Don't Blame Me! - S9E1: Should I Accept My Dad's Apology?

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

This week we're answering your questions about: Not In The Wedding Party Roommate's Toxic Boyfriend Apology Letter From Dad Smelly Vagina?  Don't Blame Them: Neglectful Dog Owner   Buy our merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/don-t-blame-me    Subscribe to our new show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/but-am-i-wrong/id1591757891  Follow Us! @meghanrienks  www.instagram.com/meghanrienks  https://twitter.com/meghanrienks @sheisnotmelissa  www.instagram.com/sheisnotmelissa https://twitter.com/sheisnotmelissa @dontblamemepod   https://www.instagram.com/dontblamemepod/ Listen to ad-free on Stitcher Premium! For a free month of Stitcher Premium, go to stitcherpremium.com and use promo code 'BLAME.”   Affordable Therapy By State (Curated by Crissy Milazzo): www.tinyurl.com/y64kwdnf    Need Advice?  www.dontblameme.show  Domestic Listeners Call: [phone]   International Listeners Send a Voice Memo To: [e-mail]    … with as much detail as possible under 3 minutes! WeI'll do our best to share our wonderful words of wisdom. If you're under 18, please get your parent's permission. Advice is for entertainment purposes only, so you can't blame us if we screw up your life. I kid! Our advice IS AMAZING. - Want to WATCH this episode as well? Become a patron! https://www.patreon.com/dontblameme   Join the Facebook Group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dbmsecretgroup   Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/join/dontblameme See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

so i've like lost all muscle definition i don't know if you've noticed why would i comment on that no because i set you up to comment on it but i wanted i wanted to say no no but i just wanted to be clear i was like unless i was misleading i have always had cankles and part of the thing that like helps my cankles not look so cankly would you think i look like i have really sturdy ankles I don't that's what pisses me off the most like I'm fine with cankles if like they represent it like a sturdy ankle they don't because I have like no calf definition now like it's fully the same size I'm like I need to start doing some calf raises look at that interesting you know what else I noticed so I remember one time I came to your home I pulled out some socks

and they had little creepers on grippers on them oh did I steal these from you no no no but you made fun of me and said, why would you wear those? Why do you have them? And I said, because I don't have slippers here. So they put a little grips on the bottom. And then today you show up and what do you have on Megan? I have grippy socks on and I have grippy socks on because I keep grippy socks on to wear when we have open houses, but we haven't had anywhere. They've made us take our shoes off. And I now have this new fear because my equilibrium has been off since covid i now have this fear of slipping and falling mostly in the bathroom and getting a traumatic brain injury and so now i'm team grippy sock because like i'm afraid of

falling yeah well well you were right i should have never shamed you i always instead of saying eat shit i always accidentally say people who've eaten ass and no matter what i always like yeah people are fucking just like come to my house and eat ass i'm like no they eat shit they fall i don't know why uh okay i have a fear that i'll be on my exercise bike and then my knee will lock up and then i will fall and break my knee or leg and then be clipped in and i can't move that is my fear have you ever fallen in a spin class no i have did you fall or was it your childhood doppelganger amy schumer amy schumer and it is what was that movie i feel pretty i feel pretty it is remarkable how like i even think even if i didn't get the nose job it is a little wild how

like if you showed me a picture of like me as a baby i would say yeah she grew up to be amy schumer like her child looks exactly like me like it's super fucking weird it's so funny though but some people do tell me i still look like her you have the eyes yeah and yeah they're similar we have similar features um oh that was the most humbling experience of my life was i fell off of a pilates reformer am i surprised no it happens to everyone at some point like here's the thing you either it's like you're one of your first classes and you fall off because like your body doesn't know how to do it or you go when you're too tired or you're hung over the worst that's how i hung over my bike i used to have a chiropractor that had like pilates there and then also like regular

massages that you could get while you're there and it was all covered by insurance so it cost five dollars to get a massage and go to pilates essentially but i never fell off okay i just wanted to share that it's fine i guess we should start the episode that is the episode hello welcome to another episode of don't blame me we are your hosts megan rinks and melissa diamondmont we give advice life-changing life-altering amazing wonderful beautiful advice from two people who have never done anything wrong in their entire lives it's a burden being so perfect it's so hard being the chosen ones it is similar to harry potter's and twos that have the golden trio we are the devilish duo so if you want to call in for an upcoming

episode you can leave us a voicemail at 310-694-0976 international listeners you can send us an audio message at meganpodcast at gmail.com gotta keep it under three minutes or you'd be cut off write down everything you want to say practice it time it out and then read what you write when you're recording your voicemail or your voice memo let us know your pronouns you have to be 18 or over or have your parents permission and if you want to watch the video version of this podcast we're on patreon slash if you just want to support the show we do live streams there twice a month and we have a lot of fun and it helps us keep doing the show keep it moving baby keep it moving bitch and you can watch our reactions which are a great fun time i like my face yeah

yeah it depends on the day no you do thank you your pimples falling no it's covered up but thank you but it's not like bumpy it's not yeah it was it was really standing out on yours you have no idea do you ever have it where sometimes you've like a zit that you've popped it's like it usually happens on like i find like really close towards like the end or like the more pointy parts of like my chin or like your nose or something so where like you're looking at it and it looks like it's ready to pop because of like shadows and highlights so i thought it was ready to pop and it like didn't and so then i basically just made a blood blister and then like two days or like the next day it was like ready to pop and then i finally like was like you're just gonna pop it

and i went for it but i sometimes just forget that like when my skin is like doing well and my and my mean the skin on my face is gonna my legs aren't is not doing well um there's always gonna to be one part of my body that is struggling with it but when i'm dealing with like really bad dryness my dryness and like contact dermatitis can turn into eczema really fast and so then i will then be like oh i should put some like aquaphor vaseline on this because it gets turning into eczema but then i'm like oh no you overshot it's not eczema yet and so your skin didn't need this and now we're fogging your pores you're gonna get a zit i have to like walk this very fine line of like having like sensitive and acne prone skin that like can't get congested

versus like like eczema slash chemical burn which i like need those things and so i understand i just fucked up because i have extremely dry pat you know my face is always peeling yeah for some reason i have extremely dry patches on my cheeks i've tried a lot of different oils and all of it breaks my skin off so i can't off not out so i can't use any of it and it's just like there's nothing i can do yeah that's like basically what i've discovered i'm like okay i'm gonna have one or the other yeah i've chose to just live with the dryness me too that's like exactly what i've chosen to do as well and it's just i'm just gonna have to deal yeah well jesus any updates i'm still not engaged that's my update we're going to get nails done today we are so i'm getting prepared

to get engaged i hope you all have like listened to that episode of the podcast of the uh but am i wrong podcast the other podcast we started it's quite funny and we're enjoying doing that what else is new we've been looking for houses so much inside information i know i don't want to know i know okay i'm just glad that one of the engagements i know i saw on instagram and i was like she must be so happy she doesn't have to deal with that anymore yes and i almost spilled it on this podcast oh i did spill it on this podcast but then they had it yeah edited out but she did listen to it so she would have heard it oh my god wow good fucking call well if either if you're listening congratulations yes so what's doing with you um i went to the chiropractor last week and first i

found out that my wrists are weird okay like both my wrists my bones there's like four bones and so he just did one because his wrist has been hurting for some reason that i can't figure out because it's not my dominant hand but it's been hurting for months and so he did an x-ray of it and he's like i've never seen anything like this your bones here don't line up how your bones are supposed to line up and then he was like let me do a scan on the other wrist to see if it's like this is an anomaly both of my wrists are like that so weird that's super weird we can't find out what's wrong with that i need to go to some other doctor yeah but he adjusted me in the amount that i didn't realize how my neck was not turning fully in either direction it was astonishing like the

movement i have now it even lengthened my neck oh yeah so i'm just i just feel like a new person i'm so happy for you i did feel like i had a taste of your struggle yesterday because the night before last i was doing my hair and in order to get some volume in my hair like i gotta really move it around and so i put on taylor swift and i was like literally being like how does she do her hair flip things and i was just like flipping made a whole tiktok about like how do you do it like it's so hard someone commented like i was waiting for you to like smack your head against like the counter or like throw your neck out and i was like haha i woke up yesterday morning and i was like i am so stiff like still right now it's like not good and mox was like oh did you sleep

wrong and i was like no i was um headbanging to taylor swift and whipping my hair and he's looking he was like you're a fully grown woman i was like and so i can imagine like i only had a taste yeah and it was not fun pre-pandemic i was a regular at the cairo i hadn't gone because of the pandemic but now i have to you know add it back into my things because my body just feels different i've lost also lost a lot of muscle definition too because i hadn't been working out but okay well um should we give some advice yeah oh just so you guys know we're not going to do an update we're probably going to take like a saturday or something because a lot of people do have updates but they're working when we which is valid it's very valid because we record on a

tuesday and so middle of the day yeah so it's we want to make sure that we can like actually talk to people you know and like get the good updates and so it's not just people who like we don't want to have to work your like your work day around it yeah so look out we will probably have a saturday coming up where we're gonna do a bunch of updates and if you can do an update during the week on a tuesday around 2 p.m pacific actually anytime on a tuesday we'll figure out the schedule shoot us a message that's our regular time it is our regular time okay well that being said let's uh give some advice ready yes sure we hi megan and melissa i'm a 23 she her and i'm seeking advice on how to deal with a friend breakup that was my fault the other person i

will be referring to in this situation is 22 and goes by she her pronouns and i will be referring to them as emma emma and i have had bouts when we were best friends and then bouts when we weren't but I would describe us as always being friends, if not close friends, for the past 15 years or so. After we graduated high school, we became inseparable. We were spending every week together, were in constant communication, and I'd grown so close that we even referred to each other as soulmates. However, there was a miscommunication a couple of years ago that put a dent into our friendship. In short, Emma became very upset with me for prioritizing a friend of hers

and spending time with them a day that she assumed, though did not ask, that we would spend together. Her emotions over the situation brought up her feelings towards me as a whole and caused her to write out a list of everything she hated about me and sent it to me. To her defense, we were fairly young and each trying to manage her own mental health, but she did berate me and then expected me to jump right back

into our friendship without any accountability on her part. After some time, we did end up mending our friendship, though I will admit that the words she used have stuck with me and continue to negatively affect my mental health and relationships years later. Still, in the past year or so, we have both made efforts to reconcile fully and have become very close again. Once again, we have begun spending time together and communicating constantly, and our relationship felt that I had progressed very naturally

into a safe and stable adult friendship. However, recently she announced her bridal party, and I wasn't on it. It's embarrassing to admit that I was very upset over this, as it proved to me that I prioritized our friendship differently than she did. I took a day to reflect and even reached out to her, but she never acknowledged my comments. We continued speaking fairly normally for a few weeks, but I felt as if I had been publicly reduced to nobody to her, but privately was expected to act as a secondary lapdog.

I only intended to take a few days to process my feelings about all of this, but days became a few weeks and a couple of months, so I basically ghosted her. I am feeling very guilty and what I really want is to speak to her about everything and give and get a full explanation but I'm worried that that's too much to hope for or ask for as I assume the silence on her end is insinuating that she wants nothing to do with me I truly do have so much love for her and ideally I want her to be in my life so what it really is is she wants an explanation and feeling guilty about ghosting oh this is hard I think that like I mean I definitely relate to this i've said so many times sydney and i had like our we've had two fights in our life one

time in seventh grade and one time we were like 20 uh 20 and you wrote then you wrote a very mean letter no no she wrote a very mean letter to me and then she called me and read it to me and i just cry and she has said like without even prompting someone's having like the worst thing you've ever done in your life it was like a group of other people and then he goes oh the time that i wrote that letter to me and i was like oh my god you still think about that she was like yeah it was the meanest thing i ever did that on the show no i know but i was gonna to say. So like, I relate to that aspect of it. And like similar to you being on the other side of it, I hold no ill will or harbor any feelings towards that. Like, it's just one of those things

that like at that age, like you seem like you understand it too, that it's like, we're still understanding how to like communicate with our friends, like as adults and like, but we're not fully adults yet, but like we're being treated as adults, but like our brains aren't fully developed and like we're gonna inevitably hurt people and like it was just a poor choice of communication not necessarily a character flaw but i understand that like the words it seemed like those kind of stuck with you and it did so hard to shake hurtful words yeah i would guess that because you didn't they they really stuck with you and it didn't shake like that friendship you didn't pick up where it left off. Like you're starting from a different place versus like reconciling to kind

of get back to where you were versus like, that's not happening. Like at this point, what you have been doing over this time of like getting closer again, it's not getting back to how you were before that happened. It's getting back to a new normal and a new relationship. And I think that the mourning of not being asked in her bridal party is like, it feels like she has not been prioritizing you in the same way is this the only indicator that you feel like that you know what i mean because like that to me i'm like i don't think that your closeness with somebody in those relationships like if that whole drop like that whole shit hadn't happened i'm sure you would have been like an abradal party but your relationship has changed so much yeah and like

it's not indicative of how your friendship was but like how the friendship is now and like i don't know i also think like if you had like a really big like falling out having that person like that kind of hurt that you have from like that regardless of whoever was at fault but like mourning the loss of a friend for a time I think that it would be really hard to like ask that person to come do something that's like really major and big because if you said no or something else like happened like that it's like a very big rejection but at the same time I think that's like how you're feeling by not being asked I would have been annoyed if I was the friend because like the wedding it's so not about you and I think that like the nice thing to do if you were expecting

it and she knew that you were expecting it for the friend to reach out and be like hey I just want to let you know that like obviously I'm really glad we're getting closer again but like I want you to come to like definitely come to the wedding but like I am going to keep the bridal party people who have been in my life for the last like five plus years and I've like really been around and like I don't want that to be an indicator you to feel like an indicator of our like where our friendship is going I just feel like we're still in the early stages of getting close again and like that's like what I'm choosing to do but she didn't and I also don't think that that's not necessarily like her fault unless you felt like really misled but the one thing that

she did say that she's like I feel like I'm like a lapdog in private but like that public like what's that yeah that's what stuck out to me too I went through this thing when I was younger and I had friends and I thought that we were a lot closer than they thought and during those times I I would like be the kind of person where I would like listen to their problems a lot you know have phone conversations or they come over and hang out but then in public we weren't as like at school we weren't as close as friends because we might it might have been like a neighbor that it felt closer at home and then at school because we weren't in the same classes they didn't feel the same type of way and then also because I moved around a lot as a kid I don't really have

childhood friends and you know this is before social media and stuff they had AOL but I realized that they would be closer to other people because they had known them longer yeah and for me it was just I just didn't understand friendships at that point but then as I grew older I realized you know there's just different levels to friendships and I've had a best friend that we fell out over something and like this was like my like number one best friend went to them for everything like people like we were inseparable people would like call us like where's your better half like that's probably like how close you and sydney are and then we had a huge falling out she got really upset about it but it was because of things that she done she didn't

understand why i was upset about it and then like she still wanted our relationship to continue in the same way that it had been and that just wasn't how i felt about the situation and sometimes like from different perspectives you think because you've been through certain things then you still deserve the same level of friendship that you had before and because of how it affected you personally the friendship can't continue in the same type of way and so I feel like that friend that I talked about I just mentioned I feel like like if I were to get married she would still expect to be a bridesmaid in my wedding yeah and that's not how I would feel yeah well I think it's also hard because like in this in most of these cases and this also each of you are taking issue

with actions and reactions of the other person so like nobody is entirely at fault and like in every instance both people are kind of hurt and like i also think that like if you took this moment as like or not having you be a bridesmaid as like an indicator of this means we're not close anymore i think that there just needed to be way more communication in there because it doesn't seem like she was like oh i'm cutting you off by not having you be a bridesmaid maybe that is like what it was and like that was like a non way but you said you've still talked to each other yeah about it but like i think if the level of friendship is resting on the fact that if you don't get asked to be a bridesmaid it blows up that's not the bridesmaid issue is not the issue

like i don't think you guys have communicated your way through it i think it's kind of probably felt a little bit uncomfortable and time sometimes when like enough time has passed it feels like oh water under the bridge but like it's clearly not like both of you still like have like feelings towards this and like haven't unpacked it and i've just kind of thought time has healed the wounds and this has just brought up these wounds all over again right you know right and i just think it sucks because like about this specifically your feelings are totally valid but like it is really hard in the context of someone else's wedding to have opinions and like really like strong feelings about it in sense that like now this wedding and like the bridal party is now

about your friendship with her not her wedding yeah you know i would assume it's probably turning her off why she didn't respond about that and then you basically have ghosted her since then and not wanting to talk but you want like an explanation if you felt like being a bride in this wedding would fix things or change things like what explanation do you want like if you're looking for one like what is it that would make you feel okay about it right you know i think this is kind of just like those those friendships after a certain period of time that you assume are just going to go back to the way that they were and to me it just sounds like both of you feel like the other one's in the wrong and the other one hurt you and so neither of you are

meeting each other halfway you're kind of waiting for the other person to like do the apologizing and like make the grand gestures to like fix the friendship but both of you probably think you're equally right yeah you know but this sucks I would definitely understand like the feeling of being like heartbroken about like that bridal party aspect especially if you're still like going to the wedding because you're like mourning a friendship that you don't have anymore yeah because that's right I'd still invite her to my wedding but I wouldn't want her being in my unless things change I mean I'm not even dating anybody but that's like what I think could change and friendship could change but at this point right now I wouldn't and I also think that like

you it's not like a sign of death like a seal like i guess if you feel really like disrespected over it and like you want the relationship to be done but like there are plenty of people who like don't even talk to their bridesmaids like years after the wedding they're not friends anymore and they're incredibly close people who like weren't bridesmaids like in their wedding it doesn't have to be that like yes like all or nothing kind of thing you know maybe and she got married like five years later like i mean like if it was more healing had been done between the two of you but maybe just felt like too soon right or maybe she truly like you are her best friend in private and like then in public she's like fuck off and like then she's completely in the wrong yeah well i hope

that helps oh yeah i uh hope that if you feel ready if you want to still go to the wedding you go but if you don't push yourself if you don't want to go yeah anytime it's like you'll regret not going no i always regret going i always regret going if i don't want if i don't want to go and I make myself go, I wish I wasn't there. I never regret staying home, ever. Should we go on to the next? Hi, Melissa and Megan. First off, love this podcast.

It's one of the only ones my ADHD can actually focus on. But anyways, I wanted to ask for his advice on this topic. My roommate and her boyfriend have been together for around a year and a half, but the last six to seven months have been an absolute shit show to say the least. He's a through-and-through narcissist who has issues and has just been dragging my roommate along.

My roommate is so incredibly nice, the kind that you actually don't believe is that nice and think they're like fake and then you actually realize like holy shit she's just an actual saint which is why it's so hard to see her go through this he keeps blaming all of this on his mental state and him not doing well mentally we are graduating college in a couple months so i get it we all have shit going on too but whenever she brings up suggestions on him getting help like therapy and other stuff he literally gets offended so um you would think that if he's going through a tough time he's laying on her aka the person who loves him the most but instead he's partying and drinking a ton and not prioritizing

her whatsoever because he doesn't even invite her out either she finally grew some balls and broke up with him like three days ago but now it's starting to say that she doesn't really know if this is what she wants or not but my roommate and i keep reminding her it's not going to be a walk in the park and they both have stuff to work on aka him before they can even think about getting back together and they definitely have not had enough time as they have already seen each other like twice to talk and apparently get off their chest everything off their chest which i don't even know what the fuck that means she literally hasn't even had a full week to process any of her emotions because he doesn't give her any space to do so and i don't think she's really giving it to

herself either i'm never one to involve myself as deeply into my friend's relationships as i don't think it's my place but i live with her and she is constantly asking for my opinion and her other roommates as well i would appreciate any advice on this just because it's literally like taking an emotional toll on me at this point and on my other roommate as well thank you this sucks yeah i mean there's no other way to say it it's beyond sucks yeah i mean i think that like the ending part of you saying this is taking an emotional toll on you and your other roommate like that needs to be the top part like you need to address that first because the way that you talk about her first of all i like want you to be in love with her like it's just like you just like she's so

nice doesn't seem like a real person i'm not like you know trying to romanticize that but i'm just saying that like the way that you speak about her it's clear that you like love her so much and she's like such a great person and that's why it's like so hard to watch this kind of go on and it seems like you guys are beyond roommates you're like really good friends too so like you have the double layer of like i fucking hate my roommates on again off again boyfriend or whatever and i can't cut myself out of the situation because like i fucking live there and also i hate my one of my best friends like you know i mean like it's you hate one of your best friends boyfriends like you have this like double whammy of emotional support and then also just physical

proximity to the situation that like it is really hard the best advice that i can give for things like this when like a friend is going through something like a relationship and you are on the outside desperately wanting them to see it don't talk first let her speak first hear what she's saying and then take a read on the situation not just every day but like every conversation of how much effort am i going or how much am i going to put into this based on how much that she what does she want to hear right now and what is she going to be able to receive because there's nothing worse than like going off on like a 45 minute pep talk kind of thing and it's like she's just like that's not where she's at and you're wasting your breath and your emotional labor

what do you mean by that like you mean like just like never bring up the boyfriend and then if and when she brings it up first just like be there of being like yeah let me listen and like the questions asking having no opinions to them and it's like oh it's like what do you think so the biggest thing is always like well what do you think that you want to do like how are you feeling right now like where where's your head at and not having it be like what are you thinking about it has been really sucky that he's been doing this this this and this and just kind of leaving it open-ended but also i think if she's not bringing it up i think you totally should bring it up and just in the sense of being like hey just wanted to like check in on you see how like things are

going we haven't talked about like the relationship in a while like do you want to talk about it and just kind of like leaving that there and bringing it up in that instance so it's like a hey you can come to me kind of thing but you also then can get a read on the situation before you put all of that emotional labor into it because it is totally taxing because like i think that you're yeah you're able to see that they haven't had all that that much space and haven't had and like that's easy for any of us on the outside to kind of see but what is going to be the most like prolific to her is nothing this i don't mean this in a bad way there's nothing you're gonna say to her in these moments that she's gonna it's gonna click and it's gonna be

a light bulb moment that light bulb moment she's going to have is going to be her own thought process and you can plant the seed sure but it's not in the way of like wow i like it just really sucks that he won't go to therapy it like it's not that instigating that it's the whole she's already coming to like the i don't even know if i want to get back together i don't know what i want to do i don't know blah blah blah and when we have like second guesses about our decisions that we're making, it's because we're like, well, did I make the right choice? And if you or your other roommate, if your voices are too loud, even if it is the choice that is the right choice and the choice that she wants to make, if there are other voices saying the exact same thing as her,

she's going to cloud that. And it's going to feel like those are those voices. And she wasn't necessarily, it wasn't just like really her. So like, think of it in the way that like, you know, when you kind of have a conversation with like someone who needs to think something is their own idea you know but like in a way more subtle way and having those talks I've found that like friends that I've had who've like gone through those kinds of things when I have just like listened and similar how a therapist does like let you kind of work it out on your own and talking about it that sticks with you much more than me telling you something about someone who there's all the arguments against my thought process of them because like I'm not dating him I haven't

seen him in private do you know what I mean like all of that kind of stuff so you can't really make those excuses when you're coming to those realizations for yourself because like if those thoughts cross your mind organically it's because like oh there are no exceptions like i do know him in private i do know this aspect of our relationship and like this is what i'm thinking about so as long as that's open there and then for the no space thing i think just like again not addressing that specifically because most of these things are not like brand new information to these to people who are going through it, but just being like, Hey, like I like, let's go do this this next weekend. Like, I want to go do this. Like, let's do this. Like plan something with your

other roommate with her, like plan stuff with her. Like, so you can have that time and space. That's not just like you all hanging out in the apartment. Maybe it's like going on a drive or going to go get coffee or doing those things that kind of show like, Hey, in the words of Taylor Swift, except we're changing out one word. Hey kids, like being single is fun. Like showing that aspect of it because there's only so much you can say about like your boyfriend sucks your boyfriend sucks your boyfriend sucks it's hard to like leave a relationship when that's when you've known for like x amount of time so i think it can be more beneficial to be like look how great it is like when we're hanging out and we're like all single girls and we're

having fun like this is there are other like there's gonna be good after it yeah i've had friends that have been in relationships with guys that i didn't like didn't trust who were bad for them who just weren't who they needed to be with and the first friend that I had I would tell them how much I hated them and um the first friend I had in this type of situation I would tell them how much the friend hated them or how much I hated the boyfriend and they didn't hear it at all and it just drove a wedge in our relationship and also made it so that when she needed help we weren't as close. Yeah. And so if you are there just to be like a sounding board, let her drive the conversations, as Megan said, then you can always be there. You know,

what's going on behind doors as well. Yeah. And so I completely agree with everything you said. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. It's really hard, but you do have to prioritize your own emotional capacity because even if like you're not a bad person even if like with everything I've said that like even just listening you get that emotional burnout like you need to tap out like and there's like nothing wrong with that I'm not forcing anything bad about someone's partner unless they have been broken up for consecutively like yeah a year they've been broken up consecutively or I fear for their safety yeah exactly like but like i'm not you might get back together and like i don't want what i said in those moments to prevent you from coming to me again especially now that like

now a lot of my friends have husbands that and they'll talk bad to me about their husbands and i will not say anything back because it is their husband yeah and also no one talked about like oh my god it was so sweet we did blah blah blah but it is hard you complain about the bad things but most of the time not in this situation most of the time the good outweigh the bad yeah it's just they're venting and they need somebody to vent to yeah let's take a break whoa okay we'll be back after our break so we are back from our break and we're getting to the rest of the calls hi megan and melissa so 25 year old libra i'm gonna try to not cry during this call but i

recently started going to therapy and i'm just like a more sensitive person now but anyways so this is about my dad basically growing up like i had a very strained relationship with him where you know like i know that he loves me and wants what's best for me but the way that he parented me kind of cemented this idea that I was never good enough and I know he did it because to him he knew that I had a lot of potential and could do better so he would push me but the way that it came off was like I just could never do anything right and you know there's a lot more to that but essentially once I became an adult I had zero intention of like having a relationship with my dad or anything just because like consistently he would do things that kind of made me feel like a

bad daughter a bad sister a bad person in general but this is a whole other thing essentially stuff happened where I could not cut him out without like fearing for his his life honestly and so now he's in therapy he is seeking the help that like he needs and so he's like in that stage where I think he's taking accountability for what he's done to me and so I got a letter from him where he was apologizing for a lot of like specific events that have happened in our past and just like in general how he treated me and I can feel my voice shaking I'm about to cry but I'm feeling conflicted in that I don't really want to forgive him and I know that I don't have to but there's a lot of guilt that comes with it because like I know my sisters have a better relationship with

him and they have a lot more like empathy towards his own mental health issues but at the same time like the way that he handled things toward me is not okay regardless of whether or not he was like suffering from like depression or whatever else and so how do I go about like forgiving my dad but also not wanting a relationship with him do you think it's even worth like trying to end a relationship with him I don't know I just hate how he's making me feel like a bad person for not wanting to forgive him when he's the one who treated me badly for like 25 years of my life honestly so yeah thanks for your advice I love the podcast love the new podcast as well even though there's only one episode out but yeah thank you I want to give you like a socially

distant hug but yeah this is hard like you said you don't owe him an apology and I guess my question is is he pressuring you to forgive him because I feel like if he's going through the steps in therapy and he has a good therapist and the therapist would tell him that he shouldn't expect you to accept his apology yeah it's more so for him yeah i wonder i mean it is really hard regardless if it's coming from him or not like there's so much judgment with nuclear fan like cutting out members of nuclear families and all of that like and especially having sisters where it's like well aren't you going to feel like you only have so much time with your parents like you only like or like life is short like all of those kinds of pressures or also like you know could

just be that he has instilled that in you for 25 years that like you know i mean like those like how he speak you know that you know the the implications or any of that but i agree i think if like any of that has come from him specifically and that's an issue in itself because he's he's wanting for forgiveness for something he's actively doing there is an in-between of all of this uh you don't have to have a relationship with him at the moment and you don't have to forgive him You don't have to decide if you're going to forgive him right now. You don't have to forgive him right now. You don't have to be like, I'm working towards forgiving him.

That doesn't even have to be on your mind. He is your father. That in itself is a relationship. You can decide how much of an active and practicing relationship you have with him. And as much as like people try and act like cutting someone out, it doesn't get rid of that relationship that you had with them previously. And if you are still processing and working through that relationship of the last 25 years, I think it's a lot to ask of you to work through that trauma of that relationship with a therapist

and then actively have a relationship with that same person in a different font right now. That's like a, that's a lot to ask of somebody. And like 25 years of trauma could take you 25 years to heal from if that's what you, without a doubt that's what you're working towards like you healing has nothing to do with you forgiving him so I would say like do what you need to do to heal if that's forgiveness great if it's not that's also great but and you say you're in therapy too so figure out with your therapist what you need from this situation yeah I also think that like I'm very much on the same side of And regardless of what he was going through, it doesn't excuse any of his behavior that he had

towards you. But I do think that apology letters in that kind of thing, I understand that they tend to happen with like step programs and in therapy and all of that. But most of the time, those letters are something that you are supposed to write and not send. And I understand that it is an apology, but unless like he reached out to your sisters to kind of clear with them and say, do you think this would be okay for me to send it it can be a traumatic thing to receive that and like something that you didn't weren't prepared for necessarily you didn't necessarily want that and it can be kind of a selfish thing that then feels like well this letter doesn't absolve you from everything that you did and now you have forcefully put the ball in my court of

our relationship because this has seemed this now seems like a grand gesture of a magic eraser that has erased all the things and that hasn't happened and that's like a very hard thing to do i don't know what the situation is and it seems like your dad is in like treatment and getting help i'm not sure if there's like a set amount of time that you have like with him longer this whole argument of like well you don't know how long someone's going to be around and like this is like a parent or whatever a parent alive or not in the picture that trauma doesn't go away like that does not go away at all. And it's something that you deal with now, then like before, after, like it's always going to kind of constantly be there. And so I think taking it day by day and you don't

have to make like decisions. If one day you feel like you would want to have a conversation with him, then go for it and do that. But like, there is no like promise with any action or statement or anything that you say that it's like, oh, I'm going to forgive you. And that means I absolve you from everything that you've done. And that's not it. It's like, maybe I will have a conversation

on the phone with you, but that doesn't mean I forgive you. And if his only goal is to get forgiveness from you and not like take whatever you are willing to give, and that might be absolutely nothing for a couple of years, then to me, that's not someone who should be trusted as someone who has been a very traumatizing figure

in your life to be brought, invited back into your life. Right. it's very hard and taking accountability in writing and saying it and acknowledging all of that kind of stuff unless it happens in practice that's a very hard thing to believe and also you can have no desire to want to see it happen in practice like some people can do things that are not forgiving and you can't forgive i also think if your sisters have a better relationship with him and so i know i think it's also sometimes you just have to mourn the

relationship you never had with someone and that doesn't mean you're not going to get that relationship again it's not going to go away it's not going to get fixed it's not going to turn into that one and so like recognizing that if your sisters are trying to pressure you it's like well i'm never going to have that relationship with him it's too late for that you could also take that letter that he wrote you with specific things there might be one or two things that you could forgive him with on that yeah you don't have to forgive him for everything he can be an acquaintance in your life he can be like the relationship doesn't have to be that of father daughter and if that's something that he really wants and that figure and all of that he has not

earned that right role and he has to earn that back but yeah you're not a bad person at all for needing to prioritize yourself right be selfish be selfish okay megan and melissa so i'm gonna jump right into this because I'm like kind of freaked out and this is all very new and current for me so I am a 23 pretty much 24 year old female uses she her pronouns and the guy that I'm talking about is 27 and uses he him pronouns so I just met this guy right and I like started dating him literally three days ago so not like a relationship I use them differently but yeah nothing serious and I've hooked up a couple times and it's been like really great he's a really great guy he's really nice we have a lot of similar hobbies so I'd like to know the person

but the weird thing happened yesterday where he I remember like texting and he called me and he was like hey so I want to talk to you about something I was like okay and he started talking about like how he's concerned with the smell of my vagina because like he went down on me and he ate me out and everything and he was like yeah it was really fun and I really like your vagina but it like smells kind of weird and like the smell has like lingered on my fingers and I was like one wash your fucking hands like that's fine but two I've lived with my vagina for 24 years now and it's always felt like this like there's nothing wrong with it and vaginas don't smell great you know like they smell like vaginas but I don't know like was that just a

weird like bad off-handed thing to say or am I being too sensitive like again we've only known each other for three days and he's already talking about like how he likes me so much and he doesn't usually like people as much as he likes me and I don't want to be like that girl that's like oh my god no I'm different like I'm special I know I'm not fucking special like I'm just I'm just a human you know like I have my flaws I'm not that special I haven't like proposed to him you know and he's already telling me or no telling his parents about me like I don't know is this like love bombing I don't really know what to do okay any help would be great thanks guys bye he's not a good guy why would you preface this with with Tane he's such a good guy

we have so much in common but then everything you said after that was all bad and you know it's bad you acknowledge that it's bad there's so many red flags here he's love bombing you but he's also trying to manipulate you to make it seem like hey i love your vagina sex is good but like you need to smell if his fingers are still smelling the next day that's a him problem that man has an unwashed ass yes he has never ever ever washed no he's trying to make you like this is classic love bombing and like i don't want to say that like you should do love bombing well like no it's all horrible but like he's doing a really bad job of it like he's love bombing you but then trying to knock you down but that's the point that's the point of love bombing but like he's

just like not timing it well nor is he being subtle at all and like he's not doing the slow burn like he's just like coming in a hot so he's trying to make you insecure about this and to to get you to seek his validation and seek his approval to like put him on a pedestal higher than you so you're trying to impress him like he is love bombing you but this is just like so like this is like a ghosting situation like you just like stop responding to his text messages like stop responding to everything and i promise you after like three hours of you not responding he's gonna call you 27 times and then he's gonna be like leaving you voicemails and like what are you doing like what's happening and then he's gonna get progressively more and more angry and

you're gonna like see like him go like go through the stages of what he would be like in a relationship do it like this is not yeah and you're not going to because you're not going to progress this far get the fuck away from this dude what the fuck there's a special place in like idaho or hell or whatever you want to call it i've never seen my okay i have a tiktok that's like a joke my reference my knee shoddy and no one's he makes at me but men specifically like men with penises everyone short in general but like cis straight men with penises who fucking comment on the smell and odor of vaginas those are not only unwashed ass but like you're a fucking idiot tell me you are inexperienced and you're trying to instead of owning up to the fact that you aren't that

experienced and like being okay with that you are trying to weaponize and like make my own body disgusting to me because you don't have experience with bodies the thing is he lied because he said i love your vagina but i'm concerned about the smell and my fingers still smell it's not even like that's no but that's what i'm saying like if you are going to make derogatory comments about someone's vagina all that that tells me is not only are you an asshole but i'm like he's trying to speak of it's like you know i love your vagina i like love going down on you this like sexual confident thing but like your vagina like the smell blah blah blah like not only is that cruel but i'm like you have no like that's what vagina smell like you have no fucking experience screw

him move on literally done run run okay all right you know what it's time for don't blame them let's play in hi maggie and melissa i'm calling in for don't blame them for the most recent episode where the person's roommate had a golden retriever and wasn't taking care of it and was neglecting it and they felt responsible for taking care of the dog and i thought the advice you guys gave was good but I have been in a situation similar to this where my friend's roommate was not taking care of her dog and would just leave it in a kennel for so many hours and would go out of town and just leave it in a kennel and I ended up researching no-kill shelters in my area and so if you have any of those in your area you can call them and ask their advice on it or

if your local human society is a no-kill shelter you can call the animal law enforcement and they will actually come and do a wellness check on the dog and obviously if it's been in the room forever and your roommate isn't there and all of your roommates can attest to that then they will likely take the dog and put it in the shelter and no-kill shelter would keep the dog until it gets adopted and golden retrievers will get adopted really fast so that's what I would do because I don't have the time to handhold someone and I fucking hate when college students and young people get dogs that they can't take care of it's so frustrating like college students can barely take care of themselves so the idea that you can just get a dog for a PQ and like that you're

aesthetic just I absolutely hate it so if you have any of those resources that would be awesome but yeah good luck i hope you're able to figure something out great call good advice i was really afraid it was going to be like just take the roommates dogs and bring them to the shelter without them knowing i was like oh well a lot of you had lots of opinions on that seems like very similar consensus and yeah that is our episode if you want to go leave a review on the podcast app we would highly appreciate it go get in there before rachel can leave her bi-weekly negative a review about us being too political and being vaccinated and having a bad aesthetic yeah i can't and what happened to them being all about love and positivity that was never us never never you're

you're you're incorrect here go follow us on instagram uh by megan and melissa we have our other podcast but am i wrong comes out on thursdays go check it out it is brand new we have a lot of fun doing that it is like if you don't take our advice that is what you end up on go listen it's I'm pitching it better than that. And then go follow us on our own individual socials. Follow the Instagram and yeah, call in for an upcoming episode. All the information you need is in the show notes.

Can you tell that we really have to go because we're running late to go get our nails done? Yep. Okay, goodbye. Don't Blame Me is a production by me. Executive produced by Melissa DeMonts and Diamond and Print Productions. Edited by Coco Lawrence

Post-production sound by Chris Henry Production assistance by Melanie D. Watson Music by Ryan Hunter and Giacomo Picasso