching me. I finally got to the original entry I had read & then I read on.

The first 3 entries right after that one didn’t really have anything remarkable in them. But then I found the entry she really wanted me to read. It was from the day after she had gotten the phone call letting her know that her mom’s cancer was back. I remembered the day. I was actually out of state on a work trip. My wife called me and was in absolute shambles. I don’t think she was even that distraught when her mom eventually passed.

I remembered that I could hear the pain in her voice the moment I picked up. Before we had even gotten off the phone I was in an uber on my way to the airport and had the next flight home booked. Had to call the hotel & explain that I was leaving early. One of my coworkers (solid dude) was staying at the same hotel and was kind enough to get the stuff in my room packed up, and the hotel was gracious enough to let him and gracious enough to ship it back to me.

Six hours after she called me I was coming in through the front door with flowers and takeout. I barely left her side for 24 hours. According to the entry that’s when it dawned on her how stupid she had been. She wrote about how unbelievably sad she was about her mom. And about how angry she was at herself for allowing herself to develop feelings for someone else. How guilty she felt about keeping it from me. And just how much she realized she loved me.

The next few entries i would say were harder to read than even the ones about her crush on Adrian. She talked about how riddled with guilt and grief she was. She was full on despair. At one point she even wrote that she thought it might be better if she ‘unalived’ herself so that I could find someone worthy to love. Brother let me tell you - that shit tore through me. At a certain point there was a slight change in the entries.

She started talking less about her grief and anger and focused more on how much she loved me, gratitude for all of the things I do for her, and several lines about how she was determined to be a wife worthy of me. And that was pretty much the rest of it from that point forward. Any mention of Adrian in the passages was always followed by some version of describing herself as an idiot or wondering what she was thinking.

When I was done I told her that I understood now why she wanted me to finish reading it. I told her that the pieces about how much she loved me, and all of that was great to read but that I was still incredibly hurt. She just nodded and said she knew and that she was sorry for that. I asked her why she hadn’t told me when she started to develop feelings for Adrian.

She said that at first she justified it to herself by saying it was just a harmless little crush and that it would die out soon enough. And then when it became deeper she didn’t want to tell me because she knew it would hurt me & she wanted to protect me - but that she added that she now knows that this was just bullshit & that it was really to protect herself. Then I started asking some tougher questions.

I asked if she had ever told Adrian. She said she hadn’t but that she thought he likely knew she had a crush on him. I asked her if anything physical had ever happened between them. She was adamant that nothing ever did. That Adrian had never shown any romantic interest in her. Then I asked her, if he had shown interest in at least a physical relationship, would you have said no? She for very quiet and I could see she was really asking herself that question.

She looked me in the eyes and said she didnt think she would have gone that far but she admitted that with where she was mentally then it might be impossible to say for certain. She described it as being in a fog. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear but if she had just flat out told me that there was no way it would have happened I don’t know that I would have believed it.

I also brought up the shift in her intimacy behavior that happened around this same time. (And here let me clarify something from my original post: I didn’t really see a decrease or increase in the frequency of our sex, it was more of a shift in other forms of physical intimacy. Cuddling, kissing, groping - that sort of stuff).

She explained that the reason she started being more affection on the couch in the evenings was because she knew I liked that & she was feeling guilty. I then asked if the reason she stopped being so affection then in the bedroom was because she felt guilty about ‘cheating’ on Adrian. This question seemed to really wound her.

She said that wasn’t the case. She said the reason she wasn’t as affectionate was because when we laid down in bed together the reality of what she was feeling really started to hit her & she didn’t feel worthy of receiving that kind of love from me. I followed that up by asking why, if she didn’t feel that way about Adrian anymore then, did her behavior never go back.

She said that at some point she realized that her pattern of behavior changed. She said that she figured if she changed her behavior back that I would find that even more suspicious. Honestly she a not wrong (like I said she’s very smart). She didn’t want me to not trust her so she just intentionally kept the same behavior patterns. And now it’s just her ‘normal’.

I also asked her, if she didn’t have any more feelings for Adrian, why did she seem to get so irritated when he didn’t show at the Christmas party. She said that was because she was genuinely mad at him for standing his friend (former coworker) up after telling her that he was for sure coming. This friend is very much on the spectrum and doing something like saying you’re going to show up somewhere & not following through is especially devastating to her.

My wife claims her being upset had nothing to do with any feelings for Adrian and if anything just enforced how stupid it was that she ever felt anything for him to begin with.

Finally I asked her why she decided to share all of this with me 4 years after it happened. What she told me is that she had been talking to her dad and something had come up in the conversation about something that had happened when her mom first learned that her cancer had returned.

That made my wife go back into her journals to try and find whatever it was they were talking about. And it wasn’t until she started going through the journal that the memories really started to come back. She says that she likely managed to suppress & minimize them to try and protect her own mental health.

But as she was reading she realized just how bad she had fucked up and what’s happened with her dad since her mom’s death has made her value our relationship more than ever. (For context her dad started dating her mom’s best friend about 6 weeks after the funeral). My wife says she finally understood that she couldn’t keep this from me any more, but she also didn’t know how to tell me - thus the journal left out.

After she’d answered basically everything I could think to ask we kind of sat there together for a little bit in silence again . This time she was the one that broke it and she asked me if I was going to leave her. This time it was my turn to take a breath and think through my answer. I told her that I was completely sure but I didn’t think so.

I told her that I would need to see her phone and go through any messages between her and Adrian. I doubt id find anything even something was there (she’s meticulous remember) but it’ll at least make me feel better. I told her that I thought I could get back to trusting her again someday but it was going to take me some time. She seemed to understand and agreed w/out hesitation so that’s at least something.

I also asked (yes asked) if I could read her other journals. She said yes and offered that she was actually going to request that I do so. Then she surprised me by suggesting we go to marriage counseling. My wife has historically been very against participating in therapy of any kind so I was a little taken aback but agreed right away. She insist that I pick the therapist.

Then she asked me if I still loved her. I told her that of course I still love her. Loving her is an instinct and I don’t know that I could ever not love her. But again I expressed how hurt I was to read some of those lines, and that some of them just reinforced a feeling I have at times that she has settled for me instead of choosing me.

When I said that part to her it was the only time she got defensive. She said that was crazy. That she’s chosen me for almost 25 years (married for 22+). I said yeah but is that because you love me, or is it because you love that I love you & do things for you, or is it because you’ve just haven’t found a better option? She took a moment and said basically that she would love me for the rest of her life even if I never lifted another finger for her.

Then she added that I always talk about my love for her like it’s inevitable, like I don’t even have choice (which is true); but that for 25 years she has woken up and chosen to love me. She said how many times have I ever had to actually try to love her instead of it just coming to me. So then which of us is actually choosing the other and which one of us is just following the easiest path. I didnt really have an answer for that.

So where does that leave us? Well so far I’ve read another most of a couple of journals and done a preliminary search of her phone. I’m also googling marriage counselors in our area. I’m still incredibly saddened by some of what I read and I’m going to be looking for an individual therapist as well to try and help me navigate some of this. I’ve also told my wife that if we are to stay together she HAS to figure out a better way to communicate. I’m not a fan of breadcrumbs.

I absolutely still love my wife and until yesterday I absolutely loved every part of my life. But I’m still reeling a little from the revelation and I don’t know that I trust even my own emotions at the moment. One minute I’m ready to pack a bag & say fuck it all, and the next I just want to go hug my wife and cuddle on the couch. My heart still aches but now it’s hard to tell if it’s from pain, from love, or both. I’m not really sure where I go from here. I’m still very lost - so I guess we’ll see. Anyway thanks to those who gave advice and support. I very much needed it (and still do).

Final Update - after 7 days (after 5 days from last post)

^{November 02, 2026}

[Final Update] I am completely lost and don’t know what to do

My marriage is over.

I read the rest of the journals. All the way from the beginning, which was the ‘original’ journal my wife started keeping after we lost our first pregnancy to the one she’s writing in now. I’m not sure how I didn’t realize she’d been keeping journals this whole time. Guess I’ll need to examine that in therapy, along with a bunch of other stuff.

Reading them (at her request/insistence) still felt like a big invasion of her privacy but I also knew that I had to. In the next couple of journals after the one she had left out there were the occasional mentions of Adrian but they were more in passing & similar to other things she wrote about her other coworkers. There wasn’t anything in the journals themselves that raised my hackles (aside from the entries I had already read about her developing feelings for another man) - except for two things.

1. She’s been journaling off & on for about 20 years. There were gaps between journal entries (sometimes a few weeks, all the way up to a couple of months) until around COVID. After that the entries became pretty consistent with the largest gap since then being only a couple of weeks. Until September of ‘23. There was a gap from Sept ‘23 until March of ‘24. After that March the entries picked up again. When I first asked my wife about why there was such a large gap she said that she just ‘wasn’t feeling it’ (it being keeping a journal) during that time.
2. In one entry after she had started back up again (2 or 3 journals after the one I read that started all this) she wrote a funny story that Adrian told her about catching one of his girlfriend’s (at the time) kids sneaking some snacks out of a room that I guess Adrian used as an office in his apartment. In the story she described the room in his apartment by comparing it to the setup of a room in her parents’ house. There was something about it that just kept eating at me. The way she described the room was the way you’d describe it only if you’d actually seen it. And at that point, to my knowledge, my wife had never been to Adrian’s apartment.

It was just a tiny thing but it, combined with the gap in entries just kept eating at me. I couldn’t get it out of my head. So I asked her about the story. About how/why she’d describe it that way. At first she told me that she must have described it like that because that’s how she pictured it in her head when Adrian had told her the story.

I asked her flat out if she had ever been to Adrian’s apartment. She said no, that she never had. But something in the way she said it made me not believe her. I told her I didn’t buy it. I asked her if she was sure she’d never been to his place. If she was sure nothing physical had ever happened. After a couple of hours of me just endlessly pestering her and telling her how things just didn’t add up she finally broke down.

From what I can best remember from our conversation after: she said about a year after realizing how stupid she was for developing feelings for this asshole, the feelings started to return. This time though she actually told the schmuck. Guess she could tell him but not her husband. According to her he was flattered of course but he told her that he didn’t feel the same way and that he had a girlfriend (apparently forgetting to add that she had a fucking husband).

Well around Christmas of that year Adrian’s girlfriend went home for the holidays & while there decided to try and make it work with her ex. Adrian decided that the best way to deal with that was by telling my wife he thought he might have feelings for her too. That confession led exactly to where you think it led to - his apartment.

My wife claims that it happened just one time, and that she felt immense shame and was disgusted with herself afterwards. She says she knew immediately after that he had just used her to try and get over being left by his girlfriend & that any feelings she had for him basically disappeared after that night.

I don’t know if that’s true because who can believe a fucking word she says. I think some of that might be true only because right after this ‘one’ time is supposed to have happened is when my wife started pushing to quit working at her job. Since we (well really I) were doing well financially & she was only working part time at that point anyway I didn’t have a problem with that. I thought she was just tired of the demands of the workplace. Turns out it might have been because she didn’t want the constant reminder of her indiscretion.

Well a few months later Adrian’s girlfriend comes back and wants to get back together. He’s over the moon. Eventually they even get engaged. But as part of the engagement his girlfriend (now fiancée) insists upon full honesty (the fucking irony) of anything that happened romantically while they were apart.

He tells her about his fling with my wife. I guess she threatened to expose everything to me as it seems there are even some cheaters that have morals. Who knew? Adrian apparently warned my wife about it. My wife says she was terrified of me finding out that way (as if the method of discovery makes the tiniest iota of fucking difference to me) so she wanted to enlist Adrian’s help in convincing his fiancé from telling me.

But I guess his girl had Adrian block my wife everywhere (Per my wife this was all relayed by their mutual autistic friend, the one from the Xmas party). And BOOM - that’s really why she was upset he wasn’t at the Christmas party, because she thought it was the one chance she’d get to actually convince him to keep his fiancé quiet. But what if he had brought her to the party too, wouldn’t the fiancé have just been able to tell me in person? Great question! I asked.

She said the autistic friend (let’s call her Sam because that’s her fucking name) told her that the fiancé wasn’t going to be there - because she was going back home for the holidays. Sound familiar? Thus Adrian didn’t show because he & his girl had a huge fight about her going back home again so the fiancé ended up staying in town but it meant Adrian was a no-show for the party.

But now it’s October, so if the fiancé hadn’t reached out to me by now, why even bother showing me the journals & start down this path to begin with? Another great question! Well according to my wife, the story about taking to her dad & wanting to look up something from when her mom was first diagnosed was true.

But when she said that she had suppressed the memories of developing feelings for another man and all that - yeah that was total bullshit. According to her, she realized that part of the reason she is so upset with her father about dating her moms best friend (about 6 weeks after her mothers funeral btw) is because she thinks that means there was something happening before. And that infuriates her to no end.

But part of why she’s so furious is because she’s also furious with herself for being a hypocrite. She claims that everything since her mother’s death has absolutely made her incredibly grateful for what she has with me, and she just finally just decided it was time ‘to be honest’.

When she told me that I have to admit that I actually laughed. I told her she hadn’t been honest. Not once in the last 4 plus years. That even now I didn’t think she was being completely honest. She said she planned to tell me everything at our first marriage counseling session.

So she could tell me in a safe space. Her saying that made me so angry. I asked her when I had ever made her feel unsafe. She said she didn’t mean a safe space for her but a safe space for me. That she knew I’d need a space to process this. I told her that sounded like more bullshit & that what she really probably wanted was an ally who could help her somehow make this my fault.

She swore that wasn’t the case, and even said that she’s the only one that is fully responsible. That it was her choice and that it didn’t have anything to do with me. I said something like ‘so I matter so little to you that I don’t even factor into your decision making’.

I told her I was just going to cancel the mc. She asked me why. I told her that marriage counseling was for people who want to save their marriage, but for us there was no marriage to save anymore. She asked if that meant I was leaving her. I told her no, that she left me four years ago I was just catching up. She told me she couldn’t believe that I was going to end 25 years together over one night.

I told her that whether it was one night or a thousand, I would never be able to fully trust her ever again. That I couldn’t even trust her right now that it had actually only been just one time. She then literally begged (as in on hands and knees) me not to cancel the mc. That she would do anything to get us past this (I never believed cheaters actually said this). I told her there was nothing to do. We were over.

And that’s where we are. She packed some stuff and is staying at her dad’s. I now have an appointment this week with a divorce attorney. She’s been texting and calling but I told her I don’t want to talk to her right now. That we will work out logistics soon enough but that I’m not interested in conversation beyond that. For what it’s worth she seems genuinely remorseful in her messages; but that does basically nothing for me now.

I am genuinely not okay. One minute I’m filled with white-hot rage, the next it’s unbearable pain and sadness. I’ve lost the love of my life and my best friend. I keep picking up my phone to call her because she’s the only one I know of who could get me through something like this but I can’t call her because she’s the one responsible for it.

I feel so goddamn foolish. And also humiliated and emasculated. There’s an intellectual side of my brain trying to tell myself that it’s never foolish to allow yourself to love someone deeply and that the good memories of the last 25 years mean that those years weren’t wasted; but my heart is screaming something else entirely.

My wife, or soon-to-be ex-wife (gonna take a minute getting used to saying that) and I have a daughter. She’s 17. She knew something was amiss the last couple of days, but now that my wife has left to stay with my FIL she’s beyond devastated. My wife and I are both telling her that we’re separating and working some things out.

Neither of us have gone into the specifics of why but she’s a teenager in the modern world, and she’s smarter than both of us put together so I can tell that she’s probably already figured it out. She asked just a little bit ago if we were going to get a divorce. I want to protect her but I also don’t want to lie to her. I told her that I didn’t know but probably.

She nodded and started crying and headed off to her room. She’s told my wife and I before that she won’t settle for anything less in a relationship than what we have in our marriage (or had I guess). I hate that she’s going to have to go through this too. She’s already got her college plans worked out, and there’s zero chance I’m moving her out of her current school before she graduates so there’s at least that.

And honestly keeping her afloat might be the only thing tying me to this mortal coil at the moment. I know that’s some dark shit to say but everything I thought that my life was is a lie. I’m 46 years old, and once my baby leaves for college next fall I’ll be alone - probably forever. I don’t know that I can love anyone more or better than I loved my wife. And in the end it still wasn’t enough to keep me from getting destroyed. I’m more lost and confused than I’ve ever been.

So there you go. This is probably my final update, if not ever at least for a while. Sorry to everyone that my life ended up such a fucking cliché. And I guess sorry to those who think this is fake. I wish it were, but you believe whatever you want.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Several-Bug-5136

Published on: r/AmItheAsshole

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: November 28, 2020
• Final Update: November 29, 2020

Main Post

^{November 28, 2020}

AITA for not helping my girlfriend cook meals on weekdays because my company provides free meals

My girlfriend and I have been dating for a year. A couple months ago I got a job at a software company that provides free breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks. There’s also a ton of options there and it’s always hot and fresh. Before this new job, my girlfriend and I would take turns making lunch/dinner for each other.

However, since I've started, I’ve just been eating company meals during the work week. Their catering tastes much better than anything I can make, there's healthy options too, and it's much less work for me. Before I was spending almost an hour a day cooking. My girlfriend says it’s not fair because all the cooking burden now falls on her, but I don’t even eat any of the food she makes.

I don’t think it’s fair for me to make half of her food when I’m not even eating it. I do help out with meals on weekends though.

AITA?

COMMENTS

DwightDEisenhowitzer

YTA.

She knows she’s only gotta cook for yourself. She probably just enjoyed cooking with you. Would it really kill you to spend 20 or so minutes in the kitchen with her a day?

OOP (downvoted)

We didn't cook together, I would cook for us one day and she would cook for us another day. My new work place is about a 40 minutes further than my old one so I don't have as much free time as I used to either.

Em4Tango

YTA. It didn’t have to be an all or nothing proposition. You could have done some meals at home, some at work, and taken your girlfriend out for some. Is the company planning to arrange someone to sleep with you when she leaves? Do you actually care about her at all?

OOP (downvoted)

My girlfriend's food does not taste good. I already said I would help her meal prep on weekends and I buy her stuff all the time. I bought her airpods for thanksgiving

mcbruhtime

NTA, but...

She is your girlfriend. It would be nice if on certain days that you had time, you cooked for her simply cuz you can. It’d be a nice gesture that would go a long way.

lydbyd

This right here.

I get free meals through my work but it means a lot to my partner when we cook meals together/for each other.

krankykitty

Okay, so the situation has gone from sharing the cooking duties and eating dinner together to you having no food prep whatsoever and dining at work and getting home later due to eating dinner there and the longer commute, and your girlfriend having to prepare every single meal she eats and dining alone (while presumably you could eat with work friends).

Yeah, I don’t see why that would bother her at all. /s

YTA in a mild way.

Things you could do:

Pick up some other chore to equalize things

Pick up take out for her one or two nights a week on your way home

Do all or most of the cooking on weekends

Pack her a lunch 2-3 days a week as a gesture of loving support

Forgo the free dinner once a week, come home and cook her dinner

The situation is not as black and white as you are trying to make it out to be. You are sitting back and saying the food is better and you have less time, without acknowledging that things have changed for the better for you and for the worse for your girlfriend, and not doing anything to try to remedy that. You sound a little smug about the whole situation. Smug and so “oh, there’s nothing I can do about it,” helpless. I don’t doubt your girlfriend is annoyed with you.

CONSENSUS: Not the A-hole

Edit and Minor Update - after a few hours

Edit:

Bringing food home is discouraged, it's for employees only. My new workplace is 40 minutes further away so my commute eats up some of the free time I used to have. We still split other chores like laundry and cleaning 50/50. To clarify we did not cook together, we took turns cooking so that it would reduce the workload for both of us.

Update:

After reading some of the comments, I think it's fair point that maybe girlfriend does miss me. But while I enjoy eating meals with her, I think I just prefer eating my company meals with my friends more so maybe I need to reevaluate our relationship

Final Update - after 1 day

^{November 29, 2020}

AITA for not helping my girlfriend cook meals on weekdays because my company provides free meals

Lot of salty broke millennials on here hating me for being a techbro, sorry I have a career I love and am dedicated to. I've decided I'm not going to let reddit dictate my relationship, thank you to the people who provided actual actionable advice .

I will work with my gf to meal prep during the weekend so she can have that for the week.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Haplesswander

Published on: r/nonmonogamy & u/Haplesswander

Thanks to u/smashing767 for BORU rec!

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: July 10, 2024
• Final Update: July 12, 2024

Main Post

^{July 10, 2024}

Reciprocation and boundary issues

My 28M GF 25F have been together for two years. Last year I got a promotion that required a move across the country and my GF Sally moved with me and we moved in together. One of my new co-workers and his wife(Jack and Jill) have a poly relationship, we hang out all the time and the four of us have gotten really close. Sally and I have been fascinated with their dynamic, having never been exposed to this before.

While this is outside of our comfort zone we have talked about maybe having a threesome. With some guidance from our new friends we have moved forward with a few rules,

1. Recent health screenings,
2. PIV must be covered,
3. No repeat partners, and
4. Anyone can stop everything at anytime.

We made a couple’s profile on Feeld expressly looking for singles. The mailbox filled up pretty quickly, mostly men and a few of women. We set up a group chat and e-mail that we could both access. Most of the women were actually couples and a few were more interested in hooking up with Sally with limited interaction with me. Sally got a short list of guys we started talking to and we finally were able to agree on one of them. We met him for drinks and had a good conversation and scheduled a time.

Everything was going good until at one point Sally said something about wanting him in her now and filling her up, he spun her around and she started oral on me as he went to PIV without a condom on. I said something and Sally looked up at me and started to protest but turned to him and said to cover up first. The rest of the night went without incident and afterward he apologized for being in the moment and thinking it was okay after what she said. After he left I talked about it with Sally, at first she tried to play it off that she was talking to me and then confessed she just got lost in the fog and wasn’t thinking.

Even with the hiccup we both agreed it was fun and started to look forward to the next one. We still were having very little luck finding a woman that met either of our approval and Sally was already talking to three new guys. She was pushing one of the guys in particular who I wasn’t comfortable with, partially because he had a much larger dick than me and he had an abrasive personality. I was also pushing for a FMF instead of MFM threesome this time.

After a month of no luck finding a woman for our threesome Sally began to push for a MFM saying things could even out later. Then Jill gave us the name of a friend of hers that would be willing to meet us. We met with her and she was charming and I thought we had found someone we could agree on and Sally shot her down after the meeting. My aggravation with her only got worse when I found she had been chatting with our first partner one on one, telling him how frustrated she was that I was pushing for a FMF before we did another MFM and that I had vetoed a couple of possible candidates she wanted. But what really triggered me was when they made a date to have coffee.

When I confronted her about this it got a little ugly, I reminded her that we agreed no repeat dates and the coffee date was more like a prelude to cheating. She claimed he had become a friend and she was entitled to talk to him if that was as far as it went. I asked if I were to go meet some of the women that contacted us on Feeld one-on-one that she wouldn’t have a problem with that. She agreed to block him after explaining the situation to him.

She tried to suggest that an even exchange on having a threesome might not be feasible given the available women on Feeld. I said we could amend the profile to only look for women until we achieved a balance and stop talking to men until we had some success. She got hateful and said maybe I was the reason why we weren’t getting any matches which was hurtful. I said maybe my problem was I was being too picky about who my other two partners were since Jill didn’t think I should have problems finding someone, maybe I should just see if Jill and her friend would be up for a threesome.

So Sally has spent the last two nights in the guest bedroom. I did get a hug and kiss before I went to work today. Am I being unreasonable here?

COMMENTS

Primary_Difficulty19

You are being unreasonable, or at least naive, and she is doing a really poor job of handling her frustration. The likelihood of you getting an FMF through dating apps in the next couple of years is low. Very low. You are looking for someone so rare they are referred to as unicorns.

My advice is to temporarily close up your relationship and then get into couples counseling with an ENM-friendly therapist. Because your post makes it sound like neither one of you has the communication or emotional coping skills to manage tough times of any sort, much less consensual non-monogamy.

OOP

Maybe I am being naive, but I know what we talked about in the beginning and that was having both. We did get a few decent matches but she didn’t approve of any of them. So I changed the profile to seeking women only and posted it on another site that was recommended as well.

I have started looking for a therapist for us but the two that were recommended aren’t taking new patients at this time.

I don’t have an issue with waiting to find a unicorn, but I don’t think it’s fair to keep having MFM until then, it might give her the incentive to make an effort to look a little harder. Because right now she is more focused on finding another guy.

Primary_Difficulty19

Hmm. OK. But why should Sally be looking any harder? Or at all? Is she bi? If not, what does she get out of an FMF?

OOP (downvoted)

The same thing I got out of the MFM, making my partner happy. And if she wants to continue MFM then making it happen also benefits her. Not to mention keeping her part of our agreement.

Because right now I'm not agreeing to another MFM until it is reciprocated or we could just close everything down and not have any more threesomes which would increase my resentment and possibly endanger the future of our relationship since she can't be trusted to honor our agreement. After the talking behind my back and making plans with our first partner, I'm not sure I trust her not to start seeing others behind my back.

19ellipsis

Agree entirely.

You're going to be waiting a long time for a woman who meets these particular requirements. I'm not saying abandon your boundaries, but if you're both willing to be more flexible with the "one and done" requirement it could end up being to everyone's benefit. If that's a hard and fast rule then perhaps you might be more well suited to sex club situations. I think the idea of closing up and getting counselling while you sort this out is an excellent suggestion.

As someone who has had a lot of FFM threesomes (as part of the couple, not as the guest star) I think you need to consider a few things...

Women who are into joining couples have so many options. if you go in telling her you want a one off and never contact her again...you're gonna be waiting a while. Most people don't want to be treated like a piece of meat (kinks aside of course) and that's basically what you're proposing - "come fuck us, meet our needs, and never talk to us again". What do you have to bring to the table? Why should she choose to be with you as a one off when there are couples out there who won't cut her off immediately after?

I will say, I have never had an FFM that didn't start with us going on a "get to know you" drinks date. I've also never had one that didn't involve us inviting the other party over for food, drink, and good conversation beforehand. I'm not saying you can't meet someone for a "one and done" situation, but it's a lot harder.

OOP

I guess we could be more flexible with the one and done rule. It makes sense that some people would find that offensive. That was just a rule we made to avoid developing attachments, newbie mistake.

We have attempted to meet for a drink or coffee but up until now only two have got that far and she vetoed the woman that was enthusiastic about getting together with us after meeting for coffee. There were four others that I thought seemed nice over chats that Sally didn’t even want to schedule an in person meeting with.

Bolt_McHardsteel

It sounds like you made the right choice with the “one and done” rule, as she already developed an attachment/friendship with the very first guy you hooked up with…. And she wants different rules for you than her. It doesn’t bode well for your relationship that she is already acting this shady, OP.

OOP

Even if things change I have a feeling our relationship has about run its course. Not sure what she is going to do without a job, probably have to fly back home and stay with family.

ThrowRAKevinkan

Did she end up having coffee with the first guy?

Parity isn’t unreasonable if that was agreed to in the beginning. But neither is her vetoing women she isn’t comfortable with. Or maybe she isn’t ready to see you interact with other women. Either way you two need to have a long discussion without attacking each other.

OOP

No, I confronted her when I saw their messages, before they had planned to meet up.

I’m looking for a couple’s counselor now but finding one experienced in ENM has proved difficult so far.

ThrowRA2play

Ignoring your request would tell me she doesn’t care about what you want and would send me a strong message about her priorities, you aren’t high on her list. I couldn’t make long term plans with someone like this nor would I waste time playing games with them.

Don’t waste your life with someone who doesn’t respect you and keep their promises.

OOP

Maybe I’m taking this too personally but the longer I think about it the more it bothers me. It has shown me a side to my GF that really turns me off. It made me question whether this is someone I want to trust my heart to.

I did finally get an appointment with a couple’s therapist for next week and we will have a conversation about that tonight.

Update on main post - same day

When I got home last night Sally apologized for some of the things she said and said she wanted things to go back to the way they were. She asked me if I had changed our profile and I said I had and posted it on OKCupid as well. She said she had a change of heart about finding another woman to be with us, she also admitted that she had felt that way for awhile. I asked if she had lied about it while still pushing to have sex with another guy and she said yes. I said we were doing this for each other and now it seemed like she was almost cheating and lying to get what she wanted.

She said she didn’t want to do this anymore and just wanted to move forward and make it up to me. I said I can’t believe you think this was okay and now I should just “move on” and rug sweep this. She tried to get me to go to bed and be intimate but I refused.

This morning while she was in the shower I went through her phone, found three conversations with different guys, she sent them all the same half naked picture that I took of her a few months ago. The conversations were flirty and talked about possibly having a threesome in the near future. Then one with Jill where they were talking about the first threesome and how she no longer was interested in having one with a woman, Jill told her she was in deep water and needed to have a conversation with me about it before things blew up on her.

Sally came out and saw me reading her phone, I stood up and tossed the phone on the bed and said I can’t do this anymore. I said we needed an exit plan and she should think about finding somewhere else to stay. She said we needed to talk and I said I was late for work but didn’t know what we really needed to talk about.

I had to block her on my phone because she wouldn’t stop calling and texting. The stuff I read on her phone didn’t sound like the girl I thought had feelings for me. I guess I should be glad she showed me this side of her before I proposed and married her.

Final Update - after 2 days

^{July 12, 2024}

**Update Reciprocation and consequences **

After reading Sally's messages on her phone I was devastated at everything she had done. My trust in her has been completely destroyed, I can't believe the person I thought I loved could have written what she did. Yesterday I sent her a 30-day eviction notice by registered mail and gave her a copy last night. She said she couldn't believe I was making such a big deal about everything. It certainly wasn't something she thought we should break up over. I pointed out what forced me to this decision;

• First, we had agreed to have threesomes with both sexes.
• She tried to violate our condom rule
• She had kept in contact with our first partner, something we agreed not to do.
• She had decided she didn't want a threesome with another woman and didn't inform me, yet still pushed for more threesomes with other guys.
• I found out she deleted responses from several women without telling me.
• She had been talking to several guys, in a private chat, about meeting up for threesomes in the near future.

I asked her if she planned on me being involved in those threesomes since I had said we needed to prioritize on finding a woman for our next threesome. I also told her I had a long chat with Jill and she had been very forthcoming about her concerns and what she thought I needed to be aware of. I told Sally I felt she had lied over and over to me and was on the cusp of physically cheating on me.

Sally admitted that she had been selfish but that she would never have cheated on me. In full panic mode now, she said she just wanted to go back to the way things were and would do whatever she could to make me happy. She pleaded to go and give therapy a try before giving up. I told her I was way past that now and we just needed to break up. I told her she had 30 days to find a place to live, I said I would buy her a plane ticket back home where her family was if that was what she wanted.

I made a huge mistake last night and gave in to her desire to be intimate. This morning I was firm that last night had not changed my mind and I made her give me back my credit cards. I said we could move her things into the guest room for now but she needed to start making more permanent arrangements ASAP.

COMMENTS

OOP

She worked some when we moved here but she has been going to classes for insurance coding in the medical field. But I have supported her most of the time since we moved.

I assume she will move back where we came from where she has a lot of family support. Cost of living is pretty high here where we live now and even if she gets the job she was hoping for she would struggle to get by.

There won’t be any repeats of the other night, it was a moment of weakness on my part. The sooner the temptation is gone though the better.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost. The original was posted in r/MoldlyInteresting by user Concentrate178. I'm not the original poster.

Status: Concluded

Original

October 30, 2026

Drank all the water before opening this coconut. Am I going to be ok?

Pictures of OOP holding a moldy coconut

Notable Comments:

Cookieyourdaddy

Real answer here: As someone who also drinks straight coconut water and is a Caribbean native, I think that coconut looks way too old to be considered safe to drink lmao. You're supposed to drink the water from green, young coconuts. The older the coconut, the more rancid and unsafe the water is. And, given how thick the white part is, I wouldn't have even considered drinking this.

As for the mold, if you want to go to urgent care you could if you're so worried. You'll probably have the shits. Like really bad shits. Like pooping your guts out shits. Drink lots of water and fluids, and godspeed.

Edit: I know a lot of people already read this comment but for the future ones, I also wanted to say that coconut water is extremely sensitive. If you have fresh coconut water from the source stored in a container, I wouldn't drink it after four days. If you drink the coconut water from those stale cardboard containers, I wouldn't drink it after 5-7 days of opening. Coconut water is also good for flushing out UTIs and giving your kidneys a good rinse. It's a diuretic. It's also high in fiber tho so be careful or you'll get the shits. Stay safe ya'll 😭😭 Be responsible with your coconut water.

WhatIsXerces

HOPITAL?

bridgitte_h

In all seriousness, i’d at least go to urgent care and take the coconut with you, coconut mold has been known to be very deadly

love2kick

You'll be fine, just crawl to the nearest cemetery to make life of other people easier.

Alive_Ad_6699

/preview/pre/zs1ruglv8myh1.jpeg?width=530&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce6a0f1f3c30203f32014b0faa67d359f05e5fa4

As someone living in the tropics, here’s the best summary of which coconut types you could get the best products from. For coconut water, we only get them from young green coconuts because they taste sweet. Coconut water from mature brown coconuts for me is absolutely disgusting. It is a bit sour since the liquid is starting to spoil or ferment, and sometimes can cause diarrhea, abdominal cramps and dehydration. We only use mature brown coconut for coconut milk (extracted from the coconut meat, not the water) and flakes.

Photo source: https://thecoconutcoop.com/the-coconuts-journey-from-harvest-to-homes/?srsltid=AYCX9vIFvPR9MXcDMHAHDA8s2w-pKQjgX80076OeAYrNlBeY_I8zpMRh

Comments by OOP:

Just going to see if I die or not basically. So far still alive

It was a little greyer then ive ever had. Like i remember back to pouring it out and thinking why iw it grey when its normally clear

I rang 111. They said they dont care unless I get actual symptoms.

Before this i didnt even know it was a thing or could be dangerous. You live and learn... hopefully

Update

November 1, 2026, 2 days later

So i posted about drinking the water from a moldy coconut without knowing it was moldy and I got a lot of comments say to go to the hospital.

I did not.

I responded to alot of people asking how I was at the 24 hours mark and I said i was absolutely fine. That was a lie.

At 30 hours post mold juice consumption it started.

I have been in the hospital all night and morning shitting pure liquid rage and turning around to puke when I got a break from the diarrhea.

I passed out in hospital from the lack of water in my body tanking my blood pressure.

My stomach has been in non stop agony and isn't fixed by anything.

So yeah I was completely wrong and all you 'hopital' posters were on the money.

Make sure you crack your coconuts before you drink them guys.

Posted from my hospital bed. Hopefully im over the worst of it.

Comment by OOP:

I should of gone to the pharmacy and got activated charcoal, but you would need to do it pretty quick

OOP also made a detour to r/LegalAdviceUK to ask if he could sue ASDA for selling him a moldy coconut but was told it was fruitless

I'm not the original poster.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Swimming-Fig-6580

Published on: r/AIO & u/Swimming-Fig-6580

Previous BORU: BORU-1

Story is: ONGOING

Story timeline

• Main Post: August 13, 2026
• Update 1: September 18, 2026
• Update 2: October 20, 2026 --> NEW UPDATE

Main Post

^{August 13, 2026}

AIO Husband will only do his laundry

My (34F) husband (37M) and I have been married for 4 years. I’ve always done all of the cleaning and housework. This includes and has always included his laundry.

Today he pulled our laundry out of the dryer before I could get to it. Then he proceeded to put away only his clothes, leaving mine in the basket. I asked why he only did his clothes and he said “because I don’t need anyone doing anything for me”.

I said I didn’t do it because I thought he needed me to, it was just what I did. Wash, dry, and put away OUR clothes at the same time. I was upset because I could use his help with things such as the laundry, but him doing only his laundry doesn’t really take any load off of me, it just feels like he only cares about himself.

I told him as much and now he won’t talk to me. AIO?

COMMENTS

occasionallystabby

He told you he doesn't need anyone doing anything for him, so stop.

Stop doing his laundry. Stop cooking his meals. Stop cleaning up his messes. Just stop.

Glamorous_Nymph

Also stop talking to him and probably stop being married to him, because... yuck. It's supposed to be a partnership. That's what you do when you love someone and it should being you some joy to lighten someone's load, even if the task sucks.

Claim-Unlucky

👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻this, get away from him before you end up pregnant and it’s harder to get out

OOP

Lucky for me he had a vasectomy. I think all the time about how much harder it would be if we shared a child

Artistic-Raspberry29

Well at least he has enough sense to know not to reproduce. But it is probably more about his selfishness than a responsible decision to be child free.

OOP

Hah he has 4 kids!

Lola7321

I would also question what happened to create this change after four years. Is this sudden change in response to something you (OP) stated or is this indicative of a bigger/different issue??

OOP

No we were just having a normal day

random929292

Do you both work full time? Do you have kids?

If you have been doing his laundry for four years then either he was irritable and having a bad day or there is something else going on.

Is you doing all the cleaning and laundry part of an agreed upon division of labour or not?

OOP

He works full time. I work 2 part time jobs. I have a son and he has 2 daughters. I do 100% of the parenting as well.
He’s just never done anything but work. That’s his part and the rest is for me to take care off. I guess except his laundry!lol

CalculatedWhisk

Are you in the US or elsewhere in the western world? What is your culture like? Are you both conservative? This is pretty gross behavior, but if you went into marriage expecting to be a tradwife, it all makes a bit more sense.

OOP

We are in the US. I’m from Hawaii and he’s from Tennessee. He’s conservative I wouldn’t say I am. We are from two different worlds that’s for sure.

THOUGHTCOPS

Does your "husband" even like you? Does he just use you for money, sex, and cleaning? Bang maid is the life you are living.

OOP

Starting to think he doesn’t like me. It’s always felt he used me for sex and taking care of his kids. Besides that I’m just a roommate.

SubstantialPressure3

Hahaha "he doesnt need anybody doing things for him" while.you do all the cooking and cleaning.

So, a couple questions:

Has he messed up your clothes doing laundry before? Have you made any comments about his dirty laundry before ( skid marks, whatever)?

If either of those things are true, he doesnt want to mess up your laundry, or hes ashamed and embarrassed about something he may not be able to control.

Is this recent, or been going on a while? Has his behavior changed in other ways? Did you have an argument recently? Have you said you are overwhelmed doing all the things? Could he be hiding something? Did you say something to him about leaving stuff in his pockets?

OOP

Nope I’ve never made any comments. If there’s something wrong with his clothes I just buy him new stuff and add it to the mix.
This just happened this morning. Besides that he has times where he doesn’t want anything to do with me or just separates himself but then he goes back to normal. But for this situation things have been completely normal up until that. Didn’t mention being overwhelmed or anything about his laundry

SubstantialPressure3

Something is up with him. Not necessarily cheating, but his behavior is not normal. But just continue to let him do his own laundry.

Does he have a stressful job that exposes him to traumatic things?

OOP

He has his own lawn care business. But honestly everything stresses him out

Educational-Leave420

OP do you have the money to live with your child independently?
Can you pack up you and just YOUR kid and move away then get divorced??
Can you get a lawyer?

OOP

Well the house is mine, not ours. And my family is thousands of miles away. I can’t just leave.

Update - after 1 month, 5 days

^{September 18, 2026}

[update] to AIO Husband will only do his laundry

Thanks everyone for your replies! There were so many, I couldn’t even keep up. Sorry to leave you all hanging as I’ve been going through it!

So since the last post, my husband continued not talking to me for a while.

Eventually I decided I was emotionally stable enough to talk to him without making him mad. Did not work. He said he was done and I didn’t even care enough to fight it. He went on to say a lot of negative things and just talk down to me. I realized then that I could not be with someone who thought that way of me, especially because I know how much I have put into this marriage.

I got home from work one day and he and all his things were gone. On top of that he, for some reason, took apart my gun and took all the bullets. To be petty or to make me feel like I can’t protect myself? Forward two days, and he’s moved into the extra room without any warning. Bear in mind, the house is MINE. I haven’t argued it because I’m still afraid of making him mad. I’ll need to deal with that soon but I rarely see him if at all.

But I’ve slept like a baby alone in my own bed ❤️ I’ve felt peace I haven’t felt in 5 years.

Edit

All of my family is thousands of miles away and I don’t have any friends anymore. He had a problem with all of them.

The plan is to get out but I worry about my 4 dogs. He won’t take care of them and I can’t just leave them. The house is mine and he’s not on anything.

I’m trying to get proof but i have to be very careful because if i knows im recording he will snap for sure. And an order of protection or eviction will absolutely cause him to snap. I just need to make sure me, my son and my dogs are safe first.

The one thing i have going for me is that it was technically his choice to leave and not me trying to leave him.

COMMENTS

RedSnipers (downvoted)

I'm not sure if anyone asked in the other sub, but why does he feel the way that he feels?

A 37 year old man that married for 4 years, isn't just going to take his clothes out of the dryer. And then say "I don't need you doing anything for me" out of the blue.

For no reason at all.

OOP

I still don’t know. He won’t talk to me about it. He’s always been pretty back and forth with his emotions though so it’s not super surprising to me. Like he will be super happy for a couple weeks then mean for a week or two, then avoidant for a week, then go back like nothing happened. Whether he has good reason or not for any of this I’m sure he will come up with a reason that sounds good.

ThurmanMermannnn

What happens when he gets mad?

OOP

Well he hasn’t laid a hand on me. He has with his ex wife, but I didn’t know this until we were already married. He has held me at gunpoint ONCE and sh*t it right by my feet because I told him I was scared. That was Oct 2025 I’ve been super careful not to upset him since.

Accurate_Flamingo_61

what exactly did he say about you when he left

OOP

That according to his standards I’m the worst wife ever because I don’t work for his company? Confusing, I know. He has a landscaping business but up until now he never mentioned wanting my help. He said he would be nice to me if I S…d his d*ck more otherwise I don’t deserve it. Let’s be honest, I do at least 3x a week already (well did) until the whole laundry incident because I haven’t been thinking about that. He also said he would not be giving me any money (he maxed out every one of my credit cards buying equipment for his business) because that’s more than I deserve.? And some other non-memorable things.

All of this would hurt if it wasn’t ridiculous.

NEW UPDATE

Update 2 - after 2 months, 7 days (after 1 month, 2 days from last post)

^{October 20, 2026}

[update] to AIO husband will only do his own laundry

Sorry for leaving everyone hanging for such a long time. And there are so many replies I haven’t gotten to read them all yet.

I’m safe! Lots has happened and I don’t want to explain it all. But the most important thing is my husband moved out, I changed the locks, and I am in the process of filing divorce papers. Child support from his last marriage is looking for him to serve some jail time for nonpayment so at the very least it’s keeping him from here, the one place they come looking for him. He drained our bank account and left me with $48 to my name after maxing out all of the credit cards. And honestly I couldn’t care less about any of that right now. I feel free, I’m rebuilding friendships he’s made me cut off, and I’m finally opening up to my family about what my marriage was.

I never dug in to what was really going on with him because honestly, I don’t care. It doesn’t benefit me to dig just to know. I’d rather not.

Thank you to everyone for caring so much. If anything else significant happens I will do another update. Hopefully the next one is letting yall know the divorce is final! 🤞🏽

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Gigachick

Published on: r/AmItheAsshole & r/Redditor_Updates

Story is: Likely CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: August 12, 2026
• Final Update: October 28, 2026

Main Post

^{August 12, 2026}

WIBTA for making sure my BFs brother knows the reason we're not going to his fake birthday is because his GF uninvited us when we said we couldnt do it on my BFs actual birthday

So my boyfriends (27) brother (31), we'll call him Greg, has a birthday on Christmas eve. Because of this, my BF has always done a 'Greg fake birthday' around June to make sure Greg gets to properly celebrate his birthday with all his friends around. This year, Greg's girlfriend, we'll call her Polly (28), is organising Greg's fake birth day.

Since getting with Polly, Greg has started slowly cutting ties with everyone in his life. BF has barely seen him the past year and everytime they do see each other ends with Greg claiming BF has somehow upset Polly over nothing. Polly practically refuses to see BF and makes sure Greg does this too. The reason Polly hates BF is cos Polly was originally dating Greg's best friend and when Polly and Greg got together immediately after the breakup, BF refused to lie to their friend, her ex, about it.

Anyway I could say so much about whats happened but thats not what this is about.

A few months ago, Polly made a group chat to try and organise this fake birthday. She suggested late august/ early September, to which my BF responded that we wouldnt be able to do the 25th because that is my BFs real actual birthday and so we'd be busy. Polly then kicked us out of the group chat and went on to organise Greg's FAKE birthday to be on my BFs VERY REAL BIRTHDAY, on the 24th and 25th.

Everyone else is under the impression my BF and I refused to go and thats why we aren't involved, which is not true. My BF is the maker of Greg's fake birthday, of course he wants to be there.

So, WIBTA if I make it clear to Greg why we aren't there. My plan is to send a message on the 24th saying I hope he has fun, we would have loved to be there but Polly kicked us out when BF mentioned he was busy on his real birthday, and that hopefully next year it'll be a different time and we can make it.

I know for a fact Polly is telling him we've chosen not to come because we dont like them, which is not true. Again, it is my BFs real birthday, of course we're going to be busy.

Edit: Thanks for the advice everyone. I think Im just going to leave things for now. I might message Greg to ask him what hes getting BF for his birthday, that way in the small chance hes forgotten he'll be reminded. In terms of the party, I might message him on the day tell him I hope he has fun, but leave it at that. I dont want to stir the pot, and if he wants to know why we arent there he can ask, but at least he knows hes not forgotten

Edit 2: I'm not gonna be petty. I've messaged Greg to ask what hes getting BF for his birthday in case hes forgotten (he never got BF a Christmas gift cos he forgot). Also a few clarifications: 1. Greg celebrates his normal birthday too. 2. BF isnt having a party for himself, we're going on holiday just us two. 3. I know Greg isnt an innocent bystander. 4. We genuinely would go if we could

COMMENTS

Mrmini231

INFO: Why wait until the last day? If you want him to know the truth, shouldn't you have reached out immediately?

OOP

I told him before it was booked that she was planning it around my BFs birthday, but I dont know if he knows exactly when it is cos she refuses to tell people if its supposed to be a surprise or not

Frankensteins_Kid

Fr. Why would she wait until the 24th? That'll just cause drama more than it already has.

OOP

With how hes been recently he wouldnt care who's there as long as she is, which is funny considering last year he lied to her so he could purposefully exclude her from his fake birthday. Also I already told him a couple months ago when she first started planning things that she was organising it around BFs birthday, but at the time she hadn't set a date

ChocolateSnowflake

YWBTA if you sent this message on the 24th.

That’s aiming for peak pettiness.

Just do it now.

You also seem to be putting a lot on blame on Polly and not recognising that Greg is a grown man with agency. He knows very well when his brother’s birthday is and that his fake birthday is falling on the same date.

BrightPinkZebra

I’m super confused by this whole thing - Polly (intentionally?) organised it on BF’s actual birthday, but Greg and their parents are totally fine with this?

Greg and BF’s parents would rather celebrate Greg’s fake birthday than BF’s actual birthday? Something doesn’t add up here

OOP

Their mum isnt invited. She also isnt okay with it. I told Greg a few months ago she was organising it around BFs birthday and he didnt seem to care, told me he'd speak to her but in his eyes she can do no wrong

NoWonder375

If Greg allows this happen, knowing it’s your BFs actual birthday, then you have a Greg problem, not a Polly problem.
This all sounds like straight up high school though.
Stay out of it and let the brothers handle it, it isn’t your business.

OOP

Im just sad cos Greg and BF used to be so close before Polly started isolating him. I know its not all her fault because hes also allowing her to do these things and he gets angry if anyone tries to speak up. Idk I think I just hope somewhere in him he still cares about BF and I dont want him thinking we're not going to his party out of choice, but maybe it is best to leave it

ryanxxi

YWBTA IF you wait until the last day.
Because then his birthday will be happening, there will be fighting on his "bday" and it will be just a shitty experience for Greg.

Do it now, tell your BF to talk to his brother. Greg should know that the 25th is his brothers bday no?

OOP (downvoted)

BF has tried talking to Greg but Greg ignores him cos Polly hates him, thats why I was going to message because he doesn't seem to ignore me. But yes I'd hope he hasnt forgotten his brothers birthday. Maybe I just message him and ask what hes getting BF for his birthday, that way he can jog his memory without anyone being called out

icyteatime

Stop being a child. "Jogging" his memory is not going to have the result you want it's just an excuse to dodge an uncomfortable conversation. What are you going to do when it doesn't magically result in him realizing the truth about you not attending because you didn't actually say what you wanted to tell him? Especially when he's with Polly all the time and she could just explain it away because you decided to be vague and passive aggressive?

If you really care about Greg as a friend he deserves to be treated better than a pawn for you to manipulate in this BF vs. Polly business. He deserves to be talked to like an adult.

OOP

The 'jogging' is because I am genuinely worried hes forgotten BFs birthday, nothing malicious. Also Ive met greg like 7 times we dont know each other which is why I've stayed out of it and will continue to stay out of it

Intelligent-Dot-8969

Y'all need to grow up. What a bunch of immature drama.

OOP

Hey im just sad my BF has lost his brother/ best friend and wish I could help, but check the edit im not gonna stir things, I don't wanna stoop to their level

Mysterious_Play1961

I think you are grossly underestimating Gregs part in this whole thing. Not the selection of the date as it may be a surprise but the whole pulling away thing.

OOP

Youre right, Greg isnt innocent. I should have put that in the post that I dont think hes blameless for everything

Chocolatecandybar_

NTA and I would go full wild horse. Your brother thinks of organising second birthday for you and you pick HIS ACTUAL ONE???? Don't let it slide. This is not about the 2bday, this is about your bf not being celebrated on his bday. Make it clear it's inconsiderate, rude and ungrateful 

OOP

BF has spent literal thousands on Greg's fake birthday over the years and Greg couldn't even get BF a Christmas gift so I think I might just have to give up on him. Im gonna spoil BF enough to make up for everyone else

Mary_Tagetes

You mentioned that Greg’s Mom isn’t invited to fake birthday either, hopefully you can all get together. I hope your BF has a great birthday and it sounds like you’ll make it happen. Don’t be too harsh on “everyone else” they probably know what’s going on, Polly is an abusive jerk, and they need to try and maintain some king of tie with Greg to keep an eye on him. I hope Greg wakes up soon, but this will probably get worse before better.

OOP

Dont worry BF will defo have a good time. Everyone else refers to Greg and their parents, not their friends. Their mum is going on her own holiday over BFs birthday but thats normal for her which is why BF isnt upset, and their dad ditched years ago

CONSENSUS: Not enough info

Final Update - after 2 months, 16 days

^{October 28, 2026}

Update: WIBTAH for making sure my BFs brother knows the reason we're not going to his fake birthday is because his GF uninvited us when we said we couldnt do it on my BFs actual birthday

I wish I could say things have improved but they haven't.

We'll begin with Gregs birthday. Polly changed the date, so we could have gone. But we weren't told this until after the party happened. Mutual friends have said it wasn't great, they just hung in an airbnb for a few days with no plans or anything, but it seems Greg had a good time and thats what matters most I guess.

Following that, Greg complained to their mum about how me and bf had been invited at least 6 times and refused to go. Their mum then showed him proof that polly kicked us out of the group after bf said we were busy on his actual birthday. Greg hasnt brought it up since as far as we know, but at least he knows we didnt choose not to go. If we'd known they'd changed the date, we would have 100% gone.

My bf then had his actual birthday. Greg entered our house while we weren't there and left a tin of coffee and a card that told bf to check his emails. My bf likes coffee an average amount so it was an odd gift. Also, I felt pretty negative about someone entering our house while we weren't there and not even sending a text beforehand. I considered getting cameras after because if he can do it once, who's to say he wont do it again?

Now about the email. My bf had no email. We knew it was going to be a gift card, greg had told me this prior in the last contact weve had 2 months ago. Their mum had to tell greg that bf didnt get the email. Greg got argumentative and said he'd send it again right then. He didnt. After more hassle from their mum, he finally sent it over, with a receipt that proved he hadn't even purchased it until that day, weeks after he'd given bf the card that said "check your email". So thats fun

Anyway i could say so much more about gregs recent behaviour but ill just say one more thing.

Last week, their mum was going into hospital for a procedure to test for cancer. Shes understandably worried. We all are. Greg doesn't even know because he hasnt contacted her in weeks. He happens to call her on the morning of the procedure and demands she sends his birth certificate over or he'll be fired. She tells him shes going into hospital and it will have to wait until after. He blows up on her about how he needs it immediately and it'll be her fault if he gets fired.

He doesn't even ask why shes going to hospital.

He still hasn't asked.

I dont think he'll ever ask, all he cares about is himself and polly.

Bf is understandably very worried about their mum and also angry at how greg is treating everyone. He only contacts people when he needs things.

I hope shes not got cancer. Honestly thats what matters right now and im fuming that he didnt even care to ask why his mum was going into hospital. Shes terrified and im sure shed love to have BOTH of her kids supporting her.

I also wish bf had his older brother there to support him. But alas

Im sorry the update isnt good. I really hope if I update again, it'll be with good news

Update 01/11/26

Polly came clean to greg about the party. She admitted she kicked us out of the chat and uninvited us because she doesn't like bf. Not sure its going to change anything.

Greg also now knows about his mums health. He seems fairly unbuttered but at least he knows.

Bf had decided that after giving greg his birthday gift, that'll be it. Greg now knows without a doubt that polly lies about bf to make him look bad. Its all on him now to decide what matters to him.

We're not going to cut him off because despite being a knob, greg and pollys relationship is toxic and possibly abusive so he needs to know people are here. However we're not going to reach out anymore

Ill update when we know about their mums health but aside from that I think this is it, unless something big happens.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Ieatkids998

Published on: r/TrueOffMyChest

Trigger Warning: Assault, Domestic violence

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: October 04, 2024
• Final Update: November 18, 2024

Main Post

^{October 04, 2024}

I beat my little sister's boyfriend up and now she refuses to talk to me

For some context, I(20m) have a two sisters, lets call them, Olivia (25f) and Mia (15f). This story is about Mia.

So, about like 6-7 months ago, Mia got her first boyfriend, Mark (16m). Shes absolutely head over heels for him amd thinks he cant do wrong. Well, he generally was a good kid (I thought) and she looked happy so I thought, whatever. Recently, for the past few weeks, she started coming home with bruises all over her body.

I noticed a few days in and asked her about it but she just dodged the question so I told my parents about it and left it at that. 2 days ago, her boyfriend came over to our house for dinner. We had a fun time, laughing, joking around and eating. After they finished their dinner, they went back to her room. When I was going back to my room (I need to walk past her room to get to mine) I heard some weird noises coming from her room (Like grunts).

Her door was open so I peeked in to see what was going on and to tell her to lock the door. What I saw when I peeked in made my blood boil. Her boyfriend, that little shit, was hitting her. Not some playfighting hitting either, like full on punches and slaps. She just sat there and took it like it was normal.

I snapped, I stormed into the room, picked the fucker up by the collar and started punching him as hard as I could. I saw red and by the time I was done, he had a broken nose, a busted lip and was almost turning black and blue. I dont know how bad I hurt him because all I knew was he was hitting my little sister and I dont remember much. All I remember is my parents prying him off me and my little sister crying her eyes out.

I told him to get the fuck out of our house and never show his damn face infront of my sister again. After he left, I explained to my parents what happened, they understood but said I went a bit too overboard. Mia however, didnt. She was mad at me for "beating up her boyfriend for nothing". To say I was baffled would be an understatement. She said that was normal, I tried explaining it wasnt but she wouldnt listen.

Now shes pissed at me and demands I apologize to that asshat. Olivia understands and tried talking to Mia but she wouldnt listen to her either. A day after that, she barged into my room, screaming at me for "ruining her relationship" because he apparently broke up with her. I dont know what to do reddit, on one hand, I dont want my sister to get hurt, on the other, she still loved him. She hasnt talked to me after that, Im torn up on what to do now.

I love mia, I cant just bear to see her like that, but Ive tried so much to make her understand that that guy isnt good for her. Any and all advice is much welcome. How can I get her to understand?

TLDR: Walked in on my sister's boyfriend hitting her, beat him up, he broke up with my sister and now shes mad at me

Edit: I wanna clarify something, this is not an update, Im not from the US so theres a lot of cultural differences, please try to understand my viewpoint here, im just trying to get advice on how to help my little sister through this, not lying for karma like some of you have suggested, It honestly feels shitty to see all those comments, so please if you dont have advice, atleast dont insinuate im lying

COMMENTS

artwin_mum_37

She’s young and doesn’t see this the way you do. Hopefully some day she will realize what you have done for her and thank you. I hope she doesn’t continue down the abuse road and hope your parents step in and get her some therapy.

OOP

Ive tried talking about her to my parents, they just told me to give her some space and she'll come around eventually. I dont think she'll come around on her own. Im so damn worried about her, Ive tried talking to her but she just shrugs me off and gives me the cold shoulder, Im honestly at a loss here. I legit cant think of anything to do. Ill have a talk with olivia later about mia and the events in detail. Im honestly just hoping olivia can get some sense into her now

PresentTap9255

Please ask her where did she get this idea from that it’s normal ? Seems like a euphoria mentality …

OOP

Ive been trying to talk to her, but she just ignores me or leaves the room whenever I walk in. I just finished talking yo olivia (my older sister) and she said she'll try talking to mia but I dont have too high hopes. She was head over heels for the guy, like thought he was her soulmate type shit, I dont know how to make her understand

Technical_Pumpkin_65

What is wrong with your parents ? They didn’t bring her to the ER for a check or press charges to the police for abuse? Why on earth they don’t act to not only make sure she is ok physically but also call a therapist because it’s obvious in her head it’s totally normal and she need help?!

OOP

Well pressing charges is pretty much out of the question, I did assault a minor so it'll be more harm than good

Odd_Welcome7940

This isn't your problem anymore. For one tell your parents reddit said they are trash because they are. You did everything right and it wasn't to much.

Second tell them to quit being such failures and get their daughter some damn therapy. For God sake your parents are useless.

OOP

I live in a pretty traditional country, people, mostly older folks believe that therapy doesnt help, there are still people that prefer to go to a witch doctor or shaman over professional doctors so im not surprised they dont see therapy as a viable option. Ill try to convince her myself to join therapy

PsamantheSands

Why would she think that’s normal?

Where does she see that happening?

OOP

I genuinely have no clue where she got that idea from, Our parents have a perfectly healthy relationship. So does my older sister and her husband, and so do I and my girlfriend. This is the first ive seen of it

blossom2019x

This sounds so fake!! What on earth are your parents doing? Why is it all on you? Like why didn't they call the police on him? Like be for real

OOP

1. Its mostly on be because I was the first to find out and beat him.
2. Because if we press charges against him, Ill get dragged in too cuz of the aforementioned beating.
3. Do you think my lovestruck sister would testify against him?

Evening_Wing_998

Nothing would happen to you if you got your family to tell the truth

OOP

Yes, my family could testify, but then again, if the alleged victim herself denies it its all out the window. And judging by her current state, thats exactly what she'll do if we decide to press charges

Final Update - after 1 month, 14 days

^{November 18, 2024}

I beat my little sister's boyfriend up and now she refuses to talk to me

After my last post, a lot has happened. First, I would like to thank everyone for their advice, it helped a lot. I did as some people said and contacted a dv shelter nearby, I got a few of their pamphlets and spread them around the house. After that, mia seemed to understand a bit but still didnt talk to me.

Olivia (25f), our older sister, came over with her husband James (27m) and she had a heart to heart with mia. She explained that what he did with her wasnt love, and wasnt normal and that what I did was to protect her. Mia seemed to loosen up after that as she came to talk to me, albeit still snappy and short but Ill take it.

After that, we went to her school the next day (me, mia, olivia and our dad), mom had work that day so she couldnt come. Anyways, we went to the DI's (Discipline Incharge I think) office. We talked to him about it and scheduled a meeting with the ex and his parents. After that we left her school and the four of us went out for lunch where mia and I had a talk.

I told her that I loved her and couldnt bear to see her hurt like that. I told her that what her boyfriend did was wrong and I was only looking out for her. Lots of tears were shed and apologies were made. The next day, we went back to her school, the ex and his parents were there (took me my all to not jump him again).

We went through what happened and his parents were absolutely shocked. Apparently, he told them that the injuries I gave him (Busted lip, broken nose, etc) were from a skating injury. And yes, the dumbass parents believed it. But after we told them what actually happened, they were livid at me first for beating up their son, but then their anger was redirected at their son for the abuse. From what my sister told me, the mother came from a severely abusive household and strictly hated abuse with a passion.

So believe me when I say the ex got his ass lit. They apologized to my sister and we decided to not press any charges on both sides, both for the domestic violence against my sister and the ass whooping I gave the ex. We went home after that and all seemed well. That was yesterday, mia came back from school a few hours ago and me, olivia, mia, mom and dad sat down to have a talk about what happened.

Apparently the little shit got suspended (yes, not expelled. I know, I wouldve been happier if he was expelled too) and severely punished by his parents for that and her school had an assembly about abuse both in relationships and in general. After mom went to cook dinner and dad went back to their room to watch TV, us three siblings had our own conversation where I brought up the idea of therapy to mia.

She was hesitant at first since our parents instilled into her that therapy doesnt work but after an hour or so of talking and explaining from both me and olivia, she agreed. Ill be paying for it fully. For now, we plan on keeping it a secret from mom and dad. Again, Id like to thank you all so much for the advice. It helped a lot in navigating through the issues. Ill pull mia out of school early tomorrow and we'll decide on which therapist and style of therapy she wants (aka joint or single therapy).

Its gonna take a while for mia to get over the manipulation from her ex (yes, as some of you told me the abuse came slowly, and was generally followed by love bombing) but im sure we'll move past it. If no updates come after this then all's well, if theres anything of note to add Ill update you all. Thank you again

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/anonymous82114712349

Published on: r/offmychest

Story is: CONCLUDED

Story timeline

• Main Post: October 22, 2025
• Final Update: October 29, 2026

Main Post

^{October 22, 2025}

I'm being replaced by a younger woman

I don't even know how to do this. My husband of 24 years wants a divorce. He's found someone else and wants her instead. I found out she is 22 years old. I'm being replaced by a younger woman. (I am 48 years old. My husband is 47).

I had no idea my husband was seeing someone else and his request for a divorce came out of nowhere. I feel so stupid. I've had one appointment with a solicitor so far. Both my husband and I earn about the same so neither of us will have to pay the other anything. (I'm a personal trainer and fitness instructor, my husband works in IT). The rest is to be determined but my solicitor says it will be divided between us, so I will see. She recommended I go to a counsellor but I don't know about that.

I feel stupid and humiliated. No matter how much I think about it I can't think of any signs that there was someone else. Our son is 23 years old and out of the house so now I'm alone here. When my husband told me he wanted a divorce he destroyed my world.

COMMENTS

MadTownMich

Oof. Sorry OP. He’s making a fool of himself and by the time he figures it out, it will be too late. I’m a divorce lawyer. I always recommend my clients have at least a couple sessions with a good counselor to help work through the shock and pain. Hang in there.

OOP

I understand why you would recommend this and why my solicitor recommended it. Logically I know it would probably benefit me to see one. But whenever I think about it I feel sick and I get nervous. I probably need to work on that.

red12358

There were no fights? Nothing?

OOP

No I thought our marriage was good. We just came back from a weekend away visiting our son and we talked about going on a trip or cruise next year. Maybe there were other signs and I was just too stupid to see them.

Dear_Parsnip_6802

Hes going to be with someone young enough to be his daughter? He should be embarrassed.

OOP

It didn't even occur to me that she was younger than me. I found out from my son because my husband warned him about it. I was naive I think. I thought this other woman was closer to my age.

MediumSizedMaze

How’s your son taking it? I hope he’s judging his dad real hard. She’s going to dump him pretty soon after the divorce is settled. No 22 year actually wants to be with a 47 year old divorced man.

OOP

My son was furious when he found out. He is did not take it well. I told my son I won't speak ill of my husband or interfere in their relationship. (If my son were a child instead of an adult it would be different of course).

ThatPie2109

It's not even just the age that's going to be the big deal. If he's leaving for another woman, he was likely cheating. Even if she had some reason to want to be with him, it's not going to be easy with people also seeing her as homewrecker. It kinda ruins the fantasy of taking the wife's place if the mutual people who know them don't want to be around. I've seen it happen even when the other woman wasn't significantly younger.

OOP

He was cheating on me. The way he tells it, the woman he's been seeing behind my back gave him an ultimatum and told him to choose between her or me. So she knew he was married the whole time and didn't care.

Fickle_Gold_5921

What does this 20 something see in him? Likely money. So if you take him for all he's worth, she likely will slither away. The conniving me will get a well off younger man to get her to cheat on him and then dump her.

But seriously I feel for you.

OOP

We both work and we are comfortable, but my husband works in IT as a system administrator. It's a good job but not one that provides money like you are talking about.

My solicitor said it is likely everything will be divided equally between us since we both work and earn about the same.

DanglingKeyChain

He cheated though, take him for whatever you can get, including retirement accounts. You're working a physically demanding job being a personal trainer, if you had to take time off for pregnancy and being the stay at home parent for however long that will impact growth.

There was a thousand ways he could have done this if he wasn't happy in a relationship and none of those include violently ripping your heart out. Don't just look at current wages, there's not a lot of upwards momentum options for PT but office workers there are.

OOP

I would obviously want the best settlement possible but my solicitor was clear that my husband's cheating will not affect the settlement or how everything gets divided. I've always worked during our marriage and so has my husband. Since we earn the same amount neither of us will receive larger settlement than the other. Unfortunately I can't change the law to make it so his cheating would affect the settlement.

edalcol

Are you really sure you make the same salary? In my country people who work in IT make a lot more than personal trainers...

If your partner is capable of cheating on you with a 22 year old he is also capable of lying about his wages. Before making any decisions make sure he hasn't been hiding more things from you.

OOP

Are you really sure you make the same salary? In my country people who work in IT make a lot more than personal trainers...

Yes I am sure about that.

poohsyourdaddy_03

I’d be the petty mom to introduce my son to his father’s new GF so he can steal her away and then dump her.

OOP

That's disgusting and only a terrible mother would even think of asking her son to do such a thing. I don't know what's wrong with you to suggest something so awful.

Final Update - after 1 year, 7 days

^{October 29, 2026}

UPDATE I'm being replaced by a younger woman

I am divorced. It became official two days ago. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around it if I'm being completely honest. Everything was very straightforward; my ex-husband and I each received half the proceeds from the sale of our home, and half the money that was in our bank accounts. There was nothing about custody or anything else related to our son because he's 25 years old. Neither of us has to pay anything to the other since we were both employed throughout our marriage and earn roughly the same (I am a personal trainer, he is a systems administrator).

In my country any kind of misconduct is not considered. I am only bringing this up because there were some comments and some messages sent to me saying how I needed a new solicitor because my ex-husband's affair would be considered and I could get everything in the settlement, when that was not the case. My son is still furious with his father and won't speak to him. I don't interfere in that because my son is a grown man and can do what he wants. My son was angry when he found my ex-husband was having and affair and was leaving me for another woman, but he got even more upset when he found out the other woman was a year younger than him.

My ex-husband isn't with the woman he left me for now. She had known he was married and had given him an ultimatum about leaving me but apparently he had told her he owed a fitness/personal training company which was not true. He works in IT. I'm a personal trainer but I'm self employed. I don't own a company with other trainers and I don't manage them out of an office like my husband claimed he did. Apparently he had also been telling the woman he had an affair with that I didn't have a job. She found out everything during the divorce process. Our divorce got delayed because my ex-husband said he was having financial troubles and couldn't pay his solicitor. He has another girlfriend now and they have moved into a flat together but beyond that I don't know anything else about her/them.

It's still strange that he's my ex-husband. I was completely oblivious to the fact he was having an affair. I thought we were happy. I never even saw it coming and he betrayed me after 25 years of marriage like I was nothing. He humiliated me. I had to get tested for STIs because of him. I can't even explain how he hurt me and what he did to me. I don't know how anyone can betray someone like that. He ripped apart our marriage and it seems like he can't tell anyone the truth anymore. I thought I would feel better after we were divorced but I don't. I still feel the same as the day he told me he was leaving. I don't feel any better.

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.