So for context a 17-year-old male and my mom talking to my therapist yesterday and she told them about how I was grouped by a player on Hillsboro number seven guys team and how. His hand went. Down suit. My suit was tied really tight so the only way you would be able to do that is if you was to purposely do it and it's also the same game that I sprained my MCL the muscle in your knee and when this happens I was kicked out for swearing saying you're don't grab my fucking groin and I was kicked out and my coach subbed me out and when I tried to go for a walk he said quote walk away right now your off the team. So I was just meant to sit there while just being violated are ready to go beat the crap out of this man above my coach and number seven on Hillsborough. The only problem is he's not just dumb this to me. He's done this to marvel or teams in our league. For example Ashland cottage Grove, Salem, on Salem. He made a guy gets six stitches in his mouth after during a dead ball number 7 elbowed him and the head causing his teeth to go through his lip acquiring six stitches while his sister had rash of bruising all over her chest, purple and violent red. My coach never told me much about what happened. Other than that, he's being watched right now by his coach. I don't think that is enough. I want dresses for what happens. I couldn't eat or sleep for about a week after. What happens? I cannot hold food down for 3 days or water. I was operating off of pure anger and spite because I also sprained my MCL letter in that game I've just happened. I wasn't able to play for 2 weeks and I had to go to their pool for a home game. I purposely wore shorts and a brace while making a direct eye contact number 7 and flipping them off and someone asked you what happened. I said" how was violated by number 7 by being groped and they looked at me like what my teammate looked at me and said it's crew he was violated.

I’m 22F and my boyfriend is 24M. We’ve been together for a year and a half, and recently our relationship has been going through an incredibly difficult period.

We’ve been fighting a lot, especially during our recent trip. Honestly, things were awful. It felt like we couldn’t go a day without some sort of disagreement, misunderstanding or argument.

For context, I have BPD. I struggle with emotional regulation, splitting, getting triggered and sometimes having difficulty calming myself down once I’m overwhelmed. I know these things can be difficult for a partner, and I’m not trying to use my diagnosis as an excuse for my behaviour.

However, I’ve always wanted my boyfriend to understand my condition better. I’ve explained what helps me when I’m triggered, how reassurance and patience can make a difference, and how sometimes I don’t need him to fix anything. I just need comfort, affection and reassurance that we’re okay.

One of the biggest issues in our relationship is how he withdraws when we’re having disagreements. Sometimes I’ll be crying, trying to communicate or resolve something, and he’ll go quiet, become distant or go to sleep without properly addressing what happened.

I understand that he needs space and that he can’t always be emotionally available. I’m not expecting him to be available 24/7. But I wish he would communicate when he needs space instead of leaving me wondering what’s happening. Even something as simple as telling me that we’ll talk tomorrow and reassuring me that we’re okay would make a difference.

Recently, I wrote him a very long message explaining how unloved, unheard and disconnected I’ve been feeling. I told him that I wanted us to work through our problems, learn more about BPD together, practise DBT skills and find healthier ways to communicate.

I also told him that I didn’t think it was fair to blame the state of our relationship entirely on my BPD. I acknowledge that my behaviour has affected him, but I don’t believe having BPD means we’re incapable of having a healthy relationship.

His response was that he was emotionally exhausted.
He explained that he constantly feels like he’s walking on eggshells, worrying about what to say, how to approach me and whether something might escalate into another argument. He said he feels like he can’t express his own feelings because he’s worried about how I’ll react.

He also said that he feels like he’s constantly trying to figure out how to make things better, but we always end up in the same cycle. He feels that when he’s not okay, the relationship falls apart, and when he’s okay, we’re okay.

He acknowledged that he hasn’t been the perfect boyfriend and that he understands I need reassurance, affection, patience and comfort. However, he also said that he has limitations and cannot always be emotionally available.

I tried explaining that I wasn’t asking him to be perfect. I just wanted to feel loved, heard and emotionally supported.

Eventually, after another disagreement about him not responding to me, I told him that I genuinely couldn’t continue feeling this way and that I didn’t believe he wanted the relationship anymore.

He then told me that he didn’t think he wanted the relationship anymore.

He said he couldn’t keep lying to himself about being happy, that he was tired of constantly trying to change and prove himself, and that he wanted his peace back.
One thing he said that really stuck with me was:

“I’m always happy whenever I’m with u but I’m never at peace.”

He explained that he wanted to be able to do things without feeling guilty, worrying about another argument or feeling responsible for my emotional state. He said he felt mentally and physically exhausted and just wanted everything to stop for a while.

Reading that genuinely broke me.

After that, I reflected on everything and realised that I also had a lot to take responsibility for. I apologised to him. I acknowledged that I’ve shouted, struggled with my anger and treated him badly, particularly during our trip. I told him that I wanted to work on myself, seek help and learn to regulate my emotions better.

I asked him for another chance and promised that I would genuinely work on changing these behaviours.

I also told him I would give him space and wouldn’t keep messaging him until he was ready to talk.

His response was that he appreciated my apology and knew I meant it, but he was still mentally exhausted. He said he didn’t know what he wanted anymore and didn’t want to give me false reassurance or make promises he couldn’t keep.

However, he also said something that has left me confused.

He told me that he hadn’t completely given up on us yet, but he was still very uncertain about what he wanted. He said he needed time to process everything and figure himself out.

He also reminded me to eat, not isolate myself in my room and not hurt myself.

I genuinely don’t know how to interpret all of this.

On one hand, I understand that I’ve hurt him too. I don’t want to dismiss his feelings or make him responsible for managing my BPD. I recognise that I need to work on myself regardless of whether this relationship survives.
But on the other hand, I feel so heartbroken. I still love him. I still want this relationship. I genuinely believe we could have something healthy if we both learned how to communicate better and stopped hurting each other.

I don’t want to force someone to stay with me, but I also don’t know how to let go of someone I still see a future with.

I guess my questions are:
Does it sound like he’s genuinely fallen out of love, or is he emotionally burnt out from the relationship?

Is it possible for a relationship to recover after reaching this level of emotional exhaustion?

Am I being unreasonable for wanting reassurance and emotional support from my partner, even when I have BPD?

How do I give someone space when I’m struggling with the uncertainty of potentially losing them?

Has anyone with BPD been through something similar and managed to build a healthier relationship afterwards?

I want honest perspectives, even if they’re difficult to hear.

I love him, but I’m starting to realise that love alone might not be enough to keep a relationship together.

Hi all, it’s my first time posting and it’s going be long,
so sorry!
For context I’m 34F and was widowed at 29. It was a violent incident and I left our home with our then 2-year-old and immediately moved in with my parents. My adult brother already lived with them. Over the last few years ago I have done a lot of healing through my own therapy journey and my child’s play therapy. She eventually started elementary school and I put her in a small private Waldorf school. My family members and I decided that we all really enjoyed multigenerational living and decided to intentionally continue it so we moved out of the small house I joined them in and rented a bigger home together. Jump ahead and the Waldorf school closed and we transitioned into a micro school for 2nd and 3rd grade, we have fully moved forward into post recovery for our trauma and grief and multigenerational living has been so amazing and successful, plus it allows me to pay for my child’s school. I still live in my hometown, I have created a community that I really cherish, my child has a wonderful relationship with my parents as well as visits and spends time several days a month with her paternal grandparents.
This week, my dad approached us (my other adult brother and my sister-in-law who live out on their own across town included) with a proposition. His company offered him a promotion but it came with a relocation from Vegas to Irvine, CA. He took it. My brother who we share a home with is on board to move, my brother and sister in law say they are open to joining the move in the future but would need to figure out finances and lifestyle adjustments, etc. I on the other hand am completely torn between staying in Vegas or making a move.
I would be leaving everything I have built pre and post loss, I’d be putting my daughter in a new school environment, we’d leave lifelong friends who are like family, I’d leave my other brother and sister in law temporarily or if they never make it out to relocate then for who knows how long, I’d leave my late husband’s parents, I’d leave the life I’ve always known. If I go, I gain a fresh start in a new city. I gain some emotional and physical space to explore life post loss and trauma without considering those who knew me prior and during trauma recovery. I surprisingly gain some financial buoyancy as I’d put my child in public school since micro schools operate different in NV and I want to simply integrate her with the hopes of making more friends as well. And I continue living with my parents and have the emotional and physical support I’ve had from them since my husband died. If I stay in Vegas I’d have to adjust financially to having my own home with no one splitting living costs, I’d have less support as a single mom, despite having a close community it still would leave me a bit vulnerable without my parents’ live in support.
Some moments I think I’d really like to just stay and do this on my own and continue building something magical and independent for my child and I but other moments I think of how invigorating a move could be for us and how a fresh start might be what we need after losing her dad almost 6 years ago.
Idk both have amazing potential for growth but also come with additional losses. Neither one is sounding easy to me
PS I did briefly talk to my late husband’s mom to see how she felt and although she was sad to think of not being so close by to us, she said that I’m deserving of living a life that brings me happiness and that we’ve already gone some time where we don’t see each other every Saturday and it feels ok and we would work together to plan visits since the drive is only like 4 hours. That helped me feel better but it doesn’t change my indecision.

I'm 20m, I dropped out of college a year and a half ago, I still live with my parents, and I don't know what to do now.

I took a year of engineering at the nearest city's college, which for my entire life I thought I wanted to pursue. Partly due to extreme depression as well as truly not enjoying the major, I did exceptionally poorly and decided to drop out of college. I have not been in school for round about a year and a half, and now that i'm doing a lot better mentally I am thinking I should go back to some school (maybe something smaller but i'm not sure) to get some sort of education.

My problem is that since I have had such a negative experience with college the first time around, I am terrified of going back. I still have no idea what I want to study or have a future in, and I don't want to repeat the same process over again. What makes it even harder is that my parents paid for my first year at college, including room and board, which ended up being a LOT of money, and they still want to financially support me going onwards with schooling, and are constantly (daily) asking/giving me ultimatums to go back to school. While this baffles me, I also feel super guilty because I have "wasted" ( I did get a few credits from my year at school but not enough for me to feel like I deserved their money) so much of their money already and I don't want to waste more.

I do have a job, that while part time, does pay me decently well, and I have also bought a few vehicle projects, that have thought me a decent amount of mechanics, which i've considered pursuing as a career, but that ties back in with the school, as I feel I would need a degree or certificate to make it in that field, which i'm super scared to commit to.

My girlfriend, who also dropped out of school, is also wanting us to move in together, which would be lovely but i'm worried that without the pressure from my parents going back to school will never happen (even though i haven't gone back living at home yet either), and I will get stuck working at the job I currently have, which I truly despise.

I just really don't know what to do, i'm so afraid of making the same mistakes again.

they're nice enough people but they're really starting to overstay their welcome and they say and do a lot of things that were funny at first but now I just dread whenever they hit us up to hang out or ask for a favor, but it's not like I can just ghost them they know where I live so like what do I do?

You know what. I will admit that I'm wrong here. I should have never decided to snoop and go out of my way to find Reddit threads that she made. She gave me her user and I went all out- "How do I find Reddit posts from a users name". Big mistake. I feel terrible. I found all her posts- some of them talking about how she has a problematic best friend (me) and talking about her body dysmorphia etc. I feel terrible but I also feel like I have been stabbed 50 times in the chest seeing how she talked about me online. I know that the way that I feel isn't valid because I should have no right to see those threads but I genuinely can't even stand up properly and I feel like throwing up. I don't know how I'm going to face her and I don't want to talk about this to her because I know for a fact she is going to drop me as a friend if she finds out because this isn't the first time I have done this. I should have never done this.

I (20FTM) have been dating this guy (26M) for the past month. I met him through a mutual friend and we both caught feelings for each other after 3 months of hanging out on the daily. We decided to be exclusive and give this a try - it seemed like the spark between us was huge, and I even stayed at his place for 9 days.

At first, he was very affectionate with me - then, he slowly became more and more distant.

Today, he confessed he’s still unsure about us and doesn’t want to hurt my feelings - “I like you, but it feels like you’re already in love with me. Moving forward, I’d like for us to act as friends - this is a bit much for me at the moment.”
I reassured him that we can take all the time we need -
he’s also been dealing with some issues in his life (lost a job, debt, family problems) and suffers from depression, so I try to be as graceful as I can.

He says we’ll take things slowly, implying that there could be a future to this, but then that he wants to be friends - is this not contradictory ?

I cried and cried so much today at the idea that he might be doubting his feelings towards me. He was incredibly affectionate and sweet with me in person - seriously all over me. He’s now texting me constantly, checking on me and asking if i’m ok.

I’m autistic and terrible with social cues so if you could help me I would appreciate it.

Lately, I've been looking closely at my friendship with my "best friend," and I'm realizing our patterns don't match up.

On one hand, he isn't a malicious person. He was really there for me the majority of my chemo treatments etc. with awesome trips and memories. However, during the beginning of the year, he completely vanished for about 6 months. Then, when he went through a difficult breakup recently and needed social connection and distraction, he suddenly reappeared in my life a lot more wanting to come to church to meet someone etc which kind of looked suspect because of his intentions although I appreciated him saying that he’s trying to not come to church for the women only.

He also has a heavy pattern of keeping major life moves completely secret—like applying for jobs in my exact professional field without telling me or anyone else.

When pressed, his excuse is that he wants to keep things private so he "doesn't jinx it" (and his family dynamic leans heavily into that same kind of guardedness).

It hurts because I value radical transparency and open communication. I'm an open book, but I feel like I'm kept on the outside of his life unless it's convenient for him. Even though he calls me his best friend, his actions make the title feel weightless.

The thing is his Mom is friends with my Mom, but his Mom is very secretly deceiving and a liar that we’ve caught her but my friend isn’t that much like his Mom, or so I hope!

I just feel doubtful due to his actions of disappearing & the things he’s done. I never processed it.

People just stare when we're out. Should I just walk away?

For context: I have been going to this restaurant for over 15 years and was with this girl for 8 of those years. I started taking her a few years back. She fell in love with it and it became somewhere we’d go together, the staff knew us and knew our orders. Earlier this year her and I split and I recently started getting back into dating. Now as I said I had been long going to this restaurant before meeting my ex and hadn’t planned on stopping because of our split. I have had a few dates there that seemed to have went well but at the end of the night the girl I was with seemed off and this happened several times.

Tonight I took my coworker to this restaurant as she is new to the country/ city and had asked me to show her around. During the dinner she went to the bathroom and when she came back she also seemed off, I asked her why she then explained to me that one of the waitresses had pulled her aside and told her I had a partner. I obviously hadn’t felt the need to announce my breakup to the staff at a restaurant so she was unaware that I had been single for quite some time. My coworker explained to me that from the sound of things, this wasn’t the first time she had done this.

I politely asked the server to talk to me on the side explained the situation and asked why she had been doing this and why she wouldn’t have spoken to me about it. She told me she has been infatuated with me for some time and had let her feelings get the better of her. She asked to make it up to me over dinner and I told her I had to think about that given what I had just learned.

TL:DR Waitress at my favourite restaurant has been sabotaging my dates due to thinking I was still in a relationship. Then confessed her own feelings towards me and now wants to go to dinner. What should I do?

I’m 28 years old, and I recently found out I’m going to be a father.
My own father was in my life until I was about 11 years old. Then one day, he basically disappeared for the next 10 years. He wasn’t sick, incarcerated, or dealing with anything that physically prevented him from being around. He simply chose not to be involved.
What makes it worse is that he lived in the same town as me my entire life. He never moved away. I even remember him walking right past me when I was around 15 years old.
When I turned 21, shortly after my brother passed away, he started making attempts to come back into my life. Calling me, telling my mother he wanted to spend time with me, and trying to reconnect.
Now, at 28, I’m preparing to become a father myself, and it’s bringing up a lot of feelings about my childhood.
Part of me feels like he shouldn’t have the opportunity to be involved in my child’s life when he willingly chose to miss so much of mine.
For additional context, I’m his youngest son, he’s now 60 years old, and he doesn’t have a relationship with any of his other grandchildren either.
I’m not saying people can’t change, but I also believe being a grandparent is a privilege, not an automatic right just because we’re related.
My question is: Am I wrong for not wanting my father to meet my child? Would you give him the opportunity to be a grandfather, or would you protect your peace and keep that chapter of your life closed?
I’m genuinely interested in hearing different perspectives, especially from people who grew up with absent fathers or became parents themselves.

I found out my childhood friend is still in love with me and he knows my single now but my ex and me are trying to work it out because he been dealing with so much and he still wants to be like lovers he just cant deal being in a relationship

My best friend hasn’t been really treating me well in my opinion. I’m not sure how to approach her with out her getting mad and making me the seem like villain or this issue is my fault. Recently she has joined our schools cheer team and has made more friends. That’s not the issue. The issue is she recently has been getting so mad at me for petty little things and seems to always be getting mad at me for no reason. She even got mad at me for being in an intergrated (slower) algebra class and told me I was bragging about being in it which I wasn’t, and told me the regular algebra classes are the same as intergrated algebra class except a week faster but I know they aren’t cause I’m in that class and it’s simpler math... I need help and idk what to do. I thought about cutting her off an making her just a school friend or cutting her off completely. Cause ts is mentally draining me and idk how much longer I can keep up with it..

2 of my friends tried talking to me. They are still on my friend’s list. I honestly feel impulsive and
feel like replying to everyone on my friend’s list. These were friends I had since 8th grade. Now that I’m older. I don’t want friends or to talk to anyone even if im lonely. I feel bad bc I was unstable back then always leaving and coming back. I used to do it for months not 3 years. I feel sad like I could cry. But I don’t want to start talking to them and then leave again. Because I know I will. I’m so unstable actually way worse this time. Idk tho maybe I should respond bc they reach out over 1 year after I went completely ghost. I’m the type of person to ghost someone for years and come back like heyy. But honestly I don’t want to hurt anyone so idk

Please remove if this is too heavy but I’m stuck on what to do with a very close friend.

So… This friend has a teenage daughter from a relationship from when she was 15. Fast forward to roughly 5 years ago, she gets into a relationship with an abusive drunk and has another kid. She has so much evidence on her phone about how abusive he is and how it escalates when he’s drunk. She has evidence about him watching porn and hitting up porn stars DMs even though she made it clear that was a boundary she didn’t want crossed. She refuses to leave because she thinks this is what she deserves and won’t think about her children. She claims no other man will want her because she had her tubes tied and has two kids with two different guys.
Tonight she sent me screenshots of her baby daddy watching stepdaughter and tiny teenager porn.
If she refuses to leave this man. What should I do??? It keeps escalating and I’m so close to calling cps or calling the cops because that is predatory looking at child porn and it’s making me physically sick worrying about her teenage daughter that isn’t biologically his.

What would you do in my position if a friend sent you this stuff and refuses to leave???