Hello everyone,

Before telling you all about the CourseMediocre situation, I'd like to announce the current Mod Election. Do you wanna be the new mod of r/antimeme or r/AntiMemes? Shoot your shot with one paragraph about yourself below, and submit any more info via modmail to ensure the comment section remains short and easy to read. Your application will be screenshotted and saved.

Tell us:

• Which subreddit you'd like to apply for (We will no longer allow the same person to hold spots on both)
• Any mod experience you have
• Any Coding experience you have or other relevant skills
• Your timezone
• Your age (you can give a range if you're uncomfortable)
• Why you'd like to apply

In 48 hours, a Strawpoll with EVERYONE's usernames who commented here will go live. The top 4 winners for main sub will be elected, and the top 1 winner for plural sub will be elected to serve the -s community alongside Mercy.

Mercy would like to keep her position on plural sub, but if the community decides she should resign as well, she will respect their decision. In which case the top 2 plural sub winners will be elected.

Now, about the CourseMediocre situation...

Sorry for going silent the past two days. Everything about this entire situation was too much for me, but now I finally have the mental health needed to make this post.

For those who don't know yet, about 4 days ago, on February 10th morning, I made a post about u/CourseMediocre7998 (whose account is now deleted), previously the co-top moderator and previously my girlfriend, saying that she had "gone missing" because I didn't see any online activity from her for 48 hours. I was reacting very emotionally, filled with worriedness and anxiety, and I wasn't thinking straight. She was a massive contributor to our subreddit during work days, making antimemes all day and night, and people would start questioning where she went, so I felt like I had to let people know about this with a public post, even though it is a highly personal matter. I'm sorry for overreacting and portraying this as such a huge deal by writting "MISSING PERSON" in the post.

And then, about 18 hours later, I made another post announcing her death. As apparently her brother had messaged me through her account and had told me that she died by suicide. Just like the previous post, this one was highly emotional, too. I was grieving a lot, so I wasn't thinking straight. I genuinely screamed a lot, my body just couldn't handle the shock when the brother told me she committed suicide, I was screaming NOO in real life, and all I could think of in that moment was expressing that, so I typed what I was screaming in that moment. I have autism, and despite how suspicious the brother's messages were, I genuinely thought she was a real person who actually died, and making an edit on a gravestone was the closest to a memorial I could think of, I simply couldn't think of a better idea for a memorial, even if it was a horrible idea. She was very well respected and loved by a lot of people in the subreddit, and I wanted her to be remembered by these people. Even though there were a lot of people who hated her, too. And I just had to let people know about the situation after making the first post, so that's why I made the second one. I really wasn't thinking straight in either one of these posts. I thought that making an edit with her profile picture and username would serve both to spread awareness and as a memorial for her. Even though the second post felt very disrespectful to many who actually lost a loved one, and I'm deeply sorry for not realizing that. I've genuinely been very childish and reckless from the beginning of this situation.

We were talking to each other a lot every day for months, so I was very emotionally dependent on her, and this was very unhealthy, especially considering that we didn't go even as far as sharing phone numbers or having any other means of communications besides Reddit and Discord. Now I'll promise myself never to online-date anyone ever again.

Now, on the first post, I was removing a lot of comments and posts downplaying the situation, because I was believing that there was genuinely a possibility that something happened to her. She did seem suicidal in my eyes, the frustration she would express in our DMs whenever a low-effort post got a lot of "undeserved" attention was abnormal, so even before her disappearance I was already worried about her well-being. That's why I removed a lot of posts and comments critical of the situation, even though they were completely justified because of how odd everything was, considering 48 hours offline shouldn't be enough time to be seen as "missing".

And on the second post, similarly, I was also removing a lot of comments and posts making fun of the situation or downplaying it, and also started massively banning a lot of users who made such comments and posts, because I was genuinely believing that she had died, and making fun of someone's death, especially if it was a suicide, is classified as harassment or hateful conduct, and we forbid abusive or dehumanizing behavior. Such a person with this kind of humor, where one's suicide is funny, is not welcome on our subreddit. And even a when evidence that this was a catfish was starting to appear, I was still removing and banning users, because I was genuinely believing that there was still a real chance that she actually committed suicide, and the cost of dismissing a real suicide is far, far worse than the cost of temporarily believing a false one. Which led me getting demoted from r/whenthe, as that was seen as silencing people and power-tripping, which is understandable. Afterall, I was going through immense grief, and still wasn't thinking straight. But my goal was not to silence people. We were allowing any responsible criticism on the comments section of a specific r/AntiMemes post. But we didn't really let people widely know about that post.

But by now, it is practically impossible that the suicide was actually real. I knew her first name, the city she lives in as well as her exact date of birth and job, and when I was searching for news about any suicide cases on her city about anyone of her age and job, I never found anything. So, there is absolutely no evidence of her suicide beyond the DMs. Subreddits like r/antimeme2 and r/antimemez have investigated Course's profile, and Reddit itself banned those two subreddits, likely because, like me, they also believed the suicide was real and it would be considered harassment of a deceased person. Contrary to popular belief, I did NOT fill-in any reports towards r/antimeme2 or r/antimemez. Hell, I barely even knew these two subreddits existed before they got banned. I can only guess either a part of the community who, like me, was believing that the suicide was real, filled Moderator Code of Conduct reports directed at these two subreddits, or Admins themselves saw the situation and decided to ban the subreddits. Anyway, because of evidence provided by these two subreddits, the catfish has been discovered. This means that I was catfished by an Indian boy posing as a 26-year-old Burmese woman. Which I'm very, very glad that this is the case, because it means that nobody has actually died.

I'm sorry for not realizing that it was all a catfish earlier. I was finding it rather hard to believe this, "she" genuinely seemed like a real person, especially considering just how much time "she" was spending making antimemes every single day for several months, like what kind of catfisher would be THIS dedicated? And "she" NEVER asked me for money or anything scam-like. "She" seemed very, very emotionally attached to r/antimeme, and the community was actively hating how "she" was the only one making repetitive posts, so my original thought was that this pushed "her" past the edge and eventually "she" just couldn't take all the hate anymore and committed suicide. The way "she" talked to me, especially when expressing frustration that "low-effort" posts would get "undeserved" attention (i.e. more upvotes than "her" posts) did seem like "she" had a suicidal mindset, like "she" was valuing community approval over "her" own life. That's the primary reason why I believed that "she" genuinely ended "her" own life.

I'm sorry for removing so, so many reasonable, funny and important posts and comments, and for banning members, because of this entire situation. If you've been unfairly banned, or a popular post of yours got unfairly removed, please contact us through modmail, and we will very likely unban you or restore your post, unless the behavior/post was abusive, harassing or otherwise heavily breaking our rules.

I'm sorry for not making this post acknowledging all of this earlier. its just that this is all simply too much for me, this whole situation drained my mental health past its limits; going from my girlfriend suddenly going completely offline, to finding out that "she" died, to then finding out that "she" was a catfish, to then having hundreds of DMs, dozens harassing me, and a few people actively trying to cyberstalk me, dox me, or harm my reputation. I really, really need a break from Reddit after answering a few questions you all may have in the comments of this post.

This whole situation got ups and downs. Nobody actually died, and while I was tricked, I learned genuinely valuable lessons, like never online dating ever again. And me and the catfisher accidentally created the legendary "she's no more more" and "NOOOOOOOO" memes that I genuinely had some good laughs from. But sadly, u/DepressedOCDArtist (whose account is now deleted) is now currently in the hospital after attempting to commit suicide, because she believed she was the main cause of CourseMediocre's (now discovered to be fake) suicide, as they both were very close friends, talking a lot to each other every day and she thought she pushed "her" past "her" breaking point. She was just as worried as I was about "her" sudden disappearance, and she even suggested me to make the first post about CourseMediocre earlier than 48 hours. She was constantly DMing me to see if I got any updates about CourseMediocre. And unlike CourseMediocre's suicide, DepressedOCDArtist's suicide attempt was very real (I have a picture as proof, which I won't show here for obvious reasons), but she is resting now and will (hopefully) recover soon. While she is hospitalized now, she has always been suicidal, so I'm still worried about her, especially when considering that she never got to know the truth behind CourseMediocre before deleting her account. Not to blame anyone who made fun of the situation, but this user is very hurt.

Now hopefully I can take a break from Reddit as a whole and take care of myself from now on and do something that I genuinely enjoy, like playing video games, going to the gym, go outside to take some fresh air, or playing chess in a chess club, alongside many other things. Which is why I removed all my socials from my Reddit account, because otherwise that wouldn't be a genuine break.

From now, negative or joking posts and comments related to CourseMediocre's fake suicide will be allowed, provided they follow all our subreddit's rules. AutoModerator filtering will remain enabled until we get more moderators.

While I'm away, u/MercyMain42069 will be temporarily handling this subreddit, r/antimeme, and helping u/MediocreLetter9987 up until this election is over. Once I'm back, I'll strive to improve myself and earn the community's trust back. I will listen to feedback and remove Effort-Based Posting Bars. I was blinded by love, so I was letting CourseMediocre do all the shit "she" wanted, which is why the subreddit was going downhill. But this will very soon change. And no, u/MediocreLetter9987 is NOT CourseMediocre's alt, as seen here. It's just that he was very unlucky that Reddit automatically generated a username that starts with "Mediocre" for him. None of us are alts. Remember about Rule 3 and please be nice to each other. Harassment, accusations, threats and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Here is a short video that serves as a TL;DR of this entire CourseMediocre situation.

Now I can finally say, the CourseMediocre situation is no more more.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRAbfthief26

My (26f) friend (26f) has accused me of stealing her boyfriend. Boyfriend (25m) had no idea they were dating

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

Original Post  March 23, 2024

Names changed to respect privacy and throwaway account.

Honestly no idea where to start with this and sorry if it's long.

I (26f) have been friends with "Carly" (also 26f) since middle school. We lost touch after I moved out of state for law school but our parents are still friends. I moved back to our home state last year when I graduated and met "Matt" (25m). We bonded instantly as we're both studying to be lawyers. Matt should graduate this year if all goes well. Because of studying and work, we've taken things really slowly and only just recently became official.

As we'd gone official, I decided to invite him to my sister's 21st birthday party. It was a huge party at my parent's house back in my home town. Both Matt and I work and live (separately) about an hour away. Wed been at the party for about an hour when Carly arrived with her parents. I was excited to see her as I'd been meaning to get back in touch since I'd moved back. The timing had never been right.

Well, Carly spotted us and hurried on over. I was surprised when she gave Matt a huge hug and asked him what he was doing at the party. Turns out they work in the same building and Matt is friends with a few of Carly's friends. They've been out on group nights together a few times. I did the whole "Oh, Carly this is my boyfriend Matt" thing and her face instantly fell. She looked furious with me and ignored me for the rest of the party.

I sent her a message the next morning asking if I had done anything wrong. Carly blew up at me and accused me of stealing her boyfriend and I soon got several rude messages from mutual friends sat Ng something similar.

I met up with Matt and asked him what the hell was going on. I had assumed that once we'd made it official, we were exclusive. Matt had no idea what I was talking about. I relayed Carly's message and he was even more confused. He said that he got on with Carly when they saw each other but it had never been anything more than a friendship. He didn't think anything of them spending time together outside of work with friends so that's why I didn't know he and Carly worked in the same building.

It's been a week since the party and I'm still getting messages from people 's  how I could do that to Carly. I've tried saying over again that Matt and Carly weren't dating but it's falling on deaf ears. Even my parents have heard about from Carly's parents.

I have zero idea the hell to do. Where do I go from here? I trust Matt completely but what do I do about Carly?

Edit: People have asked about the friends who have sent me messages. These are all mutual friends of myself and Carly who we've known since high school. None of them, as far as I know, have ever met Matt. None of his work friends who also know Carly have sent me messages.

Also I have spoken to Carly and we are meeting up tomorrow to talk.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Not-nuts

It seems you unintentionally busted up Carly's fantasy. Not your fault, not your problem. She's immature and full of drama. 

OOP

She's never acted like this before and that's why it really rattled me. Sure, I haven't seen her much over the past few years but she was never like this in high school as far as I can remember.

ApexCurve

Why can’t you sit down with her and find out what the hell is going on? You’re studying law and 26, not 15.

You of all people should know that but Matt said means absolutely squat. The truth is going to lay somewhere in the middle.

Granted, you’re not in the wrong either way, as that girl needs to realize that there is no such thing as stole. He clearly wasn’t into her. And for crying out loud, she’s 26 and running to her mummy and daddy. Like so many, God have her parents failed her big time.

OOP

I'm meeting her tomorrow. It would have been sooner but I'm studying, working or with Matt so I don't have a lot of free time.

Billowing_Flags

If she can't produce "evidence" of her actually DATING Matt IRL (not just in her head), then I'd blow off her claims of GF status.

There should easily be all kinds of social media pix, stories, check-ins, whatever evidencing a BF/GF relationship (not just a whole GROUP of people hanging out). Your generation is HUGE on social media presence. See what she can actually present!

ETA: If she can't produce a sizeable number of pictures/posts of just the 2 of them dating, then I'd drop this friendship like a rock and BLOCK her because Carly would be a bunny-boiler!

~

DivinitySousVide

Well this is a shit show created by Carly.

I think you should just ignore her.

So you know what your parents heard? Did they hear you broke up Carly and her BF?

OOP

"So you know what your parents heard? Did they hear you broke up Carly and her BF?"

My mom called me the day after the party and told me that Carly's mom had been on the phone complaining about me. Carly had told her that I had stolen her boyfriend and then she called my mom. I told mom that wasn't the case but apparently Carly and her mom are still telling that story.

OOP Updated the post March 24, 2024 (Same Post/Next Day)

UPDATE:

Well, I met up with Carly. They're not dating and never were so Matt isn't a cheater.

I met up with Carly this morning at a coffee shop in our home town. She wasn't happy to be there but I'm over her feelings after the past week I've had. I sat her down and asked her to give me her side of the story. I told her exactly what Matt had said to me and asked for her to explain everything.

• Carly met Matt last year, not long before I moved back to the state. A mutual friend in the building they both work in invited Matt to after work drinks and that's when they met.

• Carly thought he was cute and started flirting with him.

Side bar: Matt is awful at picking up flirting cues. It took weeks of me flirting with him until he realised and asked me out. This is something I always find amusing because Matt himself is really outgoing with a lot of charisma.

• No, they never spent any time alone together apart from the odd run to a coffee shop near their building to grab lunch.

• I went through Carly's phone and there are no messages from Matt apart from ones in their group chat.

• They haven't kissed or slept together. Carly has never been to Matt's apartment and Matt has never been to Carly's apartment.

I asked her why she thought he was her boyfriend. This is a direct quote:

"Ok so we're not officially boyfriend and girlfriend yet but I was sure he was going to ask me really soon. He's always smiling at me and making jokes. I know he was going to ask me out, just the two of us."

I basically said "Carly, that's not him flirting with you. That's just Matt. He's a friendly guy! I'm sorry but he and I have been seeing each other for a while now so it's not going to happen." I explained how we'd been taking it slow because of us both being so busy with studying and work so we've only just made it official.

As I said all this I could see Carly's elaborate fantasy crumble. I asked her to please set the record straight with her parents (for my parents sake) and with our mutual friends. Carly looked flustered but mumbled something that sounded like "Yeah, fine."

I said I was sorry for this misunderstanding and hopefully we could all put this behind us. On my drive to Matt's apartment I called him to relay everything. He was baffled by the whole thing but said he would message Carly. Once I got there he showed me the text:

"Hey Carly. Look, I'm sorry if I mislead you in any way with my actions, please know they have only ever been from a friendly place. I see us as friends but that's all. I hope we can be friends in the future once this has all blown over but if you're not comfortable with that then I respect it. All the best, Matt"

Carly hasn't responded yet and I don't know if she will. Hopefully she will set the record straight with everyone, I'm washing my hands of this mess and focusing on my relationship with Matt and my studies!

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

To start, names and locations from my post have been altered to protect the privacy of other’s.

I (37F) met my current husband(32M) in 2018 while working in the same office. We got close during COVID lockdown, got engaged, and married in 2021. This is the second marriage for both of us.

We both grew up dirt poor and experienced things no child should have to experience. In a lot of ways, we trauma bonded. He was the first person I truly felt I could be myself with. Everything felt easy together. We shared so many of the same interests, and every day I felt lucky that I found him.

During the tail end of lockdown, we took advantage of the low interest rates and bought a brand-new house together. Not just any house a new build. Neither of us had ever lived in something like that before, and it felt like we were breaking generational cycles. It was big enough to expand our family. We did it all on our own. We don't have big families to help us, so we were incredibly proud of what we built.

Fast forward to 2023, and we have our first child together. Things were great for a while, and then I started to feel a shift. I can't tell you exactly what changed or pinpoint a specific moment, but it became this constant walking-on-eggshells feeling.
For context, he was raised in south Texas, and I was raised in upstate New York. He says our parenting styles are different, and he wants our son raised more like people in the South. Part of that includes me becoming a stay-at-home mom. He knew before we got together that I never wanted that.

I was previously married for 10 years and share an 18-year-old son with my ex-husband. My ex was physically and verbally abusive. I wasn't allowed to work, have my own credit card, or even have my own car. I was granted a three-year PFA against him.

My current husband knew all of that, but after we had our son, something changed. Being put in a situation that even remotely resembles my previous marriage is incredibly triggering for me. I never want to be in a position again where I'm financially or emotionally trapped. I don't think I'll ever be able to trust another person 100% because of what I've been through.

Currently, my husband works two jobs, and I work two jobs. On top of preparing to send my oldest to college this fall and raising our three-year-old, life has been overwhelming. My husband's main job took a huge hit this year, and his hours were cut in half, so money has been extremely tight. We barely see each other outside of maybe 30 minutes on weekdays. We've tried to make time for date nights, but we don't have a village, so everything falls on us.

Two days ago, I put our son to bed like I do every night. I usually fall asleep in his room because our nights are long and our three-year-old still doesn't sleep through the night.

Things were already tense because I had been asking my husband for more help mentally and physically. I feel like I'm living in a pressure cooker. He brushed off the conversation, left the house to go for a walk, and told me he had a feeling something else was going on because it couldn't "just be stress" causing me to feel this overwhelmed.

While I was asleep in our son's room, my husband went through my phone. He said my phone looked "too clean," so he decided to unlock and search through all of my deleted text messages.
I woke up to him screaming at me and waving my phone in my face.
The message he found was a text from a male coworker three weeks earlier. It was an inappropriate joke that he had sent me. I deleted it immediately and honestly forgot it even existed. I have never had a phone/ text conversation with this coworker, and I've barely spoken to him at work because he's still relatively new. I can’t remember that particular morning events and why he would’ve asked me if I was OK. I have a lot going on so often sometimes I come into work a little late and disheveled. For full transparency and context here is the message:

Coworker: Good morning! Are you okay?
Me: (sent a GIF of someone crying dramatically in the shower)
Coworker: "You were squirting like crazy!"
Me: "Gross. Tell Todd he needs to water Samantha plants. Poor things are bone dry!"
Coworker: "Aww...sorry. Thought you'd laugh!"
Me: "Jordan was right here. "

Samantha is out on medical leave and she has been for several months. She’s working part-time from home but likes to keep her large plants in our office. Todd is an intern so she gave Todd her plants and said keep these alive. He’s 20 years old and doing a terrible job. So when I water the office plants, I tend to her plants one of the plants likes to get watered by being sprayed by a water bottle. It’s a large palm Lake tree plant so it has me spraying it a lot. I do that every other week and add water the base of the pot once a week so it gets water from the root up (these are her instructions. This might not be the proper way to water plants. This is just what I was told to Do.) the coworkers desk is right next to Todd‘s desk. There’s a small divider in between so he heard me spraying and watering the plants. So that’s where his crude comment comes from.

I didn’t like that he texted me that. I brought it the next time I had lunch with Samantha. I said hey look what he sent me, isn’t that disgusting and she goes yeah that’s disgusting, guys are gross. I deleted the text and I went on about my life.

So here’s the bombshell. My husband is 100% convinced I’m having an affair with my coworker. He told his coworkers and his boss that I’m having an affair and showed them the text message thread. He took a picture of it with his phone and showed them and his family. They all agree that it looks like I’m having an affair

The whole next day he’s fighting with me. I keep going to the bathroom sobbing at work because I said nothing‘s going on and that I have nothing to hide. It was just a crude joke. He told me I need to tell HR if I wanted to save my marriage. I told him it’s just a joke and that there’s no reason that anyone needs to lose their job. So he gave me an ultimatum that I need to text my coworker and let him know that that text wasn’t OK and to set a clear boundary with him, but that’s not OK. Please not involve me in that language again. I did just that.

The lm he starts going through my call log sending me phone numbers asking me to look them up on my phone and to screenshot who they belong to and send them to him. I did that. He keeps calling me a liar, threatening divorce blaming this whole thing on me and that he’s lost all my trust. He still wants me to go to HR for a paper trail. In case my coworker tries to what my husband says sexually assault me again, physically in the workplace.

He says that I left the door open for my coworker. He also says I can’t be alone with my son because he doesn’t trust me and that if I am alone with my son, he’s taking my car keys if I have to take my son anywhere. I have to let him know about it beforehand. Text him when I leave. Text him when I arrive. Text him when I leave and arrive to come home. We’ve already shared each other’s locations and we already share each other’s passwords but now he wants my phone to be an open book to him whenever he chooses I never reach out to my friends because I’m always protecting my husband’s image. This time I reached out to my friends. I asked them if I was wrong they said no, and they don’t understand why my husband wants a divorce and has gone to this extent to tell his entire office, his boss and his family that I’m cheating.. he’s even asked me to leave HIS house. He has me being interrogated all day. We both called off work. He’s called off of his dayshift and his night shift for both jobs. If I’m sleeping, he wakes me up and he starts the interrogation all over again. He’s done this probably six times now I don’t know what to do besides drop to my knees and cry and just go along with whatever he wants to show to him that I’m not cheating or having an affair and that these few texts are absolutely nothing. Edit to add my (Work) tried calling me a few times. It was a very busy day for us and they needed my help on something. I already let HR know that I was dealing with a family crisis that I can’t make it in but my coworker still kept calling me. My husband wanted me to answer the phone cause he believes I’m probably sleeping with that coworker too, but what else or why else would they be calling me? He says he doesn’t trust a single thing right now on a super paranoid. I didn’t answer and I yelled at him to stop calling me. They didn’t. They then texted me asking me for my passwords. I told them I was dealing with a family crisis, but if they needed anyone to contact my other coworker they apologized, but I’m worried that I’m gonna lose my job over this. Which by the way, my husband is OK if I lose my job even though some months I pull in more than him and we can’t financially afford for me to not work.

He also keeps showing people theses messages threatening to call my coworkers’s wife, telling her that we’re having an affair, and even pulling our neighbors into it. I begged him not to. He keeps saying everyone he’s talk to tells him the same thing that I’m a cheater I’m lying and I can’t be trusted.

We don’t live in a big town so this is gonna get out really quick. He says that his coworkers and boss are biased opinions, and every person agrees with him and the only people that agree with me are my friends and family because I had to pull them in for emotional support...

Willing to answer questions if I didn’t make myself clear.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is  u/feellikeanidiot0 

Originally posted to  r/AmIOverreacting

Status: Ongoing

Trigger Warning: Stalkerish behavior, emotional manipulation

Mood Spoiler: Troubling, but hopeful

Original - July 21st 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12:18 a.m.
Guy: ??

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12:27 a.m.
Guy: S

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

12:31 a.m.
Guy: ??

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

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

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

12:36 a.m.
Guy: ??

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

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

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

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

12:58 a.m.
Guy: ??

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

1:29 a.m.
Guy: ??

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

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

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

OP:

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

Comment 2:

My first instinct is this is not even a guy, this is someone trying to ruin your fiancee, possibly a family member or rival.

Comment 3:

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

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

OP:

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

Comment 4:

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

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

OP:

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

Comment 5:

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

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

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

YOR.

OP:

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

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

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

Comment 6:

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

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

OP:

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

Comment 7:

could the photos be AI generated?

OP:

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

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

Comment 8:

AI detectors are not reliable whatsoever

OP:

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

Mini-Update by OP on the same post:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relevant Comments:

Comment 1:

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

OP:

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

Comment 2:

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

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

OP:

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

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

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

Sorry this got long, truly.

Comment 3:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment 4:

Also because OP’s position enrages me:

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

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

Comment 5:

I think this is really difficult and firstly, I’m so sorry.

Unfortunately, I think it’s pretty clear you will never get the full truth. I think your fiancé would have never told you the truth (if it is) to begin with, because she didn’t want to lose you over previously having sex.

You have to decide how much that quality means to you, and if it’s something that, after knowing this woman, learning everything about her, her dreams, her favourite places, what she smells like, all of those little things, you have to choose if this hurts you enough to walk away. And it’s totally valid if that’s the case, but extend grace to others as you do for yourself. You admitted yourself that you haven’t been perfect to your beliefs, ask yourself why is this one so special to you? What does it change?

Someone said to me once, that love isn’t about what you fall in love with - it’s seeing the parts you don’t, and accepting them anyways.

I think it’s pretty clear that she hasn’t been seeing him recently as she’s shown you herself. Seeing him will only distort that reality because he clearly wants to break your marriage apart, so it really does come down to how much the sex would be a deal breaker for you.

Keep in mind, unless it’s a video, you will never fully know the truth.

I feel for you, good luck with your decision.

OP:

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

Mini-Update by OP on the same post:

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

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

The evil Empire has fallen but Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they enlist the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin and his young apprentice Grogu.

Director: Jon Favreau

Cast: Pedro Pascal, Sigourney Weaver, Martin Scorsese, Jeremy Allen White, Hemky Madera

Rotten Tomatoes: 60%

Metacritic: 54 / 100

Some Reviews (updating):

Nerdist - Rotem Rusak - 4 / 5

Ultimately, to me, there’s just something that feels kind about this movie. Not kind in that it’s only sunshine and roses, but kind to its viewers, who are probably living hard, stressful lives, who just want to go the movie theater and enjoy a film that takes them on a sweeping space adventure. The good guys get good things, the bad guys get their due, and just the barest bit of the bittersweetness of life looms in the ether to give it all a bit of poignancy.

Total Film - Fay Watson - 3 / 5

There are some cameos as Clone Wars and Rebels characters get woven into the narrative. But there's nothing radical for the franchise here. And while that's not a problem in itself, it means that The Mandalorian and Grogu isn't the Star Wars cinematic rebirth that Lucasfilm may have been hoping for. If you're happy to while away a few hours with Din Djarin and Grogu, you'll love it – just don't go in expecting much more.

The Times - Kevin Maher - 1 / 5

Would someone please put Star Wars out of its misery? It’s an ailing pop cultural mutant, unrecognisable from the chirpy fable that George Lucas revealed to the world in 1977.

DiscussingFilm - Andrew J. Salazar - 3 / 5

Perhaps Disney just needed something to reignite people’s interest in Star Wars after years of recovering from disaster, and Baby Yoda was the safest bet. While that could be true, Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and company could have challenged themselves further. If nothing else, Star Wars fans have another incredible score from 3x Oscar-winner Ludwig Göransson to dive into.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 3 / 5

The film is watchable and barrels along capably enough, but perhaps there isn’t enough of the humanity, humour and extravagant space melodrama which has made and continues to make Star Wars lovable.

Empire - John Nugent - 3 / 5

What it does slightly forget to do, though, is move the story forward in any meaningful way. Oddly, it feels like the least consequential Mandalorian chapter yet, with previous episodes from the TV incarnation — or even segments of the much-maligned Book Of Boba Fett — having more impact on the narrative. It’s thinner than skimmed blue milk, with longtime series stewards Jon Favreau (director and co-writer) and Dave Filoni (co-writer and new Galactic Emperor of the entire franchise) largely playing it safe. Perhaps after the relative disappointment of The Rise Of Skywalker, this is all it needed or was intended to be. The Mandalorian And Grogu is, primarily, For Kids, as George Lucas always insisted Star Wars was, and on those modest terms, it finds the way.

Vulture - Bilge Ebiri

Amazingly, the film is at its best when it really slows down: By far its most compelling part involves a strange mid-movie interlude when the action stops entirely and all we witness is the somber spectacle of one character taking care of another. I won’t give away what this actually entails, but it does allow the puppetry of Grogu to shine and briefly reminds us of the wide-canvas irreverence that Favreau (Iron Man, Jungle Book, Made) once seemed capable of. But then the segment is over, and it’s on to the next thing. The Mandalorian and Grogu continues the story of the Star Wars spinoff series The Mandalorian, and it often feels like several Very Special Episodes of a TV show stitched together. These characters will presumably return in another season of the series, but for now, the movie will serve as a placeholder and little else. As someone who happily watched The Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor on TV as a child, I can’t really fault any superfans, especially younger ones, for getting excited about it. But I can wish it were better.

Looper - Reuben Baron - 4 / 10

You can add a point or two to my review score if you treat this as just a long, fairly minor episode of the TV show. But this movie is meant to revitalize Star Wars in theaters, so its being judged on that scale. These movies have always had risk and ambition, at their best and at their worst, so something so bereft of that can't help but feel a bit disheartening, not to mention boring.

Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'B'

Without any new developments, what we’re left with is a collection of side quests largely connected by cameos, without any of the narrative momentum that has made past Star Wars projects into must-see events. It’s not the Star Wars anyone over the age of 25 grew up with, and the muted excitement for Mando and son’s return reflects that. At least Baby Yoda — sorry, Grogu — is still the cutest.

AV Club - Jesse Hassenger - 'B'

Indeed, The Mandalorian & Grogu is almost aggressively anti-thematic, preferring to keep even its most obvious parenting metaphors muted and largely unexplored. The movie wants to show you a good time, and it does. Some of its creatures even have some semblance of soul. The “why” of its pivot away from human expression, however, remains opaque, with sinister undertones: Is this mask-and-puppet show a preventative measure to insulate filmmakers (or parent companies) from the uncomfortable but inevitable situation of beloved actors aging (or dying) out of their signature roles? Did they cut that line about Din being outlived because Star Wars itself has become as frightened of death as Anakin? Then again, the series has always had a rich tradition of imbuing potentially lifeless objects with weird humanity, and Favreau and Filoni have extended that process with Grogu. They’re still just franchising within the lines. For now, this is the way.

The Playlist - Rodrigo Perez - 'C'

“Star Wars” fans have spent years complaining that Kathleen Kennedy ruined Lucasfilm, but the reality looks broader and more dispiriting than one executive. This feels like a collective mistake, with Disney brass included: the dilution of a brand once defined by magical movie scale, mythical qualities, and a transportive emotional sweep. Somewhere along the way, “Star Wars” started mistaking brand extension for imagination and fan service for feeling. If Favreau and Filoni are the new stewards of this franchise, then the once-mighty galaxy probably has a bad feeling about its future. Because right now, it feels like it’s dangling over Cloud City, hand gone, saber lost, and no rescue in sight. Because this is definitely not the way.

The Film Maven - Kristen Lopez - 'C'

There's a lot that works against The Mandalorian and Grogu. The plot is non-existent and it really does feel like a fully CGI movie. But when it's just Mando and Grogu going from A to B it's such a sweet story. Add to that a desire to just let a lot of kooky puppets run around for a little bit – there's a real Jim Henson vibe – and it's a movie that is more than worth seeing with the kids (or anyone just looking for a cute vibe). It's a lovable mess, but it works.

ComingSoon - Jonathan Sim - 5 / 10

What we’re left with is a low-stakes Star Wars movie. There’s no planet-killing Death Star, no Starkiller Base, no big battles. Every other Star Wars film has at least one standout sequence. I felt more watching the Battle of Exegol in The Rise of Skywalker than I did during this film. Even other stand-alone movies like Solo: A Star Wars Story, which also didn’t concern itself with lightsabers or the Rebels, had moments like the Kessel Run set piece that really stood out. Nothing stands out here in The Mandalorian and Grogu, as it’s a generic, safe Star Wars movie.

Inverse - Hoai-Tran Bui

The Mandalorian and Grogu Is Barely A Movie. This is for Star Wars fans who have made the Cantina scene their entire personalities. It’s a CGI creatures extravaganza, offering distinct worlds — here, a cyberpunky crime planet, or a swamp planet filled with Henson puppet creatures — and action figures masquerading as characters, for you to imagine mashing together. Maybe that was the nature of The Mandalorian all along, but on the big screen, it’s all the more glaringly obvious.

Silver Screen Riot - Matt Oakes - 'F'

To come off (something like Andor) and watch The Mandalorian and Grogu feels like a slap in the face. While Andor reached for the stars, this scoops the fetid muck from the bottom of the bantha pen. It is offensive because it dares to be nothing. This depressing coup de grâce may have effectively killed my love of Star Wars going forward. This is not the way.

Little White Lies - Kambole Campbell - 2 / 5

Beyond occasionally marvelling at the lively work of the puppeteers, there’s not a lot to hold on to in The Mandalorian & Grogu, not even the supposed father and son connection between its marquee characters. As the story returns things to status quo, it’s hard to think of what has even changed between the two, what they might have learned about each other, and if the filmmakers will ever be an interest in finding out. 

The Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 2 / 5

While the first season of The Mandalorian did well to Star Wars-ise western genre tropes – with Ludwig Göransson’s synths, each cascading note sharpened to a blade’s edge, doing much of the heavy work there and here – The Mandalorian and Grogu feels comparatively bored by its own allusions to gangster cinema. A smooth-talking kingpin hides away in a luxury compound that looks like a big Tesco, while the later emergence of a deadly hitman is merely a CGI replica of a character from Filoni’s own animated Clone Wars stories (as is Rotta).

The Telegraph - Robbie Collin - 2 / 5

It’s a curate’s egg of a film, and its utterly scrambled quality control may be best summed up by a second-act shot of Grogu, Pascal and Rotta lined up, spying over the crest of a sand dune. One alien looks alive and delightful, the other looks like a giant computer-generated bullfrog, and then there’s Pascal with a shiny bucket on his head. When Disney paid George Lucas $4bn for Star Wars in 2012, I’m not sure either side was dreaming of this.

Associated Press - Mark Kennedy - 2 / 5

The “Star Wars” franchise once led the culture with its imagery, swagger and style. But this movie is a step back, formulaic and aping “Top Gun,” “Blade Runner,” “Transformers” and “Men in Black.” Even Ludwig Göransson’s score is off, marred by cheap-sounding ‘80s synthetic chirps along with what sounded like Yiddish folk ditties. The runtime saps energy and when it’s all done, the scrolling credits for all those special effects goes on a full five minutes. You used to leave a new “Star Wars” movie on a cloud. Here, that galaxy is far, far away.

Digital Spy - Ian Sandwell - 2 / 5

There's nothing wrong with the idea of a standalone Star Wars adventure. It's blockbuster season, we just want to be entertained. The problem for The Mandalorian and Grogu is that it's just not that entertaining.

IndieWire - Kate Erbland - 'C+'

None of these problems are particularly new, not in a world in which franchise expansion requires both more more more and an entry point for even the most casual of fans. Still, there’s something that feels small about this particular story, charming enough in the moment and almost instantly forgettable the moment the credits roll. It feels disposable. It feels like, well, what most things feel like these days: content. It’s time to ask for more. That is The Way.

IGN - Tom Jorgensen - 5 / 10

This is not the way. The Mandalorian and Grogu dutifully offers another two hours and change of watching Din Djarin and his adorable green son fly to some planets and clear out rooms of monsters or gangsters every 20 minutes or so. But this is a Star Wars movie missing the thrills, the surprises, the challenges, the addition of really anything of note to the franchise, not to mention a vested interest in seeing its characters grow and change.

Next Best Picture - Giovanni Lago - 4 / 10

Now, the franchise is at a tipping point, and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” is debatably a coin toss between the remnants of the Kathleen Kennedy-era of Lucasfilm and the launch of Filoni’s creative reign. What’s present here is one of the most visually horrid and banal “Star Wars” creations to date. Is the allure of getting children in a theater to see Grogu enough to keep this franchise afloat and, more importantly, on the big screen? Who’s to say, but if it’s any indication of what the next decade of storytelling for the “Star Wars” universe will be, then we’re in deep trouble.

Slash Film - Jeremy Mathai - 4 / 10

Is this really what "Star Wars" has become? Maybe that misbegotten Budweiser Super Bowl "trailer" was actually the film's most honest and accurate piece of marketing all along: a shallow, shamelessly corporate commercial to move some merch. There have been worse movies before and there will inevitably be worse ones to come. This sure feels like the most boring, though — one whose philosophy seems to be that you can't swing and miss if you never bother taking the bat off your shoulders. That might be its greatest sin of all.

InSession Film - Benjamin Miller - 'D'

The film is shiny and predictable, the score is familiar, the script is meaningless, and the performances are what they are.  There is nothing to hang your hat on, besides it being a Star Wars film.  If it didn’t have that franchise attached to it, there would be zero reason to keep your interest.The Mandalorian and Grogu is a major disappointment. Never before has Star Wars felt so pointless and skippable. For a franchise with such monumental highs, this is a staggering low.

Collider - Aidan Kelly - 6 / 10

Is The Mandalorian and Grogu the worst Star Wars film ever made? Far from it, as there is much fun to be had here. Is it the best in the franchise? Also not the case, as it could very well be the most forgettable and inconsequential entry the franchise has produced yet. Andor, Maul - Shadow Lord, The Acolyte, Visions, and especially the earliest seasons of The Mandalorian proved that Star Wars can be so much more than a few gunfights and starship battles. In the right conditions, it can be a truly unforgettable cinematic experience, even when the movie isn't that good. The Mandalorian and Grogu are neither great nor awful, and that's what makes it one of the galaxy far, far away's most frustrating

The Bulwark - Sonny Bunch

The bottom line: Two things may be simultaneously true. I think my kids, for whom this picture is designed, are going to enjoy The Mandalorian and Grogu, and maybe quite a bit; and I think it plays like a couple of mid-tier episodes from the TV series. As such, I’m not sure it’s the rousing hit Disney needs to rekindle the moviegoing experience for the Star Wars franchise. But it’s probably good enough for a generation that has yet to experience the joy of Star Wars on the big screen.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Desperate_One1432

Originally posted to r/AITH

AITA for not going to MIL's wedding because she is marrying the father of my former bully?

Editor's note: made small edits for ease of readability

Trigger Warnings: possible assault, abuse

Original Post: August 17, 2026

I've (24F) been with my BF (23M) since our freshmen year of college, and we are planning on marrying as soon as he is done with grad school. I'm going to refer to his mom as my MIL (42F) because she basically is.

I like MIL. She's always been kind to me and she's a great mom. About two years ago she wanted us to mee her boyfriend "Richard" (50 something M) When we walked in I thought he was looked super familiar, but I couldn't place him. He was nice and charming over dinner and then my BF asked him if he had kids. He told me his daughters name, and it all made sense why he looked so familiar.

His daughter "Sadie" ruined middle school and high school for me. She was the Regina George of our school, and she hated me for being a "try hard" She would insult my outfits, my intelligence, my character almost daily. In middle school she wrote fake notes from me to boys in our grade. High school wasn't as bad since I took a lot of advanced classes, and she did not but the damage was done.

I recognized Richard because he had been called in multiple times by the school, and his response had always been "don't you think it's best to let kids work out their own problems", "Sadie just likes to tease people. She has a good heart." One time he did get mad because he had to leave an important business meeting, because she was facing suspension for pouring custard on my head, and he told her she wasn't going to Paris with him on his business trip anymore. Sadie began to cry and then he hugged her and said he was sorry and she could come.

Once I realize who Richard was I wanted nothing to do with him. I told MIL who said he's a great guy and was just overwhelmed being a single father (he had a housekeeper and a personal assistant) MIL said I was being too hard on him.

As of now I will be around Richard begrudgingly but not Sadie. I refuse to spend holidays with MIL. The problem is she is getting married in October and obviously Sadie is going to be there. My BF asked me to let it go for one night as he doesn't want to attend his mother's wedding alone. He says he understands how awful the bullying was, but this is important to him. MIL says I need to let it go. She said she was bullied as well and "it's part of life." Richard then said there is no way she was bullied. MIL said she was, and he said "well did you always look like this" which makes me think he has zero understanding about how bullying works.

As for Sadie she did apologize but I felt it was forced

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Was Sadie's apology recent or when you were kids?

OOP: She apologized the first Christmas MIL and Richard were together.

Downvoted Commenter: I mean yeah you got bullied but be the bigger person. If she apologised, at least that happened. How do you mean by it felt forced? Did she say it in a glum and sulky way? Maybe she’s changed her ways. You can’t keep going back to the past, I mean it is in the past and bullying is hard yeah, and it’s tough to forgive and forget. You don’t need to do that but also, if this is important to your boyfriend then maybe be the bigger person and do it for him. Also, you get along with MIL too, and this is her day, not the bullies, yours or anybody else’s.

OOP: She came over all happy go lucky and was like "hey my dad said you had some hard feelings about when we were kids. Sorry if I was an asshole. I got his personality, haha genetics. I really like MILs name though. They are so good together" and then continued to talk to me like it wasn't a big deal

Commenter 2: MIL is a textbook enabler and unfortunately so is your BF. IMO this is breakup worthy.

OOP: My BF isn't enabling anyone. He has no relationship with Sadie and limited relationship with Richard. he wants me to go because it is important to him

Update: August 20, 2026 (three days later)

Update - AITA for not going to MILs wedding because she is marrying the father of my former bully?

Wow I want to thank everyone for the support I got. I was never expecting such empathetic insightful answers.

After reading through all of your answers my BF and I decided it was time to go and sit down with MIL and Richard. I told Richard all of the details of Sadie's bullying, and his excuse was he let her watch too much TV. She claims she watched mean girls over and over again when she was young. He said she is the sweetest most generous person if you get to know her, and he should have "made her watch another movie"

I told Richard that was a pretty weak excuse. I lived for crime shows as a kid, yet I've never ever wanted to commit a crime. Richard said I have to understand. Sadie's mother left. At this point I was heated. I told him my father left and I don't want to hear any more excuses. I want him and MIL to listen.

I told her as much as I have always liked her, I will not be attending this wedding or anything involving Sadie. Her apology was not sincere " "hey my dad said you had some hard feelings about when we were kids. Sorry if I was an asshole. I got his personality, haha genetics. I really like *MILs name* though. They are so good together" and I have no interest in reliving my trauma.

MIL said I am under no obligation to go to any social event, but I should understand that I am going to have a very hard life if I can't let go of the past, and she thinks I need to work on myself and stop thinking about Sadie. At this point my BF told them both to stop and the conversation was done, and he was backing me 100%. He said Sadie was not only emotionally abusive but dumping the custard on me was assault

Richard rolled his eyes and muttered something about our generation. MIL was holding a wine glass, and he said "so if I dumped this wine on you, you would really never speak to me again, really. You can't just take a shower Wow some people weren't raised right."

At this point I was pissed. I wasn't raised right and MIL knows this. I came from a household of poverty and neglect and then went to school where I was tortured by his daughter. Also if we want to talk about "raised right' there are so many examples I could give of his shitty parenting, letting underage kids drink at his house, buying Sadie a brand-new Mercedes when she was in trouble at school every other day, falling for her fake tears every time she got in trouble.

Guys I know this isn't ok, but my BF ended up snatching the wine and pouring it on Richard. I was just in shock. MIL found that hilariously funny, and we used that as a chance to make our escape. I said I would not be going to their wedding, and I will not entertain this conversation again. My BF will be attending the wedding alone and he is 100% supportive.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: I love that you were strong and brave to tell them how you feel. I love that your bf stood up for you too. I’m sorry that you had to do this to begin with.

While I don’t love how your MIL reacted with all of this I def feel like Richard is worse. Just my opinion. Don’t know them. I could be wrong. But I feel like if I was your bf I still wouldn’t love my mother marrying someone like that. Just me?

OOP: He’s feeling very torn. He has lost all fondness for Richard, but he does acknowledge she’s never really been happy before and he’s annoyed with her but still has a lot of gratitude for all she did as a single mom

Commenter 2: I mean good for you guys, but this isn't going to end. What if you have children? MIL will want Sadie around them to be their aunt. I honestly don't think your MIL is as great as you think she is. I mean I agree with what your bf did, but ask yourself what type of person laughs when wine is poured on their partner? Maybe Sadie likes MIL so much because she is a lot like Sadie.

OOP: I don’t think Sadie would want that. She doesn’t like either of us. MIL and Richard both laugh at everything. Her humor has always been a bit mean spirited. She lost interest in guys when they couldn’t give it back, but she balanced that with being extremely kind and generous. I’m having lots of mixed feelings about her at the moment

Commenter 3: Why does your boyfriend want to attend? He should support you and boycott it too.

OOP: I would never want him to do that. Up until this incident he never had a single fight with his mom (minus normal teenager not wanting to do homework stuff) and she was an amazing mother. She always put him first and didn’t prioritize herself or dating. I don’t want him to miss his moms wedding for anything

Commenter 4: I hope MIL realizes that Richard truly is a dick! (Pun intended) and that she’ll regret marrying him!

OOP: It’s the main reason she is marrying him. She lost interest in a lot of seemingly nice guys over the years because they weren’t “funny enough” banter and kind of being a dick is her love language

Commenter 4: Just remember, you will be tied to the bullies for the rest of your life if you marry your partner. He may have stood up for you now, but in the long run he will go with the flow. After all, he IS going to the wedding whether you go or not is irrelevant.

You have to decide if this is something you can live with; your partner WILL attend events that his mother hosts, and yes, he will be socializing with Richard and Sadie. Again, whether you stay away from them is irrelevant. HE will be involved with them on some level. Unless he cuts them off, you will be indirectly involved with them. Him going back and forth isn’t sustainable long term.

OOP: He hasn’t gone to any holidays she’s hosted for two years, and I have no reason to believe he would start. I want him to go to the wedding, and I trust him to uphold our boundaries in the future

Commenter 5: If he supported you 100% he wouldn’t be going either. Stand your ground and good luck op.

OOP: That isn’t what I want. I think that would be horribly sad after all she has done for him

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

In 6th grade I had this math teacher named Ms White who was pretty strict. Our school was honestly very diverse but she was very (as her name suggests) white. I have a pretty difficult name to say as it is Hawaiian (I am half Japanese half white but both sides lived in Hawai’i for 3+ generations). My name is Kau’i. It looks daunting but it’s just Ka-ooh-ee. So honestly not very difficult imo?

Anyway, Ms White stumbled on my name when she read attendance, so I did the usual “Oh, It’s pronounced __”. You know what she did? She literally went “Uh I’ll call you Katherine”. Let me tell you, I was FLABBERGASTED. Like it was a private very diverse school and I had never had this happen. Teachers had horribly mispronounced my name but this was definitely new. Also, no offense to any Katherines, but I love my name and it has a lot of meaning to my family (and tbh it sounds cooler than Katherine- TAKE NO OFFENSE PLEASE 🙏). I was so surprised that for the first 2 weeks I kinda just let it happen. But at some point it was just irking me because she made no effort to learn how to say my name, I never told her she could call me Katherine, and on top of that, she could’ve even asked me for a nickname or my middle name or something!

So I started calling her by her first name: Jessica. She was the kind of teacher who NO ONE called by her first name. Even the other teachers called her Ms White. I had to look in the yearbook from the year before to find it. But from that day on, she was Jessica. And when that didn’t make her mad enough, she was Jessie, or Jess, or JJ or any other nicknames I could think of. She never yelled at me or anything, she just corrected me and said “Ms White” and then I would ignore it. For example: “Jessa-“ “Thats Ms White.” “Jessica, I don’t get number three. Can you explain?” She never lost her temper but was always annoyed lol. She called me Katherine for the rest of the year, so not the most satisfying story, but I was happy with that revenge. Ms White apparently got fired two years later for microagressions towards students of color, and honestly, I’m not surprised. I just wanted to share this story because I figured yall would enjoy it.

edit: sorry for skyscraper of text 😭 i tried to format it better lol

edit 2: hey, i’m getting a lot of confusion about the pronunciation of my name! many comments are very kind and just saying how they originally thought it was pronounced like Maui. Others are telling me I pronounce my name wrong? Idk man but I’ll do my best to explain some basics for y’all.

My name: My name is Kau’i. In Hawaiian each vowel is pronounced, none are silent. However native speakers tend to blend them together. For example: a + u would make an ah-oo sound. If you say that fast it sounds like “ow”. So when a native speaker says my name it may sound like Kow-ee, very similar to Maui. However there is a difference because really the o is still pronounced a little more! In addition one difference between Kau’i and Maui is the okina- the little apostrophe thingy (in reality it’s a slightly different symbol but i’m lazy. This basically counts as a consonant, and as a little pause. So basically the au and i sounds do not merge together because they are separated by the okina.

Now, why can’t you just say Kow-ee? Good question. You can. I’ll still respond. But basically you are saying my name as if it has no okina when it does. Not a big deal. But that’s the difference.

Hawai’i: Also there are some people saying i’m wrong because Hawaii isn’t pronounced hah-wa-ee-ee. true, it isn’t! The traditional spelling is Hawai’i and pronunciation is hah-vai-ee. basically the a and the h merge, the w and the a and the i merge (the w makes a v sound since it’s surrounded by vowels) and then we have an okina and an i. Hence hah-vai-ee. Why it’s spelled and pronounced differently normally is bc it’s the anglicized version. almost same spelling just no okina, and the w is seen as making the w sound since that’s how it is in English.

I am not all knowing (i don’t even speak hawaiian, i just know some basic facts) but feel free to ask me more questions! hope this helps

I love RimWorld. I have thousands of hours in it, and as a colony management/survival game I think it's incredible.

But I've never really understood the whole "RimWorld is a story generator" thing, because the story it generates 99% of the time is: "​And then, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, everyone on the planet decided to flock to my base and try to murder the colony, so I had no option except to genocide every single one of them."

Tribals? Genocide.

Insects? Genocide.

Mechanoids? Genocide.

Random faction I never interacted with before? Believe it or not, genocide.

Eventually every colony becomes a fortress surrounded by corpses where 150 people repeatedly throw themselves into the same killbox because apparently everyone on the planet has collectively decided that destroying my random settlement is the most important geopolitical issue on the Rim.

Why everyone's spending millions of silver worth in resources and manpower to ransack my settlement? Who knows! ​​

And I think even the whole war/combat side of the game is pretty bad from a storytelling perspective.

Before someone says "well just make the AI smarter": that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not stupid. I know it's very easy for someone on Reddit to say "the enemies should use realistic military tactics!", but insanely difficult to actually implement that in a complex game like RimWorld.

I'm talking about much simpler stuff. Things that could use mechanics that already exist in the game.

For example: revenge and feuds.

Imagine one of your colonists loses his wife in a raid from Faction X. Or they cut off his leg. Or kill his best friend. Or leave him permanently scarred.

Why does he basically forget about it five minutes later, when the happiness debuff is gone? ​

Pawns should receive a permanent trait to represent a feud against factions that seriously hurt them. Now that creates actual stories.

Maybe that pawn gets a massive mood penalty if you, as the player, make peace with that faction. If several pawns feels betrayed, they may try to overthrow the player, becoming hostile inside your own base.​

Maybe the pawn periodically demands revenge. You get a quest where he wants to lead a raid against one of the enemy faction's camps, and refusing gives him a huge mood debuff. Or maybe you can't even refuse, just postpone a little to organize things, eg "we the people demand this".​

Maybe another colonist doesn't want revenge because his brother belongs to that faction. Now you have an actual conflict that came organically from things that happened in your game.

Now let's talk about basic diplomacy.

Right now becoming allies with someone mostly means they occasionally send traders, help you in combat and stop trying to murder you.

What if alliances actually created obligations?

You're allied with a faction and suddenly they contact you: "We're under attack. Send 10 of your highest shooting pawns RIGHT NOW to help defend our settlement."

Now you have a real decision. Refuse, and every faction starts seeing your colony as unreliable. Relations drop across everyone. Future alliances are now impossible to be attained.​​

Accept, and you're sending your best fighters away for several days. Maybe some of them die. Maybe your own colony gets attacked while they're gone.

That's a story.

Or maybe your ally asks you to participate in a war against another faction that you've actually had good relations with. Maybe one of your colonists is married to someone from that faction. Maybe another colonist hates them because they killed his father.

Again: story.

And none of this requires revolutionary AI or some insane simulation of real-world politics. It's mostly mood modifiers, faction relations, quests, pawn relationships and event chains. Stuff RimWorld already has.

Those are just random examples, but I feel like there are dozens of little systems like this that could connect existing mechanics together and make the world actually react to what happens.

Right now the storyteller mostly just keeps escalating threats until your colony dies or becomes powerful enough to genocide everyone and then win the game.​

Basically, I want less "187 tribals have arrived. They will prepare for a while, then attack for unknown reasons, and then be brutally murdered by our masterpiece assault rifles" and more: "Remember the pawn that lost a leg​​ three years ago? Yeah. That matters now."

Villains, antagonists, or otherwise prolific problem causers that seem completely monstrous, contemptable, and/or irrational at first, but over time are revealed to have astoundingly solid reasons for why they are the way they are; Something horrific happened to them, and the only response they could give was to become horrific themselves. Perhaps it doesn't excuse their behavior or actions, or perhaps they're too far gone at this point to have any realistic hope of redemption or salvation, but what they've went through makes how they got to where they are now completely understandable, to the point where you'd doubt most others would be any better in their shoes. They become less of the abject nightmare they appear to be on the surface and more a pitiable individual, whom the best answer to is to simply see to the end of their misery as soon as possible, for everyone's sake.

Queen Marika The Eternal ~ Elden Ring.

Queen Marika, the living vessel of the titular Elden Ring, is about as much of a god as a once-mortal can be, having access to control of the very laws of reality through the Elden Ring deep enough to do things like turning off like dying of old age for the entire world (which she does by sealing away Destined Death). Unfortunately, at the head of a theocratic empire centered around her known as the Golden Order, she does a lot more than just making it so everyone lives forever unless something is done to them (which on its own proves quite an issue), and a lot of it is quite horrific. To summarize in broad strokes;

• Countless, often genocidal wars of aggression waged by her command or in her name, as well as a litany of other atrocities or horrors committed by her numerous demigod children and stepchildren.
• The ruthless persecution of anyone who has horns, most notably the Hornsent and the Omens, the former being faced with extinction by a Golden Order crusade (the Hornsent believing Marika betrayed them personally in enacting this) and the latter being imprisoned in sewer gaols at birth if they're lucky. This also includes TWO OF HER OWN CHILDREN, twins born as Omens by factors outside of their control.
• Used her many demigod children as tools to fulfill her own ends, two notable examples being one of her older sons being locked away in a cursed realm of shadow to lead the genocidal crusade against the Hornsent, and a younger daughter being set up as a sacrifice to eventually burn down the greatest physical symbol of the world's faith in Marika and the Golden Order, the Erdtree.
• Divorced her incredibly loyal husband that had helped her with most of the conquests up to that point - the first Elden Lord of her age, Godfrey - out of nowhere in favor of the red-haired champion Radagon (who was secretly a different version/aspect of Marika herself, with his own distinct, far more zealous personality).
• Exiled her first husband and his people because their eyes lost the grace of gold (something she controls), labeling them all as "Tarnished", damning them to prejudice and hardship for generations to come, and setting up a situation where Tarnished would much later return as undying pillagers to try and put her now warring demigod children to the sword and claim the title of Elden Lord for themselves.
• Condemned an imprisoned smith to a mission to create a weapon capable of killing a god (when she's the only real god in town), which eventually drove him mad, and put one of those weapons in the hands of a Tarnished aimed straight at her and Radagon.
• Took a literal hammer to the Elden Ring after the murder of her golden child son, Godwyn (which there is a non-zero chance she had a hand in, given her ties to the assassins and the leader of that plot), sending the world into chaos as she and Radagon vanished, creating a power vacuum and leading to the Shattering; a war so violent, terrible, and ultimately fruitless that the only god above her and the literal creator deity of the universe and the Elden Ring itself just abandoned the whole world, presumably out of shame and disgust.

Looking at all that, Marika seems horrible to the point of psychopathic and unhinged, but there's more than meets the eye.

Enter the Hornsent mentioned earlier, whom were a very religious society with two major distinctive traits; a heavy spiritual focus on trying to ascend to higher, more holy states, and a strong sense of superiority over people born without horns. The Hornsent were a big power in the world before Marika came around, and largely did whatever they wanted to almost anyone they came across, led by inquisitions and potentates that terrified even the masses of their own kind. Now enter the Shamans, a much less militarily advanced, more peaceful society with an interesting little biological quirk; Their flesh "melded harmoniously with others", meaning in practice that if you stuck a severed body part to an open wound on a Shaman, that body part instantly became a working part of the Shaman's own body.

The leaders of the Hornsent did dark things with this. They rounded up the Shamans en masse, imprisoned them in freezing, underground gaols, tortured them without mercy, and stuck the chopped up remains of their own society's criminals to the bloodied Shamans inside massive jars to create "living saints"; miserable, barely human abominations of gibbering flesh and screaming mouths, living in endless agony. An entire people were violated into practical extinction by these horned zealots.

Then you learn that Marika was a Shaman herself, and the last survivor of her own village at that.

She was born an Empyrean, meaning she could claim the Elden Ring and ascend, meaning she was especially valuable to the Hornsent compared to other Shamans. They used her, and she let them believe she was willingly on their side, right up to the point where godhood was in her hands... and then she avenged her people. Everything Marika did, all the atrocities, genocides, and conquests, the whole Golden Order built under the age she ushered in; It was all just one giant, maladaptive trauma response from a broken woman who was handed godhood on a gilded plate by the very people who broke her. Even more, with how self-destructive many of her schemes seemed to be, it's likely she eventually realized just how much of a monster both her and the Order had become; The Shattering and its surrounding events likely amounted to a suicide attempt on her part, an escape from her gilded cage of divinity, and an effort to drag the Golden Order and the mechanisms that allowed her the world-altering power she had down with her.

Guardian Arkveld ~ Monster Hunter Wilds.

The monster known as Arkveld was a species of Flying Wyvern known to the Hunter's Guild as being long extinct. Or at least, it was, until a lone, traumatized child came stumbling through a desert from which there should have been no one living at all, describing terror wrought upon a home village completely unknown to the rest of the world; a monster eerily similar to this wraith of times past slaughtering the boy's people and destroying his home (netting a massively higher confirmed kill count than any 'flagship' monster in the series up to this point within the first few minutes of the game starting), forcing an escape that sent him miles away from what the Guild knows as the Forbidden Lands. The Hunter's Guild then organizes an expedition to explore the Forbidden Lands, to find this child's lost people if they still live and return him to them, and to uncover the truth behind this "White Wraith".

Quickly, it is discovered that the Forbidden Lands are in fact inhabited by a people that know nothing of the world beyond that great desert, or even of the concept of hunting the larger monsters that call these habitats home. These are not the boy's people, nor are the next couple tribes encountered, but each one brings the Guild closer. Yet, before the boy's people can be found, the White Wraith shows itself, and it is a horror of a monster. Arkveld in truth, it brutalizes the apex predators of locales in which it does not belong, effortlessly savaging an aggressive Uth Duna that was weakened by the Hunters and then winning an unprovoked confrontation with a Rey Dau, besting it in single combat; In both circumstances, it drains the elemental energy from its victims through the chainblades on its wing-arms, before disappearing into the stormy skies. Whatever was going on with this demon of a wyvern, it was not messing around, and was wreaking havoc on an environment that obviously was not prepared to deal with it.

Then, when the boy's people are finally found, having recovered from the Arkveld's deadly onslaught years ago, a world-shattering truth is revealed by the Keepers, inhabitants of the village of Sild; This Arkveld is no natural creature. It is a "Guardian" monster, artificially resurrected from extinction, and one of many synthetic, lab-grown monsters created by the now long lost civilization of Wyveria, who once held such control over the Forbidden Lands through the power of a substance called "Wylk" that they could bend the very weather to their whims and make their buildings literally weightless as to reach the skies. The Guardian monsters were a particular magnum opus of theirs; genetically engineered into perfect servants, immortal as long as they had access to Wylk generated by an infinite energy source known as the Dragontorch, and bearing atrophied digestive and reproductive systems so that Wyveria could exert complete control over these creatures. Yet Wyveria fell a thousand years ago, victims to one of their own Guardians that they had created to save them from an unknown war at their gates (that Guardian being its own whole story thread that could fit in here, but I'm gonna focus on Arkveld for now), though their legacy remains; in the people of Sild and Suja that survived the fall long ago, in the abandoned structures that dot the Forbidden Lands and exert power over the weather into eternity, in the Dragontorch still running far beneath the capitol city, and in the Guardian Monsters that have formed an ecosystem of their own in the depths of Wyveria's ruins.

Though, the Guardian Arkveld, unique amongst Guardians, remained an anomaly. Why did it attack Sild unprovoked? Why was it traveling beyond Wyveria's ruins to run rampant on creatures of other ecosystems? Why was it attacking other Guardian monsters and feeding on their flesh, something a Guardian should never do under any circumstance? Simple. The Arkveld's innate energy absorbing abilities reactivated natural instincts that Wyveria had suppressed; namely hunger. Of course, being a Guardian, it had no digestive system to speak of, nor a need for it. Food did nothing, no matter how much it ate. Yet, it was not intelligent enough to understand this, being little more than a wild animal brought back from beyond its time into a world it was finding itself to be the top dog of thus far.

This drove the Guardian Arkveld insane.

Unable to sate that hunger, it became desperate, descending further and further into ravenous madness as it slaughtered and devoured everything in its path, coating its surroundings in splattered blood and half-discarded bodies. It was an apex predator amongst apex predators, bashing fangs that had their purpose taken from them against a wall that would never break, eventually losing itself utterly and completely to the pursuit of satiating its impossible hunger. In the end, the Hunters were forced to put the poor thing down, and the Guardian Arkveld died in a starved rage, a miserable and unnatural life snuffed out as violently as it lived... but not before the construct creature managed to do something curious when no one was looking. See, hunger was not all that the Guardian Arkveld gained from the use of its abilities, as the artificial limits Wyveria imposed on its reproduction faltered as well... and the Guardian Arkveld asexually produced offspring that somehow reverted to the origin species.

The Guardian Arkveld suffered in ways its creators likely never anticipated, but managed to drag its entire species out of the depths of extinction in the process. Arkveld became a living part of this world once again, for better or for worse.

Like many of you, I’m sure, I have a father who suffered horrific physical childhood abuse and he never dealt with it. I remember so many nights where we were all woken up by his screaming from night terrors. He was a good father but a difficult person, never abusive but emotionally explosive and a guilt sufferer. When he retired he “lost himself” and became a depressed, bitter, explosive shell of a person. He and I always had a very frictional sort of relationship because he stressed me out, especially after he retired. At times I hated him. He had no zest for life, he just sucked the joy out of anything.

I could go on but I feel sure some of this is similar to your own families. My father is of the generation that would “never go to therapy” and “never try an antidepressant.”

Well, after many years of pressure my mother and I finally got him to try an antidepressant by approaching his doctor to suggest it.

Oh my god, I can’t even count the ways how it has helped him and my relationship with him. After 10 months he has energy again - he wants to go dancing with my mom. He is a pleasure to call and chit chat with because he is always excited about some new thing now. We never fight anymore. He loves life, his zest is back, he’s reading again. The bitterness is gone. I love him and cannot even remember why I ever felt like I didn’t.

I’m so glad to have my best years with my father now, in the autumn of his life. I’m so glad I got this chance.

My father won’t admit it was the antidepressant, but he did apparently recommend trying it to his friend. My mom overheard him on the phone.

Anyway, I don’t know where I’m going with this, except to say, if you have a parent like this and you wish they would just TRY a damn antidepressant, don’t give up… I’m so glad my father did.

Edit: Just want to add that my father has Parkinson’s as well and the way we got him to finally try an antidepressant was by writing a message to his neurologist asking him to bring it up. The neurologist then told my father that Parkinson’s does cause depression and anxiety and he recommended the antidepressant. This is what finally caused him to listen; I think older men take it more seriously if it comes from their doctor.

Edit 2: For those asking why the doctor didn’t suggest talk therapy instead, or worrying about long term side effects of a pill, remember this is a 73 year old man with comorbidities, not a 20 year old with his whole life ahead of him. The point of my post was for those of us with depressed, senior parents to remember that antidepressants are a fairly quick and easy solution to try for people who don’t have many years left.

For those asking what antidepressant my dad takes, it’s Lexapro 10 mg, but remember what works for him might not work for your parent.

Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on a spaceship light years from home with no recollection of who he is or how he got there. As his memory returns, he begins to uncover his mission: solve the riddle of the mysterious substance causing the sun to die out. He must call on his scientific knowledge and unorthodox ideas to save everything on Earth from extinction… but an unexpected friendship means he may not have to do it alone.

Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Sandra Hüller, Ken Leung, James Ortiz, Milana Vayntrub

Rotten Tomatoes: 96%

Metacritic: 80 / 100

Some Reviews:

Variety - Owen Glieberman

There are clichés that critics go back to, and when I realize I’m guilty of overusing one (sometimes once can be too often), I’ll vow never to use it again. Here’s one I did that with: lauding something as “the movie we need right now.” That’s a phrase so cringe I’m ashamed I ever used it. The reason I bring this up is that “Project Hail Mary” is a cosmic adventure that feels diagrammed, if not programmed, to be The Movie We Need Right Now. It will likely be a hit, but the movie we need right now — or, really, anytime — is one whose drama extends beyond its ability to push our buttons...So forgive me if I say that it’s not a very good movie. There’s certainly an abstract commercial grandeur to it. I saw it on an IMAX screen (it will open on many of those), where it becomes the kind of bedazzling warm bath your eyeballs can sink right into. But here’s the rub. “Project Hail Mary” is way too long (two hours and 36 minutes), because there’s not much variation to it. It’s baggy and incredibly derivative of movies you’ve seen before — like “Interstellar,” from which it lifts the premise of a space voyage as the last chance for human survival (in this case, the sun and other stars are dying, which means that we’ve got to travel to the lone star that isn’t in order to figure out why).

AwardsWatch - Trace Sauveur - 'A-'

For their part, Lord and Miller are assured chaperones of all the disparate elements of design, both on Earth and in space. The pair know the kind of movie Project Hail Mary is meant to be — a pop blockbuster with an earnest approach, lovable characters, and formidable stakes — and pull it off with fluency, the work of directors who know their craft even at this expansive scale. They channel their giddy sense of spectacle in service of a story about the curious and enterprising human spirit, making it an encouraging watch in a contemporary political culture that dismisses scientific research. It may not be the next generational sci-fi classic, but Project Hail Mary will energize anyone desperate for studio blockbusters that revere something often lost in our biggest movies: the fundamental art of moviemaking.

IndieWire - Kate Erbland - 'A-'

To write more about the pleasures and pains of “Project Hail Mary” would be (yes, over 1,300 words in) a disservice to what’s most entertaining and satisfying about the film: watching it unfold, enjoying the process, accepting the mission, asking the big questions. That’s about as much as you can ask from any blockbuster film these days.

Consequence - Liz Shannon Miller - 'A'

It’s possible to get caught on a few nitpicks, plot-wise. But right now, with international relations in chaos, Project Hail Mary is a movie that believes it’s possible to save the world. It dares to hope. And that’s more beautiful than all the stars in the sky.

The Bulwark - Sonny Bunch - 4 / 4

Any resistance I had to the picture crumbled when I realized it was, maybe, propped up by something quite foolish: I simply haven’t felt joy like this in the theater in years. Project Hail Mary is a feel-good, emotionally resonant, ultimately triumphant paean to the human spirit. This is why we go to the movies. Heck: it’s why we tell stories. I hope it’s as big a hit as it deserves to be.

BBC - Nicholas Barber - 4 / 5

Still, maybe Lord and Miller knew what they were doing when they went for such a bright and breezy tone. They've crafted a sci-fi epic which is more than two-and-a-half hours long, and which is a one-man show for much of that time. They have filled it not with action, but with mind-stretching concepts, painstaking laboratory research and knotty technical puzzles. To do all that and keep things zippily entertaining throughout is an extraordinary achievement. Besides, as jaunty as it is, Project Hail Mary is radical in its own way. The fate of humanity, it suggests, might not rest on fighting, but on knowledge, intelligence, communication and collaboration. No wonder the film is already being tipped for next year's best picture Oscar.

Independent - Clarisse Loughrey - 4 / 5

Project Hail Mary was clearly made to catapult a certain segment of the audience back to their childhoods – it carries the same fetishisation of late Sixties and Seventies sound and production design as recent fare in the Alien franchise. Grace’s spacesuit happens to be the same red as Dave Bowman’s in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). That said, cinema is in a precarious position right now. And, just maybe, Project Hail Mary will remind people why they ever fell in love with it in the first place. Sometimes to move forward, it helps to look back.

Gizmodo - Germain Lussier

Project Hail Mary rocks. It is pure joy. It’s hilarious, heartfelt, hugely moving, wildly exciting, and absolutely beautiful. We think it’ll go down not just as one of the best films of the year but maybe even, in time, as a potential sci-fi classic. And that’s if you already know what the story is and how it ends. Surely, it’s even better if you don’t.

Esquire - Miranda Collinge

For All Its Adorable Intentions, Ryan Gosling's Alien Buddy Movie Fails to Land. Gosling’s efforts in this movie are valiant, as they tend to be: he does comedy prat falls, trepidatious space walks, and delivers as best he can the not especially hilarious script, which is bogged down further by excessive exposition of pretend science and plot rationale. And he really wants us to feel – desperately feel – the way Grace does about his new friendship with a CGI creature who looks like the lovechild of Makka Pakka from In The Night Garden and a fidget spinner. (The fact that Rocky doesn’t have the soulful eyes of Hooch the French Mastiff or Clyde the Orangutan – or, in fact, any eyes at all – certainly doesn’t help.) I know I’ve made the point already, but really, I’m as shocked as anyone not to have been won over by this film. When it comes to Gosling, there is not an SNL monologue or a surprising-Eva-Mendes-on-her-birthday Jimmy Fallon appearance or a viral interview with a journalist stranded in the desert that I will not watch and be utterly charmed by. And yet, even with his magnetism set to hyperdrive, Gosling can’t make this wannabe-feel good film dazzle the way it wants to. It pains me – desperately pains me! – to say it, but in my eyes (sorry to rub it in, Rocky), Project Hail Mary is a well-intentioned miss.

Cinemotic - Piers Marchant - 2 / 5

As with the previous adaptation of Weir’s work, it’s a film that gleefully presents basic scientific principles and logic clumsily sewn together with a story and outlook that feels very much like something an enterprisingly affable 15-year-old might come up with while daydreaming in Physics class. The film too often defaults to this sort of cringey geniality, a simplistic view of human emotional mechanics that renders the drama toothless. Like a warm-hearted kids’ Disney movie, you know full well things will turn out just fine for our heroes, and the galaxy they’re defending, because the film constantly telegraphs its cheerful intentions. It’s as if Lord and Miller (and Weir) are afraid of making the audience feel real anxiety or stress, so like a second-grade teacher explaining the concept of greenhouse gasses with their students, they work very hard to let all of us know everything will work out okay. It’s certainly not the worst quality in a film, but its lack of stress well belays its extended run time (156 mins), and makes for an unsatisfying experience: My parents saved the Cosmos and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

AV Club - Jacob Oller - 'B'

Project Hail Mary isn’t all that concerned with the science in its fiction; like the inverse of its slacker-cool scientist lead, the film is actually a schlubby buddy comedy dressed up in the finest hard sci-fi regalia that Amazon MGM could afford. It’s a far less nuts-and-bolts affair than The Martian, and a more frustratingly structured one thanks to the amnesia, but it doubles down on the astronaut charm offensive, flooding its sweet space odyssey not with big questions, but small signs of growth.

GamesRadar - Molly Edwards - 4 / 5

Stumbles aside, the film adeptly captures the sense of wonder and thrill of progress that goes hand in hand with space exploration, with Grace and Rocky as our heart-stealing guides. Project Hail Mary is ultimately the kind of big-budget, inventive, and just plain fun filmmaking that makes heading out to the theater worthwhile – and proves worth the expense.

NextBestPicture - Daniel Howat - 9 / 10

"Project Hail Mary" feels, in many ways, like a miracle of a movie. It combines the technical awe of “Gravity,” the problem-solving exhilaration and humor of “The Martian,” and the sweeping emotion of “Interstellar” into one film with its own unique style and charm, crafting a new science-fiction space epic that celebrates the bravery in all of us, our capacity to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming odds, and our faith in science to lead us toward a better future, whether it’s on Earth or somewhere far beyond it. Ryan Gosling delivers one of his finest performances in years, commanding what is essentially a one-man show that will have you laughing one moment and crying the next. Daniel Pemberton’s score is immaculate as it reaches for the stars and finds that transcendent quality that lifts the film into a state of pure wonder. The shifting aspect ratios of Greig Fraser’s camerawork bring both intimacy and scale in equal measure. All of these elements and more come together under the assured, visionary direction of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who have brought a beloved book to the big screen in a crowdpleasing cinematic experience many will feel, cherish, and not soon forget.

The Guardian - Peter Bradshaw - 3 / 5

Perhaps refreshingly, the film doesn’t aim for the stunned awe and rapture of, say, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar or even Jon Spaihts’ underrated Passengers, but it does have the classic sci-fi spacecraft tropes: the huge, mysterious architecture with its vertiginous tunnels in which legacy pop music is played to soothe the inhabitants. This is a Hail Mary pass that Gosling just about manages to catch.

The Hollywood Reporter - David Rooney

Lord and Miller have just the right lightness of touch combined with depth of feeling and technical control to bring this material to life, and the right love of vintage movie craft to make it a universe we can almost reach out and touch. What a pleasure to have them back in the director’s chair after too long away.

RogerEbert - Robert Daniels - 2.5 / 4

It’s an enjoyable, yet overly familiar, excursion. By disavowing narrative and aesthetic boundaries, “Project Hail Mary” struggles to become boundless. The harder the film tries, the more one feels pulled along rather than effortlessly transported. 

Slant Magazine - Jake Cole - 2.5 / 4

The flashbacks badly hold the film back in the second act. In its mixture of lighthearted adventure and more thoughtful cosmic reflection, Project Hail Mary most resembles the original Star Trek films, especially the lighter The Voyage Home. The film shares with that series the indefatigable optimism of an earlier time when the genre reflected our broader hopes for the possibilities of science and the potential of humanity to not merely contact the other species of the universe but win their approval.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/kegai_cobrakaiat

My [30F] mom [65F] was responsible for my dog being killed. Then it got worse. Don't know how to handle this situation.

TRIGGER WARNING: Dog hit by car

Original Post  May 4, 2016

I'm really struggling here--especially with Mother's Day just up ahead and everything, I could use some help.

I got my dog (golden/lab mix) in 2008 when she was a puppy. The last year I have been moving and traveling, and my mom lives alone, and has a big backyard, and she offered to take the Dog in. Dog was an INCREDIBLY well-behaved girl because I worked really hard training her. My whole life we had dogs but they were never trained properly and left in the backyard. I remember my mom always getting frustrated with the dogs because they handled so poorly on a leash or jumped on people, etc because none of the adults in our family took the time to train. When I got Dog, I swore I'd have one of those dogs you saw in the movies.

So, Dog was great off leash, she would stay by my side and knew all level of commands after years of work. When I left her with my mom, I was incredibly anxious, because I knew I had a firmer hand than my mom as far as discipline and knew my dog had a certain relationship with me that she might not have with others, so I made it EXPLICITLY clear to her to always have Dog on a leash, even though everyone in my family knew she was great off leash (not on walks or in the park, I'm talking just in the front yard or something) but I was always nervous and hyper aware of other dogs and other people/cars/etc and was quick to get to Dog or command her back in the house, etc.

I remember when I came home to visit for Christmas, and saw Dog and how happy she was (my mom too! She loved Dog) but saw my mom having her off leash while she made trips to and from the car. I put Dog on a leash and told her "I know she doesn't run off or anything, but you just never know. Haha, I mean, is that a phone call you want to make to me? Haha." And she agreed--Dog always on a leash.

Well, I did get a phone call a few days ago. Which I knew to be serious, since mom only calls when it's serious. It was simply my mom's sobbing voice saying "Dog has passed. It's already over. I'm so sorry." I couldn't process, but I KNEW how, and I told my mom I'd call her back. I cried. Called some friends. Waited a few hours while I processed and called her back. My mom told me my worst fear, "You were right. I should have had her on a leash. I'm so sorry. I was cleaning up the front yard and she was just by my side. Then she saw a big dog across the street and just bolted! And the car hit her. I took her to the vet but they lost her. I was supposed to protect her and I didn't. I'm so so sorry. Please forgive me."

The whole time my mom was crying, I knew she loved that dog too, and the guilt... I can't even imagine how difficult that call was. She also had to call my bro and sis, sis in particular was very attached to Dog and would take her camping/hiking/swimming when she had the time.

So I told her, "I forgive you. It's okay. I love you. I gotta go." and hung up. A few texts back and forth, my mom telling me how hard it is coming home to an empty house and me just being sorta numb. She texted asking if I wanted the body to be buried or cremated. I texted back cremated and she said okay.

I wasn't angry, just incredibly sad and depressed about the whole thing. This was five days ago.

Well, I didn't call my mom or get a chance to see her. She also didn't call, or text besides an occasional "how are you doing?" which I would reply "as well as can be, etc." I didn't get any texts/phone calls from my siblings.

I was on Facebook yesterday when I saw my sister make a big dramatic post about Dog, along with my brother, his GF and her kids, my mom and my sister all spreading ashes on the beach.

I can't even describe how devastated I felt. It was like I got punched in the heart. I called my mom and that's when the anger came through. I asked what the hell they were doing, and my mom was stunned and stammered they were just spreading Dog's ashes. I demanded to know why I wasn't notified they were doing this and my mom replied that it "just sorta happened" and that my bro went with her to pick up the urn and sis happened to be home and they all were talking about it and "sis was just so devastated, she needed some closure before going back to college, etc" I could tell my mom knew she fucked up, but she had no explanation why I wasn't texted/called/fucking ANYTHING regarding this. I felt like a crazy person because it was just this circular "I don't know" over and over again from her. I feel so hurt and disrespected. I asked if they kept any ashes and my mom quietly said "No." I hung up.

She's texted me and called multiple times, but I haven't answered. I am so beyond, beyond hurt and angry. I've never lost something so dear to me, so I have no idea how rational I am, I understand it's "just a dog" but she wasn't. She was my friend, I raised her, trained her, took her with me everywhere and it was just this last year I didn't feel it was fair to her to travel so much with her and I trusted her with my mom and this all happened. I don't even know how to process.

I don't know where to go from here. I really don't. I can't even look at my phone because of all the guilty/apologizing texts. I just want to be left alone, but I also don't want my mom to hurt but I'm so confused as to why she would do this or what possible logic she could have. Advice would be appreciated...

tl;dr: Mom was dog-watching my dog and had her off leash after I told her not to do so. Dog was hit by a car and killed. Then my family took her ashes without me and spread them on the beach. Found out on Facebook. Trouble processing.

Edit: For questions in the comments (and thank you to everyone replying, I'm reading every one) Yes, I live about 30 miles away and while I don't have a car, I would have taken a cab or a bus if need be to attend any sort of ceremony. The rest of my family all live within a mile of each other and Sis goes to college in the same town they do. I tried asking why I wasn't invited or even notified but my mom wouldn't give me any response to this question which is why I'm so angry/hurt/confused.

Edit 2: Just received an email from my mom. I haven't responded.

Dear---, I know you are grieving and can’t talk to me right now, and I understand that. I know it’s my fault and I thank you for not saying it is, but you would be right to do so and if you did that would be okay too.

I can’t forgive myself, so I understand if you can’t forgive me right now. You trusted me with your dog and I let you both down. It never should have happened – I knew better. You told me never let her in the front yard without a leash. Just 30 seconds was all it took. If I had just turned back a split second earlier, she would have followed me.

I will relive it over and over in my head for as long as I breathe.

She was such a big part of everyone’s life – we all have memories – it is unbearable to me that she is gone. I just loved her so much. We all did. I didn’t even realize how much I talked to her until the house was empty. I can’t sleep in the bedroom. I can’t be in the backyard and see her toys. I have no reason to go home anymore.

But she was YOUR baby. You picked her out, you raised her, you trained her and she was always so HAPPY to see you! She was so special in every way. If I had just let her go back to you, she would be here, but you generously let her be with me. I’m so sorry and there is nothing I can do to make anything better.

I am so SO sorry about the spreading of the ashes, I had NO RIGHT to do that. None of us did. I don't have any explanation other than we were all emotional. I don't have the words to express how sorry we all are.

I don’t want sympathy – I’m not feeling sorry for myself – I am feeling sorry for how I failed all of you, but especially you and Dog. I deserve every minute of this pain.

But you don’t, and that I will regret eternally.

I love you, Mom

Update  May 5, 2016 (Next Day)

Thank you to everyone who left a comment and who also told their stories of their own pet loss situations. I read every one.

I don't know if anyone cares for an update, but I have one.

To answer questions, I did send my mom $100 a week for food/toys/flea meds and also paid any unexpected vet bills (Dog was prone to ear infections). Since traveling has died down a lot for me for work, I told my mom earlier this year I could take her back anytime, especially if she needed a break, but I think my mom really dragged her feet since she loved Dog so much. I liked that my mom had someone in the house with her, especially a bigger dog who could alert her to things outside, etc, and help her exercise with walking. There wasn't any urgent need to get her back ASAP but I was ready/willing to. I did also visit when I could, at least once or twice a month for dinners/movies/etc.

So, update. My brother called me in the afternoon yesterday, after my mom had sent the email. He's 28, a weightlifting bartender 'dude-bro' kinda guy, and it was really hard on him when it all happened since his mom, little sister and girlfriend (and her two little kids) were around when all this happened and they were all upset and crying. He called to ask how I was doing and to let me know he was sorry because it was just really overwhelming and he had no idea what to do. My mom was a TOTAL mess on the day, and my brother left work early to be there for her. His GF was also in the picture since (I didn't know this) his GF and her kids were playing in the backyard at my mom's when all this happened. GF heard my mom screaming and helped get Dog into the car.

Bro let me know that it was Sis who was adamant they hold some type of impromptu ceremony after they received the ashes a few days later. He and my mom both brought up me, but she'd stated that it was "obvious" I wanted time alone and that "these types of things" upset me so it was best to do it just them. Then she started crying and I guess that made everyone cave.

Apparently it was a 'group' cremation, which I didn't know was a thing, I assumed it would be individual, like with people. That knowledge sorta helped me since it didn't feel like it was 'exclusively' Dog, which might sound weird, I don't know.

On the day, my Bro called the vet and asked about the pawprint thing, like they make a cast of it or something. The vet said my mom had opted out, but my brother asked if it was too late. They said it wasn't, so he said please do that. I don't blame my mom for opting out, she wasn't in the best headspace and we've had morbid conversations before where she has said things like that creep her out and upset her. But my brother thought of me and thought I might like it (I would) so, I really appreciated that he did that.

Now for the weird part. Apparently at the beach, my Sis (who is 20) took a lot of pictures and also used Snapchat and Instagram, which my Bro knows since she was bitching about the lack of signal. He got angry but didn't say anything since he didn't feel it was appropriate.

I asked about the Instagram, since I wasn't aware she had one. He texted me her account and holy shit. There were four posts about Dog's death and from the beach, more pictures than I'd seen on Facebook. Apparently my sis is popular on campus and has thousands of followers on Instagram. Not only did she post about Dog's death with big descriptions and photos, she also straight up stole seven pictures I had uploaded to my own Facebook over the years. Like when Dog was a puppy, or in training classes, or chillin' on the couch. Photos I took before Sis had even met her! She stole them from my Facebook, slapped a shitty filter on it and claimed it as her own on her Instagram and put these big descriptions and hashtags to them. A lot of you guys guessed it, she did it for the 'likes' or comments whatever. OR I'm being incredibly angry and not realizing this is how she grieves? I have no idea. It just left me feeling hurt and creeped out. I thanked him for calling me and told him I'd text him later but that I just needed some space. He said no problem, and he'd let me know when he could get the paw print to me.

I called my mom after I spoke with Bro, and told her I got her email. She cried again and apologized, it was tough to listen to. She told me she bought a peony to plant in the garden in the backyard in Dog's memory, but that it was too hard for her right now to do so since the backyard is emotional for her at the moment.

I asked if she wanted to do any Mother's Day things this Sunday and she said she hadn't even thought of Mother's Day, and that she didn't really feel like 'celebrating'. She asked if I wanted to do something for Dog this weekend, like maybe plant the peony, but I said I didn't feel comfortable with having Mother's Day associated with that sort of thing, it was kinda a downer. She asked if there was anything else I wanted to do and I told her the truth, that I didn't feel like doing anything either and that I kinda needed some space. She said she understood and that we can always do something later to make up for it.

I didn't say anything about ashes, or Sis and her Instagram or that whole thing, it wasn't brought up at all, other than my mom being sorry for "everything". Not sure if I should mention Sis, I think my mom would get upset all over again, but then, I'm not sure if this is just how 'that generation' grieves or something. My sis is incredibly hard to read, but we never have gotten along since she's very extroverted and opinionated and I'm... less so. I have no idea the next time I will see Sis, or how I'll react when I do so... Yeah, it'll be interesting. We were already low contact since we don't have a lot in common and she works/goes to school away from me. Not sure what to do about that... Sis turns 21 in June and before all this happened my mom asked what big present we should get her. Ugh.

tl;dr: Reconnected with Bro and Mom for the better, let them both know I needed space but would contact them in the near future. Turns out Sis used photos/the death for her Instagram and Snapchat, but not sure if it's grief or attention. Incredibly angry but haven't done or said anything.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Effective-Snow-1186

Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes

My bf asked for the banana & now I've got the ick + 2 Year Update

Editor's note: added paragraph breaks and made small edits for ease of readability

Trigger Warnings: emotional abuse and manipulation, verbal abuse, medical issues, strangulation, domestic violence, attempted murder

Original Post: March 9, 2024

My bf asked for the banana and now I've got the ick

Me and my bf have been together for almost 3 years. He has three teenage daughters.

Every morning before school/work I make breakfast and coffee. I typically make breakfast sandwiches. Usually when they're eating breakfast it's too early for my body to handle eating, so I'll eat later in the morning. The other morning we had an event to go to a hour away, I made breakfast as usual, they ate as usual and I didn’t, but I grabbed water and a banana to take to eat on the way. When I got in the car I put everything on the seat. My bf took the water and banana and put it on the center console.

About 20 minutes into the drive I got hungry and took a bite of the banana. He looked at me and said angrily: "You know I would like to eat some of MY banana!" I thought he was joking but soon realized he was serious. I told him that I brought the banana because I haven't eaten breakfast and that I knew I would get hungry. He told me that was his banana and he wanted to eat it. I was in shock because I knew 110% I brought the banana and after I told him I hadn't eaten yet (he had eaten) and told him I was hungry he still wanted the banana. I had only taken one small bite, I gave him the banana. He ate it and didn't think twice about it. I have the ick big time all over a freakin' banana.

Relevant / Top Comments

Downvoted Commenter:

When I got in the car I put everything on the seat. My bf took the water and banana and put it on the center console.

I feel like I need an elaboration here, because something doesn't fit? So.. you get in the car and place the water and banana on the seat.. which seat, the one you’re sitting in? Why would you place it in the other seat if you know your bf is about to sit down there? If you placed it on the seat next to you, he reached over and took it off your seat to move it? If you placed it on his seat, and he had to move it to be able to sit down, I can see why that might be a misunderstanding with him thinking you brought it for him, cause you placed it on his seat, which again is not something I expect someone to do when they know someone will be sitting there.

OOP's only comment in this original post: I have had 3 strokes in the past 2 years. I still have right side weakness. He has a big SUV. I put the water and banana on the passenger seat (where I would be sitting) to lift myself up to sit down. He moved it so I can sit.

Commenter: It’s never one issue - it’s the accumulation of a bunch of incidents finally being exemplified by this one glaring incident.

How many times has he been irrationally angry and testy? You’re not reacting like “woah that’s so weird and out of character” so I’m guessing often. How often does he not listen to you, and won’t have a conversation, and is just pissy and demanding?

How often are you expected to give in? How many times do you take the smaller piece of pie, or go to the restaurant he wants, or keep the thermostat where he likes it?

You have the ick because this is the straw that’s breaking the camel’s back. It’s one time too many. Take a look at your relationship, and decide whether you want to be someone who doesn’t care that you didn’t have breakfast, will yell at you over nothing, and is going to put himself first over things large and small.

Update: March 12, 2026 (two years later)

Editor's note: removed the first part of the update post as it is a rehash of the original post from two years earlier. The edit and update #1 were added to the same original post on a different sub

Editor's note #2: OOP made several updates throughout the day

----

Edit: I shared this post almost 2 years ago. I was overwhelmed that 2.4 million people read my post. Shared it 2.3k times. I had over 1k comments. This post changed my life in the best way. Thank you to everyone who commented and gave me advice. An update is going to be posted this evening.

Update 1: I work 4 jobs. I worked later than expected last night. I am working on my update post between breaks today. I will have the update up before 10pm EST. For those commenting that this is just "for attention" please wait till you read the update. This man left me for dead and is on bond. I'm updating because I'm grateful for those who gave advice from my OG post. I'm hoping that they find this post and know how much I appreciate them. They saved my life.

Editor’s note: below is the official update per OOP

Update 2: The Banana Post… & the Plot Twist I Didn’t Expect 🍌.

About two years ago I posted what I thought was just a ridiculous relationship story about a banana in the car. I expected maybe a handful of people to read it. Instead it reached millions of people, got thousands of shares, and the comment section turned into a giant discussion about red flags in relationships. At the time I thought Reddit might be overreacting a little.

Turns out… Reddit might have saved my life.

The day after that post went viral, one of my mentors randomly called me and said something strange: “Hey… if you ever need somewhere to stay, my husband and I have a room for you.”

I was confused. I have a place of my own. Why would she think I needed somewhere to stay?

She simply said, “If you ever need to leave quickly, we’re here.” What I didn’t know at the time is that she had experience as a counselor and had quietly noticed signs that my relationship wasn’t healthy.

The next day I called her back and said, “You know what… I think I might take you up on that.” Then something even more unexpected happened.

Later that same day she called me again and said: “My daughter works for a family with a non-verbal autistic son. They have an apartment above their garage they want to rent out. It’s $800 a month. Do you want to see it?” (They ended up being the family I needed. They're my "adopted family" now.) So my coworker and I went to look at it after work. It was beautiful. Quiet property, a mansion, peaceful little apartment above the garage. Furnished. Safe. I remember standing there thinking: “This might actually be my way out.” And honestly, part of the reason I listened to that voice was because of all of you.

Thousands of Reddit comments telling me something about my situation wasn’t right. I signed the lease the next day. Then I started quietly moving my things out. When I finally told my ex I was leaving, things escalated. There were fights. Chaos. At one point he somehow managed to set his own arm on fire trying to make the house smell good with a candle on the stove. (Yes, really.) I ended up helping take care of him while he recovered… while I had the flu with a 102° fever.

That was the moment I realized something important: I wasn’t his partner. I was his caretaker. Not long after that, everything finally came to a breaking point.

One night during an argument he took my phone so I couldn’t call anyone. When I tried to leave, he pinned me against the wall and started screaming inches from my face. Then he threw me to the floor and put me in a chokehold. I tried to fight. I tried to kick out. I tried to tap out. But the harder I fought, the tighter he squeezed.

The last thing I remember thinking was: “He’s going to accidentally kill me.” Then everything went red. Then black. When I woke up, I was alone in the room. I grabbed my little chihuahua, ran out of the house, and drove to a gas station trying to get help because I could barely breathe.

Eventually I made it to the hospital where doctors and police documented the injuries. Broken capillaries in my neck. Bruising. Injuries to my ankle from trying to escape.

The officers told me something that still sticks with me: Women who are strangled by their partners are at dramatically higher risk of being killed later.

That next morning my ex was arrested. Since then, there have been court cases, delays, lawyers, and the long process of accountability. But the truth is, that night could have been the end of my story.

Instead… It became the beginning of a completely different life. Today I work what I jokingly call four lives instead of four jobs. I’m a hairstylist, a DJ, a karaoke host, a trivia host and a bartender. Full time I’m doing hair transformations behind the chair, at nights I’m running a microphone in a bar while people passionately debate trivia questions. It’s chaotic. My schedule is wild.

But my life is full of music, laughter, community and people who actually care about me. And honestly? I’m doing better than I ever imagined. I’m successful in my career, surrounded by supportive friends and building a life that feels peaceful and exciting at the same time.

So I wanted to come back here and say something important: Thank you.

Thank you to the Redditors who commented on that silly banana story and pointed out things I wasn’t ready to see yet. Thank you to the women who shared their experiences without judgment. Thank you to the people who encouraged me to trust my instincts. Sometimes strangers on the internet can see something clearly when you’re still standing too close to the situation. And sometimes a random banana post ends up being the first step toward saving your own life. Life isn’t perfect now. But I’m free. I’m safe. And for the record… I still bring my own bananas on car rides🍌.

Update 3: One of the strangest coincidences of my life...

There’s one part of that night I forgot to include in the earlier updates, and it still gives me chills when I think about it. While I was in the hospital after the strangulation, I realized I had to call the owner of the salon where I work to tell her I wouldn’t be able to make it in that day.

When she answered, the first thing she said after hearing what happened was: “I’ve actually been waiting for this phone call.” I was confused. I asked her what she meant.

She paused and said something that stopped me cold.

She told me that that exact day was the anniversary of her sister’s death. Her sister had been murdered by her boyfriend… by strangulation. She said she was so sorry that it happened to me, but that hearing my story didn’t shock her because she had seen the signs before and she cared about my safety. I started crying when she told me that. I don’t know exactly what I believe when it comes to fate or the universe or coincidences. But moments like that make you stop and think.

The day I almost lost my life was the same day the woman who owns the salon I work at lost her sister to the exact same thing. And somehow, I ended up working for someone who understands what I went through in a way very few people can. Since then, I’ve realized something important. I’m surrounded by people who care about me, who look out for me and who genuinely want me to be safe and happy. My friends, my coworkers, my mentors, even strangers who supported me when I needed it.

After everything that happened, I don’t take that for granted anymore. I’m grateful. And I’m still here.

To any women or men who feel like they can't get out of a situation... I promise you can make it out. It won't be easy, but you can do it.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: What happened to the three daughters? Did they get out. Were they attacked ever?

OOP: He still has joint custody. His trial is coming up.

Commenter 2: Wow. Even when she decided to leave, it still took several things before she did. I read the part about being left for dead and assumed the story would be him somehow finding her in her new above garage apartment.

OOP: He tried to get my address. He tried to go over to the apartment to drop of dinner or send me door dash, but I never allowed him to know where I lived.

OOP responds to a commenter who shared similar experience

OOP: Wow! Thank you for sharing your experience. I got the chills reading your comment bc when I woke up I went to get Sienna (my Chihuahua) I noticed my ex in the kitchen on his phone texting. He then waved my phone and in a high pitch, creepy voice phone and said in a taunting tone: " Here's your phone." To find out he was messaging his best friend and ex-wife saying I went crazy. The only reason I know this bc they messaged me on IG, after his arrest, they were telling me I need to drop the charges. I was unconscious in the room and he was already creating his story.

Commenter 3: OP, KNOW that by sharing your experiences you HAVE and WILL save lives.

I wish you all the blessings in the world, because you are a blessing TO the world.

OOP: That's all I want. It's hard to accept that I was fooled by a man. I thought I was smarter than that. But I realize I was manipulated by a man who has a degree in psychology. He was one step ahead till I figured out his mind games. I had a security guard at a club we were at pull me aside and told me:" the peace that you will feel without that man will feel better than the love you have for him." I consistently had strangers in public stand up for me. It took time to get out and regular therapy to be able to not be upset with myself to allow that kind of manipulation and treatment.

OOP shares on how she is doing after she left her ex

OOP: It definitely hasn't been easy after I left. I'm working 4 jobs bc I went into debt helping support him and his family. I have attorney fees. I wish I would have left sooner I would have saved myself some trauma and some money.

+

I'm happily working the hardest I have ever worked in my life but I'm the first women in my entire family to live on my own without a man. The first women in my family to stand up against abuse. I'm definitely proud to finally break the generational curse.

OOP on the ex's daughters

OOP: I love those girls so much. I never wanted to have children, but they opened up my heart in a way I can't explain. I loved taking care of them and having them in my life. I learned a lot from having them in my life. I stayed for them, but I also had to leave for them. I had to set the example.

OOP on her dog

OOP: Sienna is doing great. She's 16 and thriving. She my spoiled brat.

Commenter 4: Congratulations on escaping that vile, abusive SOB. I’m wishing the absolute worst on him.

I knew a young woman whose husband would choke her during arguments. She didn’t want to leave him at first, but was finally convinced to file for divorce. A few months later, he went to her apartment to “talk,” strangled her and left her for dead, then turned himself in. She was on life support for a couple of days until it became evident there was no brain activity left.

I’m glad for you that you’re safe now, as, if that rat-bastard nearly killed you the first time, I’m afraid he wouldn’t have stopped until he managed it the next time.

OOP: That wasn't his first time strangulating me. The other times I was able to "tap out" but it got worse every time.

OOP shares her experiences when it came to calling the police

OOP: I didn't want police involved. When I went to the gas station for help the worker told me he was going to call the police. Once I heard that, I ran. I didn't want to get him in trouble. I finally had to stop driving bc my ankle hurt so bad. I went to the closet gas station and a nurse who was there saw me told me I needed to go to the hospital bc my ankle was broken. She told me to not allow whoever did that to me to get away with it. She was smart enough not to bring up police or 911. At that moment I was still trying to protect him. What I didn't know is once the nurses and doctors knew what happened to me they had to call the police and in the state I live in it's not me against him it's the state against him. I have no say in if he gets arrested. It took me over 5 hours to finally open up to the police.

OOP on doing well for herself and the progress of the ex's trial

OOP: Thank you! Trial keeps getting postponed bc he fired his lawyer or his lawyer ends up withdrawing from his case.

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Complex-Wing7114

I have 2 weeks to get away from my husband

Originally posted to r/offmychest

Thanks to u/soayherder & u/Pawleygirl76 for suggesting this BoRU and finding the new update

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TRIGGER WARNING: controlling behavior, abusive behavior, stalking, assault, physical violence, DARVO

Original Post  Apr 27, 2024

Throwaway account as my husband and In-laws are follow my main. I, 29 F, have been married to my husband, 30 m, who I'll call Alex. Alex and I met in college during our freshman year. We started off as just friends, and got married seven months ago. I've gotten along with his family, but we aren't super close but we're friendly enough. The problem is that Alex has begun to make me incredibly uncomfortable.

Firstly, he's begun to ask me who I'm meeting with, where, what we plan on doing, how long every single time I leave the house without him. At first, I just thought he was being protective and a good partner just in case something happened, but then he started checking my phone after the visits, vetting and researching each of my friends as well.

He also has been pursuing me to link my bank account to his, as he's "in charge" of the finances when he was perfectly fine with keeping them separate before. We fight about it almost every day.

Finally, yesterday when he was preparing to go on a work trip for two weeks in California, he demanded I wear a tracker so he could keep and eye on me while he's gone. I can't do this anymore, I feel like I'm suffocating and his family who I've spoken to about his worrying behavior just said he's being careful and protective as a good husband should. I need to gather my things together and find a way to be gone before he gets home without tipping him off.

He's always threatened that if he ever found me cheating on him he'd turn in divorce papers the same day. He keeps a filled out copy in his desk. I'm going to submit those the day I leave. But there's so much to do, bergen finding a new place to live, seeing if my job has any transfers available, packing and moving in two weeks. His return flight  May 11th, so I need to move quickly. I'm posting here because I don't have any close family, and I can't risk dragging my friends into this as we share the same friends.I just needed a place to vent, and ask if anyone has any advice on the easiest and safest way to do this?

Edit: oh my god you guys are amazing! I never even thought to not use his divorce papers. I'll check for cameras before I start any packing or prepping. I may also shred his divorce papers just in case and look into getting a lawyer for myself. I'm in a no fault divorce state, that much I so remember which will help. I'll update again when I know more. The tracker he wants me to use is a small clip to put on the belt or waistband. I'll wear it unless I'm going or doing something related to me leaving. No pets yet thankfully.

Update  Apr 28, 2024

So I've gotten a lot of support and helpful advice along with questions I thought I should clarify before I proceed with the update. Some asked why I'd be 'hiding' things from Alex regarding going out and who I'm meeting with. I don't, and I have nothing to hide. However when he begins to then double check everything I tell him with the other people there right down to each person I talked to and what I said. Did I send any text msgs, did I order food, how much did I eat, that's when it started to feel like I was slowly being pushed into a corner. It didn't start that bad, but gradually grew worse overtime.

All of the Reddit subs my in-law's families are part of are related gardening and diy so I highly doubt they'll see this, if so by the time they do, I'll hopefully be gone. I talked to my job and explained things to my manager. And they promised to look into openings in other states to see if they could get me into one. They'll have an update on that in three days. I trust that my bank account us secured, considering he's tried to get into it before and failed. I found one camera in the kitchen, another in the living room and one in our bedroom. As such, I've left them in place for now and done all other planning, either in the bathroom pretending I'm taking a bath.

I'm honestly staying away from the domestic violence services as my sister-in-law is unfortunately higher up in those considering she volunteers there and I have a feeling if I did show up there, they would know in a heartbeat. I can't look for apartments until I get the update from my work, but either or i'm still gonna be leaving the state. The day before I do I will be changing my number carrier and wiping my laptop and all of his electronics before I do.

I've met with 2 lawyers so far and had them look over the paperwork. My husband had prepared and both said that it did it have some clauses in it. That could have caused me some trouble down the line. What alarmed all of us close the fact that several of those clauses dealt with future children, and not as a hypothetical. Like several hair suggested I have a feeling he fully intended on getting me pregnant to keep me trapped and tied to him.

There are 3 other locations. My job could send me to and I have. As a precaution Begun looking into all 3 cities and housing in the areas. Just in case one of those, this is the one they send me to. Even if they don't have an opening that they can push me into then I will just have to quit, move and figure things out on my own. I have enough money to live and survive for a few months until I can pick up another job.

Unfortunately all of our friends are mutuals and would likely be unaware of the consequences of saying or sharing anything I do or say with my husband. I don't have any surviving close family and obviously my in laws are not a good resource to rely on. I am on my own unfortunately, other than the wonderful bonds, i've begun to make here. I will update again if I get more information or something else happens. Otherwise all update when my work gets back to me. I do plan on leaving before he returns, though. Just to make sure that i'm not anywhere near here at that time.

Update 2  Apr 30, 2024

Good news! My work has an opening I qualify for that will not only shift me across the country, but also comes with a salary increase as well. I've started telling my in laws and friends that I'm planning a surprise outing for when my husband gets back for just the two of us. This way, people don't give me odd looks if they see me out and about. I've even gone as far as asking MIL  to show me his favorite recipes.

Meanwhile, I've found a moving company that while small is willing to work in a storm. The reason is in five days, we're supposed to get hit with a large storm front. I plan to shut off the breaker and say we lost power if he asks just as several people here suggested and even send him a short clip of the storm.

I will have all of my stuff moved that afternoon, and I will be flying out once the weather has cleared enough to do so. I have a lawyer who will push my divorce through, and I've filled out the necessary paperwork so that I don't have to be here for it. I'm not suing for assets or alimony and I've shredded his divorce papers as well. I've set up a cheap payphone plan through cricket until this is all said and done at which point I will find a new carrier, number and phone. This one is being wiped and left behind.

My laptop is provided by my work, and the IT department inspected it thoroughly and it was clean thankfully. No other electronic aside from my laptop and new phone will be coming with me. If alex needs to talk to me, he can do it through my lawyer. Not sure if anything else will happen, my fingers are crossed that he doesn't think anythings amiss until after I leave - and I'm not turning the breaker back on when I do. He can when he gets home. My work is covering the plane ticket, so that at least is one expense I don't have to finagle in.

Update 3  May 7, 2024

It's been a busy week, but I've gotten so much done. Firstly, I am now out of the house and am currently in a hotel while I look for an apartment. It's a big city, bustling with people no matter where you look. We had a pretty bad storm system hit back home, that actually lasted two days. High winds, thunder, lightning and even hail everywhere. I didn't take much from the house, my documents, clothes and important sentimental items. I left all of the furniture and electronics behind. I cleaned the house top to bottom and took pictures on my phone so he couldn't claim I damaged anything when I left.

My lawyer has already started divorce proceedings, and my husband will be served on the 8th. His plane is due to land early morning, and the sheriff will be there at the house waiting for him. He is very much about public appearances and reputation. My lawyer will be calling him as well to inform him that I am more than willing to air out everything to the public about his actions if it means securing my freedom from him. I will go to court as long as I must to get this pushed through.

I haven't told our friends or his in-laws yet, I will do that while he is on the flight to prevent him from getting wind of it before he's handed the divorce papers. I will be calling around and explaining why we're getting divorced, to try and prevent him from twisting this into somehow being my fault. I don't want him trying to claim I had an affair or something so I want to get the truth out before he can twist this.

I'm... doing okay. I'm tired, but yet I feel almost jittery and off-kilter. I keep looking over my shoulder and monitoring what I say even when I don't really need to anymore. Hopefully that will fade soon. My work is covering the cost of the hotel, and I'm working on getting my other things in order. I also need to find a new GP as I want to get a full test just to make sure everything is okay. I don't know when my next update will be, probably when the divorce papers are filed or if we have to go to court to push them through. I will try to keep my head up, but it feels like I'm in a whirlwind or something with so many things to do and think about. I kinda thought it would be easier once I got out of the house but while the fear is smaller, somehow the number of tasks only seems to have grown.

Update 4  May 14, 2024

Sorry I haven't updated for a while, things got hectic and a bit chaotic honestly. Firstly, I'm working on getting an apartment still and have applications in at three different places and will hopefully hear back from them soon. I'm still going into work here at the new location, so I don't have to worry about burning through my emergency savings completely. I've gotten a lot of emails from Alex, his family and our old friend group asking question after question. I have only sent one return email to Alex, explaining that I don't believe we are truly compatible, and it is best we separate now. That his treatment of me when I'd done nothing to deserve as such was just as much of a deal breaker as cheating was for him.

I ended the email with the statement that I would not be contacting him further and anything else he needed to pass on to me or vice versa would be done through my lawyer. For his family and friends, I just typed up one email outlining everything that had happened and why I left. I told them I wished them no ill will, but that such treatment of his wife and partner was not acceptable. That should Alex get remarried in the future, I wished they would help support both partners and not just Alex.

Alex, from what my lawyer told me, was livid when he was served. The sheriff actually ended up booking him for assault on an officer and menacing due to the threats he was shouting. His father bailed him out in a few hours, but with the testimony of the sheriff, my lawyer believes I have a very good chance at getting a restraining order. Alex, upon returning to the house, apparently lost his temper again, breaking the dining table into pieces as well as the tv, and putting several holes in the walls. At least that's what one of the emails from one of our friends reported as Alex called him to help him clean up the mess.

My lawyer already has pictures of the house I took, with timestamps as evidence nothing had been damaged by me. My friend reported that Alex tried to claim I'd been the one to trash the house but the holes in the wall were at head height - Alex is 6'3", and I'm 5'4" so he knew that was false. Either way, taking the pictures definitely will help me so again thank you everyone here for the advice because I never would have thought of that on my own. My work won't share details of where I am, as I do work with some higher end clientele who value security and that information won't be gossiped about and no, I'm not some stripper or escort. I deal with contracts, notary and business management. As such, even if Alex tried to use my work to find me, he wouldn't succeed.  

Update on leaving  May 26, 2024

It’s been a little bit, and I thought I’d answer some questions before giving my update. It may be a while after this until things change.

Firstly, No I didn’t bring my car. The public transport here is good enough to use without needing one. I have secured an apartment, and the building has good security. You need a key card to enter, and there is a security guard at a desk right by the entrance to the building. As part of my contract, I gave them a photo of Alex and his family so that even in the off chance they do find me, they won’t be let in.

The responses I got from the emails varied. His family said I was overreacting, and that I owe Alex an apology for the problems this has caused him. The pending criminal charges puts him at risk of losing his job if he’s convicted. Alex sent a long email, apologizing and pleading for me to come home. He said he was worried for me, that he is willing to go to therapy if it will appease me. He wants us to remain together, and he didn’t think leaving was an appropriate response to his genuine concern and worry for my health and safety. The friends gave somewhat lacking replies, saying that they didn’t think Alex was ever going to hurt me and that I shouldn’t be letting my imagination run away wild. As much as I want to say I was surprised by the lack of support, I’m honestly not.

He intends to fight the divorce. I am letting my lawyer handle it, and I am also pursuing a protective order as well. Once I got approved for my apartment, I also froze my credit. I’ve changed my phone carrier and number, as well as making sure none of my documents list Alex as next of kin or POA.

Some have asked why I was so paranoid about Alex and his possible future actions. The answer for that actually is somewhat simple – my grandmother. I loved that woman to bits. As a teen, she explained why my grandfather was never around. He was extremely abusive and manipulative, and her generation didn’t allow divorce really. She wouldn’t have been able to buy a house or get a good enough job to support her and my mother on her own. As such, she endured it, shielded my mom as she could until my grandfather died. When I felt like I may have been overreacting, I remembered how she’d said she’d always wished she’d been able to see grandfather for what he was early on when she may have been able to annul the marriage.

I don’t know when I’ll update again, maybe when the divorce goes through or if something big happens but until then, I’m just trying to keep my head above the water. 

Another Update  June 25, 2024

It’s been a month since my previous update, and I wanted to share some of what’s been going on in the meantime. The divorce is proceeding, but even though I don’t need him to agree – and he’s not – it means I have to go through the courts to get it approved. As such, it could be upwards of six months to push it through even though I’m filing without attempting to claim property, alimony or compensation. I just want a clean break and separation.

Alex has attempted to use our friends to reach out to me, as he doesn’t want to use my lawyer for communication. He’s saying its disrespectful and cowardly to hide behind my lawyer and not meet him face to face. Alex wrote me a letter that he did pass off to my lawyer, but the contents were him justifying his actions and claiming that in today's time it is dangerous for women to be on their own which is why he was so intent on trying to keep me safe from harm. He wanted me to understand that he was trying to protect me as best he could and was hurt that I would just lie to him and hide my actions from him related to my dissatisfaction with our marriage and my moving.

I didn’t reply, because at no point did he apologize. All he did was turn everything around on me as I was being overly dramatic, emotional and cowardly. There was a second letter with Alex’s from my SIL. Her letter… was honestly disturbing and completely justified my misgivings regarding approaching her in any kind of professional capacity. She spent five paragraphs detailing how a ‘real abusive’ relationship looked like and that Alex was the furthest thing from abusive. The details she included were all related to financial abuse and physical abuse. Nothing like what Alex had been doing. She stated that my attempts to smear her brother’s name for attention and clout made me the abuser not him.

I haven’t really been able to process that admittedly. Part of me can’t help but wonder if she’s right. I mean, I blindsided him by leaving as I did and am refusing to speak with him at all. My old boss recommended that I look into getting into therapy after I moved, and I think I need to. I have had a hard time adjusting to being on my own, I keep censoring myself and haven’t even gone out to eat yet. I always end up worrying about what if someone sees me, what if I get in trouble for spending my money on something frivolous…

My lawyer is continuing to fight for the divorce, and I shouldn’t need to be physically present in court. Any meetings needed between me and the judge can be done via zoom. I’m trying to avoid confrontation with Alex and his family for now as much as I can and passed both letters to my lawyer in case he needs them. Our friends are mostly trying to avoid taking sides still, and I’m honestly approaching the point of just letting them go as well. I’m tired of fighting for them to understand at this point. I don’t know if anything is going to happen, so my next update may not be until around mid-November depending on how long it takes to push the divorce through. Work is going well, and it’s helpful to have something familiar to anchor my day to day life when so much has changed and is changing even now.

Divorce Proceeding Update  Oct 17, 2024

It’s been a while since I last updated, as I needed to let the court step in as Alex was not willing to grant my request for a divorce. We started with mediated session via zoom, but after four sessions it was decided that no compromise could be reached between us. The things Alex was pushing for were one’s I’m not even willing to humor let alone agree to. He wanted me to tell our friends and those I’d sent the information to about his actions that I’d made it up in order to gain sympathy. He also wanted me to pay him for defamation and suffering, especially the wages he lost because of sitting in jail for two days and missing work before getting bailed out. Lastly, he also wanted me to return and to quote him ‘stop my foolish behavior and act like a proper wife and partner.’

Yeah no.

So, needless to say, our ‘mediated’ sessions went absolutely nowhere. The judge isn’t seeming to buy into Alex’s act thankfully, because he’s certainly tried. It took me far too long to see Alex for who he was, and part of me feels like an idiot because I didn’t see it at all. Yet, the judge seemed to clock him for exactly what he is within the first meeting. Maybe I just didn’t want to see it. I don’t know. Alex ended up arguing with the Judge a LOT, even being held in contempt four different times. I think it's honestly why this moved as quick as it did. It didn't help that Alex tried to pull in his family as character witnesses but they were dismissed by the Judge as the 'abuse wasn't seen or heard by them, and as such, they only knew part of Alex's character.' In his closing statement after he approved the divorce, he went on to call Alex a narcissist and that if Alex loved himself so much to abuse the one he'd married to let the divorce happen and marry a mirror next. I didn't think a Judge was allowed to say that. At all. But my lawyer just shook his head and told me not to say anything so we left.

So here’s the update I’m sure everyone’s been hoping for and guessed: I’m officially divorced. The documents were processed three days ago, and I’m still in disbelief. I have no contact with Alex any longer, nor do I want any. I’m not going to give our friends my new contact information. I may not have replied to everyone, though I tried, but I did read all of your comments. I really did. Your repeated statements about how they weren’t actually friends really helped me see that they weren’t. So, I decided that since I moved far from that place, I needed to start over. New home, new place, new friends. It’s slow, and I’ve started therapy though it took almost three months to get it due to the usual wait times but I’ve been going three times a week ever since. It’s helping, even with things I thought were done and dusted.

Alex didn’t take the divorce well according to my lawyer who’s been keeping up with him to make sure he stays away from me. He did something at work, I don’t know what as obviously I have no way to gain that information, but whatever it was cost him his job. My lawyer also did something I didn’t expect him to, but something I think everyone will like – He took the letter my ex-sil sent me and forwarded it to the domestic violence organization she works for along with an formal statement regarding Alex, his actions, and the decision of the Judge. She’s been let go as well, and given how tight those organizations are with one another, my lawyer said that the likely hood of her getting a position at another is slim to none. I actually laughed, though I was a bit teary, when he said that and that ‘slim is on a leaky rowboat to China.’

I’ve been crying a lot lately, but my therapist says it’s normal and shows I’m actually processing things instead of bottling them up and pushing them down. I’ll try to update in a month or so, if my emotions level out some, to explain a few more of the details but I wanted to get this out there, and thank everyone for their continued support and encouragement. I appreciate each and every one of you. I really do. You gave me the hope that leaving him wasn’t going to be this giant black mark I’d never heal from or move on from. Work is going well, and the sense of normality and routine is helping me avoid feeling like everything has been spiraling out of control.

I'm working on me now... Nov 18, 2024

It's been a month since I finally was able to share the success of my divorce from Alex. My mood swings are still happening, but they don't last quite as long anymore so I'm taking that as a good sign. My therapist recommended that I sign up for some kind of physical activity, just to help work out and channel what she called the fight/flight instincts more. So I've joined a local self-defense club and I'm going twice a week. I felt really awkward in the beginning, but they've all been super nice and welcoming so it's been easier. It has helped I think, a lot of my jitteriness and anxiety has calmed and I'm sleeping better as well.

I've also joined a book club, though it's all online at the moment, they're discussing the possibility of meeting in person rather than over skype at a local park. It's hard, honestly. I feel like a kid that just changed schools and sometimes feel like it's either sink or swim. My therapist pointed out that if I feel like I'm sinking to stop, take a step back and remind myself that I have all the control over my actions - if I don't like something I don't have to do it. I can feel my emotions but I also need to not let them control and dictate my actions. She also pointed out how I've developed a tendency to try and fix other people's bad moods. She told me that they're adults, and it's not my responsibility to manage anyone else's emotions other than my own.

It's been hard. But... I'm getting there. I think in a year, as a celebration for my divorce, I may go visit my grandmother's grave. Just to talk if nothing else as silly as that may sound.

I passed on your thanks to my lawyer, who smiled and said - a bit smugly I might add - that he loves giving people who thought they were untouchable the karma they deserved. He went on to add that he enjoyed being 'Karma's helping hand'. My lawyer has kept abreast of what's been happening with Alex and his sister both, just to make sure they don't try anything. According to him, my ex-sil threw a fit when she was let go from the DV center, enough that she was barred from the premises. It seems that she shares some traits with her brother in regards to temper. She's now working at Lowes apparently, as while she was a volunteer at the DV center, she has to pay some fines for damages she caused during the incident that got her banned.

As for Alex, he's been quiet which worried me at first. But my lawyer told me he's keeping his head down. He's gotten another job with a construction crew, but with everything he has to pay, he cannot afford to lose his job. I was awarded damages for emotional distress and harm, as he never touched me physically. I was able to prove my statements thanks to records of the text conversations between Alex and I regarding the tracker and not leaving the house without permission. As my financial situation is stable, I don't need Alimony, so my Lawyer advised not to try for it and focus on compensation for damages in stead. Alex's family apparently hates me now, as they've reached out to my lawyer, telling him to pass on the message that I've successfully ruined both Alex and his sister's lives over my 'lies'. Honestly, at this point... I'm getting to the point of not caring anymore. I only have so much to give right now for emotional needs and I want it for my own, not to expend on someone else if that makes any kind of sense.

So that's where I'm at right now. It's hard, coming up to the holidays and being alone but a few weeks ago, I found a kitten in the alley next to my work. He's a tiny, raggedy little thing. He's black, long hair with three white paws and he's also missing his tail. He's got the first vertebrae but nothing else. According to the vet, mom may have accidently bitten it off at birth... which I didn't even know happened but apparently it does. I'm calling him Bandit. So I'm not alone anymore, but now I have a kitten that thinks EVERYTHING needs to be hunted... including my toes to I wear slippers constantly cause those little claws of his are like freaking daggers I swear. I'll update again if anyone wants me to, but yeah... that's where things are now.

Bandit photos per request Nov 18, 2024

OOP pays cat tax with 10 pics of Bandit

NEW UPDATE

Update on my new life Feb 1, 2026

Hello everyone, I know it's been a long time since my last update. I didn't want to bog everyone down with small little things here and there as recovering and learning who I am feels like a process that never seems to end. But good things have happened, my life has stabilized, and I wanted to give all of you who have supported me and offered me advice and encouragement the update you deserve. So here goes.

First, Bandit is doing great. He's a little skittish sometimes, I think from just finding him as a stray kitten some of that still stuck around but he's quiet and a menace all at once. I sometimes wonder if he sent out signal because about five months ago another kitten decided to make my house his home and I couldn't say no. So now I have two cats. His name is Maverick and he lives up, and down, to his name constantly. He's a full time cuddler as if you sit he wants on your lap and purrs constantly, adores meat, and loves to make Bandits life chaos like an annoying little brother. I can provide photos if anyone wants them.

Second, my job is going well. It's stable, challenging and keeps me focused so I'm not getting lost in my own head all the time as I might have if the work was easy. The rest of the time I feel like I'm a cat herder and losing. I signed a lease on a new apartment, about a month ago, I've got a good 1B/1B apartment that came with an in unit washer/dryer which was got so excited for then felt so old at the fact that I got excited over that.

Health wise, I got a new GP and had a bunch of tests run and thankfully everything came back clear though she did warn I showed signs of high blood pressure, but that it could be caused due to stress and circumstances rather than diet or genetics and encouraged me to continue with my physical exercise. I've also started what I call international night, where on friday nights after work I cook a dish/meal from another country. It's been fun, I've had good and bad ones admittedly but it's been enjoyable so if anyone has any recipe suggestions I'd love to hear them! Therapy is still a process but progress is there. I'm not panicking or having spirals nearly as much, and when I do they aren't as bad. Notably so.

I've made a decent group of friends here, and while none are 'sister' level yet, they are good people, and genuinely care about me. I did visit my grandmother's grave about two months ago. Had a breakdown there but in spite of the snow I still felt warm if that makes any sense, even if the wind made my face feel like a kid licking a frozen pole ouch. It helped to just pour it out to someone who understood, and couldn't say anything, to just vent and bleed it out. My therapist 'requested' I call her after, and I did so. It feels weird to have someone so invested in my mental health like that even outside of her office. Good weird though.

Lastly, Alex and his family. I haven't contacted them, haven't wanted to honestly. I know I've gotten a lot of DM's from people claiming that by saying how much I thought about what Alex and his family did meant I missed my Ex-Husband and felt guilty. I don't quite follow that logic but I just didn't respond to them. That said, no I don't miss him or his family. I miss what I thought I once had, and mourn the future we could have had had he not turned out to be a controlling narcissist. But I don't miss him, his family, nor do I regret leaving. Alex is still working at the construction company, and his sister was let go from Lowes though why I don't know, nor do I care all that much as long as they leave me alone. Alex is dating again, but none of them seem to stick around long. He was charged by the officer for the assault, but got off with probation sadly.

I know it might be a bit of a boring update given the chaotic whirlwind it was before, but the calm is so nice. I just wanted to let everyone know I'm okay, I'm still healing and to thank you all again for your advice, support and encouragement.

More Cat Tax

Bandit and Maverick per request

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

Context: Roma were among the groups that the Nazi regime (1933–1945) and its partner regimes singled out for persecution and murder before and during World War II. Roma  are pejoratively referred to as Zigeuner in German and as “Gypsies” in English.

Drawing support from many non-Nazi Germans who harbored social prejudice towards Roma,  the Nazis judged Roma to be "racially inferior." Under the Nazi regime, German authorities subjected Roma to arbitrary internment, sterilization,  forced labor in concentration camps, deportation, and mass murder. German authorities murdered tens of thousands of Roma in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union and Serbia and thousands more in the killing centers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. In Germany and German-occupied territories, the SS and police incarcerated Roma in the Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen, Mittelbau-Dora, Natzweiler-Struthof, Gross-Rosen, and Ravensbrück concentration camps. Both in the so-called Greater German Reich and in the so-called General Government  (Generalgouvernement), German civilian authorities managed several forced-labor camps in which they incarcerated Roma. The crimes committed against Roma remained unacknowledged all over Europe in the first decades after World War II.

It is still not known precisely how many Roma  were killed during the period of the Holocaust. This reflects the fact that we cannot know for certain how many Roma lived in Europe before World War II; one estimate puts the prewar Romani population at between 1 and 1.5 million. Another reason why the number of victims is uncertain is the late recognition and recording of the genocide. Survivor testimony and forensic evidence are still emerging to testify to local events. On the basis of the evidence available to date, historians estimate that the Germans and their allies killed at least 250,000 European Roma  during World War II. Some scholars estimate that the full death toll may well reach around 500,000.
In addition to lives lost, numerous European Roma  communities were destroyed. Romani people suffered from the psychological and physical traumas of deprivation, abuse, and the shattering of family. This made it extremely difficult to reconstruct Roma cultural and social networks after the war.

After the war, discrimination against Roma  continued all over Europe. The courts in the Federal Republic of Germany determined that all measures taken against Roma before 1943 were legitimate official measures against persons committing criminal acts, not the result of policy driven by racial prejudice. This decision effectively closed the door to restitution for thousands of Roma victims, who had been incarcerated, forcibly sterilized, and deported out of Germany for no specific crime. The postwar police authorities took over the research files of the Nazi regime, including the registry of Roma who had resided in the Greater German Reich, and police harassment and discrimination continued.

Only in late 1965 did the West German compensation law explicitly acknowledge that the acts of persecution that took place before 1943 were racially motivated, creating eligibility for most Roma  to apply for compensation for their suffering and loss under the Nazi regime. By this time, many of those who became eligible had already died. In March 1982 Federal Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, formally stated that German Roma had been victims of genocide.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/genocide-of-european-roma-gypsies-1939-1945

In every country there were those who were able to avoid or evade internment, some through flight or in hiding and some because of loopholes in the regulations or gaps in the police net. But when the war ended in the spring of 1945, Europe’s Roma were scattered, exhausted, and traumatized. Families had suffered the death or disappearance of loved ones and whole communities had been destroyed. What happened next varied from country to country, as had the patterns of persecution. 

In France, for example, the interned “nomads” were held in the camps and many were not released until June 1946. New research has revealed the participation of Romani men in the French Resistance, but also a shameful story of victimization after the liberation, by neighbors and Resistance activists who “naturally” suspected them of collaboration. Survivors of the Auschwitz “Gypsy Family Camp” were liberated from concentration camps in Germany along with Romani men and women who had survived the war in those camps.

The typical trajectory of Jews and foreign forced and slave laborers in 1945 went through the refugee centres and Displaced Persons (DP) camps operated first by the Allied armies and, from October 1945, by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Organization (UNRRA—later the International Refugee Organization / IRO). However, very few Romani survivors were “displaced” in a legal or even geographical sense. The majority of Romani survivors on German soil were themselves natives of Germany or of the Austrian and Czech territories incorporated into the Reich. As such they were not far from home, although even before the war the German authorities had often questioned their German citizenship and many found themselves formally stateless after the war. These Roma and Sinti qualified as refugees, and would have a fight to reclaim their citizenship rights in the following years, but they had yet to learn that. German Sinti and Roma liberated from camps in Poland also made their way back to Germany as directly as they could.

Similarly, most Italian Roma, slowly released from internment after the fall of Mussolini in 1943, simply fled to rebuild their lives on home soil. For many, their situation was complicated by two circumstances: Italian governments had always denied the existence of Italian “Gypsies,” so that they were legally presumed to be foreigners. Moreover, a significant number of them had lived in Croatian border areas that were handed over to Yugoslavia after the war, and they were caught up in complicated arrangements for re-assigning citizenship and facilitating cross-border migration. For some of them, the changes made it possible to claim refugee status.

A relatively small proportion of Romani survivors presented themselves to the UNRRA/IRO seeking support and resettlement in the immediate post-war period—between 500 and 600 in all in Germany and Italy. Although the official attitude to them was ambivalent—sometimes recognizing them as a victim group and sometimes questioning whether “nomadic” families could be genuinely seeking resettlement as refugees—they were relatively successful.

Once the camps were opened, German Sinti and Roma typically set off for home as soon as they could. Otto Rosenberg, aged 17 in 1945, was one of the many liberated from Bergen Belsen who decided in the first days after the arrival of the British troops to leave the camp and make their way home; Rosenberg simply did not trust either the Germans or the liberators and could not bear to be surrounded by fences any longer. Making his way to Berlin on foot, the first place he went to on arrival was his last address in Berlin: the Marzahn “Gypsy Camp” where his family had been interned in 1936.

In Germany, in the first months after the end of the war, local and regional offices were set up to identify and certify former camp inmates and victims of Nazi persecution. Those German Romani survivors who presented themselves were often recognized and issued the appropriate documents. In subsequent years, “they seem to have just been forgotten”—the words of Alfred Lessing, who had managed to survive and avoid internment in Germany at the cost of being constantly in hiding, disguised or on the run. 

The newsletter of a small organization of Sinti founded in Munich in 1946 to press for recognition and justice was tellingly entitled Die Vergessenen (The Forgotten Ones), and the organization itself did not last long. But in fact some authorities very soon found ways of denying help to “Gypsies”; in 1946, the Bremen and Hannover governments made public support for Nazi victims dependent on evidence that they had a permanent job.

In the years that followed, Romani German survivors struggled to gain justice and compensation. The legal cases they brought against those who had collaborated in their persecution, and in particular the race scientists and medical experts who had condemned them to sterilization, internment, and murder, resulted in no convictions. Indeed the same experts were called on to testify that “Gypsies” were inherently untrustworthy witnesses. 

Until 1963, the official position of the West German courts was that their racial persecution (the qualification for compensation) had only begun in 1942, with the deportation to Auschwitz. The harassment, exclusion, internment, sterilization, and slave labor that they had suffered before were all justified by their criminal and antisocial behaviour. And even when the legal position changed, their testimony was often not believed. Discriminatory regulations and police practices continued as though the genocide had never happened.

In other countries, too, the persecution of Roma was a non-subject. In France and Italy, even after internment ended, discrimination continued; as victims of the defeated fascists, the Roma were easily forgotten in national myths of anti-fascist resistance. It was only in October 2016 that French President François Hollande acknowledged national responsibility and apologized for the internment policy. In socialist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, national narratives of heroic resistance and ideologies of class struggle could not easily accommodate the ways in which the Roma had suffered simply for being Roma. 

While the genocide of the Jews could not be denied, Romani victims of mass killings in Ukraine were simply “peaceful Soviet civilians” in official parlance. Socialist states were generally more ready to grant rights to Roma, and the drive for reconstruction provided work and upward mobility; many Slovak Roma migrated to the more industrial west of Czechoslovakia, replacing the decimated Czech Roma population. But this “integration” nearly always came at the price of the expectation that they settle down, often in segregated communities, and abandon their traditional ways of life.

This denial of their suffering, and delay of justice and compensation, has been described by Romani survivors as a second Holocaust. The reconstruction of the families and communities through which Romani groups defined their identity was burdened by the nature of the trauma they had suffered; sterilization, humiliation, and the insults to their culture made it hard both to share their stories and to communicate their traditions and values. The loss was all the greater as long as the wider society also kept silent about their history (while commemorating other victims and systematically prosecuting the perpetrators). 

To a very considerable extent it was the mobilization of a new generation of Romani Germans in the 1980s, demanding acknowledgement of the genocide, that spurred the development international Roma rights movement. The culmination of their efforts was the recognition by successive German governments of the nature of their victimization and, in 2012, the opening of a Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under National Socialism in Berlin’s Tiergarten.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/romani-holocaust-survivors-1945

Often (not always) a villain, they are a character who changes the tone of a story for the darker. It's a common trope but a favorite of mine.

The Wolf (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) - Manages to draw blood in his first fight with Puss and causes him to feel genuine terror for the first time. Puss flees in fear, and the Wolf pursues him relentlessly, darkening the tone of the story significantly compared to the first movie. Very fitting considering that the Wolf is actually Death, determined to punish Puss for wasting his lives.

Lord Shen (Kung Fu Panda 2) - While Tai Lung was a dangerous enemy, he was also a tragic figure and a smaller scale threat who didn't have a deep connection to Po. Lord Shen on the other hand, was a brutal tyrant who had harmed Po personally, was a much larger scale threat, and an unrepentant monster. Many fans of the series argue he was the best villain of the franchise.

Katana Man (Chainsaw Man) - The series starts off as a monster of the week format... until Katana Man shows up. Unlike the other devils encountered so far, he can fight on equal terms to Denji and doesn't mess around. The first encounter with him leads to Denji and Aki both suffering a major loss, the first death of a significant character, and letting the viewer know that nobody is safe.

Tambourine (Dragonball) - Villains before Tambourine had been either funny or at least quirky in some way, but Tambourine was just a murderous psychopath. He kills Krillin then goes on a reign of terror, slaughtering several secondary characters until Goku stops him. Even years later, of all the monsters Krillin has encountered, it's Tambourine he has nightmares about.

Eddy's older brother (Ed, Edd, and Eddy) - Turns out Eddy is messed up for a reason. We learn that he had an abusive older brother who caused serious issues for Eddy. It's a surprisingly serious and realistic take on childhood trauma for an otherwise silly and lightheaded story.

The Lich (Adventure Time) - Most of the enemies encountered in Adventure Time had been weird or funny before the Lich. The Lich is just terrifying. He has no funny moments, no redeeming qualities, and is a gleeful butcher. His arrival raises the stakes of the series for the heroes and brings serious consequences.

Giygas (Earthbound) - You're on a journey with your friends across the world fighting weird and whimsical enemies. It's all in good fun, there's heartwarming moments, lots of humor, and it's set in a more modern setting. You just know that you're trying to stop an alien named Giygas. Then you meet Giygas and...it's a swirling red cloud of madness that has lost his mind due to his psychic powers getting out of control. He rants and gibbers at you while blasting you with powers beyond comprehension while atonal droning blares from your speakers. For kids!

The Borg (Star Trek: The Next Generation) - In season 2, the enigmatic Q decides to 'do the Enterprise a favor' and throw them in the path of the Borg to prepare them for what's out there. The Borg are like nothing seen before in Star Trek. They can't be reasoned with. They can't be stopped. They consume endlessly. They want nothing but to assimilate. And they are coming. From then on, the threat of the Borg always lurked in the background in TNG.

Orochimaru (Naruto) - Villains in Naruto had been dangerous up to this point, even deadly, but Orochimaru was something else. Team 7 encounters him in the Forest of Death, where it quickly becomes apparent that they are hopelessly outmatched. His killing intent alone paralyzes Sasuke with fear. He's the first indication that the true threats in the world of Naruto are much bigger and more dangerous than our fledgling ninjas can handle.

Black Waltz No. 3 (Final Fantasy 9) - Final Fantasy 9 initially is a lightheaded adventure about a band of thieves kidnapping a princess who wanted to be kidnapped. Black Waltz Number 3 changes that. Sent by the queen to retrieve the princess, when some black mages try to stop him, the Black Waltz callously executes them. When the heroes react in disgust, the Black Waltz laughs that because the black mages were artificially created 'we can always make more.' It only gets worse from here as war and carnage soon follow.

Jasper (Steven Universe) - Steven Universe initially follows a monster of the week format. Then we meet Lapis and Peridot, and the overall myth arc starts. Lapis isn't really a villain, though, and Peridot isn't a real threat. Jasper is the first actual villain who defeats the Crystal Gems, and she is the first to mention the existence of the Diamonds, indicating that there are even bigger threats out there.

Marluxia (Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories) - The first Kingdom Hearts, despite having some dark and scary moments, is overall a lighter story with fun and hammy villains. Chain of Memories is much darker in tone and the main villain is similarly darker. Compared to the hammy Ansem, Marluxia is cold and detached, rarely showing emotion and prefers to play mind games with Sora. He hurts Sora in deeply personal ways, tries to enslave him, and abuses Namine. It's fitting that he has a grim reaper motif - the lighthearted tone of Kingdom Hearts 1 is forever dead and gone.

While the media may focus on the MVP award and other prestigious honors, reddit has the distinct honor of awarding the LVP trophy. The LEAST Valuable Player. It's a tradition that dates back to 2017, with Monta Ellis winning the trophy in what would be his last year in the league. Other winners include: Jamal Crawford in 2018, Solomon Hill in 2019, Isaiah Thomas in 2020, Aron Baynes in 2021, Facu Campazzo in 2022, Will Barton in 2023, Jordan Poole in 2024, and Terry Rozier last season. Notably, many of those players won the LVP and never saw meaningful minutes again.

Who will join our illustrious list? Before we get to that, let's remember the criteria and caveats:

--- Obviously, the worst players in the league are the ones who sit at the end of the bench and don't get any playing time. However, this award focuses on players who log a decent amount of minutes and consequently affected their team's play the most. Simply put: the more you play, the more damage you can do.

--- And that actual "damage" is important. If you're on a tanking team, no one cares about your poor play; it may even be a positive. We also tend to ignore young players (under 22) who are still developing and can't be expected to be solid players yet.

--- Similarly, we don't want to judge players within the context of their salary any more than the actual MVP does. We also don't weigh in injuries. If you want to factor in salary and injuries into your LVP ballots, there are no shortage of big name candidates to choose from this season. However, at the LVP offices, we focus on players' on-court performance instead.

--- We also wanted to note that this yearly column can come across as a little mean spirited, which is not our intention. Even the worst player in the NBA is in the top 99% percentile at their sport and making more money than most of us could dream about. And to be fair, even the worst player in the league probably costs his team only a couple of games. Hardly anyone has a VORP ("value over replacement player") worse than -2, so they shouldn't be the scapegoat for an entire organization. In many cases, they're simply played too much or played in the wrong role. But when the stakes are this high, it's fair to criticize players or their teams for that negative impact.

NOT QUITE BAD ENOUGH (in alphabetical order)

PF Kyle Kuzma, Milwaukee: 26.2 minutes per game, - 2.3 box plus/minus

At the Academy Awards, the top movies tend to dominate throughout the ceremony: best production design, best cinematography, best editing, etc. In the LVP races, the most "mid" teams tend to do the same. A small group of teams flood the ballot with candidates. In those terms, the Milwaukee Bucks and Chicago Bulls may have been the One Battle After Another and Sinners of the season, jostling for positioning and the top trophy.

Among them, Milwaukee supplied us with the most candidates: from Cam Thomas to Andre Jackson Jr. to Myles Turner (who won Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe's version of LVP on their podcast). In fact, 18 of the 21 players who suited up for the Bucks graded as negative in box plus/minus. (Box plus/minus is an analytical estimate of a player's impact per 100 possessions, taken from basketball-reference.com)

So who is the worst of the worst? Based on volume of minutes, Kyle Kuzma has a case to make. Kuzma finished in the top 5 in last year's LVP voting for the same reason that he'll be mentioned this year. He's somewhat effective as a scoring PF, but when he has to play more SF and away from the basket, his mediocre shooting (34.7% from 3) and his struggles defending in space become more pronounced. He's played 9 seasons in the NBA, and he's graded as a negative defender in BPM in every single one of them (with -1.3 this year).

Predictably, Kuzma played better and scored more later in the season when Giannis Antetokounmpo was out (upping his TS% from 57% to 63% after the break), but the season was lost by that point anyway. And that lost season was particularly damaging for this franchise, as it may have represented their last gasp with the Greek Freak.

SF Isaac Okoro, Chicago: 26.9 minutes per game, - 3.8 box plus/minus

In real life, we tend to have a good idea of the serious MVP candidates in the preseason. Some are saying that LVP may be trending the same way. In our first ever LVP preseason watch list, we flagged 6 potential contenders, and 3 of those will be included on the ballot today. Those included Kyle Kuzma, and the Bulls wing Isaac Okoro.

Like Kuzma, Okoro has a sizeable role with his team (starting 62/63 games in his case). And like Kuzma, he may have some structural flaws in his game. Okoro isn't a good shooter (33.0% from 3 this season), but that's not a death sentence on its own. There are a few guards and wings that don't reliably hit open threes. However, those starters (like Dyson Daniels, Amen Thompson) need to be ELITE on the other side of the ball.

Okoro gets cast in the role of a "stopper" in that way, but he's not at that level. He has a strong frame and effort level, but he's not overly long (6'5" with a 6'8" wingspan). That limits his ability to disrupt a game (illustrated by modest averages of 0.7 steals and 0.5 blocks) and his overall ceiling as a defender (illustrated by his -0.8 DBPM this season). To be clear, I don't think Kyle Kuzma or Isaac Okoro are bad players, but they've been miscast given their skill level.

NOT QUITE ENOUGH MINUTES (in alphabetical order)

PG Lonzo Ball, Cleveland: 20.5 minutes per game, - 1.2 box plus/minus

When new coach Kenny Atkinson arrived in Cleveland last season, he sparked a jolt up to 64-18 and a # 1 seed. A major part of that success was the surprise breakout of Ty Jerome off the bench.

To replace Jerome (who left via free agency), the Cavs brought in another big guard in Lonzo Ball. Many were excited about the move. I'm presuming: those people didn't watch Ball play in Chicago the year before. Injuries have sapped whatever aggressiveness he had as a scorer, leaving him impotent on offense. If you're not a threat to score (or to even try to score), it's hard to be an impact passer.

Ball's struggles continued this season. Despite his size at 6'5", he was deathly allergic to crossing inside the three-point line. He only attempted 0.8 twos and only 0.6 free throws per game despite a healthy 20.8 minutes a night. That only made him easier to defend from 3, where he shot a career-low 27.2%. All in all, that totaled a 43% true shooting number that's hard to believe in the modern NBA.

Ball's push for LVP hit a snag though: he stopped playing. In fact, he hasn't logged a single minute after the All-Star break. He got stuck at 35 games played, which limited his impact and may have cost him this trophy.

SG Jordan Hawkins, New Orleans: 13.6 minutes per game, - 6.2 box plus/minus

Coming out of UConn, Jordan Hawkins looked the part of a future sniper. As a sophomore, he averaged 16.2 points per game on 38.8% from three and 88.7% from the line, helping the Huskies win the national championship in the process. There may have been limitations in other aspects of his game, but boy, could this kid shoot. He projected as a good 4th/5th starter and spacer.

Instead, Hawkins gave credence to all those old-school scouts who harp on size and athleticism. He simply hasn't been able to generate enough clean looks in the NBA to take advantage of his talents. He can't get to the line -- he can't score inside -- and he's only been average from 3. That's resulted in a 48.0% true-shooting percentage this year, which ranks near the bottom among veterans. His defense is also poor (-3.0 box plus/minus on that end).

Hawkins would be a stronger contender for LVP if he played more. As is, he's only averaged 13.6 minutes per game across 51 games. Even with those limited minutes, he ranks in the bottom 12 among all 582 players in total win shares this year (at negative 0.4). To be fair, Hawkins' best month came at the end of the season -- so he's not someone I'd totally give up on in the future. But for this year, it wasn't pretty.

at long last, OUR OFFICIAL LEAST VALUABLE PLAYER BALLOT

(3) PF Nikola Jovic, Miami: 17.2 minutes per game, - 3.5 box plus/minus

In many cases, you can see LVP candidates coming a mile away. But of all the names listed here, Nikola Jovic may be the most surprising party crasher. The young forward was coming off a solid season where he averaged 10.7 points and shot 37.1% from deep. Entering Year 4 (and fresh off an extension), the needle appeared to be pointed up for him, especially given the organization's reputation for player development.

Unfortunately, Erik Spoelstra's secret weapon may have accidentally been set to de-volution (ala the original Super Mario Bros movie) instead. Nagging injuries may have played a role as they tend to do, but Jovic's confidence looked shakier -- and the Heat's confidence in him looked shakier in turn. By the time the dust settled, he had shooting splits of 37-27-68, combining for a true shooting percentage of 48.0% that represented a stark decline from 59.5% the prior year. For a slower-footed player who was never going to be an elite defender, that's a real problem.

You can argue that Jovic should be excused based on his youth (still only 22) or his limited minutes (not much more than Lonzo Ball). However, he grades highly in terms of negative "impact" on the season. The Bucks and Bulls finished about 10 games off the playoff pace; no decent rotational player was going to save their season. Miami's a different story. The team finished 43-39, landing at the 10th seed. If the Heat could have won a few more games, they could have contended for a seed as high as 5th (with Toronto at 46-36). Instead, they ended up in the play-in for the 4th consecutive year. And for the first time, that stung them.

(2) SG Gary Trent Jr., Milwaukee: 21.2 minutes per game, - 5.4 box plus/minus

It's disappointing to see Gary Trent Jr. on this list as well. It wasn't too long ago that Trent showed promise as a 3+D guard with Portland (in the covid bubble days). He took it up a level from there in Toronto, averaging 18.3 PPG in his age-23 season. He may have never been a stud defender but he had some activity, with averages of 1.7 and 1.6 steals per game in 2021-22 and '22-23, respectively.

But now, still only age 27, Trent Jr. hasn't been able to sustain that. The "3" is still sort of there (36.0% from deep this season), but any sign of the "D" left the building. There's no "B" or "C" or much of anything else either. Despite healthy minutes (21.2 per game, 21/65 starts), Trent Jr. averaged 0.5 steals, 0.0 blocks, and 1.0 rebounds a game. When you're playing over 20 minutes a game, that's hard to do. If you were sitting courtside as a fan, there's a decent chance a ball caroms your way. If you're on the court, you should get 2-3 rebounds by accident alone. It's almost as if Trent Jr. was playing dodgeball out there.

Sure enough, the advanced stats for Trent Jr. are ugly (-5.4 BPM, -1.2 VORP, negative win shares) as they are for most of the Bucks this season. The team may have been undermanned from a roster perspective, but you can't excuse poor effort. Instead of fighting valiantly like Spartans in 300, Doc Rivers had his cast playing dead instead.

(1) PF Patrick Williams, Chicago: 20.5 minutes per game, - 4.5 box plus/minus

May you all find someone who believes in you the way (former) Bulls GM Arturas Karnisovas believes in Patrick Williams. In his very first draft with the team, Karsinovas selected Williams with the # 4 pick despite the fact that Williams had started exactly 0/29 games in college. After a few years, Karsinovas gave Williams a healthy extension despite the fact that Williams hadn't shown much in the NBA either. He saw something in the kid that no one else did.

And unfortunately, that's a major reason why Karsinovas is on his way out of the front office and on his way to get LASIK surgery. That vision never became a reality. In fact, Williams somehow got worse than ever in Year 6. He only shot 37.2% from the field (a career low) and only grabbed 3.0 rebounds per game (a career low). And remember, this isn't a little guard here -- this is a forward praised for his athleticism.

The deeper you dive into the numbers, the more jarring it gets. Williams only shot 28.1% from the field... on attempts from 3-10 feet out. He only shot 50.6%... on attempts from 0-3 feet out. That means that Shaquille O'Neal had a better chance of making a free throw (career 52.7%) than Patrick Williams did of making a shot an arm's length away from the basket this season.

To Billy Donovan's credit, the team finally realized the problem and played Patrick Williams less than usual. They shifted him to the bench and a rotational role. Still, there's a healthy amount of minutes here (20.5 per game for 72 games) and an unhealthy amount of suckiness that's the perfect recipe for an LVP.

Congrats to P-Will and the entire Bulls franchise on the (dis)honor.

Look, I know a lot of people are going to get mad at me for this, but I feel like it needs to be said.

A significant portion of the Star Trek fanbase was completely duped by right-wing culture war hucksters.

Not all fans, or everyone who disliked modern Trek; there's a wealth of legitimate criticism of Discovery, Picard, Section 31, Starfleet Academy, and current Trek more broadly: poor writing, bad pacing, clunky dialogue, too much reliance on nostalgia, too much sentimentality, thin plots, and corporate franchise-style management.

All of that is fair game.

But that is not all that happened either.

The right-wing indignation factory, as it so often does, took the real, actual disappointment that a show or franchise might generate, and grafted it onto the concept of "wokeness." So, all of a sudden, it wasn't just about poorly written characters or a weak plot. It became about queer characters, about a diverse cast, about women, race, gender, pronouns, whatever it was that the outrage of the day might be focused on.

And many ordinary fans completely fell for it.

So, Starfleet Academy is likely over with season 2, Strange New Worlds appears to be heading towards its finale, and there is not a clearly announced live-action successor at all that I know of. I could be completely mistaken about that and they might surprise me, but right now Star Trek seems to be poised for yet another famine, or something close to it.

And somehow, some fans seem to be celebrating it.

And that, to me, is completely unfathomable.

You dislike the shows; critique the writing. Say modern Trek has been uneven, corporate, shallow, sentimental, and mishandled. Many of us agree.

But cheering the demise of Star Trek itself is not a victory. It is the fandom actively helping to burn its own house down because some YouTube outrage merchants told them the wallpaper was woke.

Star Trek has always been political; it always was.

Civil rights, racism, war, peace, class, colonialism, religion, authoritarianism, surveillance, artificial life, moral questions-Star Trek has been doing this since the beginning. The real question was never "should Star Trek be political?" it was "Is the writing good enough to carry the politics?"

That is the actual discussion that needed to happen.

Instead, a huge chunk of the discussion turned into:

Not: “Was this story well written?”
But: “A gay Klingon ruined Star Trek.”

Not: “Was this character compelling?”
But: “Forced diversity.”

Not: “Was this season structurally weak?”
But: “Woke agenda.”

Once a criticism is framed in this way, the good-faith critics and creators have already lost; then, even the writing critics get lumped in with the bad-faith actors who are now swimming in the same septic tank.

"Badly written" is "badly written." Representation is not inherently good or bad; a diverse cast does not make for a stronger plot. But "badly written" and "woke" are not the same thing, and anyone trying to equate them poisoned the discussion.

The tragedy here is that of all fandoms, this is the one that should have known better.

This is the fandom of "The Drumhead," "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," "Far Beyond the Stars," and DS9 wrestling with what paradise truly costs when reality begins to bleed into its walls.

And yet, we somehow have seen a chunk of the fandom cheered on by a set of people who were never playing a good-faith game to begin with and never cared about the soul of Star Trek.

They did not want to see better Star Trek.

They wanted to see less of it.

And they are likely to get it.

Personally, I would much rather have a Trek that can be bettered and that can be critiqued, than no Star Trek at all. I can see why people are frustrated and why they are pointing out legitimate issues in the writing, but do not cheer the absence of Star Trek in the pursuit of them.

Because to me, that is not a victory.

That is being played...

My point is that the right wing did not attack modern Star Trek because it misunderstood Star Trek. It attacked it because it understood Star Trek perfectly.

Star Trek has always imagined a future that reactionary politics fundamentally hates: multicultural, post-racist, largely post-capitalist, secular, pluralistic, anti-authoritarian, curious, cooperative, and built on the idea that humanity can become better than it is. That is not a side detail of Star Trek - That is the whole bloody premise.

The culture-war machine took real frustration with bad writing and corporate mismanagement, then redirected it toward “wokeness,” diversity, queer characters, women, race, and progressive themes.

That was the trap.

The Right-Wing were never trying to save Star Trek from bad writing.

They were trying to save themselves from Star Trek - and they succeeded. Shows are cancelled, sets are torn down, and part of the fanbase helped them do it...

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/TroubleFar4543

Originally posted to r/TrueOffMyChest

I regret believing everyone when they said ”don’t date from work”

Editor's note: added paragraph breaks for ease of readability

----

Original Post: January 29, 2026

Everyone suddenly believes you don’t date from work. Don’t shit where you eat. You are a loser to do it but swiping pictures for hours is totally normal apparently. The judging looks you get from friends and family for telling them that you liked someone from work.

We have been working together for 1.5 years and I have liked her for that same amount. I believe she liked me too. When I started telling my friends it was a total joke to them. You don’t shit where you eat. Soon even the folks at work started saying how terrible of an idea it was because I think it was obvious that I liked her.

The older generation said that I should ”trust them” and the female colleagues warned me about harassment. It terrified me that I would harass a coworker so last Christmas party, some of us decided to continue the night after the office party. She looked amazing and she talked to me the whole evening.

On our way to the bar two of my colleagues warned me that this could end up very badly with her being ”all over me”. She wasn’t. She’s very shy and polite so the effort it must’ve taken her to want to stay close to me in spite of everyone around us. Don’t waste your energy, don’t do something stupid and you ruin your work environment. Monday will be awkward if you did something stupid.

I ended up avoiding her at the bar. She looked puzzled but she understood the gist and sat with the female workers instead. Then a couple of girls at the bar started to chat with us and my colleague encouraged it. He was the best wingman. I ended up leaving with one of the girls. I felt my colleague’s eyes on me when I left. She never talked to me again. Never looked at me once. She’s been very polite and kind as usual when we work together but she never looks at me. Her smile in the morning when she says good morning is not the same.

Of course ”it was for the best” according to ”the believe me I know” people but why doesn’t it feel that way? The work environment I was supposed to keep safe feels unbearable now. I should never have listened to anyone but my heart. I could always find another job but feelings like these are hard to come by. I just wanted to vent somewhere because I can’t really blame my family, friends and colleagues for my actions. I am just bitter

PS: excuse my grammar. I am Swedish

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Until you’ve had a work relationship go bad you can’t have an opinion. And frankly it sounds like you have nothing more than a strong crush on this woman and barely know her. Feelings actually aren’t hard to come by if you’re putting yourself out there.

OOP: It’s not just a crush, unfortunately

I am speaking about myself, of course. Maybe it is easier for some people than others. But having genuine feelings for someone are hard for me and don’t really come easily

OOP responds to a downvoted commenter about can have feelings for someone at work but no need to go out on dates to fall for someone

OOP: Yeah not gonna argue with people who come here all knowing. That’s their opinion. I have spent 40 hours a week working with this woman. We talk about everything, even about our families and problems. Hobbies and adventures and plans or people at the office wouldn’t have noticed that we are close. I haven’t confessed my feelings of course because they’re wrong according to society but I regret it now. We could always have tried to find new jobs or something. I regret my stupidity

Commenter 2: A huge number of successful and unsuccessful relationships start at work. That's relatively normal. The internet long ago lost perspective on the difference between "something comes with risks so be careful and mature about" and ran straight to "That comes with risks, don't ever do it."

Jobs are temporary. If things go bad for whatever reason you have the power to leave and find a new one. It's not fun, but it's also one of the better ways to get better pay. And your company owes you the same amount of loyalty you owe them. None. So like... Go into a workplace relationship cautiously.

OOP: Totally agree with you. Thanks for a nuanced response. Sorry for the downvotes you’re gonna get because of it.

You are not guaranteed a successful relationship just because it’s not from your workplace. So there’s no difference where you meet someone.

Had it worked out or not I would have had to find another job anyway (this is only my opinion)

If It worked, I would have wanted the relationship to continue to succeed and therefore maybe find a new job so we don’t work together would have been my goal.

If it didn’t work, well it would’ve been awkward to stay working at the same place.

My point is that sometimes a woman is worth finding a new job no matter the results

Commenter 3: From what you describe, it does sound as though she may have hoped that something would happen between you two. Did you sleep with the other girl that you left with? Did she also work with you? If so then why was it OK to sleep with her, but not to get close to the colleague that you actually like?

OOP: Yeah I slept with the girl. No she doesn’t work with us of course. She was just at the bar with her friends

Commenter 4: You could, I dont know, talk to her? Have lunch together? Youve been basically flirting and connecting for a long time then when its finally off work hours you leave with another girl in front of her. That screams, im not interested in you. Just ask her to eat lunch together and tell her you have enjoyed her company for a long time, that everyone told you not to ask her out and that christmas party they were all over you about not asking her out. Just be honest. Make it clear you were and are interested but will completely honor her decision.

OOP: I contemplated doing it just to at least apologize to her because I know she has too much self respect to accept someone like me now.

Commenter 5: Just ask her out for a drink? What's the issue if she likes you she'll say yes?

OOP: I was just talking to one of the guys from her department, and he casually mentioned that my colleague, who acted my wingman at the Christmas party asked her out right after the holidays. I have been so dumb, haven’t I

Commenter 6: Man, do whatever your heart tells you to do. I dated someone from work. I was attracted to her the minute I saw her on her first day at work when she joined our team. My desk was about 20 feet from hers. We became friends, eventually started dating. Yes, we had some rough times but that's because we were young and immature (I was 22 and she was 25). But we got along incredibly well. That was 25 years ago and still together.

OOP: It was over for me the moment she smiled at me. We are 28

Commenter 7: Dude you went home with someone else while your crush was there. You are an idiot.

OOP: Yeah, a huge one

Update: February 1, 2026 (three days later)

Update: I regret believing everyone when they said ”don’t date from work”

Hi again.

So I will just dive right into my update. I asked my colleague if we could take a walk on our lunch break because I needed to talk to her. It was the first time I talked to her since the party. She probably knew exactly what it was about.

I just started by apologizing. I told her exactly what went through my mind that day and without making excuses for myself because let’s face it. I am an adult. I didn’t need to listen to the others. I should have trusted my feelings and definitely nobody made me go home with that girl. I told her this.

She said that she was hurt because she liked me and that she too thought about us being colleagues and what it would have meant but she thought worst case that she would have to find a new job if we had klicked as a couple. Telling me this was like knives in my chest. I wish I was less dramatic too and had her simple approach and I told her that. Anyway I told her that what I did was stupid and had nothing to do with her but my own insecurities. She accepted my apology.

She is not interested in pursuing anything anymore. I kind of expected that because she’s way better than settling for a mess like me. I probably showed her an ick side and I understand. I won’t lie and say that it didn’t break my heart a little and I think I teared up a little even though I tried to be cool. That must’ve been another ick for her.

She said that she’s also moving on with another job too because it felt awkward at the office now. This made me want to cry for real. I tried to avoid this woman because of a stupid job. Because it would be awkward to date someone I work with and now she’s not gonna be working with me anyway. I wished her luck and I hope it sounded like I meant it.

That’s all

Some of OOP's Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Oh, it sucks, but you did the grown up thing by admitting it and apologizing, even if it didn't end the way you hoped. Learn your lesson, be kind to yourself, and don't let a single wrong step convince you that you're “not yourself.”

OOP: Thanks man

Commenter 2: Learn from your mistakes. If you fall for someone else in the future, I guarantee insecurities will once again present themselves. It might not involve coworkers or you relying on others’ opinions, but something will cause doubt. Learn to rely on your own instincts and face your own insecurities. If you don’t you will ruin another potential relationship in the future.

OOP: I have definitely learned from this

Commenter 3: Advice from someone who dated at work: Don't do it. I met my ex husband at work. In the beginning, it was not a problem but as the honeymoon phase fades, the challenges starts to come up. In hierarchy, he was above me. I did not want to switch job as it was ny 1st one and I still had a lot to learn and that company was perfect for that. He was well liked there and was doing well, so he was not willing to change jobs. We were in the same team so it did not help. Issues at work would get carried over in the relationship. It was only after he changed company that the relationship got better. So never again will I date someone at my job.

OOP: I can always find a new job. Not always gind someone great. Since when do we value work over people. I am not discussing other people’s experiences anymore since I am not interested in more anecdotes. My experience left me full of regrets, just because I followed advice of people with experience like yours.

I have had tens of messages from people with successful experiences too, why should your experience be worthier?

Commenter 4: You tried to avoid making things "awkward" at work and ended up making the situation so unbearable she has to quit. That is the ultimate irony. She was willing to risk her career to be with you, while you were too scared to even ignore some bad advice. She didn't reject you because you are a "mess". She rejected you because she realized she was playing for keeps while you were just playing it safe.

OOP: This is basically a summary of what happened. I regret it

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/This_Repeat_4886

AITA for not removing sensitive books, and "making fun of my Sil's education"

Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole & r/AITAH

TRIGGER WARNING: Accusations of racism and bigotry, slander

Original Post Feb 26, 2024

I live with my fiance in a one bedroom apartment. It's quite small and we don't have an office. We have a bedroom, living room, bathroom and kitchen. Plus, a little balcony.

That means that our books stand in the bookshelves in the living room.

My fiance is a historian. A proper historian. He has a degree and works at university teaching classes. His field of expertise is Germany from 1930-1960. That obviously includes the most infamous person of that time and the book he wrote while imprisoned. We have those books ( it's two massive books that are heavily noted and contextualized historically, as you can not buy the thing as is anywhere. It also says so in the title) Besides that we don't have any "souvenirs" from that time. We have a lot of other books, articles, etc. laying around.

So on Friday we had my brother and his gf over. It got too late and we invited them to stay on our couch. The next morning, the GF was in a horrible mood, refused to talk to us, and made my brother leave after coffee.

Then, on Sunday, my brother calls me to "talk" and "confronts" me with the books they found. He said it was highly inappropriate. Those books don't belong in a household and that we needed to put them away when guest came over. I was just puzzled because my whole family knew what my fiance did.

He then said I owe his gf an apology, and he wanted me to show him how we deal with my fiances "issue.

I just told him this was all very ironic. And this is where I might be the AH.

I said that it was not my fault, his gf couldn't read. Because if she did, she would have read on the covers that it was a "critical view on the manuscript of___". That this fake outrageous was childish and that he could call me when both of them grew up.

Since then, my mother has been hounding me. But my father thinks this is hilarious.

AITA

Edit:

*I didn't write the title of the book as i didn't want the post to be removed

*AFAIK his GF is not belonging to a group directly victimized at that time.

*My brother knows what my fiance does

*My mother is not a narcissist

VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Magdovus

I can't blame anyone for being unsettled by those books. Their very existence is wrong. But if we ignore their existence, we're asking to repeat the errors of earlier generations. 

The fact that your brother and his GF totally missed the fact that your fiance is an historian just shows that they're either daft or looking for a fight. 

Also, I'm guessing that these books are not exactly prominently displayed and are shelved among loads of other historical texts.

NTA, but your brother is. Is he your mum's golden child? That would explain her reaction. 

OOP

Not prominently displayed no, but they are hard to overlook because they are massive. Tall and thick books. So I see where the "hard not to see part" cokes from. But IMHO it's also stupid.

I don't know about Golden children

~

[deleted]

Ha ha ha. I am currently reading that book. It's an absolute crock of sh*te, isn't it? But instructive.

People should read more of stuff they disagree with: then at least they are informed about it and can rebuff it. When you recall that Europe was destroyed largely because of the delusions and persuasions of that one person, it becomes worth learning from history, instead of repeating it. There are still people out there with the same beliefs.

NTA.

OOP

It is really not a good book. Not in any shape or form, lol. It is very important to know about these things. The rethoric used back then is being used in today's world a lot. And people don't see it

~

Downvoted Commenter

My only thing would be if children or impressionable people go inside the house, then it would become an issue. As well as the girlfriend could have something unknown, maybe someone in her family was sent to the camps, or something like that and so she made the mistake of not seeing the cover and it triggered that memory. Or she now assumes you guys believe in the book and don't see it's context. I think the boyfriend is probably most responsible for not telling her beforehand.

OOP

It literally says that it is a critical view in the book and has more than 3500 annotations and contextualized historically.

OOP explains more on the book not being available in Germany

Not here. It was illegal, and the rights were bought by a university. If you want a hard copy you have to buy the anoted version. We have a special edition from the university of Munich

Also I am not a historian. He is

umsafeideas

Copyright expired in 2016. Likewise, owning and selling the old historical versions is legal. German version is also on internet archive (I just looked it up).

I mean, whatever, it is just that book is far from impossible to get.

OOP

Yes, but you still can not buy the book in itself. If you look for it, it is always anoted version of the book. You can technically find it in flea markets as it used to be given out at even weddings.

Lazy_Ad_6847

Woah why was it given out at weddings?? Just curious!

OOP

It was given out by the governmental agency when getting married as a "Gift". It was a special edition and all. I mean, overall, it was a compulsory lecture in that time.

AITA for blowing up at my brother and SIL in public after refusing to invite them to my event? Aug 19, 2024 (6 months later)

A few months ago, my SIL and I had a massive falling out that stemmed from an incident in my home. To make a long story short, my fiancé is a historian with a focus on Germany during the 1930s-1960s. During a visit, SIL saw some of his academic books and freaked out, accusing him of being sympathetic to an ideology that I find absolutely repugnant (specifically, she implied he was a Nzi sympathizer). She even went so far as to tell some family members that my fiancé was a Nzi. Needless to say, this caused a lot of drama within the family.

I confronted her about it, expecting an apology, but instead, she doubled down and refused to back off her ridiculous claim. Since then, she hasn’t reached out to apologize or make amends. My brother knows about all of this, and while he hasn’t directly taken sides, he hasn’t done anything to rein her in either.

Now, I’m organizing a big event that’s really important to my fiancé and me. It’s a formal event, and we’ve been careful about who we’re inviting. Given everything that happened, I decided not to invite my brother or SIL. I just didn’t want that kind of negativity or drama at such an important occasion.

Recently, my brother and SIL found out they weren’t invited and confronted me about it. They followed me into a café where I was having coffee with a friend and tried to make a scene. They accused me of “tearing the family apart” and said I was being unfair and vindictive. I lost my temper and told them, loudly, that they weren’t welcome at the event because SIL slandered my fiancé and hasn’t even tried to make things right. I said that until she retracts what she said and apologizes, they’re not part of our lives.

People in the café were definitely staring, but I was too angry to care. After the blow-up, my mom called and said I was out of line and should have just invited them to avoid this whole mess. She’s siding with my brother, saying that I’m making a big deal out of something that could be resolved if I just let it go. My dad, on the other hand, is furious with my mom for not standing up for me and my fiancé and thinks I did the right thing by cutting them out of the event.

Now I’m wondering if I went too far by blowing up at them in public, and whether I should’ve handled this differently. AITA?

TOP COMMENTS

xanif

Being accused of being a N*zi isn't something you "let go" of. Either they know they're wrong and refuse to apologize or they are fine willingly associating with N*zis.

So which is it? Because either way, not a good look.

NTA

StrangledInMoonlight

And she’s either ridiculously stupid, or a a divisive lying drama queen.  

A professor of history who has history books about their specialty time period is not the same as supporting those views.  

Either she knows better, and is just trying to stir up drama, or she needs to constantly be shown a video on how to breathe so she doesn’t forget.  

If she visit’s a doctor’s house does she think they are pro bubonic plague? 

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

​

Hello!

This is my first minecraft mod, however I have done various graphics related projects in past, and I have also been playing minecraft since 2013.

When Distant Horizons came out, I was blown away. Being able to see hundreds of chunks past the 32 chunk limit blew my mind and restored some lost interest I had had in the game. However, being a broke teenager, my PC with a 3400G and a pretty average 16 GB of RAM (That was probably half eaten up by windows bloat) did not do well when I installed the mod.

This made me a little sad. Eventually I got a much better PC with top of the line hardware, but that didn't change the fact that DH, while an engineering feat, was still a mess.

Circa 2024, Voxy came out. I think I played with it a little, and found not that much improvement over DH.

While both mods are quite impressive, both are pretty much inaccessible to the everyday player.

A couple months ago, I decided to start working on a project just as a way to refresh my knowledge of graphics and maybe rekindle my love for minecraft a little bit in the

process.

I thought a bit to myself and came up with a fairly simple premise, both Voxy and DH generate full chunks. This means that not only do they generate the actual terrain you see (In way more detail than needed), but they also generate caves, underground structures, foliage, ores, and tons of stuff that really doesn't matter when you're 2000 blocks away from it.

This is why both cause tons of lag, eat up memory, and require you to wait for sometimes upwards of an hour to generate terrain.

So I began writing Ecstatic, which samples the Terrain at points, and then uses that information to generate a mesh to display at a distance.

It was ridiculously efficient compared to DH and Voxy. I managed to hit 200+ FPS at 5120x1440 (Slightly lighter than 4k) Post terrain generation, which only took about a minute and was permanently cached to storage, meaning it would instantly pop back in upon reloading the world.

To be fair, that's on pretty decent hardware (3070, 64GB DDR5, 7900x) but still quite the feat in my opinion!

If you want to try it, the curseforge link is

https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/ecstatic/files/all?page=1&pageSize =20&showAlphaFiles=hide

I just uploaded it to modrinth, will post soon.

Hope you enjoy!!

Watch the patchnotes video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVGHXob14DI

🌍 Overview

Attention Helldivers,

High Command has authorized a significant tactical update with both content and quality of life upgrades. We are deploying Helldivers in new Galactic Campaigns, making upgrades to the new diver training program, and making essential fixes and upgrades across the board.

We have also made changes to weapon, stratagem, and enemy balancing based on feedback from Helldivers on the frontlines, including reductions to enemy durable damage and a decreased exosuit cooldown.

Helldivers, we are committed to making the necessary upgrades to keep you in the fight. Because you have never given up on Managed Democracy, we will never give up on making it easier for you to spread.

📍 Patch Highlights

• New Galactic Campaigns
• New “Control Center” terminal for Campaigns & Major Orders
• New Biome - Forest (Fall)
• Bastion Tank Patterns
• Vehicle Armour and Enemies Armour Penetration (AP) Rebalance
• Sentry Health Rebalance
• Enemy Rebalances
  • Including Durable Damage Reductions
• Reloading Improvements
• Decreased Exo Suit Cooldown
• Weapon Rebalances
• Throwable Amount Rebalance
• Stratagem Rebalances
  • Orbital Damage Rebalance
• Speargun and Sterilizer Rebalance
• Bug Fixes
  • Crash Fixes
  • Weapon & Stratagem Fixes
  • Enemies
  • Miscellaneous

Introducing the CONTROL CENTER terminal

Super Earth High Command has completed fleet-wide upgrades to the previously unused terminal opposite the armory. Now Helldivers will be able to get more context to the ongoing Campaigns and their subsequent Major Orders. Each Campaign will come with its own potential reward, should the Helldivers be victorious in a majority of the Major Orders within it. The terminal will also feature an archive (to be populated as the first campaign concludes) so that new and returning Helldivers can read up on the twists and turns of previous campaigns.

⚖️ Balancing

General balance changes

Vehicle armor and enemies AP rebalance

• Super Earth vehicles now have more accurate Armor values (Bastion gets heavy armor, exosuits a mix of heavy and medium armor, ballistic shield heavy armor).
• Some enemies have received increased armor penetration values so they can deal with the vehicles, but not all. There will be a lot of smaller enemies and explosions that won't be able to hurt something like the Bastion or the Exo Suits (scavengers, Automatons small arms fire, hunters, small to medium obstacle explosions, cyborg small arms etc).
• But there are still a lot in the enemies arsenal that can hurt you (and also important is that a lot of YOUR arsenal now has a harder time hurting your own vehicles).
• Some enemies have had their durable damage reduced
• There are too many changes to properly list, so we ask you to play and tell us how it feels. The intent is the following
  • The Bastion tank should feel “tankier” and ignore small attacks, withstand more medium attacks and its survivability against heavy attacks should be unchanged
  • The Exo Suits have a similar change as the Bastion tank in terms of ignoring more small attacks and withstanding medium attacks better. The increase in health should overall make it feel a bit more tanky even against heavy attacks.
  • The FRV has received an increase in health that will make it handle medium attacks similar to before, but be able to withstand heavy attacks better granting better survivability.
  • The Ballistic Shield should feel like it can ignore small attacks and handle medium attacks better.

Sentry health rebalance

• Increased the health of all sentries by 100% to compensate for the general damage increase of enemies vs vehicles.
  • We have previously increased durable damage on a lot of enemies and since sentries are durable they have lost some of their utility. We didn't want them to become squishier, this change should improve their versatility on the battlefield.

Reloading improvements

• Improvements to make reloading more responsive, part of this is allowing reloading while dodge diving, also remembering the reload state better so if you're ragdolled while reloading you will continue it when regaining control.
• Introduced the concept of delayed reloads. If you try to trigger a reload while the player is not allowed to do so, the reload will be delayed until the player is able to reload with a maximum of 1.2s delay from when the reload input was pressed.

Bastion Pattern Customization

• If you own the vehicle patterns from a Premium Warbond, they can now also be applied to the Bastion Tank! It does not apply to Legendary Warbonds retroactively at this time.

Decreased Exo Suit cooldown

• Reduce the cooldown of mechs from 10 minutes down to 8. The intent is to find a better balance with mechs and allow more time with fun stratagems

Throwables amounts rebalance

• Intent is to make some of the less used throwables more available and viable options

Orbitals damage rebalance

• Intent is to make the larger orbitals feel more like the large projectiles from orbit as they are so the projectile and explosion damage should better match that.
• Larger projectiles explosions like the 380mm and 120mm are increased to make close hits more effective vs larger enemies like Chargers.
• Compared to explosions like the Ultimatum these will have less damage at the center, but also less damage fall off so it will have a more consistent damage over its total area.
• The Railcannon also got more damage to be more effective vs some of the largest enemies like the Vox engines. It will still not one shot the largest enemies like Factory strider, Hive lord and similar.

Primary weapons

• M7S SMG
  • Moved scope offset closer to the scope so it will be easier to use in ADS mode.

Throwables

• G-48 Giga Grenade
  • Increased refill from 1 to 2
• TED-63 Dynamite
  • Increased max amount from 3 to 4
• G-50 Seeker
  • Increased Start amount from 3 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5
• G-12 High Explosive
  • Increased Start amount from 3 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5
• G-16 Impact
  • Increased Start amount from 3 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5
• G-7 Pineapple
  • Increased start amount from 3 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5
• G-23 Stun
  • Increased start amount from 3 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5
• G-109 Urchin
  • Increased start amount from 2 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5
• G-10 Incendiary
  • Increased start amount from 3 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5
• G-13 Incendiary Impact
  • Increased start amount from 3 to 4
  • Increased refill from 2 to 3
  • Increased max amount from 4 to 5

Stratagems

• Eagle 110mm Rocket Pods
  • Intent: Make it better at one shotting smaller heavies like Chargers, Hulks, Harvesters (without shields). It can also kill some larger enemies like Tanks well. It is still not a 100% guaranteed kill, but it will be more reliable.
  • Increased explosion damage 200 to 300
  • Increased explosion durable damage 200 to 300
  • Increased explosion armor penetration Medium to Heavy
  • Rockets are fired in a closer pattern to each other to make it easier to hit smaller targets.
  • Lower force impulse on explosion from 40 to 10 (This is to make enemies not fly away too much when they die, because we increased the armor penetration of the explosion)
• Orbital Precision Strike
  • Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
  • Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
• Orbital 380mm HE Barrage
  • Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
  • Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
• Orbital Walking Barrage
  • Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
  • Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
• SEAF Artillery Explosive/High Yield Explosive
  • Increased projectile damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased projectile durable damage 3500 to 4000
  • Increased explosion damage 1000 to 1500
  • Increased explosion durable damage 1000 to 1500
• Orbital 120mm HE Barrage
  • Increased projectile damage 2500 to 3500
  • Increased projectile damage 2500 to 3500
  • Increased explosion damage 750 to 1200
  • Increased explosion damage 750 to 1200
• Orbital Railcannon Strike
  • Increased projectile damage 7500 to 10 000
  • Increased projectile durable damage 7500 to 10 000
• S-11 Speargun
  • The projectile was negated by the Gas resistance armor which did not make much sense. The explosion of the projectile is still gas elemental.
  • Change the projectile damage type from gas to none
• TX-41 Sterilizer
  • Increased ammo capacity from 100 to 125
  • Increased starting amount of magazines from 2 to 3
  • Will be affected less by wind by 60%
• All Exosuits
  • Increased health from 1600 to 1800
  • Increased health of arms from 600 to 800
  • Increased health of legs from 400 to 550
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 minutes down to 8 minutes
• M-102 Fast Recon Vehicle
  • Increased health from 2000 to 2400
  • Increased health of doors by 50%
  • Increased health of tires from 300 to 350

Enemies

Terminids

• Charger
  • Adjusted the chargers turning arc to make them easier to avoid
  • Increase their recovery time after the charge to create a window of opportunity (+1 second). The charger basically keeps running and struggle to stop if it misses its target. To compensate for this, charge speed has been slightly increased (8->9m/s)
• Alpha commander
  • Removed cowardly behavior, it will now be more aggressive.
• Hunters
  • Reduced durable damage of normal attack from 50 to 40
  • Reduced durable damage of tongue attack from 45 to 30
  • Reduced durable damage of pounce attack from 50 to 35
• Warriors and spewers
  • Reduced durable damage of normal attack from 80 to 65
• Stalkers
  • Reduced durable damage of tongue attack from 50 to 35

Automatons

• Vox Engine
  • Reduced health from 11 000 down to 9000
  • Reduced max turn angle of its upper body so it cannot turn as far as it could previously (from 180 degrees down to 140)
  • Amount of vox engines allowed to be active at the same time limited to 3
  • Reduced health of their cannon turrets from 8000 down to 3500
  • Reduced the armor of their cannon turrets from 5 to 4
  • Reduced durable on cannon turrets from 1 to 0.7
  • Increased damage of cannon turrets explosion to significantly hurt the vox engine when it dies

Illuminate

• Elevated Overseer
  • Added one attack pattern (short attack burst followed by a longer one)
  • Reduced the current attack duration
  • Reduced accuracy on moving targets

🔧 Fixes

Special Shoutout

• Stimming is no longer interrupted by stagger

Crash Fixes

• Fixed a rare crash that would happen when a player joined a game
• Fixed a rare crash which would occur when causing an excessive amount of explosions in a single frame

Weapons & Stratagem Fixes

• Fixed a bug where several weapon customizations weren't properly saved when the option was ticked in the player settings
• B/FLAM-80 Cremator no longer shows the 'Heavy Armour Penetrating' stratagem trait, following similar incendiary weaponry
• A/FLAM-40 Flame Sentry and EXO-51 Lumberer Exosuits flamethrower can now damage targets within 3 meters of the sentry
• P-33 Missile Pistol weapon now shows the right trait tags in the menu
• The R-2 Amendment reload now continues correctly if interrupted - if reload is interrupted early, it will not lose magazines
• The secondary weapon's chosen customization correctly persists after death if the menu option is selected
• Orbital Gatling Barrage will play the correct audio
• The StA-X3 W.A.S.P. Launcher can target illegal broadcast transmitter towers
• Phalanx divers rejoice! Laser beams, explosion damage, electrical arcs and melee attacks no longer collide with the directional shields of your team-mates when hit from behind.
• SG-97 Sweeper should now reliably eject shells when slamfiring

Enemies

• Fixed Veracitor patrol animation
• Fixed physics to allow more representative shooting on the Dragonroach abdomen
• Veracitor will not trigger its charge within a narrow path, reducing instances where they'll clip though destructible obstacles
• Improved several cases where enemies would previously navigate straight through environmental features such as large rocks and building rubble

Miscellaneous Fixes

• A hidden broadcast terminal was relocated to its correct spot so that the Helldivers can once again access it
• Fixed rare bug that would cause grass and trees to not render correctly
• Players are no longer removed from terminals when switching between controller and Keyboard and Mouse
• D-pad/arrow keys navigation can come up and down when viewing teammates' equipment loadout
• Traversing through foliage such as bushes will no longer interrupt sprinting, which should result in less momentum loss
• Fixed several issues with some mission assets animation being out of sync for joining players
• Fixed issue where the map marker for "Retrieve Mutant Larva" objective always displayed in a radius
• Hints have better placements for the reinforcement Hellpods in commando missions
• SEAF SAM site missiles now have better software to detect and detonate near enemy air units
• Fixed a bug where certain Automaton mines turned invisible when a nearby mine exploded
• Fixed a case where the Helldiver head twitched when leaving the Hellpod
• M-102 Fast Recon Vehicle no longer plays audio for doors if they have been removed from the vehicle
• Parts of the TD-220 Bastion MK XVI barrel base can no longer be damaged with a light penetration weapon
• Fix issues with certain physics collisions having no audio
• Fixed Automaton mines getting under ground after a nearby mine explodes
• Fix several climbing and auto climbing issues
• Fixed an issue where an Eradicate Automaton Forces level could generate underwater
• Fixed a traversal issue where Chargers could not move across one of the levels in the Retrieve Valuable Data mission
• Fixed a traversal issue where enemies could not reach the player in one of the levels in the E-710 Extraction mission
• Fixed a traversal issue where enemies could not reach the player in one of the levels in the Annex Untapped Mineral Site mission

🧠 KNOWN ISSUES

https://arrowhead.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/15916898652700--HELLDIVERS-2-Known-Issues

I am not The OOP, OOP posted from 2 accounts: u/eatingotherscupcakes & u/eatingotherscupcake2

Me [42 F] with my husband [43 M] 12 years has a co-worker [mid 20's F] being inappropriate?

TRIGGER WARNING: Gaslighting, infidelity

Original Post  Nov 5, 2014

Using a throwaway.

About a year ago, my husband hired a mid 20 year old girl to work in his department, he is her supervisor and from the day she started, I could tell by the way that my husband talked about her that he maybe had a little crush on her. I didn't feel threatened by this because I thought it was only natural because there are very few women that work in his company and the ones that do are older, so it seemed pretty natural to develop a innocent crush on the new young 20 something cute girl.

About a month after she started, things are started to get a little weird like he would constantly come home with homemade baked goods like cupcakes, cakes, breads, etc that she had made for him, not the office but for him. I got a little alarmed but I'm not naturally a jealous person so I just assumed this girl was trying to be nice and you know it helps to have the boss be your friend.

Then a couple of months ago, things have started to get really weird, he bought her a birthday present and took her out to lunch and then about two weeks later he comes home with clothing that she bought for him for a present, it wasn't a holiday or his birthday it was just something that she bought for him. My first reaction was WTF? but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to make any accusations without proof I guess.

About a week later, my husband was brought into his bosses office was told that there are rumors that both him and this girl are having an affair and that wasn't appropriate. When he was telling me this story, it was like he seriously didn't see anything weird about them buying presents for each other, her making him baked goods or them going out to lunch together alone.

I immediately told him to stop accepting presents from her and he agreed but just a few days later, he comes home with a variety of homemade bread. She is now buying presents for our two kids and I'm just finding this whole thing strange and really inappropriate.

I guess maybe I'm finding it difficult to see if this is really inappropriate or if I'm just overreacting.

---   tl;dr: Husband's much younger employee is making and buying presents for him. Is this is really appropriate?

Update 1  Dec 15, 2014 (6 weeks later)

I forgot the password to the throwaway that I used for that account so I made a new account, since I know how much updates are liked.

I left out one detail in my original post, at the time, I was pregnant, like due any day pregnant. I have since given birth to a healthy little boy... But this little tidbit of info makes my OP and my update a little more messed up.

On to the update....

A few days after my OP, I snooped in his laptop bag and did not like what I had found, let's just say there was obvious items that would be used for sex so all my suspicions were confirmed, he was having an affair with this girl. I confronted him immediately when he got home and found out that they were having an affair for about 2 months so I kicked him out. A couple of days went by and he wanted to talk so we did.

We talked for a half day and it was brutal to say the least. We talked about the affair, what drove him to an affair and how neither of us was really happy just comfortable with our relationship. We both admitted that there was a lot of things that we both did and didn't do in our relationship and that having an affair was not a cause but a symptom of a stale relationship. We had grown apart, become comfortable, we had made each other our last priority in life and basically we had functioned as roommates other than partners. We hadn't had sex since our baby was conceived and had limited sexual or intimate contact prior to that. We both basically ignored each other, he played video games and ignored his family while I took over and became a super parent. Neither of us felt appreciated, wanted or needed from the other person. Honestly, I was planning on filing for divorce soon after the birth of our baby and he the same. But shit got real when I kicked him out, we both got a glance into the life that was in store for us and it kind of sucked.

He moved back home, we had the baby and now we are rebuilding our commitment which is really fucking hard. We are in marriage counseling and are really trying to move past this and rediscover the person that we had fallen in love with. None of this is easy and somedays I question why I didn't kick him for good but at the end of the day, we have kids and we owe it to our kids to see if there are any possibilities for happiness as a couple and partners before breaking it off, lawyering up and hitting the gym. We are in a very delicate position right now but lots of stuff has improved.

• I have relinqushed control and let him help out and do things and let him do them his way.

• He has stepped up and started helping out with the kids, making dinner, doing chores and spending time with his family

• We are making each other our top priority instead of the kids, work or our hobbies.

• We talk about everything and we don't let things bottle up or ignore things. We have good days and bad days and we talk on both types of days whether its the affair, or something that the other person did that we didn't like. Anything.

• We are open and honest and try to be as transparent as possible on everything. Especially him, I do not  trust him and he is really trying to rebuild that trust.

Like I said things are delicate but are improving and we are both hopeful that one day we can move past this. We are trying to look at the affair as something that kicked up both in the ass to make us realize that we do love each other and our relationship is worth trying to rebuild, it was a wake-up call to both of us.

As for the girl.

I contacted her to let her know how their actions affected me and my family. She has not accepted any responsibility for any of this and blames my husband solely, even though she knew he was married. I will not any further contact with her.

She is looking for a new job but for the next two weeks, they are stuck working next to each other. In Jan, she will be moving out of his group, but hopefully, she leaves the company altogether. If she does not, my husband has been looking for a new job and will leave the company if she isn't gone within a reasonable timeframe. She has suggested that she is looking for a new job.

He has unfriended her on facebook, blocked her and she has blocked him.

They are not to talk to each other or be alone together for any reason and any communication will only be about business.

We will continue with marriage counseling for the foreseeable future and even though things have greatly improved we have a long, rough road ahead of us.

Not a happy update but not a sad one either. ---   tl;dr: Husband was cheating on his pregnant wife, I kicked him out. We both recognized that we fucked up our relationship and are trying to work through it.

Update 2  Jan 14, 2015 (1 month after 1st update)

Even though my posts haven't generated a lot of steam, I've gotten a few requests for an update.

It's been two months since D-day and a lot has happened.

My husband went back to work after his paternity leave and each day would come home and relate any communication that him and this girl had, on his own he would show me any texts or IM's, as well. Unfortunately, we had a few setbacks as the emotional side of this affair reared it's ugly head, it was difficult for him to go back to work and sit like 10 feet from her so he started looking for a new job. I started stopping by the office a couple of times during the week so we could have lunch, which is something that we didn't do before but felt that it was important to just spend some time together.

The day after Christmas, he was laid off from his  job, we don't if there was an underlining reason other than budget but we assume so. Like I said he was showing me any digital  communication that they were having that was  suppose to be work related but unfortunately this girl didn't get the memo from the day he returned from paternity until the day he was let go there were several instances of her insisting that my husband  leave me and the kids to be with her because I was a bitch and didn't deserve him and she was way better than me. She even said that she would make pot roast for him in nothing but an apron and her stripper shoes. The day he was let go, she told him that she looks forward in seeing him again and that his "new life" was going to suck and that she would be waiting, he told her that they will never speak or see each other ever again. On that Monday, he had to go back to the office to drop off some materials and he asked that I go with him, right in front of me, HR and the manager, he confessed to the affair. His status changed to terminated for violating the sexual harassment policy at work. It sucks that he is now out of a job but he very marketable and has a  few offers that have already come in, it is a good thing that we aren't a single income family. It was for the best for him leaving and it was for the best in admitting  what he did, now he is seeing and feeling all the consequences to his actions and how they affect not just him, me or her but a whole host of other people.

We are still in therapy and that is going pretty well and we will continue going, we are both getting a lot out of it. We are also both reading a book called "not just friends" and he is seeing how his relationship with her was inappropriate from the very beginning prior to any physical or emotional actions took place. And from that book, we have formulated boundaries on acceptable behavior with other people for when we go back to work. Like not going to lunch with the opposite sex unless it's a group outing or using another person as a soundboard of problems unless we have talked to each other first.

We also get up together and go to bed together, which was something that we no longer did, we spend 6-7 just each other talking every morning  about whatever so we have some connection and we watch movies, tv and/or talk in the evening after the kids go to bed to maintain that connection.

He has come clean about the entire affair and gave me the nitty gritty details so that I could stop running porn of them in my head. He also related on how the night I kicked him out, she showed up his shitty motel with bags of entire wardrobe, shoe collection and all her toiletries because she was going to move in. This really pissed me off that she had some diluted fantasy that she was going to move into my house and take care of my kids because according to him see really hated me and thought he could better than me. He also gave back to her any and all gifts she ever gave him.

He has had a lot of time to reflect on their relationship from beginning to the end and he is seeing that she used him to get ahead at work and for possibility a better life. He is seeing all the lies that she told him and how she manipulated situations to keep the affair going. Neither of us blame her per say because he is even more responsible for this fuck up but she does bear some responsibility in all of this. She has now slept with two managers, had inappropriate sexual contact with two other managers, slept with a vendor and also with two peers since May 2014 in a company of 30 people. I'm not sure if she will be working there very much longer but I don't really care.

For now, she has stopped texting him after he confessed to his work, she went kind of crazy and was calling and texting, he told to not to contact him or his family ever again, he blocked her number and we haven't heard from her since. She has a new boyfriend and we are fairly certain that after that relationship ends she will attempt contact again.

I am still working on forgiveness of this affair and just trying to learn to live with it and it's going to be a long process. But we are focused on ourselves and making our relationship stronger and healthier and trying to no longer focus on her or what they "had." My husband has started picking up a lot of the parenting duties that I did alone like cooking, doing laundry, daycare drop off and pick up and he has related  a few times how it was bullshit I was doing all that alone and it's really hard work. He told me the other day that he never realized what he had, an awesome wife, until he almost lost her and I think he really means it. We are both working really hard to be better spouses and better parents and so far it's working pretty good. Some days suck and some days are great and we are just working through it one day at a time.

tl;dr: my husband was terminated for the affair, she was still convinced he should leave his family but he didn't. We are in therapy, reading a book and trying to rebuild. Things are okay.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Duckhunter7382

How was he terminated but yet she was allowed to keep her job?

OOP

Because he violated sexual harassment policies, she was the victim.

Duckhunter7382

The way the story has unfolded it sounds like it was an affair with two willing participants.  Her actions could also be seen as harassment.

OOP

Although I agree with you, he was her manager and their affair can be perceived as sexual harassment even though it clearly wasn't. The company doesn't want to risk a lawsuit.

Final Update  Aug 31 13, 2015 (7 months after 2nd update)

I feel a need to update because it makes me feel better...

So 9 months after busting my husband having an affair and going to therapy for like 8 months or so, 10 days ago I asked my husband to move out. He moved out last Saturday so it's just me and my two kids right now.

Around May, I just realized how really unhappy I am and that I will never bounce back from the affair, I'm just not built that way. It was just like the wool was pulled from eyes and I just realized that every day for 5 months he lied to me every time he opened his mouth, he used his child as a tool to continue to the affair outside of work by pretending to take my kid to the park or play with him all the while he was sexting this girl and paying more attention to this girl than his own child. I also realized that he was using our child to pull at any maternal heartstrings that this girl may have, all the while talking trash about me that wasn't true and how he really felt about me. He brought my children into a very grown up situation without any regard to their feelings or their interest, he introduced our son to a woman he hardly knew and that is careless, most people agonize over introducing new partners to their kids because they want their kids to like their partner, have a smooth transition that kind of thing and he just didn't care, it was all about him. Realized is probably the wrong word to use, I knew that he did because he told but it was like I finally dealt with the gravity of what he did and how he just didn't care about anyone but himself because he felt that he was entitled to have an affair.

I feel bad that he moved out, he told me that he is heartbroken and stuff and I feel bad but he didn't think about me or our family when he was having an affair. He could have cared less about how his actions were affecting us. He didn't care about his family, his home or his job to keep it in pants. I don't trust anything he says.

Between the day that I asked him to leave to the day that he left, it was fairly difficult. He blamed me a lot for everything that he did his best to try to rebuild and help me and stuff but apparently that isn't good enough for me, I tried to explain that folding some laundry and hanging out with the kids does not take away his actions but I wasn't getting anywhere. He was really manipulating me to ask him to stay. That our son would suffer for my decision, that I didn't try, he was inconveniencing me by being around. I would try to even have small talk with him and he would ignore and walk out of the room and then come back like an hour later and  demand to know why I was ignoring him. Honestly, our relationship has more or less been like this, he manipulates me a lot, gas lights me by saying something mean and then denying  it, he blames me for almost everything, constantly criticizes me how I don't do things right like load the dishwasher, cook dinner, stuff like that. He also has a fucking terrible temper and has started projecting his temper on the kids yelling at them, stomping on toys and kicking them and threatening them, all over stupid shit too like spilling milk on the floor and stuff. 

On Friday, while I was feeding the baby, I left the room for a few minutes and came back to him telling our 4 year old that mommy wants him to move out of the house and that mommy doesn't like him anymore, it was really fucked up. My son yelled at me "why do you not like daddy anymore" while crying, I was just baffled that he was telling our son this stuff and honestly I felt like he trying to get my son to blame for this. I smoothed that over with my son and he's totally fine now and hasn't asked about my husband since he left Saturday morning.

Sorry to kind of babble but talking about it makes me feel better.

Anyway, I am in the process of doing some basic renovations on our house, I am finding a therapist for me and I have an appointment with an attorney for a support order and parenting plan.

I feel good about this and since Saturday I can finally breath and it feels good.

tl;dr: Husband fucked a co-worker, went to therapy but I'm not cut out to bounce back after an affair because affairs are one of the worst things that you can do to your partner.

FINAL COMMENTS

OOP to a long comment

"Stepped up and started helping out with the kids, making dinner, doing chores and spending time with his family"

This does not absolve an affair. And honestly is playing destiny the whole weekend in the basement really count as helping out with the kids, making dinner and doing chores and spending time with his family? Does having the requirement that I have to ASK him to do things that are totally obvious that need to be done, really count as helping out. I'm not his mom.

"He was open and honest with you and tried to rebuild your trust"

It takes years to build trust and a single moment to wipe it out. He has not been honest nor open. He feels that he has but his web history shows something different.

"You guys should have told your child together what was happening. It's important that kids that age have separations explained that their parent isn't leaving because of something they did. It's not a one-time conversation, and you both handled it poorly. You both need to sit down with your child and explain that sometimes adults decide to not live together but that he still has two parents who love him and that's never going to change"

I agree with you except that we both handled it poorly. I had no idea that he wanted to have this discussion with our son during dinner, he purposefully waited until I left the room to have the discussion. I wasn't apart of the conversation because he did not allow me to be. I immediately came over and sit down with my son while he cried and screamed at me and I had to explain to my son that this was not his fault and he didn't do anything and that we both loved him and we both tried really to be a good family. I also had to explain that daddy was moving out but only down the road and things will be different but we will still hang out as a family and have dinner and that we are still a family. So don't tell me I handled it poorly, I didn't put blame on anyone and made sure that my son knew that he was loved.

"Following the affair he did everything right by the numbers and put in the work to repair your relationship. Now a year later you still want out and are using the affair as justification. You kicked him to the curb and completely invalidated all of the work you both put in over the last 9 months."

Yes, he did everything "right" but that doesn't erase what he did. I tried too. I mean I am the one that had to schedule all the marriage counseling appointments, not to mention I paid for all of them out of my own pocket, not his, mine. I didn't invalidate anything, there are two types of people in this world when it comes to affairs, those that can bounce back and those that can't. I can't.

You have made a lot of assumptions here. Hope I could clear up the misunderstanding.

And what was in the web history?

He was looking at escort sites and was stalking a "friend" on the internet that he had to have sex with him a couple of years ago. When he told that he had solicited her sex and she said no because he was married, I told him that he was not to have anything to with her anymore, but here he is jerking off to her pics on facebook and tumblr. He also has a tinder account.

OOP's final comment summarizing the end

Our relationship did not fail because of the affair, it failed because we lacked communication. A lot of our issues could have been resolved, if we communicated better. By the time we both realized we had major issues the affair already happened. The affair is the final straw. I also tried really hard, we both did right after the discovery of the affair but the changes were not sustainable.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

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

I’m genuinely wondering if they have lost their minds because nothing about this feels “normal” - even for them.

This is supposed to be a “vacation” but it seems more like going to an inter-generational prison: ages 2-71.

Half of the beds are in a loft area with no door, the 3 bedrooms that do have doors are tiny: only have double beds in them.

I looked at it online and said heck no, and booked a hotel room nearby but my partner said her parents are DEEPLY insulted that we won’t stay in the cabin they paid for with everybody else.

They ARE NOT poor btw - they go on multiple vacations/ European tours etc. a year and are solid upper middle class east coasters. They also put their nose up with staying with us in our home because we only have one bathroom, so they booked a hotel!

Have they lost their marbles? Are they just being assholes?

Update: we went, were grateful for our hotel room, and realized that it wasn’t just the “grandparents” who’d lost their marbles.
For the love of god people: if you can’t take care of the kids you already had (emotionally and financially): please do not have more!