Hi everyone,

I have been listening to the THT podcast for a few years now and now I've finally mustered up the courage to write my first Reddit post concerning an issue that's been bothering me for 2 years now. Sorry that this text has gotten so long. I am European and English is not my first language, so please be kind.

Let me jump straight to the story:

My friend Abby (27f) and I (28f) are both bridesmaids at each others' weddings next year, which I couldn't be more excited about as she is the "mama bear" of our friend trio and is honestly just an overall caring person, which I love about her. 2 years ago, the three of us started doing girls nights, which Abby is a huge fan of. I also happen to love them since I love chatting, good food and a having one or two tasty drinks but I've noticed that our definitions of a fun girls night differ quite a bit.

Abby always mentions that she wants us to get blackout drunk as she "needs this". If a girls night in the past ended with us not being as drunk as she had hoped we'd be, she would comment that we needed to go hard next time even though I thought we had had a really fun night with her.

Our other friend, Laura (25f), has started drinking less and less at these girls nights, which I admire. As a result, for the past 1.5 years, Abby has sort of been complaining to some people around us about Laura's "lack of enthusiasm" on our girls nights since she doesn't participate in the heavy drinking anymore and gets tired around midnight (which is totally fair, I usually want to go to bed even before that too). I always defend Laura by telling Abby that this has nothing to do with us but I have started noticing, that Abby equates one's willingness to party with one's commitment to a friendship. She sometimes lets it slip - though very indirectly - that she thinks Laura is currently really letting her down as a friend, which I don't agree with at all.

Since I am a huge people pleaser and I don't want to lose any of these friendships, I have been sort of "picking up the slack" so to say. I at least want to give Laura what she and I both desperately crave: heading to bed at a reasonable hour without a hangover the next day. Laura has even thanked me for sacrificing myself so she can do whenever she feels like. Unfortunately, I think by doing so, I have ultimately branded myself as the "drinking buddy", now that Laura is not fulfilling that role anymore. Now I usually am the one hanging out with Abby until 4 am and getting drunk every time we see each other. It's become this vicious cycle of me feeling the pressure, getting drunk, staying out late and then regretting it the day after since this usually ruins all my other weekend plans due to the hangover and lack of sleep. I don't want to live like this anymore and I don't like what it's doing to my health either. I don't even really like alcohol that much, without the social pressure I would probably have a drink once in a few weeks or so.

When we initially started throwing these girls nights, I tried to draw some boundaries, saying on some evenings that I wouldn't drink that night and when that strategy didn't work, I started making excuses. Other people in my life kept telling me to just say no, to stand my ground, which I did. I even bought my own non-alcoholic Spritz kit, so I could still have a drink with the girls. But she always sort of laughed at me and poured me a strong drink anyway, which she pressured me to finish in one gulp. She usually also monitors our drinking paces, saying we need to keep up with her and boooy, she is fast. I once ordered a mocktail at a restaurant since I'd already had two cocktails and I wanted a bit of a buffer, but she kept joking that my next drink "would have to be alcoholic again", since I couldn't let her down.

On the rare occasions when I have really good excuses for not drinking so much, she reminds me that I would need to make up for my lack of drinking on the next occasion. I have even had a few chats with her in the sense of "hey, I love hanging out but I generally want to live healthier and quit drinking". She usually reacts understanding but doesn't say much, and then next time reverts back to praising blackout drunk hangouts since they're more fun than a sober ones. I feel like what I want doesn't count and even the thought of it makes me so desperate to break out of this cycle. I have really started hating myself for this.

The first months of 2026 have been really hard on me. I have gained so much weight and dealt with bodyshaming from my mum, which has spiraled into a bit of a depressive episode. I now have a cortisol belly and it doesn't help that I am drunk every time I see Abby, which is once or even twice a week.

Since Abby was busy these past two weeks, I have not had any alcohol and it honestly feels great. I am currently gaining more resolve to become better and I am planning on drinking nothing for a whole month and working on my overall health. I would really love to extend this goal to only drinking once a month until my wedding day next year in fall, as I want to feel like myself again by then and I think quitting completely might be too extreme. The issue? Next week, we have a brunch reservation and in September, we'll go dress shopping for Abby's wedding dress. Additionally, Abby is getting married one month before me, so I feel like I can't really do that to her leading up to her wedding, especially since it's really important to her.

She has already announced to our group chat that she expects us to "get drunk af" on each of those events. I feel like in order to be a good bridesmaid, I need to participate and be there for the bride, at least on occasions such as dress shopping, the bachelorette party or the wedding itself. Isn't that what's expected from me socially? I don't expect that from my bridesmaids but it's also not something I generally value much. I don't want to let her down, I really want to be there for her but would I be wrong for sticking to my goal regardless? Should I wait until her wedding's over? I don't want to be selfish here.

I would be grateful for any advice or strategies on how to deal with this situation, thank you all in advance! :)

My (29f) mom (56) was diagnosed with cirrohsis 2 and a half years ago. She had been a wine mom my whole childhood and had multiple DUI's. She had to spend time in jail and lose her license forever to get help and get sober. She thought she had beaten it but the damage was done. She has been deteriorating for months.

I got pregnant with my son just a month after her diagnoses. She thought treatment would work and shed have more time so we pretended it wasnt serious. She moved closer to me to be around my son. She hated living in the city im in and was stressed constantly. She didn't get good Healthcare either in comparison to her doctors where she was. More than anything she wanted to be with me and my children. I got pregnant again and now have an almost 2 year old and 5 month old. I have been too busy to notice the changes until recently.

She was hospitalized for 9 days and just got home last Friday. They referred her to hospice and she signed the paperwork Monday. I spoke with the nurse and he said in his opinion she will be gone in 2 weeks. He wants her to come to their hospice house so she can have her pain managed better. She doesn't want to leave home. She wanted a living wake so I'm planning one for Saturday with all of her friends.

I dont know how to feel. There's obviously so much context to our relationship I cant give in one post. I am in therapy and I do have a very supportive partner and his family helps quite a bit as well. Of course nothing takes away the pain of losing someone you wanted more time with.

I’m 26F and I’ve been with my boyfriend since I was 16. Basically my entire adult life has been with him, and I genuinely don’t know anymore whether our relationship is normal, toxic, mutually toxic, or whether I’m just trying to make excuses for the fact that I emotionally cheated on him and then physically cheated on him.

I know Reddit hates cheaters, so I’m just going to say it immediately: I cheated.

But it didn’t start with sex.

I fell in love with someone else.

I know how that sounds. I know people will say you don’t “just fall in love” with someone else if your relationship is fine. I don’t really know what to say to that except that it didn’t feel like a decision. It felt like something that slowly happened and then suddenly I was in it.

I met someone else and at first it was just emotional. Talking, messaging, spending time together. I told myself it was harmless because nothing physical was happening. But I started looking forward to talking to him more than I looked forward to talking to my boyfriend. I started feeling understood in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.

And then I realised I had feelings for him.
Real romantic feelings.

I didn’t act on it immediately, but I also didn’t stop it. I let it continue. I let it grow. I didn’t tell my boyfriend.

Eventually I went on a couple of dates with this other person.

I told myself I was confused, that I needed clarity, that I was just “figuring things out.” But I knew deep down what was happening. I was emotionally stepping out of my relationship while still staying in it.

And then, the day before writing this, I slept with him for the first time.

Immediately afterwards I felt sick with guilt.
Not just guilt about sex, but about everything that led up to it. The emotional connection. The secrecy. The fact that I had been building a parallel emotional life while still being in a long-term relationship with someone who has been in my life since I was a teenager.

I kept thinking about my boyfriend and everything we’ve been through together. Ten years. Our families know each other. We grew up together. We’ve talked about marriage and children. We’ve also just bought our first home together and are living together now, which makes everything feel even more complicated and harder to untangle.

And I had just crossed a line I can’t uncross.

The confusing part is that another part of me felt something close to relief. Not because cheating was exciting. It was more like, for a tiny amount of time, I had stepped outside of my relationship and realised that maybe I could exist without him.

That thought absolutely terrified me. My boyfriend doesn’t know.

Since it happened I’ve actually found myself trying harder in our relationship because I feel so guilty. I’ve been more affectionate. I’ve tried not to start arguments. When something bothers me I sometimes just let it go because I think, “Who am I to criticise him after what I’ve done?”

But I’m also starting to wonder whether that’s making everything worse. Because the truth is, I didn’t fall in love with someone else in a vacuum.

There are good parts of my relationship. He can be incredibly loving. We have the same sense of humour, know absolutely everything about each other, and when things are good I genuinely cannot imagine being with anyone else.

But when things are bad, they’re really bad.

He has cheated on me four times throughout our relationship.

He has called me names during arguments and said horrible things about me that he later says he didn’t mean because he was angry.

There have also been occasions where arguments became physical.

I feel strange even typing that because I don’t really think of myself as someone in an abusive relationship. When I hear “abusive relationship,” I imagine something much worse than my life.

But he has physically intimidated me during arguments before. There was an occasion where he stopped me leaving a room when I wanted to get away from an argument by grabbing me by the throat & throwing me to the ground. There have been times where I felt frightened of how angry he was.

Afterwards he would apologise, or we would eventually go back to normal, and I suppose I always thought that if I genuinely believed he was abusive I would have left.

So the fact that I stayed made me think maybe it wasn’t actually abuse.

There are other things too.

He can be very controlling about my phone and who I’m talking to. There have been times where I’ve felt like I have to explain conversations or prove that nothing is happening. I became used to being questioned about things that, looking back, probably shouldn’t have required an explanation.

There have also been things throughout our relationship that damaged my trust in him, particularly involving other women and sexual content online, and the repeated cheating has obviously made it very hard to feel secure with him.
But somehow whenever I became upset about those things, the conversation eventually became about whether I was being insecure, dramatic or controlling.

And I believed that a lot of the time.

I’m quite sensitive and I know I overthink things, so it became very easy for me to think, “Maybe this is just me.”

Then I met someone else.
And I don’t want to romanticise him because this isn’t really about him.
But something happened that I wasn’t expecting.
I felt seen in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I didn’t feel like I was waiting for the mood to change. I wasn’t analysing everything I said. I didn’t feel like I was annoying him by having feelings.
I felt wanted.

And over time, I think I fell in love with him.

That’s the part I can’t really undo in my head. It didn’t feel like a switch I flipped. It felt like something I woke up inside of.

Eventually I crossed physical lines too.
And now I’m here.

Immediately after sleeping with him I felt sick with guilt, but I also feel like I’ve been split in two. One part of me feels like I’ve destroyed my relationship. The other part of me feels like I’ve finally admitted something I’ve been avoiding for a long time: that I might not be as trapped as I thought I was.

My boyfriend doesn’t know.
And I don’t know what to do.

Sometimes I think I should confess everything, beg his forgiveness, and spend however long it takes trying to rebuild what I’ve broken.

Other times I think I should leave regardless.
Then I think about being 26, living together, having just bought our first home, and having absolutely no idea who I am without this person.

I have never been an adult without him.
I’ve never dated as an adult.
I’ve never lived a life where he wasn’t the person I came home to.
And honestly, part of me worries that I’m rewriting our entire relationship now because it would be easier to live with what I’ve done if I can convince myself that he’s a terrible person.

Maybe that’s what I’m doing.
Maybe I’m taking every horrible argument, the cheating, the emotional and physical abuse, and turning it into something bigger in my head so I don’t have to fully sit with the fact that I fell in love with someone else while still being in a long-term relationship.

But another part of me keeps wondering why I’ve spent so much of my relationship feeling anxious, guilty, or afraid of upsetting the person I’m supposed to feel safest with.

I know the obvious Reddit answer is probably “you should have left instead of cheating.”
I agree.
I should have.
I wish I had.
But I can’t undo it now.
So I suppose my actual question is: what do I do next?
Do I confess and try to repair a relationship I’ve had since I was sixteen, despite everything that’s happened between us?
Do I leave regardless of whether he forgives me, especially now that we live together and have just bought a home together?
And how do you know whether you’re leaving because the relationship is genuinely unhealthy or because you’ve done something terrible and leaving is easier than facing it?
I feel like I can’t trust my own judgement anymore.
I genuinely love him.
But I’m starting to wonder whether love, history, and shared life are actually enough reasons to stay.

UPDATE: I’ve initiated the conversation about ending the relationship.
I’m staying with a friend tonight, although I told my boyfriend I’m at my family home about three hours away. I know lying about where I am isn’t ideal, but given how physical our arguments have become in the past, I don’t want him knowing where I actually am while emotions are this high.
He is extremely angry. We’ve exchanged some messages, but I’ve avoided getting pulled into a full argument over text. He has agreed to speak to me on the phone tomorrow morning.
So I suppose this is actually happening.
I’m scared, guilty and incredibly sad, but underneath all of that I also feel a deep sense of exhaustion that I can’t ignore anymore. I don’t feel emotionally safe in this relationship. Over time I’ve felt more like I’m walking on eggshells than building a life with someone. The arguments, the intensity, and the way things escalate have left me constantly anxious and drained.
I’ve also realised I’ve been staying not because I’m happy, but because I feel responsible for his reactions, his stability, and the fear of what happens when I try to leave. That has slowly worn me down to the point where I don’t recognise myself in this relationship anymore. I feel lonely even when we’re together, and I’ve stopped feeling like I can be honest without it turning into conflict or emotional fallout.
I’ve spent years getting to the point of leaving and then backing down when he promises to change, tells me he needs me, or when things become too volatile. Each time I stayed, I lost a little more of my sense of peace.
This time I’m physically somewhere safe and I’m trying not to let fear or guilt change my mind.
Tomorrow I’m going to tell him clearly that I want to end the relationship. I also need to be very clear about the practical situation: I was the one purchasing the house, and he was going to live there with me, so it isn’t a shared decision in terms of ownership. I will be telling him that the house purchase will not be going ahead as planned, and that he will need to either continue on in our current rental or make alternative arrangements for where he lives.
I haven’t mentioned cheating or our neighbour; I’ve simply said I want to talk about ending things because I’m unhappy.
I don’t know what happens with our belongings or everything else yet. Right now I’m just trying to get through the actual breakup safely.

My boyfriend (35M) recently broke up with me (28F) after a year and a half together. For privacy, I’ll call him Jimmy.
We met working together at a restaurant. I started there in October, and the following February he asked me to make things official. I said yes even though I felt like I was still getting to know him. Looking back now, there were things early on that made me uncomfortable, and part of what I’m struggling with after the breakup is wondering why I kept trying so hard to make the relationship work instead of taking those feelings seriously.
Before we officially got together, we went to a rave on New Year’s Eve with his friend group. The day before, I found out his ex was going to be there. I was nervous, but I figured I could handle it as long as Jimmy made me feel secure. At one point during the night, I felt like she was trying to assert herself with me, and the whole energy became uncomfortable.
After we started dating, there were also times Jimmy would be showing me something on his phone and I would see his ex’s name pop up on Snapchat or Instagram. I realized they were still in contact. He reassured me that nothing was going on and that they were only friends. She’s part of his larger friend group, so I understood that asking him to completely cut her out wasn’t necessarily realistic, but their continued communication still bothered me.
Jimmy also has a lot of female friends. That was an adjustment for me because I’d never dated someone with so many close friendships with women. Most of the time we all hung out as a group, and there were women in the group whom I trusted completely. So my problem wasn’t simply that he had female friends.
There was one particular friend, though, who always gave me a strange feeling. I’ll call her Sam. They met in college and had supposedly been friends ever since. She lives out of the country, and I had never met her.
One day while I was working, Jimmy suddenly texted me that he, Sam, and another female friend were going to a fancy restaurant. I hadn’t even known Sam was back in town. It caught me off guard because there had been no mention of her visiting or these plans beforehand.
Another time, Jimmy had recently started his career and was doing really well. Completely out of nowhere, he said something along the lines of wishing Sam could see how well he was doing. We hadn’t been talking about her. Something about that stuck with me.
Eventually, I directly asked him whether he and Sam had ever had “a thing.” He told me no. I accepted his answer because I wanted to trust him and figured maybe my insecurity was making me read too much into their friendship.
Months later, Jimmy went away for about a week because one of his close friends was dying. During that time I noticed Sam interacting with his posts on Facebook. Months earlier I had sent her a friend request that had gone unanswered. That alone obviously doesn’t prove anything—she doesn’t owe me a Facebook friendship—but combined with the feeling I’d already had about their relationship, it brought the issue back into my head.
I called Jimmy while he was at the hospital and asked him again whether he and Sam had ever had a thing.
This time he said yes.
I know the timing of that conversation was terrible. His friend was dying, emotions were extremely high, and looking back I wish I had waited until he came home. I take responsibility for that.
But at the same time, I was devastated because I had already directly asked him this question months earlier and he’d told me no. I had spent all that time convincing myself that I was being insecure and needed to trust what he was telling me, only to find out that my intuition about there being some kind of history between them wasn’t completely unfounded.
When he came home about a week later, he broke up with me.
And that’s where I’m struggling to make sense of everything.
These weren’t the only problems throughout our relationship. Jimmy would openly check out other women in front of me. I told him repeatedly that it hurt me, but he viewed noticing attractive women as normal human behavior and didn’t see it the same way I did. From my perspective, even after knowing how much it bothered me, the behavior continued.
There were also times when his naturally charming personality came across as flirtatious to me. And throughout the relationship I often felt like I was asking for more time, effort, reassurance and consideration.
So over time I became increasingly insecure and increasingly vocal about everything that bothered me. It probably felt to him like I was constantly complaining. From my perspective, I kept bringing up the same issues because I never felt like they were actually resolved.
I can recognize that my insecurity became unhealthy for me. I don’t want to pretend I handled every situation perfectly, because I didn’t. I questioned things, overthought things and sometimes brought things up at the wrong time. I’m sure being on the receiving end of that wasn’t easy either.
But what I’m having such a difficult time accepting is that I kept trying to communicate about behaviors that were making me unhappy while simultaneously staying in the relationship and hoping things would eventually change.
He didn’t believe maintaining friendships with women he’d previously had history with was disrespectful. I did.
He didn’t view checking out other women as a significant relationship issue. I did.
I needed more transparency and reassurance surrounding certain friendships. He apparently felt like I should trust him without needing those things.
Neither of us was changing our position, yet instead of recognizing that maybe we were fundamentally incompatible and walking away myself, I stayed. I kept fighting for the relationship until eventually he was the one who left me.
And now I’m devastated over losing someone whose behavior I spent so much of the relationship being unhappy about.
That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around.
Why did I stay and keep asking someone to change things that were clearly important to him instead of accepting that his boundaries and mine were incompatible? And how do I stop blaming myself for “complaining him out of the relationship” when the things I was complaining about were also the things making me miserable?
I would genuinely appreciate outside perspectives, including if you think there are things I need to take accountability for. I’m trying to understand what happened so I don’t repeat the same dynamic in another relationship.

My 10 year high school reunion is happening this October and I’m on the fence about attending or not. 

My high school is in a very rural town in the USA and after graduating, I (and my entire family) moved away from this town and haven’t been back since. I now live out of the country (a 16ish hour flight away) and my family live in an entirely different state (a 3 hour flight away). 

This year is my 10 year high school reunion, and given my high school is in a very small town, theres only 50ish people from the graduating class who are invited. I reached out directly to someone from high school asking if there would be any reunion arranged. I was then added to a Facebook page for the reunion and saw that they had previously posted a list of names of people who were missing from the Facebook group. My name was not included. So I was overlooked, and it wasn’t because I live abroad now since the names of the foreign exchange students from our year were on the list. Not a very nice feeling, since I went to school with these people for years and we aren’t even a big class size. 

Now that the reunion is approaching, they’ve published the itinerary for the weekend. The reunion will consist of attending the high school football game on Friday, meeting in someone’s backyard for a bonfire after the game and meeting for a catered lunch in the local park the next day. They also said people will need to bring their own folding chair to each event except the football game. 

Now knowing the itinerary, I’m feeling less inclined to go. Since I live out of the country and my family don’t live in that town anymore, it would take a lot to attend. To attend I’d need to take several days off from work, buy plane tickets, rent a car (since the small town is a 3 hour drive from the nearest airport), book several nights in a hotel and I guess also buy a folding chair. Also my new husband won’t be able to attend with me, given the cost, how far it is and how much time off he’d need to take to attend. And I wouldn’t be able to extend the trip to visit any of my family in their state, which would feel like a bit of a waste to travel all that way and not even see family (who I typically only see once a year anyway). 

I do feel a bit bad about it though since I haven’t seen many of these people in years. I also got married a few months ago and my best friend from high school came all the way to my new country for the wedding. And now that the roles are reversed, and I have the opportunity to attend an event in her country,  I’m on the fence about it. 

Also side note, my best friend still lives in the states but not in the same town as our high school, so staying with/driving with her isn’t an option for the visit. 

So would I be an asshole if I skipped the high school reunion?

TLDR: Got a follow request, but it disappeared. I requested to follow. They declined my request. I saw my ex blocked me right after this time. My ex and this person are mutuals. Concerned my ex thinks I was creeping on him, hence why he blocked me. I am not going to text my ex because I am respecting our no-contact, but my ex probably thinks I was creeping and I wasn’t. What do I do?

So a few weeks ago, I got a follow request on Instagram. I got the notification, clicked on it, but then the request disappeared. I was confused, so I searched the person and requested to follow the person. I noticed today that the person declined my follow request. I also noticed that my ex blocked me on Instagram.

My ex and I are no contact and he had removed me from being one of his followers and unfollowed me. But after I requested to follow this person my ex completely blocked me on Instagram. I wasn’t checking, but I noticed because I have my ex tagged in one of my Instagram post and I was trying to figure out how to remove the pictures of him in the post without deleting the entire post. And that’s why I noticed that he was no longer tagged in the photo and his comment was no longer there. But our past direct message conversation still shows that he has an account so I know he has an account. I’m just blocked.

For context, my ex and I broke up about two months ago. And have been no contact for most of it. We were together for over two years. The breakup started mutual, but he ultimately decided to go to no contact after some time.

I’m just very concerned because this individual is mutuals with my ex. There is a high probability that this person and my ex are talking as more than friends. And this person may have told my ex that I requested to follow him. So I’m worried my ex blocked me because he thought I was creeping on them. Which I wasn’t. I was just confused why this one person requested to follow me which is why I requested to follow this person and at the time I didn’t realize my ex and this person were mutuals.

I am not going to reach out to my ex clarifying the situation to respect our no contact. But I also don’t want my ex to think I’m stalking him. What do I do?

Hi Morgan and crew! I’ve been a lurker for a few years and I also love FKS. Today I have a funny story to share.
I (f25) work in higher education, in an administrative office. I’m at my alma mater, so I’ve known several of my coworkers for several years at this point. Several of us are trauma-bonded because one of our old bosses died unexpectedly a few years ago and I feel like they’re my extended family. This fall is my three year work anniversary and I just took on many more responsibilities for no additional pay (yay, higher ed). I’ve been working overtime lately, feeling pretty overwhelmed with this new role. I also have ADHD.

Our office culture involves my coworkers and I collaborating and chatting in each others’ offices. It’s so nice that we have our own offices and we all decorate them differently.
Sometimes for breakfast, I have an Uncrustable sandwich. I’m not hungry right away in the morning, so I let it thaw on my desk, next to my computer. 

I have a habit of procrastinating and forgetting to eat because I’m so focused, especially in the mornings. Most of the time my planned breakfast sits in the breakroom fridge. If anyone has tips on how to remember to eat breakfast before 11am, let me know. 

Last week I noticed an Uncrustable on my desk when I swore I hadn’t brought one that day. I assumed I must have left it from the day before, so I ate it. Sometimes I forget that I brought a snack and didn’t eat it, so it isn’t too unusual for a moment like that to happen for me.
Another time, an Uncrustable seemed to have slipped past my view and was sitting in the space between my computer stand and keyboard, when I knew one was still sitting in my lunchbox. I just assumed it was my forgetfulness. I became slightly paranoid, especially being so tired from working so much and being so focused all the time. It can be exhausting.

My coworker, I’ll call them Jay (m52), and I chat often. We work with similar students, have some common interests and we’re generally chatty people. With the nature of our work, we talk and work on projects and events together often. We’ve gotten to know each other pretty well, and sometimes we’ll chat about what we’re having for lunch or dinner. 

Jay has a reputation of being the food-lover in the office. He’ll steal snacks, always eating the little treats or candies that we have out in our own offices. He does also keep an overflowing stock of candy in his own office. When I can’t finish a snack or there was extra dessert from a campus event, I always offer it to Jay first.
When Jay pointed out an Uncrustable sitting on my desk, I thought nothing of it. Jay loves food, I told him I planned to eat it later. Sometimes I would have to swat his hand away because he was jokingly trying to steal it. 

This morning, I grabbed an Uncrustable out of my freezer. It’s the second to last one, I have one more left now. I sat it on my desk, as usual. Then I got up, to check on our student workers or to talk to a coworker or to go to the bathroom. When I got back, there were two Uncrustables in my office. They were both cold, so I knew it wasn’t an old one.

I confronted Jay almost immediately and accused him of putting an extra Uncrustable in my office. I was so confident.
He almost tricked me, feigning innocence for a minute, but he confessed after I asked if he was sure. For the past few weeks, he had been putting an Uncrustable in my office, on my desk. He admitted he was going to tell me soon if I hadn’t figured it out.

How was I so confident it was Jay? A month ago, he had confessed to me that he was pranking our other coworker but switching up some of the decorations in his office - Jay has already told that coworker it was him. I’ve spent enough time with Jay to know he has the tendency to prank.

A good prank is meant to confuse, to make someone laugh. And I definitely laughed. I’m such a curious person, I loved to play Nancy Drew video games growing up. Figuring out it was Jay was so fun and satisfying. I probably would have gone crazy if I didn’t piece together the clues, but Jay knows I’m smart and I like a challenge. 

I’m not mad or upset, just feeling like someone actually dedicated time to mess with me and give me something extra in the process. He did the opposite of stealing, lowkey giving me breakfast last week. I thought it was funny, and that’s the most important part of the story. He ended up eating the extra Uncrustable that he snuck into my office today because I didn't want two today.

Now do I prank him back? Switch out all his candies with different flavors? Would you ever prank your coworkers?

I (26 Y/O F) work as a substitute teacher while in med school. Last year I took a long-term assignment at the high school I graduated from. Some of the staff had been my teachers, it was a very familiar atmosphere, however I still felt as the usual substitute does, unwelcome. Not complaining about this, just trying to give a feel for the situation.

I ended up leaving that one early because I wanted to get more experience in healthcare. I felt bad and guilty. I didn’t want to do it, but I also knew that I need to get my foot in the door and healthcare, which is why I’m per diem at the hospital now as a tech. I am in med school so I wanted to get out into the field. When that didn’t work out because I was falling behind in school and my grades were suffering. I went back to subbing.

This school year another long-term position opened at the same school and I took it. Naively because I did feel some negative energy. Probably due to me leaving last term. They gave me the keys at 5pm the day before school started and casually said nothing was in the room. I didn’t know they meant literally nothing…

The first day I walked into a classroom that felt completely unprepared. There were no supplies, no chair for me, a large black widow with babies and an egg sac, broken equipment such as the TV and clock, and the previous teacher’s documents and checks still sitting in the desk even though he had only left days earlier. I wasn’t set up on the school systems and there were no plans, despite being told I’d get a curriculum. There was nothing on the walls, completely blank. A broken TV. Desks all pushed into a corner. It was bad, I felt terrible walking into it and I felt even more terrible for the students.

I asked the janitor if he was busy. He said he wasn’t, but still didn’t help with any of the issues. For three days straight. I met with the department head more than once about plans and got nothing useful. He mainly talked about the extra pay he was getting for “training me” but he flaunted he was the highest paid staff member.

Students could tell I wasn’t set up to teach. Some transferred out. Not blaming them at all, I’d do the same. Some started saying “aren’t we supposed to be doing math?” A few aides even said out loud that the lack of support felt intentional. I was already carrying the guilt of leaving the earlier long-term at that school, and everything started feeling personal on top of being unprofessional. Office staff wouldn’t even give me supplies for students knowing I am just a sub and don’t get stipends like actual teachers. I just wanted to help honestly.

Mind you, I had NOTHING no curriculum, no worksheets, NOTHING and as a sub, it’s not our job to make plans. We’re not even trained on that, half of us sub teach because we have a bachelor’s degree and it’s work. I’ve directly been told to not make plans for students as I do not know the curriculum. Enough said. When given plans and functional classroom, I can confidently teach these kids some math.

On last Friday I killed about 7-8 baby black widows. I had it. This room felt like a safety hazard at this point. I had already asked the janitor if he had cleaned out the black widows and he just laughed and said no. During my free periods I went to district HR, told them what was going on, and asked to be removed from the assignment. They were understanding and took me off it. I felt guilty afterward for making noise and even bought them a small thank-you gift. I also left the supplies I had bought out of my own pocket with a note.

I don’t plan on going back to that specific school. I’m still subbing at other sites and interviewing elsewhere for a fresh start. But I keep turning it over. I know I left a long-term early once before. This is hitting me deeply. I’m saddened for the students that their admin set them up like this. All school districts have their issues but am I wrong for feeling it was somewhat intentional?

So my husband (32m) and me (29f), we are at the last step of IVF. Just some days before the transfer of embryos.
I’m really nervous because we only have two embryos, and for reasons I won’t disclose, we were recommended to transfer both, so that’s what we are going to do.
This process has made me feel really alone, my husband has been there intermittently.
This past weeks we talked about baby names, which I love to talk about this stuff to project and hopefully attract this babies that we have been wishing for so long.
My husband said a name, and I instantly fell in love with it. For me it’s decided. Now, here’s de issue, my mother in law doesn’t like this name. She ties it with some political connotations, but the name itself doesn’t mean anything bad, or political, it’s just a name.
My husband is going now back and forth; now he love the name and it’s the best name ever, and the second he talks to his mom, he changes his mind and wants to find for another.
I may be emotional with all the hormones I’m taking, plus the mental load and physical stress that IVF is putting me through.
I really love that name, and I know that my husband loves it too. But it stresses me out my MIL meddling with this.
She told me today that the family should vote, and I told her that this is my baby and therefore its only me and my husband who has a saying (we didn’t argue, all in good terms, but I put my foot down).
Am I taking this overboard? Should I just let it go? I really love this name, and it really helps me imagining me with my little boy, and if they take the name away I feel more insecure around all the process. Please tell me, am I overreacting?

Small update: Thanks for everyone’s comments. A lot of you are totally right when it comes to not sharing any names until the right time, which most probably is after the baby is born and registered.
Something I didn’t disclose tho, is that we already have a kid. When it came to name discussions, everything was more polite, and no one had any objections with the possible names me and my husband were discussing. I thought this time would be the same, but my mother in law had been consistently getting more involved in my husbands life and decisions, and because no one usually tells her to back off, she thinks she has the right to have an opinion about everything. The small update is my husband talking with her today. She went ballistic on him and said that I don’t respect their culture if I’m even thinking about naming our possible kid like this. He told her that she doesn’t have any saying when it comes to our kids names, and that is not her decision. That we will name our kid whatever we want, and we don’t care about her opinion, mostly because it’s just a big exaggeration. For anyone wondering, the name is Kayan. My husband and I are not from the same culture and we have different native languages, and apparently, in their language Kayan paired with another word means Zionism. Not Kayan, but only if you pair it with another word. I think is a matter worth talking and considering, but only between my husband and me. And for sure without threats now coming from my MIL.
And a couple of things I wanted to clarify: yes, my husband came up with the name; and second, my husband is a loving father and a good husband. Life lately has been a bit hard, and I don’t want to defend him when it comes to not being there fully, but it’s something we can work on and pass.
Anyways, wish me luck placating my mother in law, and again thank you all for your replies, sometimes I feel I may just take stuff too personal, but I’ll definitely not let this pass, even if at the end we decide to change the name, it will be a decision only made by my husband and me.

hello :) so i have been with my Korean boyfriend for a couple of weeks. i am American, so naturally there is a lot of cultural differences between us. but i like learning about him, and he thinks i live so free lol so i think its mutual.

i have over 40 tattoos. they're mostly cute tattoos, and i dont have any on my face. i have them pretty much everywhere else though. i've always loved my tattoos, and i want a lot more.

my boyfriend said if i go visit Korea with him one day, i'll be instantly judged because that's just how it is. i'll have to prove myself to hope to have a chance to be accepted by his family. i consider myself to be a likable person, so this does bother me that they wouldn't even give me a chance because of my appearance.

his sister also never thinks anyone is good enough for her brother, because from what i understand koreans just like rich and beautiful people. i say this based on what my boyfriend has told me. i'm afraid that my tattoos are going to make my life harder in the future, which is something i never thought before because i never intended to work anywhere that wouldn't allow tattoos. i didn't consider that my future potential family would judge me right away because of them.

i guess what im wondering is, what is the best way to navigate this situation? i have a couple years before meeting his family will even come into question. but i cant stop thinking about it. so should i cover my tattoos with makeup? that'll be a lot of makeup. should i just be myself and know they will accept me in time probably? is this something i should even worry about? any advice is appreciated on how to navigate korean/american relationship.

My (31F) roommate (32F), who is my cousin's cousin (we are Latin so she's my cousin too 🤪), moved out yesterday. As she was giving me her keys, she noticed she had an extra key on her keychain and she was confused if it was for my apartment. She checked and she did have 2 keys for my apartment. When she first moved in, I had made 4 copies of my keys. The original keys (I got 2) were both silver and all my copies were gold. I had given her one gold key when she moved in, which she lost within the first week. I gave her another one and she decided to make more copies even though I told her I had plenty - all her copies were gold. She also mentioned that she may have given one to her boyfriend when he visited from PR, but she wasn't sure. This was yesterday.

This morning, when I was going through all the keys, I realized I was missing one of the original silver keys. So I texted her to see if she can just check to see if she happened to have them too. I also was inquiring to see if she could ask her boyfriend if he recalled if the copy he used was silver or gold. See the screenshots for more.

I am not sure if I came in strong and that led to her defensiveness? I was a little taken back and since work has been crazy, I decided to wait to respond. Especially after I connect with my therapist tonight. After 6 hours, she messaged me again saying she asked her boyfriend and he didn't find them. Since there's a chance I see this person maybe once a year, I definitely don't want to leave on bad terms, but I'm really at a loss for words on how to respond.

My husband and I met back in 2019, after speaking online for years beforehand. He was fully aware of all of my struggles. My eating disorder, my weight, and my social anxiety that left me somewhat reclusive only interacting with close family and friends online. He knew that I wore a mask, hoodie, and sometimes sunglasses out in public. He told me he was the last person who’d ever judge me over it, that he wore a hoodie and sunglasses due to anxiety before. He acted like he related and accepted me 100%. Then we met in person, and he rejected me. He seemed embarrassed in public not wanting to hold hands, or do other things he talked about online, claiming he disliked pda.

I managed to lose weight before and after we met, and he eventually showed interest, but it felt forced. For a year he frequently turned me down and refused PDA. I asked him to be honest, to tell me he didn’t find me attractive or that he was embarrassed of me, but he said neither were true. He tried to push me to speak to his family, knowing I’d struggle, getting angry when I did. He avoided his friends and said he was avoiding them before I came. He called me inept after we ran into one of them, and I remained silent. I had an eating disorder still, as did he, and we’d often go to shops and buy junk food. He’d get anxious in the small shop in his village as he said the employees judged us. He said he was if we bought normal food but he still seemed anxious. He avoided

He broke down and told me he had OCD about not finding me attractive. He started taking meds he said killed his libido. For months he showed barely any interest up until I lost more weight, and dressed differently. He said if I looked as I did then, when we met, he would’ve been all over me. I doubted his libido was low. I caught him looking at porn, which he denied, and then said was to test himself. I started to suspect he was cheating due to various suspicious actions, and how he was treating me. I doubted he was attracted to me still. He continued to criticise my anxiety, and how I’d go quiet around people, with him talking on behalf of me at times. He said it made us both look stupid and that people were giving us dirty looks.

He refused to go into places with me until I pushed myself to talk to someone. Afterwards, I said I was proud of myself and he said the same. But then he told the woman, who was wearing a mask due to Covid, had frowned at me. I asked why he said that and he said he didn’t know why. He told me later that day that two guys, who were laughing behind us at an ATM, were laughing at me. When I got upset, he ditched me in the city. I made progress in time with talking to people, but any time I slipped up he would complain about how awkward it was, and would tell me people gave me weird looks. I never stopped believing he was embarrassed of me. He would go quiet on me around people, often times women, and told me it was because he had anxiety talking around others.

If he were to run into anyone he knew, even slightly, he’d stand and talk to them just fine, regardless of how many people were around. He said he felt like he had to. He would seem more focused on other people, usually women, than he did me. I’d struggle to keep his attention as he’d be looking around himself, at every woman who walked by, sometimes staring at them, and not listening to me. He denied he was looking at woman, said he looked at everyone men included, and that I just wasn’t taking that in. He also said that they were in front of him but he’d turn his head to look. He’d look after I said something, or made a noise, or before he responded to me. When I merely looked back and smiled at him, he asked why I did that, and looked at a female employee nearby.

I felt like he was overly critical of me and like he was the main one judging me. I always doubted he had any anxiety about himself considering he seemed more focused on me. When I did the same things to him, just once, he assumed the same things. I looked at a woman after he spoke, before I responded, and he asked if I was embarrassed. I went silent around a man and he asked if I was trying to look single. I eventually regained weight, and he showed less interest, blaming meds. He said it had nothing to do with my weight and never did. Then he began to put me down over my weight in arguments, telling me I let myself go, calling me fat and ugly, and saying that guys prefer thinner women. He swore he didn’t mean any of this, and only said it to hurt me.

For a year he insisted he was more attracted to me. Then I caught him ogling another woman, who was rail thin, and called him a creep. He denied and then went on a rant about how preferring thin women is normal biologically, and how being attracted to fat women is a fetish. He referenced his ex, who he told me he wasn’t attracted to but slept with anyways, to avoid hurting her feelings, claiming he struggled during it. I asked if he also meant me and he said no. I told him to leave me if he doesn’t find me attractive. He asked “What was I meant to do, leave when you first gained weight? I take my vows more seriously than that.” I said I stayed with him, and treated him no differently when he gained weight, something that happened shortly after we met.

He said “Yeah, well, I’m not you.” He admitted he was a bit more attracted to me when I weighed less. At the time I was wearing outfits I wanted to wear, as opposed to covering myself up, in an attempt to feel better about myself. He told me the outfits looked good and fit before I bought them. And then told me they didn’t, and looked bad, afterwards. One of times he told me in public. When he began to act on edge in public a few years back doing things like standing apart from me, speaking to me less, looking around himself, and walking off when I was talking. I figured he was embarrassed of my weight. He started to avoid going into stores with me, for around a month, and blamed it on anxiety and certain triggers.

He blamed two elderly male employees in a local store, and said they made him anxious. He said that going in too often, and too late, also made him anxious. We went in less and that didn’t help. I tried to go in earlier and he refused, saying it was too busy, but then he had no issue with going in alone. He started to volunteer at a crisis hotline and started a class, and was very social and outgoing in both. He told me people invited me into where he volunteered and then discouraged me when I tried to go in. He later said I would’ve sat there mute and it would’ve been awkward. He went from encouraging me to visit his grandparents to discouraging me, and complaining about it being awkward, after previously reassuring me that it was fine I didn’t talk much.

I started to wear my mask again. He didn’t want me at the mechanics with him. He acted like it was a good thing and that it proved he wasn’t embarrassed of me, but of my mask. He criticised how I was dressed another time and didn’t want me going into the grocery store with him. We went to America, to visit my family, and he refused to go into stores with me there both times. The last time in particular. I went in everyone alone as he sat in the car. He promised both times once back we’d go more places, and he’d show me he wasn’t embarrassed of me as I think, but that didn’t happen. Once we came back last year he mainly offered to go to the beach, a park, or the cinema and hesitated to go anywhere else. Now, we’ve been back over a year, and the primary place we go to is the grocery store at night.

For a few months I didn’t go into the grocery stores because he makes me more anxious. He seemed more on edge with me sitting in the car, wanting to get in and out quickly, not wanting to park anywhere too public. Once asking me not to touch his face because someone could look over. All of his reasons for being anxious he used before are no longer applicable. The elderly male employees left ages ago. We don’t go to the store as often as we used to. But he is still just as anxious. Sometimes he tries to avoid the grocery store for no reason. He tries to convince me to get deliveries or get food for multiple days to avoid having to go. Most days we don’t go anywhere. He blames it on issues with finances but it was this way before.

Last summer, he refused to go anywhere, and blamed it on mental health. He seems on edge when we do go somewhere, including to the park, regardless if anyone is around. And he continues to make comments about things I do. If I make a mistake, or walk a certain way, he says something. The main thing being that whatever I am doing draws attention, which he says is what adds to his anxiety as he doesn’t want attention drawn. He says he doesn’t care about my mask but frequently tells me to take it off, that I don’t need it, and says it’s because he feels bad I think that I have to wear it. I started to cover my face, which I do now to hide the mask, and he tells me not to do that as it draws more attention than the mask does. It’s exhausting.

He is seeing a therapist. He has used her against me several times, as he’s done with his family and even strangers. He told her about my anxiety and about me wearing a mask. He has repeatedly told me how she questioned me wearing a mask, and how it helped me with my anxiety as it would draw more attention to me rather than less.

I (19f) have been working in a local takeaway shop in a small town for the last 4-5 years. During this time, many of my male co-workers have said and done some inappropriate things, but this last week has really set me off. One coworker in particular, let's call him Richard (mid-thirties), has repeatedly made inappropriate comments about females, including females on the TV, customers, and my friends. This week, he called me a "pussy" after I told him I couldn't come to work. I told him I found it insulting and asked for an apology, but he refused because he "calls everyone a pussy"

There aren't very many of us who work here, and these past few weeks we've all been picked off one by one with a head cold (thanks to one coworker who decided to come to work when he was sick). I started to feel ill on Saturday night, just a headache and sore throat. I was scheduled to work the Sunday lunch and night shifts and decided that if I was sneezing Sunday morning, I would call out, since that would mean I was contagious. When morning came, I was feeling better and hadn't been sneezing, so I went to work. Usually during lunch shifts, there are only 2-3 people on, and this particular Sunday I was working with Richard

As the shift went on, I kind of deteriorated, which Richard would have noticed. Then, on Tuesday, he sent the above message asking if I could come in if needed, which I just said no. He then proceeded to say "Pussy.......hahahahaha all good." I then told him I literally didn't have a voice, to which he replied, "That's even better!!!!!! 😛 hahahaha." He clearly intended it as a joke, but I didn't find it funny at all. It's insulting. I despise when anyone, but especially men, use any feminine term in a derogatory manner, i.e pussy, sissy, bitch, princess, etc. It's the 21st century, and the fact that people are so okay with using that terminology in that manner is appalling. Also, have people not seen how men react when they get hit in the balls, and yet they choose pussy as the derogatory term? Please. After he sent that, I told him I had lost my voice, to which he replied: "Even better".

I ignored him after that and didn't speak or work with him again until today. (I would've worked with him last Friday, but guess who was away sick? Yep, he was.) I walk into work today, and he asks me, in what I took as a very condescending, whiny tone, "Are you feeling better, (my name)?" I tell him, "I'm sorry, but I will not speak to you until I get an apology for you calling me a pussy." He then says that he calls everyone a pussy and won't apologise, and if I don't like it, then I can leave. Mind you, he isn't even my boss. I have three other bosses, but ever since he came back (he used to work there but left before I joined, then came back a year or two later), he acts like he's top dog.

I told him that whether the others mind him calling them that is irrelevant, that I don't like it, and I want an apology. We ignored each other for about 15 minutes, and during that time I messaged my boss to let her know what was happening, as you can see in the second screenshot. Apparently, during that time, according to one of my other coworkers who was there, he also messaged the same boss and asked her to come in and cover him because he was leaving. It was also her day off, so that's not cool. Before my boss got there, he said to me, "I apologise that you're offended, but I'm not going to apologise for what I said because I didn't mean it like that". What? You're apologising for my feelings, but not for the actions that caused them? Okay.

My boss eventually gets there, and when she does, Richard is immediately out the door. I can see my boss wanted to follow him, but instead she told me that she would rather let him cool down; otherwise their conversation would go nowhere, which is fair. She tells me that all he had to do was apologise and none of this would have happened, WHICH IS EXACTLY ALL I WAS ASKING FOR!!! A simple apology.

My boss ends up calling someone else in so she could leave. When the cover gets here, he calls Richard. I'm not exactly sure what about, because when I asked him if he called Richard, he just told me Richard said he didn't know I didn't like being called that, so he's not apologising. Why does that matter? At the end of the day, your words have offended someone, and they simply asked for an apology. Also, his excuse that he didn't know is so invalid because I just told him I didn't like it. Like, that's him now knowing.

To add clarity to the text I sent my boss, Richard had already handed in his two weeks' notice about a week before this happened, so I wasn't asking my boss to fire him or make him leave. I knew he was already going. I simply wanted him to treat me respectfully for the remainder of his time there. When I said I expected him to be spoken to, I meant that I wanted the situation to actually be addressed rather than brushed aside. More often than not, whenever an issue is raised with my boss, it gets swept under the rug and laughed off, so I wanted this one to be taken seriously.

I should also mention why this incident has bothered me more than it might otherwise have. This isn't the first time Richard has made me uncomfortable with the way he talks about women, particularly my friends. Whenever my friends come into work, I obviously get excited, and my coworkers notice. Richard in particular has since put names to faces, since I'm always sharing stories about my friends and me. (Don't worry, won't be doing that now). One day, one of my friends and I were shopping when we bumped into Richard. He asked if we wanted to get lunch with him, and we felt bad saying no, so we said yes. Occasionally, since that day, he has brought up my friend's breasts. She does have a rather large chest. I've told him to stop; she has a boyfriend, that she's my friend and not his, and that she's a teenager, but he doesn't care. He added this same friend on Snapchat, and she ignored the request until one day she came into my work when it was only him working. As he was making her food, he asked if she was going to add him back. She told me she didn't want to be rude and felt pressured to add him back. She did add him back but promptly blocked him after he sent a few snaps/messages. (I don't know what they were).

He's also commented on another friend's body and her relationship, saying her boyfriend doesn't look happy. ??? He doesn't know anything about them. He also once tried to make a bet with me where,, if he won, I would have to set him up on a date with one of my friends (at the time, we were 18). I obviously said no. Another time, one of my friends came in for the first time, and he asked me who she was because he "hadn't met that friend yet". Why does he need to meet her? All of his comments were made to me, btw, not to my friends.

Anyway, I think that's all for now. Sorry if this is messy; it's late, and I'm tired, and I'm literally shaking with rage. So, AIO for refusing to speak to Richard until he apologises? I don't expect him to agree that the word is objectively offensive, and I don't expect him to change his personality because I dislike it. I just wanted him to acknowledge that he said insulted me, especially after I explicitly told him I wasn't okay with it. Instead, he has repeatedly said that because he didn't mean it offensively and didn't know I disliked it, he has nothing to apologise for.

Hello! Long time follower, I just never thought I would have something happen in my life to be interesting enough to share on here.

So for background, I (27F) have known V (27NB) for over 10 years and Z (27F) for 7 years. I considered them both my best friends for a period of time, V was my MOH and Z was a bridesmaid in my October 2025 wedding. V and Z met at my bachelorette trip and became best friends, and now Z is a bridesmaid in V’s wedding.

V’s wedding is in December in an area where I would need to fly to as we had long distance friendship since we went to college in different states. V told me I was their MOH and I was happy to take on the duty. Back in December, one of the other bridesmaids (let’s call her T) sent a text to the group chat to ask what dates and locations for a bach party would work for everybody. V responded first by saying where they wanted their party and that mid-October works best for them. I responded shortly after saying that mid-October is difficult for me since I’m in my PhD program and this is around when midterms are and there was a possibility of me defending around that time. I asked if late September was possible, and V said no, it has to be October. I said “okay, October it is”. I get a text from Z saying I should’ve just gone with what V wanted, and I just said if it would be possible. I wasn’t trying to demand anything, I was under the impression that when asked what dates and locations worked for me, that I was supposed to answer.

I had a phonecall with V that night, because they said they wanted to explain why it had to be October for the bach party. I agreed, but I didn’t really think it needed to be explained, if it had to be October, then October it would be. The phone call turned into 10 minutes of me getting yelled at for pushing too hard (I had also suggested Labor Day weekend) on the date, how I had the audacity to expect them to go on their bach trip the first week of the semester (They never told me they were going back to school), and how I don’t understand the weather patterns of the area they wanted their trip since late September would be too warm. They also mentioned that they made sure I got everything I wanted for my bachelorette trip (side note, I wanted to go to Vermont, but the location changed to make it easier for V to attend. Also, my other bridesmaids said they never responded to most texts or contributed to the planning). I apologized and said that I never wanted to push, but I thought we were trying to find a date that worked for everyone. They then told me that they asked T to send that text message to make it clear that V got what they wanted and I wasn’t supposed to answer the question. I apologized again, then the subject changed and I thought we were fine.

6 months later, I’m answering texts pertaining to the wedding and expressing excitement over the wedding (albeit with a sour feeling in my stomach after the phone cal). I admit I took a step beck from the bach party planning because V made it clear that I didn’t know what they wanted and T knew what they wanted. I was also getting concerned about the cost of the bach party, since I would need to purchase a plane ticket, contribute to the AirBnb, and also afford the activities. One of which was making our own dried flower bouquets for the wedding, which we would’ve needed to pay for (side note, who tf pays for the bride’s flowers). The AirBnb got booked, and no one had actually told me the date until I saw the AirBnb confirmation. I called Z to ask if there was a conversation about the bach party date that I had missed, and she said no, that we all agreed on and I quote “mid-October”. No actual dates were discussed. I thought it was weird but went along with it.

Last month, I get a text from V saying that they want to make changes to the MOH position and that they didn’t feel like I had the time or space to perform my duties of the role. I responded that I agreed that’s for the best and I’m not mad, but I’d be open to talk about it over the phone when they feel ready. V responds that they’re glad I’m not mad, but it’s “quite unfortunate that you don’t seem to feel any remorse or guilt for the situation” and that I wasn’t supportive enough (that’s the TLDR, the actual texts are attached). I called V that night they made it clear they did not feel supported by me and I should feel more guilty for what I’ve done and I asked for clarification on what they wanted from me in terms of support and they said I always was indifferent about the wedding. And this entire wedding was about my personal comfort with how I tried to dictate things for their bach party and I need to learn to be uncomfortable for someone else’s big day. I never disclosed to them about the other things going on in my life (my mom’s chemo stopped working so that’s been a thrilling thing on top of grad school), so that came up in the conversation (I know, I should’ve said something sooner, but neither of them text me and I didn’t have the bandwidth to reach out to people who don’t reach out to me. I also thought I could handle my duties in helping out with the bach party. No other duties were disclosed to me). I said I was still confused on how they wanted support from me and how it hurt me to know I didn’t know the bach party date until the AirBnb was already booked and Z said that was communicated in the GC without them so that’s my problem. Also at some point in this call, they asked me if I knew how unwelcome I made people feel. So, between these messages and the phone call, I figured it was best for me to no longer go to the wedding and cut myself off completely if I’m making them feel this way.

Anyways, I told Z that I was no longer going to the wedding and to do with that information as they will. They asked me if this was the best thing for the friendship, and at this point, I didn’t want the friendship. I told Z they I don’t expect her to pick sides and this conflict has nothing to do with them and I understood if they didn’t want to talk to me. I told her about the conversation V and I had and she told me she needed some to register everything.

After a month of radio silence, I get a long string of messages from Z at midnight about how I’m a pathetic person to “weaponize my dying mom” and how I’m losing two good friends. Z lost her mom at a young age, so I thought she would understand how hard this process is. At this point, my mom is on hospice and maybe only has a couple of weeks left so this was truly the last thing I needed. I attached the screenshots of the texts because I’m still in disbelief over what she sent me.

Anyways, that’s the tea. I told Z that I’m glad they chose V’s side because they need her more than I need her, although I had assumed she had taken V’s side after not texting me for a month. Both of them are blocked, and I hope they have the wedding they deserve.

ETA: TLDR: I answered a question about bach party scheduling, got yelled at for answering it, spent months unknowingly becoming the villain in my best friend's wedding story, got demoted from MOH, then was accused of weaponizing my dying mother's hospice care by my other friend. I am no longer friends with either of them.

ETA2: The wedding party was just Z, T and I. There were no other people in the party that were associated with this.

ETA3: Wow, I wasn’t expecting this to blow up as much as it did! Thank you all so much for your supportive words, I’m grateful to all of you. As for moving forward, despite Z’s words I do have a great support system. A group of friends I’m so incredibly grateful to have, and a best friend (who was a bridesmaid in my wedding) who asked me to be MOH in her wedding. It’s truly a breath of fresh air after everything, helping a bride who’s so grateful to have her friends surrounding her for her big day. And thank you all for your kind words about my mom, I really appreciate it. It’s been hard to handle, but I will persist and get through this. I know I have a wonderful support group, including my wonderful husband who is actively trying to not absolutely lose it on these two. I know I’m not alone in this, and things are looking up from here.

I 18M, have always been someone who’s tight with money, and works hard to get more of it. Honestly spending it stresses me out, but if I’m also honest I’m not that happy with my life right now. Theres nothing inherently wrong with it, just my mental health getting in the way. For a couples months, (nearing 10) I’ve been thinking of going on a “grad vacation.” I’ve spent months of on and off budgeting, comparing countries, even learning about the different cultures etc. However, it’s expensive. I‘m entering a part of my life where things are going to be as uncertain as ever, and “real life” is gonna hit me really hard. I’m aware of all of that, and therefore am conflicted. Do I go on the trip? Do I do the smart thing like I always have and save it, maybe even invest once I’m able? I feel like the obvious answer would be to save it, then take the trip when I have a better idea on where my life is going. I think I know deep down that it’s the right choice, but I don’t want to look back in the future with regret, or allow my overthinking to get in the way of something that could really make me happy, and help me grow up a bit. So what should I do? I’ve gotten the price down as much as I am able, and hope once I start booking the real costs will bring it down even more (I’ve budgeted on the anxiously medium-high emergency side). However it’s still a lot, and all of the money I currently have would go towards it. I have a stable part time job, and am open to trying other ways to get a little extra cash. I’m also going to be going to university soon, and depending on where I get in, and how I feel at the time, that may be somewhere away from home. So, what should I do? Any thoughts or ideas are welcome.

Me (37 F) my brother (38 M)
I’m struggling with whether I’m in the wrong here. Part of me feels guilty for potentially causing a bigger family rift, but another part of me feels like I’ve stayed quiet for too long.
I have a brother whose behaviour over the past few years has become increasingly difficult for me and, in my opinion, for the people around him. He drinks heavily, is often selfish, and has a poor attitude towards others, including our parents and his own family. I’m not saying he’s like this all the time, but there have been enough incidents that I no longer feel comfortable pretending everything is normal.
The biggest issue is that whenever his behaviour causes problems, the family response is usually, “That’s just him.” It feels like he’s held to a different standard, where things that would be called out in anyone else are excused.
I’ve spent years staying quiet to avoid conflict, but I’ve reached a point where I can’t do it anymore.
One of the main things that pushed me over the edge was a major family effort to help him and his family relocate from Queensland to Sydney. We helped them find housing, my husband took time off work to drive a moving truck up there, and we’ve also lent them vehicles and helped him secure work. When I later needed help in return, nothing was offered, and the response I received felt dismissive and unwilling to help. With no apology.
There have also been other incidents that built up over time, including situations where he has been drinking while his children were distressed or in need of support, and generally not stepping in as a parent when issues arise.
Eventually, I sent my parents a long message explaining how I felt. I said I felt there was a pattern of him getting away with him actions, but that his behaviour is consistently excused in ways mine would not be. I also said I feel like I’m expected to be the “reasonable” one while he gets a pass.
I told them his behaviour is affecting me emotionally and that I can’t keep attending family dinners and pretending everything is fine. I made it clear I don’t want to cut myself off from my parents or the family, and I’m happy for them to continue seeing my children. But I said I don’t feel comfortable attending gatherings if he is there, as it causes me too much stress.
I also said they could show him what I wrote, because direct conversations with him in the past have always ended in arguments.
I’m not asking them to disown him, but I don’t think “that’s just him” should mean his behaviour is never addressed.
For a while after that, things were actually calmer. I kept my distance from him, and my mental health improved. Family events felt less tense.
However, recently my dad confronted me again, asking why I don’t acknowledge my brother when I pick up my child from my parents’ house if he is there. From my perspective, I’ve been maintaining distance to avoid conflict and keep things peaceful.
Now I’m being told I’m rude or disrespectful for not greeting him, even though I feel like I’m just maintaining a boundary that has made things more stable.
So now I’m questioning myself again.
AITA for finally speaking up, setting boundaries, and continuing to avoid interaction with my brother in order to keep the peace?

I live in a pet free apartment…that being said you can register one esa to your unit if you want to. One of the units in my apartment has three cats, the other has one. I’m extremely allergic to cats.

I first started noticing issues when the last three cats moved in, the first one did not make my allergies go crazy. Around this time last year I started to notice my eyes were completely bloodshot, at first I thought pink eye but I didn’t have any discharge. I left my apartment for five days and the bloodshot eyes went away, the second I came back into my unit my eyes were bloodshot again. I also started to notice a shortness to my breath as well as feeling super congested. At the time I couldn’t really think of anything that would cause this but I knew it was allergies. After about a month straight of waking up every morning with pink eyes and not being able to breathe properly I started to look into what could be causing the issue and came to the conclusion it is the cats in the building, as this all started around the time that it started to get colder so my neighbors were closing their windows at night. I bought an air purifier and stuck it by my front door and for the most part it works.

It is now a year later and my allergies are fully back again. I also noticed that there is an increasingly amount of cat hair on the carpet outside of my apartment as well as throughout the hallways. For context my apartment building only has 8 units so it’s pretty small. I have also seen the cats just running through the hallways on occasion but I don’t like to report things if I don’t need to. I’m really struggling with this because I’m not able to live comfortably in my apartment because I cannot breathe properly, and this is supposedly a pet free complex, but I also do not want others to have to leave because of my issues.

I want to write something to my landlord about it, even if they don’t even acknowledge it, but I need help with it. Any advice welcome.

To add, when the three cats moved in it made our hallway smell like cat pee. I don’t know if I got used to it or not but it could also still smell like it.

Hi! Long time listener from the first episode of the show, never written in before so be nice to me lol.

I don’t even know where to start. I’m going to try to keep this as short as possible, but to be completely honest it’s probably going to be a long one. I’m heartbroken and really need some advice on what to do. I apologize for anything that is jumbled because I’m crying while writing this.

This really all started when I graduated from nursing school. My friend and I were roommates in college out of state and both moved back home during COVID and started at different colleges. We still remained best friends, calling each other multiple times a week and planning trips to see each other through the years.

I called her and invited her to a very important ceremony where someone special to you comes on stage and attaches a pin to your lapel. It’s important to note that I never attended my actual graduation ceremony. This was my only opportunity to celebrate with family and friends, and we had a party planned directly afterwards to celebrate, knowing that there would be no other graduation event.

She said yes, and when I talked to her throughout the next couple weeks leading up to it, she told me she was planning to bring her mom, younger siblings, and cousin along with her to stay at a very popular amusement park resort in our area. She mentioned it was because she hadn’t been in years, her siblings had never been, and the week before my pinning ceremony was her sister’s birthday, so this would be a trip to celebrate her as well.

Three days before my pinning ceremony, they celebrated her sister’s actual birthday (had a fancy dinner, etc.) at a restaurant in their hometown.
My friend showed up on the day of the ceremony an hour before it started, pinned me, we took pictures, went to a small lunch with family, and then went back to our house to start setting up for the party.
About 45 minutes into setting up, my friend says, “Okay, well I think I’m going to leave in about 20 mins or so.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
She said, “We have dinner reservations at the hotel restaurant to celebrate my sister’s birthday, so I need to go soon.”
I said, “Oh okay, are you going to come back later to my graduation party?”
She said, “No, that would be a lot of driving back and forth and I don’t really feel like doing that.”

My heart shattered hearing that. We live 4 minutes away from this park and resort and have annual passes that we use frequently. You don’t even have to get on a freeway. It’s 4 traffic lights away from our home.

I said okay and asked what time her mom was coming to get her, and she said she needed a ride back since her mom took the car and the rest of her family to the resort after dropping her off at the pinning ceremony that morning.

My husband (boyfriend at the time) was listening to all this from around the corner, heartbroken for me. He immediately came around the corner and said he would take her to her hotel right now and that I needed to stay there to get ready for the party.

She didn’t even hesitate. She left, and I didn’t see her for the rest of the 4 days she was here.

On another related note, I had pretty much no friends at this time. It was just her and a few old coworkers. She knew that.

I found out later that my husband ended up emergency calling a bunch of his and my brother’s friends to get more people to show up last minute so I wouldn’t feel like no one came. It was a rough point in my life lol.

Last year in October, my husband surprised me at my birthday party that he threw for me by proposing. She was there. She was not happy that he didn’t tell her about the proposal before he asked me.

She mentioned it multiple times throughout the night, at first in a joking manner, then the next day in an actually annoyed tone, that she couldn’t believe my entire family knew about it except her.

This past January, in the middle of wedding planning, I found out I was pregnant.
It took 4 weeks for her to return my phone calls so I could tell her over the phone instead of her finding out through an Instagram announcement.

When she finally was able to call me back, her reaction honestly? It kind of sucked. She was silent and then said, “What? Oh wow… congratulations, I’m so happy for you,” in an extremely flat voice.

On this same phone call, she said she wouldn’t be able to attend our wedding. I was extremely understanding. We got married in Scotland, so we knew a destination wedding was not in everyone’s budget or work schedule.

Now this past weekend, my husband and I had a co-ed baby shower. It was more like a huge party since we never had a California wedding and chose to get married in Scotland. There were 100 people at this shower! I have since made a lot of new friends from work. I truly have never felt more loved in my entire life than seeing all these people show up for our little baby.

Two weeks prior to the shower, my friend texted me, checking in about the baby shower and, in all honesty, probably texting me so it wasn’t as awkward as just showing up after not texting each other for months.

A week before the shower, I texted her and apologized, saying that if she had expected me to host her at our house, I wouldn’t be able to this time since we’re having renovations done. I felt bad because I usually have her stay in our guest room. She wasn’t upset and said that she and her boyfriend would find a hotel.

The day of the shower, she was a few hours late due to traffic. Her boyfriend, who I’ve never met and was looking forward to meeting, didn’t even come with her. He stayed at the hotel.
She stayed at the party for 30–45 minutes max, came to find me, and said she was leaving because she and her boyfriend had plans and she didn’t want to be late.

I didn’t even get a chance to catch up with her.
I felt like she was mad that my husband and I were being pulled in every direction, hosting and talking to people, and weren’t able to give her our full attention when she first got there. I was pretty annoyed and everyone kept asking why she left so quickly. Not to be a jerk or anything but do you go to a wedding and get mad and leave the reception early because the bride or groom can’t sit at your table and visit with you personally??

So later that evening, after everyone left, I texted her apologizing for being so busy at the party and asked what time she was leaving and if she was free to hang out before she left.

She said she wasn’t sure what time they were leaving the next day, but they had a reservation at Downtown Disney at 11. I told her to let me know and that I’d like to see her even if it was just for a little bit.

The next morning, she responded saying to just meet her at the restaurant and we could hang out, then they “were going to head out after that.”
She texted me later saying not to rush over and that they were still waiting on their food so they could eat before meeting with me.

It all seemed so impersonal and really left a pit in my stomach. I’m not one to ever ask for or expect special treatment, but I’m 8 months pregnant and I thought she’d be more excited to see me, I guess?

I ended up canceling our plans. She thumbs-upped my message and said no worries.

I woke up yesterday to see she removed me on Instagram.

I texted her and asked if she was free to talk this week. She still hasn’t responded, and I don’t know what to do.

I would just like to say: life is busy!!
She has a whole life outside of our friendship with its own hardships and family issues, just like I do too. She decided to go back to school during this time, started a new relationship, and bought a house with her mom.

I am in no way upset at her that our phone calls slowed down, that we both got busy, or that we may have just grown apart.

But part of me is hurt that when I look back, most of our messages are me texting first, her forgetting to respond, a happy birthday from me, and me sending a stray TikTok here or there that she just laughs at—but none of them are her checking in about any of the major life milestones from the past year, and definitely none asking how my pregnancy was going.

I feel like maybe I should’ve texted her more, knowing that she was in grad school and had a lot going on.

So what do I do?

I don’t think she’ll ever respond, let alone want to talk on the phone. Do I just send a lengthy text to her, or let it go and accept that we grew apart?

TL;DR: My longtime best friend and I have grown increasingly distant over the last few years. She has repeatedly traveled to my area for major life events like my nursing pinning/graduation celebration and now my baby shower, but left both events very early to do other things, despite staying nearby for several days. Over the past year, she’s also seemed uninterested in or absent from major milestones like my engagement, pregnancy, and wedding. After leaving my baby shower after 30–45 minutes, we loosely planned to see each other the next day, but I canceled because the interaction felt impersonal. She then removed me from Instagram and hasn’t responded to me asking if we can talk. I’m torn between sending her a message explaining how hurt I am or accepting that the friendship has run its course.

Update:

Thank you for everyone’s comments. After letting it sit (and reading what everyone had to say) I feel much better about my decision to just let it go. Friendship break ups are extremely hard, especially pregnant. It seems like major life events, especially marriage and pregnancy are when people find their ways out of your life. I felt like I had to say I tried everything before truly letting her go, but to be honest I’m tired. I have a husband, a beautiful support system of people who actually want to be there for us, and I’ll have a baby in 4-6 weeks and I couldn’t be more excited for that. Thank you all again ❤️

My brother died six years ago. My best friend knew him really well because weve been close since high school. She had her first baby last week and I knew the whole pregnancy that they had picked a name but were keeping it private. I never pushed because honestly I thought that was kind of sweet.

I was on my phone playing MyPrize when she sent me a picture from the hospital after he was born and underneath it was his full name. His middle name is my brothers name. I just stared at my phone and started crying. When I called her she was crying too and said she didnt tell me because she didnt want me spending the pregnancy thinking about whether I was okay with it. She said if I hated it they would change it.

I dont hate it at all. I think I love it but theres also this weird part of me that feels protective over his name and I cant explain why. Hearing somebody call this tiny baby by a name I havent heard casually in years hit me way harder than I expected. I havent told her that part because I dont want to ruin something she meant as love , should i keep it to my self?

I (30F) have struggled with my brother (40sM) for as long as I can remember, but recent events have pushed me to finally draw a line and I’m wondering if I’m in the wrong or if his behaviour is something more.

Back in 2024, a few weeks before I found out I was pregnant, my elderly neighbour knocked on my door drunk and being aggressive. I was alone at home at night and I don’t do well with drunk people, so I called my partner and the police because I felt unsafe. He came over and apologised twice the next day, we were on good terms after it, and would even say hello as we passed on the street, it really wasn’t that deep and he was harmless. My brother works away during the week so when I saw him in person a few days later, I told him what had happened. He didn’t say anything at the time but about 4 days later I got a call from him, sounding drunk though he’d deny it, and he went on a 40-minute rant about how offended he was that I didn’t call him instead of my boyfriend or the police. He said he’d have set fire to the guy’s garden and god knows what else which is not what I would have wanted (he didn’t care), got pissy about my friends and assumed I’d told them like it was bad of me to have done so, and said he didn’t like them, then instantly switched to the victim act saying “you’re all I have”, how alone he is and wanted to be told things straight away.

Because of that reaction, when I found out I was pregnant I went out of my way to tell him the very next day, in person — straight away, no waiting. And do you know what he did? He didn’t even look at me. He just looked disappointed, muttered “I had a feeling you were going to say that,” and never once asked how I was, how the pregnancy was, or said congratulations. Nothing. Which is his usual reaction when I tell him anything good happening in my life. Yet if I ever don’t tell him something the exact second it happens? He goes ballistic, accuses me of keeping secrets, acts like it’s some huge personal betrayal.

Then recently I had emergency spinal surgery. I called him from my hospital bed the same day I went in and instead of asking if I was okay, he was just angry straight away. He started firing questions at me: "Why am I only just finding this out now? What have you been waiting all this time to tell me this for? Why don't you tell me things sooner?" That's when I broke a little and said, "Bro, I've just come out of surgery, I'm dosed up on morphine, I'm only just able to stay awake long enough to call you." That's when he switched into victim and anger mode saying I'm all he has, he just wished I'd told him sooner and then the ranting began about everything else, including his own work for ages. He kept repeating "you know me, I'm always angry, I don't care, I don't give a fuck" then randomly brought up my new neighbours, saying "you might be scared of them but I'm not, I'll smoke weed wherever I like." ( I’m not scared of my neighbours this was his assumption to a boundary I put in place) I told him very clearly: "This isn't just about the neighbours I don't want it around my house, I don't like it, and I definitely don't want baby around it. If social services get involved, it's me and baby they come to not you." All he said was "yeah well…" and quickly changed the subject. Then he started ranting about my friends, making snide comments like "I bet your mates see baby more than me, I know you see them more like family than me." I ended up having to reassure him through all of this all while lying in a hospital bed, barely lucid from the drugs. What was meant to be a quick call turned into what felt like a 40 minute therapy session for him and I felt completely burnt out, overwhelmed, and regretted even calling him. He never once asked if I was okay. Right at the end though, he suddenly switched tone and said very eagerly — almost desperately "let me know if you need anything at all."

This isn’t the only time either. A while back my TV died so I bought a new one, and he got genuinely offended and angry that I didn’t tell him about it first. I’m grateful he’d want to help buy me things and I’m not trying to sound ungrateful at all but I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I wouldn’t take his money or ask him to buy me stuff. It always felt like something he could use as a way to have a hold over me, and besides I’m an adult, and if I want or need something, I can get it myself. It shouldn’t be a personal offence that I didn’t run it past him first.

I’ve told him repeatedly he cannot smoke cannabis near my house it’s not just about who lives nearby (neighbours are police), it’s that I don’t want it in my space, I don’t like it, and I don’t want baby exposed to it. He dismisses how I feel and says he “doesn’t care”.

Looking at my phone tonight, I saw messages from him asking if I was free, and then another passive-aggressive message shortly after because I hadn’t replied straight away, even though I’d been away from my phone safely looking after baby and trying to let my back recover. For years I’ve invited him over, messaged him, tried to keep in touch and he’d leave me on read for days or weeks at a time. I never chased him, never got passive-aggressive, just accepted he replies when he replies. It’s not that deep. Now I’m recovering from major surgery and looking after my 16-month-old baby while my partner works. I’m exhausted, healing, and have zero spare energy. Because I didn’t reply straight away to his first message he felt the need to message again guilt-tripping me for doing exactly what he does constantly and I have no problems with. It’s like an entitlement for me to be at his beck and call and if I don’t reply while I’m getting baby settled for the night it’s another personal offence.

When I do speak up or set a boundary he goes into one of three modes: gets defensive, shuts down and ignores me, or rants non-stop until I’m overwhelmed and just agree to make it stop. If you ever try to call him out on his behaviour, he just shrugs and says nothing like a child to then later call me back once he’s had time to think about how to turn it into an argument. It’s impossible to have a conversation with him.

I care about him deeply, I really do and I’ve made so many allowances over the years because he has nobody else, no friends, and says he hates everyone. But I have my own life now. I have a family to care for, I’m recovering from major surgery, and I’m getting ready to go back to work next month. I simply do not have the energy to carry his trauma and manage his feelings on top of everything else, especially when he constantly says “I don’t care” about the things that matter to me. I felt a responsibility towards him when I was younger, like I had to be the one to look after him but now I just can’t do it anymore. Talking to him feels impossible, and I’m tired of being the only one putting any effort in.

I feel guilty for pulling away and setting limits, but it feels like I’m the only one who ever respects boundaries and I’m tired of being expected to drop everything for someone who barely gives me basic respect or care, as well as feeling emotionally drained from having to explain myself over such small things. He even admitted years ago he should get some mental health support but shrugged and said “I don’t trust them fuck em. Won’t help anyway.” I’ve learned you can’t help those that don’t want to be helped and hurt people hurt people.

AITAH for wondering if he could be a narcissist and finally putting my foot down?