Don't Blame Me! - DBM: My Friend's Friends Don't Treat Me Like a Friend

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

This week Meghan and Melisa are giving advice on: Update: Getting Your Sister Out of a Bad Relationship (January 29, 2024) Getting stood up by your "friends" Telling your conservative parents you're moving in with your boyfriend Talking to your red-state of mind family members Hypothetical questions to ask your partner Follow Us! @meghanrienks instagram.com/meghanrienks https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @meghanandmelisa https://www.instagram.com/meghanandmelisa Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf Need Advice? dontblameme.show Domestic Listeners Call: [phone] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

my ass is sweating i'm glad yours was caught on me too mine was it yeah no it's a little fucked up she pressed record while she said her titties are so no you had a full countdown you could have stopped yourself no do you know me at all of course i couldn't stop myself and then i had to chime in saying your titties are sweating my fucking ass is sweating and we have been recording so welcome to another episode of don't blame me where we titty sweat and ass sweat give you the most wonderful amazing life-changing advice that will change your life hopefully for the better you know sometimes we give out tough love sometimes we will coddle you if if you ask though we don't get a lot of people who are like i'm so sensitive and then they're

like i killed someone with my car please be on my side like usually people are saying like i'm really sensitive like go easy on me please be nice to me am i like this is what i'm going through like everyone in my life has like turned into a vampire and they're all like trying to ruin my life like are you on their side and it's like no no of course not grab some garlic wave that around garlic i saw elephant garlic for the first time at oh yeah that's a big bitch but i hear it's not it's flavorful i wouldn't think so because anything like it's like when you have a tomato too big anything even if it's not genetically modified like modified just tends and the ratio is off yeah but i was like this is a girthy little fucker like yeah it felt like a it was like a tit

implant size i was like how many ccs is this when everyone was gardening during the pandemic i saw a lot of videos with that i guess because i was gardening as well and now people are homesteading And I'm like, just call it gardening. We don't need to put an old timey name on it. We've got a name that works perfectly fine. And also, I wonder if those people are using the term homesteading in the correct manner, because true homesteading, you're one step away from I don't trust the government and I've joined a militia.

My children aren't vaccinated and we use an outhouse and we don't even get our electricity from the we're off the grid. There's this woman who lives in this gigantic house who's a doctor. and i believe her husband might be a doctor too that calls herself a homesteader and i'm like you're just gardening also don't take away those like terms from people who like their job is maintaining the home raising whatever they're doing there i'm like you can't part time don't you don't need everything like let people have their own thing right i just started following her because i liked her house and i just wanted to see more of the house because she clearly puts

money into these videos as she has aerial shots drone footage of her house oh my gosh wow she's really like she's like fully cosplaying yes as like ma'am you have a full-time job yeah yeah her husband is a doctor too oh my god their house is huge oh this is these are they go out on their little boat what the fuck wait that's actually great that's not who i had followed because i the person i followed the the homesteading the home like i actually believe this person would homestead in the sense that like i believe that this person if they like saw a deer on their land they're like i shot and killed it and then i carcassed it and then i cooked it like i have followed her from one fucking video and in that video i know if the apocalypse happened i would

trust to go to her fucking house and she we'd be fucking fine yeah and like she'd have a bunker and like shit would get done also because like in her her one of her videos went viral i need to fucking find her and she she was like let me just give a little psa for before people follow me she goes if you're a man don't follow if you're following me unfollow i don't fucking want you here and i was like and i'm intrigued so yeah worry we give you advice sometimes we shit talk we also have a patreon if you want to watch the video version of the podcast you can also join our patreon just to support us because we also do live streams twice a month me figuring out when we're doing our next one that was me looking at my yeah i mean we have to catch up

from last month february is hard for everybody it is and i was going through things yeah and we're all very understanding there so how this podcast works is we listen to your voicemails and we read your emails and messages telling us about the predicaments in your life and we do our very best to help you out so if you would like to be on an upcoming episode you can send us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us an audio message to meganpodcast at gmail.com and you can also send us a written out typed out email to same email address or you can slide into our dms it is all anonymous so don't worry about that you can use a voice we've had people use voice changers before if you need to use the tiktok voice changer download the video and then

send us the audio there you go pulling an adelvia up in here so it has to be under three minutes if you are recording a voice memo or you are leaving us a voicemail and under 300 words if you are writing it out in the dms or in a written email we do ask that you include your age as well as anyone else who's like involved in this their ages pseudonyms for everybody and give us as much detail as you can as many details as possible because that's the way that we will be able to give you the best advice so if there's like an important backstory to like why we feel a certain type of way or whatever that is please include that because we we got to get a recap we got to get the chapters 1 through 12 if that's what we're on we we can hate someone we can love someone but

you got to give us the reasoning behind it and let us know if you're sensitive as always we'll help you with anything even if we have no personal experience and we're comfortable if we're wrong we're learning a lot yeah i think we've learned a lot over the years yeah specifically i think we've learned this sounds so weird i was like specifically i do think we're a lot better at giving um lesbians advice now that was when we're like a blind spot for the both of us not for our audience and our audience has been like let me help let's help these straighties out we're eternally grateful your straight is showing exactly well today we have an update so um this episode was from january 29th okay so i originally called a few months ago about my

sister and her supposed boyfriend who they've been together for going on a year and a half now and he's broken up with her so many times he's like manipulative and toxic and like no matter what i say she just doesn't listen to me she dismisses like any concerns i bring up all of Her friends say that they don't like him. My family doesn't like him. And it's like, she just thinks that I'm making stuff up because I don't like him. And no matter what, it's like, he's amazing.

He's like, even if he does something bad, she's like, well, he's getting better now. It's fine. Okay. So yeah. And like, y'all gave a lot of really good advice back in January. So like, I sat down with her recently

and it was after he came to visit where he surprised her for her birthday without, like, we live together. And he didn't think, oh, maybe I should let her know that I'm going to show up out of nowhere. And he knew we had plans that night. And he just came. And then I was put in the position of, like, can he, like, stay? Can you, like, hang out with us? Because, like, we had plans. I was like, it's your birthday. Like, I don't want to be that asshole. And then he was, like, he ignored her all night. He was rude to her he was like criticizing her like it's her like really it's her birthday and you're just gonna like y'all rude and then he ended up staying for like four days when it was only supposed to

be one to two where she like completely disappeared and just like spent all of her free time helping him study instead of celebrating her birthday how far away does he live he's like three hours away so he could have been using those three hours to study six hours driving to and fro okay continue yeah so before because he's further away she kept visiting him and he was like i don't want to make the drive i don't want to make the drive but like every two weeks she was driving to see him and now all of a sudden he can come here but for most most of the time she always like makes the effort to see him instead of the other way around and then after he leaves i waited like a couple days and then i sat down with her and like brought up a lot of the points you guys made and like

tried to make it clear that I wasn't trying to like attack her or not like even attack him but just like bringing up all the concerns that I had as much as possible in like the nicest way because she's pretty sensitive and like making it clear that like I wasn't going anywhere like no matter what he does but she just got really upset and like said a lot of things I already mentioned about how like i'll just make stuff up because i don't like him and like just missed all my concerns and then said something like well this is my life i am gonna do what i want i'm gonna spend my time how i want like it's none of your business so then like from now i don't really like know what else to do but he visited us again after we talked and stayed for a week

which was not fun but he was making like rude comments towards me about like personal things with me and my sister that he had no business getting in the middle of and then he thought something was funny so he was sharing a story with me and like telling me that I was wrong about something when I knew that I was right and like wouldn't let it go and could see that I was really upset about it and just kept going and then I ended up leaving the situation after I tried to leave a few times and my sister was like why would you do that that's rude so I kept listening to him and then I ended up finally leaving towards the end when he was almost done and then she got really upset at me for being rude to him and then made me feel like I had to apologize which I somewhat

did and she was like thank you so much I really needed that yeah I'm speechless so I was gonna say something but I would it would be needed to be cut out so I'm just gonna say it when we're signing off because it's something like very nasty that i want to say but i'll tell it to you after we're not recording um but like to me this is like i think you also have a sister problem at this point like you know what i mean like you have a problem with him but like if he's if she's gonna let him treat you like shit then it's like that to me is like that's a hard line like i've let guys treat me like shit the second they treat someone i care about like shit like that becomes like a oh no no no like i'll tolerate the bullshit but like i won't let you do that to someone who

I love and care about and who like loves and cares about me do you you guys still live together we do and I moved from another state because she asked me to oh my god yeah and also it came up recently where he was saying like oh we can live together when your lease is up and then like five minutes later I was like actually wait no we can't do that is he in school virtually he's in school in person how is he staying for was it spring break yeah it was spring break can you give me how old are you how old your sister and how old is he i'm 26 she just turned 24 and he's 25 okay this is going to be like a controversial thing and i don't even necessarily think you'll do it but i do kind of think you need to let your sister like fall flat on her face because this is like

this is like a level of digging your heels in to the point where like she's harming her other relationships so like again like i'm saying like i would let some guy treat me like shit and i would like like deflect if anyone said anything or whatever that was but like if I let him repeatedly treat the people in my life like shit like that's I never got to to that point whatsoever and so like I mean I would say like yeah they can live together and like she can see because like right now she's getting him in in these doses where sometimes with like long distance or like relationships where you don't see each other as much like you get those rose-colored glasses on or it can be the opposite like the tensions are high because you only have so much like finite

time together that i'm sure for her she thinks like any of their problems or whatever like oh well like it can be explained away by x y and z like you don't see it like that you don't know us like that and it's like okay cool so then like i'm not gonna be the person who just has to endure all of this shit if you want to put up with him like that's totally fine but like i don't so like we can't live together anymore like that's like i'm not gonna tell you you can't spend time with him but like I don't want to so I'm gonna separate myself from this and then like how good of a partner is he going to be when they're living together just them two and like I get like wanting to like protect her from that but it doesn't I don't even know what else you could do

to protect her from that yeah I was gonna say that at this point you've done ever you sat down with her she knows how you feel you've done everything that you can to show her this isn't a good person for you and he's not a good person for me and he's coming in between us and it's affecting our relationship so like at this point you just kind of have to let it play out and step aside and then she'll learn from that yeah because even her saying that like oh you're making it you're all you're just saying all that because you don't like him it's like i don't like him because of all of this like that like lapse in logic is fucking crazy to me that it's just like oh she's so on the hyper defense that it's like it's everyone in the world against us like all

of this and it's like okay if that's what you want and you want it if you want that like you can have that but like right now she's getting she's getting both she's getting to like and like i don't know if she like still vents to you or talks to you about all that kind of stuff like she's able to have the tumultuous highs and lows of a shitty relationship while still having the like constant of you and your life together when he's not around so like it gets really fucking exhausting if when that's what you have and like not that i'm saying you cut her off or like you don't speak to her anything like that but like not living together so like she has to she understands like what the full time is that she's signing up for then like that's what that is or like

not being the fallback or if it's like oh yeah he's like doesn't want to move in together yet and it's like okay well we wouldn't if we live together he comes and visits like i'm not interested in that and like I want to take some some space and like yeah I just think that some people are like committed to learning the lesson the hard way and like I've been like that like and it fucking it's unfortunate and uh you know I think you've said so much to her that she knows how much you like love and care about her that like if anything does happen in the relationship when it inevitably blows up in her face I don't think that she would feel like ashamed or embarrassed coming to you and like you can just wait to say i told you so for like a couple years and then you

can give the i told you so this fucking man he's 25 yeah and he he's i feel like he's still like super child there's like his parents take care of everything he can't cook i don't even know if he knows how to do laundry oh my god is he like gorgeous no oh my god how did they meet this is so bad she's friends with his little sister but the little sister okay with that at first yeah and then they're not as close friends anymore but like when they first started texting she was like he's super weird maybe you should talk to him i was like no i'm good and now this is what happened you like weird people yeah why would that be like a selling point for you apparently i don't know wow okay sounds like projecting because i'm like actually it turns out this is apparently the

perfect guy for her because she's like i think everything he does that's horrible is amazing and you're like that's fucking weird so have her friends said anything a lot of them have um a few of them have been coming from guys who like maybe like her a little bit so she doesn't really listen to everything that they say sorry she has other options lined up and are they better options um at first i thought the one that was really trying i thought that he was but then i met him and he gives like really weird vibes and he's also way older than her so oh gross yeah what the fuck is up with your sister like this is high is this like her personality like is she kind of like very stubborn usually I think so but like we've always been really close so I feel like she

usually listens to what I have to say and what like our mom has to say but I think when it comes to guys she just doesn't really care as much like the last like few relationships she's had I've met them and I'm like they suck and she completely ignored me and it turned out horrible oh yeah she just likes to learn things the hard way does it seem like she dates a lot of the similar looking guys I think they've all been very different like one was like like a water polo player there was like a dude that joined the army oh my god wow she's just loves to get just uh figuring things out you know dating a little bit of everybody does she still complain to you or talk to you about this she does and even like telling me all of his friend drama

which like i don't care about but i'm gonna listen because she wants to tell me yeah but yeah she still tells me everything which like i appreciate for the most part because i think i would feel a lot worse if she was cutting me out from sharing all that stuff with me but it's still exhausting and it was even like exhausting before we lived together because she would just call me all the time and tell me like when he was breaking up with her every other week but now like when it's in person I just I can't escape it and now he's like visiting here it's a lot yeah as someone who has sisters and also lived with their sister it's rough at at points but then it got for me it got better and I have faith that it'll get better so Melissa would you

advise to like put a null to the conversation because like i think without a doubt you have i mean i always made it known that i hate it this one dude i made it known i never tried to be friendly with him ever in life still to this day and eventually something happened where she reached the point where she realized that he was a piece of shit and then that was the end of it and now she's with like someone that i absolutely adore like she's been married to him for 11 years now I think so I would know I would move out and I would be like we can't live together anymore like I love you but like you know I know I don't like him I don't like being in the same vicinity as him so like that is my boundary and then when like the next time she calls you to like complain about him

or whatever it's like okay so before we get into this like we both know that I hate him so whatever you tell me I'm still gonna hate him and I still really hate him and like I think he's a bad person and like all of these things he's doing to you, like it clearly fucking sucks. And that's exactly how I was. Like I never let it slip that I might ever like him in life. No, I absolutely could not stand that man. Yeah, I don't think your job as a sister

is to be a silent listening ear for this because like she already knows how you feel about him. So if she's still talking to you about it, it's because she's not withholding that from you because she already knows how you feel. So she's comfortable giving you more ammo to hate him and like all this other shit about him. so like you're on the same page with her so it's like i don't think you need to um

just be quiet and like listen and be there for her because she's still going to you knowing how you feel if she wanted a quiet listening ear she would go to someone who's going to like who's unbiased or who thinks that he's a great guy or whatever so it seems like she just needs to like fall on her face and watch it and then hopefully what will happen with this one it will break the cycle of all the other shitty guys that she's dated and this will be the end like this will be the the pinnacle this will be the climax of it and then it's gonna get better from it but i think it it needs to explode before it repairs yep and that's what happened in my situation i hate this for you because the thing is you love your sister you want the best for her but

there's only so much you can do right yeah and it inevitably like i don't think your sister's gonna end up with like a piece of shit like we all learn the lesson it just takes whatever amount of time and unfortunately ideally she would have already learned it by now but she hasn't and so like this is it it's like you're trying to erase all the past people she's dated like the pent-up frustration that you have of like still like we're still going through these like horrible fucking shitty guys and it's like okay this is this is it like this is who it's gonna be and like you can't prevent her from learning that lesson because then he won't be the last guy Then there'll be like another one who comes along like she has to want this to be done, not because everyone else in her life is like telling her that she needs to want it to be done.

She has to like feel that for herself. And she will when she realizes that like when she needs to count on him and that's who she has and that's who she's going to rely on when he can't be there for her the same way that you could or her friends could or all of that stuff. But I don't have a sister, so I can only imagine how hard that would be to like kind of like release that and like watch someone like you love and care about. yeah like learn a lesson a really painful way but you got this and you're doing you're you're such a good sister you're doing everything that that you should be doing so good job on the on your part oh and if anyone else who's listening has any other advice from this perspective send it into a don't blame them so we can maybe crowdsource some more frustrating for everybody involved yeah including us yeah things will get better well thank you so much we're gonna take a

break and we are back from our break and it's time to get into the calls the write-ins the advice giving first one is a write-in hi eminem i'm 33 and use she her pronouns i'm asking for advice on if i should end childhood friendship i've known lucy she her for 20 years oh this one's hard for me because i i have a friend named lucy and i love her it all started in 2019 when i got engaged to my now husband i invited her and her quote-unquote new group of friends four girls to my engagement party it's important to note that i fully embraced her friends into my life during my party i noticed lucy's friends kept themselves in a corner and acted like they didn't want to be there. I thought that was odd because I never had a problem with them. They were always

nice to me and I considered us friends. Two months later, I saw Lucy out with them celebrating one of their birthdays. I was surprised and sad to see that I wasn't invited. This became a pattern. I was constantly left out of any plans and I would find out they were hanging out on social media. I was so hurt and confused. I took a huge step back from my friendship with Lucy. We reconnected two years ago and had a long conversation about everything. She apologized and said that they never thought to invite me and she regrets going along with it. Flash forward to now, Lucy has had a few celebrations in the past year i attended every single one of them i put away my hurt feelings and forgave her friends i felt hopeful and thought things were getting back to normal

i recently hosted friends giving at my house and i invited lucy and those friends all of them promised to be there and none of them came i feel so silly for thinking things were different what should i do i'm a leo and lucy is a cancer thank you these people weren't your friend they never were your friends and it may seem like that they were because of proximity I have friends of friends that like we can all hang out together when we're invited to the other like our actual mutual friends things but then I wouldn't invite I mean they don't invite me to their other things and I wouldn't invite them to mine I like them fine enough and I consider them like associates some of them like have me on their close friend list on Instagram but like we're not hanging out

and I think if you're not hanging out with people without the mutual friend then that makes it kind of like not your friends like if you never had like one-on-ones with them but like your actual friend is an asshole for this she should have included you especially after you had like the talking and them not showing up for your friend's giving is just messed up so messed up like i can understand if one person canceled but all of them canceled even your your like actual quote unquote friend that's messed up and then they didn't give you any information about them not being there they're a bunch of bitches they're not your friend including your who you consider your actual friend and um i would just cut them off and move on yeah i i would too i i very much relate to you in this

like leo to leo i'm like we are like loyal to kind of like a fault and i have an issue which i don't know if you person who wrote in for me and i don't want to say it's an issue but like it's only an issue when it is an issue but for me like if someone is friends with melissa and melissa's like oh i love this person to me i will talk to that person like i've known them my whole life because like i view my a lot of my friends like as a reflection and extension of me and so therefore their friends their family or all of that kind of stuff like i can be way too familiar with people and i have that issue with just anyone if someone tells me they watched my content before i'm like oh my god like but i exchanged three conversations three words with a waiter it's a

shortcut yeah and i'm like oh best friends we're cool but we have what we vibe like i i i just talk to everybody kind of like like that and i also sometimes have a hard time noticing if the people on the other end of that are like whoa that's not like my vibe but I think it's like I have friends who will keep me in check if it's like oh I think this is just like I don't think they got your sense of humor I don't whatever like Leo has done that to me before where he's like with love you need to go talk to that person again I don't think they got you and I was like what they didn't get there I don't think they knew you were joking I think you need to go say something and like I'll be oh I'm so sorry they'll be like oh totally didn't even realize it like

okay so i think like you are being so like warm and generous to kind of like extend this and i would be curious if you did like hang out with them like what would you consider was this like there are more people in your friend group or is this her friend group that you've met and you know through seeing them at her birthday or like what is that kind of relationship because i have been like very lucky that a lot of my friends have come from like i like like kyle has like groups of friends who like every time I see they we all mutually follow each other I see them all the time like if we lived in the same place I would be like oh my god come like to the beach for my birthday like it's just that kind of like ease of relationship there but in order to do that the

person who's like the mutual person has to really facilitate this and it doesn't sound like Lucy ever facilitated that like I think she just like let you kind of take the reign and if it was something that they were like kind of odd about or like weird about and like weren't into it I think it's her responsibility to relay that information or to like work on the circumstance so you don't end up in a position like this where you feel like pretty really shitty and silly and i also think that like her kind of like oh i had no like oh like i shouldn't have gone along with it then to me i'm like okay so are you acknowledging that you were kind of like excluding her from all of this and then you're still friends with those people like that to me is also like a

red flag. And I also think another red flag, I, if my friends don't get along with each other and like the only time that that's ever, ever really happens, I'm like, well, I know because I have the same problems with this friend. Like it's not, it should be like an easy thing. Like it should just be easy. So I can't say that like, I maybe wouldn't have felt depending on how much we hung out, you invite me to your engagement party. Like I might feel like, wow, I'm surprised I'm invited and I might feel a little nervous and I don't know as many people so maybe I'm not socializing as much but I think you know if that wasn't then communicated afterwards and it was like oh we had such a great time thank you for inviting us like that feels like a lot of mixed

messages and I don't think it's on you to necessarily decipher that and I think you've given a lot of chances and it's really hard to let go of a friendship that's been for a really long time and I'm someone who like I'm so fiercely loyal I sound like JLo I'm so like fiercely I'm Seriously, let us the block. I'm so fiercely loyal to people that I have a much easier time cutting off friendships with people that I don't know that well or people who are more recent into my life. But once you've kind of unlocked or achieved a certain status, I'm much more likely to put up with your shit because I am comfortable enough with you to tell you that I have a problem with this because I know you well enough and I care about you that I think you would want to

know. And I think you have the ability to to change that, to apologize, to work on that relationship that's a great trait to have but the it can't just be that and that's something i've had to learn where it's like okay i i always tell people how i feel i'm not i don't hide that but it's about like okay so how do they react to that and then what is the action after that because at that point it doesn't matter that what i've said i've already said it but that's not enough like i need to know that that was like taken and then things were changed and it doesn't sound like she has and i don't think that that's fair for you and it's wasting a lot of and like taking up a lot of your friendship like quota and your friendship time and it sucks mourning the loss

of like a long friendship really sucks and for someone to like prioritize people who you also might know that like you're like they wouldn't bleed out for you the way that i would and it sucks because you can't tell someone you can tell someone that but they're not going to necessarily take that in and a lot of people take friendships for granted and this to me is like a clear indicator that the amount of like love and care that you can give to friends like is something like i want that like i and they're taking up that space like if if it helps to be like think of this like you're so awesome and such a good friend and you're wasting it on these fucking losers when there's someone else who could be just as good of a friend back to you yeah so like now

my standard of friendship is i always say like melissa and kyle level you know melissa where it's like we're connected on a metaphysical spiritual universe like we're in that it's it's so wild no it's fucking it's creepy it's crazy um our last logic we're the only sister signs and then like kyle is like someone who like i can say whatever to like if he pisses me off i can tell him he pissed me off and he can like tell me that that pissed whatever it is and like i'm usually not someone who can like fight and resolve like i'm usually a good but like we are very much like that we can call each other on our bullshit and like casey and i are the same way like that and like i can like lily and i are all like there's just i hold people in my life to

now the standard that sometimes people you've known for longer are not amounting to but you don't realize it because you take the time as like a more important factor when it's so not yep agree all right next one hey guys i called already but i just realized some of the things i said weren't clear um so i am a college student i'm 24 years old i'm about to graduate the summer i am planning on moving in with my boyfriend which i've been with for four years after i graduate i'm currently living with my second oldest my sister who's after me in college since we go to the same school and have a younger sister who's 18. I've been having issues with both of them because they seem to guilt trip me when I go over to my boyfriend's

which is an hour away and they do stuff like sending me videos of how moms are not being appreciated and this and this and that but this will do stuff like my little sister found a pregnancy exam and she's trying to show it to my parents. Well I needed some advice on how to put up boundaries with that I was I don't want to cut them off but just talking to them sometimes causes me anxiety and sometimes if they know I'm with my boyfriend they send me messages trying to make me feel bad for being over at his place they're going home my parents are not really fond of me being in a relationship so another advice I wanted was how to tell let them know that I'm moving in with my boyfriend afterwards they were kind of in denial of my relationship

at the beginning like in 2020 when I first started dating him and doesn't seem to have been gotten better they are just Hispanic parents they didn't want me to date until I graduated from college and they would expect me to move in after marriage but that isn't in our nearby future it might happen later on but we're just focusing on our relationship and with me graduating in general. So yeah, I just wanted to advise on the helping with letting my parents know that I'm going to move in with my boyfriend

and setting up boundaries with my sisters because if I do kind of just cut them off, they live with my parents. My sister, when we're going to graduate, she's going back to my parents. So yeah, thanks for the advice you're going to give me. Goodbye.

So you're the oldest. That's what I'm trying to figure out. So 24 years old, living with my second older sister, like the one who's after me so yeah so between 18 the second sister is between 18 and 24 because that's the youngest and youngest lives at home yeah this sounds like the same age difference with me and my sister oh yeah my first question is if you weren't dating your boyfriend would they like him like is he like a good person are they i'm just kind of thinking about the first

the update that we had today like is this actually like a good person and your sisters aren't it's not that you're dating him it's not that you're in a relationship it's the specific relationship that you're in i just want to get that out the way yeah let's assume that he's a good person and it's just because they're protective because you didn't give us any information about him if they're being overly protective and don't want anything your parents don't want you dating just period like for cultural reasons then I think you just have to do what you want to do like at the end of the day you do what you want to do you don't have to unless you're just like I need to cut them off or else nothing's gonna get solved you don't have to necessarily cut them off you

can just ignore them like I put my sisters in their places all the time I argue with them all the time we make up all the time but like that's still my sisters I still you know there's a level respect there but like sometimes we just get on each other's nerves and so I just think what you have to do is just live your life and then they'll either follow or they'll just hold a grudge and they'll you'll get over it they'll get over it eventually yeah I don't want to read too much into the fact that you didn't tell us how old your boyfriend is because that I like if you're both graduating around the same time you're around the same age that totally makes sense to me because there's a lot of trepidation that you have here and my thing is that like you've said that your

parents don't like you dating him like don't like you dating was that period point blank they've been in denial of the relationship that yeah they're not really fond of me being in a relationship so yeah i i don't know if this is purely just cultural and i also wonder like for your siblings it sounds like they're really trying to focus on the guilt thing and how much did you like raise your sisters like how much did you have to play that parent role even if you don't think you had to even if you think that you chose to do that it's not like a natural thing that kids choose to do for the record like it's something that like you see a need that needs to be met and you meet that need so that to me them kind of like leaning in the more angle of guilt sounds like

not to pathologize it sounds like i'm assuming that's kind of what the dynamic has been and that like they're really used to you taking care of them and even if they are not acknowledging that outright and you're really used to taking care of everybody and it's really hard to then take care of yourself and prioritize yourself because that's not the role that you've been allowed to have like it's it's a very oldest sibling dynamic like really often so like Melissa said like is it about this relationship or is it about the is it about relationships as a whole And also like how much of that is like maybe conservative, don't want people to live together until they're married or a lot of it being like we view you as someone who is like crucial to the functioning of our household. I think the cultural aspect, actually, I think both aspects, it's really none of their business, everything.

Like, if you are paying for your own life, if you're not financially reliant on them for anything, I don't think you need to cut them off whatsoever. But you don't have to be super forthcoming and super outright with your life, what you're doing, the inner workings of everything. Like, you can do whatever you're comfortable with. and you know i think that it's hard but i also would ask yourself so like you're worried about your sister even like telling your parents about that there was a pregnancy test that you took like what would happen like what are you worried about happening because i think if it's like oh they're paying for my grad school i don't think unfortunately you can have it both ways i don't think that you can live with your boyfriend and have sex with your boyfriend and then like because siblings are gonna siblings are gonna rat on each other like and then you'll rat on your sister for doing something else or maybe that's not how you work but like like

Melissa said like you'll fight you'll make up like it's kind of that thing you can't count on you can't count on I don't think anybody to just like be a vault of secrets for that like especially when it comes to like siblings and they feel like you're abandoning them even though you're not but I think like if your ducks are in a row and like financially you don't rely on them for anything and you don't need anything from them they're not providing anything from you then i think that you take the relationship these relationship steps in a way that you let them know when you've made your decisions and you don't ask them for their input on your decisions and so i think like if you're easily swayed by what they want if you're easily guilt tripped

into that and you know that it's a healthy relationship you know it's an appropriate age difference between the two of you and all of that but you do know that like they're good at kind of guilt tripping you then don't tell them until you've already signed the lease like don't tell them in a way that they can talk you out of doing things that are good for you but i i can't understand the cultural aspects of it so if anyone has any other insight or input to it but i do think regardless of regardless of that if you rely on them for something you unfortunately whether you agree with like their ethos or their requirements like you do have to abide by that like and it sucks you can't have both and it really sucks that like it's kind of impossible in a lot of

cases to create boundaries with people until you are not reliant on them for anything because i'm not saying that like their love is conditional but their pockets might be conditional like these other things might be conditional and it's not permanent so i don't think you're doing anything wrong so I hope you like know that and like you're not abandoning anyone and like you being on your own will be good for everybody like you are an adult now I think there are layers to adulthood if you're still financially tied to them then you can't be a full adult yet but if you're not financially tied and you're going to be self-reliant in every way then they just gotta accept it and in I feel like they believe that they're doing all this out of love because this is it's different

it's not something that they're used to like you being different than what they expect but they'll eventually get over it yeah I think you're just it sucks that you I think you need to reassure them but that like they're not losing you just because you're doing things differently doesn't mean that like you're leaving and this is the end like it's just it's everything's going to be fine you're gonna be good life is just gonna be a little different and the thing that sucks about being the oldest is that you have to be the first that does everything and then just it's gonna they're gonna be so lenient on your youngest oh yeah they're gonna be like i'm gonna join the peace corps and i'm going to just travel with the renaissance fair and like they'll be sick and

you're like are you fucking kidding me right so think of yourself as a a pioneer you're really breaking the mold and um you're making it better for the next one you're the first everything has to go through you first yeah you're that important yeah you are all right we're gonna take a break and we are back from our break and it is time to get into the rest hey megan and melissa so i'm calling in about advice about my family or i live in the midwest i recently moved back from the pacific northwest where it's like very liberal there and obviously in the midwest it's very red and i'm having an awful time and i'm really struggling with some family members and comments that they're making, obviously, towards this awful,

awful election that's going to come up. And I just need some advice on how to redirect conversations without, you know, screaming at them, because I know that is, like, not going to do anything for them. Like, they're just going to completely ignore me if I just, like, blow up on them. So I want to, like, do it in a way that they'll understand and that's like respectful but also a little like petty because i love them but they're annoying to shut up to me lately and i just can't do it so yeah thanks love you guys you're talking to two rabble rousers yeah i was about to say respectful is unfortunately not something i have a lot of experience with i like to cause good trouble yeah and so i would be i would come if you want to be

i guess nicer come with straight facts and just deliver them very plainly like it's an everyday conversation it's not like a well i heard this or like you're like you're like oh really yeah that's interesting and then just rattle off a fact about something and they're like where'd you get that information then you point them to your source keep a note keep a whole like thing on your notes app be like hey I'll send you this this thing that I read and then it'll be like well that's fake news and you're like I like to see things from all sides and this seems to be coming from a legitimate source there's only so much you can do you can't really like argue with people who their minds aren't going to be changed at the end of the day it's more about yourself and

then like am I speaking up against things that I don't believe in and if you have the capacity to do it that way then then do it and if not then I unfortunately just kind of got to walk away because you can't argue with people who are willingly ignorant yeah I agree with all of that similar to that I was going to say like I think you have to categorize what the conversations are about like if they're saying something like incredibly racist transphobic misogynistic that to me is an automatic like oh hi that's super racist and i'm really not comfortable hearing this uh if this is something that would you like to retract that statement or learn a little bit more about like why that's super problematic and if not if you're setting your ways in this like

i think we should change subjects and i'm actually gonna i'm gonna go to the next room like i i don't feel comfortable being around someone saying that because i'm so just not cool with that like making people feel silly and uncomfortable for what they're saying and like not just like let me just dip out and leave like you can say something there and then it's like you know so then the the other part is if someone's saying something that is not true and it's most likely in this case offensive but it's not necessary it's not like overtly offensive in a way like that it's more not even saying nuanced but more like if someone's talking about not um not talking about like specific people who immigrate to the u.s but they're talking about border policies they're

talking about something that is like political jargon or whatever and they're saying something that's just like not fucking true at all the thing that i always say is like very kindly i'm like would you be open to like changing your mind on this subject like if you were presented with new information like is that something that you'd be open to and a lot of people will be like no i don't give a shit and it's like oh okay so yeah that's you know it's actually like it can really like grates me when um people are saying things that just like aren't true and like they're not backed up by facts or evidence that's like really like you said like that's really something that i like to uh base my belief system my moral values and my voting record really reflects that so that's not

your vibe and that's totally cool but i'm i'm gonna exit this conversation and or just change the subject after that like that to me is like then some people will be like well sure i'd be open to it and then most of the time though if you ask that question depend people are going to say no and then there's like the one or they want to debate yeah and then there's the kind of person where and i even do this people who we vote the same like i also have these other aspects of it where it's like someone will say something and i will just ask a follow-up question and then i'll be like so what do you think about then this and then so then this and the one the way that i will usually do it is they will be and if you'll see they'll see them on the late shows they'll have

like man on the street things asking people questions that are like probing about their belief system and they will just really show that it's so flippant in like what standards they hold yeah but you say that like this is a trump quote and you say it and it's actually like a biden quote and they're they just have blinders on like they're nothing the truth doesn't matter to them totally and i think like if you're if you feel like you're getting through to someone or you feel like this person is like just been misled there's hope like there's there's getting them back from that i always ask questions that are kind of like sidestep to the other question so someone's saying something about this is why i think this should be the way that it is and i'd

be like so do you think that insert other circumstance here that's the same but just whether a different race a different country of origin a different what do you think that's like the same here like do you do you think that's the same a lot of the time in immigration this is not the conversation i have with people who are same political belief system immigrants people who come and over here from canada people who come over europeans and like pointing out that like people can then start to see that like oh i'm not holding the same expectation the same standards for everyone else and like they might it might not resonate them it might it might just at least my thing i like to do is like plant the seed so when someone else reads something later on that

pertains to that same topic, my voice is in the back of their head about something. And so they want to maybe still align with the belief system that they have. And then they're finding it hard that like, oh, actually, the crux of this political party at this point is to be hypocritical. It is to hold different standards because it is rooted in racism, xenophobia and bigotry. So you can't actually apply those standards across the board because your party doesn't. And so that can be a big wake-up call for people and seeing where people on all sides of like the political spectrum what their biases are and like what standards and expectations they hold for certain groups of people and not for others and what rights and liberties they believe are allotted to that and

sometimes people don't even recognize or realize where that's stemming from until someone until someone poses the question to them and they have to figure it out because i think like who doesn't love to embarrass a bigot but for someone who you think like there's hope this is someone this is like i can get to them they're open to learning they're just misled unfortunately embarrassment is a way to people to really like dig their feet in and so not accusing someone of doing x y and z or having this thinking x y and z but making them think about why they feel that way but yeah i do agree that like your piece at the end of the day is like super important but i also another great tactic is and this is when it's like you're so outnumbered there's no you've tried everything

else if people say things you just give them a funny look and you're like what an odd thing to say is that just like what's going through your head like at all times like do you watch tv shows like this is like you seem like this is like really weighing you down specifically to men being incredibly patronizing to being like those are some big feelings like do you have you ever thought about getting into boxing like i just feel like that chest you must have so much chest tightness like you look like very emotional very very emotional and make it so they don't want to fucking talk about it yeah but again i'm respectful is something i'm not yeah somebody's making me feel uncomfortable i don't think that they deserve to feel comfortable without a doubt

like without a doubt all right next one which is a write-in a dm to be exact hey megan and melissa i love y'all's podcasts anyway me and my boyfriend are both 20 and we've been together for a year and a half over the past few months we've developed a new aftercare habit that includes asking questions back and forth this has been really beneficial to our relationship and i want to continue it for the foreseeable future. My issue is that I'm running out of questions to ask. Do you guys have any ideas for questions I can ask? They can be hypothetical, deep, stupid, raunchy. It doesn't matter. Here's some examples of the questions that we ask. What do you love about me, yourself, our relationship? If your friend was terminally ill and the only way to save them was to give

them head would you do it so we're gonna say like an organ that would cause you to die right uh if you can have either a devil or angel on your soldier on your shoulder which would you choose if you were a widow and got married which wife would you be buried next to two good questions what are aftercare is that like after you fuck or something i when i hear aftercare i think after sex yeah i think after sex like you clean up and then you're having pillow talk yeah but i think i don't know what okay i didn't know if i was missing something yeah that's where my mind goes so maybe it's like after a fight or like even like after a day of work to like reconnect like a daily thing so we had this on direction of the challenge we have this very thoughtful man

on the podcast the episode isn't out yet but he is like a filmmaker and his name is topaz adizes i like your like qualification for him is like he's a thoughtful man like he is no no i know but it's like he goes on the oh that's his title because he goes on the bachelor and it's just like this work man works in business and this one's just thoughtful no he does these interviews with people like documentary style type interviews with people where you ask thoughtful questions and he just had such a great energy about him and i don't say that a lot about no i trust that explicitly but he makes these cards that you can have as well like you can ask some like questions to there's different decks for like friends or your significant other your parents things like

that and so this is called welcome to the and card game and they have interesting questions on them like how many people do you think i've slept with what do you think is the easiest thing for me when it comes to money when was our toughest moment together what do you treasure about a relationship like it's just like a deck of cards and i feel like a lot of companies just have like a deck of cards that you can that have questions on them that you don't have to think too much about so just get some cards you don't have to do the work people have already thought through it so this is like who i am as a person to the point where like i didn't even know that this is something that like wasn't just built into like other people's brains until matz and i started

dating and he goes he always goes you and your goddamn fucking question he will literally have nights where he'll come home from work this is prior because now he works from home but he would literally walk through the door and he'd look at me he goes i love you no hypotheticals tonight and i was like okay i just like they're fun i was thinking about just keeping these cards at the door and then whenever somebody comes over i make them do one of these questions oh my god i love that like i this is just like i am i refer to myself as like chronically curious to the point where like this comes up naturally the first one that came to my mind that recently just happened was and this happens all the fucking time any movie any tv show we watch we are watching

inventing anna and i pause the tv and i turn to moths and i go you are rachel you are in morocco you have she you're realizing she has no fucking money they need a card on file what are you doing like what are you doing you're calling your credit like what are you doing and he's like well i've never be in that situation I go I know but in this case you are so like what would you do and like I think like taking things from tv shows like you know even like you're watching a reality show like okay this reminds me of this or you see something on tiktok it's like what would you do with with this and like they can always be like fun kind of questions to get to know someone better I always like something I always like would we have been friends in high school like what click

would you put me with in high school like what are people who you think I would have been friends with that you grew up with what are they like and like what would you have seen in that sense like those are things that are like helpful to get to know a relationship but like you know if even silly things of like if i'm out of town for a week like what's like the what would you do in the house alone like what would be something that like you would enjoy with like what's your like guiltiest pleasure movie or like piece of content that like you felt so guilty about enjoying that like you actually can't even like acknowledge it or look at it or you like have this weird affinity to that you're like i don't even i can't participate in it or like what's a movie that you've walked

out of in the theater like what's if you could like make your perfect like i was i literally just pulled one that said if life right now was a movie what would the title be yeah it's like i always like like once two of being like if you could cast an oceans movie who would you put as like those eight like who would you do for that if you could have someone if you could have anyone go on z-way who would you want and what would you want to ask like if you like if you could be on a fly in the wall of any congressman or whatever or if you could go back in time to any like historical event that you could witness firsthand knowing that you wouldn't be harmed in it what would you want to be there for what would you want to change the situation yeah you can't change history like

if you could know one one unsolved mystery in the world but you can't share it with anyone that you know the truth what one would you want to know i'm when i tell you i am full of them because this is just how my brain works this is how I get to know people like I'm not asking people where did you go to school like what was your major like I'm like so if this happened then this happened then this happened like and I would also just like encourage you like just let them come to you in the sense that like if you something you found interesting you can just write it down on your phone and it doesn't have to be in the phrasing of a question and then the question can come to you later but yeah like I just think that like when you like someone a lot you love someone you

care about them i always want to know people who i care about like opinions or thoughts or feelings on things like it's just it's interesting or if you were going to go to the if you could be i was when i've asked all the time people like if you could be a like meddling olympic professional fantastic fucking athlete like just one day you could pick one up what would you pick and it's interesting to hear people's answers because some people are picking like f1 which is wildly fucking dangerous but you're making f1 olympic well not olympic meddling in the sense of like it could be olympic meddling but it could be just like a professional sport where you can place things and a lot of people like say f1 because it's like so glamorous and glitzy and rich and

you make so much money but it's so fucking dangerous but then a lot of like matzo's questions and like sometimes i'll be like well i'm not gonna pick something where like i'm at risk for like a brain injury if i want to make a ton of money i i don't want something that's gonna offer me like stability and comfort because he's a capricorn and he's like i must be regimented about these decisions and see i'm just thinking about the fun of me too i'm thinking about like what's gonna get me on a cereal box that luge thing uh-huh you just lay down do that that looks fun as hell but it scares me in real life and see i would monster be like oh you would want to do ice skating i go no because i am so fucking afraid of those blades on that ice like it would be great

if i was good at it but my fear and why i don't do it because i'm afraid of those blades on that that i don't think that would go away if i was good at it so those i think that's a fun one oh even like i was gonna say simple ones of like if you could learn how to cook like one thing let's not do that every year of like something that we want to learn how to make from scratch like a specific meal gives like good goal-oriented ones oh you're so lucky that your partner is like encouraging of this matz is like fine with it but like he literally always like if he's like pretending to be me goes if i was a worm and my and i had no body parts and you couldn't speak to me and i didn't look the same and i didn't have the same personality and i was just a worm

who was just there like would you still love me forever i'm like so would you like just a fucking question oh my god no i know i'm like it's it's just how my brain works ah all right that's the end of the episode oh yeah we hope you enjoyed this episode if you did you can always leave us a review on the podcast app you can also leave us a episode specific review on spotify and you can also check us out on Amazon Music because we are featured we are featured we're featured

we're like two rows under Kiki I was just about to say I saw that when I was out and about and I was like as soon as I went you clicked the link I saw Kiki first and I said good fucking company we are in good company so thanks Yvonne

thank you Daddy Bezos and you know yeah so you can always follow us on socials our instagram account our tiktok which i think it still exists and i don't think we've posted anything since halloween of 2022 and you know what time is a circle and that's all i'll be saying about that that's all the comments i have on that and join our patreon watch the video version and then stay tuned because this is only beginning we have multiple episodes we have content for you four days a week so tomorrow we

have cnex tuesday which is our fun catch-up one and um i've written down that i was gonna say sorry we didn't have one last week but yes things happen and the thing that happened was it was a numerous things it was you were like can we push an hour and then it was my computers didn't work and then we ran out of time yeah that was that was it and then we didn't there was no time to catch up on it so we're sorry for everyone who didn't get your fix of us but yeah then we have no episode on wednesday we give you a little bit of a break and then thursday we have our episode or our podcast called but am i wrong it's called but am i wrong where we tell you if you're wrong and talk about other people it's ethical gossip shit talking and then friday we have fisting

friday which is the results from our prior episode of but am i wrong and we give like little updates mini updates you know if you like the update in this episode like we do a lot of those in that one for that podcast and it's a grand old time you're really in this irish bag right now what can i say or should i say pot of gold at the end of the rainbow exactly my stature not so irish no my eyes not so irish those are the things my eyes and my height but your heart oh my god this Heart beats for Ireland. Like, without a fucking doubt. Anyways.

All right. Well, have a blessed day. Goodbye. Don't Blame Me is a production by me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa D. Montz, plus Diamond Imprint Productions. Post-production sound and editing by Coco Lorenz. Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson. And music by Giacomo Picasso and Ryan Hunter.