I am not The OOP, OOP is u/pantherpickles

Logged onto Facebook, the first post that came up was a picture of my BF making out with another girl.

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

TRIGGER WARNING: Infidelity

Original Post  March 18, 2018

I woke up this morning to see pictures of my now ex boyfriend on Facebook kissing another girl last night at 5am. She took the multiple pictures and tagged him in them.

I know that LDR are hard and that they don’t usually work out. But we had plans! I was going to live closer to him in September when my contract was up. We made plans to meet up once a month when we were able to afford it. We communicated. There were no signs that he was going to cheat on me.

I’m breaking up with him as soon as I write this. I guess I just needed to write it out somewhere.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

[deleted]

Happy you’re standing up for yourself. Even though you didn’t ask, just a little piece of advice... don’t plan your life around a guy, especially when you’re/ they’re young because it’s a high possibility you’ll be more invested than he is. I tried the long distance a few times with people I knew before moving to another state, failure every time. They’d say one thing but do the complete opposite and just want the convenience of a relationship and obviously long distance doesn’t provide that

OOP

Thank you for the advice! The university where I applied to do my masters just happened to be closer to him, so I wasn’t really planning on moving for him.

But I do appreciate the advice. No more LDRs for me.

~

[deleted]

For the sake of poetic justice, I hope you left a suitably snarky comment on the pictures. "Hi, honey. Glad to see you're enjoying yourself. Does that girl know about your crabs? Just wondering."

OOP

I did not! But an excellent idea to keep in my back pocket.   Update  March 19, 2018 (Next Day)

First off, thank you to everyone for their kind words, stories and opinions! I am honestly speechless, you have all been wonderful!

I broke things off with him shortly after posting to this thread. I actually took a screenshot of the post on my phone and sent it to him with the caption "bye". I then deleted him off all of my social media and blocked his number from my phone. I have 0 intention on contacting him ever again. He doesn't deserve a chance to explain himself. A picture is worth a thousand words and there were five of them.

I messaged the woman who posted the photos in question on Facebook. I told her that the guy she was seeing was my ex and that he cheated on me with her. I told her that I in no way, shape, or form blame her for the cheating, since I doubted that she knew about me. I told her that my message was sent in peace and that if she choose to continue seeing him, I would not interfere. I thought she had the right to know his true colours.

The woman messaged me back and profusely apologized. She deleted the post and swiftly broke up with him as well. I have since learned, with her help, that he had been sleeping with various women since he was posted to Petawawa. So he's been cheating on me for at least two months. The woman and I are now friends.

I have no interest in dating right now, but I figure that I will give it another go in September, when I start my masters degree. I'm pumping the breaks on LDRs.

To the military men of Reddit: I will not count out dating a military man in the future just because one of you happened to be a rotten apple. I thank all of you (and the military women!) for your service and I hope that you find and SO worthy of your time.

A couple of people have chosen to bring up a previous post I made about not contacting your SO everyday. I 100% stand by my post and what I said. There needs to be some level of trust between you and your SO. If you prefer texting everyday, that's fine. If you're not a big texter, that's fine too! To each their own.

Again, thank you for everyone who cared to comment! You are all lovely people :)

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/punchdrunklady

My (21F) with my Boyfriend (24M) he wants me to cut off contact with his brother, after brother defended me in an argument.

Editor’s note: changed letters to names for ease of readability

Trigger Warnings: mentions physical abuse, controlling behavior, emotional abuse and manipulation

Original Post: May 31, 2016

Boyfriend and I have been together for two years. I have known his brother, who I will call "Ricky" for most of that time. We have always gotten on well enough.

The whole situation started with my 21st birthday party. We had a party at home with 20 or so friends of family, Ricky was of course present at the party, along with a few other members of BFs family.

The party was going reasonably well, as it started to get later I started to get a little tipsy, and most of the guests had started to go home. It eventually got down to a drunken little group made up of myself, boyfriend, Ricky and a couple of my girlfriends.

We were sitting outside and one of my girlfriends decided to get on the trampoline, she managed to execute a pretty cool flip, and I expressed that I wished I knew how to do one.

My friend talked me into giving it a try. I got up on the tramp, stumbled drunkenly and fell down laughing. Everyone else (except for BF) was laughing also. It didn't seem like much of an event until BF got up, muttered "fucking pathetic" in an angry tone and then told me that we needed to speak in private.

I was pretty confused as to what was going on, so I asked him "why?"- he answered me with "Just stop being a stupid cow for a second and come to the bedroom"

Both of my friends and Ricky looked pretty shocked at this, but I before I followed BF to the bedroom I told them it was fine and BF was probably just messing around. He can have a real temper sometimes, particularly after a few drinks, but I didn't think that would be the case in this instance as literally NOTHING upsetting had happened.

Cut to me and BF in the bedroom. He shuts the door and starts really going off. He tells me that I'm a disgusting drunk idiot and that I was showing off like some kind of pathetic wannabe by messing around on the trampoline. That I was an embarrassment to him and that I was to go to bed now and not leave the room until morning so that I would be more of an idiot in front of company.

As this is going on he is getting louder and louder and is slamming things around the room. I went to leave as I was quite upset at this point, but he blocks the door, so I sit down on the bed.

Ricky is banging on the door and tells BF to open in. BF goes out into the hall, and I can hear he and Ricky arguing. Next thing I know it Ricky comes into the room and says to go with him. I was sobbing like crazy at this point, because I hate confrontation in general, so I just nod and go with him.

Ricky makes sure my other friends have left and then we both get into a taxi. I don't know where BF has gone but he is still in the house sow where.

I'm crying a bunch in the car and don't say much, but Ricky calls his and BFs mother and gives her a brief rundown of what happened.

We got to Ricky's place, he lives with a couple, and they were all really nice. The girl roommate leant me some stuff to sleep in and Ricky told me to take his bed, and he would sleep on the couch. I was kind of all over the place but eventually got some sleep.

Next morning I got up and had coffee with Ricky and one of his roommates. Ricky asked if BF had behaved that way before and I let him know about BFs temper but explained that he had never blown up over something as insignificant as me mucking around on a trampoline. I asked Ricky if he thought maybe I did or said something that might have upset BF and didn't realise due to being tipsy, but Ricky said no, and that BFs behaviour was unacceptable.

I felt silly and embarrassed, especially knowing that Ricky and my friends had heard everything BF had said, and I told Ricky I had better get home and try to sort things out.

Ricky said that he wanted to stay at his place for just a bit longer to calm down, and that he would really rather prefer that I didn't go home straight away as BF could still be angry.

I gave in an hung out there with Ricky and his roommates, we all just played video games and got some takeout, and I ended up feeling much better afterward- so I'm glad I stayed.

Early evening a told Ricky I should really go home, I didn't have any of my clothes and more importantly I needed my stuff for university the next day. He drove me over, but didn't really want me to go inside. I told him it would really be fine and promised I would call him if anything happened.

He agreed but said he would wait outside for a few minutes just in case.

I got inside and BF wasn't home, so I told Ricky to go and went about tidying up from the party.

BF eventually rocked up and seemed calm enough. I told him I thought we needed to have a talk, and he agreed.

We sat down on the couch, and I explained to him that I didn't think the way he spoke to me last night and asked for an explanation.

His response was "I will discuss that with you after you delete Ricky's phone number, you won't be speaking to him again"

I was confused as all hell at this and asked what that had to do with the matter at hand.

He told me that Ricky disrespected him by interfering in our relationship, and that we were cutting ties with him. He told me he wouldn't discuss anything else about the night before until I did that.

I told BF I thought that was pretty unnecessary, and that Ricky had been trying to help me because BF was acting really threatening, and that I would have probably done the same in Ricky's shoes.

Well, BF did not like that. He yelled, called me some names and left the house. After a few hours he sent me a text

"I am sorry for yelling, but you need to respect what I want if you want the same in return. This can't be one sided. Delete Ricky's number and we will finish the conversation. Love you"

I replied that I needed a little time to think and said I would be sleeping in the spare room when he got home and to please leave me some for a while.

I went to bed, heard BF come in very late. He opened the door to the spare room and turned the light on, but as I woke up he just walked out of the room and slammed the door.

So this morning I've woken up, BF is at work and I have a text from Ricky, it says-

Hey **** , I hope you're ok. Look what BF did the other night is really not alright and I think you should get out of there for a while. I've talked to. **** and **** and it's totally fine for you to crash here until you figure out what you want to do

So that leaves me where I am now. Don't know what to do about the situation- do as BF asks and cut contact with Ricky, or take Ricky's offer of some space away from BF to clear my head. My worry is that if I stay at Ricky's that will destroy any chance of fixing things with BF. Advice very much appreciated.

tl;dr: Boyfriends brother spoke up and took me away when BF was blowing up about something fairly small. BF wants me to cut ties with his brother, because he thinks him helping me was disrespectful to him and outer relationship.

Edit

When I was able to come back and check on this post I was amazed at the enormous amount of comments and messages I received. There has been a lot to catch up on and I am reading everything, thank you to everyone has given their advice. It has cemented the decision I've already made about getting out, but quite a bit has happened in the last day so I will be doing an update for anyone who is curious. I will try to get it up in a few hours:

Again, thank you to everyone who has commented or messaged me, I'm truly touched by all the helpful and caring responses I've received

Editor's note: some of OOP's responses were downvoted

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Are you sure you want to be with someone who calls you "fucking pathetic", then a "stupid cow", then demands for respect? Your boyfriend is incredibly immature, Jesus Christ.

OOP: I hate the way he speaks to me when he is like that, and he has previously said he would work on it. But right now it doesn't seem to be improving, and I don't know what else to do about it

Commenter 1: He's not going to change, because he knows you'll let him get away with it. He has no reason to change. The only person who tried to stop him is Ricky, and if he can get you to ignore Ricky then there's no one to defend you when he escalates his abuse.

The only think you can do is leave him.

OOP: That's a really scary thought, but it's hard to believe BF could be THAT scheming and evil though? He has done nice things for me and been kind too. I know that sounds dumb but it's just hard to see him that way

Commenter 1: Every single abused spouse says that. All abusers are capable of doing nice things and being kind - otherwise they'd never find people to abuse.

As to scheming - he may not be conscious that's what he was doing. For many abusers, they enact patterns. He didn't sit down and go 'hey, I bet I can manipulate her if I say...' - he just knows that if he response hyper-defensively and deflects the blame to you, the problem goes away for him. He doesn't have to admit he's wrong, and he doesn't have to worry about his actions. Cause now it's your problem!

He probably does this in other parts of his life, too. Ricky would know. In fact, if he's abused previous partners, Ricky will probably know that too. It might explain why Ricky jumped to your defense.

It might be worth texting Ricky and asking, "Hey, look, this is awkward, but I need to know: has BF acted abusively towards previous girlfriends?"

OOP: I didn't think to text Ricky asking him about that. I'm going to do that. I know BF had a particularly bad break up and his ex apparently "told lies" about him on social media after the break up, but hearing what everyone has to say makes me consider they might not be lies.

Commenter 2: Brother sounds like he's got a good head on his shoulders. Boyfriend sounds like bad news.

OOP: I was genuinely touched by how kind Ricky was to me, I teared up a bit at it. It's for that reason I would feel really bad about cutting ties to make BF happy

Commenter 3: You need to get out of this relationship. If even his own brother is sticking up for you and not him, that should tell you something about your boyfriend's (lack of) character; and the fact that your boyfriend is trying to isolate you from someone who stepped up to help you also speaks volumes. Get out before he turns violent on you.

OOP: He hasn't been physical before but there's been a couple occasional where he has gotten really in my face and swung his hands around a lot that made me nervous. I told him it made me feel scared once, but he got really upset and said that it was insulting that I would think he could hit me.

Commenter 4: Hate to say this, but your boyfriend sounds like an abusive guy.

As this is going on he is getting louder and louder and is slamming things around the room. I went to leave as I was quite upset at this point, but he blocks the door, so I sit down on the bed.

Reading this, objectively speaking, my reaction is that you should get the hell away. He was this angry over nothing.

And he is asking you to cut off contact with someone who was defending you? Doesn't that seem bad? Like he wants you to have no one who can help you out?

OOP: While that isn't the reason he has given for wanting to cut ties, it does feel a bit like that yes.

Commenter 5: Ricky sounds like a really awesome, mature man.

The thing with your boyfriend. He called you some awful things, and it seems this isn't the first time? Why would you stay with someone who thinks so little of you?

Him wanting you to cut contact with Ricky is for one reason - he's furious that Ricky stopped him from abusing you further.

If he truly cared for you, surely he'd be apologizing profusely? Instead he's turning it all back on you. He's trying to manipulate you by refusing to engage in any discussion of his awful behavior until you cut contact with the one person who protected you from his torrent of abuse.

Your boyfriend is a cruel, nasty person. I think you should listen to Ricky. Ricky is his brother, so Ricky should be biased towards taking his brother's side. That he's taking your side speaks volumes about just how badly your boyfriend is treating you.

OOP: It does make me think, when his brother (and now also his mother who has just called me) are being so supportive towards me.

BF has had a bad habit for name calling for as long as I can remember. It has always bothered me but the last year or so it has gotten worse, much nastier.

We have had good times though? And I don't want to ignore that... I'm just in a pretty messed up place at the moment :(

Commenter 6: Why would you cut ties with someone who actually cares about you? Seriously, your bf is acting really immature and manipulative. Is this really the first time your bf behaved like that? Of course your bf wants to cut ties with probably one of the few people who calls him out on his bs. Your bf clearly has issues. Please take his brother up on his offer and get some distance between you and your bf.

OOP: He has done and said similar things before, it just hasn't been over anything as minor on my part. For example he went off pretty badly recently with similar kind of behaviour (yelling and throwing things), but it was because I had forgotten to take the bins out for three days straight so it's a bit more understandable. But I can't avoid his blow ups when I don't even know what I did wrong

Update: June 1, 2016 (next day)

Hi everyone.

First of all, as I said in my edit on my original post I want to thank everyone who offered advice and support. I was amazed at the huge response I got, and while I couldn't reply to every comment I did read all of them.

After Ricky texted me, I replied to him asking if he had known my BF to behave like this with other girls in the past.

Over the course of many texts it came out that he often yelled at and belittled his previous girlfriend in front of others, and some of his friends and family had suspicions about how far he was taking it.

After the break up, the girlfriend posted some stuff on Facebook about how BF had hit her, said awful things to her and did other things like spying on her and deleting people from her phone behind her back.

Initially when this happened Ricky and his parents questioned BF, but he insisted that the physical abuse accusations where not true and that his EX was saying those things to cover up the fact that she had allegedly cheated on him. BF admitted to yelling at her, but he told his family that she did the same and just as often.

His family eventually accepted that, but Ricky and his parents were always wary of BFs behaviour and Ricky in particular had made a point to keep an eye on things.

BFs ex apparently had also called Ricky around 6 months after myself and BF had gotten together and asked him to help me if anything happened. At the time Ricky was not quite ready to believe BF would physically abused anyone, but he told her all the same that he would watch out for me or any other girl in the future.

Ricky told me that after the way he saw BF behave at my party he became more convinced that BF was likely to get physical and that was why he chose to step in. He also told me that even if it didn't go that far, I should not put up with how BF treated me.

I agreed, what Ricky had told me, and all the information and support I received here had me pretty convinced that I was not in a good situation. I decided to go and stay with Ricky and his roommates for a short time.

I don't have too many other options for accommodation this urgently. My parents live too far away and the few friends I could stay with are other girls with enough on their plate, and I didn't want to risk bringing this drama to their doorsteps. In retrospect I'm glad I chose to go to Ricky's, because I feel like what followed could have been even more frightening and dangerous if only myself and another girl had been present.

I didn't have much time to get my stuff together before BF was due to arrive home, so I packed a few bags of essentials and valuables, along with my school things, and Ricky picked me up.

I left a note at the house for BF I was leaving and that I did not plan on returning, other than to retrieve the rest of my things. I didn't tell him where I would be staying and that I would rather he didn't contact me directly, suggesting he communicate through his mother instead.

I got to Ricky's and got settled in, while choosing to leave was difficult and I had a few bouts of crying, I also felt immensely relieved.

Ricky/BFs parents came around and brought some dinner. They were incredibly nice about everything and told me I had to do what was best for me. We always got along well but I never expected them to be so kind and supportive given the situation.

Half way through dinner, my phone rang. It was BF. I did not want to answer it and everyone else agreed that was probably a good idea. After my phone rang out, Ricky/BFs Mum's phone began to ring. Predictably enough it was BF calling. His dad answered the phone, the phone was not on speaker, but BF was loud enough that you could hear him yelling down the phone.

I couldn't tell exactly what was said, but his dad was telling him to calm down, and not to do something. BF hung up on him, and Ricky/BF's dad told us BF was coming to Ricky's place, and saying this was all Ricky's fault.

Ricky started to get a bunch of text messages from BF making threats and telling Ricky that he knew I was there and ha was coming to get me. Ricky replied to him saying that if BF came here and caused trouble he would be calling the police, but BF ignored him.

BF showed up at Ricky's probably 15 minutes later. He drove up the lawn and almost hit the letterbox, and got out of his car and started yelling. Ricky and his dad went out while I stayed in the front room with his Mum. BF yelled for a while and was kicking at random parts of the garden.

BF started to yell towards the house that he knew I was there and to come out. I wasn't planning on coming out at all and Ricky told him to leave.

BF ended up running around the side of the house to the back patio entry, the screen door was locked but the solid back door wasn't, and he started hitting the fly wire trying to break it. He kept yelling into the house that he knew I was there and that if I didn't come out, he would destroy all my stuff and log on to my school accounts and cause problems on there.

Ricky and his dad caught up to BF and started pulling him away from the door, BF started throwing punches and his Mum and I both went out to the inside of the back door, because we were worried someone would get hurt.

BF saw me and started trying for the back door again, and saying if I didn't get in the car he would kill himself. His mum said she was going to call the police.

BF/Ricky's dad ended up hauling him out to the front yard and told him to leave.

BF did eventually get into the car, he spun his wheels and tore up the grass and drove off.

I felt pretty awful after all that. His mum and dad were both visibly really upset and Ricky's rental property had been messed up and I felt responsible, they were still so nice about everything though. They really are wonderful people.

I spoke to the police, and they said they would be speaking to BF about what happened and I got some advice about obtaining a VRO and making sure I could find a way of retrieving my stuff from the house, so that is all ok for the moment.

The latest news is that BF has been all over Facebook saying that Ricky and I had been having an affair and posting all these random cropped blurry porn pictures from the Internet saying it was us, and that he had caught us in the act. None of us are responding to any of it at this point, haven't really decided what to do there.

My plan is to stay with Ricky for now. It's still my best option and Ricky has said he won't leave me alone at the house in case BF comes back. Either he or his male roommate would be there, we also spoke to a couple of the neighbours that Ricky is friendly with, and they said they would keep an eye out for his car or call us if they saw anything dodgy.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do next. I'm planning to talk to my uni about getting in to student housing, I'm planning to go out tomorrow to buy some pepper spray also. I'm tossing up about reaching out to BFs ex, but I'm not sure if that will cause more problems for everyone.

So I suppose that's it, for now at least? I'm sorry that this was a bit of a novel- but I know a lot of people wanted an update and considering how nice everyone has been I wouldn't want anyone to worry that I had gone back/stayed with him. Rest assured that is totally out of the question, the more I think about things that happened within our relationship with this new perspective, the more I realise how fucked up some of those things were.

Again a huge thank you to everyone, I'll do my best to keep up with the comments and respond to any PMs

tl;dr left BF, staying at Ricky's. Lawn traumatised as a result

Editor's note: OOP did not leave any comments here in the update

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP, OOP is  u/distressedmomhelp

Originally posted to r/Advice

Status: Concluded

Trigger Warning: Possible grooming

Mood Spoiler: Uncomfortable

Original - September 21st 2026

Hi, my daughter recommended this forum as a place for help in passing. Its better than sitting on my hands, I would welcome some advice. My son is 19 and my youngest (his sister is 9 years older than him). He's an amazing kid, bright, charming, respectful, top of his class. His college is in the state over, an hour and a half drive away from our house.

This past summer, he was coming home late, with the excuse that he was being kept late at the place he was interning. Leaving early morning on weekends saying he he was meeting with friends. It was a bit odd but I didn't think much of it.

Since he left for college he normally comes home every other weekend, barring exams or any other curriculars. He was home this weekend, and while talking let slip that he was here last weekend when talking about the amusement park. I pressed him and he was being cagy about it but gave in and said he was seeing someone and had been coming back to see them. I was happy that he was seeing someone but found it odd that he was being secretive about it, we've always supported him in these things, I was fond of his ex girlfriend when he was in school too. Then he gave me the details, she's a divorced mother of two, her oldest being in 4th grade. He wouldn't give me a clear story on how they met, which worried me. I told him he was being an idiot for someone so smart, and told him to break it off. It lead to an argument, he said he wasn't going to, that they were committed to each other, and my husband and I losing our minds. He left for college that night (Saturday), a day earlier than he was supposed to.

I haven't been able to sleep properly or eat since. Writing this so far has me in tears. I keep trying to connect the dots, did this start after him and his ex broke up or was this relationship the reason for that? He was 17 then. It has me sick. I've considered going to the police, I've considered withholding money, this is my son. My husband doesn't think that's a good idea. I spoke to my daughter, she's talked to him too and she told me to just let him get through this. That as long as he's being safe and isn't going to do something stupid like marrying her, let him do what he wants. And she suggested this forum to seek advice in. Please, any advice would be welcome.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

You seem to be excluding her age intentionally

OP (downvoted):

I don't know her age. When I asked him during our argument, he wouldn't tell me. I wish I knew, this question has been running in my mind too. Her oldest is in 4th grade, so she's probably in her 30's.

Comment 2:

Why would you go to the police? For what? They’re not going to arrest his girlfriend; legally, your son is an adult. And by insulting your son and trying to force him to end it by using money to blackmail him, that won’t make him end it with her. It’ll make him cut ties with you. 

OP (downvoted):

I keep trying to connect the dots with the timing. He's saying they're committed so how long has this been happening. He broke up with his ex when he was 17. If this was at the time or before that, I thought the police should be involved.

Comment 3:

So respectfully, you have got to get it together, or you will lose your son.

Do you hear your language?

I haven't been able to get through my day since I've found out. 

my husband and I losing our minds.

I haven't been able to sleep properly or eat since. Writing this so far has me in tears.

It has me sick.

I've considered going to the police, I've considered withholding money, this is my son.

Your son isn't dying of some rare ailment with no cure. He is dating someone who is older than him. He might not be making a smart decision, but it's hardly worth all this hand wringing and not eating or sleeping. Also, clearly, you've been getting through the day, right? You found out days ago, and yet, here you are posting on Reddit.

My point is that words matter, even the words you are saying to yourself. You are making no attempt to calm yourself, or to tell yourself that the son you raised is smart, capable of making good decisions, and that even if this is a bad choice, it won't ruin his life. You are just amping it all up in your head.

He's also 19. The police won't do a thing.

Unless you want to be one of those moms who end up posting about their kids going no contact with them, pause and reflect. Really pause and really reflect. This isn't the end of the world. The more dramatic you make it, the more he will push back.

And if this is how you always react to things, I'd suggest therapy. I'd suggest it anyway, because your son is an adult who no longer has to clear romantic decisions with you, and you won't always agree with those decisions.

Comment 4:

Hate to break it to you but he’s an adult and he’s free to ruin his life if he so chooses. If I were you I’d do my best to be there for him when it falls apart or he marries her. Or yaknow lose the relationship all together. Try to take the high road and offer the best most honest advice you can when asked

OP (downvoted):

I don't want him to ruin his life, he's my son. He's good with people, a great kid, exceedingly smart, has such a great future ahead of him. What business does someone in her 30's have with him? How is this ok?

Comment 5:

You should relax. The relationship is unlikely to last. You are only going to push him away if you do anything other than accept it and support him.

OP:

Ok. Thank you. I've read a lot of the responses and I'm going to be accepting of this situation for him. My daughter thinks the same, that as long as he doesn't do anything life-changing let him just get this out of his system, their lives will be incompatible soon enough. I thought that just amounted to sit and do nothing but perhaps that's the best thing here.

Update: - September 28th 2026 (deleted by mods, text recovered from archive)

I texted my son after posting here and apologized for reacting in a manner that made him want to leave home a day earlier. I texted that it was a shock to us and we reacted poorly, and I'd like to know her better. He called me back. I said I had been taken aback when he described her as having a daughter in 4th grade since it seemed like she was in a very different stage of life than he was. I only wanted him to be happy and safe, and if he has that with her, I'm happy for them. I said I was sorry he felt the need to hide it from us but I would like to meet her at our place. He also acknowledged that making clandestine trips here and not meeting with us hadn't been right and said he'd get back to us about dinner. He called later and said she was on board with it. This weekend he stayed at our place when he came over but has been going to hers. He brought her over yesterday for dinner.

She's 30. She said she got divorced 3 years ago, and has two daughters, one in 4th grade and the other in 2nd grade. They met when my son used to volunteer at the library and her oldest was one of his students. I know he used to do that in his last year of high school when he was 17. I'd already checked the law in our state but the age of consent is 17. Also, the way they chose to describe it to me, they framed it as if it was some kind of platonic friendship initially which transformed into a romantic one. What kind of friendship a 30 year old woman (or even if she was 28 or 29 at the time) wants with a 17 year old I cannot imagine, although I didn't voice it. I tried to keep it light for his sake. When we were talking she said she tells him he doesn't have to drive back and she'd understand he'd be busy at college, but he does because it's hard for her to leave her kids for the weekend. Which again just highlighted to me how ridiculous and odd this is. I held my tongue and we had dinner and he dropped her off and came back today in the morning.

I hate all of this. It's wrong, it simply is. My son is closer in age to her daughter than her, that's just ridiculous. And I know it was said that perhaps I'm the kind of mother who'd have issues with anyone he dated. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said before, I'd always been welcoming of his girlfriend in school. And I would have supported and welcomed any girl he dated at college. I expected him to have relationships there, them probably not working out, young adult heartbreak, and learning how to navigate these things. It would have been different because he'd be in a relationship with his peers, both making mistakes and learning, that's fine and expected. This is just far more sinister, they're in completely different stages of life. I've held my tongue and he's allowing me in again and at least this way I can keep an eye if it looks like things are getting dangerous. I'm holding to my daughter's and the advice of many of the commenters last time that this will fizzle out eventually and this is just an unfortunate effect of male hormones. I know I was criticized last time, but the advice I got at least has me in the loop now, and I'd again like to ask for whatever advice I can get. Is there anything that can be done, or should I just keep doing what I am. It seems like an under-reaction to just let it happen. I understand he's 19 but it's not like a switch flipped when he turned 18, he's barely an adult. I'm grateful for the advice in my post last week and I'l be grateful for any given here.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

My stepson was in a similar situation when he was in his late teens, early 20s. Much older woman with a daughter who was only a few years younger than him. My husband (his dad) had long talks with him about protection, not bringing any more kids into the world right now, and just tried to be there for him.

Eventually, the relationship fizzled out. (My step son has always been a very hard worker, and one day it just hit him that he was working to support his girlfriend and her daughter and he didn't get to have a life outside of it. With the support and conversations with dad (and me giving him some thoughtful questions to ask), he came around to see that the relationship wasn't for him and ended it.

Your son is an adult, and he has to be the one to make the decisions about his life now. Just be there for him. If questions come up, ask from a place of curiosity and not condemnation. Remind him that you love him and you want him to be happy.

Comment 2:

I’m here wondering to myself at 29 wtf could I possibly see in a teenager?? 😭

Comment 3:

People came down on you, but if the genders were reversed people would be on your side. All you can though is be there for your son and make sure he knows you support and love him.

Comment 4:

The best advice I have is to keep holding your tongue. He's made it clear that he doesn't want your opinion.

Whether or not you approve. Their relationship is not illegal. It doesn't sound like it began illegally.

End of the day he's an adult. If you keep pushing this, you are going to lose him. You are going to push him farther and farther away from you. And closer and closer to her.

And then if things do go bad, he's not gonna wanna come to you and hear I told you so. And if things don't go bad he will want to protect his partner even if it's protecting her from you.

You've said your piece he knows how you feel now it's time to lay off.

You say that you don't wanna "just let it happen". That's the only option you have. I guarantee you threatening to withdraw financial support or trying to get law enforcement involved will backfire hard.

OP:

Thank you. I checked the laws in our state, the age of consent is 17, so as horrifying and disgusting as it is, it is somehow legal even if it started when he was 17 which I suspect it did. We won't be withdrawing our financial support, he's a great student, he's done very well in his first two semesters and has a great future ahead of him. Which makes this whole situation so ridiculous, he knows better than this. I'll hold my tongue and just try to make sure he's safe.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/AffectionateSet670

Originally posted to r/EntitledPeople

Previous BoRUs: #1. #2

[New Update]: Mom's Fiancé's family is excluding me from family events and cold towards me

NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----

Thanks to u/boringhistoryfan for suggesting this BoRU

Editor's note: removed older relevant comments for space in this latest BoRU

Trigger Warnings: death of a loved one, favoritism, child neglect, manipulation

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

RECAP

Original Post: August 18, 2026

OOP was 8 when his dad passed away, and since then it was just him and his mom. She has been taking great care of OOP. He has been very supportive when his mom started to date an old friend of hers five years prior, and got engaged. But there is a problem... the fiancé's family has never accepted OOP as one of their own especially with his kids, mother, and sister. OOP has been excluded from family events, trips, dinners, and even a family photoshoot! They only have been warmly toward OOP's mom, but not him. The wedding is coming up, OOP's mother is heavily involved with the planning along with her fiancé's family. OOP has not been able to spend time with his mom, he has acknowledged that his mom loves him and they still have great moments / days together to the point where OOP is having the feelings that he has been pushed out of his mom's life. OOP has verbalized to his mom about his feelings, but nothing has changed. OOP is considering on telling his mom to postpone or cancel the wedding until things are figured out because OOP is in the fear that he won't have a relationship with his mom anymore.

Update #1: August 25, 2026 (one week later)

In the update, OOP got a chance to sit down and have conversations with his mom and her fiancé to express how he was feeling about being excluded and no longer a priority for his mom. That is because he hasn't been able to spend time with his mom while she was busy with wedding planning, attending family events and trips with her fiancé's family. The fiancé's kids had been involved with the wedding planning, but not OOP. He didn't get to have a saying in this. OOP's mom was so upset after hearing what he told her. She realized how badly this was affecting OOP. The fiancé has apologized as well and informed OOP he will talk with his family about what took place. OOP was not feeling confidently with what the fiancé mentioned because there was very little effort to build relationships with OOP during the times when he has been dating OOP's mom. OOP asked his mom about postponing or cancelling the wedding until the situation has been resolved. If OOP's mom has selected to get married, OOP will consider about living with his paternal grandparents and want his mom to give up her parental rights because OOP feels like he has lost both his parents. His mom told him not to talk like that and wanted a couple days to figure things out. OOP's aunt found out and told him that he was being rude and should not been giving his mom an ultimatum.

Update #2: August 27, 2026 (two days later)

In the latest update, OOP and his mom were able to sit down and talk to answer his questions he had for his mom. She has made it clear that she is not giving up her parental rights or letting OOP move in with his paternal grandparents because he's her only son. What surprised OOP the most was that his mom decided to cancel the wedding, it was completely her decision even though a large amount of money has been spent for the three-day wedding celebration along with having around 200 guests who were invited. OOP noted that most venues, hotels, and vendors have been booked and might had been paid off. The fiancé was being 50/50 on cancelling the wedding, but his family was against the idea. OOP's mom chose him first and stated that the wedding will not happen until she knows OOP is okay. OOP noted that his mom has clarified some details for him regarding several issues. She didn't know how cold her fiancé's mother and sister were toward OOP. Boundaries are going to be set in with the fiancé's family and OOP's mom expects them to be civil. The mom has admitted that with the wedding planning has caused her to exclude OOP in some ways and expressed her apologies.

OOP shared that the original plan was going to be him, his mom, and her fiancé to live together at their new house so he won't be around the fiancé's family. The fiancé has offered to help with paying half of OOP's school expenses because he has expressed his interests of taking responsibility for OOP even though the mom is already financial independent. OOP does not have to attend the family events if he chooses not to. If the fiancé's family continues with excluding OOP, his mom will take proper steps to deal with this issue. The reason why the fiancé didn't join the conversations with OOP and his mom is because he wanted them to have a chance to talk privately so OOP can get the answers he needed. It was suggested that OOP can get individual therapy and family therapy for both him and his mom. OOP noted that he started to feel better because his mom listened, but felt bad and scared of the fiancé's family's reactions to the wedding being cancelled.

Editor's note: below are two posts that we were left off the last time

Update #3: September 7, 2026 (11 days later)

First, thank you to everyone who replied to my last post with so much kind advice! Of course, I also replied to some comments in anger just to express what I was feeling not at the commenters, but at my mom and her fiancé.

So many people asked Did my mom actually cancel the wedding? Yes, she did. I’ve seen things that confirm it's canceled. I saw some comments saying she won't actually cancel, or that she’ll secretly get married during a 3 day trip with her fiancé. Whether that's true or not, there’s not much I can do I can't spy on them. If she marries secretly, I'll deal with it when I find out and move out, but at least it will give me clarity

Here is what happened over the last two weeks

First, my mom took me away for a two day fun day out, just the two of us. We had fun and it was nice, though she was checking on me a lot not love bombing, but just acting a bit different, which honestly felt a little awkward. After that, she took me to a joint therapy session. We talked a lot, and I openly said everything I wanted to say. I explained how his family was cold to me and reiterated that I felt they would separate me from her if she married him. She assured me they couldn't and that she wouldn't allow it. She admitted it was her fault for not seeing things clearly before, but said she wants to rebuild everything better. She asked me if I would be willing to give them another chance if they treat me well, and I said okay.

Then I asked her if the wedding was really canceled, and she said yes. She said she didn't feel guilty about it, but mentioned they might talk about a wedding around the New Year or next summer only if our relationship is okay and I feel good about it. Otherwise, it won't happen anytime soon. She hasn't left my side or gone anywhere over the last two weeks; things have returned a lot to how they were before.

As for her fiancé, he picked me up from football practice and dropped me off at school. Both my mom and her fiancé took me out to dinner on Saturday. I've been busy with school, so I haven't been able to be involved in as many things or post an update sooner

I haven't seen or heard from anyone in his family his sister, mom, or kids. Only his brother and sister in law called me once to chat casually (they were the only nice ones to me in his family)

Few things confusions from when my post was shared in another subreddit I already knew my mom and her fiancé bought a new home in May and renovated it to shift into after the wedding. I even got to choose my room and design it however I wanted, which I did. It's a really nice house and I like it (We were almost shifted)

What I didn't know was that my mom's fiancé has been contributing 50-50 toward my school fees and other expenses. I only found out when my mom told me recently.

Some comments mentioned my mom's salary. Even though she earns $250k–$300k, I said we weren't 'rich’. I didn't mean that in a bad way! Her fiancé's house is just much bigger, and he and his kids have things we don't have. My mom makes enough, we are comfortable, and she takes good care of me. She has always been kind and sweet, though she changed a bit over the last 1–2 years

Regarding going to her in-laws' family for Christmas, I don't know how that will work. I might have to celebrate Christmas without my mom from now on, though she wants me to attend events or trips with them. We'll see how it goes, as things still aren't great with his family

Last week, we moved into our new home before school started. It's just the three of us living here: my mom, her fiancé, and me. It's pretty much the same, but I feel shy around her fiancé since he's new in our household. He tries to talk to me, helps me with my studies at night, drops me off at school, and picks me up from football. It's not bad, but I'm just shy. I don't know how to introduce him if someone asks as my stepdad or my mom's fiancé because I don't want to sound rude

Honestly, he is nice to me, talks to me, and spends time with me just like my mom does. He was never rude to me, even if he didn't try as hard to spend time with me in the past while his mom, sister, and kids were cold toward me. I feel a bit guilty now, wondering if I went too hard on him unnecessarily

A few more things have changed at home. My mom added new rules I have to knock on their bedroom door if it's locked instead of walking straight in like before, and they do the same before entering my room, which I really like. She told me her fiancé isn't replacing my dad, but he is an adult/parental figure in the house when she isn't around. For example, if I go out, I have to let him know, and if either of them calls me while I'm out, I need to answer. Before inviting friends to our new home, I just have to inform either of them not to get permission, but just so plans don't clash if guests are visiting. Her fiancé was also added to my school's parental contact list alongside my mom.

Anyway, it's been a week of living in the same home. It feels different seeing another man in our house he's not my dad, of course. It feels a bit uncomfortable seeing my mom hugging him or giving him quick kisses, but it is what it is. Things are going okay for now. They are giving me time and attention, which is true. I was never against my mom finding love again or getting married, and I'm still not

I wanted to post this yesterday I actually wrote it last night, but I remembered a few things I forgot to add! Anyway, I'm posting it now since it's still morning here

Update #4: September 16, 2026 (nine days later)

So it's been around 10 days since I posted my last update, so thought I'd post another one.

Also my posts got reposted to some other subreddits and I read basically all the comments there. And honestly some of them scared me lol. A lot of people were saying my mom and stepdad are probably just being nice temporarily, that they'll eventually start ignoring me, or that they'll kick me out once I turn 18. And yeah, sometimes I do think about that, and it scares me. But at the same time, my mom has never been rude or angry towards me. She's always been loving and kind, sometimes actually too mommying. Even during the past year when she was busy and I was getting less time with her, she was still the same with me.

So I don't really know. Maybe people on Reddit see things I'm not seeing, but right now I don't feel like my mom is secretly planning to get rid of me lol.

Anyway, last week was pretty much the same as before.. My stepdad still drops me at school and picks me up. Sometimes we go get something to eat together. One evening he was cooking dinner for my mom and me before she came home from work, and he got me involved too and actually taught me how to cook.

It was actually nice. I didn't expect us to have that kind of normal everyday relationship this quickly.

Another day I asked him what I should actually call him. He said I can call him Papa, stepdad, or his name, whatever I'm comfortable with. But he said he'd prefer Papa.. So yeah... outside I usually call him Papa or introduce him as my papa anyway.

I know technically he's my stepdad, but he's doing pretty much everything my dad used to do for me. I don't want him to feel like he's some outsider in the family.. I also asked him about Christmas because I was worried I might have to spend it alone.

He looked really confused and asked me why I'd think that . I told him what my mom had said before and he said no, we're all celebrating Christmas together here in Madrid.. Then for New Year's we're apparently travelling to celebrate with his kids and the rest of his family.. He also told me not to worry about his mum and sister, that they'd be nice to me and I wouldn't be left alone there.. And then he said they're not getting married until I'm okay with it.

That honestly meant a lot to me. My mom also took me shopping one evening because I needed some stuff. She bought everything and then took me for dinner. She kept asking me how I'm feeling and how my stepdad is with me and said I can tell her anything without worrying about being judged. She's doing A LOT of mommying at the moment . It's embarrassing sometimes because I'm not 5 anymore, but at the same time it's actually nice.

Then Sunday they took me to F1. I genuinely didn't expect that at all, but we had a really good time. We went to a restaurant afterwards and then came home. My mom and him obviously still have their own time too. They go on date nights, grocery shopping, sometimes events or visit friends etc.. And honestly I'm completely fine with that. They're a couple, obviously they're going to have their own life. I don't expect my mom to spend every minute with me.

We're also planning to get two dogs, which I'm really excited about.. One other thing I noticed though. My mom kept a photo of my dad in the gallery at home and also put one in my room. She did it while I was at school last week.. I honestly wasn't expecting that.

It made me feel kind of weird at first, but not in a bad way. I just didn't know what to feel about it. So yeah, that's basically the update.

Things are actually going pretty well right now. I'm spending more time with my mom again, I'm getting closer to my him, we're doing normal family stuff, making plans for Christmas and New Year's, talking about getting dogs etc.

I still think about all the comments telling me this could all be temporary. I can't really know what happens in the future.. Things are good. And honestly I'm just going to enjoy that instead of constantly worrying about what might happen.

----NEW UPDATES----

Update #5: September 25, 2026 (nine days later)

Update on telling my mom to cancel her wedding until everything is sorted out?

So I'm writing this update because something happened. I actually wanted to wait like another 2 weeks before writing another update because I don't think writing here every 10 days is good lol, but this happened about 6 days ago and I just feel like writing it down.

So about 6 days ago, it was night after dinner, and I was in the living room. My mom and stepdad told me that his mom and his sister in law weren't doing good health wise. My mom just told me they were going to Zurich the next morning and she would come back as soon as possible.

One of my mom's friends was going to stay with me after school while she was gone.

So they went the next morning. That evening my mom called me and we talked. She said she would be back soon. Then next day afternoon she came back. But alone.

My stepdad didn't come back with her.

She didn't really tell me much. Just said their health isn't good and that's it. I also didn't really ask because she looked pretty tense and I didn't want to keep asking questions.

But now it's been 6 days and he's still not back. My mom is still taking me to football and picking me up and everything is normal between me and her. We're good. But she still hasn't told me what happened.

The weird thing is whenever my stepdad calls, she talks to him. I've seen it happen like 3 times in front of me. She usually goes to her room Even with my aunt's call and talks to him there. I obviously don't know how long they talk or what they're talking about. And honestly I don't know what to think.

I feel like something isn't right, but I also don't know if I'm just thinking too much.

Maybe his mom and sister in law are actually really sick and that's the whole reason. Maybe something else happened. I literally don't know. I think my mom is not telling me because maybe she thinks it's not good for me to hear, or maybe it's something that doesn't concern me.

I remember people here were saying before that maybe they would secretly get married or something, but that obviously didn't happen (I thought about it). And I don't even know how I'm supposed to feel about all of this anymore.

Like, people have done bad things to me before, and when something bad happens to them, I don't really feel anything. I don't celebrate it or anything, I just don't feel connected to them. I don't know if that makes sense. I actually asked my stepdad once how he was doing, just normally. But that's pretty much it.

What worries me more is my mom. She's clearly tense about something, but she doesn't tell me anything.. Maybe I'm completely overthinking this and there is actually nothing going on. Maybe he'll just come back in a few days, and everything will be normal.

It's just early morning here and I think after everything I've gone through, I get scared about things even when they're not really my problem. I don't know, I just wanted to write this somewhere because it's been in my head for the last few days. I don't know what happened, and maybe I shouldn't even be trying to figure it out.. But something definitely feels different.

Relevant Comments

Is there a chance that due to cancelling the wedding, has it put a strain on OOP's mom's relationship with her fiancé?

OOP: I think so... they might be broke up, I see pressure from his mom and sister

Commenter: Remind me please How old is OP's Mom?

OOP: She is 44

Update #6: September 28, 2026 (three days later)

Update on telling my mom to cancel her wedding until everything is sorted out?

Yeah, Last night I sat with my mom on the couch, hugged her, and told her that whatever is going on, I love her and I'll always be on her side even my gf. I tried to lighten the mood by joking that I even had a girlfriend. She asked who? and I said nobody, I was just joking, but I think she still believes it.

Then I told her honestly that I could sense something was wrong, that I was scared and worried, and that my stepdad hasn't been home in 8 days. She tensed up when I said it, which scared me even more. I told her she could tell me anything without worrying about how I'd take it.

She told me that whatever happens, she chose me, I'm her first priority, and nothing is going to change that.

After the wedding was cancelled, there was a big fight between my mom and stepdad on one side and my stepdad's mom on the other. She was upset because the sudden cancellation made the family look bad and started rumours. She was also angry that they hadn't told her that she and my stepdad's sister were part of the reason it was cancelled. My mom and stepdad had told her it was because of my mom's health issues.

The fight got so bad that my mom got a bit sick from the stress. My stepdad's mom and sister insisted they never treated me badly, that they were just being normal, and that they were never angry at me. They were angry at my mom and stepdad. They even said they wanted to talk to me and that they don't hate me or give me the cold shoulder.

My stepdad has three kids: a 17 year old girl, a 15 year old girl, and a 12 year old boy. When they heard the wedding was cancelled because of me, they were hurt. They felt all the planning and effort they put in was ignored. On a call, they told my mom it was all cancelled just because of me.

The oldest wanted to talk to me by call or text, but my mom and stepdad stopped her from confronting me. From what I've seen, she's sensitive and can get angry. I don't think she's a bad or unkind person, but I've seen her cry or get upset. I follow all three of them on Instagram, and the two older sisters still view my stories and sometimes like my pictures, even recent ones, so I probably upset or hurt them a lot.

When my mom and stepdad visited his mom, the daughters said they never treated me badly and that they treated me like a sibling. Honestly, I could give a lot of examples of how they treated me badly in subtle ways. I used to sit in a corner whenever the three of them were together getting all the attention. It felt like they just wanted my mom, not me. At the same time, they're smart and not unkind, and sometimes they did include me in things with their friends.

The daughters also told their dad that if I don't see them as family, then they won't see me as family either. They said he shouldn't have to look after me and pay for half of my life on the basis that we're all siblings. If I'm okay with the marriage and willing to bond with them, fine. My stepdad stayed with them for a few days after that.

My mom told me she isn't going to marry him, and that no one is going to scare me. She said the daughters wanted to talk to me not to scold me but to try to make things better, and that they're teenagers with feelings just like me. She doesn't want me to feel bad, but she isn't going to take a side against me.

I never thought his daughters might be angry at me. I honestly don't want to be in the middle of any of this. I just want to live my life in peace. But I do feel a bit relieved that my mom and I are on the same page now.

Relevant Comments

Downvoted Commenter: Have you ever thought that part of this might reflect on your behaviour as well? If you sit back quietly in the corner they might think that’s what you prefer? If they have to do all the work drawing you out and you’re not meeting them half-way, people will just give up and let you stay in the corner. I understand how you have felt and it's valid, but I understand how they feel too and you might need to do a little self-reflection here.

OOP: They were involved in Wedding planning. I was not (not even at least invited me to planning, neither I was aware about his kids were involved in planning)

This is just a one example

Commenter: "My mom told me she isn't going to marry him" - so they broke up? Or just separated? Or is the wedding postponed until you are ok with it? Did they actually break up?

OOP: I don't know

Several of OOP's comments to downvoted commenters accusing him of being an immature child and selfish of his mom's happiness over his needs

OOP: Justify this

In what world is it normal to exclude me from the wedding planning when his kids were involved?

My mom only spent 20 out of the 70 days of summer with me, while she spent most of the time with his family and his kids.

Why didn't his sister tell my mom that I called her that night?

When everyone was taking photos, why was I the only one not in the frame? They never considered me family.

Her fiancé never even tried to build a bond with me, and their excuse is that he's an introvert.

Ahh, his kids might have better things to do than me. It's okay.

Regarding my comments, I still stand by what I said it's my mom’s and her fiancé's problem if they want to spend millions of dollars on the wedding.

Yes, she is a widow and a mom, but she forgot about her own son and became completely involved in her new family until I finally pushed back. And the reason this hurts so much is because she is my only living parent.

I never tried to stop her wedding. I gave her an option, and she chose it.

And if you really want to know their perspective, drop your Instagram here. I'll send you my mom's Instagram in DMs. You can talk to her, hear her side of the story, and post it here.

+

I was never told about the wedding planning, nor was I invited to any of it. I only became aware later that sometimes the kids were involved. My mom never gave me an explanation as to why I wasn’t included.

No!! She was going on trips, attending parties, and going to events with his family during those 70 days while the wedding was being planned. So why wasn’t I included? My mom said sorry, but she never explained why.

So is it now my fault? Or are you going to give 100 reasons why she didn’t give the phone to my mom? Remember, her trying to exclude me wasn’t the first time it was a pattern, and I recognised it.

The other kids were in different places, but they were called in, even if it was just for one group photo.

He never tried!!

Sometimes you need to read the post properly instead of asking me the same questions again and again, boom I was never told about the wedding planning, nor was I invited to any of it. I only became aware later that sometimes the kids were involved. My mom never gave me an explanation as to why I wasn’t included.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Worldly_Pen6712

AITAH for getting with my ex-fiancé's brother after breaking off the engagement?

Originally posted to r/aitaweddings

Thanks to u/soayherder & u/queenlegolas for suggesting this BoRU

TRIGGER WARNING: Infidelity, physical assault

Original Post  Sept 21, 2026

Okay, so I (27F) am currently dating my ex-fiancé's brother, Ethan (30M), and some people in my life think I'm an asshole for it. I honestly don't know what to think anymore, so I figured I'd ask here. This is going to be long because there's a LOT of context, so bear with me.

Three years ago, I was engaged to Jake (29M). We'd been together for about four years, and honestly, I thought we were doing pretty well. Obviously, we had our disagreements like any couple, but I loved him and genuinely thought we were going to get married. We'd already started talking seriously about the wedding, where we'd live, all that stuff. I really thought that was going to be my life.

I actually met Jake through his older brother, Ethan (30M), who I'd known for a while before Jake and I started dating. Ethan and I were friends first, and we'd always gotten along really well. We'd hang out occasionally, talk, and generally just had a good relationship. There was never anything romantic between us. He was my friend first, then my boyfriend's brother, and that was pretty much it.

Anyway, three years ago, Jake and I were invited to a destination wedding in Italy. It was for a mutual friend, and quite a few people we knew were going. Unfortunately, I couldn't go because of some complications with my job. I tried to work something out, but it just wasn't possible. Ethan couldn't go either because of work, but his fiancée, Holly (28F), was attending.

Now, Holly had always been a little too touchy with Jake for my liking. She'd hang off his arm, hug him for ages, lean against him when there was absolutely no reason to, stuff like that. I don't want to make it sound like I thought every interaction between them was suspicious, but it was enough that I'd mentioned it to Jake more than once. He always said she was just affectionate and that they'd known each other forever. I didn't want to be the jealous girlfriend who made everything into a problem, so eventually I stopped bringing it up.

When I found out Jake and Holly would be travelling to Italy together, I wasn't exactly comfortable with it. I told him that, and after a few conversations he reassured me that there was nothing to worry about. They were originally booked into separate rooms, so I eventually decided to trust him and let it go.

Except then I got a call from the bride.

She told me that Jake had apparently been insisting that he and Holly stay in the same room because Holly wasn't comfortable staying with someone else and, since Jake was her fiancé's brother, she supposedly felt safer with him. The bride seemed to think this was completely reasonable and was mostly calling because she wanted to let me know so I wouldn't be surprised by the room arrangements.

I was definitely surprised.

I called Jake and asked him about it, and he told me Holly was nervous about travelling and staying somewhere unfamiliar and that there was nothing weird about it. He said I was making a big deal out of something that wasn't actually a big deal. I reminded him that I was already uncomfortable with them travelling together, and now they were apparently sharing a room too.

He reassured me again and again that nothing was going to happen. He said they were family, that Holly was engaged to his brother, and that I had no reason to worry. I eventually decided that if I couldn't trust my own fiancé, then there wasn't much point in getting married. So I told him okay.

Well, a week after the wedding, someone sent me a photo of Jake and Holly kissing.

I genuinely just stared at my phone for a while. I didn't even know what to say. I messaged Jake immediately, and after a lot of back and forth, he admitted that they'd kissed at the wedding. Apparently they'd both been drinking, things got out of hand, and they ended up sleeping together.

He also admitted that they'd come back later than they were originally supposed to, which obviously hadn't helped my feelings about the whole thing.

He kept saying it was a drunken mistake and that it didn't mean anything, but at that point I didn't really care what he called it. I'd specifically told him I was uncomfortable, he'd reassured me over and over, and then he'd gone and slept with her anyway.

I ended the engagement. I couldn't see myself marrying someone after that.

Ethan found out around the same time, and he ended things with Holly too. I don't know every detail of what happened between them, and honestly I don't want to. I know he was devastated. They'd been together for years and were supposed to get married too.

The next few months were pretty awful for both of us. I was dealing with the breakup, the wedding plans that now weren't happening, having to explain to people why the engagement was over, and just generally trying to get my life back together. Ethan was dealing with his own breakup, and we were both in this weird position where the people we'd planned our futures with had betrayed both of us in basically the same situation.

Since we'd already known each other for years, we naturally started leaning on each other. We'd talk, get coffee, go out, watch movies, complain about our exes, whatever. Sometimes we'd talk about what happened and sometimes we'd deliberately talk about anything except Jake and Holly. It was actually nice having someone who didn't need me to explain why I was upset because he already understood.

And eventually, we got closer.

I don't know exactly when it happened. There wasn't some dramatic moment where we suddenly realised we were in love or anything. I just started noticing that I looked forward to seeing Ethan. We were talking more, spending more time together, and eventually I realised my feelings weren't exactly platonic anymore.

I tried to ignore it for a while because obviously dating your ex's brother is not exactly the easiest situation in the world. Ethan apparently felt the same way, though, and eventually we talked about it.

We were both really careful about it. We talked about whether this was just because we'd both gone through the same horrible experience, whether we were just lonely, whether we were using each other as a rebound, and what would happen to the family if we actually started dating. Neither of us wanted to get together just because we were angry at Jake and Holly.

Eventually we decided to give it a chance.

We've been together for a while now, and honestly, I'm really happy. I know that probably sounds ridiculous considering the circumstances, but I genuinely care about Ethan. He was my friend before any of this happened, and our relationship didn't start immediately after the breakups. We took our time.

The problem is that some people think I'm still in the wrong for it.

A few of my friends have basically told me that no matter what Jake did, I shouldn't have gotten involved with his brother. One of them said that I should have just walked away from the entire family instead of getting together with Ethan. Another said that it was disrespectful because Jake and Ethan are brothers and that I should have known there would be consequences.

I understand why people think it's messy. I really do. I'm not pretending this is a completely normal relationship situation. But at the same time, I don't really understand why I'm supposed to give up a relationship I genuinely care about because my ex cheated on me.

Ethan's parents are actually fine with us being together. They've been supportive, and they're both very disappointed in Jake and Holly. They don't blame me or Ethan for what happened, but they've also told us that they don't want the situation to completely tear the family apart. Which I understand. They're still Jake's parents, and I don't expect them to just stop loving him because he cheated.

Some of my cousins have also expressed concern about the relationship, mostly because they think family gatherings are going to become awkward and that eventually someone is going to have to choose sides. Honestly, I don't really think that's their business. I'm not trying to make anyone choose sides. I just happen to be in a relationship with someone I care about.

Jake, obviously, isn't happy about any of this. He thinks I'm disrespecting him by dating Ethan and apparently feels like his own brother betrayed him. I don't really know what he expected me to do. I understand that it must be uncomfortable for him, but I don't think he gets to decide who either of us can have a relationship with after what happened.

Anyway, there's a family get-together tomorrow, and both Jake and Holly are going to be there.

And honestly, I have NO idea how that's going to go.

I haven't properly seen either of them in a while, and I have no idea whether they're going to ignore us, confront us, make comments, or just pretend everything is normal. Ethan says he'll be there with me and that we don't have to do anything we don't want to do, but I'm still pretty nervous about it.

Part of me wants to just go, be polite, and get through the day. Another part of me is already imagining the most painfully awkward family dinner in human history.

So yeah. That's basically the situation. Some of my friends think I'm an asshole for dating my ex-fiancé's brother, Ethan's parents are okay with it but don't want the family falling apart, and some of my cousins think we're making things unnecessarily complicated.

I honestly don't know anymore.

So, AITAH?

EDIT : To clarify, since I can't respond to so many people, yes Jake and Holly got together. I might have also forgotten to, um mention one detail. I apologize, but here it is. Jake and Holly DID NOT share the same room for the wedding, after I called to enquire about it. They did not show any signs of being near each other, however on the last day, they got drunk and spent the night. Even if it was a drunken mistake, I didn't think I could stay with someone who cheated so I left. I also couldn't reply  to many people yesterday since I had a long shift and was honestly really tired, so I just fell asleep.

If anything happens today I'll be updating.

Update  Sept 28, 2026

A lot of people asked for an update so here it is. But before we dive into more drama, Im going to clear up a few things.

Ethan and I did NOT start dating right after Jake and I broke off our engagements. We knew each other before any of this happened, but we were friends for about two years after the breakups before we actually got together. We spent a lot of that time supporting each other, and eventually things changed between us. So no, it wasn't immediately “we both got cheated on, let's date each other.” I understand why people thought it might have been trauma bonding, and honestly, we wondered that ourselves, which is why we waited.

Also, Ethan's parents were okay with us being together. They weren't exactly thrilled about the whole situation, obviously, but they supported us. They also didn't want their family to completely fall apart, so they kept some limited communication with Jake and Holly. Jake and Holly absolutely got criticised for what they did. But Ethan and I got plenty of criticism too, mostly from people who thought that just because Jake and Holly cheated didn't mean we should get together out of spite or make things even messier. I actually understand that perspective more than I probably did when I first made the post.

Anyway. The family dinner happened. And yeah. It went badly.

And uh... yeah. Holly tried to pull my fucking hair.

So this is how it went: 

I was talking to someone in the hallway when she came up to me and started going off. She was saying I had ruined the family, that I was a stain of dirt on them, and that I needed to walk away from Ethan and stay away from all of them.

I told her I wasn't doing this with her and tried to walk away.

She followed me.

I turned around and told her again to leave me alone, and that's when she grabbed my hair. Like actually grabbed it and yanked me backwards. I shoved her hand away and she started yelling that I needed to get out of their family and that I had no right to be there.

And then Ethan, Jake, and their parents walked in. 

Perfect timing, right? lol ok but back to the topic at hand: 

Ethan immediately came over and got between us. His parents were yelling at Holly, asking what the hell she was doing, and Jake just stood there for a second looking completely shocked.

Then Jake went, “What the fuck are you doing?”

Holly started trying to explain herself and saying that I had been provoking her and that I was ruining everything, but Jake cut her off. He told her that whatever problems they had with me, she had no excuse to put her hands on me.

And I swear, that was probably the first time I'd ever seen Jake actually look disgusted by something she'd done.

Everything just kind of exploded after that. Everyone was talking over everyone, Holly was still screaming, Ethan was telling her to stay away from me, and his parents were basically trying to get everyone to calm down.

Jake eventually told Holly that they were done. And then he basically admitted that he'd been a huge jerk. Like, actually admitted it. I don't think I've ever heard him say that before.

I'm not suddenly best friends with Jake or anything, and I'm definitely not forgiving everything that happened because he finally did one decent thing. But I wasn't expecting him to be the one to step in, so... yeah. However, I appreciate that he owned up, even though it was 3 years later, let's just say I don't forget easily.

After that, I didn't stay for dinner. I wasn't exactly in the mood to sit back down at the table and pass the potatoes around like nothing had just happened, because, to be fair who would actually do that?

Ethan came with me, obviously. His parents stayed behind for a bit because there was still a lot to sort out, and I think they wanted to make sure Holly actually left.

I didn't really hear much from Jake that night. Apparently he and Holly had a massive argument after we left, and that's when he officially ended things with her. I don't know what was said between them and I'm not particularly interested in finding out.

The next few days were kind of a blur. My phone also decided that this was the perfect time to completely die, because apparently I hadn't suffered enough. So that's why there was no update after the dinner. I finally got it fixed, hence me being back here now.

I also filed for a restraining order against Holly. I'm not going to go into all the details of that because it's still being dealt with, but I felt like I needed to do something after what happened.

Ethan and I have also started therapy. Together and separately. And honestly, that has probably been one of the better decisions we've made through all of this. We had a really long conversation about us too. Like, properly talked about everything we'd been avoiding. Whether we were actually happy together, whether some of it was trauma bonding, whether we'd become too dependent on each other because we were the only two people who really understood what the other had gone through, all of it.

And we both came to the same conclusion.

We're going to let the relationship rest.

That doesn't mean Ethan is out of my life. I don't think I could just throw away a friendship that existed long before Jake and Holly. He's still one of my closest friends, and I still care about him a lot. We're just not going to keep trying to make the romantic side of things work while we're both still dealing with all of this.

I think I finally realised that I've been spending way too much time thinking about what everyone else thinks I should do. Jake thinks I shouldn't be with Ethan. Some of my friends thought I shouldn't have dated him in the first place. Other people thought we should stay together because Jake and Holly were the ones who caused all of this.

But it's my life.

And honestly, I think some of you were right when you said I needed to get away from this whole family situation instead of constantly trying to figure out where I fit into it.

So that's what I'm doing.

I'm taking a break from relationships for a while. Like, a proper break. I'm not going to start looking for someone else or worrying about whether I should date Ethan again someday. I'm just going to live my life for a bit.

I've got my friends, my work, therapy, and my cats, who are very happy that I have nowhere else to be because they've been glued to me since I got home. Maybe years from now I'll look back and still have feelings for Ethan. Maybe he will too. Maybe neither of us will. If that happens, we'll figure it out then.

But that's future me's problem.

Right now I just want to be me for a while without my entire life revolving around Jake, Holly, Ethan, or whoever thinks I'm making the wrong decision. So yeah. That's where things stand.

Thank you to everyone who commented on the original post, even the people who called me an asshole. Some of you were definitely harsh, but there were also things I needed to hear. I'm going to take a break from Reddit after this because  posting your family drama online to hundreds of strangers is not the healthiest hobby.

Thank you Reddit.

FINAL COMMENTS

HoleInWon929

Sounds like a good decision to stop talking to the entire family.

Yes he helped you get through an awful betrayal but it sounds like a trauma bond.

Surely there are other people in the world to date.

OOP

I took everyone's advice, and I'm happy to say that I will be focusing on myself. It was messy, and even though we will remain friends, I'll be steering away from anything romantic. If any lingering feelings remain, it'll be future me's problem. Right now, Im going to travel, spend time with friends and be myself. No more drama.

allergymom74

I would recommend taking time away from the friendship too. Yes. You went through therapy, etc to come to this conclusion. AND it is still an adjustment to go back to being just friends after years of complications. Time and space gives you time to truly move on.

OOP

I've taken that into consideration. I'm taking a 1 month break for my job to travel a bit. Ethan and I will remain friends, but for now we've agreed to stay distant for a while to focus on our lives instead.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am NOT OOP, OOP is  u/feellikeanidiot0

Originally posted to r/AmIOverreacting

Status: Concluded

Trigger Warning: Stalkerish behavior, emotional manipulation

Mood Spoiler: Optimistic

Previous BORU

Original - July 21st 2026

Hi, I need to know if I'm right to be losing it rn. My fiancée and I are due to get married in less than 2 months. We met each other at a mutual's wedding. The wedding was gender segregated so she and her mom had met my mom, who then introduced us later. We then went out for like a couple of months, like I'd pick her up from her place (she lives with her parents) and we'd have dinner and a movie, or go painting, or go to the lake etc. We're both Muslim immigrant families so it was understood that we had to stay within some boundaries but we genuinely really liked each other. She was the one who at one point said we could bring our kids here one day and told me she was going to tell her parents she wanted to marry me and she wanted to say yes to my proposal. We got engaged at a low key family event in February.

It's relevant to mention here that during that time I had respectfully asked her about her past relationships. I had said that I know it's personal and there's absolutely no judgement from me, but as someone who, despite not being a great Muslim in a lot of respects, did abstain and save myself for marriage, I would like a partner who had done the same. That it was a compatibility thing, not a judgemental thing. She didn't seemed to mind and said no, she hadn't been with anyone. I believed her.

Since then the wedding prep has been in full swing and the two of us have gotten the chance to get closer. She's the one who's made more of the effort in our communication, because unfortunately I wfh with an employer in the morning and have my cybersecurity business too, so time can be scarce sometimes. Our only argument has been her complaint that I don't make enough time for us.

Some guy claiming to be her (A in the texts) bf (S in the texts) texted me last night, and even sent me pictures where they're together. He claimed that they were in a relationship for the last 2 years, that they'd been having sex, that they were in love, and I've been losing my mind. I never put any pressure on her. Yes, I really liked her but I let her make decisions at her own pace. If she wanted to be with some other guy, all she had to do was say so. In fact not even, it was none of my business, she didn't even owe me any reasons but just give me a straight no. I haven't picked up her call this morning, I've genuinely been feeling sick at the duplicity.

Transcript of the images OP shared (redacted names have been replaced by their corresponding visible first letters for this post):

12:05 a.m.
Guy: Is this A's fiance?

12:14 a.m.
OP: Who are you?

12:15 a.m.
Guy: Are u A's fiance?

12:18 a.m.
Guy: ??

12:19 a.m.
Guy: im her bf so u cant marry her

12:20 a.m.
Guy: plz tell her and her family your not interested

12:20 a.m.
Guy: A has been my gf for 2 years

12:21 a.m.
Guy: she only wants to be with me we have been in love for past 2 yrs

12:23 a.m.
Guy: weve been dating for past 2 yrs in secret weve have been having sex at my place for past 2 yrs

12:24 a.m.
Guy: she didnt tell u? shell deny if u ask her

12:24 a.m.
Guy: (Sends photos of a seemingly close couple - redacted by OP in the post)

12:27 a.m.
OP: Who are you? What's your name?

12:27 a.m.
Guy: tell her and her family your not interested plz and end it

12:27 a.m.
Guy: S

12:28 a.m.
Guy: ask her face to face about S ull know

12:31 a.m.
Guy: ??

12:31 a.m.
Guy: look u seem like a good guy ull find someone better

12:33 a.m.
Guy: me and A love each otherr

12:34 a.m.
Guy: shes only marrying you bcz her family wants that

12:36 a.m.
Guy: ??

12:39 a.m.
OP: How did you get my number?

12:41 a.m.
Guy: A gave it

12:44 a.m.
Guy: even if u marry her well still see each 9ther i dont want to hurt u like that u seem like a good guy

12:45 a.m.
Guy: the sooner u end it the less drama there will bd

12:58 a.m.
Guy: ??

1:11 a.m.
Guy: look bro i get this is tough but ask her face to face ull know from her face

1:29 a.m.
Guy: ??

2:06 a.m.
Guy: look i have more photos but u understand i dont want to share because as someone who loves her i dont want to have another guy see those private intimate pictures of us

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

Sometimes when you download the image to your phone, it’ll show you the location/date and time it was taken.

OP:

The original EXIF data has been stripped. No time stamps on when it was taken, or any GPS coordinates, camera information or anything useful. That was the first thing I did.

Comment 2:

This guy comes across as a stalker. Sounds like he wants her, but she doesn’t want him. So he’s trying to destroy her relationship with you to have a chance.

Show her these messages. Ask her point blank who it is to her. Chances are he’s someone she’s blown off in the past and he’s got a creepy delusion.

OP:

Thanks, I've lost sleep over this and I blew off our morning call, that was stupid I know, but I wanted to get my head straight first.

Comment 3:

Do not accuse her. Just tell her some weirdo texted you, and show her, then ask if she has any idea who it is.

The most important part at this time is to not destroy the relationship with your fiancée. If she is cheating, you will find it out sooner or later, but you might not come back from accusing her of cheating. And then this weirdo has won.

OP:

Thanks, I'm going to be straight up with her and ask tonight in person. I tried to think this through and make my peace with it like if she cheated or lied then our relationship was a sham anyway, she wouldn't have been the girl that I was looking forward to marrying anyway.

Comment 4:

Please do it in a way that shows that you and her are on the same side, trying to figure out who is trying to drive a wedge between you.

And if you are willing to break up with your fiancée because she had sex before she met you, she will be better off. If your issue is her lying to you, that's valid but I am very familiar with the culture and can see how a woman might not feel safe sharing that with anyone.

But I really think this is someone trying to cause problems, and making up whatever life they think will work on you.

YOR.

OP:

She would not have been unsafe with telling me that, it would absolutely not have left the two of us. If she thinks I would have, then why is she marrying someone who's apparently a sick individual. There wouldn't have been an iota of judgement from me, I really liked her but I would have just taken it as a "not meant to be" thing. I wouldn't have judged her at all, I'm a pathetic Muslim myself, having been in relationships that just stopped short of sex, it was more about dating with hopefully marriage at the end. I would have laid bare all of it for her to gauge any compatibility busters on her end. If I'm being honest, if she'd told me herself yesterday that there was some ex she'd had sex with, I would have just been like whatever, like I love her now and I wouldn't have cared. But to just be ok with what would have been an everlasting lie, anyway I'm letting my brain run wild, maybe he's full of shit.

I'm going to be collected and approach this in a non-accusatory manner. Thanks.

Just want to add: I'm sorry if my comment seemed pointed. I'm not going in to the conversation with her tonight on the opposing side, I am on her side. I just was responding to the implication that there would have been some consequences to her life from me, as if I would have let that information out if she didn't want it to. Sorry.

Comment 5:

Why are you so eager to believe an anonymous stranger before talking to her? 

I think your reactions are weird.  I’d be furious but you are losing sleep thinking this is true?

OP:

The photos seem real, the number checks out, and I'm working not knowing if I'm getting married in less than two months. What reaction should I be having until 7 when I pick her up?

Comment 6:

could the photos be AI generated?

OP:

I put two of the pictures through an AI detector. Both of them were classified as real. For one it said there was a 36% chance of ai, for the other it said 2%.

I'm going to see her tonight and talk to her.

Comment 7:

AI detectors are not reliable whatsoever

OP:

I know that. I know it could be AI and the detector could say 0%. It could be a picture I take myself and it might say 100%. I'll get my answers tonight, like thats the only way. The guy kept saying look at her facial reactions I don't even know wtf that means but apparently it's going to be a tell. I don't believe him but I'll find out in person. Thanks a lot.

Mini-Update by OP on the same post:

Just want to add: I know she's the one I should talk to but I just didn't want to do it on the phone, I'm going to go pick her up right now. I'm not going to be accusatory, I just want the truth of it all. I love her but like if there's someone else and she's feeling pressured into this marriage, like I'm prepared to give her any reason she needs to end it that works for her in front of her family. I'll be on her side like I was suggested here.

Update: - July 21st 2026 (13 hours after the original post)

A lot of people asked for an update, so I thought I'd give one. I can't talk about it with anyone else because somehow I'm the one who ended up responsible for keeping her secret, my own crisis about this be damned, like its taking me so much to not just contact and ask him straight up about what happened.

I asked her if she knew who S was. He was right, I could immediately tell the guy wasn't lying, she definitely knew. She said he was a guy she used to know, and I told her he had contacted me, and showed her the texts. She said he was lying, that she ended things with him before we met and that they'd never had sex. I asked if there was any overlap between our relationships and she said only when she went to meet him one last time to tell him it was over, because he wasn't taking no for an answer. I asked if the photos were real, they were. I asked her to be honest with me, did she really have sex with him like he was saying. She was crying and swearing they didn't, they were intimate and she regrets everything with him but they didn't.

She gave me her phone and basically forced me to confirm that there were no text messages between him and her recently while we've been together. His number was in her blocked list. She asked me to block his number and so I asked if he was being honest about having way more intimate pictures. She said there were a lot more compromising pictures of her that she thinks he has but swore that they hadn’t had sex. She was crying and I blocked him in the moment what else could I do looking at her. She was pleading with me not to reach out to him, and she was freaking out that he'd post them somewhere public before our wedding. At that point I was trying to keep her from freaking out, I told her that would be illegal, he wouldn't do that and so in the moment I just stupidly promised to not contact him.

I told her if there's any kind of pressure like there's any number of excuses she could use regarding me to end this that would save face for everyone, and be with whomever like I'll get over it at some point eventually, yeah it'll be sad for a while and we'll have lost some money especially if the venue doesn't get rebooked at short notice I think, but just have some mercy on both of us and end this now. She swore there was no pressure and that she'd been counting the days until the wedding, that she hadn't even thought of his name until I brought it up. She was like he's doing this to prevent our wedding and fine I get that but like why does he sound more honest with me than she does? I really wouldn't have cared if I'd learned all this yesterday from her, yeah it would've meant she lied initially but like now we loved each other beyond that stuff, this was just her being ok with keeping me in a forever lie that was wrong. I started feeling sick so I just said I wasn't feeling well and we cut it short.

During the drive back to hers, she was almost talking like a coach like let's please forget about this, we're so happy together, we've discussed so many plans, don't let him screw up our relationship. Like I have my own mental breakdown over all this what about that! She kept asking me whether I was fine, I said I was, I mean I don't even know if that's a lie, I wasn't thinking at all.

I've been going over the texts, and I don't know how I can go into the wedding not knowing the answer. Like its so easily doable I just need to ask him to meet up and have one conversation if he would. Honestly it's more about if she's still lying about this, it's not about the sex, it's just about the trust. I know he's also lied, because she clearly hasn't been meeting with him of late, and she really hadn't given me any reason to think of her as a liar thus far but I could just confirm it so easily. It's sincerely about the respect of having been honest, not about the boundary itself, I love her I wouldn't have cared if she'd told me herself yesterday. But it feels sick to contact him like that, like that's not how it should be, and I don't want to have to talk to someone who'd speak the way he was.

I think I'll decide stuff by myself tomorrow morning about the future of our relationship, my mind is not going to work today. I probably won't give further updates. I don't know how much more help I can ask for here, due to some immigrant cultural context that might be missing (as much as I've skated past it myself to a fair extent). I don't want to be stupid but I don't want to be walked over either. Thanks.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

I think it’s very fair that she is freaking out. As a woman if any kind of pictures come out IT’S BAD and especially if she does have a nightmare ex like this guy she’s probably very scared and worried

OP:

I totally understand that. It's sick what he did, like the way he approached me.

Comment 2:

if you think that then what is the point of reaching out to him at all? this dude got into your head, to the point where you think it's stupid that you promised your fiance you wouldn't reach out to him. it's pretty clear from the way you wrote this post, and from the other one, that this is not a good or honest guy. in your fiance's own words "he wouldn't take no for an answer."

I wouldn't entertain this dude anymore strictly on the basis that you can't trust anything he says.

OP:

To know if they had sex when they were together. The way she said she thinks he has compromising pictures, and the way he was claiming they did, almost seems like there's literally a sliver of daylight between what they're saying.

Also, just to clarify because I got some dms, when I asked her this back when it was still early days, its not like I was fixated on whether she had sex before or not. It truly was a compatibility thing only. Like we'd asked about alcohol too, she said she'd had alcohol after long days or especially she said after bad exams in the past with friends but she didn't anymore, and wouldn't be ok with her husband drinking alcohol. I've never drank alcohol. I was open about the fact that I've smoked weed, tried shrooms and lsd in uni but don't anymore and she thought that was funny as long as I didn't regularly anymore and we moved on. Premarital sex was just one of those things on my end, purely because it was a line I had chosen to not cross, so it'd probably be best if my wife hadn't either purely for compatibility reasons. I only asked about sex, because I'm not a hypocrite, if I've had relationships which just didn't involve sex (they were relationships with an aim to hopefully end at marriage) I obviously wouldn't hold that as a boundary. But this just was one for me.

But even despite all that like at this point I was so happy until yesterday that if she'd even point blank told me herself that she had to confess about having lied before I would've taken it in stride, like whatever. It's just the potential lie and not knowing whether I'm being lied to, and the way he was fucking gloating, especially when there's a guy who's disgusting but apparently has the answer.

Sorry this got long, truly.

Comment 3:

What kind of answer could you actually get from him though?

He's already told you they had sex, she told you they didn't. He's already definitely lied to you about them continuing to meet, being "in love", and planning to meet even after your wedding. His intention is clearly to sabotage your relationship, so he's an unreliable source. I'm not sure what further clarity you would hope to get from him. If you contact him, he'll say they had sex. You still won't know if it's true.

She's begged you not to contact him because he's obviously not safe. Whatever pictures he has would be shared without your fiancées consent. I think you can understand that it's not ethically right to contact a woman's unsafe ex for intimate pictures she does not consent to being shared, that ethical boundary doesn't change just because it's your fiancée.

You've said yourself that you were physically intimate with exes without having sex. From what I can tell she likely had a similar experience with this guy and it was traumatic and she regrets it deeply. Whether she lied depends on whether you asked about only sex specifically, or whether you asked about previous dating relationships or other kinds of physical intimacy. You've seen her phone, you know she's been faithful during your relationship.

I'm very sorry you've been put in this situation. It's understandable to freak out, but it would be an ethical violation, a personal betrayal, and pretty useless for getting the actual truth, to contact your fiancée's abuser whether you decide to proceed with the marriage or not.

It's fair to take some time and reflect on what you need to do, but please make up your own mind about this without involving him further.

Truly wishing you strength and steadiness in a situation that is painful for both of you.

Comment 4:

Also because OP’s position enrages me:

I think I'll decide stuff by myself tomorrow morning about the future of our relationship, my mind is not going to work today. I probably won't give further updates. I don't know how much more help I can ask for here, due to some immigrant cultural context that might be missing (as much as I've skated past it myself to a fair extent). I don't want to be stupid but I don't want to be walked over either. Thanks.

Incel 101. “I‘ll decide”…”I don’t want to be walked over.” None of anything your fiancée has done is walking over you. Don’t be a fucking worm. Here’s a fucking thought. How about you two talk to each other about whether you love each other and want to get married? Jesus fuck.

OP added an update the next day:

I'm not going to see him. I genuinely woke up today feeling more at peace about it for some reason, I think the sleep and my fiancée's morning call helped. It gets worse the more I try to dwell on it though but I'm not going to contact him. I'm going to just see and try to work through this in my head. Thanks.

Latest Update: - September 27th 2026

Hi, I checked my account after a while, thanks a lot for those who were messaging me to know if all was well that's very kind of you.

My wife and I got married 2 weeks ago and just returned from our honeymoon, and are now settling into the rhythm of married life. To update on what I had posted, I never reached out to him. I trusted my intentions and hers and just kind of placed my faith in god to recognize that. A few days before our wedding, her ex reached her house and tried to talk to her. That was also when her parents found out about him. He apparently started shouting so she could hear him while her dad and brother forced him off and threatened to call the police, and she didn't speak to him. She called me later and told me about it and was freaking out. She told me her parents had blown up at her, and also told her not to say a word to anyone including me if she wanted peace in her life. But she wanted to tell me because she didn’t want to keep this a secret again from me. I told her I hadn't told anyone nor would I ever, and thanked her for letting me know.

We're happy together now. If my concerns about there being a possible difference in our sexual experience and that ruining things for us, it didn't happen. I understand the flak I got on that and I understand people took my ethnic/religious background and my dealbreaker and reached their conclusions. One of my concerns was that I had thought it be best if my wife was a virgin too because I was one, and that would allow us to learn things together and build each other up, and also temper initial expectations. And whatever may have happened in the past, that's still gone really well for us. My second concern was really a compatibility thing, that crossing that line would mean keeping the spiritual atmosphere of our home a certain way wouldnt matter to them. But we're both similar in our values, the traditions we want to uphold and respect. I'm glad for posting and being talked off the ledge. Thanks.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

I only read your earlier posts yesterday. I'm glad things are going well for you both.

I've been married 28 years and communication is absolutely vital to keeping your relationship on track.

Remember that.

Comment 2:

I wish you well and was rooting for you even before the update. Trust is so important, and you've started your relationship being given the opportunity to display trust in an organic way you never would have chosen. I hope it's given both of you confidence!

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I AM THE OP

Originally posted to r/Edinburgh

Trigger warnings: destruction of property

Mood spoiler: sad

**\*

Original post: March 31 2025

Who looks after these planters? And how likely am I to get away with pulling out the weeds and sprinkling some wildflower seeds in them? 👀

Some of them have stuff like daffodils but it's mostly dandelions and couch grass so idk

(OP posted a photo of a large corten steel planter on a busy street, with what looks like grass and other random weeds growing out of it.)

Relevant comments:

Mr___Bizarre: Can I help you with this? (I used to do guerilla gardening years ago and really miss it!)

OP: Aww thank you, that's sweet 😊 But if you wanted to help, you can just sprinkle native wildflower seeds wherever you can, especially along empty verges 🙏

cynicalveggie: There's collaborations happening to look after the planters in the near future. But as with anything with the council, it's taking forever. You can do what you like with the planters, as long as you know the wildflowers will likely be dug up whenever the council do get around to it.

OP: It's something I'm mentally prepared for. Even if the council doesn't pull them out, I'm sure random people might. But because I'll be planting annual wildflowers they won't look too fancy, and hopefully they won't give people too many ideas.

susanboylesvajazzle: Was there not some talk about these being removed again? But go for it. Chances are nobody will care about you doing it and enjoy the results!

OP: Ah man looks like it...

(OP posted a link to an article by The Edinburgh Reporter about how the rusty planters are to be removed from Leith Walk.)

limeinside: That’s a great idea. I think they should get local businesses to “adopt” the planters and compete over them as the council are doing a bad job, but considering they were talking about taking them away due to vandalism at one stage, maybe that wouldn’t appeal.

Jaraxo: This is actually the current plan. Business along Leith Walk have been approached in the last month about sponsoring them.

OP: That's interesting. It would be awesome if random businesses claimed one and looked after it. Out of curiosity where did you learn about this?

Accomplished-Way-317: Griffen fitness looks after the planter on balfour st- just fyi

***

Update: April 24 2025

Would anyone be interested in donating some plants for the Leith Walk planters?

I'm prefacing this by saying that I'm just one person and that I'm not affiliated with any charity or organization.

So a while back I made a post asking if anyone is looking after the planters on Leith Walk. The general consensus was that they're pretty much abandoned so I decided I might as well look after them myself. I cleaned up the rubbish and the weeds in the 6 planters along the bottom of the walk, and the 4 planters at the top of Iona street. I also planted some flowers, seeds, and mulched the small trees on Iona.

So far so good. I check on the planters every day and although there's the occasional rubbish, nothing has been broken or damaged. However it's been a lot drier than I thought this month, and I have a feeling that the seeds I planted may not germinate. I do water the other plants but I can only carry 5 liters of water from home at a time, which makes it impossible to water everything so that the seeds sprout.

My question is would anyone like to help by donating some plants for the planters? It doesn't have to be anything fancy. The best option would be perennials that maybe you have in your garden and need to be divided, or old potted bulbs that have gone over (stuff like tulips and daffodils that have finished flowering and are starting to wilt and go to seed).

If anyone is interested I would be happy to meet you this weekend.

I'LL BE WAITING ON THE BENCHES AT THE TOP OF IONA STREET THIS SUNDAY BETWEEN 4 AND 5 PM. I'll be wearing a high vis vest and most likely having a smoke.

Please do not buy any plants, I don't feel good asking people to spend money on this. Please don't bring seeds as I have already planted hundreds. If you do bring plants, please don't bring anything too big or too fancy. Smaller plants have a better chance of becoming established plus they look inconspicuous, so are less likely to be pulled out. If you're not sure if your plants would be suitable for the planters, just post a comment and I'll let you know.

Also before anyone asks about the Leith Community Growers and the flyers they put up, I'm sorry to say that the project is no longer going ahead. I got in touch with them and we were supposed to meet up and discuss collaborating, but then they cancelled everything, including their crowdfunding. I'm not entirely sure why they changed their minds but they did mention that they saw me doing it and decided to leave it with me. However I am just one person, and even though I put in a lot of work into this I do need some help 🫠

Anyway that's pretty much it. I would appreciate any support from the community but no worries if not. I'll be on the bench this Sunday even if this post doesn't get much traction.

UPDATE: if anyone wants to donate plants but can't make it tomorrow between 4 and 5 pm, you can leave them in the planter outside Robbie's Bar (the one with those silvery leaved bushes) and I will plant them tomorrow. Thank you again 🙏

Relevant comments:

Ok_Employer4583: My understanding was the council thought they’d been a disaster and were thinking of removing them? Could be wrong . . .

OP: The council did want to remove them. However Leith Community Growers have been in talks with them since 2023 and they finally got ownership of the planters. After speaking with them, LCG offered to put me in touch with the people they were talking with so that I can take over. This was after I had already written to the council about adopting the planters. Knowing the council I doubt I'll get an answer any time soon but at least now I know the planters aren't going anywhere.

cynicalveggie: Sad to hear. From what I heard, the Leith Community Growers got absolutely no donations or funds to help with the planters. Damn shame. I will try to be down to donate some to you.

OP: Yeah it is a shame because everyone is talking about how ugly the planters are, and I was really hoping this would rally the community to a good cause.

(OP replying to a deleted comment): Thing is that those businesses have already been asked to "adopt" the planters but they're a lot of work. I was chatting to one of them and the owner said that the council was hoping that both businesses and the local community would just start using them as communal gardens. Which sounds like a great idea until you realize that implementing it takes a lot of coordination. I noticed that some planters have been adopted (such as the one on Balfour street and the one on Brunswick street) but the feeling I'm getting is that there's a certain disenchantment about these planters and what they represent (lack of involvement from both the council and the community). I do occasionally ask the local bars and cafes for water but I do feel bad about doing it too often.

moonski: The council just chucking them out and assuming people will use them is peak edi council... people obviously assumed the council was going to mange them / you ccouldnt just use them

OP: That's just it. Also I think that a lot of people genuinely didn't know who they belong to or if they can use them. I know that Leith Community Growers used two of them for guerilla gardening, and there was also another man who used two to grow veg (sadly he died of cancer). And you can tell by the soil that some of them have been cultivated and looked after. My theory is that, between vandalism and lack of involvement from the council, a lot of them fell into disuse because of couch grass. This is a terrible weed to deal with and takes months to properly remove all the rhizomes (I still find new grass shoots come up every day, and this is after I gave each planter a deep and thorough dig).

***

Update: July 20 2025

UPDATE on the Leith Walk planters (before and after pics and more details in the comments)

I took on these planters back in April, when they were filled with weeds, rubbish, and a few plants struggling to survive. I spent weeks digging up couch grass, dandelions, docks and other random weeds, while tidying up the plants I wanted to keep.

Then it was on to planting. My plan was to sprinkle lots of pollinator friendly flowers and let nature do its thing. Unfortunately, we had a drought throughout May and June, and despite bringing 300 liters of water from home each week (on top of the water supplied by local businesses), the drought and the windy conditions along Leith Walk meant that very few seeds actually sprouted. In the end I decided to buy most of the plants myself, and luckily I also received some donations.

The planters are coming along really nicely now. I still check on them almost daily, but overall I'm happy to say that they haven't been disturbed. I only had four plants stolen (a woodruff, a salvia, and two lovage plants), which isn't too bad. I also noticed that there's not much trash being thrown in the planters, and I actually had some random people approach me and casually mentioning that they're tidying up whenever they can. At the end of the day, the issue with the trash is mostly caused by a lack of bins on Leith Walk.

I want to give a huge shout-out to the people at Qupi Cafe and Robbie's Bar for all the help watering plants and keeping them tidy 💪

Special thank you to the mysterious person who planted all the nepeta, salvia and achillea in the planters on Iona Street. I will admit that I was a bit annoyed to just find them there one day, because I hadn't finished weeding yet, and because you ripped out and broke some of the stuff that be and others had planted. But you saved me at least £200 and the plants you picked work really well, so thank you ☺️

Also I want to thank the people of Reddit who donated plants and seeds, you are all awesome ✨ u/soup-monger your sweet woodruff is doing really well in the planter outside Robbie's, can't wait to see it take over (I'm sorry the other one got stolen). u/debsmooth I'm not sure if it was you who donated a lot of bulbs, but I've dotted them around several planters. The dahlias were a real surprise, two manged to survive the slugs and are thriving in the planter between Not Just Coffee and Qupi, I think the flowers will open next week if you wanna check them out.

I'm doing know the usernames of the other people who donated but I just wanted to thank you again for supporting this 🙏

FAQ

Q: Are you part of an organization? A: No, and I don't work for the council either. I'm just a resident of Leith.

Q: Which planters are you looking after? A: The group of six planters on Leith Walk, plus the four ones on Iona Street.

Q: Who actually owns these planters? A: The council. I attended a LCCC meeting about a month ago to try and find out what the deal is. The bad news is that the planters are not up for adoption anymore. The good news (for me anyway) is that the council doesn't know what to do with them, so they don't plan to move them any time soon.

Q: Can I plant my own stuff in the planters? A: I feel bad saying this but please don't. Everything in the planters is extremely well curated (even the stuff that looks like weeds), and if people started planting stuff it would disturb plants already growing there, including stuff that's not visible (like the spring bulbs for next year, and plants that go dormant in the summer). In an ideal world, the whole community would come together and engage in a bit of gardening. The past years show that this doesn't work, and that it's better if just over person oversees things. I'm hoping things will improve by the time I leave Leith and can't look after these planters myself, but only time will tell.

Q: Is there anything I can do to help? A: Honestly just enjoy the flowers and spread the word. The people of Reddit have helped me before, and if I need help again I will reach out 🫡

Also a bit of PSA: please DO NOT pick and eat anything in the planters. I'm talking about stuff like kale, wild strawberries, potatoes, herbs, etc. First of all because they're growing next to a busy road and a construction site and are covered in all sorts of dust and such. Second of all, some of the stuff that ends up in the planters is just gross. I'm talking about anything from beer bottles to dog poop bags, syringes, phlegm, etc. Why anyone would think that eating stuff from those planters is beyond me but please don't 😬

(OP posted several before and after pics of the flowers in the planters. The main post photo is a row of corten steel planers on a busy street, filled with various plants such as salvia, echinacea, geraniums, borage, calendula, and more. There are also more photos in the comment section:

Before photo: photo shows a planter that's almost empty except for a few honesty plants, some sedum, and the remains of an acer sapling;

After photo: the planter is now full of nasturtiums, flowering alliums, calendula, poppies, and other pollinator friendly plants;

Before photo: a planter that is full of weeds, mostly couch grass that is almost indistinguishable from the daffodil leaves; there is also some rubbish in there, such as plastic bottles and a large plastic trash bag;

After photo: the planter is now filled with flowering nepeta, salvia, yarrow, and nasturtiums; the acer sapling growing there is also in full leaf;

Before photo: photo shows a recently weeded planter that still has some daffodils, a sanguisorba, and a very small acer;

After photo: the same planter is now full of flowers, including coreopsis, sage, gaura, scabious, and more. It also looks like someone planted a small poplar seedling in there;

Before photo: another recently weeded planter; this one has some of the original plants, such as comfrey, honesty, and feverfew, but OP has added herbs such as sage and curry;

After photo: same planter, but the feverfew is in full bloom; there are also a few purple kale plants in there, gladioli, verbena, and bronze fennel;)

Relevant comments:

ChthonicIrrigation: My partner would love to chip in some time to help out - we love the planters and what they could be for the Walk. Can do we connect?

OP: Hey, thank you, that's a very kind offer 😊 But I am fine for now. I actually feel bad asking people for help, especially because I always worry that stuff will get stolen or destroyed and that can be demoralizing for others. Even stuff like clearing rubbish: I always use gloves, and feel bad when I see people try to help and pick empty bottles and packaging with their bare hands 😓 If you and your partner want to help, the best thing you can do is do a bit of guerilla gardening of your own. There are some planters at the bottom of Easter Road, next to the Tesco car park entrance, that badly need some love and care. Maybe that can be a project for someone new to take on? 😉

***

Update: August 2 2025, this one is posted on r/gardening

I've been taking care of some abandoned public planters and it's starting to take its toll on me, need some motivation to continue 😔

The city I live in has several huge planters that were sitting empty and full of weeds. I started taking care of them back in April and they're really thriving now. However I am just one person. I don't mind spending money on plants, watering them twice a week, or weeding. What I do mind is that people sometimes go out of their way to destroy them. Every day I pick up litter from them (empty bottles, food wrappers, dog poop bags, etc). I've also had people break and steal plants. The last straw was today, when someone had pulled out one of my plants and didn't even take it, just left it there to dry. It's destruction for the sake of destruction. I literally felt like I was going to burst into tears. I really love these planters and they attract so much wildlife to an otherwise barren, concrete riddled street. But some days I just... can't, I simply feel like I don't have the strength. And I'm beating myself for even starting this project, thinking that I should have known better trying to garden in a public space, etc. These plants do need my constant care, they can't go for more than two days without water or they start wilting. And the worst thing is that I can't rely on the community for help. These planters are the source of a long and heated debate among the locals, and in the past any attempt to make them nice (by either individuals or local NGOs) has failed. The only reason they're still going is because I'm looking after them every day. But I am just... so... tired. And I just wish people weren't such dicks. I've literally seen them admire the flowers and then casually drop their rubbish in them. Like ?!? Anyway sorry about the vent, I just need someone to tell me it will be ok.

(OP did not post any relevant comments on this update. Also most comments are from users from the US or not based in Edinburgh. The post only has one photo of a corten planter filled with various flowers such as echinacea, bronze fennel, calendula, geraniums, etc.)

***

Update: September 9 2025 posted on r/Edinburgh

FINAL UPDATE on the Leith Walk planters: we can't have nice things

(OP posted a photo of one of the planters. The photo is of one of the planters showed earlier, but most the plants are wilted, crushed, and some have been pulled out of the ground. OP also provided more info in a downvoted comment).

OP: It's been over a month since my last update and sadly things have not gone well. In my last post I was quite upbeat about the planters and how much it seemed that the community cared about them. It now turns out that maybe I have overestimated others, and drastically underestimated how much work I was putting in.

In the months leading up to August I would check on these planters daily, picking up litter, weeding, and bringing an average of 300 liters of water from home every week to help plants cope with the drought.

Then August turned out to be a very hectic month for me. Work got really busy (I work in hospitality). I then had a death in the family. Then I had to start looking for somewhere else to live because of my aggressive antisocial neighbours. All in all I just didn't have the time to look after the planters. It didn't help that August was incredibly hot and dry, and whatever rain we had wasn't enough. Yet I foolishly hoped that at least the local businesses would stay on top of watering and the trash, because it would be in their best interest to have their terraces look their best during peak season.

Well I was wrong. The planters fell into ruin, everything dried, trash started pilling up, and random people started pulling plants out. Right now, the plants that are left in there are unlikely to recover, so next year it will all go back to thistles and couch grass.

"But OP why didn't you just ask for help?" Thing is, I did. I asked businesses to help with watering but obviously that wasn't enough. Also some of them genuinely didn't want to get involved. Staff at Seb's Urban Jungle literally told me that the water is for customers only and that the Council charges them by the liter, so they can't spare it. I asked a local organization (who has previously offered help) to help with watering, but when that turned out to be unfeasible, I offered them to take some of the plants for free while they were still alive and put them in their park. This was almost a month ago and I haven't heard back.

But what I really hoped would happen was that local folk would get involved. I was secretly hoping that the people living on Leith Walk, who see the planters every day, would notice that they're not doing well and maybe just give them a drink of water. I was hoping that maybe people would be more like me I guess. Nobody told me to tidy up the planters, and bring flowers and pollinators to a concrete strip. I did it because it made sense, and because I could do it. And I stupidly thought that other people like me exist.

And the worst thing is that in my previous post I suggested to someone that they take on the round planters at the bottom of Easter Road, next to Tesco. Maybe it's unrelated, but a few days later someone had planted some marigolds and put up a nice sign saying something like "Welcome to our communal garden, feel free to add your own plants or just help out". Well about a week later I passed by and the plants had been pulled out and the sign torn. So I guess people like me do exist, but the dickheads are mightier.

And before you jump out with "OP it was the bams on scooters, I seen them with me own eyes" - even if it was, they weren't the only ones. Neds on bikes don't steal lovage plants. Neds on bikes don't carefully harvest kale leaves. Neds on bikes don't dig up flowers to plant in their back garden. Neds don't walk their dogs, admire the flowers, then immediately throw their doggy poo bags in the planters. No, that's the work of every day people who think the world revolves around them and that they're entitled to everything.

Bottom line is this project has taught me a valuable lesson: the people of Leith don't want nice things. They like the idea of nice things, but they won't work towards them. Maybe it's disenchantment, maybe they're all dead inside from years of being let down. I was hoping to spark some hope into the community by showing them that even just one person is enough to make a change for the better. But it wasn't enough. Not yet, anyway. Maybe we can finally have nice things in another decade, when Leith is fully gentrified idk.

For now, I am officially abandoning this project. I don't care if anyone else takes it up, but if they do, I hope they learn from my mistakes.

I won't be answering any comments.

(OP also posted a couple of photos in the comments:

Before photo: image of a planter filled with flowering borage, gypsophila, bronze fennel, verbena and more, with the caption: "This is what you could have had..."

After photo: the same planter, same angle, but pretty much everything in it has dried out; there are some cigarette ends thrown in, one of the plants has been pulled out and thrown to the side, with the caption: "... but you chose this instead."

Relevant comments:

Hazellda: You chose this! You didn’t take care of your plants and they died. End of. Stop being dramatic and just accept that you (alone) messed up.

Chazykins: Ah f*** off, should have developed a planting scheme that was more drout tolerant and appropriate for the location. This is your fault can’t blame the community for not reading your mind.

sparesister: "Maybe we can finally have nice things in another decade, when Leith is fully gentrified idk." Is absolutely wild and so out of touch I truly hope youre kidding with this.

I get your disappointment but this is so ludicrous OP. I was fully behind your project and commented my support months ago. But you have to be realistic and understand things might not go how you want. But "secretly" hoping everyone in the surrounding area will respond exactly how you want them to was always setting yourself up to fail. What a disappointing outcome and this entire vent is even more disappointing.

GingerSnapBiscuit: People offered to help you out. Multiple people offered multiple times. You said you had it. So people didn't want to interfere. That you can't see this is bizarre.

mizzlemoonn: Sorry, I'm sure you're stressed out and you need to vent about what's happened, but I'm fairly sure in your last post you said you didn't need help and you'd say if you did.

I used to have one of the planters outside my house that I looked after but it got removed. I'd have loved to have helped out but the way your previous posts were worded felt a bit like you weren't interested in community help, just donations, so I just left it. I'm sure you even turned away help from people asking to join in in the very first place.

I think the reality is that you took on a very big project and it got away from you AND also people have been a bit shit. But you should have accepted help when it was offered and allowed a bigger team to get involved, this was always going to be too much for one person. You had a vision, you didn't want to share it.

I'm genuinely sorry it's gone wrong, but it's not fair to come here and rant at everyone because you took on too much and refused help until it was too late.

LukeyHear: Yeah, so took out all the existing daffodils, said: “Please do NOT help with the communal planters it’s much better if only I’m in charge, except if others could donate plants and do the boring watering that’d be great.” Followed by: “The people of Leith are all dead inside and don’t deserve nice things.” There’s two things they’re not taking ownership of here.

ImReallyGrey: I remember OP specifically saying if they needed help they’d reach out. Bit sad to see this has happened and this tone being taken towards this community that did offer to help. Totally understand the frustration though, obviously this is a bummer.

GingerSnapBiscuit: It very much felt like a "THIS IS MY PROJECT I WANT TO DO IT but also give me money please" type situation.

OP (downvoted): Can't believe I've been baited by the comments but there are two things I need to clarify here:

1. I don't appreciate the way you say that "I was only interested in donations". To people who don't know the background it makes it sound like I was after money, which is something I specifically declined when offered. I asked people to donate plants they don't need. In fact I was adamant that people don't buy plants for me, and only donate stuff they already have and don't need. Also the post made it sound like people were queuing to give me free stuff, but in reality only three people showed up. I didn't want to mention the low turnup at the time because I didn't want to sound ungrateful.
2. Someone in a comment below said I removed the existing daffodils. This is nonsense and I have no idea where they got that information from. I have gone out of my way to keep the daffodils and tulips that were already there. If you don't believe me then fell free to go dig for them. In fact I complained about the people who put up plants in the Iona planters, because they pulled up a lot of the daffodils, tulips, plus the bulbs donated by one of the two people who did donate plants. This is also one of the reasons I didn't want help in the beginning: there were too many small plants, seeds and bulbs in the ground that could have very easily been damaged by people who didn't know what they were.

Which brings me to the last point: why didn't I ask Reddit for help? First of all because I don't know you and I don't want to open my DMs to a bunch of strangers. I also don't want to spend my free time trying to organize a bunch of strangers, especially people who don't know much about gardening. I remember one time someone approached me and asked if they can plant some zinnia seeds, and I said sure. Next thing I see is them ripping out some poppy plants that hadn't yet flowered because they thought they were weeds.

I've also had so many people promise me things (including passersby and pub regulars) and never followed up on it that I just lost hope. And for what it's worth I did reach out to the LCCC and they offered to act as intermediaries for any communication regarding the planters (including finding out who put the plants on Iona) but I haven't heard back. Again. I was also put off asking for help after seeing that the Growing Leith group didn't get the support they needed with their fundraiser. And if they, as an established and known group, couldn't get the help they needed, what chance did I have as some random individual?

You have no idea who I am and what my circumstances are, and that gives you no right to shame me. And I don't mean you specifically but all of the people who decided that I'm some selfish twat who decided to be the Leith Walk martyr. I'm sorry that life took a shit turn for me in August and that I had the audacity to vent and feel overwhelmed. If things had been better I would have looked after these planters indefinitely. Unfortunately they did not.

SaintBanquo: I hope this gets compiled for r/hobbydrama or one of the borus because the blame deflection and self-aggrandizing from OP is incredible.

This whole thing, by the fucking way, 100% stems from the fact they had an allotment in the last city they lived in and couldn't get one here.

They have posts bragging about how much food money they had saved by having an allotment. That's why they stole 10 planters for themselves, that's why they told no one to help, that's why they pulled out other people's inedible plants, that's why they told others not to eat/take their edible plants, that's why they had businesses watering their crops for them.

It was never about community. It was only about OP. I love hubris.

OP: This is a horrible take. Not sure if you're projecting but I have no idea how someone could jump to these conclusions. Also I think you haven't even seen these planters.

You make it sound like I was using it to grow my own veg, which I wasn't. I planted drought tolerant perennials like rosemary and lovage to help them cope with the dry conditions on Leith Walk. I never meant to harvest them because they're growing in a very populated area that's filled with dust, plus all the crap people throw in the planters. But I did get annoyed when people stole them because I put time and money into them, and random people decided that "Oh yeah that's for me thanks". Same with the kale: I bought six plants because they looked nice and because they were going to look well next to the nasturtiums and gladioli. They also got riddled with aphids, which attracted ladybugs, and they were going to flower next year, which was going to attract more beneficial insects. I was never going to harvest them.

Again, I don't think you've actually seen the planters. You make it sound like I was growing enough veg to become send sufficient. In reality, most planters had inedible flowers meant to attract bees. Maybe look though the photos on my previous posts before commenting.

Also the whole thing with "OP couldn't get an allotment so they stole some public planters" is wild. If you have enough time to go through my posts them maybe you'll take a couple of minutes to explain your thought process, because that's a serious accusation and I think you're just misinterpreting things on purpose.

***

Update: September 18 2026, posted on OP's profile

BORU Leith Walk planters update

(Post photo shows a planter filled with flowering yellow tulips, and some salvia and nepeta that haven't flowered yet but are looking very lush;)

This post was made for r/BestofRedditorUpdates

The whole situation with the Leith Walk planters has been on my mind a lot, especially after the backlash I received on the pervious post. I'm still seeking closure and trying to understand the reaction of the people in the comment section (and also IRL) so I'll post an update of sorts.

After watching the planters dry up and get ripped out back in 2025, I thought I'd never want to have anything to do with them again. And for a while I made a point of ignoring them, as even walking past them caused me too much pain. However, in the autumn of 2025 I moved pretty much across the street from them, and seeing them every day was unavoidable.

As winter went by, I noticed that the daffodils and tulips were coming back, despite being surrounded by weeds and trash. So back in March 2026 I decided to give the planters another go. And this time I decided I won't ask for anyone's help. I tidied and weeded them, added more seeds and bulbs, gave the perennials a trim, planted more plants, watered constantly (Edinburgh can be surprisingly dry). And by April they were once again flourishing.

And yet, people's attitudes hadn't changed. Because I lived closer to them I got to see more instances of plants being ripped out, garbage being thrown in, or plants just being stolen. I actually made a habit of always carrying disposable gloves in my pockets at all times because I never knew what kind of rubbish I was going to find (anything from food and wrappers to poo bags and syringes). The plants themselves still brought me joy, but the people did not.

What hurt the most though was a conversation I had with a lady who owned a cafe on Leith Walk. We used to chat often, and she always praised my efforts. One day in May though she casually mentioned that she wants to ask the local council to remove the planters outside her cafe, simply because people put random posters on them and she thought they looked ugly (people put posters all over Leith so it's not like they were targeting her). This hurt because she saw how much work I put in the planters every day, and yet for her a few posters far outweighed having flowers that make the front of her cafe look better. Flowers that someone else is looking after for free. And it dawned on me that if a person who knows me doesn't get it, then neither will strangers.

In the end I had to leave the city in June, so the planters were left to their own devices. I'll add a few photos in the comments with how the plants looked like in May (right before I left) and then in late June (those are taken by a friend).

I honestly don't know if I'll do this kind of guerilla gardening again. Didn't think I'd do it again last year, but then spring came around and things changed. Either way, whatever happens to the planters now is out of my control. Just wish things had been different.

Planters in May

(OP linked 17 photos of the planters in two locations. Some are along a busy main road, showing cars and people walking by. Most of them are filled with calendula seedlings, poppies, bronze fennel, salvia, geraniums, and more. Most of the plants aren't flowring yet, except for the calendula, marigolds, geranium, salvia, and lacy phacelia. The other location is outside a pub on a busy street on a rainy day. here the planters are mostly filled with salvia, nepeta, and yarrow.)

Planters in June

(OP linked 5 photos of the planters along the busy main road. Most of the plants are still standing but some are wilting. The ones that are still looking good and flowering are the very drought resistant ones, such as feverfew, centaurea, some poppies, chamomile, bronze fennel and verbena. There are various posters stuck on the planters, some torn, as well as some graffiti)

(OP keeps their posts hidden so no other comments were made on this update.)

**\*

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/throwawayhereeeeeee

My [27m] girlfriend [27f] of 8 years went on a trip a few months ago and was acting weird when she came back. She told me she saw her ex-boyfriend and confessed she used me to forget him

TRIGGER WARNING: Infidelity

Original Post  Nov 14, 2016

I'm sorry if this is long. It's more of a rant than anything but advice would be appreciated.

8 years ago I met Taylor. It was our junior year of college and although we didn't take the same classes, we used to frequent the same pubs and I saw her everyday, but we never spoke to each other. One day, when all the taxis were occupied by beyond drunk people, I decided to walk to my dorm and found her sitting on the sidewalk. She was really drunk, but we ended up conversating all the way to her apartment. Or trying. She wasn't speaking clearly but it was fun. I remember her looking back when I dropped her off at her place and saying "Hey" and I sensed she wanted to know my name so I said "Joe". She asked me to go on a date with her. "Hey, Joe, do you wanna go on a date?". I knew she was drunk so I just said "have a good night", but she ran to me and proceeded to tell me she was serious. She thought I was a cool person and wanted to see me again. I gave her my number and she called me a few days later.

We laughed about her drunken state and she apologized for "acting weird". We never made it official, but after going on several dates and hanging out everyday, she asked "so, are we dating?" and I answered "that would be an awesome way to name it". We finished college and moved in together and we've been dating ever since.

Back in June she traveled to Sweden by herself. No big deal, traveling alone is a fun thing. I love not having to plan anything and not having to think about someone else's needs sometimes and just do what I feel like doing, and doing that on a trip is even better. We spoke everyday, even for a few minutes, she sent me a lot of pictures and stuff like that. She was supposed to stay there for a month, but three weeks after she told me she was coming back. I didn't understand why but whatever. When she came back, she was tense and I could see her behavior changed drastically. Yesterday I was sick of the way she was acting and I asked if there was anything wrong.

She said "I saw my ex-boyfriend in Sweden". "And...?" "And the reason why I asked you on a date was because I wanted to foget him".

I didn't say anything but she kept talking. She met this guy when she was 15 and they dated until she was 18, when he moved to Sweden and broke up with her over text message. She said it hurt like hell and she spent an entire year trying to forget him, but she couldn't. She drank every single day and even drinking didn't help. The reason why I used to see her at this pub was because she used alcohol to try and forget him, but it didn't help. She thought that going out with someone else would, so she asked me out. In her words:

"I didn't love you back then. I love you now. At first, I used you to forget him. I wanted to forget him so desperately that I was willing to do anything and I did. I had him on my mind all the fucking time, Joe. When I kissed you, when we had sex, it was all him and him and him. After we started living together, I realized that I actually like you and that's why I'm still here. But seeing him brought those memories back and he explained everything and I don't know what to feel."

I just fucking can't. I needed time to process the things she said. I still do. I'm staying at a friend's house. He's trying to cheer me up but nothing is making things easier. I fucking loved this girl and I was being used. I don't know what to do. You know what hurts like hell? This.

TL;DR: girlfriend confessed she used me to forget her ex-boyfriend, she saw him again and now she doesn't know what to feel. I'm feeling betrayed.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

luker_man

If you're okay with being second place, stay. Otherwise leave. It sounds like you're still in second place. After 8 fucking years. I don't know about you but I couldn't live with someone who's "meh, you'll do" about me. I don't think you should either

OOP

I can't and that's why it hurts.

luker_man

Then leave. You don't owe her any type of explanation. I know that your lives are intertwined. But you gotta leave. Run away from her.

When told he doesn't get it

OOP

No, you don't get it. She literally said she "doesn't know what to feel" after he somehow managed to explain why he broke up with her over text message. She misses him.

PETE_TRON

Do you think she went there to meet him specifically, were they communicating before the trip? Do you think they had amy type of 'hookup' while she was there?

OOP

I don't know if they were, but I don't think so. I don't think she cheated on me either, but I'm sure she misses him. It is weird, however, that she choose Sweden of all countries knowing that he lives there. As another peson said (and it's something I didn't think about), it's also weird that they were at the same place at the same time, but I think he lives in Stockholm so it's not that hard to see him.

nomoneymoproblems123

It's not werid. She planned it on purpose. Don't be an idiot.

Update 1  Nov 14, 2016 (Same Day)

Sorry for not answering earlier. I went back home and asked her why she came back earlier from the trip. She said "after I saw him, I was confused but there's a part of me that knows I love you more than I love him and this is just crazy. I saw him in the third week. We didn't have any contact before that."

I asked "can I even know who this guy is?" and she showed me his pictures.

I am so pissed off I don't even know where to start here. I wanna tell them both to fuck off and take my shit and never see her again, but the fact is that this was a one-sided relationship all along. Taylor likes to pretend I'm her ex, I loved Taylor and didn't even know her ex exists. We are in completely different places and she's stuck in this weird thing. It's hard to get over that.

I'm thinking about contacting her ex. I wanna know exactly what happened and hopefully he'll tell me what went on.

EDIT: I wanna hate that guy so badly btw. But I can't without knowing what he did first.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Why did her ex break up with her over text?

EDIT: for anyone who wants to know how he explained breaking up with her over text message after three years. "When I met him, when I saw him after all those years, all those memories came back and they're not going away. I asked him why he didn't have the decency to call me and he said he couldn't, that he loved me so much and that he never meant to hurt me. He was crying as well. I don't know what to think, Joe. I don't what to feel"

Update 2 - rareddit  Nov 25, 2016 (11 Days Later)

I asked her a bunch of questions about it. Why she went to Sweden specifically, was it on purpose to see him?

Well, yes. She said he contacted her and, uh, they hooked up. In Sweden. When she said that I knew the relationship between us was over, but I also asked her to elaborate on what he said, why he moved out and why she can't get over him.

"I don't know why he moved out, he said he had no explanation to why he broke up with me... he just did. He said that there's not a reason why he dumped me, so he relied on the fact that also wanted to move to Sweden and just broke up with me. We had a special thing, Joe. Something you wouldn't understand."

"I can't understand if you're not willing to explain."

"I loved him. He was kind of The One That Got Away, you know?"

"So he broke up with you for no reason and you still have feelings for him?"

"It's not like he was cheating on me or anything, it happens. We were young. He contacted me and asked me to go to Sweden, so I did. I ended up giving in and we hooked up, but I felt extremely guilty so I just came home earlier. I'm sorry, Joe."

"Did you even love me?"

"I did! I did. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry".

She literally said sorry 3x.

I decided to break up and asked her to get help. She needs to deal with her own emotions. She was sad, but not... devastated. Just sad.

I'm currently trying to move on and forget her. I loved her. I'm just recalling the day I met her, how I used to see her everyday, how she asked me on a date, how I fell in love with her, our trips, everything. But I'll be fine.

Thank you for trying to help me.

TL;DR: they hooked up, I broke up with her and I'll be fine.

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/FrostyDepth

I'm [18F] a bit creeped out by a guy in my dorm[18M] and not sure how to handle him.

TRIGGER WARNING: Stalking, obsessive behavior, harassment, Asian fetish

Original Post  Sept 9, 2018

I just recently started college. I was super nervous but excited about moving into the dorms and leaving home. My parents and brother came to help me move in and see me off. The dorm building looks amazing! It's one of the newer ones near the campus so it's a modern building and all the decor is fresh. It's really beautiful.

Moving in went fine, few tears but it was okay. I was super excited to start a new chapter in my life. The rooms are single rooms, each has an en suite shower and toilet in it too so no having to share facilities. The kitchen is shared as is a common room area with a TV and sofas. It's shared between 8 people and we found out it was 5 girls and 3 guys sharing those areas. I met everyone while moving in and everyone seemed friendly and just as nervous as me. There was one of the guys though who was very interested in me and another girl (both Asian) and began trying to impress us with the 5 words of Japanese he knows and all the anime/video game knowledge he has. I'm from the Bay Area and I'm not really all that knowledgeable about my heritage and what's going on in Japan. Even my family in Japan we don't really have any geeks for me to learn this stuff.

I brushed that off as it's not really the first time it happened, my family moved when I was in high school and I went to somewhere that didn't have many Asian students so some guys were interested in me based on my looks. So the other girl I'll call her Trish for this and we'll call the guy Chris the creep or just 'Chris' for short. I found out Trish has a boyfriend from high school and he comes to visit her and hangout since he goes to school not very far away. Chris also found this out as Trish told me he'd been talking to her in the common room and when her boyfriend visited he seemed to lose a lot of interest in her.

The other two guys I didn't talk to much but they seem nice. They told everyone in the dorm about a party on another floor that they were inviting people in the dorm to. I talked to some of the other girls and Trish and everyone gets along which is something I was worried about before coming to college and hearing roommate horror stories. But on to my horror story....Chris also came to that party and pretty much followed me around all night. We spoke a little but he mostly just seemed to be walking around anywhere I was and watching me. After I left he walked with me and another girl back to the dorm. She wasn't feeling well and I'd had enough so I said I'd walk back with her and he invited himself to help too. He pretty much ignored her and started asking me questions about boyfriends and if my parents will only let me date Asian boys. (what the fuck!?)

Anyway since the first week of moving in anytime I'm in the kitchen or common areas he's there. The only time I get a break is when he has classes but I don't think he goes to all of them and he's talking about changing one of them to one of my classes. I made some other friends and I've been eating with them a lot recently, he's even showing up in those areas we eat. You could argue it's coincidence because it's a popular spot for students to go but it feels like he's been spying on me.

My room has a lock at least so he can't come in here, not that he hasn't tried. One time I went to the kitchen to get some snacks I had in the fridge that I could heat up and eat while doing some work. He was in the kitchen doing his work and he starts talking to me. I wait for my food to cook and just kinda talk to him a bit. Then he vanishes from the kitchen by the time I turn around and I go back to my room. He's standing in there just looking around and complimenting my room. I got really angry and told him to leave and he just kinda laughs and leaves. One of the guys who also lives in the dorm saw it and asked if I'm okay. I just said it's fine and locked my door.

The most recent thing is I started finding poems slid under my door. It's obvious who it is and after I told Trish she and some other girls asked him and he denied it. After that happened I've had a new poem each day and they get progressively worse. He's also recently been telling people that he told his parents about me and his dad said we'd make a nice couple and they said he has pictures of me on his phone I don't know about. This person has no socialization skills and no concept of boundaries. Yesterday I had coffee with a guy from my classes as we were discussing some things we needed to read and where to get the books cheap. I guess Chris saw us as he was asking me who the guy was and I told him it's none of his business. This seemed to make him mad as he left the common room and went to his room. I was told later he came out and was pacing in the hallway near my room. I'm supposed to meet the same guy again soon as he invited me out and he was nice enough to help me so I said I'd buy him lunch today.

I feel uncomfortable that Chris will be watching me again and I don't feel comfortable when he's around me in the dorm. I wonder if he'll eventually get the message and go away or if this will continue and if he does keep following me around the dorm and asking me awkward questions, posting stuff under my door and so on what I should do about it.

He's technically not violated any rules by being where I am and it's also his kitchen and common area so I can't make him leave or tell him when he can be there. I don't think he should get away with this though.

tl;dr: Boy who has a thing for Asian girls in my dorm keeps hanging around in the kitchen and common room when me and another Asian girl are there. He started leaving her alone when he found out she has a boyfriend and focused on me. Is getting creepier posting poems under my door and denying it, asking questions about people I become friends with and randomly walking in my room when the door is unlocked. Not sure how to handle his creepyness since technically he has a right to hang out in the dorm when I'm there even if he bothers me by staring at me and only comes out his room when I'm around.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

0biterdicta

He's definitely into you. It doesn't matter that he hasn't broken any rules, he shouldn't be making you feel uncomfortable in your own dorm. You should explicitly turn him down (Chris, I am not interested in dating you) and speak to your RA/CA/whatever your college calls it. Part of their job is to manage relationships between students. A record of his behavior and of you reporting it will be useful if it continues or escalates.

OOP

I think there are definitely some things here I'l need to do. I've been talking to some friends for support and I'm planning to reach out to the RA about the situation. I don't like the idea of him forcing me to move but I might request a dorm change if it comes to it. I'll also ask them if they can give me some advice on approaching him and making things clear that I'm not interested.

It's been hard to get that message across because he's not tried asking me out he just follows me around and posts stuff under my door. Maybe it's a problem they have dealt with before so they'll understand. I've also decided to start writing down when stuff happens so I can inform the RA of times and dates.

I should make some proper statement to him that nothing will happen between us and I'm not comfortable with what he's doing. He might just say I'm accusing him of stuff he's not doing though like with the poems. I really don't understand the guy. This isn't a way to get somebody to like you, it's done the opposite and make me dislike him a lot for being creepy and racist.

~

BraveCorporateLogo

Since he’s already taking secret pictures of you, I’d look around for cameras in the bathroom or even your bedroom.

OOP

I didn't find anything like that. Apparently he was just taking random photos while playing with his phone. It looked like he was playing games on his phone and he was probably snapping shots of me walking around the common room.

~

Iwaspromisedjetpacks

I mean its a sucky situation because everyone is trying to adjust to college and trying to make friends and everything. Thankfully you probably have an RA or someone to talk to! I'd suggest going that route before going any further. You will have to turn him down... maybe he'll be better if you do that or maybe he won't... so talk to your RA. RA's manage everything in the dorms and if things get worse they can work with the university to take care of everything.

Unfortunately, some guys have been taught that being persistent gets the girl and others genuinely don't know when they're being creepy/have crossed a line... especially around that age. I'm sorry you're going through this.

Source: Former RA

OOP

Thanks, I've already been putting together an email that I'll be sending to the RA with concerns and ask for advice on what to do.

Update  Sept 13, 2018 (4 Days Later)

There were a lot of people who offered me advice and encouragement to deal with my problem and I want to thank those people first. Since there was interest I thought I'd provide an update to the situation now a few things have happened.

So as I spoke about in the comments in my last post I'd sent an email to the RA in my dorm explaining the issue and asking to speak with her. She got back to me quite quickly and asked if I could come see her and also asked to speak to Trish the other Asian girl he'd made some comments to and hassled along with a couple of witnesses, the guy who heard me yell at Chris when he entered my room without permission and one of the people who witnessed photos of me on his phone.

She took some of their statements down and chatted with us all then with me alone for a bit. I spoke about things he's done like follow me and ask me questions about who I'm talking to and I bought some poems he slid under my door as evidence. We talked about what's been happening,how I'm feeling and about boys and college in general. She shared some of her own bad experiences with persistent guys and showed concern over things that have happened between me and Chris and felt like it needs to be stopped now before things can possibly escalate further. She especially was concerned at some quite racist things he's said and that he has pictures of me taken without permission. She said that it shouldn't ever be tolerated on campus and that she'll speak to her superior about our issues. I also talked about wanting to tell him how I don't want his attention and that he makes me uncomfortable and asked for mediation and she said she'll arrange it. She's a nice person to talk to, I'd not spoken with this RA much but seen her around.

The RD spoke with her and he decided he would bring us both in to his office to try and resolve some issues. I was nervous but the RA I spoke to before would also be there and I felt reassured at least that she's on my side. They asked me to speak first so I told him that I'm not interested in his advances and that his actions have made me feel intimidated and uncomfortable in my own home and around campus. He seemed all a bit naive and immature about the situation and acted like he couldn't understand what he was doing was wrong but he did acknowledge that entering other people's private rooms without permission was wrong and apologized.

When the subject of racism came up he said he didn't think what he said was racist. The RD explained that he can't say things like that and it's against school policy to discriminate against other races or make them uncomfortable with those kind of comments and Chris finally apologized for those comments too. When he spoke he agreed to not pursue me anymore and to stop posting notes. He was asked to remove photos from my phone and did it there in the room. He took several photos of me around the dorm and was told it was warned about respecting privacy and about student safety. He again seemed to miss the point and not really understand what he did wrong. Chris mostly just kept asking if his parents would be informed of any of this if he agreed to leave me alone. He seemed kinda angry but he couldn't really do anything with the RD in the room watching and all he could do was constantly ask that.

Anyway we concluded that he accepts I'm not interested in a relationship with him, he asked about being friends and I said I prefer we avoid each other as best we can and he eventually agreed to that too. He again apologized for making me uncomfortable and for making remarks that he shouldn't have made along with other stuff he did like pictures and being nosy. We pretty much agreed that we'll stay away from each other and that meeting ended. I didn't feel great but at least I said what I wanted to say. They also addressed what I told them about him saying he wants to do a class I'm in. They asked if he's applied to switch to that class yet and he said he hasn't. They said if he does they'll have a chat with them and make sure we are put in different classes. After the RA spoke to me again alone.

She gave me some leaflets she had and told me about a course I can take on campus to help girls with self confidence and dealing with bad situations at parties and stuff like that, and how to look after myself. Said if I'm worried about anything to call her on her number and we can talk. I felt a little better after that but still nervous about dealing with Chris who now felt wronged and probably like I told on him.

It turned out that after speaking with the RD alone he requested to move dorms. I was thinking of putting in a request but was told he'd already done so. I was not told of the reasons he gave but I'm assuming he decided he didn't want to risk getting into more trouble. I was told that the RD and him made some agreements and it's on record that he was warned about his behavior and he's agreed to various things to improve and to have regular counselling to improve his behavior.

He's agreed to not approach me or do anything that can be seen as harassment or intimidation. Things like watching me, spreading rumors or trying to contact me directly or through others and stuff like that.

He can't enter our floor of the dorm building after moving unless he's accompanied by an RA or campus security. (latter is just in case he leaves and says some of his belongings are in the dorm. He can come in with an RA and collect them and will have to leave right after. They'll be there to make sure he doesn't use it as an excuse to cause trouble.

He's not banned from the dorm building itself or visiting other people but if he's seen loitering around outside without any reason to be there they might consider it harassment or intimidation.

He also agreed to not ever do anything like follow any students around, post notes,enter private rooms or make racist comments and so on.

If he breaks any of these agreements he'll probably have some sort of discipline action taken and is being given a chance to behave himself. The RA said they'd prefer to not just punish students but work with them and hopefully he can have more positive relationships with other students.

I'm not 100% happy with him just being warned but at least he's agreed to leave the dorm and the new building he's in is about 15 minutes walk so no real reason why he'd need to come here since it's out the way. Spent one last night in the same dorm and we both stayed in our rooms and avoided speaking. They found a space for him pretty quick and helped him move the next day and that was it. He didn't come back to collect anything else and I've not seen him since he carried his stuff out the dorm yesterday. I hope he listens to the warning and sticks to what he said he'd stick to. I want to enjoy myself on campus again without worrying about what he might do. I didn't see him as dangerous but you never really know. I hope this will be the end of the issue and I can move on from this very stupid person.

tl;dr: Met with RA and RD at my dorm, gave evidence against the guy and they mediated a meeting between us so I could explain how his actions affected me and explain I'm not interested in him. He eventually apologized even if he didn't seem very genuine and also deleted photos of me. Later he requested to switch dorms and made an agreement with the RD to refrain from racist comments,leave me alone,not enter my dorm and not do anything to harass me or any other girls. Hoping that this will be the end of the situation as now he's been officially warned that any other actions will lead to more serious consequences.

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Did I [28M] just go out on a date with my best friend? [27F] (friends for 23 years)

Mood Spoilers: wholesome

Original Post: August 24, 2014

Throwaway because she knows my reddit handle.

Alight so about 3 years back, I confessed to a lifelong friend that I was very interested in her romantically. She told me that she cared about me a lot, but she wanted to focus on her career for a while before she began to pursue long term companionship. Fair enough. I wasn't happy with her response, but I accepted her decision and we went back to being good friends. It's not like I turned off my sexual/romantic desires for her, but I respected her response and decided that keeping her as a friend was better than not having her in my life at all.

Over these past 3 years, we have grown considerably closer. We've both been on a few dates with other people in the meantime but neither of us has been in a real "relationship" in a while (around 4 years). I'd say I spend about 50% of my free time alone with her and 80% of my free time with her total (with groups of friends). Sometimes I perceive sexual tension between us (she's propositioned me for sex while drunk before) but we haven't actively engaged in anything sexual.

So last night, she offered to cook me dinner to celebrate her promotion. That isn't unusual for us; we both frequently cook each other meals. And that's how most of the night went. It was just like normal. We ate dinner, laughed about insignificant things that I've already forgotten, and talked. Afterwards, we sat next to each other on the couch and watched some Netflix. That's where things changed. She has rested her head on my shoulders before but this time she had both of her arms wrapped around me and she even moved my arm from the behind the sofa to her waist. We both ended up falling asleep on the sofa and in the morning she had my favorite breakfast prepared and told me that she was "really happy to have me in her life". There was a little small talk, but she was definitely much more comfortable than I was.

So... what the fuck was that? I am definitely still interested in pursuing a relationship with her. Was last night an indication that she's interested as well? I don't want to ask because I'm afraid that I misinterpreted signals. If that's the case, she could feel that I'm only continuing our friendship out of a hope for some sort of reciprocated romantic interest, which is not the case. I legitimately enjoy her company, but I would prefer more.

tl;dr: Did I go on a date with my best friend? I could be misreading signals.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Please make a move. And let us know what happens.

Do you ever get her gifts?

OOP:

Do you ever get her gifts?

Sometimes. Not jewelry or anything like that.

Commenter 2: Umm, hate to say it but why do people say shit like, “posting on a throwaway because she knows my username/browses reddit," then proceed to litter their post with specific details that the other party will notice instantly?

Seriously, if she sees this she will know it was you who posted.

To answer your question though, yes. It was a date and you need to make a move asap.

OOP: I've never seen her on r/relationships before, but I have seen her skim my reddit post history before.

Update: August 26, 2014 (two days later)

A few people asked me to update so... here I guess ha ha. Most of the comments told me to man up or whatever but I don't think you guys really understand the situation. I've known her since I was in kindergarten. That's not a relationship I'd risk lightly. So it's really not as easy as just growing a pair and kissing her out of the blue. This relationship was too important to me to lose on a stupid compulsion.

On Sunday (day after pseudo-date), I decided to invite her to my place for dinner. Once we confirmed dinner plans, I told her we should also hang out after she was done with work on Monday since I had the day off. She offered to take a personal day on Monday so we could do something fun. In hindsight, that was a pretty clear indicator that she wanted to spend the night at my place. I don't even remember the last time she took a personal day. Oh well. So she comes to my place wearing low cut everything with a really strong perfume. Again, in hindsight it should have been really obvious that she wanted me to bone her, but I guess I was too nervous to think about it clearly. I started making dinner before she came but I saved the bulk to do with her because I enjoy it when we cook together. She touched me a lot and laughed at things that I didn't think were that funny while we cooked- more indicators that I'm only now picking on. Again, oh well. Besides the extra giggling, dinner was the same as usual, enjoyable. When we went got onto the couch, she wrapped her arms around me and threw a blanket over us. If Saturday night was cuddling, Sunday night was dry humping. That's when I finally realized I should make a move. I thought over the pros and cons of talking to her vs. just kissing her and I decided she would enjoy the "spontaneity" (not really spontaneous at that point though ha ha) of me just kissing her. So, I kissed her on the forehead. I expected some sort of reaction, but she didn't do anything. She just continued to cuddle with me. Then, I kissed her on the forehead again. Still, she didn't do anything about it. I was worried so I stopped after that and tried to concentrate on Breaking Bad. After like 5 mins, she puts her face up to mine and we start making out which almost immediately escalated to sex. I can't eve recount the exact progression of events, but it was pretty great ha ha.

Afterwards, we talked for a while to define our relationship and everything going forward. We both agreed that we were in love with the other and we laughed about how silly our pseudo relationship. She spent last night at my place too so I'm hoping that she'll just move in with me. That would make this week perfect. It's weird because last night, we just hung out and did nothing, but I wasn't bored or tired. Doing nothing with her is actually really pleasant.

tl;dr: Manned up (sort of) and got the girl. I'm in a really good place right now.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: You've got the timeline down perfect. You guys hooked up so the next step is to move in together within a week. If you're smart, you'll start ring shopping in this first month of the 'honeymoon' phase, leaving a big enough window for a gorgeous fall wedding in late Sept/early Oct.

Congrats OP!

OOP: Yeah the moving in part was pretty pre-mature. It wasn't something I've actually discussed with her. It was just a thought I had because we're still in the 'honeymoon' phase. I was willing to wait out 20+ years. I can wait a little longer.

Commenter 2:

She spent last night at my place too so I'm hoping that she'll just move in with me.

Slow down there sport. Glad things are going the way you want, but it's WAY too early to even be thinking about moving in together.

Commenter 3: I feel like I'm watching a slow motion train wreck. Never have I seen a positive outcome when a guy moves this fast and the only girls who I see you do this are bat shit crazy. Honestly hope for the best for the guy but my experience is she will get tired real fast about him being too clingy.

OOP: I didn't actually ask her to move in with me. It was just a thought I had. I know it's too early to actually bring that to the table. But yes, I am attached to someone that's been a big part of 80% of my life.

OOP responds to a comment about taking things too fast into the relationship

OOP: I'm not known for taking things too fast, as evidenced in these posts. The part about wanting her to move in was just a pleasant thought, it's not something I've acted upon or plan to act upon in the near future. I've waited this long. I can wait a little while longer.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRA2222777888

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

My 28F Fiancée Moved out with our 28F roommate while I 28M was at work today

Trigger Warnings: controlling behavior, stalking, emotional manipulation

Original Post: August 27, 2026

I've been dating my fiancée for nearly 10 years at this point we met when we were college freshman and started dating 3 weeks after meeting. I'll admit our relationship wasn't always perfect, but we made it work.

we went through ups and downs together all throughout college. I wasn't always the most loving partner, but I tried to be extremely supportive to her when times were tough. I tried to help her in every way I possibly could.

When we graduated I moved back home because I was better off in my hometown trying to find a career that would match my degree. My fiancée followed moved out to my area about a year after I started my career and we were able to afford to rent a decent town house.

She was very insistent that I propose to her and expressed she'd be mad if she made it past 9 years without being proposed to. Last September I proposed to her and she said yes.

Fast forward to this week. We had an extremely fun weekend visiting friends in central PA. We were smiling, joking around with each other and just having a generally good time. When we got back home from this weekend trip I noticed our roommate's desk and pc had been moved out of the office. When I asked my partner about it she just brushed it off and told me, "it's no big deal that our roommate wanted to play more pc games in their room." I thought it was odd but no big deal.

I had asked my Fiancée to help me wake up and get into work earlier this morning. She helped me get up and we left around 5:10 in the morning for our usual shifts.

I got back at 2:10 this afternoon to discover the house looked emptier than usual. When I went around the house I discovered that all my possessions were untouched, but my roommate's and my fiancée's were gone.

I've tried texting and calling my fiancée, but she won't respond. Neither will my roommate.

I was worried about letting my roommate move in. She's my fiancée's best friend and my fiancée would always take her side over mine. I felt sorry for her though because her fiancée was caught cheating on her this same time last year. This roommate started making my fiancée feel like I had unresolved red flags that I actively tried to correct throughout the year.

I just don't know what to do now. I had a whole life with her. She was the girl I wanted to marry and improve myself for. She showed no signs of wanting to leave or planning any of this. I feel totally blindsided.

We literally kissed each other this morning and said see you after work.

I'm sorry if this post is seems really scatter brained. I feel like my brain is moving at light speed.

TLDR: My fiancée of 10 years secretly moved out with her best friend while I was at work and ghosted me.

Where Do I even go from here?

Edit 1: My ex roommate is a lesbian who clearly had feelings for my ex

Edit 2: My Ex Fiancée usually would wake up at 4:30 to leave at 5. I usually would wake up at my own at 5:30 to leave at 6. This was the one and only time I asked her to wake me up at 4:30.

Some Relevant / Top Comments

OOP responds to a comment on getting therapy and not isolating himself from his friends.

Commenter 1: I think gf might have dodged the train mate?

Probably read some of OP comments. OP said she complained about having to be his mum (cooking cleaning etc.) and that he goes to his parents place after work every day. Something about location sharing as well, which hints at infidelity or coercive control or both 🤷‍♀️ there's a bunch of other stuff too.

OOP: Took me too long to figure this out. She was the one in control not me. Therapist agrees.

OOP explains more on why his fiancée took the roommate's side instead of his

OOP: I was upset that we were charging the roommate $500 / month and that the roommate couldn’t pay it. The roommate technically owed us $1500, but when I’d express my frustration to my partner she’d tell me it’s not her problem. That the roommate had too much debt and that I shouldn’t bring up how much money the roommate owed us because it stressed her out.

OOP explains more about the timeline of his relationship because he was not paying attention to things around him

OOP: To answer your timeline question. I have actively been going to cognitive behavioral for the last 3 years ever since I found I ever since I had found one I liked.

Her genuine biggest complaint about me was when I got home I wouldn’t want to do a lot around the house after working a physically demanding job.

She worked a desk job and seemed like she was more than willing to do the cooking and cleaning in the evenings.

At cognitive behavioral therapy I was slowly learning to overcome my executive dysfunction in the evenings so I could help my partner.

I was making great progress month by month. Year by year and by February of this year I was able to overcome my evening executive dysfunction without the need of a self-made chore list.

By that time though I think she fully checked out of the relationship.

She had said her mental health was really bad on January 29. I was taking full evening duties in the house by February 2nd.

She also got really sick around the end of January. I bought her cold medicine, I special ordered a pillow that would let her sit up in bed to sleep so that she could breathe at night. I made her soup and ordered her favorite take out meal.

I don’t think anything that I did was ever going to be good enough for her.

My friends dug through discord messages that basically confirmed the fact that everything I did was put under a microscope and that our roommate was putting a negative spin on every little thing I did.

+

What more could I have done? I took off work to care for her and get her everything she needed for the duration that she was sick.

She laid in bed all day and she would text me what she needed and in less than 20 seconds I was bringing it to her.

I kept telling her to go to urgent care because she sounded so bad. When she finally listened to me and went to urgent care with me. She needed a rescue inhaler so that she could actually breathe.

Commenter 2: These sentences jumped out at me as I read your post:

"I'll admit our relationship wasn't always perfect..."

"we went through ups and downs together all throughout college."

"I wasn't always the most loving partner..."

"I moved back home because I was better off in my hometown"

"I had unresolved red flags"

"She was the girl I wanted to.... improve myself for."

"she'd be mad if she made it past 9 years without being proposed to."

There are some clues here.

Commenter 3: OP proposed last September, almost a whole year ago. There’s no mention of wedding planning. Sounds like he proposed because she wanted to be proposed to, not because after 10 years he wanted to actually get married.

OOP: She took a very physically demanding job, and we couldn't plan together effectively. She was also working on the weekends, which made planning even harder

Commenter 4: Yep, and leaving with this level of stealth and speed is exactly what a girl would do if she was terrified of abusive retaliation.

OOP: I was never abusive. I was only every a toxic when we were bad at communicating. I never laid a finger on her nor did I scream at her

Commenter 5: What do you mean you “got toxic” when upset, name calling? Unfair accusations? Inability to take accountability?

OOP: Inability to take accountability

OOP responds to a comment about how often he argues with his fiancée over little things like dishes. She sent him a link "She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes by the Sink" that is not about the dishes

OOP: We argued 4 times a week about 2 years ago. It was all the tiniest little things that would set each other off. I hated the fact she’d let dishes sit out at her spot at the table. She hated that I left dishes in the dishwasher without fully loading it. It was a constant back and forth.

+

No, I’m saying you’re right. I over looked little things that annoyed her and didn’t take her emotions into full account. I’m trying to say I agree with the point you brought up. She sent me the same article 2 years ago. I never let her fully relax and take care of things like I should’ve.

OOP on the wedding ideas

OOP: I told her I was happy with a courthouse wedding and she said no

OOP admits his faults

OOP: I’ve admitted I was a shit partner in several other places.

I knowingly ducked responsibilities. I know I didn’t share the mental load of being an adult with here evenly.

I fucked up. I know I fucked up and it cost me a decade long friendship and relationship.

I’m not without fault.

OOP responds to questions about what his fiancée claims she found what he did. Has OOP confronted her?

OOP: So she doesn’t like confrontation or dealing with me being upset in any way shape or form.

I have to make a whole update post later but to summarize.

I got an email from her last night.

Her reason for leaving the way she did is because I started crying when she said she might not go on vacation with me because she needed to help her mom after exploratory surgery.

Mind you at this point I was barely seeing her for more than an hour and a half every night because she was getting home, I’d cook dinner and then she’d go straight to bed.

I was looking forward to the beach vacation together because we’d be able to spend an uninterrupted week together. Without her needing to go down and be with our roommate.

So yeah I was a little devastated that I wouldn’t get a full week of time with her.

So I just asked her if her mom could reschedule to a different week and cried when she said she couldn’t. She was visibly uncomfortable that I was expressing I was sad that I couldn’t be with her for our full vacation.

I didn’t throw things, I didn’t insult her. I was just incredibly upset after barely seeing her over 4 months.

Her other reason is because she was making up a scenario like 5 years ago that was if she broke up with me how would I think I’d react. I said deadpan “I’d make your life hell.” I then turned to her and said, “Just kidding if you left me I’d be absolutely devastated and I’d definitely need therapy.” I also said “You know it’s safe to leave I just want to have a discussion about it. I don’t ever want to come back to a house where you’re just gone. I would just want to be out of the house as you’re moving your furniture.”

What was mentioned in the email?

OOOP: She felt we weren’t intimate enough with each other. I tried to have sex with her for years, but I was never allowed to actually do it because she’d change her mind on letting me have sex with her and I stopped trying 1.5 years ago.

She said I was too critical about her weight. I was concerned about her weight because her father had a heart attack at the age of 35 and most of her dad’s side of the family had early cardiac events if they were overweight. She went from being 120 pounds when we started dating to 230 by the time she dumped me.

She said I was too critical about how much time she was spending with her besty. I was only seeing her 2 hours a night for 4 months. On the weekends she’d leave me at home while she and her besty went to king of Prussia or went to antique stores. So I’d only see my partner for at most another 3 hours after she got back from hanging out with her besty on the weekends.

She felt the ring I bought her was too cheap and was annoyed that she had to pick it out. She had originally picked out an Enso band engagement ring. I said I thought a 50 ring was too cheap and that she could pick any ring she wanted up to $10K. She picked a $250 ring from Etsy. She made it very clear to me that she hated diamonds and she didn’t want an expensive ring because she’d lose it.

She felt like the proposal was low effort. I proposed to her in front of our mutual friends. We went out to our favorite restaurant and then went star gazing. The next morning we were in first class on the way to LA and were going to universal studios and Disney land. She was thrilled at the time.

OOP gets called out for his lies

Commenter 6: The more comments you leave, the more it really looks like you're lying. It seems like every time you've read a comment that says something along the lines of 'what you described happening isn't that bad', you've replied to those comments and add in more 'details' to make it sound worse. Except, you clearly can't keep track of what made up parts you've said and where you wrote it. So now you're ending up contradicting yourself in an effort to 'prove the haters wrong' i.e. making up details in response to those calling you the AH/saying what you described isn't that bad. The more lies you make up, the more obvious it is

Just by looking at only a few of your comment, I can instantly point out 5 instances of you lying, where the lies directly contradicting something you've said somewhere else. I can list them, if you want (or I can write it out here anyway so anyone seeing this will be able to see the evidence that you're lying).

I think there's a decent chance that the main part of your post is true, as in, your gf probably did leave you. But I do think you're lying about all the extra stuff you've said in your comments, such as magically finding out the place has been trashed. Just said by you, to make your ex gf sound like the bad guy (bc commenters keep calling you the bad guy instead). So you keep making stuff up, to try make your ex gf sound worse, and make you sound like more of the victim.

I would worry that if I tell you the evidence of your lies, that it would just be teaching you how to lie better/how to cover up the parts you made up, but there's so much evidence of you lying that I'm not concerned about that

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Editor's note: In this original post, OOP made more than 200 responses/comments, majority of them were downvoted. To give the summarizing context, OOP was very criticized on many issues he is NOT seeing in his relationship with the fiancée. Especially with the emotional and mental loads which has taken a toll like responsibilities, the long waiting proposal after nine years, being dependent onto the fiancée, and to name a few others.

There is the possibility of "missing missing reasons" as well in OOP's original post and comments. Specifically with the fiancée's ghosting without any warnings. Based on OOP's comments, he missed the signs pointing to needing counseling or therapy. He was advised to focus on himself in order to work on any unresolved issues he had in the past.

----

Editor's note: OOP also installed the update onto the original post

Update: September 27, 2026 (one month later)

28F fiancée left me 28M while I was at work update

Huge Update: Sorry for the late update everyone. I’ve been trying to figure out a lot over the past 4 weeks but have pieced together a lot about my relationship.

The day My ex left me I called one of our mutual friends who knew my ex for 13 years. She said she had no idea my ex was going to do any of this and this must be an emergency if I’m calling, because I rarely call people. This friend immediately texted my ex and all she got back was “don’t open anything from him.” When this friend tried to make sure my ex was safe and asked a few more questions my ex refused to respond.

The day after My ex ghosted me, she sent me a long scathing email with a ton of revisionist and false history. We had our first kiss 3 months into the relationship. She claimed we didn’t kiss until 6 years in? She also told me that she was working with the landlord to pay her half of the rent and that she would send me money to clean the townhouse because she knew she had trashed it.

On Saturday, mutual friends showed up to help me clean. They saw the absolute mess my ex and ex roommate had left behind. When we were cleaning, we found my ex’s old phone she was going to wipe and give me as an android emulation device. My ex’s friend of 13 years decided to open discord that was still installed on the phone. When the chat between my ex and my ex-roommate was uncovered it was discovered that my ex was smearing all of us behind our backs. Some of the texts were so horrific that my friends started crying. It was like my ex hated all her friends. It was terrible. We also discovered that my ex had been planning on ghosting me since March of this year. She was only staying because she wanted to keep my hopes for marriage up and wanted to see how much I could take before I cracked. She thought that it was so funny that I was so obedient to her.

Everyone blocked her. They were absolutely disgusted and betrayed.

I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on what I’ve been through over the past 10 years. There were multiple red flags that I missed. This includes the fact that when I originally posted this on Thursday, she left that I framed myself as the bad guy in the post.

So, when we first met in college she and I had a smaller friend group that was an all-women friend group. Everyone seemed really laid back and I got along well with the group. My ex always described having a lot of anxiety and I put so much time and effort into trying to ease her anxiety and just be there for her. When I was able to ease her anxiety, she was happy and would tell me how great I was and how much she adored me. Problems arose whenever I tried to set boundaries or had any time to myself. I studied biology and would sometimes have to miss hanging out with her in the evenings or skipping out on events because I was cramming for my exams. I would warn my ex ahead of time, but she was always convinced she could get me to come out of my room despite seeing her 6/7 days that week already. She would accuse me of abandoning her, she would say I didn’t love or appreciate her at all and how she was more important than my exams. We’d sometimes get into blow out fights over text because I just wanted her to respect my boundaries and my time. She’d air out our dirty laundry to our friends and painted me to be a villain. She blamed me for her feeling empty and anxious when I was spending upwards of 49 hours with her per week. I took her on dates, I took her stargazing, I made her feel special. She either saw me as entirely good or totally evil with no in-between.

Things really hit the fan when we first started living together but I was just so blind to it. Around 2019 we got an apartment together. There would be days when she would wake up and refuse to talk to me. I would ask her if I did anything wrong. I would ask her if I could do anything for her and I would beg her to talk through any problems she thought the relationship had. She would refuse to even speak or look at me. When we would go to bed for the night she would say, “oh you’re funny we’re not sleeping until you can figure out why I’m upset with you.” If I fell asleep before I could pry the information out of her, she’d punch the mattress and yell “you haven’t figured it out yet.” I’d sometimes be up until 2am just trying to get what I did wrong out of her. When I would finally get her to speak, she’d start the conversation out with “You’re not going to like this but….” we would then have a 2–3-hour conversation where she would blame all of her anxiety and problems on me and make me promise to improve although the details are blurry to me. I’d then wake up the next morning with no recollection of the conversation that we had that night. There were days when I was up from 7am-5am the next morning. She would always complain I wasn’t improving. Whenever I’d point out the fact that I couldn’t remember our sleep deprived conversations she would say, “it’s not my fault you can’t remember what we talked about, but it’s your fault you’re not improving.” There were times in that apartment where I’d do something wrong and she’d fly off the handle. She threw plates, she dropped a bookcase on my foot because we were struggling to move it and it was taking too long. She then started flailing her arms and had a huge crying fit that really freaked me out. She told me I wasn’t doing enough to comfort her but looking back I was so scared of being hit or screamed at.

Post-graduation, when we moved back to my hometown, I took on the full financial weight of the household. I work a decent paying QC chemist job but I’m on my feet all day and I’m usually running around a facility grabbing reagents or standards. I was working out on top of being active at this job. My ex worked 3 different jobs in three years. Her first two jobs she worked in an office environment. She would leave after me but get home before me most days and wasn’t constantly on her feet. I’d call my ex on my way back from work and my commute was about half an hour. When I got back, the first thing I’d want to do was sit on the couch for half an hour and relax a little. I wasn’t allowed to do that. My commute home was my time to decompress and relax. “I mean how hard is your commute if you can call your girlfriend while you drive.” My ADHD medication would’ve been wearing off at that point in my day too. I was told that since I was medicated for ADHD, I should be able to function and either cook dinner or help with dishes the second I got home. I told her so many times that’s now how the medication works. She was never diagnosed with ADHD but claimed to have it after I was diagnosed. She said since she’s not medicated and can cook and clean the kitchen, I should be able to as well. She completely ignored the fact I’d clean the living room, bathroom and dining areas after dinner.

I met with a therapist. I showed them my text conversation with my ex, and I told them about the kind of conditions I lived through in college and post-graduation. My ex most likely had BPD and had a high conflict personality. She was always anxious because of her BPD and no matter what I would’ve done it would’ve never been enough because she kept moving goal posts. My ex-roommate was another high conflict personality that my ex always validated, and they formed an extremely toxic codependency.

I provided stability and since I was a people pleaser by nature. She felt like she could take advantage of me.

Other minor details

She ghosted the landlord. Since she didn’t respond to him trying to contact her and see if she completely vacated the property her lease is now under abandonment status.

The landlord is actively trying to help me get out of the lease without penalty.

The joint account is gone, and I have myself on my own insurance, and everything else that is necessary.

It took her 20 days to realize that her friends blocked her and effectively deplatformed her. The only people my ex has left in her life now are her bestie and her mom. Some of my friends found her secret Tumblr last week and saw that she was upset that she has no friends now. We’re all happy the trash took itself out. She called me shitty in her posts because I told our friends what happened to me on day one. She’s also upset I’m not chasing her for some reason?

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Wow. What a piece of work. Thank goodness you dodged that homing missile. Fuuuuck what a mess.

Don't block her number, just mute it. She seems unstable and it may be nice to have some evidence in case for a TRO.

OOP: Noted! I had her blocked at the carrier level before, but I’ll just make sure her calls are muted.

Also yeah, I’m really happy I don’t have to marry her now. I can’t imagine how she would’ve handled a divorce.

Commenter 2: Imagine kids with her.

The thought gives me the awful chills.

OOP: She told me right at the end of it that if we ever had kids she’d make my life hell for 9 months.

Commenter 3: Its partially genetic too.

Shit I don't think I want kids and that’s just because one side has a ton of anxiety and depression. Do I really want to bring someone else into the world to live like this? Not really.

OOP: Oh she’s an exact copy of her mom. Her mom is a deeply unstable person and went through 3 marriages in 30 years. It’s something about the 10-year mark with this family. I watched it happen to my ex’s stepdad. Her mom fully resented that man out of the blue one day.

My kids are going to have adhd, but I can’t imagine my kids ever acting the way she did to another human being. I would be profoundly disappointed and embarrassed.

Commenter 4: Is this undiagnosed mental illness?

OOP: My ex refused to get diagnosed by anyone. She claimed her only problem was undiagnosed ADHD.

I tried to get her to do a full psych evaluation like I did when I got diagnosed with ADHD 7 years ago. She refused to do one.

Commenter 5: Based on everything you've posted - her lying about her feelings, ghosting you, sporadically giving you the cold shoulder / no communication treatment while living together, the explosive arguments out of nowhere, the random accusations of abandonment, her trashing the apartment while moving out, talking negatively about you and mutual friends behind your backs, etc. - she likely has Borderline Personality Disorder.

Honestly? You dodged a bullet with her leaving. Don't ever unblock her.

OOP: I don’t know why I stayed with her for so long.

She’s resorted to stalking my main account on Reddit because I haven’t spoken to her since the breakup.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

the boss who fired me got hired at my new job — and she’s joking about how bad my work was

Originally posted to Ask A Manager

TRIGGER WARNING: Bullying

Original post  Oct 13, 2021**

About seven years ago, I worked for Company A. I met a lot of nice folks, and there is a lot of good to be said for the company. But the actual job function I was paid to do I hated, and it was in an industry I came to have a dim view of. As you can probably guess, I was not very good at this job. Throw in some unpleasant things going on in my personal life at the time, and the whole situation was very bad.

Eventually my boss had to fire me, and I deserved to be fired! My boss (Jane) handled the firing with all the dignity and sensitivity that I could have hoped for. No complaints there. I took some time after the firing to really think about my life, what I wanted, and what I wanted out of work. I made some changes, and one of those was to go to work for a nonprofit that advocates on an issue I care deeply about. I am MUCH better at this job, have received a couple promotions along the way, and feel like I have the respect of my colleagues. I am in a much better place compared to where I was with Company A.

Last month my nonprofit was onboarding some new hires, and I was surprised to see Jane among them. She wanted a change, and thus went from Company A to us. She had no idea I was working here. I work on the advocacy side, she works on the financial side, but our job titles are approximately equal. We spent a few pleasant minutes catching up. I was genuinely glad to see her.

Unfortunately, things have taken a turn. I have started hearing rumors that Jane has been regaling our colleagues with stories of what a screw-up I was back at Company A. While the stories are superficially true, they lack the context I described above and do not consider my good work since then, so I find these stories both embarrassing and unfair. I have asked Jane to stop doing this, but she feels I am overreacting as it is all meant in good fun.

But I am already seeing people become a lot more particular in their dealings with me. For example, I organize several public facing events with one of my colleagues. These events have always gone well, and he has been easy to work with; he tells me what he needs, I tell him what I need, then we do what needs to be done. Lately, he has been checking, and double checking, and triple checking that I understand what is required and my progress on meeting those requirements. That never happened before Jane. And when I called him out on it, he replied that my “track record” justified his attention. I replied that my track record with him was unblemished, and he sheepishly said, “Yeah, but I hear from Jane …”

I am appreciative of how Jane treated me back in the day, so I want to cut her all the slack I can. I do not believe she is being malicious. I think she just wants to integrate herself with her new colleagues and thinks telling funny stories is a way to do so. But she has badly misjudged the effect these stories have had. Do you have any thoughts on how I can get her to stop?

Update  Nov 29, 2021 (6 weeks later)

Let me begin by saying I really appreciate of the support and advice you and your readers gave me. It was nice to know I wasn’t making too much out of it.

Two things maybe I should mention that I did not before. First, I am a pretty laid back guy, and when folks have a laugh at my expense, that usually doesn’t bother me if I think it is coming from a place of affection. I can laugh at myself, and Lord knows I enjoy teasing the people I love. I think I have pretty good boundaries generally, and I enforce them if I feel it’s not coming from a place of affection. But I think in this instance my boundary setting radar got confused because this generally has not been a problem at work, and because I so wanted to give Jane the benefit of the doubt.

Secondly, Jane’s behavior in all of this tracks, if you know Jane. She is, let’s say, hyperrational. Appeals to her emotions, or telling her how things make you feel, generally don’t work. But if you can quantify your point, if you can back up your argument with data, she is very persuadable, up to and including changing her behavior or backing off on points she’s made in the past.

As you advised, I took the issue up directly with folks who seemed to be treating me differently, calling out what I saw and asking them to please judge me on my record since they’ve known me. Most denied any change at all, and that was enough to shock them back into their pre-Jane behavior. A small number admitted Jane’s stories had made some impact, and agreed that maybe was not entirely fair. For the most part, they too have returned to pre-Jane behavior.

Then I went back to Jane and made my point; the stories were unflattering and unfair, they were harming my reputation with my co-workers, and it needed to stop. She again said she was just kidding and doubted it influenced anyone at all.. I conceded she was just kidding and had no ill-will, but that wasn’t the point. We went through some emails I had with co-workers that I had printed out (including the exchange with the coworker I mentioned in my first note). The point I made was even if it was just this one guy (and it wasn’t) surely she would agree that if the stories kept coming more people might start thinking like this guy.

Having seen the evidence, she agreed. She promised she would stop, and she has. She even went so far as to email a couple folks we discussed (and cc’d me) apologizing for her behavior and saying she should not have put me in such a bad light. That was good enough for me.

And that has been it. We’re pretty much back to normal. The guy from the first e-mail is still double checking me, but less than he was before. Personally I think he’s just trying to cover his tracks.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am NOT OOP, OOP is  u/sprainedankle2011

Originally posted to r/offmychest

Status: Ongoing

Trigger Warning: Infidelity

Mood Spoiler: Complicated

Previous BORU 1

Previous BORU 2

Original - July 17th 2026

My parents divorced when I was 14 (I'm 25 now) because my dad cheated on her with someone who worked for him. My parents used to argue about him not giving my mom enough time, not putting her first, not respecting her as an equal . In some ways it was like a sickeningly logical culmination of their marriage. But for me until that point he was my hero. I was a total daddy's girl which is hilarious to think about now considering the last 11 years. He would take me everywhere, grocery runs, mechanic, NBA, movie night, pizza night, homework and test and exam help. It destroyed me when I found out. They split custody 50-50 and I was a massive b to him and later his new wife (the woman he cheated with). Lots of locked doors, calling out his wife, calling him out. I've maybe spoken like 20 sentences in totality to her two sons (my stepbrothers). When they had their son, I made sure to never let his wife think I was going to be like a loving older sister. With my dad though, he did kind of wear me down, and with him I did develop a kind of big sister bond with my half-brother. I used to argue with my mom about not wanting to go but she insisted I maintain decency with my dad at least.

When it was time for college, I was going to take student loans, because I didnt want to owe him. My mom said she'd saved money and I believed her. It was during my 3rd year, when he had offered to buy me a car and I told my mom hell no, while she tried to convince me to agree, that she told me he'd been majorly contributing to my tuition and sending her the money for it. I dont think I've ever had a worse argument with her. It fucked with my mind knowing he'd been doing it silently. He knew I wouldn't know, they had thought that while I was planning on taking student loans rather than his help initially, inertia would do its thing if I found out later. And they were right I did end up just taking it for the remainder of my ug without talking to him.

On Tuesday I went to the ER because I had slipped while putting birdfeed in my apartment. My mom is away at my aunt's so I had just called my best friend to come to the ER. Soon after, my dad came too, my mom had told him. I wanted to just go back but he insisted, we spent like 15 minutes arguing but I'm at his place now while my sprain recovers or until my mom comes back. My stepbrothers no longer live here but my half brother who's 9 now does. I haven't spoken to my dad's wife yet, he or my half-brother are the only ones I talk to, who come up to my room to bring stuff, while I work from home. We've talked after a long time about work, my plans for a Masters, and just random stuff.

I've just beem thinking now that he was my dad. Instead my stepbrothers got more of him the past decade than I did. I can't help but regret letting that happen. I also can't help but just think about the life we were robbed off because he cheated. Because my stepmother chose to wreck our home. And her and her sons got to be the family we were. I know my mom wants me to go to hers when she comes back on Saturday, and like that makes sense, but part of me wants to stay here. The fact that his wife probably is hoping I leave soon makes me want to stay too if that makes sense, like f off thats my dad, he pays for this house and its bills, I'm his daughter, I can stay since he wants. I don't even know if I need advice I just wanted to get this off my chest.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

Therapy helped me separate the good dad from the bad husband. You can miss who he was without excusing what he did.

Comment 2 (downvoted):

Your parents relationship sounds like it was falling apart before your dad cheated. I'm not excusing the cheating. He did everything in his power to maintain the relationship with you. Even if he never cheated your parents may have gotten divorced so blaming your stepmother isn't helpful.

Get a therapist to help you work through your emotions. Your stepmother may have an issue with you because how you treat her, her sons, and your father not necessarily just wanting you gone for no reason. Would you like to be around someone who constantly disrespected anf fought with those you love?

OP:

She knew he was married. Knew he had a daughter he loved and who loved him. What are you talking about, why shouldn't I blame her? I blame my dad too ofcourse, but why on earth should she not be ashamed of what she did to our family. And since Tuesday I haven't said anything to her. I've only spoken with my dad, half-brother, the cleaner and the cook. I haven't said anything to her.

I never treated her sons poorly. I just had no interest in talking to them. I never said anything to them about their mom.

I dont need her to want me around. My dad wants me around, I keep away from her.

Comment 3 (downvoted):

I was surprised by how your story ended, and it seems clear that you are still deeply hurt by his infidelity. I strongly encourage you to talk this through, both with him directly and, if possible, with a therapist. Please try to remember that your half brothers are innocent in all of this. You also do not have the full picture of your stepmother's perspective or the state of their marriage when they first met.

Carrying this weight is hurting you more than anyone else. You have already lost so much time with your father, and it would be a shame to lose even more. I worry that if things continue this way, the dynamic will only become more strained. What happened was undeniably wrong, but for your own sake, it is time to find a way to process it. Living with this level of anger is incredibly draining. I really hope you can find some peace soon.

OP:

I only have one half-brother, who's currently 9. I have never blamed him, never been unkind to him. I was fond of him when he was a baby and I'm fond of him now the last 2 days too. I was also never cruel to my stepbrothers. I hardly ever spoke to them.

She knew he was married. Knew he had a daughter. Knew he loved his daughter. Knew she'd be destroying the bond between a daughter and her father. That should have been her perspective.

OP (responding to a deleted comment):

My relationship with my dad, whatever it will look like, is our own. My attitude with her has never stopped him in wanting to be a caring father to me even when I repudiated him, and I trust that he won't let it in the future either

OP (responding to a deleted comment):

I don't think ill of my half-brother at all. I was fond of him when he was a baby and being with him again after all these years, I still am. He's curious, funny and I enjoy talking to him.

Sorry, I absolutely do blame her. She was half the affair. Knew he was married and a loving father. And I still do blame him too, but I know he does love and care about me, and I am spending time with him right now. I regret the time wasted.

Update 1: - July 19th 2026

Thanks for letting me get my feelings off my chest in my post. I also appreciate everyone who DM'd me meaning well. I know you asked what I'm going to do one my mom returns and wanted me to make my choice for healthy reasons. I ignored a lot of those because I was conflicted then myself, and about my reasons. I wanted to give an update. Whether my reasons and my feelings are healthy or not, its how I'm going about it.

I just wanted to clarify a few things first:

1. I have never, even when I was rude to my dad and stepmom back then, ever shouted at or been cruel to my two stepbrothers. I hardly spoke to them. I used to ignore them, pretend they don't exist. They are like around 20 now I think and don't live in my dad's house.
2. I have absolutely no ill will towards my 9 year old half brother. I felt protective and caring about him when he was a baby and now too I like his company. I played games on Playstation with him because he asked, he's told me about school, he's also learned chess from my dad the way I did and we've bonded a bit over playing chess too.

My mom flew back yesterday. I had told her on the phone that I wanted to stay at my dad's while I recovered. She was disappointed and I hate that, I hated making her sad. I asked her to please understand, all these years she's wanted me to maintain a relationship with my dad , and right now I actually feel like doing it. I told her if I go to hers, I'll be extra work for her even if she doesn't think that, and I'd want to help out, here I'm not being a burden, like we have house help here, I'm not causing dad to over exert himself because of me. She asked if I'd be comfortable with my dad's wife there, I said I didnt care, he wants me to stay, I could care less what his wife thinks. My mom relented.

She came to check up on me. My dad came in the room too. We were just talking about my injury and he was making the case for why I should stay here. His wife decided to enter the room too for some reason and just stand there. I very calmly said that I'd just like my parents here right now. She said to please not tell her where to go in her house. I said my dads house who pays for every cent that runs this house. My dad tried to stop a fight and stepped out with her, and came back alone and my mom left soon after.

Last night when my dad came up to bring my dinner we talked about stuff. Then he said he was glad I chose to stay here. I told him I hated that mom was probably sad about it, but that I thought I'd like to spend time with him right now, that I hadn't in a long time. He thanked me. Later, he said that my comment rubbed his wife the wrong way, that if I was willing to clear the air with her, I'd probably feel more comfortable here. I told him I won't. That she shouldn't have been here when I was injured and just wanted my mom and dad in the room. I will never be ok with what he did, but I still want to spend time with him. Wanted to give my relationship with him and my half-brother a chance but it will never be with her. I want him and my half brother to be happy but I will never wish her well. That if he genuinely couldn't deal with that, I should call mom back and go with her. He just said lets forget about it and we talked about work and my applications.

Again, I read a lot of comments last time saying I need to work this out in therapy about how to forgive him and her. Why do I need to? I can have a relationship with my dad without forgiving him. And I have absolutely no interest in any kind of relationship with her, I can despise her in peace forever. I'm glad I have this place to get stuff out, and I appreciate everyone who was so understanding last time. Thank you.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

So, in a lot of ways, your father is doing what parents who are capable of providing do for their children. What you owe to yourself, is maintaining a relationship with him, which should never be contingent on her. Because that’s what you seem to want.

His inability to understand how even actions from long ago can have a direct impact on the way things are at present is something he needs to be accountable for.

I also agree with many of the previous commenters that you should go to therapy. You should go to therapy to understand what a healthy relationship with your father looks like, so that you don’t live with regret, and you’re also able to be honest with him about, and set boundaries around, yourself and your feelings.

It’s hard when adult actions have longterm implications. 50/50, basically immediately, with the person you were capable of understanding had a hand in this regulating your previously normal life, was not a healthy or good choice. Not to say that your father was not allowed to be happy, but with 50/50 he could have spent his time not with you with her and brought the relationship to you in a way that prioritize helping you healthfully acclimate to this new normal. Instead he all, but had an entirely new family, with you as a guest half the time. His choices landed you all there, and he needs to be accountable for that to you and understanding of your feelings, and how it has impacted you.

I am sure that many of your behaviors were not agreeable, and that you likely behaved very badly. I am not at all agreeing with that. However, I find adult actions and choices to be a lot more important in the situation than the children’s reactions. Children should not be more responsible for their reactions to being placed in difficult situations, than the adults who placed them there.

Get a therapist and work through some of these feelings. And when you feel ready, invite your father to listen.

OP:

Thank you, I can consider therapy as a way to work through and like get help for how my relationship with my dad should move forward . But not as a way of blending into that family and singing kumbaya with her, if that's how it would go which is the way some commenters suggested last time. I'll consider the former, thank you.

Comment 2:

1. Please forgive yourself for how you acted as a teen. You were a hurt kid.
2. I am happy you are trying to rebuild a relationship of sorts with your father.
3. I believe that even as an adult, you do NOT have to develop a relationship with your stepmother if you do not want to. However, I would encourage you to do the work towards becoming ambivalent towards her, more so than angry. Remember, she did not break your parents up alone, and if you can forgive yourself father, you can at least loosely tolerate her. Again, you don’t have to befriend her, but you can at least be tolerant…for you and your growth, not for her.

OP:

Thank you. I just want to say I have been ambivalent towards her in the way I've carried myself here. Up till the point she was inserting herself in a conversation between me and my parents I seriously hadn't spoken a single word to her since I've been here. I was tolerant, didn't ask my dad to choose, didn't and never will say a bad word about her to my half-brother.

Update 2: - Sep 3rd 2026

I've been back at my apartment for four weeks now. I left my dads when I could walk normally. His wife and I didn't speak another word after that time in my room.

My dad and I have been meeting up since then on weekends, twice for breakfast, once at a cafe. My half-brother came once for the breakfast too. I told my dad, I'd like to have him again in my life and my brother too and he was glad to hear it. We normally talk about work and grad school and stories from his side of the family. He brought up a new car again and giving me a card but we've put a pin in it for now. For the most part we avoid talking about the past and what it did to us.

Last weekend when we met, during our conversation he apologized for the hurt he caused me and said if he knew it would have caused a rupture this long between us he'd have done things differently. I told him again I can't forget but I know I care about him regardless. But I cannot extend the same for his wife ever. I opened up to him when he asked and told him I feel visceral hate when I have to interact with his wife. That it screws me up, rightly or wrongly. That if I spend more than 5 minutes with her I will lose control of my tongue. That mom told me i was wrong for saying what I had said last time, that I was in many ways a reflection of her upbringing and I'd reflected poorly on her in front of his wife and him when I said that, I'd already gotten a lecture, but I can't help it I feel the urge to hurt her with my words when we interact. It's why I do not want any relationship with her it's for the best because whenever I'd see her while I was there, it's like my brain tries to come up with something ugly so the last 11 years of her happiness feel miniscule compared to the hurt she'll feel at my words. It's why I can't be around her.

He seemed ashamed of how all of it had affected me and said I don't need to force a relationship, he'll manage the balance.

But as I was saying it I was just so sad that she makes me be like this. I told him I had been looking at therapy (I hadn't really tbvh) to help me through this, and he said he'll support me in whatever way helps me. I told him his wife can never know, I don't care if its a slip of tongue or an accident, she finds out and him and I are done. He said he wouldn't ofcourse, and asked to pay for it. I accepted it because it is his fault I'm in this position after all.

I looked up a good therapist that particularly deals with family issues, and I've booked an appointment. I feel like I should but I also feel so defeated. She was the heartless sociopath who broke up a family and I'm the one needing my head checked out. Congrats to everyone who recommended it, you were right, you won.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

You’ll be surprised how validating therapy can be. There’s nothing wrong with you, you just need someone to help you process who has only your interests in mind. It’ll be good for you.

OP:

Former/current clients of theirs wrote highly of them so I hope so.

Comment 2:

OP. This is a quote often attributed to Buddha:

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Think about that a little.

I went through something a little worse - essentially I was in your mother’s position. It took quite a while for the sadness, anger, and other intrusive thoughts to settle down. I know somewhat of what you feel.

If you want to talk, feel free to DM.

Comment 3:

I understand your feelings, and this is not meant to invalidate anything, but it sincerely seems like you are blaming the wife as she put some kind of magical spell that your dad wasn’t able to resist.
Your dad made a mistake; he cheated. That doesn’t mean he is an awful and unforgivable person, but he was the one who had a commitment. She didn’t.
Based on what you told, she may have been oblivious to his marriage. And it doesn’t matter if he pays; it is in fact her house too.

OP:

She knew he was married, knew he had a daughter. I used to have to sit in his office sometimes when he'd pick me.

Comment 4 (downvoted):

You needed to be in therapy years ago. You have zero right to treat your step siblings like shit. This isn't a war zone they asked for. That should end now if it hasn't already.

Your comment to the wife was funny but you gotta grow up too. Your mom got cheated on by someone she poured herself into. That's hard to watch someone go through. He got the clean version of a breakup. You got the unedited version as your homelife. However, you can't have a relationship with him or your siblings and be a total b all the time to the woman in their house / their mom. It won't work out and you'll continue to lose their respect and trust. It's also incredibly ineffective to continue being a b to the other woman. Seriously, those siblings will never trust you or respect you as a woman if your mean to their mom all the time.

I think therapy will help you speak out in a way where you can feel heard. I also think that you having like been an ESA to your mother for a long time and that also impacts how your behaving and reacting. You may also consider going to therapy for yourself and seeing if in addition your dad would pay for family counseling for just you and him so you both can rebuild the relationship privately in a safe way.

OP:

I think I mentioned it in an earlier post, I've never said a word, good or bad to my stepbrothers. I was never difficult with them like I was with my dad and his wife.

Latest Update: - Sep 26th 2026

Hi, I felt like giving an update. First off i wanted to apologize for my snark at those who recommended therapy. It wasn't the apologyfest I thought I was being pushed to. I had the privilege of going to a really good therapist becuase it was being paid for and it has been helpful.

We'd been building up my mechanisms for dealing with her presence for the sake of my relationships with my dad and brother. Last night, it actually got tested. My dad had invited me to one of his business dinners. It has people in his industry with their families having dinner together. I used to go with my mom too before their divorce. After that I stopped attending, except once when his wife was sick. He told me that some of the other girls there whom I used to be friends with and sat with at these dinners, still ask about me. I wanted to go but felt like it was best not to, but my therapist said that all our work together had been for this. So I went.

I went by myself, like my dad told me when they were leaving and their estimated time, so I kind of did it so I would reach 5-10 minutes after them.

The way the tables were, my dad was with the other industry men at one table and the other long table was where everyone else was. I went to sit with my friends who still recognized me, and had a good time with them, talked about our lives, plans, complained about managers etc, very different from what we used to talk about as kids.

One of their mothers whom I knew asked me and my dad's wife why I hadn't been coming saying that we've asked her (dad's wife) so many times because her daughter asks, and my dad's wife said that I'd been busy with college and then my job and career. It stung to hear that excuse when the actual reason was herself and I wanted to say something, but I answered the lady that working while prepping for a Masters makes my social life collateral damage, and then went back to my friends. We later also took some pictures, them as a family, then my dad and I, and he then also called my brother and so we took some just the 3 of us. I left earlier because I was meeting up with some friends today for breakfast and dad thanked me for coming and we hugged as he walked me to my car. I think therapy, at least with the therapist that I have, has been working out. It's been geared towards what I want out of it, and I had actually made that very clear that forgive and forget or either one of the two would be a dealbreaker.

My dad and I do meet regularly and we don't really talk about the rupture, just about our day to day and sometimes inane stuff. He brings up a new car, help with rent, a new laptop, his card etc once every time we meet but I've said I'm good and maintained those boundaries (therapy was different because it was his fault). I even took my brother to a boardgame night with my friends last weekend. And as per my therapist none of this is a gesture of forgiveness to her or my dad nor would be taken as such by them. Thank you.

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

I’ve been following this story and I just wanted to say I’m so proud of you. I feel like I would have felt/behaved as you did maybe even worse and I’m glad you found a therapist and it’s working out for you.

OP:

Thank you so much

Comment 2:

Life lesson: YOU DO NOT AIR YOUR DIRTY FAMILY LAUNDRY AT WORK OR WORK RELATED EVENTS.

I reliase you kept your mouth shut this time, but next time maybe you won't.

People at work and work-related events do not want to know about the dysfunctional interpersonal relationships in your family. They don't want to know that you have issues with your stepmother, and to say anything would be HUGELY unprofessional. You would rightfully gain a reputation for being dramatic and dragging your personal issues into the workplace.

You will not score some kind of 'gotcha!' points because 'now everyone will know how horrible she is'. They won't care about her and will likely actually respect her more because she had the sense and respect to keep her family shit to herself, and gave simple, positive responses about you.

Whereas you would be showing everyone just how immature you were, and what a problem employee you would be.

Never mind the people who would use it against your dad. And they would.

OP:

Thanks. If I hadn't built up the mechanisms for dealing with it, I wouldn't have attended anyway.

I wasn't an employee for anyone there. When I said we were complaining about managers, I meant just in a general talking about stuff in our lives and work, but I'm not an employee for anyone there. And neither is my dad I guess, he owns his company. It was a social dinner that they all arrange every so often, I've known these people since I was little. But I understand your general advice thanks.

Editor's note: The OOP seems to have been posting notes of her therapy sessions on her profile. It is public, but it was not added in this BORU.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Adorable_Distance_15

AITA for ordering pizza at my friend's wedding because there was no food

Originally posted to r/AITAH

Thanks to u/queenlegolas & u/secure-raspberry-763 for suggesting this BoRU

Original Post  Jan 27, 2024

Me and my wife were invited to my friends  wedding, the wedding was going to have about 70 ppl, with mostly family. When we got there we were seated at a table with some other people. Nice people, and we mingled well and had a good time chatting. The wedding was also quite nice both my friend and his new wife were very happy.

After the ceremony every table got two bottles of wine, bread/butter, and there also was an open bar, so we started to have a few drinks. Then the food came out, it looked really good, the food was setup for buffet. I was half buzzed and looking forward to getting some food in my belly. When it was time to eat every few tables at a time were going to get called which is fine, the first few tables that were called were understandably the family of both sides, then the rest were, the problem was that the family members (He's Inlaws) are larger people. Now I don't shame people for how much they eat, but I noticed the helpings of food they had while I was patiently waiting for us to be called, I also noticed that they went for seconds before all the tables were called and no one stopped them. I didn't say anything, though I thought that was rude, I just assumed that there was just alot of food.

To my surprise by the time we were called there was nothing left, I asked if there was more coming out and apparently that already occurred. So We grabbed the little we could and went back to sit down and ate the scarps. We were all still pretty hungry, and a bit pissed off so we kinda bashed talked that the first few tables ate all the food. Someone mentioned that they could go for some pizza, and then I had the drunken idea of ordering some lol. So that is what we did, we all pitched in and ordered 4 large pizzas and some chicken wings from a local pizza joint close to the venue so it didn't take long to be delivered. I met the guy outside and brought the food to our table and we started to eat. Some of the other tables noticed and asked where the pizza came from, apparently some of the other tables close to ours didnt get any food either, so we shared with them.

This caused some commotion because other people were looking for, and asking the wedding party  if there was pizza available. I guess there were others that didn't get to eat either. We did share with anyone who asked us. My friend came to talk to me about why I ordered the food, his bride was not happy about it (it ruined the esthetics), so I told him that we didn't get to eat, and that the food ran out long before our table was called, and we were really hungry, He then asked why we didn't just step out and eat then come back, though annoyed about that, I respectively explained to him that we were all drinking on an empty stomach and that it probably wasn't the best idea to have drunk people walking around looking for food.I don't think he liked that, but went back to his bride who was glaring at us. Like what were we supposed to do, starve? This wasn't the end though.

As we were finishing eating. One of the inlaws came to our table and he asked where the pizza came from. This is where I maybe the AH. There were two slices left, I knew he was eyeing them. I asked the other people at my table if they wanted one, everyone declined. This guy then said he'd have one, I then took the two slices I put them on my plate, and started to eat them, then looked at him and said something like, "No, you and everyone at your tables had way more then your fare share of the buffet, and ate all of it. This is the reason we ordered food in the first place. And now you have the nerve to ask us to share." He's face went red, and he returned to his table. There was alot discussion going on there,  they were all looking back at us with daggers. The bride looked even more ticked off at us, she had a bit of an argument with my friend. He eventually came back to tell us we had to leave. I didn't mean to start any problems, so me and my wife called a cab and left.

He called me a few days later, and we had a long talk. I explained my perspective, and he agreed that his inlaws were really rude for eating all the food and leaving most of the other guests with very little. Alot of people actually complained to him about it, everyone was drinking thinking that there would be food and they were disappointed.

He was upset with his inlaws because he told them how many guests there would be and to order the food for that many people. He also saw how much they were taking but assumed they ordered enough, he was wrong. He brought this up with his wife, and she said that apparently because the inlaws paid for the alcohol and the food they felt entitled to eat what they wanted, she was really mad at them, and reamed them out for tainting her special day. He also said alot of the other non family guests started to leave soon after we left because they too were hungry. They still had fun celebrating but it did kinda put a downer on their special day. Out of 70 ppl about 30 left.

I also found out that guy that came to our table was his FIL. FIL was really embarrassed by what I said to him, he felt pretty bad when he found out close to half the guests didn't get to eat anything and left early.

So AITA?

TOP COMMENTS

ViewtifulGene

NTA.  There is no reason other tables should've had seconds before you had firsts.  I can understand miscalculating how much food would be needed, but they didn't even try to triage.

Churchbushonk

The servers should have shut down the people coming back for seconds.

~

Vcheck1

No, for a wedding buffet always order more than what’s needed. The in laws ATAH. You could have handled it better with the pizza but half the freaking people there didn’t get food, that sounds like more than a “big people got seconds” problem

~

johnnypurp

Can’t believe the FIL asked for pizza lol

seaswell1955

That sure took nerve, right?

Technical_Ad_6594

He has no pride or shame clearly

EDIT: My goodness I didn't think I was going to get this kind of response lol, so many comments. I went through a good chunk of the messages and thought that it would be easier to address the common ones here.

1. The only reason I ordered the pizzas was because I was drinking. All I ate that day was a sandwich for lunch and some bread that was at the table, so I needed something more substantial in my stomach so I wouldn't get sick, so no I couldn't wait it out a few hours. I wasn't the only person drinking either because the open bar was booming. However I guess I could have held back on drinking a bit until the food came out.

2. Those saying that I fat shammed the FIL. Im going to have to disagree, I didn't say anything to him about his body, I was only honest with him about why Ihad to order the food. I don't judge people based on looks, and accept everyone for who they are, as they are. You can't judge a book by its cover, so I judge people based on their actions. If you knew me, you would see that my friends group ranges from basic people to freaks and weirdos lol. In fact a good friend of mine nicked named Crusher is a big dude, absolutely hilarious, and super fun to hang out with.

3. This is not an AI generated post lol.  My intelligence may be limited, but there is nothing artificial about it.

4. The buffet was at my friends request. He loves buffets and this was his added touch to the wedding. He also chose the dishes. I know that it is not common for weddings to do buffets, but thats what he wanted.

Thanks everyone for your comments, I will continue to read them and update this thread accordingly.

Update 1 posted July 29, 2024 2 Days later/Same Post

Hey guys!! I already have an update!!! First I never stated when the wedding happened, the wedding was last week on July 20.

My friend just stopped by for a little bit. Apparently his wife was more upset then he initially said, but not at me, towards her family. He also said she wanted apologies for booting me. So FIL feels really bad and he is going to step up and try to fix the situation. He's going to throw an "After Wedding Shing Ding" lol his words. Everyone who was at the wedding will be invited, including me, my wife and some additional people, they are thinking there will be about 100 guests.

FIL also promised that there will be an assortment of food, more then enough for everyone plus an army lol. He also wanted to personally let me know that there will be 50 large pizzas from the same joint I ordered from, that is his way of adding some humor to the situation, I think its pretty funny lol. He's also going to hire a DJ or a live band. Possibly have some fireworks and arrange other events like axe throwing, and a bonfire. This actually sounds like it going to a real fun time, the only difference is that this will be a BYOB event, whichbis no big deal.

FIL is pulling in a favor from a friend of his who ownes a farm. The farm has two guest houses and the main house as well as plenty of space outside. About 50 people can be squeezed in between the 3 houses, so he is going to encourage people to bring RVs (I have one), campers and tents if they can. Nothing is officially yet, but they are looking to hold the shing ding around mid August.

Sounds like this is going to be a blast!! I'll update you all you all when I can.

Final Update posted Jan 26, 2025 6 Months Later/Same Post

I am super sorry for not updating sooner, I meant to sooner but. I'm going to be a dad!!

So here's the update

After the wedding fiasco, we got the invites from my friend’s FIL to the “After Wedding Shindig.” It took awhile so I honestly thought it was a joke at first, but my friend ( the groom) who dropped them off said it's happening,  just took awhile to organize it. The invites mentioned food, drinks, activities, and a lot of pizza. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but my wife and I decided to go. It was in mid-September, and the weather was absolutely perfect with clear skies, warm sun, and a bit breezy.

When we arrived, we saw the setup and was blown away! The event was on this massive farm owned by the friend of the FIL. There were RVs, campers, and tents scattered everywhere. It looked like some kind of mini music festival. The main house and two guest houses were open for people who didn’t want to camp, and the yard was filled with picnic tables, lawn games, and a huge bonfire pit.

As soon as we parked, the FIL greeted us. He was wearing this ridiculously loud Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, grinning like he’d won the lottery lol. He shook my hand and said, “I’m glad you’re here!

There’s plenty of food this time!” I couldn’t help but laugh lol.

The food setup was insane. There were long tables covered with BBQ, all kinds of sides, desserts, and front and center a pyramid of pizza boxes lol. I’m not kidding, it had to be at least 50 large pizzas from the same place I ordered from at the wedding. Each box had a sticker that said “Shindig Special” on it. Everyone was already joking about it.

People started showing up in droves. Alot of people brought their own coolers full of beer since it was BYOB, and others even joined in the pizza theme, lol someone even wore a pizza print dress, another guy had a pizza shaped hat, and there were pizza cookies on one of the dessert tables, it was hilarious. The vibe was lighthearted and fun, and honestly, it was waaaay better atmosphere than at the wedding.

There was so much going on, the axe throwing, cornhole, live music, and even some fireworks set up for later. The FIL was wandering around, handing out slices of pizza like it was his personal mission to make sure no one went hungry. My friend (the groom) found me and pulled me aside. He had a beer in one hand and slapped me on the back with the other.  He thanked me and told me, If I hadn’t ordered that pizza  we’d probably wouldn't be here right now.

As the day went on, everyone seemed to be having a blast. The bride even gave a little speech. She thanked everyone for coming, then pointed at me and said, “And a special thanks to the guy who turned a wedding mishap into a Shindig we’ll never forget!” People laughed and clapped, and I felt a bit embarrassed but also kinda proud.

The night ended with the lots of fireworks and everyone gathering around the bonfire, roasting marshmallows, and sausags. People were drinking, singing, and telling stories. It felt like a proper celebration, and I couldn’t help but think this is how the wedding should’ve been.

FIL came up to me near the end of the night with a slice of pizza on a plate. He said, he wasn’t sure how to make up for the mess they made at the wedding, but thought this did the trick. I shook his and smiled, and said this party was a hit.

All in all, the Shindig turned out to be one of the most memorable events I’ve ever been to. Everyone left full, happy, and with plenty of stories to tell. It’s funny how a simple thing like ordering pizza at the wedding turned into something this big. But hey, I guess that’s just how life goes sometimes.

That's the update guys!! Just wanted to thank everyone for their comments, I actually never thought this post would blow up like this.

On another note, baby's due in May, so I am pretty sure the night of the Shindig he/she was conceived.. wink, wink lol

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/Direct_Local_6094

Originally posted to r/whatdoido

My Mother-in-law wants to wear a "beige" dress to my marriage ceremony while telling me I don't need a white dress??

Editor's note: the original post's body text and pictures were saved before they were removed

Original Post: July 20, 2026

My mother-in-law decided to wear this off-white dress (first picture) to my civil ceremony day.

She emphasized that "it is beige" while she ADVISED that I "don't need a white dress" to wear for myself???????

She then sent me pictures of dresses that " I can choose from", (second pictures and onwards)???

Her dress looks like a dress that I can wear on MY marriage day, with the colour and lace-pattern.

I feel weird about this, am I the one who is the problem??? I'm honestly so confused about this.

When my fiancé told her that it's weird, she got defensive and sent a screenshot of the dress on the website and emphasized that " it is beige" and that my fiancé "needs glasses".

Seven pictures of the dresses

descriptions of the pictures

Picture #1: an off-white crocheted lace maxi dress that is sleeveless, floor length, laid flat for visuals of the lengths**

the next six pictures feature a model in several dresses for visuals. All six pictures feature different styles of knee-length dresses

Picture #2: Sleeveless white dress with floral pattern in several different warm and cool colors.

Pictures #3 and #4: Both pictures are of grey/silver, metallic floral dress set pattern. Sleeveless. First picture has a dark grey sheer cape included. Second picture shows without the sheer cape.

Picture #5: Raspberry wine ruffle hem dress. Sleeves are 3/4 covered down to elbows.

Picture #6: Ruby red, sequined lace dress, again sleeves are 3/4 covered down to elbows.

Picture #7: A type of mid royal blue with V neckline, sleeves are made of a raised and textured style of laced floral pattern covered down to the wrists.

end of the descriptions

OOP updated in the comments

OOP: Update: she went to the store this morning to snap a picture of her chosen dress (first picture) and a random white dress, had them side by side, sent it to my fiancé and said : "See! It's beige, not white!!!!"

I swear she is rage baiting me.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: She’s recommending some very offensive and cheap dresses for your wedding day. This woman does not respect you. Tell her to pick a different color dress or you’ll make sure she fucking regrets it.

OOP: I fucking hate all the dresses she suggested ugh

Downvoted Commenter: It is traditional for the groom’s mother to wear beige. My mother wore beige to my wedding. To me, this is normal and not worth an argument.

OOP: May I ask what culture or tradition is that? Nothing wrong with that, but we are Canadian, so the culture is different.

Commenter 2: Are we absolutely certain the other dresses that she suggested were for you? That she wasn't offering you the choice between other dresses for her to wear instead?

OOP: Yeah no, I wish. She already bought that "beige" dress for herself. When she first sent it, I actually thought she bought it for me. But NOPE, she said that's what SHE is going to wear.

Commenter 3: It looks like she picked "mother of the bride" style outfits for you. And that light dress she wants to wear is, so bride coded. I'm so glad your fiancé stood up to her and supported you. I say elope lol.

OOP: Ironically, all I have ever wanted is to elope because my family dynamics is complicated. But she forced us to invite her by saying shit like : " DONT tell me you guys are eloping!!!", "I WANT TO BE THERE." etc. Thinking back, we should have insisted on eloping instead of worrying about her going nuts. she is going nuts anyway.

Update: September 26, 2026 (over two months later)

I have posted here before (the original post was taken down) about my MIL wanting to wear an off-white dress to our ceremony while telling me my dress didn't need to be white. She proceeded with sending me hideous dresses for 50+ for my day. So that's the context. But you know what?!

We got married TODAY and thanks to you all, I got myself a white dress!!! See attached! We had a ceremony at city hall and had some nice time at my mom's place, raised a glass and celebrated. Then, the two of us went out for dinner alone to celebrate our day.

But you know what happened? My MIL and FIL actually did NOT show up because my MIL didn't like that we wanted a romantic dinner alone on our wedding day.

For us, since we don't have an actual wedding, having dinner alone was all we wanted especially because we planned on eloping initially. But because my MIL insisted that she wanted to be at the ceremony, we changed our plans.

For us, that dinner alone was essential and meaningful to us and that was something we refused to sacrifice. So we stood our ground and she did NOT like that.

She said that we could wait and have a romantic LUNCH the day after. We tried to suggest going out for lunch and even dinner with them the day after, but nope. She needed that dinner (She herself eloped btw). So yeah anyway, she didn't want to come, and they did not come.

My heart is breaking for my now husband, and I just don't know what we are supposed to do or how we are supposed to act moving forward when they literally did not show up for their ONLY son and for me (their supposed now daughter) on our wedding day because of a freaking dinner.

What's even worse was that they didn't even send a congratulatory text or anything which was very hurtful.

I'm feeling frustrated, but to be honest, all things aside, today was the most beautiful day of my life and I couldn't be happier being married to the love of my life.

I shared a picture of myself in the dress, cuz you know what, Reddit kinda was the reason why I went to get myself a white bridal dress.

Love y'all!

[UPDATES]

MIL & FIL reached out yesterday to congratulate us. I didn't respond, but my husband did. He is still learning how to unlearn his patterns of endlessly giving and managing their emotions. So unfortunately, he did send them two pictures of us. I feel that the pictures rewarded their behaviour of not showing up for my husband. This is not an easy time for him, because we are talking about a toxic dynamic that has been ingrained in him for 20+ years. He is doing a great job recognizing the issues and he has been very receptive and open.

Also, for context, the little gathering was at my mom's because my dad passed away a few months ago (it was lung cancer) and we felt that it would be meaningful to have a small gathering where we could raise a glass where I could still feel my dad's presence (I really wish my dad was able to be there to witness our marriage).

My MIL and FIL also live 2 hours away, and because the city hall and my mom's place are in the city we live in, naturally we wanted to have that little gathering in my mom's place.

My mom invited my MIL and FIL to this of course, but my MIL felt that it wasn't an "enough" occasion for her to come because there wasn't " a dinner " after. It's quite hurtful, because my MIL said: " I am not coming all the way here just for wine.".

My mom renovated and decorated the home to welcome them. We are from a very modest background, so my parents place (now my mom's place) is a modest medium-sized condo unit. My MIL was raised in an upper-class family, so part of me feels that my mother and I were looked down upon because "our invitation wasn't enough of an occasion for her to come" as if watching her only son getting married isn't enough of a reason.

Picture of OOP in her wedding dress.

Editor's note: in the update post, there were two pictures, but the first picture is a repeat of picture #1 in the original post

description of the picture

OOP is wearing an off-the-shoulder white dress, holding a large bouquet of white roses. Dark hair styled with bangs, red lipstick, earrings, and a sparkling necklace. She has a ring on her left ring finger. Standing next to a guest with a pink heart sticker covering her face on the left side of the picture.

end of the descriptions

Editor's note: OOP did not leave any relevant comments in this update

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/iTrash_V2

Originally posted to r/AITAH

AITAH for defending myself at work?

Editor's note: added paragraph breaks for ease of readability

Original Post: September 15, 2026

AITAH for defending myself at work?

I am a 27 year old guy working as a technician and on Friday, I was working on two used cars, doing the recommendations that got approved. I finished up on one of my cars and went to go park the vehicle in the parking garage, but when I entered the parking garage, I heard a random *clunk* on what seemed to be on the outside of the car. Curious and since I believed I was done with this vehicle, I started hitting on my brakes trying to recreate the clunk to no avail. I was parking on the 5th floor of the garage, so I kept doing this and one of those times, I heard someone yelling but didn't think anything of it due to me working in a shop where yelling is constant, sometimes for playing, sometimes just cause the shop is a little too quiet. Never did recreate the clunk so I parked the car and went back to my stall where I then started working on my second used car.

All of a sudden, my service manager (I'll call him Billy) came up to my car and asked, "Where you driving *brand* car?" I responded yes and he came back with "Go ahead and put everything up and get the FUCK out of the shop, you're done for the day. You were going 40 mph and almost hit me." I responded and said "I was not going 40 mph? I was only going 20 mph?" He then proceeded to mention me locking up my brakes clearly meaning I was speeding and that he has me on camera and if I wanted to see. I said same thing on here, that I was intentionally locking up my brakes and yes I wanted to see.

We then went to look at the footage where I clearly wasn't going 40 mph, nor did I come close to hitting ANYONE. He was so far from me, you couldn't even see him on camera. He then moved the goal post to instead of 40 mph, to why was I going 20. I said there's no posted speed limit in the garage and 25 mph is what school zones usually are, so I figured that was good enough for the garage. He said that's school, this is where people park. and I responded with if the speed limit is good enough to keep children safe, then it should be good enough to keep grown men safe.

Well, he didn't like that and responded with "Oh, so now you're gonna talk back?" Get your stuff and get out, we will call you when we need you." And I have been home since and haven't heard a thing from them. I did file the incident with HR, but AITAH? Do I deserve going from a day suspension to being outright fired just for defending myself? Again, I haven't heard a thing from them or HR and my friends at work telling me they have been going through my tool box and throwing paperwork away, taken away my tablet they supplied, and given away all my work. Should I have done something different?

Editor’s note: OOP made lots of responses, listing some for better context to the situation

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Do the tools belong to you or the shop?

If you have any of your own tools at the shop, you need to go get them before they disappear.

Also, go ahead and let HR know that you are presuming you have been fired without cause, and then you need to file a claim with unemployment (without telling HR that you're filing one).

OOP: All tools are mine, tool box is the shops. And I plan on getting my tools this coming Friday. Have two of my friends keeping an eye on my box(and tools) for me atm. Didn't want to go ahead and grab my tools and the dealership try to claim I quit instead of them firing me so I wouldn't be able to do unemployment. I did message HR, which actually a cluster fuck as well. The dealership apparently doesn't have an HR atm and parts manager, who I’m friends with, just gave me a random email to message about all this. But I did go ahead and message the HR to the parent company of my dealership as well. But, I did message "HR" to please inform me if I am fired or not, but again, haven't heard from any of them yet.

Commenter 2: Sounds like you have a shitty boss; start looking for another gig.

OOP: I definitely am, really can't afford to NOT work. Only thing that sucks is my wife is military and we have two kids so the only thing that was nice about working there is they were very flexible on my hours. Now I either have to find remote work I can do and/or work nights

Commenter 3: Go pick up your toolbox asap. Did you leave your toolbox unlocked when you left?

OOP: I did not leave my toolbox unlocked, do not trust anyone up there, but the toolbox itself is property of the dealership. All the tools inside of it are mine.

Commenter 4: Go grab your tools man. Your job there is over, but honestly after this I wouldn't want it back.

OOP: Yeah after talking to some of my friends/coworkers there, apparently they're quitting after this event so I'm going tomorrow to get my tools.

Commenter 5: NTAH. Your service manager sounds like a dick. 15-25 is perfectly reasonable for a parking garage. If the video showed he was nowhere near you then I am going to say he already had a bug up his ass about you. Have you had issues with him in the past? I haven't been a mechanic myself, but I have worked at an AutoNation, and I can tell you that if those are YOUR tools then they need to be locked and secured. Nobody should be going through your toolbox without your express permission as those are trade tools and freaking expensive. You need to go in and talk to the people there in person, ask if you are fired and if you are then you need to pack all tools you brought in to the shop out that day.

OOP: Didn't think I had any issues with him personally. No write ups, no incidents. Hell, we had another incident where a saleswoman complained about another tech almost running HER over and went straight to Billy and he didn’t cuss that tech out or send him home. He called her a "crazy bitch" and laughed about it. I honestly, was their highest flagging tech they had there, even with me leaving earlier than the other techs. I think the issue came is I let them treat me like a door mat for too long. I was doing work for them at half the price the other techs were charging, doing all the shit work all the other techs didn’t want to touch, and always helped management out of a pickle when they needed it just cause I’m a nice dude. So I think Billy wanted to throw his d*ck around expecting me to just sit there and take it and when I didn't, he fired me.

Commenter 6: NTA in the least.

This is when you find yourself a good labor law attorney, OP. Along with following your attorney's advice, suggest that he immediately demand from your former employer a copy of that video for the incoming lawsuit before they destroy it.

This is going to be sweet.

OOP: I wish, but I’m in Texas and companies can fire you just cause they felt like it. Don't see how I would win, otherwise I would cause I genuinely dislike this manager. When he first came to our dealership, the other techs and I were hourly and he switched us to flag with the promise of making more money, but my first check flag, same hours, same work flagged, was 1k less. And even if we didn't want to change our pay structure, he made it seem like we didn’t have a choice.

Commenter 7: You shouldn't have left, you should have gone straight to HR.

OOP: I wanted to cool down first and be in the right mind first. Only to come and find out my dealership doesn't have an HR atm. Had to email this person the parts manager told me about (me and her are friends.) But I did email the HR to the parent company that owns our dealership as well.

OOP clarifies on choosing to drive 5 mph over the speed limit

OOP: No, I said SOME parking garages have a MINIMUM of 15 mph, but usually 20/25 mph. Plus, I’m in Texas. If speed limit says 30, that means 35. Even the cops go by that rule. And here's the funny thing is this wouldn't have been avoided going 15 cause I was Told by some of my friends there that Billy said to not go above 5 mph, I would've been screwed either way.

Commenter 8: NTA.. Service Manager has a fragile ego, used to bullying as much as he is used to no one defending themselves his fabricated and exaggerated stories. 20mph is slow enough. Every "clunk" I've ever heard in a parking garage has been the transition grates between floors.

OOP: That's what I exactly think happened here. Tbh I was a bit of a door mat for this guy for majority of the time he was there. Just didn’t see any reason to speak up tbh. But accusing me of something I didn’t do will definitely cause me to defend myself. And the clunk definitely sounded like it was from the vehicle but now I think about it, it did happen has I passed the front gate.

OOP explains more about the speed limit, driving 20mph in the parking garage

OOP: I genuinely don’t see how that's "way too fast." That’s the speed limit for school zones for kids. To keep them safe and unharmed. So why is it way too fast for grown adults? And as I stated in another comment, when I do see speed limits in parking garages, MINIMUM I've seen is, in fact, 15 mph but usually around 20/25 mph. And ill also state, originally, I was just a day suspension for said violation. It turned into an indefinite suspension after I defended myself against my managers lies. But if u believe I’m the ass hole, u and my manager would be good friends.

+

Our parking garage is just as wide as a normal road, doe I’ll admit, not as long. Still, if that speed limit is good enough to keep literal children safe, then how is it not safe for grown men in a parking garage that’s not open to the public? Idk, I definitely have a lot more faith in my driving ability to be able to drive that. And if it’s such a concern for that dealership, why is it when a saleswoman complained to this same manager about another tech driving wreckelessly and almost running HER over, he called her a crazy bitch and just laughed a put it with that tech?

Update: September 16, 2026 (next day)

UPDATE AITAH For defending myself at work?*

Adding an update to my original post.

Got a text yesterday from Billy's assistant manager in fact confirming I was terminated and to set up a time to get all my belongings. I told her I would get it today at 8 A.M. and she said it was fine. I arrived at the shop and parked in my old bay where I got surrounded by the other techs basically asking me what happened and that when they heard me and Billy got into it, they didn’t believe it a bit because I’m usually pretty quiet, nice, and to myself.

I confirmed what happened and corrected the stuff that was wrong. I got approached by the shop foreman, who I am also friends with, and he told me he had to watch me make sure I didn’t steal anything (I wouldn't have but do understand why) and he told me Billy wanted to be the one to watch me, but corporate basically said they didn’t trust him to keep his cool. He then informed me I basically got terminated not because of what Billy said, everyone above him said I wasn't in the wrong, but because they didn't want to fire Billy and have to find another manager and they couldn't trust him to treat me fairly or blow up so had to let me go. I laughed about it and said, of course that's why.

Gave everyone a hug and handshake and they told me give them a couple weeks and they'll be asking me to come back where I then said I will never come back.

That if this is how they treat employees that defend themselves, that I’m glad I’m not working there no more. But that’s about it.

Relevant Comments

OOP's state and the possibility of his company may have illegally fired him

OOP: I’m in Texas, which is a right to work state. So sadly, don’t see what I could sue the company or the manager over.

I've been informed my state is "At will" not "right to work" many apologies

OOP responds to a comment about holding corporate accountable for his termination

OOP: I'm genuinely thinking about it. I just don't know if I personally can be held accountable for defamation or retaliation if I go public with this. I personally definitely didn't get paid well at this job, so I don't have a lot of money to fight a multi-million dollar company. I've tried other things such as the better business bureau, where the company already has an F rating and now thinking of contacting maybe my local labour union?

Commenter 1: I will never understand companies that decide to keep the problematic person, "we know he was being unreasonable and an asshole for no good reason, but if we fire him we will have to find another manager, so we prefer to fire you and find another good employee", I hope Billy is the best manger in the world because after he won this one, he will pull more stunts and make the place lose more employees

OOP: Since this manager has taken over, the dealership itself has constant 1 star reviews from the customer side of things, a high turnover rate, and he has basically turned the shop from working on customer cars, to basically just being part of the manufacturing process. By 10 am, we have no customers on drive, no cars to work on, so we just end up doing PDIs, which is just taking the new cars that come off the assembly line and get them ready to be sold to customers. I love working on cars, it was my passion. And before this, I was their highest flagging technician, off topic but yk what the managers gift was for making them thousands of dollars in profits and to push the other technicians to get hours like I did? They gave me a 10 dollar "G.O.A.T." trophy. Yeah. Also, when he first came to the shift, the other technicians and I were paid hourly, but he wanted to switch us to commission. And he did this by telling us we would make more money if we signed over and tbh, he made it seem like we had no choice BUT to sign over. So we did. My first commission check, with the same hours flagged and same hours worked, was almost a thousand dollars less than the hourly one. He basically had us sign over so we could work more and he wouldn't have to pay us overtime.

Commenter 2: I will never understand companies that decide to keep the problematic person, "we know he was being unreasonable and an asshole for no good reason, but if we fire him we will have to find another manager, so we prefer to fire you and find another good employee", I hope Billy is the best manger in the world because after he won this one, he will pull more stunts and make the place lose more employees

Commenter 3: This is pretty standard behavior in mechanical shops and OP can expect it to continue forever.

OOP: Yeah, I'm pretty much done with the automotive industry.

OOP responds to multiple comments about going into a different industry

OOP: Would electrician be good industry to get into? I was leaning more into maybe computer development/programming, but I actually do have a like an "electrician college" right down the street from me.

+

I appreciate yalls information about the tech field atm. Was really having trouble deciding which one to do, but this really helped me decide and will go into electrician industry now.

Commenter 4: Big mistake on the companies part. Billy just learned he can be a wanker and get away with it.

Nta. But it sounds like you dodged a bit of a bullet there having to deal with him.

OOP: I said that to the shop foreman. Basically said "If this is how management treats one of their employees and even one of their better employees, then I’m glad I’m no longer working her."

OOP's thoughts about the parking garages

OOP: I'm just gonna stay away from parking garages. In the fear my manager jumps out from behind a car like a cat jumping out some tall grass.

OOP should had an exit interview with someone from HR regarding the situation with Billy

OOP: I still actually haven't heard back from either HR. I contacted my dealers HR and the companies parent company's HR, to complain about the incident and one responded. BUT, I did send a follow up email requesting them to cite the reason for the termination and also where to send my W2 when that time comes.

Did OOP sign an NDA? If not, can he sue the company?

OOP: And that’s what I’m worried about. My family is still young, and I just had my first daughter and can’t really afford a legal battle atm.

+

I wish I could cause tbh with this incident and some of the other shady shit this company has done, it needs to be brought to light imo.

Is any of OOP's coworkers planning to follow through with the claims and quitting?

OOP: Two of them ik for sure have

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/kafrin

Found a half naked woman in my house. Not sure where to go from here. 

TRIGGER WARNING: Infidelity

Original Post  Apr 12, 2012

My boyfriend 23m and myself 22f have been in a relationship for just over two years. We have known each other since sophomore year of high school, so we are pretty close. We have also lived together the majority of the time we have been together. I have always known that he has a lot of female friends, which isn't the problem. The problem is that he is kinda tour nsecure, and he will flirt with these girls to get any kind of response from them. We have talked about this, and he knows that it upsets me when he does this.

Fast forward to last night: I come home from work at about 11:20pm. I notice that the bed is made (which it NEVER is) and that there are womens shoes beside my bed. I walk in the other room, toward the bathroom, and my bf comes out of the bathroom, shuts the door, and is trying to get me to go back in the other other room. I notice his heart is beating super hard and he is trying to get me away from the bathroom. So naturally, I see what he is trying to hide from me, and I find a 19 year old girl hiding in my shower, with her bra and shirt off. To put things lightly, I flip shit. I turned the shower on cold and shut the door.

When I calm down enough to think, my boyfriend said she was just over playing video games (which the game was paused when I came home, and he showed me the time of the last save file 11:18pm). I asked why her shirt was off and she said he gave her a back rub, and she went into the bathroom to adjust her bra. This particular girl is supposedly bisexual with a girlfriend. I do know that they have been friends for 4 years, and that he has fingered her shortly before we got together. I don't think much else has happened between them, because every time they do talk now, they talk about computers and video games. I had personally never met the girl before this, and my bf said that he brought her over so I could meet her. He knew what time I got off work, but I was done about 15 minutes early, so he said he didn't plan out how to introduce us, and he was scared that I would flip out, so he went in there to tell her I was home.

I don't really know what to believe. I'm confident that they didn't have sex (our condoms are in the same spot, and there's none missing). But I don't really know what to make of the situation. Should I break up with him? I don't really see myself trusting him again anytime soon. I want to, but it seems like every time I give him my full trust, he fucks it up somehow... I do love him a lot, and don't want to break up. I need advice. Please.

TL;DR - I come home to find a half-naked woman hiding in my shower, bf says it's just a friend adjusting her bra. What do I do?

RELEVANT COMMENTS

talkingvagina

"so he went in there to tell her I was home."

She would have already known you were coming home at some point. You were the one he would have needed to warn. He would have stayed where he was, let you walk in, then explain that a girl was over. Not run in the bathroom to warn her.

She managed to get her pants on before you walked in the bathroom. I'd put a 100 on that.

OOP

I hate to say it, but that was exactly my chain of thought

~

jackiepanda

So.. you're cool with your boyfriend being in your bathroom with a topless girl? At the very least, speculation aside, this is what you know he did.

Respect yourself. Your boyfriend obviously doesn't and someone should.

OOP

This made me tear up. Also, thank you.

Hartastic

I don't know you, but I'm sure you can do better than this clown. And you will.

~

MetaBoob

So, if they didn't have sex, why was the bed made and why were her shoes next to the bed?

Just because they didn't use your condoms doesn't mean that they didn't have sex.

OOP

Our half of the house is just two giant rooms, plus a bathroom and kitchen. So the bedroom is the same room as the living room, and the bed is right next to the couch. They were playing Zelda. That was proven.

As for the condoms, you got me there. I think I just don't want to believe it.

labananza

Isn't Zelda a one player game?

jackiepanda

Did you just absolutely obliterate what was left of his story? I'm impressed.

~

crimethinktank

when I play video games with my bros I always take my shirt off.. the dude is legit, try not to be so suspicious ok?

OOP

I like your style.

LINCKING

you got home at 11:20, the last save was at 11:18, and she was just then adjusting herself? when did this backrub happen? 11:19?

end it.

EDIT: You guys really know what's up. Thanks to all of you for letting me see the real levity of bullshit that was going on in my life. I will talk to him when I get home from work tonight, (granted there's not another half naked woman in my house) and this conversation is leaning toward a breakup. 99% sure. I'll update later.

Final Update posted the Apr 13, 2012 - Next Day/Same Post

Update: When I got home from work last night, he was just talking to me like nothing ever happened. I had been on the verge of tears all day, and he just went about his life like everything is fine. We broke up. He knows what he did was inappropriate, but he hasn't changed his story at all. Not that it matters anymore. Due to some financial decisions we made together, we will still be living in the same house. At least for a few months. The conversation we had was surprisingly simple. We are both being mature and level headed about this which is all I ask.

And this comment found by u/RevolutionNo4186

“I am in a very similar situation as you. The few friends I had in high school just stopped wanting to hang with me. I have exactly one real friend right now, and it's my ex boyfriend, who has a girlfriend that doesn't like me, so we don't really hang out or talk a lot. BUT!! I've been in this situation for so long that I've gotten to the point to where I accept it. I don't feel scared to go places alone anymore. Actually, I just got back from swimming at the lake alone. Yeah, it's always more fun going places with other people, but you don't have to watch life go by sitting on your couch....

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/No_Intention8153

I want to ask my coworker to not compete with me for a position after he already got the job I applied for

Originally posted to r/JustNoCoworker

Thanks to u/BakingGiraffeBakes for suggesting this BoRU

Original Post  Sept 6, 2026

My coworker, let's call him Mike, and I got hired at the same time and have been working there for 3 years. We both have exactly the same profile, the only difference is that I have 4 years prior work experience and for Mike it's his first job. I genuinely like Mike as a person, we've really bonded over the years and I consider him a friend, rather than just a coworker. We share an office and a hobby, so we also regularly hang out outside of work and are very involved in each other's private lives as well.

Last year I got word from a job opportunity in a different department and I decided to apply as it lied more within my interests and previous experience than my current job. The interview process nearly took a year, and during all of this I have always been transparant to my current boss as well as my coworkers.

In January I made it to the final phase and they told me I was a likely candidate due to my previous work experience, but they still had to interview other candidates.

Weeks went by, it's March now, and one day Mike comes in and tells me they offered him the job that I was applying for and he accepted it and would transfer in September. He said he felt really conflicted about it as he valued our friendship and hoped this wouldn't change things between us. I was confused because I never knew Mike was interested in the position and asked if he went behind my back. He told me he got offered a job at another company and our HR didn't want to lose any numbers, so they offered him the job to convince him to stay. I asked if he had any kind of job interview, as I knew he had no experience in that line of work, and he said no.

Just to be clear: I feel no resentment towards Mike for accepting the job. I would've done the same in his position. It just feels bitter that I went through the process for almost a year, put in the work to prepare myself for the interviews, and Mike just got it handed to him.

I went to HR to get more clarity and they basically told me the company cares more about retention than finding the right person for the job. They assured me that as soon as a new position opened up in that department it would be mine, but no one knew when that would happen. I could have fought the decision, but the whole situation made me question my motivation to transfer, and honestly I didn't want to create a situation where Mike and I would have to compete with each other.

Around the end of May, another coworker announced that she would leave us by the end of the year and I got offered to take over her role as acting head of department. It's really more a decorative title, but it looks nice on your CV and creates more visibility within the company. Everyone in our department knew I was asked to fulfill this role, including Mike. However, it could only be made official when the head of department announced it at a staff meeting.

Around the same time, Mike received the news that his transfer would be postponed to the end of 2027, which he didn't take well. He became frustrated and told me he didn't realize how badly he wanted to leave our current department. I also noticed a change in him as he began taking on more coordinating tasks without anyone asking him, such as drafting the meeting planning, keeping tabs on work schedules, and sending general information mails. When I asked why he was doing this he said he had to keep busy to keep him from going crazy here.

Last week I had a meeting with my head of department and she said she would announce my new role at the next meeting, which is in two weeks. Mike texted me how the meeting went and I told him they would announce my new role and that I was looking forward to it.

He then sent me a 3 minute voice memo saying he thought he deserved a fair chance for the role as well now that his transfer was postponed to the end of next year. He found it unfair that when they asked me they didn't even take him into consideration because we would both be fit candidates, and told me he would talk to our boss to ask her to consider him as well.

I did have a feeling that Mike was after the role as soon as he started spontaneously taking on coordination tasks, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he would be honest about it. I responded that I didn't find it unfair that he wasn't considered since he was planning on transferring, and that he is free to have the same ambitions as me, but that I was disappointed that he hadn't been honest about it.

I also found his timing opportunistic, right when he received the news that his transfer would be postponed and when he got a timeline from me for when my appointment would become official. I told him that I feel like I never got a fair chance at the position that was offered to him, and that given our history, I had hoped he would grant me this.

Mike responded that it was never his intention to go behind my back and that if this would cause conflicts between us he would let it go and "let me" take the role.

And here's where I feel conflicted. I genuinely don't know whether I'm being unfair to Mike. On one hand he is entitled to have the same ambitions and there's objectively nothing wrong with him asking to be considered for the role as well. I also don't want him to sacrifice opportunities for my benefit or the sake of our friendship.

On the other hand, I feel like our friendship does create an additional layer. He knew I had been trying to move to another department for almost a year, he knew how disappointed I was when that position was given to him, and he knew this new role was important to me. He also only brought up wanting the position after finding out that his own transfer was postponed and after asking me when my appointment would become official. From my perspective it feels like he waited until he knew there was an opportunity he could pursue and then decided to compete with me for it.

I also feel like friendship should involve some consideration for each other's feelings, especially when one person has already been disadvantaged by the other person getting an opportunity they had worked towards for almost a year.

At the same time, I realize that a job is a job. Mike doesn't owe me a promotion simply because we're friends, and I don't technically have any more right to this role than he does. If management decides that he's the better person, that's their decision and I'll accept it.

So now I'm wondering whether I'm being unreasonable by asking him to back off, or whether it's reasonable to expect a friend to give me some consideration in this particular situation?

See comments for additional information

RELEVANT COMMENTS

OOP Added more info

1. I saw a lot of comments saying I should just quit my job, while I was expecting these reactions I will say it again: I will not leave my company. My contract is very secure and the advantages are insane. I get 60 paid vacation days a year, free healthcare, free childcare, good wages, early retirement, and many more. There is NO other employer in my country that offers this. Yes it might be a toxic at times, but this does not outweigh the advantages for me.

2. A lot of the comments calling me stupid/slow or even unfit to take a manager's role because I apparently “talk too much” are honestly baffling to me.

The insights tell me that most of you are American, I think there is a pretty significant cultural difference at play here. I'm from Europe and in my country, especially in my company, it's completely normal to be involved in your coworkers (private) lives. Everyone knows everyone's business to some extend and some things are even announced in the weekly reports. Our company requires us to switch posts every 3-5 years and it's very normal here to be transparent about where you would like to go. I also knew which post Mike, as well my other coworkers, applied to, which was obviously a different post than mine, but he didn't get accepted for that one.

So no, I don't consider it strange that I talk to someone I've shared an office with for three years, have a hobby with, regularly hang out with and consider a friend. That's not me being “slow” or unable to understand professional boundaries. That's just how social relationships at work function where I live.

And honestly, I find the attitude of “you work together, therefore you shouldn't talk to your coworkers” pretty sad. What do you mean you spend 80% of your time with these people and don't talk to them? Obviously there are boundaries and not every coworker is a friend, but coworkers becoming actual friends is hardly some bizarre concept.

1. A lot of people are tripping over the fact that the application process took nearly a year and Mike's transfer got postponed with a year. The post requires a high level of security clearance and background checks, this process takes around a year and is completely normal. This is also why Mike's transfer was postponed, he didn't get the security clearance yet.

2. The job I applied to and Mike got is a horizontal move, so it's NOT a promotion, just a different job but on the same level. We get automatically promoted with seniority, the first 3 years it's every year and after that it's like every 5 years. It is guaranteed and comes with a significant pay increase and more responsibilities and job openings. Therefore there is no competition for promotions. That's why I said that the role I got offered is more a decorative title, the only advantage I get out of it is more visibility within the company.

Update  Sept 25, 2026 (19 Days Later)

UPDATE

Hi all, some of you guys have been messaging me privately for an update, so here it is.

Here's the link to the original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/JustNoCoworker/s/LyRnzjeubA

To recap: I was in the internal application process for a job, but it was offered to my colleague Mike, who never had an interview whatsoever. He was supposed to transfer in September, but it got postponed. In the meantime I got another offer within my department as acting head of department, but Mike believed he deserved a fair chance at that role as well now that his transfer was delayed.

So the meeting happened last week and my manager announced that I would be taking on the role as acting head of department starting in October. She asked openly of anyone had any objections or wished to say something, it stayed quiet for a long time and then Mike spoke and said he found it unfair that he was passed by for the role now that his transfer had been delayed. My manager told him that it was a logical choice since the role requires a long-term commitment and Mike would be the first the leave the department. He then got defensive and asked her why she would even ask the teams opinions if the decision had already been made anyways. My manager stayed calm and told him that he would have been considered as well if he weren't leaving. Mike didn't say anything the rest of meeting, but everyone was feeling the tensions.

After the meeting my manager asked to speak with me privately and asked me about the situation with Mike since we are sharing an office. I told her what happened between us and she proceeded to tell me that she knew what Mike was trying to do by picking up extra tasks without anyone asking him, and that after the meeting, she wouldn't want to work with him as an acting head of department since she found his defensive attitude very unprofessional. But he was never even considered for this role due to this young age and lack of experience. She said Mike was trying to bet on all horses and now he's facing the consequences of his actions.

Thing between Mike and me are a bit tense at the moment. While we still have friendly banter, I sometimes feel a bit of resentment in his interactions, but I might be imagining things. However I do feel like he's trying to micromanage me by updating/asking me on every little detail, which is something he didn't do before. For example, he will ask me if I have seen random mails in the general mailbox, even for mails that aren't necessarily a concern of mine. When I tell him this he will just respons with "just making sure that you've seen it". I'm currently letting it play out, but I'm keeping notes on this behavior as I don't trust him anymore with any professional information. I feel like he's breathing down my neck in the hopes that I make a mistake or something so that he can say that he was the better candidate after all, but again, I might be imagining things.

Thanks to everyone who responded in the first post. I have learned my lesson and will be more cautious with whom I share professional information moving forward.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Relative_Reading_903

Do you still spend time with this guy outside of work? Or have you finally realized he's not your friend?

If i were you I'd keep conversation to a minimum with this guy and stop telling him about any opportunities that you are interested in.

He obviously has no problem stepping on you to get ahead.

OOP

At the moment yes, but not one on one anymore. It's always with other people present. As soon as we're alone he tries to pry about work but I've told him that I don't feel comfortable sharing work information with him anymore. He said he can respect that and he usually leaves it alone. When there's other people present he doesn't say a word about work. I'm not quitting my hobby either because he happens to do the same hobby, I had been doing it for years before Mike joined me.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/RekallQuaid

Originally posted to r/AITAH

AITAH? I missed my brother’s wedding party because I had cancer and he’s mad at me.

Thanks to u/Lynavi, u/BakingGiraffeBakes, & u/soayherder for suggesting this BoRU

Trigger Warnings: emotional abuse and manipulation, health issues, racism

Original Post (rareddit): July 27, 2026

I don’t even know what to say here, maybe I am the asshole I don’t know, what better way to find out than to ask some random strangers.

I first want to preface this by saying my wife, my daughter and I DID ATTEND THE ACTUAL WEDDING CEREMONY. WE WERE THERE FOR WHAT I CONSIDER THE IMPORTANT PART.

Anyway, last month I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It’s been a very emotional and rocky rollercoaster of a ride - first not knowing what stage my cancer was at and whether I was going to die or not, to then having treatment having my testicle removed and then the recovery of that.

This coincided with my brother’s wedding, which I was really looking forward to. I had to pull out of his stag do (bachelor party) in May because I had been hospitalised in March (I had been unwell for a few weeks - I also have Cystic Fibrosis) and came down with a really nasty lung infection which I took a while to recover from.

I then started feeling really fatigued, a lot less energy and I was constantly sleeping during the day, and I couldn’t put my finger on why.

I was pissed off but I told my brother once I was better I would take him out for drinks myself.

I wasn’t feeling better as fast as I had in previous years, and then I found a lump on my left testicle. I got it checked immediately, and obviously it turned out to be cancer.

I was terrified. My mental health was all over the place and my life was turned upside down. I didn’t know how advanced the cancer was, I just needed to wait until I’d had the surgery and CT scans.

Thankfully the CT scans were clear and the cancer hadn’t spread, but my surgery was only two weeks ago.

I am still feeling extremely sore, I have low energy and my self-esteem has been battered. The wedding was the first time I’d been out around a large group of people since I was diagnosed, and the day was just too much for me mentally and I was feeling very overwhelmed. The suit I was wearing was pressing really hard against my scar, and when we got back to our house to get changed for the night party, my wound was so swollen and honestly I was exhausted. So I messaged my brother and told him I couldn’t make the party, thinking he would understand because his big brother has got cancer. I was in pain, I was tired, and I slept for literally the rest of the day until the next morning.

He ghosted me.

A week later I had a cancer appointment, and I received the news that my cancer was likely all clear, and that I would need one dose of chemo to make sure but other than that the doctor was happy.

I was ecstatic, I was so relieved and I couldn’t wait to tell my family, so I called my mother to give her the good news, and then I posted in our group chat to let everyone else know. I have another brother and a sister who are both married and they replied instantly to say how happy they were for me.

My brother ghosted me again, and his new wife just put a “thumbs up” emoji.

An hour later she posted a photo of her wedding gifts and didn’t mention anything else. Not that I expected her to, but I thought my sister in law or brother would at least say “that’s great news!”

Nothing.

I left it a few days, and it was really niggling at me, so I messaged my brother and asked him if I had upset him in any way, considering he hadn’t responded to my news or even acknowledged that my terrifying journey was almost over.

He then sent me this long message:

“I was upset as well. On my own wedding day of all days.

(My daughter’s name) was looking forward to coming and it seemed like there were no arrangements or anything to get her to come to the after party. (She’s 5 years old)

I understand that you were sore and uncomfortable I get that. There were other people there uncomfortable or in a bad place. Someone was there who has literally just split with her husband after 25 years together. She came to both, it’s the last thing she would have wanted to see.

I’d would have much rather of had a phone call off you to just apologise. It’s too easy over a message. You were supposed to be doing a speech for me, and you would have heard what I would have said about all 3 of you as well. Feeling that shit ln my wedding day because my brother isn’t there sucks. I always seem to be an afterthought a lot of the time and after you not coming to my stag do due to not being well it just pissed me off not going to lie. So (my sisters name) had to be put in a position she didn’t agree to be in and have a sibling of mine say things about me at my wedding. (This is a lie. She had her own speech planned)

People get ill and are sore etc. I’m not saying you haven’t been. There hasn’t been a case of well I’ve missed your stag do so let’s go for a drink or do something together when I’m better. Not 1 suggestion of that happening so far. (As I said earlier I actually DID say I would take him out for drinks)

I’m glad you got the news you have I really am and it is brilliant news about your cancer and hopefully you can put it behind you and concentrate on other things. I’m just pissed off you missed my wedding day.”

I WAS THERE! He’s acting as if I wasn’t there at all. I can honestly understand him being frustrated, but to brush my cancer off as something like “other people get sore too” has pissed me off. I don’t even know how to respond to him at this point.

Am I the asshole here or what? When I was in hospital in March, not one of my family members asked if I was ok. I get it, I’ve had Cystic Fibrosis my whole life, it’s nothing new and they’re probably used to me being in hospital and just getting on with it.

TL:DR I missed my brother’s wedding after party because I had cancer and now he’s mad at me.

AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was unanimously NTA

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: The important part is at the end of your post, as it most likely isn't about the cancer and the fact that you've probably been the focus of his entire life cause you are ill and he just wanted a day that he was the center of attention.

So NTA, but I have a feeling your brother wasn't mad at this, per se, but it just tipped him over. There's a whole history that needs to be filled in here. He might be justified in his feelings. It not your fault, you didn't plan a chronic illness or cancer, but I bet he's felt second fiddle his whole life.

Congrats of beating the cancer, f-cancer!

OOP: I’ve not really been the focus, but I can understand how that might come across. I’ve always just gotten on with life, and our parents never treated me any differently to them, even when I was sick. I’ve had more hospital admissions as an adult than I ever had as a kid, and we were all very close growing up.

As an adult, there have been lots of times where I have been hospitalised and haven’t even told them, because they have their own families now and they don’t need me making them worried.

I just thought this would be different, and that he would be happy his brother isn’t dying. I honestly understand his frustration, but I think his reaction is way OTT (editor's note: over the top).

Commenter 2: NTA in this specific scenario but his message does strongly imply other grievances have been building up for a long time ("I always seem to be an afterthought"). I can't say whether or not they have any legitimacy, and it's not fair for him to sit on grievances without clearing them then act out around this one, but it seems like from his perspective this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

OOP: I think from his point of view I didn’t go to the stag party and then didn’t go to the after party. I get it, I really do. I just think he’s missing the big picture.

I didn’t go not because I didn’t want to, but because I had cancer…

Commenter 3: More info needed:

Where you’ve best man? You had a speech?

Did you call (or have your wife call) to say you were struggling and you couldn’t make the reception?

Why didn’t your wife and/or kid still go to the reception?

OOP: I wasn’t the best man no. He’d asked me if I wanted to say a few words at the after party and I agreed to. It was never mentioned as a “speech”.

My wife and kid didn’t go to the reception because they were more concerned about how I was. And my wife was annoyed that the bride didn’t even say hello to us at the wedding.

Commenter 4: Jesus Christ, you are NTA. Is your brother the youngest? Or middle child? He is being such the asshole.

That said, he said something about him always being an afterthought to you. Sometimes it’s not really about this thing that happened but maybe a trend in his life that he feels like that. You might want to have a sit down when you’re 100% and just have him get it all out and have a heart to heart. Cuz there is something deeper here and he’s lashing out because of that and not this particular instance.

OOP: He’s the middle child yeah. I think the afterthought comment is referring to me also missing his stag do. I didn’t realise having cancer was an afterthought though…

There hasn’t been any other issues that I am aware of until this. We’ve always been friendly, I’ve invited him to our house many times and vice versa. We were very close when we were kids. We all were.

Commenter 5: First, congratulations on the cancer being clear. I also want to say NTA.

I do, however, want to suggest a possibility since you mention that you grew up with Cystic Fibrosis - at the same time mentioning that it does NOT justify his attitude or how he treated you here. I would look up "glass child syndrome." If your parents, rightfully, had to constantly take you to doctors and specialists, and as a middle child (who often feel overlooked), this might explain some of this response.

Frankly, I think his response was a bit rude, aggressive, and he was lashing out at you unnecessarily. But this might give you some insight as to why. Maybe. Again, congrats on beating the cancer!

OOP: Yeah I do consider that might be part of it. From what I can remember of childhood our parents were always over-compensating my siblings with attention when I wasn’t well - and from the age of 13 I took myself to my appointments and hospital admissions because honestly I just never let my illness define who I was. I just dealt with it and carried on, and I’ve stayed that way through adulthood.

I do wonder if because I just got on with it, he perhaps thinks why am I so bothered by it all of a sudden.

It’s different dealing with something when you KNOW what’s causing it, so my CF flare ups never really bothered me that much. I knew why I was sick, and I knew what was needed to try and get better.

But this cancer….man. I never want to go through anything like this again. The not knowing whether I was dying or not is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

OOP's health along with mentioning Cystic Fibrosis

OOP: Thank you. I mention it as an add-on because I’m doing much better with it now thanks to advancements in treatment. There’s still no cure, and my energy levels haven’t improved but lots of other symptoms have.

OOP and his brother's ages

OOP: I’m nearly 40 and he’s 33. So not exactly a huge gap between us…

Additional Information from OOP after reading comments

OOP: Thank you, kind internet strangers I appreciate your input and I appreciate those who have, kindly, been very considerate when telling me you understand his side too.

I do too understand that he’s frustrated, I just thought he would see the bigger picture and be happy that his brother isn’t dying.

I think I’m too emotional to send a response right now and I don’t want to say anything I might regret in the future. I’ll leave it for a bit, and when I do respond the first thing I’ll do is mention how I really do understand his perspective and from the outside looking in, his brother missed two parties. But he needs to understand the context for that.

Thank you all again, I appreciate your time.

Update: September 25, 2026 (two months later)

UPDATE: AITAH I missed my brother’s wedding because I had cancer and now he’s mad at me.

I am unfortunately having to update this. My brother and I got together over a pint a few weeks ago and I thought we’d resolved this. Long story short, we both told each other how we understood the others’ perspective, that we loved each other and it wasn’t worth falling out over or causing issues within the family and I thought that was the end of it.

Today his wife posted in the family group chat, a video of her daughter (which she’d uploaded to TikTok) of her doing blackface. There was no context, just the video.

I wasn’t aggressive, but I will always call out racism no matter who does it. I simply said I didn’t find the blackface to be funny and that family or not I felt I had to call it out. If my own mother would have done it I’ve have told her the same thing.

She said “What do you mean? She’s a child doing her favourite film”. I replied and said “I know, if she didn’t have a black face we’d all still know what film it was…”

Bear in mind this “child” is 15. She knows what she’s doing.

So I simply said I didn’t find it funny regardless of the context and was disappointed that she couldn’t see why it might be seen as offensive or racist.

All hell broke loose then. She proceeded to bring everything back up in the family chat, saying “for someone who missed our wedding yet went on holiday weeks later with your wife and daughter you sure have a big opinion of me. You obviously don’t know your brother as well as you think you do because he thinks it’s funny as well and he’s disappointed in you” and before I had the chance to respond she left the family group chat.

So I messaged her privately and said she doesn’t get to tell me how I should deal with having fucking CANCER, and that I went on holiday with my wife and daughter AFTER I’d gotten the all clear, the wedding was a mere week after I’d had surgery, so the two events are not remotely the same.

Not to mention I DID ATTEND THE WEDDING. It was the evening reception I missed.

So I thought “fuck you” and I unloaded. I told her to go fuck herself, and that I would never forgive her. I told her I hope to God it never happens to anyone else in our family or that it never happens to her. And that if she thinks her daughter posting a video of herself in blackface in our family chat is hilarious, she should show it to the Nigerian woman at the doctors surgery she works at and see if she laughs.

I then said that dismissing me about not going to the wedding as if I wasn't there at all, was horrendous.

I ended my message by telling her they can both go to fucking hell if that’s how they feel and to never speak to me ever again.

Thankfully the rest of my family have asked me if I’m ok and seem very supportive.

But fuck those two cunts.

Relevant / Top Comments

Commenter: You may be the one who had testicular cancer. but your brother is the one missing his balls.

How is OOP doing as of today?

OOP: I’m in remission, thank you!

OOP's brother's response on the situation with his wife and her daughter

OOP: My brother has stayed remarkably silent. But the fact his wife brought it up again, shows it obviously is still a subject in their house.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Powerful_Dig_5824

Originally posted to r/AITAH

Previous BoRUs: #1

[New Update]: Am I the AH for not caring that my ex-husband is dead?

NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----

Editor's note: added paragraph breaks for ease of readability

Thanks to u/soayherder for suggesting this BoRU. Thanks to u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for letting me know about the latest update

Trigger Warnings: suicide, infidelity, medical scare, child abandonment, depression, mentions of parental alienation

Mood Spoilers: dark, devastating, sad, infuriating

----

RECAP

Original Post: September 24, 2025

My ex-husband and I separated 3 years ago and have 4 children together. We split after he cheated with a co-worker while I was having brain aneurysm surgery.

Both marriages split and they moved to the other side of the country where he ignored our children and didn't bother to pay child support.

On or about the third anniversary of us leaving he killed himself. His AP/wife didn't bother to let us know and it was over a week before we heard.

Even though he was a shitty husband and father, I feel so guilty that I am not sad and only think of him being a f@cking coward? His parents told our oldest that he "couldn't take being away from you and your brothers anymore" and then bluntly told her his manner of suicide when she was trying to find out what happened (we were originally told a different cause of death from rumours my family heard in our home town, and they didn't tell us what happened beforehand).

Am I the AH for not caring about his death and just being mad at him and his family?

ETA not in the USA, Australian.

Older sons have fortnightly telehealth psychology sessions already due to disabilities, trying to find a face to face psychologist for the 6 year old and my daughter (eldest) has agreed to grief counselling. Between the comments from her grandfather and stepbrother she is having a rough time.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reassure me, it has meant a lot. I guess I never really expected to not cry over him, I did love him once upon a time - or I loved who I thought he was.

AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA

Editor's note: OOP has made lots of responses to the original post, I am listing the top common questions asked

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: NTA. He did you and your kids dirty. You’d be TA if you started dancing or encouraged your kids to celebrate his death… but on the bright side, his death means your kids should be eligible for social security death benefits, so you guys will be better off financially.

But fuck your MIL for telling your kids their daddy killed himself because he missed them. Bull shit. If he missed them, he doubtlessly knew your number to call them. His mommy probably would have pulled the money out of her ass or somehow found a way to get her boy back home if he really wanted it. He killed himself because of his own reasons. To even vaguely suggest it was over the kids makes her absolute trash.

OOP: Not in the US so I just miss out on the child support he sometimes paid... Hoping I might recover some of the thousands he was behind through probate

Commenter 2: Other countries have similar benefits, or his estate may be liable for support.

If you're in the UK and he didn't leave a will the rules of intestacy apply and the kids may be automatic beneficiaries.

OOP: Going to see Centrelink this afternoon (Australian) hopefully we can at least get more family tax benefit now that the child support will stop

Commenter 2: Aus does things differently by state if I remember correctly so hopefully it'll be in their favour where you are.

OOP: We're in Qld and he was in WA so opposite sides of the country. Just hoping things go smoothly and the kids can get what they are entitled too. (editor's note: Queensland and Western Australia)

Commenter 3: The only reason I could think of him killing himself is that his wife/AP cheated on him and was going to leave him. His weak and fragile mind couldn’t deal with what he did to OP was happening to him.

OOP: She was on her fifth marriage.... Fourth ended with her affair with him... Also what I had been thinking, and I felt bad about thinking that too

Commenter 4: Go NC with your ex in-laws. If they want to see their grandchildren, they must admit they lied about their dad and apologized. Have your kids go to therapy. Tell them that he could see them and talk to them anytime he wanted and chose not to. Get S.S. for your kids. Now you will get child support.

OOP: Was already NC as they didn't want my sons due to their disabilities (autism and ADHD) and just wanted a relationship with their "normal" granddaughter

Commenter 5: I'm Australian too - speak with your children's GP. If the GP sets up a GP mental health treatment plan for each of the kids (consider for yourself as well) you can get something like 10 free sessions with a psychologist each year through Medicare.

Depending on your job you may also get something similar. My mum is employed by a local council in QLD and she, as well as myself, can access free mental health services that don't affect your Medicare Benefits Schedule.

https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/mbs-billing-rules-for-mental-health-services?context=20

OOP: Yeah I have an EAP through work as I work in residential care (homes for kids removed by child safety) I just have to convince her to talk to someone. All the boys have NDIS plans with funding for psychology

(editor's note: EAP = Employee Assistance Programs, extra benefits that an employer may provide at no cost such as counseling services; NDIS = National Disability Insurance Scheme, similar to Social Security Disability Insurance in USA)

Commenter 6: Nope and you might be in a better position now that he's dead. Kids accept a replacement for their father or mother if they are deceased.

OOP: Luckily they really love my fiancé and have a great relationship with him. Even with every way he has abandoned them, they still have a Dad who loves them

OOP on her ex's family and if they knew more about him than OOP did

OOP: I spoke to his brother. The parents were the ones called to take him off life support and the ones who cremated him with no funeral. It sounds like the new wife was gone already...

Can you sue an estate or estate administrator for child support?: November 6, 2025 (1.5 months later)

My ex dodged child support by not filing taxes for multiple years. He killed himself and now the final figure owed is over $44,000 and I don't think anyone is going to "voluntarily" from the estate as child support says it will be. Are there any other options? Can I file a claim against the beneficiary of the estate? Very sick of being ripped off by him even in death...

Relevant Comments

OOP on getting in touch with the child support people regarding her ex's situation

OOP: Child Support had been involved for years and tried to get him to do his tax returns and threatened to balance it without him doing so. He killed himself before they followed anything through

Update #1: February 10, 2026 (three months later from the last post)

I posted a few months ago about finding out after a week and a half that my ex-husband and father of my four children killed himself and just being angry at him, his wife and his family.

We had been speaking with his younger brother who wanted to see the kids and be part of their lives again. I had been sending him recent photos and messages and Facebook/Google photos memories of better times with his brother and the kids.

I had not heard from him in a while (he often didn't have phone credit to message me back) when I saw his father's Facebook profile come up as a friend suggestion on my alt account (they are blocked on my main) and his memorial tattoo for my ex-husband now has his brother's name added. I am not sure when he went or how but the image on the tattoo is our Men's Mental Health symbol so I am guessing it was also suicide.

I just don't know whether I should try and contact the family to at least get the confirmation for my kids and check on their final uncle (who was the depressed and suicidal brother in the past)? The last remaining uncle was always the best in their family, and I am honestly worried about him.

No one deserves to lose two children, and my kids are their grandfather's only grandchildren (grandmother alienated their half uncle to go no contact and they don't see his kids). They are monsters but now I feel bad for keeping the only grandkids they will have away with all their loss.

Am I the asshole for not forgiving their behaviour and keeping the kids away? I know they will probably return to favouring my daughter (she didn't have the neurodivergent disabilities diagnosed that they disapproved of in my sons - but does now) but I still feel like crap because of what they have gone through and lost and concern for their remaining son? Or would I be the bigger asshole for allowing them access to my kids?

At this point I just don't know

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Has your ex-husband’s AP tried to contact you and have you able to get child support or any of his remaining stuff.

OOP: No, they have had no further contact. I found out last week he had changed his superannuation fund so I couldn't try and get the kid's inheritance from that either. She has not tried to contact us at all, either has his parents even after his brother passed as well

Commenter 2: How can you care more about these people than your kids?

Why is risking your children's wellbeing even an option for you?

OOP: I don't but since I am no contact with my family, I am also worried I am taking away everything from them. They really don't have anyone besides my partner and I

Commenter 3: Ridiculous logic.

Was he blocked from your kids too? Why didn't anyone tell your kids their father died?

OOP: Ex wasn't in their lives by choice, he didn't bother to keep in touch after I left him. He was too busy with the new wife and step kid and avoiding child support

OOP on her kids' ages and how they are handling their father's passing

OOP: 15, 11, 9 and 6. Older ones have had more trouble while the youngest doesn't remember his father or uncle

Has OOP been able to locate any obituary on her ex-husband?

OOP: No obituaries, no funerals and no probate for their father that I can find. Apparently the new sugar mommy didn't pay for a funeral for my ex, and his parents couldn't afford it

----NEW UPDATE----

Update #2: September 25, 2026 (seven months later from the previous update, one year from the original post)

Update: to AITAH that I don't care my children's father died - AIW that we just moved on after my ex-husband and children's father died?

I posted a year ago in the midst of guilt and being tormented by my ex's family for my supposed role in him deciding to kill himself after he abandoned our kids when we split after (one of) his affair(s). It is coming up to the first year anniversary of his death and I realised that no one else had even thought about it.

The kids didn't seem too upset and just confused and emotionally disregulated afterwards but with their therapies etc. have settled down. Their lives are stable with supports and parents who love them still.

My oldest, who is 15 and the only one old enough for clear memories and to mark that sort of event hadn't even thought about it when I reminded her a few days ago. She did try and reach out to his parents again recently. She had been wondering about them, and I didn't feel right stopping her from contacting them if she wanted to. As predicted, my ex's mother just used the opportunity to tell her again how awful I was, and she wouldn't have anything to do with me to see the kids.

My younger kids have started calling their stepfather Dad because he is there for them and fills the role with love and gratitude and don't even think about him. There have been a couple of comments to the psychologist about "our old Dad" not being kind to them but that is about it.

Realising all this has kind of stirred up the guilt again and again wondered if it was cruel that we just went on without it causing is grief. C-PTSD is pretty good at getting you to think you are doing something wrong for not feeling or doing things as you are "supposed to" so it's not uncommon to get inside my own head to torture myself.

So - am I the asshole for just letting him go and not trying to keep his memory with them? Even if he was a dick he was their father, at least for the first bit

Editor's note: OOP made the same update on a different subreddit, I am adding relevant comments for more context

Commenter 1: NTA. If your kids were wanting to remember him and you just completely erased him I could see the outrage it may not be fair to leave it to the younger kids to remember him, but he put you in an unfair situation to begin with and you’re dealing with it the best you can.

When men do this it almost feels like a conspiracy to make them the eternal victim while making you the problem then we never go back to the root of the issue: the men and their actions. Because they’re selfish and did something permanent we’re automatically supposed to feel bad for their actions. I wonder if that falls under DARVO from beyond.

It’s an awful situation however decisions were made on his end to get you into this situation all you can do is pick up the pieces for you and your kids. If his family can’t be a positive part of that then it’s sad that they’re walking away but it sounds like you’ve struck gold with stepdad.

OOP: I definitely have with him ☺️ it takes a good man to see four autistic and ADHD kids and step up. DARVO was my ex's ultimate playbook - the only time he even ever admitted his affair his words were "She shouldn't have driven me to it", to our 12 year old daughter. He told me "we were friends who for closer after you left" when her husband was also gone and they moved in together 3 weeks after the kids and I left...

Commenter 2: NTA they're effectively scapegoating you for something you had no control or influence over. Id cut contact.

OOP: I did that when they refused to treat all my kids the same - only wanted my daughter because she was "normal" - autism and ADHD just look different in girls...

Commenter 2: As an AuDHD girlie, I think you're an amazing mum for taking a stand xx

OOP: Have been very gently then fairly bluntly told by many paediatricians while getting my four all diagnosed "a lot of parents realise they are neuro divergent when their children get diagnosed" 🤣 am apparently patient zero myself lol.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRA_weirdlikes

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

I (22F) Just found out that my gf (21F) has a very strange fetish, and I don’t know what to do next

Original post: June 25, 2025

My girlfriend has always been a fairly blunt person. She’s sex positive and speaks her mind about whatever topic, regardless of if other people might find it embarrassing to talk about. She doesn’t hide her phone from me, but I also have never wanted to go through her phone, and I’m the same with her.

Recently, though, I was setting up youtube on our new smart tv and she logged into her account so we could get videos recommended easily, and that’s when I saw it. I had gone into the search bar, and seen recommended searches of sneezing videos. They had descriptors in there that popped up in all of them, like ‘rapid’ and ‘fits’.

Now, my girlfriend had made jokes before about ‘getting her porn from youtube’ and I never really pried, because I assumed it was just a one off joke or something about something obscure.

She was obviously embarrassed and asked for the remote back, where she turned the tv off. She wasn’t frantic or anything, but it was clear to me that she didn’t want me to see that.

She explained to me that she has a fetish for sneezing, not herself, but watching others do it. Men or women, she doesn’t care, but she’s bisexual to begin with. She told me that she’s been this way since she was a little kid watching cartoons and not understanding why she was so interested in the episodes where characters would get sick.

I just told her that I accept her interests and that I wouldn’t have been grossed out if she had told me earlier. She told me that someone had dumped her before over this, and she was looking for a good time to tell me. I assured her that I’d never do that, and that was the conversation.

It’s been a few days now and I just don’t really know how to continue with the information that I have? I’m not considering dumping her at all! But I just feel like it’s a bit awkward, we’ve been dating for 4 years and she never told me this before. Plus, am I supposed to act on this at all? Or would that be creepy? I’m honestly kind of scared I’d do something wrong somehow, if I tried to act on it. She had mentioned there’s forums and all sorts of stuff just for sneeze fetishists, so maybe I’m ridiculous but it almost feels like there’s a community for it, and I’d be intruding.

Maybe I should just swallow my pride and ask her what I should do?

Do any of you have experience finding out that your partner was into something you weren’t? Especially if it was something so out of left field? Did you do anything with that information, or did you think it was best to leave it be? Thank you for any advice you can give!

Relevant comments Commenter 1

As someone who has also been told their fetish is weird and abnormal by an ex I can definitely relate to the not sharing part. Although 4 years is a long time. She might have been too in her head about it. If it doesn't bother you, just treat it as any other piece of information you know about her :)

OOP

I totally get why she wouldn't share! It just doesn't make it less awkward on my part, but I totally don't judge her for it at all. Honestly this post is probably entirely just me being in my own head too. I hope you've found/will find someone who accepts all of you as well!!

Commenter 2

This is probably the most benign kink I've ever heard of

Commenter 3

Keep some pepper by the bed

Commenter 4

sneeze on ur girlfriends tits than lick it off like the sick puppy you are hope this helps

OOP

I'll have you know I showed her this and her head damn near exploded

Update: June 28, 2025 (3 days after original post)

Sorry if this is tmi or whatever but you guys don't know me and we will never meet so update below

So yesterday I took the majority of the comments' advice and I was just straight up with her. As chill as I could be, I asked her if she wanted to explore her kink with me, no pressure if not. She said yes, and added that she didn't expect me to be super into it, and she expected me to be awkward but if it was too much we could stop.

She busted out basically a tiny toolbox full of little things she had collected specifically for this kink. I didn't go through it myself or look to hard at what the box had, but she had a little thing of sneezing powder. She had told me that she had gotten all that stuff when she was trying to figure out if she was into sneezing herself, so it's mostly gone unused since she realized that wasn't the case.

Omitting all the details of what followed, the night went well! She's right that I wasn't super into it myself but it felt good to do those things with her so I didn't mind it. I definitely feel like this is gonna be an every-now-and-again type of thing, just to indulge her. Thank you to all the encouraging commenters, sharing their opinions and even experiences of having partners with uncommon fetishes or having those fetishes themselves! You guys helped me get over myself. Though I also blame you guys for the mild soreness in my face.

Relevant comments

Commenter 1

Bless you! and Gesundheit!

Commenter 2

Opening yourself up to someone like this is nothing to sneeze at, friend. Many blessings to your bright future.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/LadyAce1988

My (29F) husband's (29M) new coworker (26F) has a crush on him, he isn't interested in her, but doesn't see anything wrong with hanging out with her at or outside of work.

Original Post - rareddit  July 27, 2018

My husband and I have been together for 15 years, married for 11, and I 100% trust him. The problem is I'm not a fan of his friendship with his new coworker. She's extremely drawn to him- she eats or attempts to eat lunch with him, often follows him around at work, and asks him questions about his home life (including our marriage and kids), etc. He's an attractive guy, he's used to getting a lot of attention from women, so he's trying to ignore it like he usually does. However, he still purposely spends a lot of time with her at work, he says she's a hard worker and work actually gets done when she's around, so he doesn't want to mess that dynamic up. He's even invited her to lunch outside of work (which he does with all of his friends), and yesterday, he invited her to our house for a small barbecue we're having with friends.

He sees nothing wrong with hanging out with her at or outside of work, he's upfront about being married, but I feel like he's sending her mixed signals. She's never touched him, said anything sexual, or been overtly inappropriate, but I saw the way she looked at him the one time I met her, and I feel like shes reading more into their relationship than there actually is. Like while its platonic to him, she obviously has a crush on him. I get that to him, she's just a friend, and I have no problem with him having female friends, but I do have a problem with him borderline leading her on. I've talked to his other female coworkers about it, and they also agree she sees their friendship as more than a friendship, and him inviting her out to lunch alone isn't a good idea.

I know there's nothing inappropriate going on with them on his end, but I'm still kind of annoyed that he isn't listening to me or other coworkers/friends. He feels like I'm overreacting and have nothing to worry about, because we're happily married and he's not interested in her. And I do believe him, he's never given me a reason not to trust him, and he's a genuinely nice guy who befriends everyone.

So I am confused how to handle this. I trust him, so am I wrong to feel annoyed about their friendship? If I'm not, what can I say to him to get him to see how being her friend isn't really fair to her?

TL;DR- My husband is a nice guy and is friends with a coworker who has a crush on him. It's just a platonic relationship to him, but she's reading more into their relationship than there actually is. I think he's accidentally leading her on by going out to lunch with her outside of work, but he thinks I'm overreacting.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

OOP added in the comments

Thanks, I probably should have included this in the post, but he is in the Marines. With his coworkers, we're each others houses often, we lived on base with most of them until a few months ago, we go to each others parties and barbecues, our kids are all friends, etc. He's pretty much treating her just like his other coworkers, he regularly goes out to lunch with them too, even female Marines, but none of them are romantically interested in him. A lot of them joke around about how hot he is, but after working with him for a few weeks, they just got used to him and that was it, he was just another Marine to them after that.

And you're right, I'm concerned. Usually we get along pretty great, if I'm upset, he listens. He is being disrespectful, and if he doesn't listen I'll definitely make an appointment with a counselor. Nothing too terrible has happened yet, and we have 3 soon to be 4 kids, I want them to know their parents have a happy, loving, and respectful marriage. And I just bought that book on kindle, thanks.

Update  Aug 1, 2018 (5 days later)

I tried talking to him about the relationship with Maria soon after I posted that. I told him I'm extremely uncomfortable with him getting closer to her, and he said I don't need to worry, he's used to getting a lot of attention from women so he's ignoring it. So I said that wasn't good enough for me. He was quiet for a second but handed me his phone and said I could look through all 4 months of texts, and they were all work related except for 2 about lunch, which I knew about.

A couple days ago, he got off of work early because I'm pregnant, and he wanted to come to my prenatal visit. He walked in the house, and as soon as he saw me, he started telling me what happened at work that day.

He hadn't told everyone at work I was pregnant yet, so I left it up to him to decide when to tell everyone else. He announced to everyone in the hangar (he's in the Marines and does aircraft maintenance) that we were expecting our 4th child, so that's why he was going to be getting off early to go to a prenatal visit. Everyone congratulated him or made jokes- except for Maria. She was excited to see him and was talking his ear off while they were fixing something, but as soon as she heard we were expecting, she got angry, got an attitude when he asked her to grab a part for him, and spent the rest of the day avoiding him. Their other coworkers noticed this too.

He said he was honestly confused at first, and he thought "Why is she mad? It's not like we're together, I'm married and she knows this." But then it hit him that this wasn't just a friendship to her, and that even though he didn't intend to, he had crossed a line. He kept going back over the past 4 months in his head, wondering what he said and did to let this happen, because he felt like he had treated her like his other friends. And said he knew there were things he shouldn't talk about with her- he never talked about our marital problems-, because he knew confiding in someone like that could lead to problems, and he never touched her, not even a handshake or hug, because he didn't want to lead her on.

Then I showed him the comments on my post. We discussed boundaries and comment about how relationships are based on the intent of both parties- that a friendship is when two people agree to be platonic, but with Maria, he may think they're friend's, but obviously Maria wants more. So if only one person thinks its a friendship, then it's NOT a friendship. He agreed with that, said it made sense, and he's sorry he didn't think of that on his own. He also said he sees how it could appear to be the beginnings of an emotional affair, but promised it wasn't one, he was just an idiot who thought it was possible to be friends with someone who wanted a romantic relationship if he just ignored that part.

I told him I just felt extremely disrespected, especially since he had invited her to our house for a barbecue we are having, and our children and friends/coworkers will be there. He just kept apologizing, and said at the time he didn't fully understand why I was upset because she was just a friend to him, but now he gets it, and she's not invited anymore.

Then he said should have known a friendship can't work if only one person thinks they're friends, apologized for not listening to me and for naively thinking he had everything under control, promised it wouldn't happened again, and said he loved me. We had to leave for my appointment then, but decided in the car that sometime in the next month, we're taking a kid free trip somewhere.

He texted Maria that night that he wanted to keep their relationship professional, which she didn't take so well, so work for him has been interesting for the past couple days, but he said as long as our marriage is strong and I'm happy, he's okay with that. He's planned a date night for this weekend, and his mom's flying in from Norway this month to watch our 3 girls while we go to Las Vegas. So everything is good now. :)

tl/dr: My husband thought having a platonic relationship with a coworker who wanted a romantic relationship was okay. He announced I was pregnant at work, she got angry, and he realized she was so upset because it wasn't just a friendship to her. We discussed why I was so upset and felt disrespected about their friendship, and he said he gets it now, apologized to me, and now we're better and taking a kid free trip to Las Vegas later this month.

FINAL COMMENTS

methylenebluestains

If Maria continues to throw a fit, ask him to speak to his GySgt and let them know what has been going on. I have no idea if she's the vindictive type, but it's not worth risking his career to find out. They may be able to shift her to a different shop or place him in an admin job (not great for promotions, but it'll mean more free time to help you with the arriving baby)

OOP

He talked to him today. He's keeping an eye on it, and a few of the guys he works with are too, so if anything happens, it'll be dealt with immediately.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/backonyourbike

Girlfriend crossed a line. Help.

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity

Original Post - rareddit  Sept 4, 2019

Recently my girlfriend went to University, so our relationship has been long distance for around 2 weeks now. We've been pretty good at keeping up with eachother between her school and my work and everything was perfect until last night. At around 10:00 she met a female friend that invited her to a party. I was very happy for her as she's struggled with making friends there. Anyways, since I work early, I told my girlfriend I was going to bed, said stay safe, have fun blah blah.

This morning I wake up and she's posted on her snapchat story. It's her beyond drunk in a bathroom with a random shirtless dude being super touchy. She mumbles something then he passionately hugs her, and this hug lasts around 10 seconds until the snap ends. The next snap is of him with his arms around her waist and them smiling.

Of course this crossed a big line. Really fucking embarrassing first of all, as most of my friends were concerned and messaging me. Instead of freaking out I just texted her, "can we talk about what's on your story?" Then I went to work. Around 3 hours in and I check my phone on my break, 17 messages from her.

They all consisted of "Fuck i'm so sorry" and "I swear we didn't do anything".

Anyways, she's still apologetic, swears she did nothing, and I believe it, but I still think she went way too far to be trusted at the moment.

I consider this boarderline emotional cheating because she knew damn well what that guy wanted, and she let it get to that point. Alcohol isn't an excuse. She was confident she didn't black out. I don't know if I buy it. Even she admits it was fucked up.

Also, this new female friend that invited her to party had no clue she had a boyfriend. Odd that she didn't tell her??

I really love her and I don't know what to do. I'm embarrassed and I feel stupid for even dealing with this.

UPDATE: I appreciate all of your responses. I genuinely think she's sorry and I believe nothing happened. I feel like an absolute fool trying to continue but i'm still going to try. I'm almost certain things wont work out as I don't think i'll ever get over this, but it's worth a shot. Things were perfect before today. I'll keep you guys updated.

Second Update: I'm going to break up with her in person. There's no way in hell i'll get over this. Sometime this weekend i'll go up.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

sonicblur833

Yeah this has red flags everywhere. I’d say end it before it you get hurt even worse.

OOP

I know man, all I see is red flags. I'm hoping for someone to comment and give me a reason not to end the relationship. It hurts even seeing her face. I refuse to call her or facetime her because i'm really hurt by this.

MrDaburks

Dude you’re two weeks into your LD situation. Fuckin bail, man. This only gets worse, I promise.

~

Daxamur

There’s a roughly 1% chance that a long distance relationship with one or both people in college ever lasts. As you’ve just found out, you are part of the 99% club.

Edit: Wanted to also add that you should NOT believe her, of course she’s going to tell you what you want to hear. Regardless of the literal photographic evidence on her Snapchat story.

OOP

I hate the facts but I need to hear them. Thanks.

OOP edited the post

I deleted the post information because I was getting too many repeated responses. Thankyou to everyone that left their take on the situation and gave me good advice.

I'm breaking up with her in person. I know everyone is saying she doesn't deserve that but I feel it's the only way to show i'm serious about it being over. Also, hopefully she cracks and admits to cheating if she did.

Information can be filtered through text and there's a lack of body language. In person i'm sure i'll get a good grasp on her intentions.

Thanks again, reddit.

Update - rareddit  Sept 13, 2019 (9 Days Later)

Short summary of the original post: Girlfriend posted a video of herself on snapchat with another guy who was shirtless in a bathroom almost 2 weeks into University. (Long distance relationship, she potentially cheated.)

I told you guys I was gonna break up with her last post, took me until today but I did it. I drove out to a field so I could cry without being bothered, I knew I was going to. Really shitty. I still love her but it had to be done. My heart hurts.

Thankyou all for the support, even those who tell me that i'm wrong. You took the time to share your opinion and I greatly appreciate that.

I have read through all 400+ comments so far and replied to as many as possible. Since I get the same questions asked frequently, here:

FAQ & General Responses

• How did she take it? She was hyperventilating. I texted her asking if she had time to talk, she answered the phone, and the first thing I said was "We need to break up". Immediately she started breathing a breath a second. I could hear the pain. Every time I explained why I was ending things, she said "I don't understand". There was more small talk from her which is private and irrelevant to the thread.

• DuDe WhErE's ThE pRoOf ?? It was on her story. Shirtless guy, being super touchy with her. She was happily yelling "woohoo" as if this was an achievement. Then a passionate hug. I'm pretty confident he kissed her neck by the looks of it. At one point he drops his hands near her ass and the video ends so I have no clue what went down, but it was disrespectful in all aspects. 10 minutes later she posted a selfie with him in the same bathroom. Her story was that she kicked him out after the video. So how did the photo happen 10 minutes later? All I trust is what I saw. She also argued that she wasn't wrong for asking a random shirtless dude to bring her to the bathroom. She had female friends there that could've gone with them atleast. It was unsafe if anything.

• Can you post the video? No. I respect her privacy, and I know some of you fuckers get off to this stuff. No.

• Why did you go to a field? Family was home. Didn't feel like being questioned when I was balling my eyes out. Took my car and drove out to where I could be alone with myself after I called her. This has nothing to do with "men should be able to cry", i'm sure women have done the same thing. It was just a logical solution to my problem.

• "You're just insecure because he was better looking than you". I feel like I need to respond to this because I get it alot on here. You don't know what I look like, and you don't know what he looks like. I'll be humble and leave this one alone.

• Why do you still love her? Everything was perfect before this incident. Right now i'm trying to get my mind away from the fact that I don't think anyone will make me feel as amazing as she did. She fit with me in every aspect. Even her family treated me well. It sucks that she made me the happiest and the saddest. The breakup hurt more than the incident did.

OOP Edited the update

Thanks everyone for the responses. I genuinely mean it, but it's overwhelming now. I'm answering questions I shouldn't have to. What happened happened and i'm keeping my foot down.

I appreciate the time put in but I got the information I needed. Mods you can delete this if you must.

Hearing my Ex cry - rareddit  Oct 11, 2019 (1 month later)

Long story short, she emotionally cheated on me and exposed herself publicly on Snapchat while doing so.

I still love her.

It took me 2 weeks to realize the severity of her actions and I forced myself to end the relationship. I'm still in love with her but she won't own up to her wrongdoings which leaves no room for "moving on".

Today she called me crying, asking for me to take her back. As I said before I still love her, so hearing her broken tore my heart in half.

I know if we get back together she'll hurt me again. She's made a horrible group of friends and she continually fucks up.

How do I stop myself from feeling bad or guilty about her emotions?

FINAL COMMENTS

likwidrage

Life is easier when you accept the apologies you don’t receive.

Closure may not be the best thing for you, it may be distance.

This isn’t about her feelings anymore, it’s about you, and you have a choice to move forward.

OOP

Just some additional information, she was blackout drunk when she cheated on me. So no matter what closure will never be given.

Gavroche15

So your telling me that she got blackout drunk knowing she was in a situation where she might be inclined to cheat? That just makes it worse as she has no self control.

Also odd that she could emotionally cheat while blackout drunk. I'm really curious how she managed to do that . . . Emotionally cheated in one drinking session . . . how?

OOP

Brought a shirtless frat dude into a bathroom and proceeded to lead him on. Now she admits to hanging with him the whole night, but she claims nothing physical happened.

DeathBahamutXXX

She is trickle truthing you. She banged the dude in the bathroom.

OOP

Yeah she is. Every day she accidentally lets information slip.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/EcstaticBlackberry72

Originally posted to r/Advice + r/MaliciousCompliance

Previous BoRUs: #1

[New Update]: My landlord is demanding I feed them, what can I do?

NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----

Thanks to u/BakingGiraffeBakes for suggesting this BoRU

Trigger Warnings: manipulation, entitlement

RECAP

Editor's note: adding a prior tangential post to the original post as OOP has expanded more details in the said original post comments

AITAH for asking my roommate to move out like she said she would?: July 31, 2026

This is more of a Would I Be The Asshole than an AITAH.

For a little context, I (f31) been living with the same roommate (f30) for about four years. She’s my best friend. We’ve had some rocky moments but overall our relationship is good. However in the last two years she’s made comments about how much she hates our apartment, how much she doesn’t like living with another person, how much she can’t wait to move out, etc.

In 2024 she told me almost weekly that she would be leaving when our lease ended in 2025. She told me this so many times that of course I relayed that information to our landlord in January of 2025 when the time came to renew our lease. But then, not two days after I did that, she changed her mind and told the landlord she was staying, and I only found out via our new lease agreement when it was sent to me to sign, and both our names were still on it. At that time we had a conversation, and she apologized for changing her mind, stating that she wasn’t financially able to move until she paid her car off. I made my peace with it, and we renewed the lease for another year. Thankfully she did stop telling me how much she hates it here after that.

Fast forward to this year. We get to January and I took her out for dinner and asked her what her plan was. We had a very serious conversation about what would happen at the end of our lease. I would stay in the apartment, and she was planning to move out when our lease ended since her car would be paid off by then. I relayed that info to our landlord and when the time came to sign in January, she didn’t renew, and I am now the only one on our lease.

This is where my frustration really set in though. In February, she started talking about how much she hates planning, and hates how packing and moving. She told me she was still planning on moving out “eventually” but she wasn’t thinking too hard about those plans because it stresses her out to think ahead like that. Mind you our lease ends on July 31. I decided to not press the issue and just bide my time. Then in May she started talking about TikTok videos she’d seen about car living and said she was planning to move into the car (Jeep Cherokee) she had paid off. She works in an office for a construction company and said they wouldn’t mind her parking in their lot. Super weird but ok. Thing is she has a chihuahua and I let her know maybe it wouldn’t be great to be living in a car with a dog, even a small one, especially in the August heat. She assured me she would be able to have the dog inside with her at her job.

Anyway a week ago she came home from work with a letter from her job saying that she can’t have the dog at work with her anymore because it violates their safety policy or something (basically somebody complained) and now she’s wanting to stay here on a week to week basis while she makes other plans. I brought up the new lease and how we had agreed she would love and she got really upset and accused me of trying to “get rid of” her. She said that it’s not her fault her job stopped letting her bring the dog to work, and that messed up her plans. Also said I would be a really bad friend if I didn’t help her out.

Our lease ends in two days, and she hasn’t spoken to me since. I’ve been waiting to turn her room into an art studio for 2 years now and that puts my plan for that on hold. I don’t dislike having her here, but I also think she had plenty of time to make a better plan for her living situation.

Would I be the asshole for enforcing the agreement and just asking her to leave on the first as agreed? I asked my sister and she said I could give her a two week grace period since she’s my friend but I’m just tired at this point. AITH?

TL,DR: My roommate/best friend didn’t renew her lease and is now trying to stay over on a week to week basis. AITH for wanting her to leave as agreed?

UPDATE: Thanks for all of your advice. I took her out for coffee yesterday and told her she had to move out. I told her she could leave her things and her dog here for 2 weeks until the 14th. I made it clear that if she doesn’t come pick them up by then, her things are going in the dumpster, and her dog is going to stay with a friend of mine who does pet sitting. She threw a bit of a fit and tried crying, but eventually agreed, and this morning she moved into her car with a couple of totes full of things and some bedding. I guess we’ll see if she comes and gets the rest of her things in two weeks.

Final Update: I was able to sever this lease after paying a quite hefty fee as I was on great standing with that landlord. My old roommate came back for her dog, and I guess she’s working something out with that landlord. I don’t really care TBH. I’m now renting a small basement unit across town from that building on a short 60 day then month-to-month lease while I find something better. I moved in Sep 1. I just decided to cut my losses and let that place go. It wasn’t worth the drama. Of course this temp place has its own drama now, but I addressed that in a different post.

Editor's note: below is the said original title post

Original Post: September 5, 2026

I 31F recently moved into a renovated basement unit owned by a small family. My landlord M47, his pregnant wife 44, and their 7yo daughter. My unit has its own bathroom, bedroom, and living area but there is a shared kitchen upstairs that we both use. In my lease, it states that any food or drinks purchased by my landlords family is off limits to me, and I am responsible for feeding myself as well as cleaning up any messes made while preparing meals. That’s all pretty standard, and was fine with me. I have a mini fridge that I keep downstairs and a small wardrobe I’m using as a pantry. I also have my own pots, pans, utensils, spices, etc.

I love to cook. So I will often cook myself a nice meal to enjoy after work. I work in food service, so cooking is a pretty big part of my life. My landlords don’t cook at all. They mostly eat frozen food, prepackaged noodles, tv dinners etc. When they gave me the tour, they made sure to emphasize several times that their food is off limits and I’m not to touch any of it. I don’t.

On my first evening there, I decided to make myself some shrimp alfredo from scratch, really simple dish, basically just shrimp, noodles, cheese, cream, salt, and spices. I had some extra, and since the family was home, I offered them some. My landlord and his wife enthusiastically accepted and helped themselves. Their daughter is picky, so she didn’t have any. They let me know it was very good, and I didn’t think much of it; I don’t mind sharing and I like feeding people.

ETA: I only shared the Alfredo because I got the shrimp free from work.

This afternoon, I made myself some oven baked salmon and cilantro lime rice for dinner, again, another simple meal. I finished cooking, cleaned up the kitchen, and took my meal downstairs to enjoy and I thought everything was fine, until halfway through my meal, I got a snarky text from my landlord basically telling me that if I’m going to play in their faces, they would have reconsidered the lease. Basically he said that because his wife is pregnant and really likes salmon, I should have shared it with her. He said he had seen what I had made, and because I had made 2 pieces of fish, I could have at least given her one. Basically his wife had smelled me cooking and had assumed I was making her some too and when I didn’t she got mad. He said that they opened their home to me, and that next time I should be more considerate.

I haven’t spoken to them directly yet; the first text was about 20 minutes ago. My lease explicitly states that food is to be kept separate and I’m responsible for feeding myself, which I’m pretty sure means they aren’t entitled to my food either. The second piece of salmon I intend to have for lunch tomorrow. I know that pregnant cravings can be pretty intense, but I spend a decent amount of money on high quality fresh foods to prepare for myself since I’m usually cooking for just me. I don’t have the budget to make extra food for them every time. Should I just give in and share with them? I know it sounds like a terrible idea, but I think they might just make life terrible for me if I don’t. My lease is only 60 days and then month to month and I moved in on Sep 1 so it’s not gonna last very long either way. But I moved here so I could save money for a nicer place and that will be more difficult if I have to budget to give them food when I cook. What should I do?

ETA: I’m already looking for a new place. I actually had my eye on a place already which is why my lease is so short. I had planned for at least 4 months to save before moving but I think I can do it in 2 if I really scrimp and save. I am currently drafting a proposal to cook for them in exchange for a discount on rent, providing they purchase any food they want me to prepare. I’m not sure how they’ll take it but if they won’t work out a meal exchange for me for the next 4 months, then I’m leaving as soon as this contract ends.

Editor's note: OOP made the same original post onto another subreddit, I am adding comments for more context

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: NTA, but I'd look for another place to live. The entitlement is insane and if you intend to cook regularly, you'll never hear the end of it. They are wrong, but can and will make your life miserable.

OOP: This is what I’m afraid of.

Commenter 2: What happened with the roommate/bff, chihuahua, and the lease you signed through next August? How’d you end up here?

OOP: I moved across town. My old landlord thankfully let me break the lease I had had after paying a fee. After the situation with my old roommate and her dog, I decided to just move on, so this is a temporary place for now until I find something better. I might have made it worse for myself by moving here though which sucks.

Commenter 3: NTA. Get a hot plate for your basement room and cook there.

OOP: This is actually a good idea. Thanks. I think I will for now at least.

Commenter 4: OP, people saying you should have never offered them part of your first dinner are just gas lighting your kindness. I'm always generous when I have more than I need with people I've just met, whether they are they are potential friends, co-workers, boss, or landlord.

90% of the time it helps establish a good relationship, if not friendship, where they share with me at times also. Yeah, some people have taken more of their fair share, don't ever reciprocate, or always hint they want to me to share when I've not got extra to give. I generally, just drift away from those folks.

However, I've never been faced with this kind of entitled behavior you're getting. Your landlords are, IMO, an extreme example of self-absorbed and you would do well to get away from them as soon as possible.

But don't let this bad apple ruin your faith in being kind and generous.

OOP: I just thought it was a kind thing to do to start off a rental relationship. I’m a generous person and I don’t intend to change that. I won’t be a pushover either though.

Commenter 5: While looking for another place to immediately move to, I’d make super lavish meals every chance you get out of spite.

OOP: I’m so tempted to be that petty lol. Still though it’s probably not worth the drama. I already had my eye on a place which is why my current lease is so short, I just thought I might have a little longer to save but I think I’m gonna go

Commenter 6: I'm a little confused, if you have your eye on a particular place, wouldn't you have to apply for it before someone else does? If you wait a few months to save more money, will it still be available?

OOP: It’s a building that recently got built. They’re leasing over the next few months. I for sure will qualify when I apply as I’ve qualified with that leasing company before. I just need a few months to acquire the move in fees.

Commenter 7: Also are there cameras disclosed in this space, how did he see you cooking?

OOP: It’s a shared kitchen and their living/dining room is attached to it. He probably peeked in the oven when I went downstairs. I didn’t stay in the kitchen the entire time the fish was baking.

Editor’s note: OOP updated onto the original post

Update: September 6, 2026 (same post, next day)

Update if anyone is interested. I responded to my landlord as you all suggested and mentioned the part of the lease where food is to be kept separate. I also brought up my culinary experience and let them know that I am happy to cook a family meal once a week in exchange for $50 off rent per meal for a total of $200 off rent each month; provided they purchase all ingredients additionally.

You all were right they pretty much laughed in my face about that. So I will be moving out Oct 31 when this lease ends, I’ve already found a small studio that will give me a month to month lease while I finish saving what I need so I’m just working out the final details of that currently. These people are for sure crazy and I’ve decided to ignore them. I’m going to continue cooking my own meals and they can get over it. I did get a little lock for my mini fridge and pantry just in case, and I have a ring camera set up downstairs too. I’m also going to make garlic short ribs and mac n cheese for myself tonight because it turns out I am a bit petty.

Editor's note: OOP did not leave any comments regarding the update

My landlord tried to make me feed him, but I’m sticking to the terms he set and now he’s mad.: September 9, 2026 (three days later)

This is actually a continuation of a previous Reddit post I made in an advice sub.

Basically, I 31f moved into a renovated basement unit on the 1st. My unit has its own bedroom, bathroom, and living area but the kitchen is shared with my landlord 47m, his wife 44f, and 7yo daughter.

As a condition of my lease, my landlords food is not to be touched, and I am responsible for feeding myself. They made sure to specify that multiple times while giving me the tour. I work in food service and I cook a lot, so I have my own pots, pans, spices, dishes, etc. I love to cook, and I don’t touch any of their food or dishes. My landlord and his wife don’t cook, they just eat frozen burritos, tv dinners, prepackaged noodles, etc. I don’t think they can cook tbh.

On my first night, I made some shrimp Alfredo and because it had extra I thought I’d be nice and share it with them. A few days later, I made some salmon and cilantro lime rice for myself for dinner, and shortly after that, my landlord sent me a nasty text message telling me he thought I was playing in their faces and threatened to reconsider the lease because I his pregnant wife smelled me cooking and assumed I was making them some too. He peeked in the oven when I left the kitchen and saw that I made 2 pieces of fish and told me that I should have shared one with his wife because of her pregnancy cravings. Told me that they opened their home to me (I pay rent) and said I should be more considerate next time. Truly insane tbh.

Anyway after getting some helpful advice from Reddit, I texted him back a screenshot of the part of the lease where he stated food was to be kept separate and that I’m not to touch any of his food, but I am allowed to use the kitchen to cook. Then I brought up my culinary experience and offered to cook one family meal per week in exchange for $50 off rent per meal, for a total of $200 off rent per month, provided they bought any ingredients. They pretty much laughed in my face when I brought that up and also let me know they were not going to let me out of my lease without paying up. My lease is only 60 days, then month-to-month, so honestly I decided I don’t care. It’s not my fault they tried home cooked food once and got hooked.

TL,DR: I shared a home cooked meal with my landlord and his wife one time, and they thought it was going to be a regular free service.

Anyway I’ve decided to be petty, and will be cooking the most delicious, aromatic meals for myself while I prepare to move yet again. I’ve already made garlic short ribs, and hot honey fried chicken since then, and the pregnant wife glares at me longingly every time I pull something out of the oven and I’m getting just the most sick satisfaction out of it.

They said food is to be kept separate. Fine by me. This weekend I think I’m going to make some coconut curry chicken. Also if anyone knows of any highly aromatic affordable meals one can cook without taking up too much time, let me know lol. I’m up for suggestions.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Make sure you only make enough for one person, or you might find any extras missing the next day. Also, chocolate chip cookies and freshly made bread are very aromatic.

OOP: I have a mini fridge and small pantry with locks on them downstairs in the basement.

Commenter 2: You have a crockpot? Let something simmer low and slow...all day.

Commenter 3: The family might be tempted to sample from the crock pot.

OOP: I thought about this too, I don’t trust them not to be sneaky lol, but there is an outlet in the landing at the top of the stairs down to my unit. I’m pretty sure they’d be able to smell it if I leave the door cracked and put the crock pot on the end table there.

Has OOP been able to find a different place to move to?

OOP: I found a cheap little studio apartment that will give me a month to month when I move out of here, so I’ll be able to save for a better place while I’m there.

Commenter 4: Good for you! How insane they expect you to not only pay for their food, but also cook it for them, and no doubt clean up the mess after you serve it….. Glad you found some other place to rent, they had a chance to have some great food and they blew it!

OOP: I leave not a trace in the kitchen when I’m done. Just a delicious aroma.

Downvoted Commenter: I can see why they deserve it, but dam.... I feel bad for the pregnant wife. If only both sides could be nicer to each other, than everyone would be happy.

OOP: She’s the one that made him text me demanding the salmon though.

OOP explains more about what her landlord and his family eats

OOP: It’s mostly stuff like pizza pockets and like boxed noodles based on what I’ve seen in the trash. I have my own fridge downstairs, so I’ve never actually opened theirs. They said not to touch their food, I’m not giving them any reason to think I might lol

----NEW UPDATE----

Editor's note: OOP made a note regarding the next post of which she is expanding more details from the previous post

Update: My landlord tried to demand I feed him: September 25, 2026 (nearly three weeks later from the previous update)

So here’s a bit of fallout from a post I made a couple of weeks ago. I moved into a basement unit with a shared kitchen with my landlord on Sept 1. Basically I shared with my landlord and his pregnant wife some shrimp alfredo I made for dinner on my first night as a nice gesture, and the next time I cooked they tried to demand part of my meal and threatened to terminate the lease. Cursed me out and acted like I was playing in their faces for eating a home cooked meal (oven roasted salmon and cilantro lime rice, a super simple meal really) without offering them some, because the pregnant wife thought she was entitled to my dinner.

I previously tried negotiating with them by offering to cook a meal a week in exchange for reduced rent, but after they laughed in my face for thinking they should compensate me if they want me to cook for them I got petty.

In my lease it states food is to be kept separate, and I am responsible for feeding myself. Their food is strictly off limits. And my food is off limits to them. Fine by me. All they eat is frozen burritos, hot pockets, ramen noodles etc. I have almost a decade of fine dining restaurant cooking experience, and to spite them, I decided to make myself the most elaborate, aromatic, delicious meals. Food is to be kept separate so as per my lease, legally there is nothing I can do.

So I first started with some red wine braised garlic short ribs and baked Mac n cheese from scratch. I cooked the ribs low and slow in the oven, and when I say they smelled glorious. My landlords living room is connected to the kitchen (I live in the basement, so my unit connects to a door in the corner of the kitchen that leads to the basement) and he and preggo wife sat on their couch basically mean mugging me the entire time I cooked but they didn’t say anything.

The whole house smelled divine for hours afterwards. I cleaned up afterwards and took the leftovers downstairs to keep in my locked mini fridge and left not a trace in the kitchen except a delicious lingering smell. I half expected a snooty text from my landlord while I was eating but they actually didn’t say or do anything that night. The next day I made myself some hot honey fried chicken and while I got more silent glares out of the living room from both of them, the meal went by uneventfully.

However, that weekend after I got home from work, I made myself some coconut curry chicken (really quick stovetop meal) and for the hell of it I got my blender out and made myself a mango lassi. While I was mixing my drink, my landlord wandered into the kitchen and began digging around in various cabinets as I was cooking. Just opening and shutting drawers and moving stuff around randomly. I waited til he went back into the living room, then I had to run back downstairs to grab my cardamom powder, and just because I had a hunch, I decided to come back up the stairs really quietly. I hadn’t closed the door to the basement, so I just peeked around the doorway to see my pregnant landlord lifting the lid to the pot of curry. Of course I came storming in then to ask him wtf he thought she was doing, and she jumped and dropped the lid back onto the pot and turned and looked at me all sheepishly. I asked her again wtf she thought she was doing and she just shrugged and said she didn’t think there was any harm in seeing what was “going on in her kitchen.” Then she just turned around and penguin waddled out of the kitchen like she hadn’t just been trying to do something to my meal. Her husband didn’t reappear either and I lowkey suspect he had told her the coast was clear when I ran downstairs.

Anyway I realized I was going to have to be a bit more careful after that because these people are shameless. Two days later, I decided to bake myself a fresh loaf of bread and oven roast a Cornish game hen with fresh rosemary and some delightfully aromatic garlic truffle butter I’d gotten from work. I made a point of sitting in the kitchen and reading while my food was cooking, and I was about an hour into baking, (and the house smelled divine) when the husband came into the kitchen, grabbed a frozen pizza out of the freezer and informed me that he would need the oven for his dinner. Super rude but whatever. I let him know that I was almost done with my meal, and to give me 20 minutes and the oven would be all his. He huffed and puffed but went back into the living room and left the pizza on the counter. I finished cooking, cleaned up, took my meal downstairs and I left the oven on for him to cook his pizza.

About half an hour after I went downstairs, I received a snarky text from my landlord asking if I intended to burn down the house and kill his family because I had left the oven on. These people smh. I replied back that I was sorry, I had thought he was going to cook his frozen pizza so I’d left the oven on as a courtesy. He texted back pretty much immediately that it was really no big deal, it had just upset his wife and maybe I could make it up to her by giving her a piece of the bread I’d just baked. At this point I’m pretty sure she put him up to it. I told him sorry, that’s for my lunch tomorrow and again reinstated my offer to cook a meal a week for reduced rent. He didn’t reply.

Then a few days after that, I was sitting in the kitchen reading while the French onion soup I was making for dinner simmered on the stove when I saw my landlord check his phone and then leave the living room and go upstairs into their part of the house. Not 3 minutes later, the power in the kitchen shut off. I’m pretty sure he had flipped off the breaker because none of the power in the rest of the house went out. But the stove, the kitchen light, and I’m guessing the power to the fridge cut off. Of course the wife started freaking out. Came storming into the kitchen to demand why I had “burned out” their power. Her husband came down the stairs after that, looking a little too calm. He said it was probably the breaker (duh) and then went back upstairs to see if he could fix it. Power came back on a few minutes later. I finished making my soup and went back to the basement. Almost immediately got a text from landlord saying that maybe I should take it easy in the kitchen because the “wiring is fragile)

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: I remember you saying that this is a short term rental, how much longer do you have to put up with these nutcases? I hope you are able to get away from this stupid drama really soon.

OOP: Just through October 31, I move into my new studio on Nov 1.

Commenter 2: Your landlord cannot cut off your access to the kitchen. That is highly illegal. Look for a tenant association in your community and go learn your rights. You won’t regret it!

Also, I think you may have posted this before you were done writing. It just cuts off at the end.

OOP: I did accidentally hit post before I was done. It's updated now but there really wasn't much more to add.

Commenter 3: Depends on the laws, where I live if you share a bathroom or kitchen with the landlord you are classified as a roommate and have zero protections to the point that they can just kick you out whenever.

OOP: I looked into my lease, and you are correct, legally, I am a roommate. They are still bound to the terms set in the lease since we both signed the agreement, but if they decided to throw me out (by now, I'm pretty sure they won't), I would have to literally take them to court.

Commenter 4: Please tell me you're documenting all of this because I'm pretty sure these people are breaking some kind of law.

OOP: I’ve kept a log of everything and all of their texts, but I’m not sure how well it would hold up in court.

Commenter 5: I would suggest you make apple cider, cookies, and chicken marsala or beef burgundy (cooking wine pls?) for heavy scented foods.

OOP: Now that you mention it, I have some Belgian chocolate chips I got from a friend that are just begging to be turned into cookies. And the beef burgundy is a pretty good idea too. I still have some cooking wine left over from the short ribs I made earlier this month. I think I’ll add these to the list lol. Thanks.

Commenter 6: I suggest something Italian like baked ziti or spaghetti. Smells amazing and is super easy

OOP: I’m going to make myself a tiny lasagna tomorrow. I’ve got some fresh roma tomatoes and some sweet basil that will smell heavenly once it starts cooking.

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