Reddit Stories - Episode #28 - Nighttime Confessions and Family Drama Sleep Podcast ( 9 Hour Compilation )

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

#redditstories #sleep #sleepstories #bedtimestories #fallasleep #nighttimeconfessions #familydrama #podcastcompilation #relaxingstoriesIn Episode 28 of the Nighttime Confessions and Family Drama Sleep Podcast Compilation, listeners are treated to a soothing blend of heartfelt confessions and relatable family tales. These stories create a calming atmosphere, perfect for easing into a peaceful night’s sleep.redditstories, sleepstories, fallasleep, bedtimestories, relaxingconfessions, familydrama, nighttimeconfessions, podcast, soothingstories, calmingnarratives, sleepaid, bedtimepodcast, storytelling, relaxation, sleepwell, peacefulnights, emotionaltales, dreamland, nighttimewhispers, restfulsleepBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. My spouse requested me to decide between my mother and them, and I am considering ending the marriage. This is a temporary account. Some context, my mother and father were both involved in a situation. Orphans, my dad died two weeks before I was born, my mom didn't really have a support system, so we were just the two of us. I never lacked anything because my mother worked all her life to give me the life I have today and didn't even have time for herself to start a new life again. She did all the little jobs possible so that we didn't miss anything. She deprived herself of food to give me food, I had very good clothes while she had none.

I saw her make sacrifices again and again and always with a smile, frankly I always thought she was an angel dressed in a human body, the only time she yelled at me was when I was 16 when I saw her getting sick and working at the same time. I wanted to help her by finding a job, but she was angry and told me it was not my job to take care of her and it was up to her to take care of me, she wanted me to get really good grades to get into the best universities. It's the only way I can protect myself when she can anymore. Even at universities she didn't want me to work, I had to be focused on my studies, but she wanted me to volunteer so that I could be an adult who could do something with his hands.

I met my wife there while both of us were volunteered, my wife is a good person, but she was never close to her parents or her siblings, yet she adored my mother's since she met her, there were times when I thought she loved my mother more than she loved me and we laughed about it, deep down. I think she was looking for the bond between mother and daughter that she did not have from her mother. When I finished my studies, I found a job, we move and together, but she wasn't comfortable that I call my mom every day, remind you those were 10 to 15 minutes call, but eventually she stopped bring it on. Two years later I bought a house for my mother, because we never had a house in our name, we lived from apartment to apartment,

so for all the sacrifices she made it was for me the least of it and it was non-negotiable, that's where the problem started with my wife, then G.F., she wanted me to think about us first. I told her my dream had always been to buy my mom a house since I was little and that's what I had to do, but she complained about it to my mom, my mom didn't even knew I bought a house for her as it was supposed to be a surprise for her birthday. She was uncomfortable of receiving that, house because of my wife and told me that wasn't necessary that we could use it for us when we get married, I was furious, I told my mother that the house was for her that she could do with it whatever she wanted but it was time for her to think about herself first, our couple survived

that. We got married and then we had our own house, our life was going well until two months ago when my mother fell ill, I wanted her to come and live with us so that I could take care of her, but my wife didn't want to. I then decided to rent an apartment with my own money right next to our house so that I could be close to her and go there to take care of her, but even that idea didn't sit well with my wife, me and my wife don't have children yet, we both work, I usually come home at 6 p.m., but since my mother is sick, I go to see her and come home at 8 p.m. On weekends I see her for one or two hours and the rest of the time I spend it with my wife, we go on date, I always accompany her and her hobbies even though she never went to mine.

Two days ago she told me that she thought about it and she thinks I prioritize my mother too much. She told me that I had to choose between my mother and the life I want to build with her. The truth is that I never made her feel that way, we both work but I'm the one who cooks, and I pay a person to do the housework, I make sure I do the dishes she likes, she didn't even know what I like to eat because I never complain, I run her baths. Give her massages, flowers, I write her poems that I hide somewhere in the house for her to find out, we go on a trip one weekend a month, I earn much more money than her, I told her to keep her for herself and I take care of all the bills even hers, I always make sure to listen to her

and consider her opinion. And I think I am easygoing because I can change my mind to accommodate hers, but I realize that she tries to completely dominate me and the only subject where I don't give her a choice is my relationship with my mother, so there I'm going to have a talk with her and put some very clear boundaries, if she doesn't want to, well, we're going to divorce. Just want it out of my chest. Update, my wife, 31F, asked me, 34M, to choose between my mom, 55F, and her and I think I'm going to divorce her. Hi guys, I keep getting messages asking me for an update, I wanted to do it sooner but couldn't spare

time to do it properly. First of all I would like to thank everyone for the comments and DMs in my last post. I tried to reply to everyone but I couldn't. I read you all though. Before confronting my wife I had time to reflect, and I came to the conclusion that I will never again let anyone in my life dictate the relationship I should have with my mother or the time I should dedicate to her, so I decided to answer the ultimatum, but first I wanted to know if there was another reason why she gave me this ultimatum.

She replied that nope, I asked her apart from what she blamed me for was there something she wanted to tell me but couldn't tell me, she said there was nothing and asked me to come to the point so I told her I wanted a divorce. She remained frozen, I think she was shocked because she wasn't talking, she was just staring at me, I tell her everything that was on my mind, that our values are too different, I was going through the worst moment of my life, my mother was sick, we did several tests with her, we still don't know what she's suffering from. We don't know her family medical history because she was an orphan, it makes me anxious to know that

overnight I could find myself alone in the world, yes, alone in the world because in these difficult times. I all I needed was her support, but if my own wife thinks that I should give less attention to my mother who is sick and who needs me more than ever, it's time to go to our separate way, she still didn't say anything so I told her I'm going to a hotel for now and we'll discuss later how we're going to separate, I took some of my things and left. The next day when I went to see my mother, she figured out something wasn't right but I was not going to tell her I was separating from my wife because she could not bear our relationship,

especially since she was sick like that, I didn't want to add more torment to her, I never discussed my marriage issue with my mother anyway. So she does not know our problems and honestly, she adores my wife too much, and my wife behaves as if she was her own mother so I was not going to tell her what she was thinking behind her back. My mom ends up telling me that my wife didn't come by that day, yes, my wife who asked me to reduce my contact with my mother was seeing her every day and I never asked her to do anything for my mother.

She calls my mother mom, when she gets sick, she used to go to my mother so she will take care of her. It used to hurt me because it's as if I couldn't take care of her, but she said that this was not the same. The intentions of a mother are different. I told myself that it was her way of creating a mother-daughter bond that she never had and I understood her. She ever said her mother used to tell her that she was not supposed to be born.

That she was an accident that she almost aborted her and regrets not doing it, only a monster could say that to her child, so I never said anything whenever she wanted my mother's attention, besides I received enough love to share with whoever wanted, my mother after I left home to study became a foster mom for children. She always did until two years ago, I have always loved each of the children with whom I still keep in touch in whom I consider to be my siblings, once a year, we all went on vacation together for a week, the children, my mother, and my wife. I generally take two months a vacation of which the six weeks I devoted it to my wife,

but the two weeks that I devote to my mother and the children, it was too much for my wife, anyway, I'm rambling, so when my mom told me she didn't come to see her that day, I went back home because I was worried. I found her in the bathroom with her clothes and red eyes like she was crying all along. seeing her like that was unbearable, I helped her out, but this woman who have so much pride, collapsed in front of me with a lot of crying I don't know if it was an hour or two, but she kept crying, calmed down crying again, I just stayed silent. She ended up telling me that deep down she never wanted me to involve any less in my mother life,

she was always jealous of our relationship, she was always jealous of the attention my mother gave to the other children, she knows that it wasn't rational, but she couldn't help constantly striving to be number one in my mother's heart. It was kind of a competition for her, so when I wanted to take care of my mom she didn't want me to be the one taking care of her, I was honestly furious without saying anything of course, but I wondered if she was a psychopath or something. We are talking about a person who is seriously ill and she is thinking about her damn competition even if it means sabotaging the relationship I have with my mother and putting us in a situation where I wanted to divorce her, she told me that she was very jealous of me and that she would have

like to be in my place. If she had to choose she would have even chosen to be my mother's child rather than my wife even if I was the love of her life and the only man she ever known, she also told me that even if the world falls apart around me, I will remain stoic. That I live as if I don't need anyone and that I give everything to others, but I don't know how to let others reach me and she never managed to get there. Only my mother could get there, at that moment, I did not know what else to say, I was hooked on this idea of competition so that I did not immediately grasp the scope of these words. But I still listened to her to the end, I put her to bed until she fell asleep,

then I went to sleep in another room, in the morning she was acting like anything happened she was being herself, she said I don't have to pity, I told her it was out of love she was still my wife. She left to work and I do the same but decided to stay at the hotel from the time being, during that time, I wondered what I could have made the saying act so that she could think about that, deep down I think she's right, it's a defense of the same. mechanism I've had since childhood, I've never stayed in one place longer to make friends. It was heartbreaking to every time we have to move between my five and my 15 years I have

moved more than 50 times, from apartment to apartment, from hotel room to hotel room, and since then I think I have always lived my relationships like a squat, I never unpacked and settled in because I knew at any moment I could be fired. But I thought that with my wife I acted differently, but you have to believe not, during that time, I wondered what I could have done, acted or said to make her feel like that. Deep down I think she's right. It's a defense mechanism I've had since childhood. I've never stayed in one place longer to make friends.

It was heartbreaking to every time we have to move between my 5 to my 15. I have moved more than 50 times, from apartment to apartment, from hotel room to hotel room, and since then I think I have always lived my relationships like a squat. I never unpacked and settled in because I knew at any moment I could be kicked out. But I thought with my wife I acted differently, but I guess not, so I thought maybe we didn't need to go that far, what we needed wasn't divorce but therapy, then this happened, a little over a week after our discussion, I was called from the hospital, my wife had been hospitalized, she apparently did not feel well, I went to visit her. But she didn't want to see me, if you see the eyes I saw, I've never seen so much hate in just two eyes, I told her besties so she can have her system support because she didn't want me there, I told my mom, she asked me what I had done to my wife so that she ended up in the hospital, and that I should not stress a woman who was pregnant. I said what, she told me my wife told her and asked her to

keep it a secret because she wanted to tell me herself when she was ready, I don't know what was going through my head, between anger that it was my mother who told me her happiness at having to be a dad for the first time in total confusion at the surreal situation. I went to my wife and told her I knew, but she looked at me again angrily and told me she had lost the baby and it was my fault. In an instant, I just get the new my wife was pregnant but keep it from me, that I was going to be a dad and that we lost the baby and that she was accusing me of having caused something that I did not even know. She asked me to leave and I left. I always wanted children, very early on, my wife wanted to put her career first, I understood and accepted, I've been

trying to convince her for years but without success, now she gets pregnant, she doesn't tell me anything, she talks to my mother about it, and she says I caused her miscarriage, since then. She says she didn't tell me anything because she wanted to first confirm if I could deal with all the responsibilities I give myself and raise a child at the same time, I don't understand her, and I admit since then I have a fierce hatred against her. I don't know how to look at her without having anger on me and I don't want to hurt her with my words, I take care of her at home, but we don't talk to each other, I'm not going to stay with her, it's not possible, I started a session with a psychologist, he told me that patience was my best weapon.

That I shouldn't make a permanent decision on emotions that could be temporary and that I should take time to see if there were things to salvage, here is where I am, I don't know if I'll do another update. I took days off to be there for my wife and for my mother, but I'm feeling pretty depressed and I just want to get away from all this bullshit right now. Thank you in any case for giving me your point on your first post, for your support or your critics, final update. My wife, 31F, asked me, 34M, to choose between my mom, 55F. And her and I think I'm going to divorce her, hi folks, it's been a while, I didn't intend to post again after my last one, but even though it's been months, I still get supports and people asking me where I am in my life. So I think I owe you at least one last update because your comments and DMs help me

a lot during a time I needed it the most, I don't know if it's going to be long or not, but let's go, about my wife, after she had a miscarriage, yes, she was definitely pregnant, I had to take care of her because she couldn't do it on her own. After what happened, I had nothing but anger and hatred in me, but as I said last time if something is fragile enough to break, you have no choice but to treat it gently, I didn't want her to break, I didn't want to leave her in the worst time of her life, so I did my duty as a husband, despite everything, her mental state was getting worse. She thought she was still pregnant and she was talking to herself. One night she was delirious, mistaking me for her father and thinking that I was going to hurt her. I had to call the emergency room then after examination a psychiatrist advised me to have her hospitalized. That's what I did. She spent six weeks there. She was diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder. Doctors suspect delusional disorder too, and they also suspect that she was heavily abused as a child, but that's all they were allowed to tell me. She didn't want to see anyone, especially her family.

she suggested that we communicate through letters and every time I went there. I took her letter, then the next day I dropped mine, it's crazy, I have the impression that in two months, I got to know her better than the ten years I spent by her side, that reminded me how a good person she used to be despite her flaws, she used to travel to participate in the construction of schools, wells. Anything that can help people who lived in precariousness, she didn't just give money, she helped out with her own hands, she's the type to help a foreigner, who doesn't speak the language catches train until she misses her own train. Honestly, she was like a gold mine with lots of resources and kindness in her, although we had

money. We used to enjoy taking public transport to remember the time when we were penniless and enjoy life just because having each other were enough, we would travel without taking money and challenge each other to know how far we will get. That was the best moment of our lives, we were very close and in love, we thought nothing could break us. What has changed since then, we tried to do. to figure it out in the letters we give each other, we talk about many things, I won't go into

details, she own up her mistakes and I own up mine, she takes full responsibility of the consequences of her actions, she apologized for how she treated me and know that the only possible outcome is that we divorce. She need to heal and work on herself, she said she have a long way to go and it wasn't fair for me, she said that given her condition, I wasn't going to talk to her about a divorce, she had to do it herself, there are some battles she need to fight on her own, otherwise she will never be the best version she could be. She doesn't know how long it's going to take, but if she gets there and I haven't move on, then she'll be happy to start again with me. I've always lived with the idea of fixing broken things rather than throwing them

away, but that doesn't work with humans, you can't fix someone unless they want to be fixed. And I wouldn't have had the strength to fix someone because I'm putting all my remaining energy into trying to fix myself. If my wife hadn't made the decision she made, I myself would have proposed a divorce, paradoxically, it was because she made the decision she made that I saw that there was hope for us. I then offered her a separation rather than a divorce, and a year from now, if we still want to get divorced, we'll get divorced, if we trust that we could be in a healthy relationship, then we'll get to know each other again, communicate and try to do things differently, she agreed and said that was what she hoped. When she got out of the hospital,

she didn't want us to meet because if we saw each other, she wouldn't have had the strength to keep her resolutions. For my part, I had not yet let go all the negative feelings following the events that happened before her hospitalization, so in the end it was best for both of us. We chose to continue to send each other letters and that's fine with me for now. She was able to see my mother, she wrote me what my mother told her, that she will always be a mother figure to her, despite the bad decisions she made, that she didn't have to compete for her love because she already had it. And that's one thing that will never change. She asked me if I was okay with her being in touch with my mother, I told her it was up to them, she didn't need my consent, however. She was not likely going to see my mother too often because I had decided to go in another country for my mother so she could benefit from one of the best hospitals in the world, which is in Europe, about me, I've been in Germany for almost one month now, we are from France,

and I'm learning to delegate work. It's a resolution I made during my therapy, I needed therapy and it was especially you guys who convinced me, I will always be grateful to you. The therapy sessions were so heavy and tiring that I didn't have the strength to do much after leaving my therapist's room but it get better over time. I am currently working remotely. I go back to France once a week to settle things at work and continue my therapy sessions because I don't want to change therapists. I managed to devote time only to myself, which is actually good. One of my foster brothers wanted to come with us to Germany since he manages to work remote. too, he is a great help, in short.

I'm getting better and better, about my mom, this is probably the most difficult subject to discuss, and I admit that I don't really want to talk about it, but I also think that talking about it here is good practice to be able to talk about it in my life. A few years ago, we lived from apartment to apartment, hotel to hotel. This is one of the worst times of our lives, the state always found us a place to sleep because we were a single mother and a child, it wasn't stable because we had to change places every time, but it was better than sleeping outside, my mother was and still is a very beautiful woman. It happened that she received sexual proposals for an apartment right in front of my eyes,

I don't know what she went through with my dad, but she never wanted to be with another person, because she says death doesn't stop a loving relationship from continuing. There was an association that used to take care of us by always finding for us a place to stay at night, one day, one of the people who were in charge to find us places to sleep, wanted us to stay in his apartment, the time that they find us a better place because we were in a very unsanitary hotel. My mother didn't want to go, but I convinced her to go, because the idea of sleeping warm in a good bed was all I could think of, but after we had diner on his place he started making move on my mother who stopped him right away, he told us it was either that or we get out of his house,

so we left, we went back to the hotel where we were. But our room was already taken, there was nothing we could do, at least that day, so we chose to slept outside, at some point, while sleeping we were woken up by a group of men who were trying to rape my mother, they hit me so hard that I was even afraid to try to help my mom. Some other men whom I guess came back from a party heard the screams and came to help us, our attackers fled, I always said that my mother was almost raped, that's what I always said and I ended up believing it, but my mother was indeed raped before my eyes, I finally said it, my mother was raped before my eyes and I couldn't do anything. If that day we had thrown ourselves into each other's arms and cried together, maybe things would have been different, but she got up, took my arm and told me that this place was not safe that we had to look for a safer place, that was all, we never talked about that day again, we carried on with our lives as if nothing had happened.

Things got better eventually, she worked hard so that I could be successful, she invested all the money she earned in her entire life on my project and today I owe her the company I created. How did she manage to survive the hell she'd been through? Ever since I came to terms with the idea that she was raped, all I wanted was to tell her about it. But it's not about me, it's about her. She's the one who experienced the worst. I would so much like to talk to her about it, but I don't know what good can come out of it after so many years. That's it, that's all.

As for today her condition is improving, the future looks brighter than it did. a few months ago, well, I think that's all. This will be my last post, to all who have followed me in those hard time, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and wish you the best in your life, may what you have left to live be better than what you have already lived. I hope you enjoy this story. An old acquaintance arrived at my residence after a long absence with a young one in tow, requesting financial assistance for the child. Subsequently, my spouse emerged, and things took a turn for the worst swiftly. Greetings, Reddit. This is commencing. To be kind of long because there's a lot of context. So, first and foremost, I'll tell you guys a little about my ex-girlfriend. My ex, Cindy, 30F now,

23 when we were together, and I were together for four years. We met in college and stayed together throughout. We even got an apartment together once we graduated and lived together for a year before she broke things off with me abruptly and without an explanation. Cindy was one year older than me and a senior in college so I was too shy to go talk to her and she's the one who had to initiate the relationship. She asked me out. She said I love you first after six months of being together and she is the one who suggested that we move in together after college. She was a wonderful girlfriend, for those who can't tell, this is sarcasm, in every way but one, she was just very insecure. I don't know what it was, maybe it was because I never really took initiative in the

relationship or something similar. But she was just always very insecure and jealous and she'd hate it when I'd speak to other girls, no matter who they were. So after a couple of fights, I cut off all my friends who happened to be women because Cindy was more important to me than being friends with other women. And it wasn't just friends. from college who I stopped talking to, but I also stopped speaking to my school friends, who'd been friends with me for more than five years at that point. I'm back to talking to them because Cindy's not in my life anymore and my wife's cool with my friends, regardless of gender. But back then, I was just friends with my guy friends and I wasn't even allowed to go out with them

to have a boy's night because Cindy believed that it would just be an excuse for us to all go to bars, get wasted and pick up girls. I didn't think that was fair to me because she'd forbid me from seeing anyone without her because of how insecure she was. But I couldn't see how wrong it all was because I was too in love with her and I felt like she was too.

She'd tell me all the time about how much she loved me and said that she couldn't live without me, she couldn't imagine a future without me, and whatnot. So I stayed, despite everything, because I wanted to marry her and be with her. That's all I wanted but with time, it became more and more difficult to stay with her since she just kept getting more suspicious and weird about me. By the time we were living together, I couldn't do anything without her breathing down my neck. She'd check my phone all the time, she'd monitor my movements and if I didn't update her on my location at all times then she'd threatened to lock me out when I came back home.

So by now, you guys have some idea about how toxic our relationship had turned by the time we broke up. I still somehow found it in me to stay with her but then, surprisingly, she's the one who broke up with me. And it was over something insane because it was just a small misunderstanding that led to our breakup. One day, my sister visited me without announcing her visit which she usually did to make sure Cindy didn't suspect me and think that maybe I was having other girls over. Cindy wasn't at home when my sister, Lauren, 33F, dropped by. She was at a friend's place because she was allowed to meet her friends and I wasn't allowed to suspect her. Anyhow, Lauren surprised me by dropping an unannounced and I was so surprised to see her that I didn't even text Cindy to tell her that Lauren had come over, which I would have usually done. We got to talking and we spent around two hours together at home but then, all of a sudden, she received the call from her boss and had to leave to go back to work urgently.

The thing that caused my breakup was unfortunately the lipstick that Lauren had behind when she'd taken it out to reapply it before she headed back to work. She was in a rush to leave so she forgot it on the couch and it was so small that I didn't notice it either. Then Cindy came back home a little after Lauren left and she seemed happy until she found a little lipstick. I still remember it as clear as day, she sat on the couch and sprang back up as soon as she sat, then grabbed the lipstick that she'd sat down on and I instantly knew that I was screwed because there was just no way in hell that she was going to let this one slide. I tried to downplay it and told her the truth instantly. I told her that Lauren had come over to visit during her lunch hours and she'd taken out the

lipstick to reapply it because she had to go back to work. I explained that she was rushing to go back home so she'd forgotten to put it back in her purse. But just as I'd expected, Cindy didn't buy even a word of what I told her. her for a couple of reasons. Like I said, she brought up that Lauren usually text Cindy and me both in the text group that has the three of us before she comes over. She hadn't done that this time and secondly, she thought that it was very unlikely that Lauren would take out her lipstick to reapply in our house because my sister wasn't really one for makeup. She was convinced that I'd had another girl over and absolutely flipped, out. And when I say flipped out, I don't mean it lightly. She really

went psychotic and started screaming at me, cursing at me, and randomly started throwing things to the floor. First, she went for the cushions, then she threw some books to the floor while raging at me, but then it crossed a line when she grabbed the TV remote and threw it right at me. I ducked and managed to avoid it, but I knew that I needed to get the hell out of there, so I ran to our bedroom and locked myself in. I didn't have my phone with me so I couldn't call anyone for help and I just had to stay there by myself for like an hour while she went on. on and on about how I had betrayed her. She was screaming like a banshee outside the room and I'll say that I was pretty scared.

Then finally, the screaming sort of calmed down and I finally gathered the courage to leave the room and check outside. I noticed that she was gone and had left the door wide open. I didn't try to talk to her or contact her in any way for the next couple of hours because I figured that she had just gone on a walk to clear her head or something. But then, when she didn't even come home by midnight, I started to get a little worried and decided that I was going to try and call her. To my surprise, I noticed that the call didn't go through and after the first couple of tries,

I realized that she had blocked me. I tried to text her but with no luck because I was blocked there as well and she had also removed me from all her social media accounts. I was paranoid and tried to call her friends but they didn't answer my calls either and I guess they had blocked me too. For the next few weeks, I just kept trying to contact her in any way I could but she just did not answer. After almost a month of trying to track her down, I gave up because I realized that she did not want to be found. Not by me, at least. I was completely lost without her and the next few months were really the toughest of my life. I don't know how I

got through it. All I would do was just go to work, come back, miss her, and pretend that things were fine. People tried to convince me that I was better off without her, but I just didn't feel it. I moved out of that apartment after a year. I tried to stay there because I thought that if Cindy ever came back she would be able to find me if I remained in that apartment. But after I moved out and had a new address, I gave up any hope of reconciling with Cindy. We never got any closure and that was my biggest disappointment so far. I was pretty depressed and tried not to talk to women after my breakup because I didn't want to feel like I was betraying Cindy that changed when I met my current wife, Amy 27F. She was a colleague at work and she was really sweet to me when I was new,

and not just me but she was sweet to every single person in the office. She was beautiful, intelligent, and had a brilliant personality. So despite my best efforts, I couldn't help but fall for her within a few months. I had promised myself that I would never put myself through another relationship again after Cindy, but that all changed when I met Amy. We have been together for almost four years and have been married for two now. I met my happiest with her and I had honestly totally forgotten about Cindy. Until recently, when she made a sudden reappearance in my life. Seven years have passed since our breakup, or rather he was just walking out on me like I meant

nothing to her, just over a petty misunderstanding. Last weekend, my wife and I were just chilling at home when she suddenly rang our doorbell and I was the one to open the door. Before I could even register what I was seeing in front of me, she dragged a little boy, around seven, right in front of me and demanded that I pay seven years of child support immediately. She completely tore into me before I even had a chance to speak and started yelling at me about how she had spent the last seven years of her life trying to track me down so our son could finally have a father. I just stood there silently while she yelled at me, accused me of being an absent father, and demanded that I pay child support to her and cough up

the amount that I had managed to avoid for the last seven years. I had no idea how to respond to any of that and just stood there like an idiot while she continued to scream at me. Obviously, it was not my fault. I had even waited for her to come back for one year after she had left abruptly. She was the one who had abandoned me in our relationship and I was 100% sure that it was not even my son whom she brought along with her. The reason I was not saying anything was because I was literally too shocked to say a word. Noticing that I had been gone for a couple of minutes, Amy decided to come out and check what was going on. And that's when the situation turned around because as soon as she saw my wife Cindy's face lost all color and it appeared that she knew she

was screwed. Now at the time, I was not aware of what was happening but all I knew was that Cindy was not okay when she saw my wife. And even Amy seemed really, really surprised to see Cindy there. Before I could say anything, Amy and Cindy started arguing and I couldn't make out what they were yelling at each other about, but I knew the things were bad and they already knew each other from before. They were at each other's throats, verbally attacking each other, calling each other every derogatory name in the book and I stood there like a silent spectator, along with the other little boy, trying to figure out what was going on. Then finally, Amy brought out the big guns and said that if Cindy didn't leave,

then she was going to call the cops and that would not be good for her. Cindy did not look happy about it, but ultimately, she left after shooting us both dirty looks and cursing us out some more. When she heard that, Amy threatened to call the cops again and I am not even kidding, Cindy literally made a run for it. She grabbed her son as soon as Amy mentioned the cops and got out of there as quickly as she could. I had no idea what just happened, but I figured that Amy would tell me everything after Cindy left. Now, this is where things took a really weird turn because as soon as Cindy left, Amy turned towards me and started screaming at me, saying things like how could you do this to me and I can't believe you hid this from me.

I still didn't say anything and just stood there looking at her really confused. because that's how I felt I was really confused and the thing she was accusing me of also did not make any sense to me. She was acting as if I had hidden my relationship with Cindy from her on purpose or something but I had not done that. I had always been very open with Amy and told her everything about my ex. So I did not understand why she was reacting the way that she was. The only thing that I hadn't done was show her a picture of Cindy ever. But that wasn't on purpose, it was mostly because I had lost my fault. before I moved into my new house and it had all my pictures with Cindy on it, so when I lost that,

I lost a lot of pictures that I had with her. I had also deleted most of my pictures with her off my social media because it was a very painful reminder of what our relationship used to be and how she had just disappeared without an explanation. So to sum it up, I deleted my pictures with her on my social media and then I lost my phone so I lost all the pictures that I had with her because I hadn't backed them up anywhere else either. I never tried to get them back because I just thought that it was a good thing that I didn't have any pictures with her anymore since it just meant that one less thing that would

remind me of her. Sure, we had a couple of group photos that were still up on my friend's social media accounts but I made them take it all down because I didn't want to see myself with her anymore. I would have shown those pictures to Amy had she ever asked for it but she didn't and it just seemed like too much work to go digging for group photos or photos of me and Cindy to show to Amy when she didn't even seem interested in seeing the woman. So I never got around to showing Amy how Cindy looked. After that incident, Amy said that she wanted to leave and go live with her parents for a while so that she could cool down and clear her head before she came back. In spite of me begging her to stay, she still left because she said that she just did not want

to be in the same room as me for a while and really needed her own space to deal with this. I didn't even know what this was because she did not give me any explanation and it just felt like a repeat of whatever had taken place to me and Cindy. I was devastated for that entire day and it wasn't until the next day that I finally made some calls to try and figure out what exactly was going on. I called her parents first, but they told me that I should have told them about Cindy before instead of just springing it on her like this. They fried me for a while and then disconnected the call without giving me any explanation. So then I called Amy's older sister, my sister-in-law who was the only other person likely to have an explanation. I was completely lost and she was my last hope so when she answered my call, I wasted no time in explaining what had happened and that's when she told me the real story of how Amy and Cindy knew each other. So apparently Cindy and Amy were cousins.

Cindy's real name was Cynthia, they're not her real names, I'm just using similar examples, which was something I had never used to refer to her, which is why Indie's. Amy had never made the connection. Apparently, Cindy had always been a big bully who had pretty much ruined Amy's childhood. Things had been bad between them for a while, but it all came to a head on Amy's 18th birthday. Cindy hooked up with Amy's longtime boyfriend of almost three years. My in-laws were pissed and Amy's mother, Cindy's mother's sister, got into a huge fight over Cindy's behavior. Obviously, both parents took their own kid's side and so their families stopped speaking to each other. They were completely cut off from one another but the bullying did not end there because Cindy decided that she was going to take revenge on her cousin by spreading nasty

rumors about her online. It got to a point where their parents had to get involved all over again and this time Cindy finally decided that she was going to leave Amy alone but only because her parents had told her to cut it out. That was the last time the two cousins spoke to each other and finally, they met about a couple of days ago because of me. After the phone call with my sister-in-law, I finally figured out why Amy had been so mad when she saw Cindy at our door. Apparently, the meeting with Cindy, or Cynthia, as Amy knew her, had brought up painful memories for both of us. I spoke to her after that phone call and I guess my sister-in-law must have talk to her because she finally talked to me instead of just letting the phone ring. I told her that

I understood where she was coming from, but it wasn't exactly my fault that we hadn't been able to find out about this common link between us. Mostly because she'd never asked her shown an interest in Cindy and rightfully so, since it was all in the past anyway and she was the future for me. Had she asked me about Cindy even once, then I would have instantly shown her a picture and we wouldn't have had to wait for so long to find out about this connection between us. I'd try to explain my side of the story to her rationally, but for some reason, she still thinks that I am the bad guy here and that I should have more about my past relationship so she would have asked me about it as well and then we would have been able to uncover this sooner.

I just couldn't see how any of this was my fault and I told her so as well so she got really mad at me and stopped speaking to me after telling me that I was being stupid and self-involved. She then told me that she had a horrible history with Cindy and she expected me to understand and respect that, to which I replied that I had a horrible past with her as well, but I didn't see Amy trying to be understanding of that. I guess that really offended her because she told me that I won the Olympics for having the worst past ever, and then she hung up. Since then she has not been responding to any of my calls or texts and I feel like I really screwed up here. My wife usually never loses her cool like this, so this was definitely a very touchy and sensitive subject for her. But I feel like she needs to realize that this is a sensitive thing for me as well, so it's not really fair to put the entire blame on me when I don't even understand what my fault here was exactly. I am just glad that I haven't heard from Cindy yet because I am sure that if she continues to try and get involved in my life, then this mess will only get bigger.

Anyway, I'd offer not telling my wife enough about my toxic ex-girlfriend. Update 1, Hi guys, so first of all, thank you for all the comments that advised me on what to do here. I am really thankful for everyone who had something to say. And for those of you who wanted to know if my wife had ever mentioned anything about the bullying before, no, she had not. She had never told me that she had been bullied relentlessly in the past and I only found out about that part of her after the phone. call with my sister-in-law. It wasn't my fault, I know, but I still took the initiative and decided to go see my wife at her parents' place. I wanted to make this relationship work and I knew that if I wanted to be with her then I would have to go and set things right. Even if it

wasn't my fault, because it was us versus the problem and not her versus me. Yesterday I finally visited her after almost a week of not speaking to each other. Both my in-laws and Amy were pretty surprised to see me there, but I didn't wait for them to say anything and as soon as the door had been opened I went straight to Amy and gave her a big bear hug. She was taken aback, but she hugged me back and we just hugged for a few minutes before we even said anything. This last week had been tough for both of us and we knew we just wanted to be together, who was right and who was wrong didn't even matter anymore. As soon as I broke away from the hug, she apologized to me and started crying immediately because apparently, she had thought that she had

lost me forever due to the meltdown that she had after Cindy's visit that day. And also because of the way she had been behaving after she left the house. She acknowledged that she had been totally unreasonable and irrational in dealing with the situation and just kept apologizing constantly. Her parents and I consoled her and calmed her down as she sobbed profusely. I was happy to see that she had realized that the way she had been acting was a little unfair to me but at the same time, I also felt guilty for not reaching out to her. her earlier since that is what really caused her to break down when I finally visited her yesterday.

After a while, once we talked things out, she packed up her stuff to come back home with me and here we are back home together. I wouldn't say that things have gone back to normal but we're working on it and trying to make sense of everything that has happened in the last week, including Cindy's visit, which we still haven't been able to get to the bottom of. But we'll find out what that was all about as well. Update 2, Hey guys, so we finally found out what Cindy was here for. No prizes for guessing that it was for money, which she had made very clear to us as soon as she arrived,

by demanding that I pay child support for a kid that barely seemed or felt like my own. Amy and my sister-in-law made several phone calls to get to the bottom of what was happening with her since their families were not on speaking terms and hadn't been for several years. And they found out that the kid was not mine, obviously, but she had been dating since. some guy for a couple of years. In fact, I think she had even been too timing me for the last couple of months of our relationship. I don't have any proof for it, but it would sure make sense because she broke up with me over something really pretty and then just cut me out of her life randomly like I was nothing to her. So it would add up if she had already another guy

lined up to take my place after she broke up with me. She was probably already pregnant by the time she left me and she just needed a way out. The incident with her. with my sister was the most convenient way for her to leave. Most people in her family were aware of her relationship with the other guy, but I was forbidden from speaking to her family unless she was with me, so I never found out about it and never would have had she not made the terrible decision of showing up to my doorstep just to intimidate me into giving her money. As it turns out, the other guy had dumped her a couple of months ago and since she had

quit working after she had met the other guy and had her baby, she didn't really have any savings of her own and was running short on money. He'd done the same thing to her that she had done to me, just disappeared without any explanation and now she was struggling to make ends meet. Her parents had refused to help her because they wanted to save enough to retire and they wouldn't be able to do so if they started supporting her and her kid all of a sudden, which is just crazy selfish, but it explains why she was so desperate. None of her family has heard from her after she ran into Amy at my house, but I'm sure that somebody will find her and either try to help her or just report her to the cops because from what I'm here, hearing, she has already been scanned a few people out of cash. Now these are all just rumors, but they might as well be true because after what she tried to pull I wouldn't really put it past her. So it's a late update but Amy and I have decided to join couples counseling as well

as individual therapy because I think we are really dealing with her past as well as we thought we were. Just one appearance from Cindy had sent our lives crashing and burning. We couldn't let that happen again so that's why we made the decision that we made. As for Cindy, we heard from a couple of relatives that she was now living with another guy whom she had met online just a few days ago but he was already smitten with her and had offered to let her move in. Her parents were inconsolable because of how she had been acting and even more so as she had told them that they were not allowed to meet their grandson anymore. Not to take her side but honestly, what were her parents even expecting?

They had turned her away when she needed them and now they expected her to just be fine with it. That's just ridiculous. They had always enabled her behavior, be it with me or with Amy. Her parents weren't pleasant people and clearly, neither was she. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree and she's living proof of it. Amy and I just feel bad that the poor kid has to suffer the consequences of her bad decisions. I hope you enjoy this story. Relative pleaded with my child to perform an acrobatic routine at her marriage celebration.

giving consent to all the details, and subsequently shamed her on social media for overshadowing her. I trust this is acceptable. To share here. The reason I'm posting is because of my daughter who's been hurting in the aftermath of a recent performance. I'm sorry in advance for how long this turned out, but any advice from fellow aerialists would be greatly appreciated. My cousin Dana, not real name, had her wedding two weeks ago, and she asked if my daughter could perform at her reception. My daughter, Jane, also fake name, has practiced Silk slash Lyra for the past few years at a nearby circus studio, and she's also performed with Slash through the studio at small gigs.

She hopes to continue into adulthood and become a professional teacher, but this recent incident has shaken her confidence. She has a private Instagram to document her progress slash performances, and I only post certain performances on my Facebook. Her first gig with the studio and her first recital to name a few were proud of. Some of our relatives saw her performances through my socials, and they watched her perform at her studio's Christmas recital when we hosted Christmas at our home a few years back. Something that surprised her when they visited early to see her.

I love how they coordinated that, and Jane said it was her loudest cheering section to date. Dana was one of the relatives who came up early to see her Christmas recital, and she's always been super supportive. She asked me if Jane would be willing to perform at the reception, and I asked on her behalf. Jane was honored and excited when I did, and we already had a portable rig for her too, though we ended up renting a taller one from her studio. Dana got the idea from a YouTube video featuring an aerialist who performed at a wedding reception,

and she showed us while requesting white silks and a white outfit. We scoped out the venue and purchased white silks along with a white costume that Dana approved of, and Jane was really excited throughout. Jane even worked on choreography to a song that Dana requested, and she put a lot of time into it, even asking one of her coaches to help her with it. Dana insisted on paying her for the gig despite Jane not expecting to be paid,

and she paid her a few hundred. However, Dana's had a change of heart. Jane received a standing ovation after her performance that surprised her, but we didn't know anything was wrong until Dana went on Facebook a few days later. Dana said she didn't approve of the outfit Jane wore and that she specifically told her to not wear white. She also said my husband and I pressured her to have Jane perform

and that the performance gave off a mon classy vibe, lies that my husband and I couldn't believe. We sent Dana numerous costume links, and we purchased the one she liked. There was also nothing wrong with Jane's performance. Dana was one of the people cheering afterward. Jane received nothing but compliments afterward, but I'm disgusted that she had to see that post after all the work she put into it. The post also had comments disabled for what it's worth.

I called Dana to confront her about the lies, but she didn't pick up numerous calls. I then called her parents who, like us, had received messages about her post, and they said that Dana was wrong. They apologized on her behalf and said they were also disgusted. Dana's mom also said that Dana vented to her before making her post a few days after the reception. Dana told her she regretted asking Jane to perform given the attention, compliments and cheers she received for it. Her mom also said that she felt upstaged with Jane wearing white and having to hear how good she was. Dana's parents tried to call her after she made her post, but she didn't answer after their previous conversation ended with her parents telling her she shouldn't be bitter because she specifically asked. asked Jane to perform.

Dana's parents reported the post along with us slash others, and we've told the truth to those who reached out along with a post to explain our site slash stand up for Jane. We have text proof of sending costume links that Dana chose from. Dana's parents also requested to talk to Jane on the phone to apologize for Dana's behavior, and my husband and I told Jane that Dana was wrong, and that will be distancing ourselves from Dana permanently. Dana's parents were surprised at her behavior, and we were two having seen her grow up. Granted, we only see extended family for Thanksgiving and Christmas because we live far,

but other relatives were surprised too as it seemed to come from left field. Maybe there's a side of Dana will never know from our limited holiday slash milestone interactions, but our focus is Jane. We've tried to cheer Jane up by offering to take her to dinner among other activities, but she's been hurting which is why I'm here. Jane hasn't practiced at home or the studio since the reception, and I don't want to invade her space at her studio by asking slash telling anyone there in case she doesn't want anyone to know.

She asked me to return the white silks and costume after being so excited to receive them. She also said she's going to take an extended break from Ariel to reconsider if she wants to continue. Aside from Ariel, she's taken a break from seeing non-Arial friends too, choosing to pretty much keep to herself. We would appreciate any advice from fellow Arielists on how to lift her spirits. We remind her of how we're proud of her, along with the many compliments she received, but she's asked for space and to not talk about it. We're going to respect that and let time do its thing, but we'll consider any advice from other Arielists who can relate to the time

and work she put in. Sorry for this being so long, but we appreciate anyone who read and takes the time to reply. Update 1, before I get into what's happened since my last post, I want to thank everyone who took the time to comment. Two pieces of advice really stood out, and I'll get to them shortly. Since my original post, Dana's post is gone. I don't know if she deleted it or enough people reported it for to remove it, but we're glad it's gone. She never apologized to us, or Jane, or even bothered to call, so our position on being permanently done with Dana. Dana stands. My husband and I made a post addressing the lies she spewed about our daughter, and we shared photo proof of Dana's texts where she approved of Jane's white costume from

links we sent, not to mention the song choice she sent us to. Better yet, Dana's mother reposted it on her account which really surprised me. Dana's mother wrote that they loved Jane's act and that they disapproved of Dana's actions. My husband and I also made sure that Jane was okay with us addressing it on Facebook, and she said it was fine. Normally, I wouldn't use Facebook to address drama if aimed at me. But since this involves a grown adult attacking a minor, we felt the need to address it publicly because she disparaged her publicly, and Jane will remember whether we stood up for her or not years from now. I had a chance to speak with Dana's mother since my original post on the phone, and she spoke to Dana again since our last call.

Dana reiterated how she regretted asking Jane to perform, but she harped on the standing ovation that bothered her the most. Dana told her that she expected Jane to get some polite applause, but that the overwhelming response really set her over the edge because she expected the loudest cheers to be when she and her husband enter the reception, but that went to Jane instead. Dana and her husband also received a great reception when they entered the reception, but Jane's performance did too, and Dana didn't expect it. Heck, even Jane was surprised by it too, she never received a standing ovation from a solo act before. But Dana's mother believes that if Dana had asked someone to sing who received a similar reception, Dana's jealousy would have been all the same. Someone suggested seeing if Jane would be interested in speaking to a therapist given how hurtful Dana's comments could be for a teen, and Jane said she's open to it so long as it isn't a counselor at school because, as of now, she doesn't want anyone at school or her school. studio to know about the incident. And she vaguely told the coach who helped her choreograph that

it went fine. We will respect her privacy request as it's her right to control the narrative. But in the same vein, I suggested therapy for Dana to Dana's mother since her reaction might be a bigger insecurity, and she said she'd ask. The other thing someone suggested was the possibility of Dana's husband, or anyone, making an inappropriate comment to Jane during the reception that made her shut down and not want to see friends or practice days before Dana's post. My husband decided to ask her, and Jane said no when he did. If something happened, perhaps she'd be more comfortable telling a therapist with time. But on the bright side, she said she might want to try a different aerial studio because

she doesn't want to answer questions about how it went, or share a video, at her home studio. So we will help her find somewhere new as she asked. We hope she doesn't. We hope she doesn't permanently leave her current studio because she has friends and coaches who are supportive, and she performs with that studio's troop at festivals slash gigs, but I personally understand the need to sometimes go somewhere where nobody knows you for a break, and we hope that that will help her. She hasn't said definitely yet. But if we does, we'll take her. She still wants an extended break from Ariel in the meantime. But even if slash when she goes back, she said she may never want to perform again and would rather do it leisurely, one of the reasons she doesn't want to return to her home

studio where she's a part of their troop. She asked if we tell her troop coach that she won't perform with them anymore if it comes to it. And if that's what she wants down the road, then we will. Hopefully time heals this wound and helps her at least keep the friends she has there, but we can only hope. Update 2, December 24, 2024. This is going to be the last time I update, everyone who gave advice. In my last post, I mentioned that Jane said she'd be open to talking to a professional so long as it wasn't anyone from her school, and we agreed to accommodate her. However, she changed her mind shortly after and said she wanted to talk to her coach instead whom she had been brushing off since the reception and being vague about how it went.

She and her coach put a lot of time into choreographing the act for Dana, and she didn't even charge her for the sessions to do so. Her coach is also part of her circus studios performing troupe, and she has always been supportive and understanding. We supported her decision to talk with her coach, and they did in person. It was after they spoke that Jane spoke to me following her coach's suggestion to do so, and I'm going to be somewhat vague about certain details of our discussion. She also asked to speak to me first before we talked to my husband afterward, and that's what we did. Jane opened up about how Dana sent a private message to her Instagram the day after the reception,

but to her personal Instagram and not the private circus one. Dana's private message was just as bitter as her Facebook posts, but much more hurtful. Dana called Jane derogatory sexual terms in her message, and I can't express how angry my husband and I still are. Jane said she was surprised upon receiving the message. Dana was always supportive of her craft, and she gave her a standing ovation along with her husband. Looking back, Dana probably did because everyone else was doing so. But Dana also wrote that she only received the ovation because they were family who were biased and couldn't tell the difference between a good and bad aerialist.

Jane blocked Dana long before we spoke, and she said she was hurt because Dana was one of the relatives who came up for Christmas early when he hosted some years back to attend her studio's Christmas recital which surprised her, and we all went out to dinner afterwards too. My husband and I tried our best to remind her that Dana's reaction was a reflection of her insecurities rather than anything Jane did. If the best man gave a speech that garnered the same reaction, Dana would have directed her vitriol at him. Jane said she understood that it wasn't her fault, but there was more in Dana's message that hurt her confidence such as bodily comments that were disgusting. She said she may return to Ariel at some point, but that she still

needs time and is unsure about performing again compared to doing it leisurely. We told her, among other things, that we commended her decision to speak with her coach and that will respect her ultimate decision. Jane also said that she didn't tell us immediately because she wasn't sure if she wanted further drama with Dana if we told her parents about her message. However, after some time, she said she actually wanted us to tell them because she felt that Dana deserved repercussions for it. She said she was surprised that Dana's parents called her out publicly, on Facebook, without knowing about the message, so that made her feel comfortable with us telling them. Jane also saved a screenshot of Dana's message.

And while we agreed to tell her parents, we suggested that she deleted afterwards because it's not good to carry around hurtful things. She's also still open to speaking to a professional about the other stuff in Dana's message that's more hurtful so long as it's no one from her school. We are in the process of trying to find a therapist who can help with some of the infidelities that led to her shutdown in the weeks after the performance. I honestly cannot thank her coach enough, but I just want to touch on a few more things that were suggested in comments. I received a few DMs saying we were just as bad as Dana for addressing Dana's lies on Facebook, so I want to be clear. My husband and I rarely use Facebook. And if someone had started drama with me on a Facebook post, I wouldn't use Facebook to address it personally.

I'd opt for a call instead. But since she disparaged a minor publicly with lies regarding costumes that we had text proof of her approving, we felt the need to post those messages proving that she signed off on them. And we asked Jane if she was okay with it first. The other thing a few people asked was whether her costume was potentially inappropriate. The costume we purchased came from a website that many professional circus performers use, including some who used to be in Cirque du Soleil and tagged the shop while wearing it on their socials. And we purchased other costumes from there in the past.

Heck, some of their costumes have been used in wedding gigs by hired circus performers too. Jane's costume also received many compliments, but we're glad Jane realizes that she isn't responsible for Dana's insecurities. This was also Jane's first negative experience in her young performing career. Despite knowing Dana is entirely at fault, her words still hurt as they were close before this. Jane has kept in contact with her coach since, and she's even considering a different apparatus to take her mind off of silks that is tempered. temporarily tainted. We hope that time in therapy will help her with whatever she chooses,

but her coach has also floated the idea of organizing a hangout with her troop completely outside of Ariel like a zip line slash rope course day to get her mind off of it while seeing her friends, and she said she'd be open to it. Dana's parents also sent Sherry's berries for Jane which was really sweet, and Jane sent them a text to thank them too. Regarding Dana's parents, I discussed the private message with Dana's mother, and she was even more disgusted than before. She said that she and her husband would deal with it and that there'd be permanent changes to their relationship with Dana until she apologies and then some. She also apologized to us on her behalf and said she didn't raise her to be like that.

But for what it's worth, even before we mentioned Dana's message, she told me that Dana's husband wasn't thrilled with her Facebook post among other things Dana complained about regarding the wedding, things that I had no clue about. She also said, she's not sure if they'll be together much longer due to other things going on too, but I'll keep this to Jane only and hope that she comes back to Ariel someday, or even a different apparatus if she chooses. Next story, got extremely frustrated about raising my wife's best friend's daughter every weekend because her dad was useless. But something happened that changed everything. I, 31M, am married to my wife Amber, 30F, we have a daughter Emma 7F the problem is my wife's best friend

Jennifer, 30F, has a daughter as Well Harper, 7F, well Harper's dad is a lazy sack of crap and refuses to do anything with his daughter. He is the type of guy that brags about how he never changed a diaper. Jennifer and Harper are usually at Amber and my house on the weekends because Harper's dad is drinking and watching sports all weekend. On Saturdays I normally spend all day with my daughter because I don't see her as much as I wanted during the week. However with Harper being there Saturday anything I do with Emma I have to do with Harper. Take Emma to the zoo it's Emma, Harper, and I taught them both how to ride bikes, takes them both to dance class, take them both to the kid's salon, and so on. Mother's Day was the last draw. I took them both to dance class

Saturday morning, Amber, and I also pay for both dance classes because dead beat won't. On the way home Emma asked if we could stop to get something for mom for Mother's Day, I said sure, but then it ended up I had to buy something for Harper to her her mom as well. On the way home I just kept thinking why am I buying someone else's wife a Mother's Day gift, that's his job. A few days later, because I did not want to ruin Mother's Day, I told my wife that I am tired of raising Harper, her real father needs to step up. I tired of it taking away time I get to spend with Emma. She said that Jennifer is her best friend and we need to be there for Harper. Now she is not speaking to me and sleeping in the guest bedroom.

So Ida. Just wanted to add some updates to questions I see. Emma and Harper are best friends. It was my idea to spend Saturday with Emma, I work more during the week so I wanted to spend Saturday with Emma and to give my wife a bit of a break. We pay for things be Jennifer's husband thinks it's a waste on money to pay for dance class and Jennifer can't afford to pay by herself. Jennifer and Harper do things with Amber and Emma one or two times a week together during the week nights. Update 1, so quite a few people has asked for an update on this situation.

Sorry it's taken so long but it's been a hectic few weeks. As for the updates the Amber and I are fine. Her reaction was based on poor word choices by me, poor communication by both of us, and some things I was unaware of at the time. The short version is, things at home were much. much worse than I was aware of for Jennifer, and my wife had only recently found out how bad things were. Mother's Day was the straw that broke the camels back for Jennifer as well. She was raised in a you must stay together for the kids' family.

When Harper came to me for a gift, she realized that her daughter did not see her sperm donor as a father so it was time to get out. Jennifer came to my wife to ask for help leaving because she had no family in the area and Jennifer does not have the financial resources to leave on her own. So the night my wife was going to ask me if we could help her is when I told her I was tired of raising someone else's kid. That's what caused her reaction. The Saturday after out initial argument Jennifer did not come over and Emma went to her grandparents. So the wife and I had a long discussion about what was going on. That's when I found out all the stuff going on with Jennifer. The wife and I decided that Jennifer and Harper can see. stay with us for the time being. My problem was never with those two it was that I had to take over

for the deadbeat, or deadbeat if you prefer. When we told Emma about this, she was super happy her friend was staying with her. We had a conversation with her that if she wants to have time with either parent without Harper just let us know. And we do not want her to feel left out of anything. Last weekend with the help of Aou Hall and some friends of mine we got all of Jennifer's and Harper's stuff and moved it into our house. The good thing is we have a four-bedroom house so everyone gets a bedroom. The bad news is my wife's office got moved to the basement. Wish me luck we shall see how this goes.

Update 2. So it's been almost a year since my last update but with Mother's Day upon us I thought I would post an update and try to answer the questions I've gotten. Jen and Harper are still living with us. As I mentioned before Jen did not make that much money. She worked as a phlebotomist for our local health network. The good news is with the current nursing shortage they have a program where they will pay for employees to go to nursing school. She was able to start that in the end of August.

The bad news is it's an 18-month program and they only let you work 20 hours a week while you are in the program. So the arrangement is when she graduates she will move out then. That should be next May. The divorce with deadbeat is still ongoing. Once he found out he was going to have to pay child support he tried every dirty nasty trick he could think of. No idea when that will be finished. My wife is doing good, she happy she is helping her best friend, but five people in a house is a lot more work than three. Since she works from home the pre and post-school work falls on her.

Emma and Harper are still best friends. Shockingly Harper is doing much better in this environment than before. They don't do everything together anymore. Harper quit dance class, but she started with soccer. I think knowing that she will get fatherly attention no matter what she is doing is given her some freedom to pursue other interest. Harper has turned into my Lego buddy. Emma never had any interest but Harper and I have done some nice sets together. Emma and I still have our daddy-daughter dates on the weekend.

I still take her to dance class, and she started to take fencing classes. I don't know if I should be proud or scared that she could defeat me in a sword fight. I think I am doing better a year later. That there is a plan with a timetable for Jen and Harper has relived a lot of stress for my life. That I also don't have to see Deadbeat has also been a relief. I also try to take a few hours a month for me time and to do. my hobbies. The bad part is I had thought that I was done with the portion of my life where I had roommates. It will also be nice when Jen either gets her nursing job and or gets

child support so that Amber and I can stop footing the bill for so much. For all the people that said Jen was going to become our sister wife, or that I was going cheat of my wife with her, or that she was going to ruin my marriage out of spite, or any of the weird sexual fantasies some of you people had absolutely nothing has happened. I hope you enjoy it. this story. Ultimately exploded on my privileged slob invoice and his inactive spouse after they barged into my residence without invitation, departed our space in disarray, disregarded my requests, and attempted converting my own wife against me. I have been married to Rita for about a year and it has been great, for the most part. I am 31m and she is 30F, and we had been together

for three years before we got married. We met because of a couple of common friends who thought that it would be a great idea to set us up on a blind date as a joke since we are so different, and eventually, it actually turned out pretty great, considering the fact that we got married. But anyway, Rita has an older brother, David. David is 35M and his wife, Erica, is around the same age. My wife is very close to her brother because while growing up, they pretty much only had each other. Their mother passed away shortly after Rita was born and it was a devastating incident for the family because she passed away in a road accident, so nobody saw it coming. Rita was just seven months old at the time and her mother had been out, getting the groceries, since her father was at work. It was just the kids and the babysitter who had been at home at the time and her father fell into an irreversible depression after their mother passed away.

My wife was obviously too young to remember it, but David remembers the way. their father used to act in the aftermath of their mother's demise and how he would spend all his days locked up in his room, either working or sleeping. He had started working from home after that and even though everything was provided to them, they essentially did not have parents, even though their father was still alive. There was no love or affection that was shown to them and it was just very sad. So anyway, they realized that pretty early on and they would have to be there for each other because their mother was gone and their father was just barely surviving without her, so they had to look out for each other and have each other's backs.

And I think it's very admirable that they have such a great relationship and are so close but at the same time, it can get really annoying for me because I, personally, don't come from a family where this is normal. For context, I do not have any siblings and my parents got divorced when I was 12 years old. I would not say that it affected me in any way, I just realized that I had two rooms now and that was it. My parents getting divorced was not surprising because even when they were together, they would just keep fighting all the time and barely even speak to each other. I honestly don't even know how they managed to live with each other for 12 years. But anyway, after they got divorced, they were much easier to live with

and a lot more pleasant to talk to. So I actually preferred them to be divorced. They continued to co-parent me and remained in touch. But speaking about the different kinds of family that we had, I am not the kind of guy who visits my parents every weekend or speaks with them on the phone every day. I'm very busy with work on my life and we are lucky if we get to speak for maybe a day or two every month. I don't think my parents mind it either because they have their own lives and are okay with us just getting together once in a while, as opposed to every other day. But it's not the same for my wife and I try to respect it earlier, knowing that she has had a very different childhood and obviously, she and her brother are bonded for life. However, it just kept getting more difficult for me to deal with it with time. Earlier, when we were dating, she would speak to him on the phone almost every day and I thought it was cute.

The phone calls would usually last for an hour and I didn't have an issue with it because like I am not close to my family, she is. And that's her life and her choice. As long as it was not affecting me in a negative way, I did not have a problem with it. So I knew that she would be busy at night and I would not call her around that time. But then, we moved in together and she would talk to her brother for almost three hours every day. And every weekend, he would come to visit us. That kind of started annoying me a little because of a couple of reasons. Both Rita and I had full-time jobs and would be working throughout the day.

So when I came back home from work, I expected to be able to spend some time with my girlfriend I would have to wait for her to be done talking to her brother, and by the time she was done, I was too tired and I would just fall asleep as soon as my head would hit the pillow. That was the weekdays but on the weekends, I thought that maybe we would be able to spend quality time together. However, on those days, her brother would land at our door and we would spend the entire weekend together. It used to feel like we were not getting any time together and I didn't feel good about it. I didn't even know how to bring it up with her without sounding petty and insecure. So I stayed silent about it for a couple of months but then we had our first big fight about

something that I don't even remember and then, I decided to bring this up with her. Thankfully, that fight was resolved and we even spoke about the excessive time that she was spending with her brother. And she told me that she would try to cut down on it and give me more time instead because evidently that was bothering me and getting in the way of our relationship and she did not want that. She explained to me that her brother lived a couple of hours away on his own. which he was not used to, but he had to live alone since their father passed away a couple of years before that.

He was also feeling very lonely because his girlfriend was working in another state and would only come back for the holidays, so he did not get to see her very often, which is why they were spending so much time together, so he did not feel alone. She had not told me about it because he was not comfortable talking about it, but once I got that explanation, it started to make a little more sense to me. She also understood where I was coming from and told me that she would try to spend more time with me and we would work on our relationship. So then, her brother started visiting less frequently and they cut down on the hours of their calls. This had happened one year into our relationship, but then once we had the discussion and got it out of the way, everything was fine again and I proposed to her about a year after that.

But things started getting awkward between me and David soon after she started spending less time with him. He would still visit us occasionally but on those visits, everything would be very tense. I don't blame him for that because obviously, I was the one who had asked his sister to spend less time with him and he did not like that because now, he had to spend more time alone. So whenever we would be together, he would take digs at me and try to imply that I was too insecure and jealous to let Rita be in touch with her family. Of course, he would pass it all off as jokes but I knew that he was actually pretty pissed about what had happened. I thought it was weird that he was taking this so personally because it was

really not about him. Even if Rita had been spending that kind of time with anybody else, I would have felt equally sidelined. I don't think it was wrong for me to want to spend time with my girlfriend. And it was not my fault that his girlfriend was working out of state so he could not be with her but his sister was not a replacement for that, for God's sake. I felt like things had changed between the two of us and now, he saw me as more of a sort of competition because that's the way he started behaving. Even a month before I proposed, he organized a party and invited us all to it, which actually turned out to be his wedding. Erica had quit her job and come back home and they had decided to surprise us. The key word here is surprise, so I had no

idea that they were getting married. They had skipped the engagement and just got married, which made sense because they had been together for a really long time before that. I was happy for them and we did not interact much at their wedding, even though it was very small and intimate and he had only invited a couple of his friends, co-workers, and family members, so he had enough time to interact with me but he just chose not to. I did not mind it because it was his wedding and he could choose to do whatever he wanted to and it was not like friends anyway, so I did not make an issue out of it. But then a month later, when I got engaged,

and I threw an engagement party a couple of days after that, he spent the entire party making jokes about how we were getting serious about the competition now because I had even gotten engaged just because he was married and I did not want to fall behind. Even as jokes, they were quite distasteful because this was supposed to be a happy occasion making it all about himself. I don't think anybody found it funny and everybody who was laughing was doing it so that he would stop talking about it. Even Rita did not like it one bit and we talked about it later but did not do anything about it because it did not seem worth it to make a big deal out of this and we decided to focus on planning the wedding instead. We got married about seven months later and that's when he announced that he and Erica were going to be parents. He made the announcement about a week after our wedding and Rita was ecstatic but I was just worried about how the dynamics would change between us after that because I was pretty certain that he would use this opportunity to start taking pot shots at me.

I know it probably sounds like I'm making too much out of it, but trust me, David's behavior around me was nothing short of disrespectful and unnecessarily passive-aggressive. And I was actually right because as soon as they got pregnant, he started making jokes about how I would announce that we were pregnant the next thing that they knew, because obviously I could not live with the fact that I was falling behind and I had to win whatever competition I had initiated. He said it all in a very joking way, so I had to laugh along with him every time he would visit and say these stupid things but on the inside. I would actually be pretty pissed off. Anyway, after they had their twin babies, they got pretty busy with their kids and did not visit us as often as they

would and we did not mind that either because Rita understood that they were parents now. And I did not even want David around in the first place, so I was good. Everything was going normally but about two weeks ago I came back home from work and all of a sudden I realized that David and Erica had taken over the house. It was kind of disorienting for me because I didn't remember having any discussion about this with Rita and I had been caught completely off guard when I came back home and so David was playing in the living room with his twins and Rita and Erica cooking together in the kitchen. I also noticed that there were a lot of unpacked bags in the living room and I asked Rita to speak to me in private so I could understand what this was all about. Once we were in

our bedroom alone, I asked her what was going on and she told me that she had invited them to live with us for a month or so because apparently, Erica had to quit her job when she got pregnant and was not actually on maternity leave like she had been telling everyone. When she got pregnant, she had only been working at her new company for a couple of months and they don't really offer paid leave for new mothers who have not even been working there for a year, so she had been told that she could either go on maternity leave without pay or she would have to come into work. She had decided to quit because it was. She had decided to quit because it was too stressful for her to even think about it and David was earning well enough so it did not

seem to be a problem for either of them at the time but now, she spent the entire day at home and she was not used to not contributing to the household expenses because she had been working ever since she turned 18. And that's why she was having a tough time not going to work and just being at home with her children so she had been acting out and David thought that maybe this was postpartum depression or something. So he had been very concerned about it, and had spoken to her doctor and had come to the conclusion that it would be better for her to be able to spend some time with other people as well, instead of being left alone with the kids all day. So they decided that we would be living together under one roof until she was ready to go back

to work or until she felt better. I don't know how I felt about that decision because I hadn't even been included in the discussion and Rita had just made that decision without even consulting me first. Even though both of us lived in the house together and this was something that should have been a joint discussion instead of just her deciding something and then informing me after she had already yes to it, especially when she was well aware of the equation between me and David. So we got into a bit of a fight that day because I told her that I was not comfortable with the idea of living with them for more than a week and she had already agreed that we would all be

living together for at least a month. But I had not even been included in that discussion, so I did not understand why she had thought that I would be okay with it, especially given the circumstances with me and David. I was very against it and she thought that I was being selfish and that I should think about her family and their well-being instead of being petty. Eventually, I had to agree because she had started emotionally manipulating me and said that she did not want to have a guilty conscience in case Erica actually did have postpartum depression and so she was willing to help them out. It was just a month and it would be over in no time. At least that's what she told me, I was really too tired to fight with her anymore so.

I just let it go. Because at the end of the day, I knew that she really valued her family and this was just something that I had to accept even if I did not like her family. Her brother, to be more specific. They were all kind of loud and obnoxious to live with, especially David with his constant gives at me. And I really hated having to wake up in the middle of the night because one of their twins was crying but it did not even bother Rita, because she was not a light sleeper like me and as a matter of fact, neither was anybody else. It felt really unfair because I was having to make so many sacrifices for kids that were not even mine. I have nothing against the children but I did not like the fact that the adults in this situation did not seem to care about

anybody apart from themselves. And the worst part was that David and his wife were both huge slabs, which was not something that I could accept because I am a bit of a neat freak and I really don't like it when people don't even want to do the bare minimum. They would keep their dishes lying here and they're around the house, they would never clean up after themselves and they could not even be bothered to do their share of chores around the house so everything was a huge mess and I hated living that way. I even tried to politely tell them that they had to clean up after themselves and everybody just made fun of me because they thought that I was being ridiculous and would ask me to lighten up, which was even more infuriating than what they were

doing. I finally lost my temper at them a couple of of days ago and since then, Rita has been refusing to speak to me because she thinks that I was very rude and I should not have behaved that way with her family. David and Erica know that we are fighting and they are obviously on her side but while they are not ignoring me, they are definitely all giving me the cold shoulder and I don't even know what I did wrong. About three days ago, I came back home from work and everything was a huge mess. I could not even walk in without stepping on something because there were toys and clothes literally all over the floor. There were random food stains on the walls and the couch and Erica was napping on the couch with her

children, even though they had the guest room to themselves. And David was sitting on the couch with a glass of wine and watching the football game that was on that day and he did not even seem put off by the fact that the entire room smelled really bad. He usually gets home earlier than me because he has been cutting down on his hours ever since the kids were born. And I don't know what happened that day, but I just snapped and I started screaming at everybody. I woke Erica up and I told her and David that I would watch the kids, but they had to clean the house up immediately because this was my house and it was my name on the deed. So they were welcome to do whatever they wanted when it was their own home that they were

living in but here, they were house guests and they had to do what I asked of them. I had tried telling them to keep the house clean plenty of times and I had been very polite about it earlier but evidently that did not have the desired effect. So now I was demanding that they do what I told them to and clean up the house. They did not even argue with me because I was that pissed off and I was yelling my head off at them. When the twins started crying because of all the yelling, I took them into the guest room and I told them to get to work while I watched the kids.

I was literally fuming and I only came back out two hours later when the house was spotless. I did not think it was necessary to thank David and Erica because I had been asking them to do this for ages and they had only done it because I had started yelling at them. So after I made sure that the house was clean, I went into my room and stayed there until Rita came back home. She had been working overtime that day and I had known about it so she came back home pretty late, around 10 in the night. As soon as she came back home, she came to our room and started fighting with me over what had happened earlier. She told me that what I had said to David and Erica and the way that I had behaved that day was absolutely unacceptable and she wanted me to apologize to them because she thought that I had been rude to them on purpose. She believed that I had never liked David and I was just trying to put him down and make him feel bad about himself, along with his wife, which is just such rubbish. I had no intention of doing any of that and I literally only just wanted the house to be clean, that's it.

I even tried to explain that to her, but she was not ready to listen to me and told me that I had to apologize because the way that I behaved that day was not okay, and she did not appreciate the fact that I thought that I can speak like this to her family. She even went to the extent of saying that I would not like it if she acted like that with my family, but I think that's completely different. Because first of all, I would never invite my parents to live with us without making sure that she was okay with it first. And more importantly, even if my parents were living with us, I am sure that they would not make a mess of the house like her brother and his family had. If speaking to them rudely was insulting to them, living in my house and disregarding my opinions about cleanliness and hygiene was also disrespectful to me. Now it has been a couple of days and my wife is not talking to me and everybody else is getting. giving me the cold shoulder. My wife and I sleep in the same room with our backs to each other, that's how bad it is right now. I feel very bad about this and it honestly feels like they are

targeting me on purpose. It will sound kind of immature but that's little how it feels like everybody is on one side and I am being pushed to the other side because they just want to make me feel like a bad guy for wanting something as basic as the house to be clean. Nobody is on my side on this and literally, the only people who are treating me like they're using. usually do are the kids, which is just so sad. I want to fix things with my wife, but I don't want to apologize because I don't think I did anything wrong. So Ida for yelling at my brother-in-law and his wife because they have been living with us and had made a mess out of my house. Update 1, so I went through the comments that you guys had left for me on the original post

and most people agreed that I don't have any reason to apologize right now and I agree. It has been a week since our fight and she has still not spoken to me. This is probably the longest that we have gone without talking to each other, and if this goes on for any longer, then I think I might move out and file for divorce because I don't see any other way out of this. She is not going to apologize and acknowledge that she messed up and that I don't have to do any of that because I did not do anything wrong. So we are in a deadlock and I don't know what to do about it. It is really sad because I love her, I really do and I want to make this work but not at the cost of my dignity. So either we talk this out, or I leave and this marriage comes to an end. It's going to be really sad if that happens, but I honestly don't know what else to do.

Update 2, okay, so yesterday I was talking about divorce, and today, I don't think that's going to be necessary. Thank God for that. So when I came back home from work today, I realized that the house was empty and Rita finally spoke to me. She had come back home before I had and she finally told me that she was sorry about the way that she had been behaving. She said that she had become so protective of her family that she forgot that even I was her family now and she couldn't believe how stupid she had been. She told me that she had regretted fighting with me the very next day and had been trying to distance herself from David so she could think about things from my perspective and she had realized how wrong she had been. She had even tried to talk to David and Erica to get them to apologize to me, but instead, they started trying to turn her against me and talked badly about me. The last straw was when David suggested that she leave me.

She had been trying to talk them into apologizing to me for the last couple of days and this morning, she had tried to talk to them yet again and had asked them to apologize to me, but that's when David brought up the fact that I have not been talking to her since we had that fight and he told her that I was this respectful towards her and her. family and she should stand up for herself and leave me. So she tried to explain to him that even they were being pretty disrespectful by not bothering to listen to me when I told them that I wanted my house to be clean. And so he started throwing a fit and said that she was being unfair to them since they were new parents and did not have the time and energy to constantly look after the house and when she tried to defend me and said that she was doing most of the household work and Erica did not have to do anything and even David came back home from work early. The least they could do boss keep the house clean. So they ended up fighting and she realized just how toxic and entitled they were so she told them to leave and they left, but they told her that they were disappointed that she had decided to be just like me. She had realized that they were not the right people and definitely did not want the best for her because if they had, they would have realized that she was happy with me and did not want to leave me. I was overjoyed that they were gone and Rita and I were finally back.

But obviously, we had a lot to work on and sort out so we have decided that we are going to go see a marriage counselor this weekend and try to be normal again. I love her and I really would have hated to live without her so this is ideal. Everybody makes mistakes and I am just glad that she realized that she had made some bad choices by alienating me, but at least now she acknowledged it and apologized for it so we can work on everything and fix it. Update 3, hey, so this is just after our first counseling session and it went pretty well. We had a lot of issues and I think that was pretty obvious from my post. But we have decided that from now on any time that we have a conflict, we are going to talk about it and make sure that we end it then and there instead of just letting it

build up and then blow it out of proportion. It was difficult to talk about things in front of a stranger but we got used to it after a while and once we got into the flow of it, it was actually pretty relieving and a lot. I feel like I got something really big off my chest. I can actually tell that she feels the same way and I am really looking forward to where this leads us. We have had problems in the past, but I'm looking forward to sorting them out. She also thinks that she should get therapy for herself because the things that have happened with her brother have really shaken her up. They don't talk anymore because he stopped responding to her after the fight. I can't believe that somebody can be so ungrateful,

but I have that's how David is, I guess. I never liked him much, but now I think I like him even less, which I didn't even think was possible. But it's fine, I know that we can get through anything as long as we are together and she will move on from this, I will make sure of it. I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse traveled to Britain for a marriage celebration. I received a message from an unfamiliar individual containing images of her ear adornments discovered in the pouch of a different gentleman. Presently, she is relocating there indefinitely and leaving our children behind. Hello everyone.

I, M-47, have a comfortable and fulfilling life. I have a job I truly enjoy, I live in a nice suburb, and am blessed with three wonderful children, M8, F-6, F-4, and a lovely wife, Emily, 45. I've always felt Emily and I were an ideal match. However, a recent email I received has deeply unsettled me and planted a seed of doubt in my mind. Emily lived in the UK between 2010 and 2015, during which time she pursued a PhD. Because she lived there so long, she developed many close friendships and has made it a point to return every couple of years to maintain those ties. This past August, she traveled to the UK for three weeks to attend the wedding of one of her close friends.

After some consideration, we agreed that it would be best for me and the children to remain at home, as I could not take that much time away from work, and the children were unlikely to find much enjoyment in such an event. Emily departed, returned as expected, and life returned to normal for us. Last week, I received an email on my work email address. It was supposedly from the wife of Emily's friend, I'll call him Jake, M44. According to this woman, she has a very strong reason to suspect that Jake and Emily engaged in an affair. She listed off her suspicions, noting Jake had picked Emily up from the airport, spent considerable time at her hotel, and how the two of them frequently went out to dinner alone.

She even included pictures of my wife's earrings that she said she found in Jake's pockets when she was doing the laundry and pictures of a lipstick stain on a shirt. The color is one I recognize as something Emily often wears. There is some other evidence she listed off. For the sake of conceiteness I will not include them here. All this was a lot to absorb, and for a while, I thought it was some sort of joke, so I tried my best to ignore it, but it kept coming back into my mind. I remember that before her trip, my wife would talk to all her friends there. I don't know if this email is influencing my memory, but I think she probably spoke with Jake the most.

Additionally, I know Emily never liked Jake's wife, though I can't say why. I've never pried into Emily's phone or social media accounts before, but I feel very tempted to now. However, I know I'd feel terrible if I looked and found nothing. Also, if I start acting suspicious, wouldn't she just delete everything out of fear of being found out? I am unsure of how to move forward and would welcome any guidance on handling this. The best I can currently come up with is asking to see her phone immediately after confronting her about it so as to not give her no time to delete anything, though part of me thinks this would upset her and potentially not even show anything. Edit, I forgot to include, my wife no longer has these earrings. She wasn't wearing them when she returned and when I asked, she said she lost them.

Comments where OP has replied. Commenter one, info, the other evidence bears listing. Best to have all the facts as you understand them, concision aside. Oop, it isn't as solid as the other stuff she shared which is why I decided to leave it out. But the other evidence is as follows. She said that every day Emily was there, Jake would either go see her or talk on the phone with her. She also said that whenever Jake was on the phone with Emily, he'd quickly hang up or leave the room if he noticed her. She mentioned they seemed to not even hide how much physical contact they'd have.

as they'd always find an excuse to touch each other. They'd reminisce about old times a lot. She even said the way they would look at each other. Commenter to, NTA and show your wife the email from this person and ask the question. Hoop, I guess I will, here's hoping it turns out to be nothing. Update 1, October 18, 2024. A few hours after sharing my first post, I confronted Emily, she confirmed my fears. She claims she's in love with Jake and can't live a lie any longer.

She still claims to love me and the kids but says she can't stay with us any longer. According to her, she was waiting for a better time to tell me and the children. Apparently, this has been going on since March, with Jake flying out here occasionally and Emily secretly meeting him. We're getting divorced. Emily is moving to the UK soon. She confirmed that in August, in addition to to the wedding, she attended a job interview, and she's set to start around the new year. She's already applied for a British visa. She plans to live with Jake once she moves.

As for custody, Emily is voluntarily surrendering her chance of full custody. She doesn't want to uproot the kids, so they'll stay here in Canada with me. There's a part of me that appreciates that decision, but there's also the part that is astonished at how easily she's walking away. She wants to pay child support, but I'd rather raise my children without her financial influence. That said, the court will likely insist on support, regardless of my feelings. Emily is also seeking structured visitation rights, which, given the circumstances, will likely be granted. Based on what I've been told, the court generally leans toward arrangements that allow both parents to maintain relationships with the children, even when one is relocating to a different country. The lawyers are still working out the details, but it seems she'll have visitation during school breaks and holidays, with the possibility of virtual calls in between.

I've been keeping things as amicable as possible, and the more cooperative I am, the more Emily seems to agree with my demands. We are also discussing the future of our home. Emily has expressed a desire to sell the property and divide the proceeds. While I am reluctant to part with a family home, it is unlikely I have to have to be. have much of a choice since it was bought during our marriage. For now, our lawyers are still working through the details, and no final decisions have been made. Given the situation, it could be a good while before we reach a resolution. In the meantime, I've been advised not to make any major financial moves. As much as I want to stay here with the children, I know selling is most

likely inevitable. As of this writing, Emily is in an Airbnb and Jake has flown here to stay with her. They plan on traveling to the UK at some point in the near future. My lawyer tells me that adultery isn't grounds for special treatment when it comes to custody or property division. Therefore, it won't influence how assets are divided unless marital funds are directly involved. Emily likely used money from her personal account. Unless it can be proven she used our joint finances to fund the affair, it's unlikely this will make any difference in court. I have been in regular communication with Jake's soon-to-be ex-wife, Eleanor, primarily through email, and more recently, we've spoken over the phone a few times.

Eleanor apologized, saying she felt guilty for telling me about the affair and worried that if she hadn't, maybe my marriage could have been salvaged. I reassured her that, for me, the gravity of the situation made divorce inevitable, and I'd rather not remain in the dark about something of this significance. She even sent me messages and other evidence of their relationship, but since Emily is openly admitting to the affair, it doesn't really matter in the context of the law. Eleanor has also told me a lot about Jake, apparently, this is the third time he's cheated on her, and she's had enough. There's no chance of reconciliation this time, she says, and he doesn't

seem interested in trying. She mentioned that Jake has zero desire to raise children who are not biologically his, which explains why Emily's not fighting for custody. Eleanor's divorce will most likely be much longer and more drawn out than mine given that both her and Jake want full custody of their children, and can't agree on several other issues. I haven't had much time to process everything. These past two weeks have felt like a blur in every way. But one thing I can say with certainty is that I have nothing left for Emily. Not because she betrayed our marriage, but because of how easy she's.

She's walking away from our children. I never thought I could hate someone I once loved so much, it's a strange feeling. The hardest part in all of this is the children. My two youngest daughters have started asking why their mother isn't around as much anymore, and it's been very difficult trying to communicate with them about the nature of the situation. My eldest seems to understand a little more and, as a result, he has become quiet and withdrawn. I'm fortunate to have a family that has been incredibly supportive so far. My children have received numerous thoughtful letters from some of their cousins, which I've been reading to them each night.

All my siblings have also sent gifts for the kids, and one of my brothers, along with his wife, drove up to visit over the past weekend. My sister-in-law even prepared plenty of food, some of which is still in the freezer. They also kept the children entertained while I met with my lawyer. My other siblings have also offered to come by and look after the kids whenever I need them. Beyond that, my parents have been calling daily to check in on us, and my 78-year-old mother has already made plans to stay with us for two weeks in November to help around the house. The collective effort of my family has made this experience much more bearable, and I'm deeply grateful for all their support.

To everyone who encouraged me to speak with Emily after my last post, I'm grateful. I was tempted to ignore Eleanor's message, but it kept gnawing at me. Your advice gave me the courage to act. Emily has shown herself to be a liar, and I have no doubt that her idea of a better time was simply when it would cause the least inconvenience for her and Jake. Think of this less as an update and more as a chance to vent a few things now that I've had more time to process my situation. I know that Emily often travel back and forth to the UK during our marriage. She claims her affair with Jake only began in March 24, but I'm convinced she's lying. It's almost certain that this has been going on for years.

Given how much she had already prepared by the time I confronted her, it's become clear to me and everyone else that she had been planning this for some time. In fact, within a few short days of our confrontation, she already had certain legal documents prepared. Additionally, Jake arriving in Canada shortly after I confronted me. made it clear that they had planned for her to tell me roughly around this date in advance. It makes sense that Emily was well prepared and was just waiting for things to be better lined up for herself. After all, she'd long since applied for her visa, secured a job,

secretly appraised her car, our family car, though it was under her name, and sent personal items with Jake to the UK during his secret visits, all right under my oblivious nose. I have a feeling I'm only scratching the surface and have no real idea of how, how far this actually goes, not that Emily would ever tell me its depth. In addition to all of this, Emily had already been in touch with her lawyer long before I confronted her. Taking all this into account, it's hard not to wonder if she secured her job even earlier than she let on, perhaps to make her actions seem less calculated. Two of Emily's friends have since reached out to express shock and disappointment by her actions. One of them, Janet, mentioned that according to another

friend, Emily had been consulting her divorce lawyer as far back as late August or early September, and this other friend also confirmed my suspicion that Emily had been sending some of her belongings to the UK during Jake's visits. I've been losing sleep, replaying the past few months in my mind, maybe driving myself a little crazy, but certain things stand out. For example, when Emily went to the UK in August for the wedding, she was carrying three fully loaded suitcases. She told me that they were filled with presents for her friends and I didn't question it, even though it seemed a bit excessive at the time. When I picked her up from the airport after her trip, I noticed the bags were suspiciously light. I can assume that in addition to the job interview she claimed to attend, she transported a bunch of her personal items to the UK which would explain why since her return, she seemed to have been wearing a smaller selection of her clothing.

Despite this, I was somehow blindsided, and I completely blame myself. Looking back, I can see there were signs I ignored, and I guess I didn't think Emily was capable of this sort of thing. A part of me wonders if this outcome could have been avoided entirely had I been more assertive and vigilant in the past. The worst part of all is that my children are now dealing with the consequences of my ignorance and stupidity. While I twiddled my thumbs, my wife had essentially started a new life.

Most people in my life now know about my separation from Emily. I've stopped wearing my wedding band, and I've explained the situation to friends and colleagues who noticed its absence. One of my close friends, and many others who reached out privately on Reddit, have suggested I get DNA tests for the children, given Emily's travel patterns and tendency to lie. While I understand where they are coming from, this is something I'll never do. I'd never assign my children to another man. Nothing will change that. Life without Emily has thus far been difficult. Mornings have become a hectic rush.

Between getting the kids ready and getting myself out the door, I'm barely on time for work for nearly half the week. It's frankly exhausting trying to keep up with all the extra parenting duties I have to perform throughout the day. Our current home has a large driveway, so on top of everything else, I'm already dreading the task of shoveling it once the snow starts falling. The kids are feeling the strain, as well. They don't particularly like the food I prepare most days and they hate how I'm always busy. It's incredibly frustrating to know that while we're here struggling,

Emily recently departed for a relaxing vacation through Europe with Jake. Communication between us has dwindled, and I only learned of these developments recently. I have no idea if she plans to return to Canada after her vacation. vacation or settled directly into what will likely be a very comfortable life in the UK. On a more positive note, I was able to get the kids to see their doctor recently. She gave me a bunch of useful resources and advice. She placed an emphasis on how time and clear communication were the most important factors for their adjustment.

While I'm optimistic, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried. It's still early, I know, but they remain quite upset about the entire ordeal and act out regularly as a result. It is abundantly clear that they're having a hard time adjusting to our new reality. Throughout all of this, my family has been a tremendous support. My mother arrived as promised early last week, and things have already become significantly easier. The kids enjoy her cooking and spending time with her. Her presence has also freed me to handle other tasks. Whenever the divorce is finalized, I plan to designate my eldest brother and sister-in-law as legal guardians for the children. They live relatively nearby and have already

agreed to take on that role if needed, which brings me some peace of mind. However, I highly doubt this will be any time soon given my much busier schedule and Emily dragging her feet before traveling. The whole process has slowed to a snail's pace. One of the hardest aspects of all this has been making decisions about our family home. After considerable thought and speaking it over many times with my family, I'm leaning toward selling at this stage. Emily has already offered me a bit more than half of the proceeds since she sold our SUV right before leaving the country. My lawyer has noted that selling the SUV before we finalized anything was premature

on her part, considering I contributed significantly, 40% to the purchase. He thinks I have strong grounds to seek reimbursement elsewhere in our asset division, which aligns with Emily offering more of the house. Getting more than half seems fair, given that I contributed about 65 to 70% of the down payment and monthly mortgage payments. As I mentioned above, the family SUV was registered and only her name. However, I covered about 40% of its cost, so it's frustrating she sold it unilaterally. As I've learned over the past several weeks, my sedan is too snug for the kids and inconvenient for my mother to duck in and out of when she runs errands. Therefore, I'll need to trade it for something larger.

In return, Emily has graciously insisted I keep the furniture and appliances, least she can do, I suppose. As much as part of me would like to stay in our current home, it's probably better for us to move. Part of me hopes this will help us avoid future interference from Emily, though, in reality, she's just as likely to interfere no matter where we are. I've been looking at townhouses closer to my place of work, which would cut down my commute and place us near a well-rated school. However, my sisters brought up that moving the kids now would mean changing schools and losing their friends, which would be yet another big change for them. An alternative option is that we move to a smaller, more manageable house close to our current one.

This would reduce my workload and allow the kids to stay at the same school. Regardless of which option we choose, the idea of a new home without Emily's memory is appealing. Our current home's location is yet another example of how foolish and short-sighted I've been. Its location was much more convenient for Emily's commute compared to my own. It worked out for a time as the children's school was closed to Emily's work in case they needed her during the day, but now all of this is useless as my place of work is rather far. I've heard nothing from Emily's family. and frankly, I have no interest in reaching out.

As for Emily's future with Jake, I don't wish her relationship to fail. The longer her life is stable, the less likely she'll disrupt ours. But I take solace in knowing she remains unaware of Jake's infidelity history. I don't feel any moral obligation to warn her about Jake's character, and Eleanor feels the same way. I've made a point to check in on Eleanor regularly. She doesn't have the same family support I do. Her immediate family is charmed by Jake's ample wealth and believes that she should do whatever it takes to keep him, even though it is clear that neither he nor Eleanor wants reconciliation. Comments where OPP has replied.

Commenter 1. Her friend was shocked and disappointed by her behavior. How? She knew that Emily was already seeing a divorce attorney, right? and also knew that things were being sent to the UK. The two friends who approached me found out from a third friend about my wife seeing a divorce attorney around late August early September. This third friend only told the two ladies who came to me she knew all of this after Emily had already moved out of the house. This third friend has not spoken with me directly. Commenter too, I'm so sorry, man.

Nobody deserves that pain. I've been carrying it around with me for 15 years. I hope you're luckier than I am and meet someone new. Cheaters are the lowest of the low. She's abandoning her own kids for his. Not a soul to be had. OOP, it is what it is, I suppose. Cheating is one thing, but I'm still stunned she is walking out on our children like this.

I would have never imagined she could do something like this. OOP gives some details if Emily decides to come back and want to reinstate her parental rights to her children. What the outcomes would be like for Emily? Given that Emily intends to pay child support and seeks visitation rights, should she return in a few years and request access to the children, it's likely she would be granted some access. However, as the primary caretaker, would retain full custody. There is, of course, the possibility that she may develop a significant criminal record during her time abroad. Should that happen, it would likely bar her from any access to the children. Though, I admit, I might be too optimistic in hoping for such an outcome.

The opinions of the kids are also taken into consideration, so I hope if it comes down to that, they clearly state that they prefer staying with me. Of course, all of this is just a rough outline of what I think would happen, various facts can cause different outcomes. Here's hoping, my wife stays away so we don't have to go down that road. OOP's reaction on Emily's decision to walk away from their own children and how Emily is willing to be involved with Jake's children. Yes, I'm still in shock at how easily she can just walk away.

As one of my sisters-in-law put it, she's off on her broomstick to fulfill her dreams of being some poor children's wicked stepmother. A small consolation is that Eleanor's children, being a bit older than mine, 11 to 14, will likely do their utmost to make Emily's life difficult. I hope you enjoy this story. I believed my existence was flawless until I uncovered my spouse's second existence. Recently, at the age of 44, I stumbled upon the revelation that my partner, a 39-year-old woman, has been cheating on me. A few days ago, my 14-year-old told me about the affair. I reassured her that everything is okay and that her mother and I will explain it to her.

I'm considering telling her that her mother and I have an open relationship to keep the truth hidden, so it doesn't seem like she cheated on me. I've been going through the motions, feeling numb. My wife is still staying at her parents' place and barely communicating with me. Now I understand why. Maybe if I confront her about the affair, she'll end it and come back home. We have a good life together, and we're good for each other. I feel like I'm just rambling on right now.

If this happened to my brother and I saw him talking like I am now, I would grab him and give him a reality check. I've seen movies, heard stories, and watched shows where couples talk about overcoming infidelity. I used to think they were foolish and should just get a divorce. I always said I would never forgive my wife if she cheated on me. But now, I find myself in the same situation in sounding just like those people. So far, from what I've seen, it was just emotional involvement and exchanging explicit photos, but my daughter discovered many pictures, and I've only seen about four of them.

There are at least 30 pictures in total. As I go through the remaining photos, I fear it will confirm that my wife has been having this affair for a long time, and it raises doubts about whether my daughters are biologically mine. If I make this public, it won't just turn my world upside down, but it will also have a profound impact on my daughters. I don't want to hurt them in that way. I only eat when my daughters are around to maintain the illusion that everything is fine. But when I'm alone, I feel nauseous and tremble. This isn't just some teenage relationship, this is the woman I've built my entire life with. I know what I should do, but I don't want to face it.

I have five kids, but there's a chance that three of them, maybe even all five, are not biologically mine. The twins and the one my soon-to-be ex-wife is pregnant with. I'm still waiting for the results to confirm. I know she's still involved with the guy who might be their father, and it's likely that he'll want to be in their lives once the divorce is finalized. But I love these girls with all my heart. I've been their dad for five years. Every time I hear their voices and see their smiles, they bring so much joy to my life.

I know it might sound foolish, but I genuinely care for these girls. After a while, the DNA test results are in, and it's not good news. The twins and the newborn are not biologically mine. I confronted my wife about the affair, and while she expressed remorse, she doesn't regret it because she loves the other man. Shockingly, her parents were aware of the affair long before I found out. They were actually facilitating their meetings by allowing my wife, soon to be ex-wife, and her affair partner to meet at their home.

It's baffling why her parents would assist her instead of being decent people. They didn't want to risk facing humiliation, especially considering their heavy involvement in the local church. Additionally, they didn't want to separate the twins from their biological. father. My 14-year-old and 10-year-old kids are currently staying with my brother and sister-in-law. I just don't have the emotional strength to take care of them right now. They harbor strong resentment towards their mother and refused to communicate with her. Both of them are undergoing therapy to help them cope. I attempted to take the twins with me so they could be

with their sisters, but my wife strongly opposed it and begged me not to. As I was leaving, I noticed the AP, a fair partner, heading towards my in-law's house in his car, so it's likely that he's with my wife at the moment. AP was also married, and I've been in touch with his wife who informed me that she's filing for divorce. I haven't asked her if AP has made any efforts to reconcile, and honestly, I couldn't care less. Screw him. Screw my wife. Screw my stupid in-laws. I always thought my in-laws were uptight A-haven. holes anyway. I'm actually glad they're facing social isolation and being shamed. My mother-in-law and father-in-law have been expelled from the church, and it seems like the church's social media

page has deleted any trace of them. I take pleasure in their humiliation since it's the one thing they were most afraid of. Mother-in-law called me crying, asking me to fix the situation, as if there's something to fix. Father-in-law wanted me to work things out, but I simply asked him if he would so eager to reconcile if he were in my shoes. He responded with silence before hanging up. My wife keeps trying to contact me, but I'm ignoring her. I can't help but feel a little satisfaction seeing how desperate she is to reach me. I have no idea what she wants, and I'm in no rush to talk to her anytime soon. I know I'll have to eventually, though. Before I received the results, I was ready to take her to court and fight for custody of the twins. I feel pathetic. Going to work is a struggle.

My co-workers look at me with pity, and I've stopped grocery shopping altogether. I can sense people staring and whispering about me. Since this whole thing came out, I've lost around 15 pounds. I can hardly sleep at night, and therapy doesn't seem to be helping much. This has been the absolute worst year of my life. Sometimes I wish. I wish I had kept my mouth shut in the car a few months ago. If I had, I could be enjoying time with a newborn and decorating our home. The house is so quiet. It should be filled with the sounds of my daughters laughing or arguing.

I should be busy changing a diaper. I should be hearing my wife belting out tunes, trying to outdo Mariah Carey. The house should smell sweet and feel warm. Diapers should be wrapped up in a bag, ready to be thrown away. I should be wearing a smile, laughing and enjoying life. This house should be bursting with happiness and vitality. But now, it's just cold, empty, and silent. It feels like everything I've done was in vain. I had a tough childhood, and all I wanted was a happy adulthood. But it seems like I can never catch a break. I always end up losing. I don't.

feel like a man anymore. I don't even feel human. Update. All this soul searching and regret. It's like being trapped in a maze with no exit. But then a change comes, a revelation, a moment of clarity. Life doesn't have to end here, my life doesn't have to end here. I am not my failures, I am not my broken marriage, and I'm definitely not defined by my wife's betrayal. The realization sets in, the harsh truth that my wife wasn't the person I thought she was. Instead of living up to her vows, she used her parents' house as a den for her infidelity. And her parents, who I thought were our well-wishers, were no better, providing her and her lover the space to tarnish our marriage. After everything that happened, the divorce was inevitable.

I won the custody of my two daughters, and we set off on a new journey. I changed my my number, packed up our lives, and moved to a different state to start anew. I wanted to give my children a fresh start, away from the toxicity and the memories of their mother's betrayal. Life's been better. I started rebuilding our lives, step by step. I created a safe and loving home for my daughters. I returned to work, invested myself fully in it and, in time, the pain began to dole. My girls resumed school, and slowly, we found our new normal. Meanwhile, I heard news from my old friends that my ex-wife was struggling. She was left with the twins and a newborn, her affair partner vanished after the divorce,

and she had to move back with her parents. She was trying to get in touch with me, asking my friends about my whereabouts. But I'd moved on and decided to never let her back into my life. She deserved to face the consequences of her actions. It was clear that she was struggling, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction. She had brought this misery upon herself, and it was her own doing. It felt like a taste of sweet justice. But then, I couldn't ignore the fact that the twins and the newborn were caught in the middle. They were innocent in all of this. However, I had to remind myself that they were not my responsibility. They were the responsibility of their father, the man she chose over our family. Overcoming the betrayal was a

tough, but every day brought new strength. I saw my daughters growing into strong individuals, and their happiness became my solace. As I watched them, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I had been there rock during the most turbulent times, and I felt proud of how well they handled the changes. In the end, I realized that it wasn't me who lost in this whole scenario. I found my strength, my peace, and a second chance to live my life on my terms. On the other hand, my ex-wife lost a loyal husband, a loving family, and a peaceful life. Now, as I sit in my new home, my daughter's playing in the next room, their laughter echoing around, I realize that I am far from defeated.

I feel more like a man than ever, a man who faced adversity and came out stronger. My ex-wife's betrayal didn't break me. It made me. This is the new reality, the reality I chose, and it is one I wouldn't try. for anything. Now on to the next story. Story 2. I agreed to an open marriage, but my wife's secret affair destroyed our 15 years marriage. My wife and I, both 29 years old, have been together since high school. We went to college together, pursued professional school together, and now we're in the final stages of our postgraduate training. We've been married for years

and have been a couple for 15 years in total. I recently completed my training ahead of her, and I'm entering a phase of my career where I've secured a significant contract. In a couple of months, my salary, which is currently around $50,000, will instantly increase by five to six times. This will allow us to enjoy a lifestyle

we've never experienced before. My wife still has two more years until she reaches a similar milestone in her career. We were so close to finally reaping the rewards of all the years we've supported each other and delayed our own desires. I made sure to negotiate my contract to extend until she finishes her training, so we could have the freedom to choose where we wanted to live and build our dream life on our own terms. Around a month ago, my wife came to me and shared that she was feeling a complex attraction towards a female co-worker and close friend of hers. It was something new for her since she had never felt drawn to women before. I admired her bravery in acknowledging these emotions to herself and discussing them with me,

especially considering her conservative religious upbringing. While we had always been in a monogamous relationship, we had previously talked about the possibility of polyamory in a hypothetical sense. I had expressed my belief that it's possible for humans to have feelings from multiple people without devaluing or undermining the legitimacy of those feelings. She requested a conditional open marriage so she could explore these newfound aspects. She also spoke to her friend, who reciprocated the attraction. Together, we had discussions and established some ground rules that all parties involved could agree on.

These rules were designed to ensure that our marriage remained the ultimate priority while allowing them to explore their connection with each other with full consent. I created this account with the intention of exploring polyamory and open marriage communities. Whenever I felt any negative emotions, I saw them as signs of jealousy that I needed to work on. I even started seeing a therapist specifically to process those feelings and give my wife, whom I deeply trusted, the freedom I believed she deserved. There were moments when I apologized to both of them for taking longer than expected to adjust to the arrangement. However, I didn't have to endure this for long because my growing suspicions that something was seriously wrong turned out to be true.

After several instances of our agreed upon rules being violated within a short span of time, and my wife pressuring me to let her push those boundaries further and faster than I was comfortable with, along with other suspicious and dishonest behavior, I couldn't ignore my doubts any longer. One night, while she was asleep, I decided to go through her phone to find out the truth. I genuinely felt terrible for invading her privacy like that, even though one of the rules we had agreed upon was complete openness and the option to review each other's digital communications. We both knew I never actually intended to do so. To my astonishment, I discovered overwhelming evidence that they had been having an affair for an unknown period of time, but definitely longer than our open experiment. It seemed like they had actually come up with the idea together to have even more time together on top of what they were already doing. behind my back. During the time I was aware of, they were meeting far more frequently than I knew, with her girlfriend parking down the street and sneaking through the backyard to avoid setting

off our security system. They would spend nights together when I was out of town or working overnight shifts. They also lied about having to stay late at work just to spend more time together, and had closeness at their workplace during work hours. They did it in our bed, didn't even change the sheets afterwards sometimes, which was a boundary that my wife herself had proposed we keep as something for only the two of us. In addition to disregarding multiple physical boundaries and lying about the timeline, I discovered messages where they were making plans for the next two years. They planned to essentially live together in our house for a significant part of the year while I was away for work, using the increased income one would bring in to finance their

activities. What shocked me even more was that my wife was the one taking the lead. in their relationship. There were instances where her girlfriend expressed hesitation, and my wife reassured her by saying she would fix everything for them. She told her girlfriend that as long as she kept me content and clueless, they would soon have the freedom to build a life together. As I read through the texts, it felt like I was encountering some kind of twisted sociopath I had never known before, certainly not the person I've loved and devoted 15 years of my life to. When I confronted my wife about all of this yesterday, she tried to play dumb and acted as if she had no clue what I was talking about. Even when I showed her screenshots of her

own messages, she continued to deny the clear evidence of a longstanding affair she had planned to continue, using me for financial security while leading a double life with her girlfriend. It took hours of discussion before she finally admitted to everything. Honestly, I'm completely lost right now. Every decision I've made as an adult has revolved around us as a team, always striving for our shared goals that we were so close to achieving. It's like I don't even recognize this person anymore, and we've been together for more than half of our lives. Now that she's been caught, she's claiming that she ended things with her girlfriend and is willing to do whatever it takes to rebuild the trust between us. To me, it feels like an impossible situation.

Because of the nature of their jobs, my wife and the person she cheated on me with will be seeing each other almost every day for the next two years. They'll have to stay overnight together on multiple occasions, and there's even a possibility of being assigned month-long night shifts alone together. They've already cheated while at work multiple times, with my wife even texting her afterwards about how exciting it was. even if I reach a point where I want to work things out, I don't see how that can happen as long as they continue to see each other daily. If she leaves her current job, it would essentially mean the end of her career, leaving her with a significant amount of debt and no way to pay it off. She's trying to come up with a system of accountability to regain my trust and ensure she's not continuing the affair at work, but I can't think of anything that would give me the level of reassurance I need. Her past actions have involved extreme and complicated deception, and she has proven capable of looking me in the eye and lying in a way that made me believe her.

I'm almost certain that we need to get a divorce, although I wish I could be completely sure. Her family is deeply religious, and they might disown her because her affair was with another woman. Her family has also witnessed the love and support I've given her throughout the years, and they consider me as part of their family. In fact, I'm probably, closer to her parents than I am to my own. Moreover, her actions at work could have serious consequences, possibly leading to setbacks or even her losing her job. This would leave her with a significant amount of debt that would be difficult to pay off. Even though she has done so much wrong, I can't bring myself to completely destroy her personal life, family, and career.

So for now, I'm keeping the truth hidden from almost everyone we know, until we can come up with a believable explanation for why this seemingly happy and accomplished couple is getting a divorce right when we were about to enjoy the rewards of all our hard work. I feel like a fool, I feel incredibly lonely, and posting anonymously on a subreddit is one of the few ways I can try to make sense of the most agonizing experience of my life. Update. For the sake of covering all bases, I had a discussion with my wife about the possibility of continuing our relationship in some form. There was a tiny chance of reconciliation, but her non-negotiable condition was that she continues seeing her a fair partner. This made it clear to me that leaving is the right

decision. Where we live, the law requires a long formal separation period, and we completed the initial draft of the paperwork last night. I must give her credit for being agreeable to almost everything I've proposed for our divorce. I've aimed to be fair but assertive in deciding how we split our assets, and it's clear that I'll be in a better financial position than her. I'm also getting possession of both pets, which is incredibly important to me. She hasn't hired her own lawyer yet, and unless we encounter unresolved issues, she doesn't plan to do so. Currently, there aren't any major disputes, but having legal representation gives me a significant advantage. I'll stay in the house, occupying separate bedrooms, until the final

draft is signed to facilitate discussions about any further changes. Afterward, I intend to move out soon. Hopefully, that will happen shortly. Regarding the job, I've decided to cancel the contract. Since no money had been exchanged and it was before my official start date, it was a relatively straightforward process. Although it was a good opportunity, there are other options available, and I'm currently in talks with recruiters. I'm considering looking for for a job that involves some travel since I don't have any commitments tying me down to one place. Completing the separation paperwork made the situation feel more real for both of us, to some extent. I believe her narcissistic and manipulative tendencies, as I mentioned in my previous

post, made her think I wouldn't actually leave. The fact that I can make my own decisions and choose to leave while she's still deciding between me and her affair partner seemed unexpected to her. But it's the reality of the situation. As soon as the separation period is over, I'll be filing for divorce. My friends have been amazing and supportive throughout this ordeal. Both sides of our families have shown overwhelming support for me, and I've been mindful to focus our discussions on what happened rather than dwelling on the gender of the person involved.

Several people have generously offered me a place to live while I search for work and figure out my next steps. I feel incredibly fortunate to have such a supportive network and the resources to take some time to sort things out. I can't even imagine how much more difficult this process would be without their help. One of my friends even took me out to be my wingman and helped me navigate the unfamiliar territory of trying to connect with someone new in a bar. It's a completely new experience for me as an adult since I was just a kid when I got into my previous relationship. I had the chance to meet some really cool people and simply enjoyed

being part of social situations where my ex wasn't the main focus. It was a fantastic experience. Lately, I've been prioritizing the practical aspects of moving on, taking care of myself, attending therapy sessions, and rediscovering hobbies that I had neglected for a long time. I'm optimistic that the best days of my life might still be ahead, and I'm grateful for the support from my loved ones and even random strangers on the Internet who have reached out to me.

I hope you enjoy this story. My partner was behaving oddly during the meal with her closest companion, resembling a romantic duo. When I inquired about it, he mentioned that their romantic connection had ended long ago. Left the church. Sorry for the long post, I didn't realize how much I had to say until I got it all typed out. Thanks in advance to anyone who reads all this. I've been with my girlfriend Jordan for a little over two years, we live together and we have two cats.

Up until this weekend I genuinely thought everything was perfect in our relationship. Which I know is what everyone says in these posts, but I really was thinking that I was going to ask her to marry me sometime in the next year. We don't ever get into arguments, Jordan is very sweet and easygoing and normally we just mesh well on everything. Honestly, if everything in our relationship hadn't been so good up until now I probably would have just broken up with her this weekend. But because things have truly been so perfect I'm not sure if maybe I'm jumping to the wrong

conclusion about what to do because my feelings got hurt. The other person who's important in this story is Jordan's friend Mark. She's known Mark for their whole lives because they both grew up in the same small religious community. Jordan isn't part of that religion anymore, she decided to leave the church when she was, I think, 19 and moved to the state that we live in now. Mark still is in the religion and apparently takes it really serious. I'm told he now works for the church back in Jordan's hometown.

Also, as far as I know Mark is the only person from the religious community that Jordan still talks to besides her parents, which I'm mentioning because I now think it could be a red flag. So on Saturday I met Mark for the first time because he was in our city and Jordan wanted us all to have dinner together. At this point I want to say, I will admit that when we were first dating and I found out that Jordan had a best friend who was a guy I didn't really like it, especially because he was. because it seemed like they were on FaceTime with each other a lot. But since it was a childhood friend and they mostly didn't see each other in person, I just trusted Jordan that Mark was only a friend and didn't let it bother me and eventually I got over it. So when we were going to dinner, I wasn't jealous or suspicious of Mark at all. If anything, I was somewhat excited to finally be meeting him since I've been hearing about him for two years.

But then the way Jordan and Mark acted at dinner is what convinced me that there's something going on there other than just being best friends. I honestly don't even know how to describe it except to say that I've never seen two people act more obviously like they were in love with each other. They literally would not stop touching each other. They were constantly touching each other's arms and shoulders and at some points they were actually even holding hands. They completely left me out of the conversation and were laughing about inside jokes, and every time they'd laugh they'd do this thing where they put their foreheads together or that was when they'd be holding hands. And then also they were just looking at each other in a way that I didn't feel comfortable

with at all, it was honestly even worse than the touching. It just wasn't how anyone would look at somebody they're supposedly just friends with. I'm 100% sure that every stranger looking at our table thought that Jordan and Mark were the couple and that I was her brother or something. I felt like a third will the whole time and Jordan didn't even notice how awkward she was making it for me because she was way too focused on Mark and all the attention she was getting from him. And that's really not like Jordan at all, usually she's a lot more considerate and would notice immediately if I wasn't having a good time or if she was accidentally being rude

and excluding someone at the table. So it was genuinely really jarring to be sitting there with her and Mark and basically feeling like I didn't know my girlfriend at all. It was like he turned her into a completely different person who didn't even care that I was alive. So finally at one point when Jordan got up to go to the bathroom I just said to Mark, so are you into my girl or what's going on here? Mark, nothing's going on at all. That ship sailed a long time ago. Me, what does that mean?

Did you guys date at some point? Mark, no, we never did. And then when she left the church, we both knew it meant that we were never going to. And we've accepted being in each other's lives as friends. There's nothing else going on at all. Me, that makes it sound like the only reason you're not together is because she left the church. And all Mark did was shrug. Me, well, what if she came back to the church?

Would you marry her? Mark, oh, she's not going to do that. You might as well ask what would happen if a bicycle had six tires. And so then when Jordan came back to the table, Mark said to her, Op wants to know if we'd be married if you weren't a godless heathen. Jordan, why, did you two call your mom while I was gone? And then she and Mark both just laughed about it and changed the subject. So because of dinner and the conversation and everything else that I've written about in this post,

I really feel like Jordan and Mark are in love with each other and not just best friends like they say, and the only reason they aren't together is because they can't compromise about their religion. I think Jordan thinks that because she's okay with that decision, she expects me to be okay with being her second choice. And in the meantime, she's actually secretly wanting to be with Mark. So that makes me think that I should probably obviously just have self-respect and break up with her because I shouldn't be in a relationship with someone who would rather be with somebody else. But then the problem for me is that our relationship has been so perfect

than Jordan has always treated me so well except for this one night. The only time she's ever acted like this was on the one occasion that Mark was around in person. Normally even when she's talking to him all the time, she's never made me feel this way. So on the one hand, I'm wondering if maybe it doesn't matter what Jordan's feelings are for Mark, as long as he isn't going to be around, it doesn't actually seem to affect our relationship. So maybe I just need to cool off and go back to trusting her that they are indeed. only friends even if it seems to be true that they have complicated feelings for each other. Or should I just end things?

Update, I talked to Jordan on Wednesday night. The TL-D-R update to the situation is that I didn't break up with her, after we talked about everything I feel like that would be too much of an overreaction for what's actually going on. I do still think I was right to be upset about what I saw happening at dinner on Saturday and Jordan didn't disagree with me about that, but I think I did jump to the wrong conclusion. that it meant that she secretly actually wanted to be with Mark more than she wants to be with me. Now that we've talked it out, I don't think there's a reason to end what's otherwise the best relationship I've ever had and I'm glad that I didn't just immediately trust my instincts

because there was more going on with the situation that I didn't really understand that Jordan has since told me. And now I do feel like she can be given some grace in this situation assuming nothing like this ever happens again. So thanks for the advice, especially for everyone who told me to just talk to her before I made a big decision. So when we talked, I decided to take the main piece of advice that I got from everyone and start by telling Jordan that my feelings were hurt by the way she treated me at dinner with Mark and then see how the conversation went from there. It turned into a very long talk so I don't want to try to remember exact quotes and get them

wrong but here are the important things. I repeated to Jordan some of what I wrote in the post and said that I felt excluded by her and Mark, especially because they were being overly touchy-feely with each other to the point where it made me uncomfortable. Jordan seemed surprised like she didn't even notice that she and Mark were touching each other that much, but then she thought about it and said that I was right and apologized. She said that Mark is always really touchy with everybody and not just her, I asked, and so she didn't even think about it, but that she wished I would have said something at the time because she didn't realize they were being that obnoxious. I said that was part of what bothered

me, because I thought that normally she would have noticed something like that. But she was acting so different around Mark and not paying any attention to anything else including how I was feeling that it was honestly just made me question which one of us she cared about more or if she cared about him as more than just a friend. Jordan apologized more and said that she could understand why it would look that way to me, but that she loves me and cares more about me than anyone else in the world and that she didn't mean to act like that or make me feel that way. She said that she was a woman. She said that she was trying to not make Mark feel like a third will because of being a single guy out with a couple,

but obviously it backfired and just made me feel like the third will instead which wasn't what she wanted to do either. After that, Jordan explained a lot to me about her history with Mark, and basically as she explained it she said that she fully admits she cares about him as more than just a normal friend, but she says that it's not in a romantic way. She said that's why she always specifically refers to him as her best friend and not just as her friend, and said that she would use the phrase he's like my brother if it weren't for the fact that she once had an actual brother, R-I-P, so she won't use that phrasing for anyone else. According to Jordan, the main thing that happened to make her and Mark so close was that

when she was 17 she tried to kill herself, and that was actually when everyone else in the community stopped talking to her and Mark was the only person who didn't. For the next couple of years until she moved he was literally her only friend and she said that he checked on her every single day to make sure she stayed alive, which is also when they got into the habit of talking on the phone so much. And also apparently during this time Mark's parents thought they were dating and made a big deal about how they shouldn't be and that's why she made that remark during dinner, apparently calling Jordan a godless heathen is something that Mark's mom said. I did tell Jordan that Mark basically said to me that he thought the two of them

would be married if she had stayed in the church, and I asked her if she thinks that maybe Mark is in love with her even if she doesn't feel the same way. She said definitely not and I don't think she was being dishonest, I really don't agree, but I think she genuinely believes that Mark isn't into her in any way apart from friendship. Her opinion of the situation is that she also thinks she and Mark would eventually have gotten married if she had never left the church or moved, but from her perspective it would have been more because of pure pressure than anything else and she doesn't think it would necessarily have been a good thing. She thinks Mark was just being honest about that, and that possibly from his perspective he thinks he and Jordan would have made a good couple,

but he's probably thinking that because he's just assuming that in that scenario she'd be the perfect church wife so there's no reason why they wouldn't be a good couple. But then the big thing that happened at the end of the conversation is that Jordan told me that Mark is coming back through our city on his way home from this trip, and so she was going to invite him to hang out with the two of us again, but she said that if I'm going to be uncomfortable with him around then she won't ask him. A lot of people were saying that if she didn't offer to cut contact with him or to cut down on contact with him it meant that she valued him over me, so the fact that she brought up on her

own that she wouldn't invite him to dinner with us again because I didn't like it seemed like a really good sign to me. Based on everything else that she said, I do understand why she didn't offer to totally stop being friends with him and I wouldn't expect her to after what she told me about what happened when she was a teenager. So now I'm deciding to take Jordan's word for it that although she and Mark are weirdly close, it's for the reasons that she explained to me and not because she's in love with him. I think the fact that she was immediately apologetic instead of defensive was good, and the way she explained everything did make sense to me. I don't necessarily trust Mark, but I do think I can trust Jordan. But I am going to watch and see if it seems like

she's still talking to him as much as she used to or if anything changes or sounds different. I'm not going to be controlling and tell her that she can't talk to him or that she has to talk to him less, but I want to see if me talking to her about all of this causes her to act. any differently at all. I'm kind of thinking she might realize on her own that the way Mark acts towards her actually does seem like he likes her as more than a friend now that I've brought it up, but I don't know. It could be that things just go back to exactly the way they were before and I won't know changed until the next time Mark is around in person. But I don't think that's something I should keep worrying about before it happens. Next story, ran into my ex-friend after 10

years. When she saw my wife was pregnant, she messaged me asking why was I never good enough. Every time we almost dated years ago, she was always with another guy. Hello, everyone. I, 35M, am happily married with two children. My wife 32F and I have been together for eight years married for four. We were out shopping in our hometown when we ran into my ex-friend, her parents, and her children. She moved. I moved out of state over 10 years ago and I haven't seen her since nor have we had any contact other than Facebook happy birthday wishes. She is married with two kids of her own. Anyway, on to the situation.

My Phil and her father are friendly with each other. Both retired military and occasionally have breakfast together with their other retired friends. When we ran into each other ex-friend's dad congratulated my wife and I. We figured my Phil told him we're expecting our third chance. child. I saw my ex-friend look at my wife's belly and then acted distant for the rest of the exchange whereas she was friendly starting off. We trade pleasantries and say goodbye. My wife and I continue about our shopping. By the time we're done I check my phone and see I have a Facebook message from ex-friend. X-F it was good to see you again. Me you too. The family looks good.

XF yours too Would you want to grab coffee and catch up? I'm in town for a couple more days me were actually pretty busy otherwise I would be down. I'm sorry XF I understand. Adulting Can I ask you a question? Me sure. What's up?

XF was I just not your type? Me what do you mean XF I'm asking what did I do wrong? Me didn't respond as this was out of nowhere XF, I pursued you for years. We were inseparable for years and you never gave us a real chance. I loved you. Our families loved us. Our friends loved us together.

You just never committed all the way to us. You wouldn't even have sex with me and I need to know why. Was I not good enough? Could you not see yourself married to me and having a family together? I didn't respond and I showed the messages to my wife. She knows of this girl and my reasoning for her and I growing apart. Mostly because we see her family everywhere and she asked. My wife told me to be honest with her, but I'm not sure if that's right.

It feels mean. I'm going to give my POV on our friendship and I'm hoping I can get some advice on where to go from here. Basically she and I met through friends in high school. I was very interested, but she was dating someone at the time. She ended up asking me out a month or so later and we went on dates and kissed a few times though we never had the conversation on being official, hence me calling her friend and not girlfriend. One night while riding in the car, her, who I thought was X, B.F. called her and asked when

she be over. She didn't have it on speaker, but I could still hear the conversation. She told him I can't talk right now and he asked who she's with. She didn't tell him. He later figured it out and messaged me on Facebook asking if I knew they were still together. I apologized and said I didn't and would cut things off. I called her and she started crying saying she didn't have the courage to tell me they were still together but she liked me so much and was going to break up with

him. I cut her off anyway. Fast forward a few more months and she reaches out and we go through the same motions. Her wanting to be with me but always having another guy messaging her that I would catch out of the corner of my eye. This lasted, embarrassingly, years. Throughout college and our early 20s it was always the same. She'd reach out, we'd reconnect and things begin getting serious again. I'd check her social media and see she just broke up with someone. We even went on vacation to the mountains together for a weekend and the same thing. She had literally just been there a month ago with her ex the trip with me was her idea. The worst part is both our families really did love us together.

My parents were never rude to my girlfriends but would ask me how X is doing these days. Or Snide remarks about how her parents miss me. I'll even my now fill at one point mention that X's dad brought up how he really thought I'd be his son one day. I confided in my friends years ago that I'm always just a rebound or backup plan and that's why I could never commit or get more physical with her. They told me to just sleep with her when she comes calling and don't pursue anything more. The problem was I wanted more but felt used. Anyways, every time we would plan things out where sex was more than likely on the table,

I'd see a guy message her or I'd see a post on social media and it just killed my enthusiasm. When I say that I mean literally, it crushed my confidence every single time. One of my best friends told me I didn't have to pay attention to all that and could have just had my fun with her. Didn't mean I had to chase a relationship with her knowing I was always a rebound. That felt shitty to me. I had other girlfriends here and there, but I wanted this girl. We just clicked, you know. But it's like some sort of goddamn mystical being was showing me a sign every single time

things were going to progress our relationship. I just didn't want her to be getting over someone else or having someone on back burner when we'd reconnect. Maybe that's my own insecurity, but I know how I felt and it didn't feel good. So I slowly distanced myself. After a short amount of time passed I met my wife. She met her husband and our lives moved on with little to no contact until the other day. I haven't responded to the message and it's been two days. I was thinking of just lying and saying it's not her fault or just not responding but my wife is insisting I tell her the whole thing. I'm I know this is a word wall, but I'm honestly conflicted.

I told my wife I was going to ask others for their opinion and I'm considering the internet as my others. Update, thank you everyone for responses. I decided to listen to the majority and responded to ex-friend A. The response was well received and we chatted the rest of the week and met up on the weekend before Easter. The short of it is we're both leaving our partners. A and I are going to try this relationship again now that we've completed. completely opened up to each other about our true feelings. Thank you all for the encouragement to do this.

Couldn't have done it without you. April fools. I would never. The real update is pretty anticlimactic, unfortunately. I ended up just never responding to A. It had already been five days by the time I read through every response and decided to just let it go. My wife was fine with that but told me to block her if she messages again. We did a couple Easter egg hunts with different family members yesterday, including at my fills.

They have a decent sized property and host quite a few people so I wasn't surprised to see non-family members. I was however surprised when A's parents were there with her children. After all the adults scattered and hid the eggs and the kids started their search A's dad came over to chat with me, nothing out of the ordinary, and we shot the shit for a few minutes. Towards the end I asked if the kids were staying with them for each. Easter and he basically told me A and her husband were having some troubles and they needed some time alone to sort things out. He didn't go into specifics so I don't know exactly what troubles are but congratulations to those of you who called that one. For now this should conclude the story.

If she does happen to reach out again and I feel it's worth letting you all know what it says then I will. Otherwise thanks again. I hope you enjoy this story. Former spouse demanded my presence at her nuptials for reconciliation. However, she lamented the dismal state of our past union. The bridegroom departed in anger, and now blamed falls on my shoulders for the fallout. Wedding was called off. Two days ago, I attended my ex-wife's wedding which got called off and everyone believes that it's kind of my fault.

My ex-wife Taylor, 29F, and I, 30M, got together a couple of years after we graduated. We were interning at the same place and became friends that way. She was cute and funny so I asked her out and we were in a relationship for two years before she started hinting that she wanted to get married. I must have been around 24 at the time so I wasn't ready to get married yet but she started getting impatient and I proposed to her because she was pressuring me. That was my fault. I shouldn't have given into it but I didn't think things through.

I was young and I made a mistake. So anyway, we got married and then things started getting even worse because just a couple of months into our marriage, she started talking about having kids. I was okay with getting married but the idea of having kids at 24 just freaked me out. Plus, we were not even financially stable enough to be able to afford kids. I was just starting out and I could afford a nice lifestyle for the two of us but kids would just be way too much for us to handle. And Taylor wasn't exactly a hard worker, she was switching jobs a little too often because she was very laid back and her employers didn't appreciate it. Even if we were somehow able to keep the financial aspect of it aside, I still wasn't mentally prepared to become a father because I was feeling pretty young and not responsible enough for kids. I didn't think that it was the right time for us and I tried explaining that to her several times,

but she wouldn't stop bringing it up and insisted that if we just had a baby, it would solve everything and lay all of my worries to rest. I would learn to be a father and we could always borrow money from our parents and pay them back later. She said that she was ready to be a mother and didn't want to wait until she was in her late 20s. Because this was apparently the peak of her youth in childbearing years and she wanted to make the most of it. I didn't agree with that and that led to a lot of fights, which just got worse with time.

After almost two years, we called it quits. She wanted something that I was not going to be ready for, maybe ever. And I didn't want to give her false hopes by staying with her and wasting her time. So I filed for divorce after a particularly nasty fight, where she said that she wished that she had never married me and I found myself wishing the same. Clearly, we were not right for a other and a divorce was the only way to go ahead. But she ended up taking the divorce hard and was pretty much inconsolable when she was served. I had already moved out and was living with a friend of mine when I filed for divorce and she called me and sobbed for hours, begging me to take her back and cancel the proceedings on the day that she was served. It was incredibly

difficult for me and a tough call to make, but I had to stick to my decision because I knew that if I backed down then I would regret it. It was definitely not easy, but I had to be. had to go through with the divorce. Because those two years that I was married to her were pretty much hell for me and I didn't want to go back to that life again. She didn't contest the divorce after our conversation that day and didn't even speak to me afterward until the negotiation for the settlement and division of property came up. She and her lawyer were absolutely vicious and the divorce was a bad one but, thankfully, I didn't lose much. But I started hating her during the proceedings because she and her lawyer were going above and beyond to make me look

like the bad guy when I had been nothing but great to her. Despite her crazy, psychotic behavior and her insistence that I do things that I didn't want to. After our divorce was finalized, I never spoke to her again and I blocked her on every platform. I also told all our common friends that I never wished to hear from her or about her because I hated her. That was almost three or four years ago and we didn't speak for a really long time. until she reached out to me a few months ago to invite me to her wedding. She reached out to me personally after she sent me the invite and sent me an email saying that she would love to have me at her wedding and reconcile because she regretted the way

that we ended things. In her email, she told me that she had resented me for a long time after our divorce. But now that she had finally moved on, she wanted to make amends with me because she knew the divorce had been particularly hard on me since she and her lawyer really hadn't held back. She wanted to make things right by reconnecting with me and she wanted to do it at her wedding, so she could embark on this new journey with a clear conscience. At first, I didn't respond to that email because I was still out on the fence about whether I wanted to reconnect with Taylor or not. But then, a few weeks after the first email, she sent me another one saying that she wanted to meet me and make everything right with me because she didn't want this

on her conscience anymore. She requested me to attend the ceremony and be. She requested me to attend the ceremony and there for her because before we got married, we were good friends and that made me reconsider, so I agreed to attend her wedding. I guess it was really stupid of me, but her second email was really heartfelt and I couldn't bring myself to decline. I unblocked her on social media and we were doing all right. We were on talking terms until the day of her wedding. On the day of the event, I showed up at the venue and was pretty surprised to see the exact same arrangements as my wedding. It was a little off-putting but I didn't think much of it, even though I was having insane deja vu because of how similar everything was to our wedding. I thought that maybe she just

didn't want to put an extra effort to make this different from her first wedding and just went with whatever she liked and forced myself into believing that this had nothing to do with me. Then, once I went in, I took my seat and after a while, it was time for Taylor to walk down the aisle. Everybody present was quite surprised to see me there and I realized that they didn't expect me to actually attend. And later on, I found out that most of them didn't even know that I would be invited. Including the groom, which is something I found out way later than I should have. Anyway, Taylor walked down the aisle and got to the aisle, and everybody's eyes were on her and not on me, which was a relief. When it was time for the vows, her fiancé went first and it was beautiful,

I could sense that he really loved her. And then it all went downhill as soon as Taylor started speaking because as it turns out, this was her big plan. She didn't care about peace or making things right with me since her vows were all about me. She went on to talk about how terrible her first marriage had been and said that she was thrilled that her second marriage was not going to be as bad. Because she was with Q much better man now. She then went on to say a couple of more things to insult me and after that, she even

pointed at me and waved like she was performing a stand-up routine. It was ridiculous and insane, but I just remained frozen in my place because I was in shock. What made me snap out of it was when her fiancé said that he had seen enough. And it was clear to him that Taylor had obviously not moved on for me entirely. He looked crestfallen and I couldn't help but feel bad for the guy because this was supposed to be a day to celebrate their relationship. And yet Taylor was up there, talking about it. me and her vows. Her fiancé speaking up probably made her snap out of her insanity as well

and she came back to her senses when he started walking away from the altar. The guy was crying and as soon as he started walking away, Taylor chased after him which was difficult because she was wearing a really heavy dress. After that, it was pretty much chaos and nobody had a clue what to do because the bride and groom had left. I tried to leave and made it to my car in the parking lot before I was cornered by my ex-in-laws. They confronted me and asked me why I had shown up, so I told them that it was Taylor who had invited me and I genuinely didn't know that she was going to do this. They told me that regardless, I shouldn't have turned up because this was supposed to be my ex-wife's wedding and any man with even an ounce of common sense would know

better than to actually show up. I didn't think it was fair for them to blame me because I'd just done what she had asked me to. She was the one who specifically requested me to a attend her wedding and that's why I did so, for peace. I even showed those two emails to her parents, hoping that it would make them realize that this was her fault and not mine. But they told me that apparently, I had always known that Taylor had feelings for me even during the divorce and it had been hard for her to move on, I didn't know that. And by responding to her invitation and then talking to her, I distracted her from her relationship, which is why she got off track today, and now her wedding was ruined because of me. I thought it was crazy that they were even

blaming me for this, so I got into my car as soon as I could and went back home. Afterward, I learned that the wedding had to be called off because her fiancé wasn't ready to get married to her anymore. A common friend told me that apparently, she hadn't even told her fiancé that he was going to invite me. So he had been completely blindsided when he saw me sitting among the guests. They didn't know much about what had happened later, but all that they did know is that their families got into a really bad argument and her fiancé and his parents stormed out because they thought that Taylor was still not over me. She was forcing this wedding because she wanted to make me jealous, which is why she had invited me and had made it a point to talk about me during the ceremony because she wanted me to feel bad and regret leaving her. Honestly, that theory makes a lot of sense and I'm pretty sure that that's exactly what happened. Because if she had moved on for me, she wouldn't have cared about me being present there or not.

Taylor insisted that she only made that speech because she saw me sitting there and her plan was to humiliate me and then move on to talking about how great she had it with her man now, and so everybody would realize just how over me she was. I think it was a terrible idea on her part and I really don't by what she said in her defense. If she was truly over me, she wouldn't feel the need to talk about me or to prove to anybody. that she was over me. She just wouldn't care. It's sad that her wedding had to fall apart, but what's even sadder is that our friends are blaming me for this. They think that I should have just rejected her invitation and blocked her because I'd always known that she had a soft corner for me. And they agreed with Taylor's parents that my being involved in her life again is what distracted her and that's why she went crazy and wrote that stupid little speech, which is what

ended up ruining her wedding. Everybody has been blaming me for what happened. and they believe that I shouldn't have shown up at all, even after I told them that she is the one who invited me and even requested me to attend so that we could make peace with our past. Ida for attending my ex-wife's wedding. Update 1. One week has passed since the wedding and I have stopped speaking to all our common friends. I don't think it was fair for them to blame me and make me feel bad about what happened at the wedding because it wasn't my fault. Most of you agreed in a comment section that I had nothing to do with what happened and I barely even saw. spoke to her in the months leading up to the wedding. I couldn't have possibly known that she still had a thing for me and even if I knew that I couldn't have predicted the speech that she was

going to make during her vows and make it all about me. To be honest, I kind of believe that whatever happened was for the best. This way, some innocent guy doesn't get hurt just because Taylor wanted to show off how over me she was. I feel bad that our friends are not on my side here because it feels really unfair and the blame feels completely misplaced. But this has happened before and I can't say that I'm surprised because I always knew that if it came down to it, they would definitely pick Taylor over me. Even during the divorce, it was Taylor and her lawyer who were really coming for me during the negotiations. When I used to complain about that to our friends, they would say that she was just doing it because she was hurt

and that I needed to understand that this divorce was harder for her than it was for me and cut her some slack. So most of them had always been on her side and this really doesn't come as a surprise. But I guess it's just a little hurtful that even in a situation like this, where I'm obviously not in the wrong, they still want to take her side. I'll get over it, but I'm not going to speak to our friends again. I don't really know what happened with Taylor and her fiancé. I know the wedding is off, but I'm also curious to know more. She hasn't reached out to me yet or anything, but I have a feeling that she might. Since her parents also believe that this was my fault and they will most certainly talk to her and then she will come and blame me and it'll be a whole fight.

Even just thinking about it makes me feel uneasy. Update 2, hi, so this is coming just a day after my last update here. I said here that I stopped talking to our mutual friends because all of them were siding with Taylor. I didn't block them but I just stopped replying to them. I didn't think that they would notice it so soon but they did. did and they decided to confront me about it. We have a group text, without Taylor, of course. They have a separate one with her. And today, one of our friends confronted me in the group and asked me why I was ignoring all of them. So I decided to be honest with them and I told them that I didn't

like the fact that they were choosing to blame me even now, knowing that this was not my fault. I told them that it had been really difficult for me, even during the divorce, because Taylor and her lawyer were really trying their best to make me look like a bad guy and it was a very emotionally tough time for me. But even then, they took her side and completely invalidated my feelings. This time, they were doing the same thing yet again, and funnily enough, this time I didn't even do anything except just attend a wedding that I was invited to. And I was requested to attend, as a matter of fact. I told them that it was very clear that no matter what happened they would always be on her side.

and it might sound petty and immature but that's what I was upset about. So I didn't want to speak to them because then, they would just keep on blaming me and I didn't need that sort of negativity right now. And just as I had expected, as soon as I said that, everybody in the group started telling me that I was overreacting and that I really needed to calm down. They tried to convince me that this was not a big deal and that they were just telling me their honest opinions. It had nothing to do with taking sides because of it.

they valued both Taylor and me equally. I didn't buy it and so I told them that I knew that Taylor was the fan favorite here and always would be. And I was cool with it now but I just needed some space and time away from this group, because it was becoming really toxic for me. I regretted using the word toxic because that pissed them off. They immediately turned on me and called me the toxic one because I was the one who ruined her wedding and now, I was the one playing the victim according to them. I got really bored with that conversation because it all just felt like a bunch of high school juvenile BS, so I left that group and finally blocked all of them.

They didn't even have anything to do with the wedding. If Taylor called me toxic, I would accept it gladly because at least she was involved in some capacity. It would be ridiculous, but at least not as ridiculous as our friends trying to create drama with me out of nothing. They're probably just bored with their own lives and want some. somebody to hate on, which is me. They can go on hating, it hardly matters to me anymore. They suck. Update 3, 10 days since the wedding and today, Taylor finally called me.

I didn't answer because I was at work so that was followed by a bunch of texts, demanding that I answer her call and talk to her right this instant. So during lunch, I decided to call her back and prepared myself for a really terrible argument, which is what I was expecting. But Strangely enough, that's not what she was calling me for. She sounded quieter and even kind of sad, while I expected her to be furious. She went on to tell me that she wanted to apologize for everything and she wanted to do it in person. Apparently, in the days after the wedding got called off, she had been feeling terrible about everything. And even though her friends and family were doing all they could to make me the villain here and pin all the blame on me,

it didn't make her feel any better because she knew that it was not the truth. In her head, she knew that this was her own fault. And she could try to make it seem like mine for just being there, but the truth was that she wanted it to happen. She didn't anticipate her fiancé leaving her because of whatever she said, but she agreed that if she was still talking about me at her second wedding, then she probably wasn't over me at all. It felt weird to hear all of this from her,

but I also felt relieved that she was finally owning up to everything. She didn't want to discuss this further on the phone and said that she wanted to meet me. So we set a date in a couple of days and we'll get together for lunch and just get some closure, I guess. Update 4, hi, everybody, I just came back home for my lunch date with my ex-wife. That's a sentence I never thought that I would say but here we are. It was quite pleasant, even though there were a lot of uncomfortable truths that we had to get out of the way before we even started with lunch. We actually hugged each other when we met and it felt comfortable and familiar. After that, we got to talking and she confessed to me that she really only invited me because

she wanted to talk about me and show me that she didn't miss me anymore. But the truth was that she missed me every single day. And the guy she was about to marry was just somebody that she was trying to use to forget me but it wasn't working. And she completely deserved to be humiliated in front of all her friends and family on the day of her wedding because she was lying to him and herself. It was a horrible thing that she did to him and she held no grudges against them. For whatever he said on the day of the wedding and the things that his family said to her. Because at the end of the day, it was all true and there was no denying it.

I felt a little embarrassed by that because she was essentially talking about still being in love with me. And I knew that I wasn't. But this was a conversation that needed to be had, no matter how uncomfortable. or uneasy it made us feel. So we powered through it and she told me that she was still in love with me and had always been. There was nothing that she could do about it, so she accepted it instead of trying to show the world that she had moved on. I acknowledged her feelings and told her that even though I didn't reciprocated, I was still happy that she had love for me in her heart. It's always nice to know that you're loved. I said to her that while I couldn't bring myself to love her in the same way maybe, I still wanted her to

to be happy and I wished the best for her. She cried and when I saw her crying, I couldn't hold back the tears myself because it was just extremely emotional and cathartic for both of us. We wasted a lot of time hating each other and I don't think we wanted to continue that anymore now that both of us were getting older. We just wanted things to be peaceful, that's it. So we promised to keep in touch and that's how we parted ways. I can't say that it wasn't difficult for me, it was. but I'm sure that it was more difficult for her to let go of me, knowing that I would probably never love her the same as she loved me.

It made me feel horrible about myself. But I know that this is not my fault and this is for the best. She deserves somebody who can give her everything that she wants and make her truly happy and unfortunately, I don't think I'm that guy. I tried to be that guy while we were married, but we all know how that ended. And since then I haven't exactly been with anyone. I've been out on a couple of dates here and there, but I just don't think that I'm a relationship kind of guy. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I just wish that Taylor finds somebody who

wants the exact same things as her. It will be a lot easier for me to forget about her if I know that she is with somebody who is good for her. I hope you enjoy this story. Former partner declined to vacate the premises after she terminated arbitroval due to her lack of interest in me. I'm a about to delve into a tale that still seems somewhat unreal. To me, I'm a 35-year-old guy, and I've worked hard to get where I am. I'm work at a pretty big company, and I've always been the kind of guy who believes in building a stable life. I met my ex-fiancee, Amanda, at a mutual friend's wedding about three years ago. Amanda is 32 and worked as a marketing executive at the time. We hit it off almost immediately, she was outgoing, charming, and seemed to have her life together.

For the first two years, our relationship felt like a dream. We were compatible in so many ways, shared common interests, and our friends even joked that we were relationship goals. About six months ago, I proposed to her, and she said yes. It felt like everything was falling into place. We started planning our wedding, and Amanda moved into my marriage. and Amanda moved into my house a year ago. It wasn't a mansion, but it was a decent place I'd worked hard to buy.

I was excited about building a future together. About two months ago, out of the blue, Amanda told me she wanted to break off the engagement. I remember standing there, completely blindsided, as she explained that she felt trapped and not ready for marriage. To say I was heartbroken would be an understatement. I tried to understand where she was coming from an accident. asked her if there was anything we could do to work through her doubts. Maybe we could postpone the wedding, give her some more time to feel comfortable. But Amanda was firm, she didn't want to get married, not to me, not to anyone right now.

She said she needed time to find herself. Whatever that meant, it was clear she was done. I was devastated, but I knew that if she didn't want to be with me, there was no point in dragging it out. The relationship was over, and I had to explain. that. But the next step seemed pretty straightforward to me, if she didn't want to be with me, she had to move out. I mean, it was my house, after all. When I asked Amanda to move out, I tried to be as gentle as possible, given the circumstances. I gave her a 30-day notice,

figuring that would be more than enough time for her to find a new place. But instead of agreeing to it, she flat out refused to leave. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She claimed that she had nowhere to go and no money saved up. This shocked me because, as far as I knew, she was doing fine financially. We'd never had issues splitting expenses, and she made a decent salary. But then she confessed that she had quit her job a few weeks ago without telling me. She said she'd been feeling overwhelmed and needed a break. The money she had saved up.

Well, she'd already spent most of it on shopping sprees and spontaneous trips with her friends. I was floored. How could she have hidden something so significant from me? I asked her why she didn't tell me sooner, why she kept this all to herself, but she didn't have a straight answer. She just said she was figuring things out and didn't want to stress me out. But now, she was expecting me to let her stay in my house indefinitely while she got her life together. I couldn't believe the audacity. As you can imagine, things are you. started to go downhill pretty fast after that. Amanda became increasingly difficult to live with. She started inviting her friends over all the time, turning our home into a non-stop party zone.

I'd come home from work, exhausted, only to find the living room filled with people I didn't even know. They'd be drinking, making a mess, and acting like they owned the place. When I confronted Amanda about it, she brushed me off, saying that she needed to unwind and that her friends were just helping her through a tough time. But it didn't stop there. She stopped doing any household chores, dishes piled up, laundry was left scattered everywhere, and the place was constantly a mess. It was like living with a rebellious teenager rather than a grown-ass woman. I felt like a stranger in my own home. A few weeks into this nightmare, I accidentally stumbled upon something. Amanda had left her phone on the kitchen counter while she was in the shower, and it kept buzzing with notifications.

Normally, I wouldn't snoop, but something in my gut told me to check it out. And boy, am I glad, or maybe not so glad, that I did? I unlocked her phone and found a bunch of messages between her and one of her coworkers, let's call them Eric. The messages were, well, let's just say they were anything but platonic. As I scrolled through the conversation, it became clear that Amanda had been cheating on me with Eric for months. They had been meeting up behind my back, and she had even been planning to leave me once she had enough money saved up. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. Here I was, trying to be understanding and giving her space, while she was sneaking around with someone else.

I thought back to all the times I'd asked her if something was wrong, all the times I tried to make things work, and all all the while, she was lying to my face. That night, I confronted Amanda about what I'd found. I laid out everything, the messages, the cheating. I expected some sort of remorse, maybe an apology, or at least an explanation. But instead, Amanda just looked at me, completely unfazed. She didn't deny it. In fact, she seemed almost relieved that I knew. She told me she had been unhappy for months and that our relationship had become boring, she said Eric made her feel alive again, and she didn't regret what she'd done. I was stunned.

How could she be so cold, so unapologetic? I was done playing nice. I told her she had 48 hours to move out or I'd take legal action. I wasn't going to let her walk all over me anymore. The moment I gave her that ultimatum, something in her snapped. We got into a heated argument with Amanda hurling all sorts of insults of me, blaming me for everything wrong in her life. She accused me of being controlling, of not being supportive enough, and even of being the reason she cheated. It was like she was trying to twist everything to make

herself the victim. After that argument, I decided to dig a little deeper into our shared finances, just to see if there was anything else she had been hiding. Amanda had racked up a significant amount of credit card debt, more than I could have ever imagined. She had maxed out several credit cards on luxury items, expensive dinners, and trips. But that wasn't the worst part. She had also been using my credit cards without my permission. I found charges for things I didn't recognize, high-end clothing stores, fancy restaurants, and even a weekend getaway that I definitely wasn't invited to. She had been living it up at my expense, all while pretending that everything was fine between us. I was furious. I confronted her about the unauthorized charges, and she didn't

even try to deny it. She just shrugged and said she figured I wouldn't notice. I couldn't believe the audacity. At that point, it was clear that she had no respect for me or the life we had built together. The next day, while I was at work, she decided to retaliate in the most immature way possible. When I came home, I was greeted by a scene that looked like it was straight out of a horror movie. The house was trashed. Furniture was overturned, the walls were covered in graffiti, and valuable items were missing. She had even taken some of my family heirlooms, things that were irreplaceable. There were nasty messages written on the walls in what I assumed was permanent marker, calling me every name under the sun. It was like she had gone out of her way

to hurt me in every way possible. I was beyond angry, but more than that, I was hurt. How could someone I had loved and trusted turn into this vindictive person? I knew I couldn't let this go. Amanda had crossed a line, and I wasn't going to let her get away with it. I filed a police report for theft and property damage the next day. I also contacted a lawyer. I also contacted a lawyer, to begin the eviction process. It was clear that Amanda wasn't going to leave on her own, so I needed to take legal action to get her out of my house. The lawyer helped me draft an official eviction notice,

which I served to Amanda later that week. She was furious when she received it, but at that point, I didn't care. I was done playing nice. She had to go, and I was going to do whatever it took to make that happen. My family and friends were shocked when they found out, what had happened. They had always liked Amanda, and no one had seen this side of her before. My parents were incredibly supportive, offering to help me clean up the mess she had left behind

and even offering me a place to stay while I sorted everything out. It was comforting to know that I wasn't alone in this, but it didn't make the situation any less painful. I had trusted Amanda, and she had betrayed me in the worst way possible. After receiving the eviction notice, Amanda tried to change her tune. She started begging me to reconsider, saying that she had made a mistake and that she wanted to work things out. She tried to manipulate me with reminders of the good times we'd had, saying that we could get back to that if we just tried. But I wasn't buying it. I knew she was only trying to stay because she had nowhere else to go. When she realized that her attempts to manipulate me weren't working, she turned to threats. She said that if I went through with the eviction,

she would tell all our mutual friends and even my co-workers that I had been abusive, both emotionally and physically. She said she'd destroy my reputation and make sure that no one believed my side of the story. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She was willing to stoop that low just to stay in my house. It was like I didn't even know her anymore. But I wasn't going to let her threat scare me. I knew the truth, and I had the evidence to back it up. If she wanted to play dirty, I was ready.

The day of the eviction finally arrived. I had informed the police of the situation, and they agreed to be there to enforce the eviction if necessary. When I showed up at the house with the police, Amanda was still there. She had barricaded herself in the master bedroom and refused to come out. I couldn't believe she was taking it this far. The police knocked on the door and told her that she needed to leave, but she started screaming. and crying, saying that she was going to hurt herself if they made her go. It was a nightmare.

She was causing a scene, making all sorts of accusations against me, trying to make me look like the bad guy. The police had to call in a mental health professional to assess the situation, and eventually, they were able to convince Amanda to come out of the room. She was escorted out of the house, still screaming and crying, but at least she was finally gone. After Amanda was finally out of my house, I changed the locks and installed the security system. I wasn't taking any chances. The house was in bad shape, and I had a lot of work to do to get it back to normal. It was painful to see the place I had called home in such a state, but I was

determined to rebuild. I started by cleaning up the mess she had left behind, throwing out the things she had destroyed, and repairing the damage. It was a slow process, but with the help of my family and friends, I managed to get the house back in order. But it wasn't just the physical damage that needed repairing. Once Amanda was out of the house, I pursued legal action for the theft and property damage. The police had all the evidence they needed, and my lawyer was confident that we had a strong case. Amanda was eventually ordered to pay restitution for the items she had stolen and the damage she had caused. In addition to the restitution, I also obtained a restraining order against Amanda. I didn't want her anywhere near me or my house. I needed to move on with my

life, and I couldn't do that with her lurking in the background, ready to cause more trouble. Looking back on everything that happened, I realized that there were red flags that I missed or ignored. Amanda had always been a bit of a spender, but I never thought it would get to the point where she would be using my money without my knowledge. I should have been more aware of what was going on with her, but at the same time, she should have been honest with me instead of sneaking around. This whole experience has been a wake-up call for me. I've learned that trust is earned, not given, and that I need to be more careful about who I let into my life. I'm focusing on healing and personal growth now. I've even considered selling the house and starting fresh somewhere else, but I haven't made any decisions yet.

So, here I am, sharing my story with all of you. Thanks for sticking with me through this long post. I appreciate any advice or thoughts you might have. And to end on a lighter note, if anyone knows a good place to buy a sturdy, Amanda-proof security system, let me know. So, am I the asshole for kicking my ex-fiancee out of my house when she's, she broke off our engagement and refused to move out. Update 1, Hey everyone, it's been about a month since I last posted, and I wish I could say things have calmed down, but unfortunately, that's not the case.

After Amanda was evicted, I was hoping she'd just disappear for my life for good. I mean, she trashed my house, stole from me, and then violated the restraining order by stalking me. She even got arrested for it, so I figured she'd finally get the message. But apparently, she didn't. About two weeks ago, I started noticing some strange things happening around my house. It started with small stuff, like someone ringing my doorbell in the middle of the night and then running off. Then it escalated to finding my trash cans knocked over every morning.

I tried to brush it off, thinking it was just some pranksters in the neighborhood. One night, I was coming home from a late shift at work when I saw something. There was a note taped to my front door. It was simple, just a piece of paper with the words you're not safe written on it. The handwriting was unmistakable, it was Amanda's. I immediately called the police and handed over the note. They took it seriously, but there wasn't much they could do at that point. They advised me to keep my security cameras on and document anything else that happened.

They also promised to increase patrols in my area, but they couldn't be there. all the time. The next day, I got a call from my security company. They notified me that there was an attempted break-in at my house. The footage showed Amanda trying to pick the lock on my front door in the dead of night. When she realized she was being recorded, she looked straight into the camera and gave it a smile before walking away. I handed the footage over to the police, and they were able to arrest her for violating the restraining order again. But just like last time, she was released on bail the very next day. It's like no matter what I do, she's always one step ahead. My lawyer suggested filing for a permanent restraining order, but that process takes time,

and I'm left feeling like I'm living in a horror movie. How do I make sure she stays away for good? Does anyone have any advice on what else I can do? I feel like I'm running out of options, and I'm terrified she's going to do something even worse next time. Update 2, hey, everyone. I'm back with another update and things have taken a turn for the worse. I thought the worst Amanda could do was break into my house, but she's found a way to hit me where it hurts the most, my job. I work as a software developer, and my job is one of the few things that's kept me sane through all of this.

I love what I do, and I've worked hard to get where I am. But about three weeks ago, my boss called me into his office with a serious look on his face. He handed me a stack of papers and asked me to explain myself. The papers were screenshots of emails that were supposedly sent by me to various co-workers. These emails were filled with racist, sexist, and downright vile comments. There were also threats in some of them, directed at specific coworkers. I knew immediately that these emails were fake, but the problem was that they came from an email address that looked almost identical to mine. I explained to my boss that I didn't send those emails and that they had to be from Amanda.

I told him about everything that had been happening, the break-in attempts, the restraining order, and how Amanda was now trying to ruin my life because I had kicked her out. Thankfully, my boss believed me. We have a good relationship, and he knows this isn't in my character at all. But even though my boss was on my side, the damage was done. Word about the email started to spread around me. the office, and I could feel people giving me the cold shoulder. I even overheard some co-workers whispering about me in the break room, wondering if the rumors were true. It's been a nightmare.

I got in touch with our IT department, and they were able to trace the fake emails back to an IP address that wasn't mine. They confirmed that it was someone impersonating me, but that doesn't erase the damage to my reputation. I've handed all the evidence over to the police, but they've told me the same thing, they're building a case against Amanda, but these things take time. I've considered leaving my job and finding something remote where I wouldn't have to deal with this, but that feels like letting her win. I'm stuck and don't know what to do next. Has anyone dealt with a situation like this before? I'm open to any advice because, honestly, I'm at my wits end. Update 3, hey everyone, this is the final update, I hope.

It's been about four months since my first post, and I've finally reached what I hope is the end of this nightmare. But not without some more drama first, of course. After my last update, things continued to escalate. Amanda was still out on bail, and I was constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for her next move. I'd already dealt with her breaking into my house and trying to ruin my career, so I figured she'd come up with something even more drastic next. And I was right. About a month ago, I was leaving work late one evening when I found all four tires on my car slashed. My car was sitting in the parking lot on flat tires, and I knew immediately who was responsible.

When I checked the security footage, there she was, Amanda, slashing my tires and then calmly walking away as if nothing had happened. I called the police again, and this time they took it more seriously. Amanda was arrested later that night, but this time, I made sure she was. she wouldn't be getting out on bail so easily. My lawyer and I pushed hard for her to be held without bail, and thankfully, the judge agreed. Amanda was finally behind bars, where she couldn't hurt me anymore. But the damage she'd done was still there. My reputation at work had taken a hit, my car was in the shop, and I was emotionally drained. I started seeing a lawyer more frequently to figure out what my next steps should be. He suggested suing Amanda for the

damages she caused, both to my property and my reputation. He also suggested filing for a permanent restraining order, which would make it harder for her to get near me in the future. I'm pursuing both options, but it's going to be a long process. In the meantime, I've made some decisions about my life. I've decided to sell my house and move to a new city. I love my job, but I'm going to ask for a transfer to a different office or maybe even switch to a remote position. I need a fresh start away from all the memories of what Amanda put me through. So, I guess this is goodbye for now. Thanks to everyone who gave me advice and support over the past few months. I couldn't have gotten through this without you. I'm hopeful that this is the last time

I'll have to deal with Amanda, and that from here on out, I can focus on rebuilding my life. Thanks again, everyone, and take care. I hope you enjoy this story. Mother held various positions to provide for me following my father's death, but presently she is unwell and my spouse issued an ultimatum for me to decide between them while concealing her true intentions. Pregnant A little background, my mom and dad were both orphans, my dad died two weeks before I was born, my mom didn't really have a support system, so we were just the two of us.

I never lacked anything because my mother worked all her life to give me the life I have today and didn't even have time for herself to start a new life again. She did all the little jobs possible so that we didn't miss anything. She deprived herself of food to give me food. I had very good clothes while she had none. I saw her make sacrifices again and again and always with a smile. Frankly I always thought she was an angel dressed in a human body. The only time she yelled at me was when I was 16 when I saw her getting sick and working

at the same time. I wanted to help her by finding a job, but she was angry and told me it was not my job to take care of her and it was up to her to take care of me. She wanted me to get really good grades to get into the best universities. It's the only way I can protect myself when she can anymore. Even at university she didn't want me to work, I had to be focused on my studies, but she wanted me to volunteer so that I could be an adult who could do something with his hands. I met my wife there while both of us were volunteered. My wife is a good person, but she was never close to her parents or her siblings. Yet she adored my mother since she met her.

There were times when I thought she loved my mother more than she loved me and we laughed about it, deep down, I think she was looking for the bond between mother and daughter that she did not have from her mother. When I finished my studies, I found a job, we move and together, but she wasn't comfortable that I call my mom every day. Remind you those were 10 to 15 minutes call, but eventually she stopped bring it on. Two years later I bought a house for my mother, because we never had a house in our name, we lived from apartment to apartment, so for all the sacrifices she made it was for me the least

of it and it was non-negotiable, that's where the problem started with my wife. Then GF. She wanted me to think about us first, I told her my dream had always been to buy my mom a house since I was little and that's what I had to do. But she complained about it to my mom. My mom didn't even knew I bought a house for her as it was supposed to be a surprise for her birthday. She was uncomfortable of receiving the house because of my wife and told me that wasn't necessary that we could use it for us when we get married.

I was furious, I told my mother that the house was for her that she could do with it whatever she wanted but it was time for her to think about herself first. Our relationship survived that, we got married. and then we had our own house. Our life was going well until two months ago when my mother fell ill, I wanted her to come and live with us so that I could take care of her, but my wife didn't want to. I then decided to rent an apartment with my own money right next to our house so that I could be close to her and go there to take care of her. But even that idea didn't sit well with my wife. Me and my wife don't have children yet, we both work, I usually come home

at 6 p.m., but since my mother is sick, I go to see her and come home at 8 p.m. on weekends I see her for one or two hours and the rest of the time I spend it with my wife. We go on dates, I always accompany her and her hobbies even though she never went to mine. Two days ago she told me that she thought about it and she thinks I prioritize my mother too much. She told me that I had to choose between my mother and the life I want to build with her. The truth is that I never made her feel that way. We both work but I'm the one who cooks, and I pay a person to do the housework. I make sure I do the dishes she likes, she didn't even know what I like to eat because I never complain. I run her baths, give her massages, flowers, I write her poems that I hide

somewhere in the house for her to find out. We go on a trip one weekend a month, I earn much more money than her, I told her to keep her money for herself and I take care of all the bills even hers, I always make sure to listen to her and consider her opinion. And I think I am easygoing because I can change my mind to accommodate hers, but I realize that she tries to completely dominate me and the only subject where I don't give her a choice is my relationship with my mother. So there I'm going to have a talk with her and put some very clear boundaries, if she doesn't want to, well, we're going to divorce. Update 1, hi guys, I keep getting messages asking me for an update.

I wanted to do it sooner but couldn't spare time to do it properly. First of all, I would like to thank everyone for the comments and DMs in my last post. I tried to reply to everyone but I couldn't. I read you all though. Before confronting my wife I had time to reflect, and I came to the conclusion that I will never again let anyone in my life dictate the relationship I should have with my mother or the time I should dedicate to her. So I decided to answer the ultimatum, but first I wanted to know if there was another reason why she gave me this ultimatum.

She replied that nope. I asked her apart from what she blamed me for was there something she wanted to tell me but couldn't tell me. She said there was nothing and asked me to come to the point so I told her I wanted a divorce. She remained frozen, I think she was shocked because she wasn't talking, she was just staring at me. I tell her everything that was on my mind, that our values are too different, I was going through the worst moment of my life, my mother was sick, we did several tests with her, we still don't

know what she's suffering from, we don't know her family medical history because she was an orphan. It makes me anxious to know that overnight I could find myself alone in the world, yes, alone in the world because in these difficult times, all I needed was her support but if my own wife thinks that I should give less attention to my mother who is sick and who needs me more than ever, it's time to go to our separate way. She still didn't say anything so I told her I'm going to a hotel for now and we'll discuss later how we're going to separate. I took some of my things and left. The next day when I went to see my mother, she figured out something wasn't right,

but I was not going to tell her I was separating from my wife because she could not bear our relationship, especially since she was sick like that, I didn't want to add more torment to her. I never discuss my marriage issues with my mother anyway, so she does not know our problems and honestly, she adores my wife too much, and my wife behaves as if she was her own mother so I was not going tell her what she was thinking behind her back. My mom ends up telling me that my wife didn't come by that day, yes, my wife who asks me to reduce my contact with my mother was seeing her every day and I never asked her to do anything for my mother. She calls my mother mom. When she gets sick, she used to go to my mother so she will take care of her. It used to hurt me because it's as if I couldn't take care of her, but she said that this was not the same. The attentions of a mother are different.

I told myself that it was her way of creating a mother-daughter bond that she never had and I understood her. She ever said her mother used to tell her that she was not supposed to be born, that she was an accident that she almost aborted her and regrets not doing it. Only a monster could say that to her child. So I never said anything whenever she wanted my mother's attention. Besides, I received enough love to share with whoever wanted. My mother after I left home to study became a foster mom for children. She always did until two years ago. I have always loved each of the children with whom I still keep in touch and whom I consider to be my siblings.

Once a year, we all went on vacation together for a week, children, my mother and my wife. I generally take two months a vacation of which the six weeks I devoted it to my wife, but the two weeks that I devote to my mother and the children, it was too much for my wife. Anyway, I'm rambling, so when my mom told me she didn't come to see her that day, I went back home because I was worried, I found her in the bathroom with her clothes and red eyes like she was crying all along. Seeing her like that was unbearable, I helped her out, but this woman who have so much pride, collapsed in front of me with a lot of crying I don't know if it was an hour or two, but she kept crying, calmed down crying again, I just stayed silent.

She ended up telling me that deep down she never wanted me to involve any less in my mother life, she was always jealous of our relationship, she was always jealous of the attention my mother gave to the other children. She knows that it wasn't rational, but she couldn't help constantly striving to be number one in my mother's heart. It was kind of a competition for her, so when I wanted to take care of my mom she didn't want me to be the one taking care of her. I was honestly furious without saying anything, of course, but I wondered if she was a psychopath or something. We are talking about a person who is seriously ill and she is thinking about her damn competition even if it means sabotaging the relationship I have with my mother and putting us in a situation where I wanted to divorce her.

She told me that she was very jealous of me and that she would have liked to be in my place, if she had to choose she would have even chosen to be my mother's child rather than my wife even if I was the love of her life and the only man she ever known. She also told me that even if the world falls apart around me, I will remain stoic, that I live as if I don't need anyone and that I give everything to others, but I don't know how to let others reach me and she never managed to get there, only my mother could get there. At that moment, I did not know what else to say.

say, I was hooked on this idea of competition so that I did not immediately grasp the scope of these words. But I still listened to her to the end. I put her to bed until she fell asleep, then I went to sleep in another room. In the morning she was acting like anything happened she was being herself. She said, I don't have to pity. I told her it was out of love she was still my wife. She left to work and I'd do the same but decided to stay at the hotel from the time being. During that time, I wondered what I could have made the saying act so that she could think about that. Deep down I think she's right, it's a defense mechanism I've had since childhood, I've never stayed in one place longer to make friends, it was heartbreaking to every time we have

to move between my five to my 15 I have moved more than 50 times. From apartment to apartment, from hotel room to hotel room, and since then I think I have always lived my relationships like a squad. I never unpacked and settled in because I knew at any moment I could be kicked out. But I thought with my wife I acted differently, but I guess not. So I thought maybe we didn't need to go that far, what we needed wasn't divorce but therapy. Then this happened. A little over a week after our discussion, I was called from the hospital.

My wife had been hospitalized, she apparently did not feel well. I went to visit her, but she didn't want to see me. If you see the eyes I saw, I've never seen so much hate in just two eyes. I told her besties so she can have her system support because she didn't want me there. I told my mom, she asked me what I had done to my wife so that she ended up in the hospital and that I should not stress a woman who was pregnant. I said what? She told me my wife told her and asked her to keep it a secret because she wanted to tell me herself when she was ready.

I don't know what was going through my head, between anger that it was. was my mother who told me your happiness at having to be a dad for the first time in total confusion at the surreal situation. I went to my wife and told her I knew, but she looked at me again angrily and told me she had lost the baby and it was my fault. In an instant, I just get the news my wife was pregnant but keep it from me, that I was going to be a dad and that we lost the baby and that she was accusing me of having caused something that I did not even know. She asked me to leave and I left. I always wanted children, very early on. My wife wanted to put her career first, I understood and accepted. I've been trying

to convince her for years, but without success, now she gets pregnant, she doesn't tell me anything, she talks to my mother about it, and she says I caused her miscarriage. Since then, she says she didn't tell me anything because she wanted to first confirm if I could deal with all the responsibilities I give myself and raise a child at the same time. I don't understand her, and I admit since then I have a fierce hatred against her. I don't know how to look at her without having anger on me and I don't want to hurt her with my words. I take care of her at home but we don't talk to each other. I'm not going to stay with her, it's not possible. I started a session with a psychologist. He told me that patience was my best weapon, that I shouldn't make a permanent decision on emotions that could

be temporary and that I should take time to see if there were things to salvage. Here is where I am. I don't know if I'll do another update. I took days off to be there for my wife and for my mother, but I'm feeling pretty depressed and I just want to get away from all this bullshit right now. Thank you in any case for giving me your point on your first post, for your support or your critics. Update 2, hi folks. It's been a while. I didn't intend to post again after my last one, but even though it's been months, I still get supports and people asking me where I am in my life. So I think I owe you at least one last update because your comments and DMs helped me a lot during a time I needed it the most.

I don't know if it's going to be long or not, but let's go. About my wife after she had a miscarriage, yes, she was definitely pregnant, I had to take care of her because she couldn't do it on her own. After what happened, I had nothing but anger and hatred in me, but as I said last time if something is fragile enough to break, you have no choice but to treat it gently. I didn't want her to break, I didn't want to leave her in the worst time of her life. So I did my duty as a husband. Despite everything, her mental state was getting worse, she thought she was still pregnant and she was talking to herself. One night she was delirious, mistaking me for her father and thinking that I was going to hurt her.

I had to call the emergency room then after examination a psychiatrist advised me to have her hospitalized. That's what I did. She spent six weeks there. She was diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder. Doctor's suspect delusional disorder too. And they also suspect that she was heavily abused as a child, but that's all they were allowed to tell me. She didn't want to see anyone, especially her family. She suggested that we communicate through letters and every time I went there, I took her letter, then the next day I drop mine. It's crazy, I have the impression. I have the impression.

that in two months, I got to know her better than the ten years I spent by her side. That reminded me how a good person she used to be despite her flaws. She used to travel to participate in the construction of schools, wells, anything that can help people who lived in precariousness. She didn't just give money, she helped out with her own hands. She's the type to help a foreigner who doesn't speak the language catches train until she misses her own train. Honestly, she was like a gold mine with lots of resources and kindness in her.

Although we had money, we used to enjoy taking public transport to remember the time when we were penniless and enjoy life just because having each other were enough. We would travel without taking money and challenge each other to know how far we will get. That was the best moment of our lives. We were very close and in love. We thought nothing could break us. What has changed since then? We tried to figure it out in the letters we give each other. We talk about many things, I won't go into details.

She own up her mistakes and I own up mine. She takes full responsibility of the consequences of her actions. She apologized for how she treated me and know that the only possible outcome is that we divorce. She need to heal and work on herself. She said she have a long way to go and it wasn't fair for me. She said that given her condition, I wasn't going to talk to her about a divorce. She had to do it herself. There are some battles she need to fight on her own, otherwise she will never be the best version she could be.

She doesn't know how long it's going to take, but if she gets there and I haven't move on, then she'll be happy to start again with me. I've always lived with the idea of fixing broken things rather than throwing them away. But that doesn't work with humans. You can't fix someone unless they want to be fixed. And I wouldn't have had the strength to fix someone because I'm putting all my remaining energy into trying to fix myself. If my wife hadn't made the decision she made, I myself would have proposed a divorce. Paradoxically, it was because she made the decision she made that I saw that there was hope for us. I then offered her a separation rather than a divorce.

And a year from now, if we still want to get divorced, we'll get divorced. If we trust that we could be in a healthy relationship, then we'll get to know each other again, communicate and try to do things differently. She agreed and said that was what she hoped. When she got out of the hospital, she didn't want us to meet because if we saw each other, she wouldn't have had the strength to keep her resolutions. For my part, I had not yet let go all the negative feelings following the events that happened before her hospitalization, so in the end it was best for both of us. We chose to continue to send each other letters and that's fine with me for now. She was able to see my mother. She wrote me what my mother told her.

That she will always be a mother figure to her, despite the bad decisions she made, that she didn't have to compete for her love because she already had it. And that's one thing that will never change. She asked me if I was okay with her being in touch with my mother, I told her it was up to them, she didn't need my consent. However, she was not likely going to see my mother too often because I had decided to go in another country for my mother so she could benefit from one of the best hospitals in the world, which is in Europe.

About me I've been in Germany for almost one month now, we are from France, and I'm learning to delegate work. It's a resolution I made during my therapy. I needed therapy and it was especially you guys who convinced me, I will always be grateful to you. The therapy sessions were so heavy and difficult. hiring that I didn't have the strength to do much after leaving my therapist's room but it would get better over time. I am currently working remotely, I go back to France once a week to

settle things at work and continue my therapy sessions because I don't want to change therapists. I managed to devote time only to myself, which is actually good. One of my foster brothers wanted to come with us to Germany since he manages to work remotely too, he is a great help. In short, I'm getting better and better. About my mom this is probably the most difficult subject to discuss. And I admit that I don't really want to talk about it, but I also think that talking about it here is good practice to be able to talk about it in my life. A few years ago, we lived from apartment to apartment, hotel to hotel.

This is one of the worst times of our lives. The state always found us a place to sleep because we were a single mother and a child. It wasn't stable because we had to change places every time. but it was better than sleeping outside. My mother was and still is a very beautiful woman, it happened that she received sexual proposals for an apartment right in front of my eyes. I don't know what she went through with my dad, but she never wanted to be with another person.

Because she says death doesn't stop a loving relationship from continuing. There was an association that used to take care of us by always finding for us a place to stay at night. One day, one of the people who were in charge to find out of the people who were in charge to find us places to sleep, wanted us to stay in his apartment. The time that they find us a better place because we were in a very unsanitary hotel. My mother didn't want to go, but I convinced her to go because the idea of sleeping warm in a good bed was all I could think of. But after we had diner on his place he started making move on my mother who stopped him right away. He told us it was

either that or we get out of his house. So we left. We went back to the hotel where we were, but Our room was already taken. There was nothing we could do, at least that day, so we chose to slept outside. Trigger warning, gang RP at some point. While sleeping we were woken up by a group of men who were trying to RP my mother. They hit me so hard that I was even afraid to try to help my mom. Some other men whom my guests came back from a party heard the screams and came to help us. Our attackers fled.

I always said that my mother was almost our ped, that's what I always said and I ended up believing it. But my mother was indeed our ped before my eyes. I finally said it. My mother was our pet before my eyes and I couldn't do anything. If that day we had thrown ourselves into each other's arms and cried together, maybe things would have been different. But she got up, took my arm and told me that this place was not safe that we had to look for a safer place. That was all. We never talked about that day again.

We carried on with our lives as if nothing had happened, things got better eventually, she worked hard so that I could be successful, she invested all the money she earned in her entire life on my project and today I owe her the company I created. How did she manage to survive the hell she'd been through? Ever since I came to terms with the idea that she was our ped, all I wanted was to tell her about it, but it's not about me, it's about her. She's the one who experienced the worst. I would so much like to talk to her about it, but I don't know what good can come out of it after so many years.

That's it, that's all. As for today, her condition is improving. The future looks brighter than it did a few months ago. Well, I think that's all, this will be my last post. To all who have followed me in those hard time, I thank you from the bottom of my heart and wish you the best in your life. May what you have left to live be better than what you have already lived. I hope you enjoy this story. Boyfriend became angry when his supervisor presented him with an accolade at the office,

instructed him to refrain from bestowing any more, and subsequently missed out on a promotion. Currently, he is residing on our sofa and wants to sue the company. Hey guys, long-time lurker in need of some advice. My fiancé was recommended slash given a training assignment some months back for a vacancy that would be opening, and he showed me a review at the end that he received where he received great remarks. However, to his surprise, he wasn't given the position, and he was the only person training for it. He's been feeling down the past couple of days, but he also told me something that I didn't know. A few weeks back, he was given an award in a meeting that he returned to his boss, same boss who recommended him. him for the vacancy, because he doesn't like awards, and he never told me about it either.

He also told his boss he didn't appreciate being blindsided, and he admitted he was emotionally stressed from the meeting when he talked to him the same day. He also told him to never give him an award again, and he thinks that that's the reason he didn't get the promotion when I asked why he didn't tell me about it. He said that work was his space and that it didn't concern me, and that honestly hurt. He also said he's thinking about leaving the company, and he's been there since he interned in college. My mom said to suggest that he talked to a professional about why he was bothered by the award slash our relationship, but Dad said I should reconsider because he created a fan to walk into

that hurt his career. I want to see if he'll talk to a professional before reconsidering, but Dad said I shouldn't even give him a chance. I believe I'm making the right decision by seeing if he's open to it, not just for job stuff, but also for our relationship. But I want to ask if I'm going about it correctly. Update 1. Before suggesting therapy, I asked him to further explain why he returned the award when everything seemed to be going well for him.

And I want to remind you that he showed me a written review of his training assignment. That he worked for a few months, that came back with great remarks, albeit nothing about returning the reward that had nothing to do with it. He said that he viewed work awards similar to participation trophies that he wanted no part of. But when I asked if his reward was that, he said it was a certificate recognizing him for his work along with training slash assisting others when his boss asked him to sometimes, mostly on computer when someone didn't know how to do something.

So he'd show them over Microsoft Teams. He specifically said it wasn't a participation award, but that he viewed all rewards the same. He also said it'd make it awkward when he helped people in the future because awards make people seem less genuine and that returning it showed he was down to earth. When I asked why he couldn't just accept the reward and do whatever he wanted with it at he said it was a gesture to show he wasn't a management suck up and that he'd be the same person after getting promoted. He also said he saw someone lose friends at work after crossing over to management side because it was an us versus the mentality. And he compared his gesture to the person who rejected the Nobel Peace Prize that he heard referenced in Captain America, the Winter Soldier. However, he knew nothing about it besides the reference because he loved. Marvel movies and didn't even know the guy's name. But when I asked if he regretted it since

everything seemed to go well with his training before the issue he likely made for himself, he said he was considering suing the company because he was treated unfairly and he wasn't open to therapy because he did nothing wrong. When I told him that it hurt when he said that his work life didn't concern me, he said there were many things he said at work that I wouldn't approve of, but that it was his space just like managers who talked behind co-worker's backs. But when I him that we were engaged and incomparable to a co-worker slash manager relationship, he said I wasn't supporting him and didn't want couples counseling either. And that's pretty much how it went. The reason I spoke to my parents before we talked was because of an idea he floated in my first post that I didn't mention. And I want to explain it because some said I threw him under the bus to my parents, so I'll explain why. He said he was considering working a retail job in the meantime after quitting because he thinks he hit a dead end, and he said he'd be more respected there too. The other reason I told my parents was because we were looking at a home to buy,

but those plans have changed and he wants to stay in our apartment. And that was before he mentioned anything about suing the company. He said he didn't mind making less if it meant having more respect, and I was willing to try and work things out if he considered therapy or couples counseling. But now that he's refused and doubled down, I told him that I'm reconsidering, and he didn't like that and said I wasn't on his side, like his boss, same boss who recommended him for the vacancy and gave him the award, and has been distant since. He slept by himself on the couch and even ate dinner on his own the past few nights,

and I'm trying to see if my parents can let me bring some stuff to their place come Friday. I feel like he threw everything away for no reason, got a great review on his training and made an issue out of nothing when there was none. Learning about everything he kept for me still hurts, and I might try to talk to someone myself. But it really hurts because he basically said I never knew him at him at work, and maybe that's just how he is when he's not with me at it. This idea to reject the award came from Captain America, the Winter Soldier and the guy who was referenced, in the movie, for rejecting the Nobel Peace Prize from what he told me, but he didn't even know the guy's name or anything beyond it came from the movie because

he's a big Marvel fan. He also said it was a selfless thing to do and showed he was. He was wasn't a management slash award suck up to his coworkers who'd appreciate a down-to-earth manager when he crossed over into management. He also said it was something selfless Captain America would do. He said he wants to sue because he was wrongfully removed from consideration for the position for personally not liking awards despite a great written review on his training assignment and that it would help fellow employees who felt pressured to take management awards to move up because he believes that all awards are participation trophies as a result of trying to talk to him and see if he'd be interested in couples therapy. He refused to think that he did

anything wrong and still plans to sue, and I based my reconsidering of the relationship on his willingness to get counseling. I will be trying to move everything to my parents on Friday, but he's been treating me as if I don't exist because he knows that I'm done. He's eaten dinner alone, slept alone, and barely says a word to me anymore because I'm attacking him like his boss, so I'm just trying to get to Friday, but it's been hard because he's turned on me update too. Returning to this because a lot of people reached out and were helpful, and I appreciate everyone who did. I'm currently at my parents, and my ex-fiancee was pestering me to move everything to their home before Friday when I eventually did, and it was

really stressful. However, he did something that I didn't expect before I moved on Friday that I'm still dealing with, and a lot of friends and family know about it now because of what you. he did, before I got around to telling them. He made a Facebook post that was pretty long, and he posted it to Twitter too. Long story short, he addressed the coworkers about what happened with his promotion and said that many of them were likely wondering what had happened and that he wanted to explain his side before the wrong people did he wrote that his bosses wrongfully rescinded the promotion because he told his boss that he didn't like awards. And he included the manager's name. He wrote about his conversation with his boss and how he respectfully

spoke to him in his office instead of refusing the award at the meeting because he wanted to show respect. He also said that his manager previously knew about his anxiety surrounding awards and chose to give it to him anyway when he knew it would hurt his focus. But he never once mentioned anything about anxiety to me. He never mentioned anxiety in the past, and he never mentioned that he spoke to his boss about anxiety too. He also left out what he told me about how he was emotional when he spoke to his boss and said some things he probably shouldn't have. He left out the part about being blindsided by the award and don't ever give me any awards again, and my dad thinks he's lying about having talked to his boss about anxiety to look like a martyr.

He thinks he made it up to draw pity, and the rest of his posts made him think that too when he wrote about how he was going to sue the company. He said he was doing it for others who may feel pressured to take awards in order to move up and that he was fighting for them. He said it was unfair of his boss to refuse him for mental health reasons he knew beforehand. And he wanted to pave the way for others with mental health challenges. He also said he was inspired by NBA player Kyrie Irving. He's also a basketball fan, who refused to get vaccinated and sacrificed salary slash backlash. The Brooklyn Nets didn't allow him to play for many games due to being unvaccinated.

To be a voice for the voiceless for other people who, didn't want to be vaccinated. And while he disagreed with Kyrie's stance on vaccinations, we are both vaccinated. He admired how he fought and forced the Brooklyn Nets to play him and cave as they struggled in the standing slash injuries and showed that corporations would eventually cave to employees like Kyrie. My ex-fiance said he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless who felt pressured to accept awards to move up at his job. He also said he wanted to make management caved to him, and that was the reason he was suing for the employees. He also wrote that I had broken up with him because I didn't support his mental health

condition just like his boss, but he never once mentioned anything related to mental health to me ever. Heck, he left out all the details about how he told his boss off, and my dad said he might be making it up to create a case when he knows he has none or just wants to smear the company. Dad has also begun calling him the fake Captain America from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and he showed me some clips about the TV show when I asked what he meant going back to my ex-fiancee. He also wrote he was glad to find out I didn't support mental health before we had kids which really surprised me because I suggested couples counseling together, but he told me he didn't need it because he did nothing wrong.

He also wrote that I refused to have sex-slash sleep together after he opened up about his anxiety when he was the one who opted to sleep away from me on the couch after he accused me of not supporting him like his boss. He also said he was talking to someone he knew who was a union shop steward for advice, and he said there'd be more in the future too. A lot of friends and relatives called me and my parents in the aftermath of his post, mostly those who saw the Facebook one I was tagged in, and my parents and I have been telling them our side.

I also received DMs from people telling me off for not supporting his mental health who I'm guessing are his friends, and some of them were really vulgar too. That only happened on my Instagram, and I've blocked a lot of them since because I didn't know them. But it's been stressful after he tagged me in his post, and I'm honestly tired of repeating myself to everyone. However, I don't believe in engaging him slash drama on social media, so I've continued to explain to everyone who's reached out with the help of my parents. The other thing that sucks is how he called my job after I moved out and told them that I said a lot of ablest things about him about his mental conditions which wasn't true. And while I don't think it'll amount to anything, I had to speak

with HR about it which surprised me. Dad doesn't think anything will come from it either, but he's been livid, and I am honestly too. Dad has also suggested a lawyer after how he called my job, and it's something we're investigating for maybe deformation, don't know if that's the proper term, but maybe something in the ballpark of what he's doing. I just hope he stops, but he doesn't seem to be from his post and calling my job, and he said that there'd be more to come too. I just hope he stops with me at the least because I could care less if he wants to sue on his own, but we will see what Dad and I come up with on a lawyer at it. I want to clarify something that many people seemed unsure about. Some people asked if he was really in the running for a promotion or had made it up. I saw a physical

review that he brought home detailing the training assignment and the scores for the duties he performed, when it was done, and it was related to the position he was training for. The scores were really good, and he had no negative marks about the training, returning the award was unrelated to the training. His manager also took him out to dinner a few weeks before he returned the reward in regards to the promotion too. I also saw some confusing about when my ex-fiance returned the award, and many asked if he returned it during the meeting to make a statement to his co-workers. He returned it after the meeting and after spending time at his desk where he said he was uneasy, and that led him to go to his manager's office where he told him to never give him an award again.

In regards to how he showed his co-workers he wasn't a suck-up, he said he told them in passing in the days after he returned it to his boss. The award had nothing to do with the promotion he was training for, and wasn't a certificate needed for it. The award was given for how he helped others on Microsoft Teams through screen sharing when his boss asked him to assist others many times, and it wasn't related to his training this will probably be my last update for a while. So I decided to make it an edit instead since it seems I've surpassed the amount of updates I can have on some subredits.

My dad was able to get in touch with a lawyer, and he agreed with the suggestion that many gave to send a cease and desist letter to my ex, will call him Nate, specifically for contacting my job along with posting slash tagging me on a social media rants. We are considering other action too, but I wanted to touch on that because many suggested it. We've also quieted down at my job since HR called me in to talk about how Nate called them, and we had another meeting too. Long story short, I gave them the full picture, and they agree that he was being vindictive. I also showed them the social media rant he made, and that cemented just how delusional he was. However, Dad suggested something else too. He suggested that I call my ex's company to see if I

could speak to someone there, and I was able to speak with Nate's manager after explaining who I was to someone else. He ended up calling me back on the same day, and I told him that I just wanted to ask about a few things. I told him, we'll call him John, about how Nate had become my ex after his Facebook rant, and he said he saw it too from an employee who showed him. I also told him about how he contacted my job too when I asked about the promotion that Nate was training for, he confirmed it was real and that Nate was the only candidate, and he opened up about his decision to recommend him. He said he saw potential in Nate since he started working there in college as an intern, and he called him a hard worker too. He was younger then, but he tried to

support him. He gave him extra work that resulted in more hours when he wanted more in his early days, and he also helped him become full-time too. He said he was smart, honors in high school and college, and it showed at work too. He also said Nate used to be humble and appreciative, but that he let it get to his head somewhere along the way his annual reviews were among the best, and he recommended him for the vacancy that was opening up because he thought he'd do well. He called him into the office and told him that he wanted to offer him training for the would have come with a nice race too. They wanted to hire within, and he wanted to reward him for his hard work. There was no applying for the vacancy at all.

He asked if he was interested, and he said that he was, and he began training shortly after. The training lasted a few months, but he said he aced it. When I told him that he showed me the review of his training, he said it was true and that he did well. But when it came to the award, he got too buddy-buddy with how he talked to him, and he told me some things that I didn't know my ex told me that the award was for helping people through Microsoft Teams through screen sharing, but he received it for more than just that. He would stay late to help people with assignments that were not his responsibility, and he helped someone meet a deadline by staying late when it would have been late otherwise. In regards to the award, he received a certificate along with PTO during a meeting, and John said he shyfully accepted it. However, some time after the meeting on that same day, Nate went to his office and was unlike himself. But when John asked if something was wrong, Nate went off the rails and looked stressed.

When I asked if Nate told him to never give him an award again, he confirmed that he did along with a blind-sighting comment. He also raised his voice and used some profanity. And when John tried to calm him down, he wouldn't have it. He stormed out of the office and left the award there. But when his boss tried to find him a few minutes later, he found that he had left almost an hour earlier than he should have clocked out. He tried to call him to see if he was all right, but he didn't answer two consecutive calls.

And I had no clue about him leaving early when he came in the next day. His boss went to his cubicle and asked if everything was all right. But when he asked if they could talk in his office, Nate refused and said there was nothing to talk about. But when John said he wanted to make sure he was fine, he cursed at him from his cubicle, and others heard it too. So while his training review came back sensational. John said that that effectively ended his chances for the promotion because he was done with him he tried to be reasonable and gave him a chance to explain himself instead of getting on. him for leaving early. But he spat in his face. He didn't tell HR about how he returned the award the day before because he wanted to give him a chance and felt that he might have triggered

some trauma. But when he cursed at him the following day, that was it. He told his manager slash HR everything that happened and said he was wrong about him and wasn't mature enough, and he said it hurt because he put himself out on a limb to recommend him when other managers wanted to hire someone older. Throughout our conversation, he kept saying that he was a good kid and that he saw himself in him. But the more he thought about it, he said he might have a silver spoon growing up because he never learned how to be personable during stress which was essential for management to his last point. My dad agreed with his assumption of Nate. Honor Society and high school slash college along with the deans list too. His parents didn't require him to work when he worked

retail. He wanted to work because his friends were going to work there. As long as his grades were good, his parents paid for gas, brought him a car, never requested for him to work, and paid for college too. I paid for my own college and took semesters off because I couldn't always afford it with fluctuating hours but when people asked how I didn't see this side of him, he was always nice when things were going well, and his boss said so too. Giving him the award triggered something, and he wasn't mature enough to have a conversation about it. Nate would often surprise me with flowers slash other gifts, and we'd watch movies slash have fun. But when he became stressed with the award, his immaturity showed when he

accused me of taking his manager's side and began to treat me differently. My dad said that everything at work had gone right for him leading up to the award. But that that moment probably triggered something and showed he wasn't reliable when shit hit the fan because it was everyone else's fault. He also didn't blame me for not seeing it sooner because he was probably spoiled and protected by his parents at every turn. He also said that John didn't see it either after working with Nate for almost five years until getting triggered I still blame myself for not seeing it sooner, but this was the first time I've seen him really bothered by something that wasn't even bad. The award was a good thing, but it is what it is. He made another post talking about

a live stream he was going to do alongside his shop steward. But I won't address it in this update because it's getting too long. We're working on the cease and desist letter, and that is the first step right now. I appreciate everyone who reached out. It's been a lot having to explain to friends slash family who saw me tagged in his original rant, but taking things one day at a time because what else can you do? I hope you enjoy this story. Child desires his stepfather to become his primary paternal figure and requests me to relinquish my parental privileges. Hello, everyone. Prior to delving into the events that transpired, I would like to briefly address, to add something. I'm in a really difficult position regarding this situation with

my son right now and I would really appreciate it if you guys were kind and mindful with your words while responding to this post. So, coming to my son, he's 17 years old now and celebrated his birthday just a week ago. He's supposed to start college this fall as well. We've had a rocky relationship ever since I decided to divorce his mother two years back and I haven't been able to fix things with him, no matter how hard I try. He just keeps pushing me away which hurts, but I tried my best to keep him close until I couldn't. He doesn't respond to texts or calls and even when he does come to my house, he stays shut in his room the entire time and refuses to interact with me. We only speak at lunch or dinner time when he's here and even then he tries to keep the conversation to a minimum.

I was frustrated by all of this and I started to distance myself as well and stopped pouring my heart and soul into fixing my relationship with him because that's clearly not what he wanted. Maybe that was my first mistake. My equation with my ex-wife is also not good and I think that's a huge part of the reason why my son hates me so much now. I'm 44 years old and my wife is 42. We were married for almost 20 years but unfortunately, things started getting really bad for us when I lost my job a few years ago. I was laid off abruptly and so it came as a huge shock to our family. My wife is a teacher so she doesn't make a lot of money but she pulled through somehow and I respect her for that, but she also began to hate me even though I was trying my best to find another job as soon as I could.

I think I must have been out of a job for two months, but I wasn't just sitting at home during that time, I was still trying to find a job that paid well enough. My wife was the one covering all the expenses and we barely saved anything. The pressure got to us and we started fighting almost every day until we just didn't speak unless it was absolutely necessary. The bitterness and resentment just kept building up and eventually, she filed for divorce and I didn't contest it either. I think both of us were pretty done with each other by that point, but I think she'd expected me to fight for our marriage at least a little. So when I didn't do that, she began to hate me even more. I know this is true because even during the divorce,

she'd once called me and asked me if I was seriously going to go through this and end things. And I'd said yes. We split everything we had equally so there was no discontent there, but our relationship was done for. She hated me and I wasn't a fan of hers either, but we still had to work as a team for the sake of our son, who was struggling to come to terms with our divorce. He didn't want us to get divorced in the first place, but once we did, he chose to side with his mother over me

which really hurt since growing up, we'd always been best buddies so I don't know how that even happened. We were already living separately during the divorce proceedings and my son had obviously been living with his mom because I was staying with a friend of mine for the first couple of months, and I think that's when she managed to convince him that I was in the wrong somehow. I wish she hadn't done that and had kept our son out of this, but she just had to get back at me somehow, and if the divorce wasn't going to hurt me, she knew that this surely would. And she was right, my son distancing himself

from me was the worst possible thing that could happen to me, and she ensured that she made it happen point three months ago, she got married to her co-worker. I know him, he'd even been to our house a couple of times when my ex-wife hosted work parties. It came as a total surprise to everyone and I was completely blindsided by their wedding. I don't know how long they'd been together or if she'd been cheating on me but at this point, I didn't care because it just didn't matter to me anymore. So I didn't ask her about it. What I did care about was when my son started posting about his new stepdad. They were going to football games together, hanging out together, and even at his birthday party, I wasn't invited to, he posted a picture with my ex-wife and his stepdad and captioned

it mom and dad with a heart which just broke me. I did throw him a birthday party later but he didn't seem too excited about it so he and his friends just hung out in his room with cake while I sat out in the living room, wondering what had gone wrong. Later that night, after his friends had left, he said that he wanted to talk to me about something really important. My son then told me that he'd thought about this long and hard but he'd finally conclude that he wanted me to sign over my parental right so that his stepdad could adopt him.

He said that he just didn't connect with me anymore and he liked his new family better so he didn't want me around anymore. I was speechless and my first instinct was to argue with him but I realized quickly enough that arguing wouldn't do any good. If he wanted to be with his stepdad then I couldn't stop him by fighting with him. So with a broken heart, I told him that I'd do whatever it took to make him happy, and if this was what he wanted then so be it. He thanked me and then left the very next day. The days after that were the hardest for me. I couldn't bring myself to do anything and didn't even go to work for a few days because nothing seemed worth it. The little guy I was working so hard for so that I could give him a good life, didn't want that life. Not for me,

at least. I was devastated and spent my days lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling while trying not to break down. I honestly had no idea how to fix this or even if this could even be fixed. I knew that this was my ex-wife's doing and she must be really happy knowing that she'd finally ruin my relationship with my son for good. I also hated her new husband with a passion. Not because he was married to the woman I once loved, but because he was taking my boy away from me. But there was nothing I could do about this now. Fighting with my son would only make our relationship worse so the most I could do was just accept it and hope that he'd come back. Miraculously, my son did come back just yesterday.

But not for the reasons I'd thought he would. I believe that he'd finally come around and realize that I'm his dad and maybe his mother has brainwashed him into believing that his stepdad is going to be a better fit for the family than me but that's not true at all. I'd hope that he'd realize how much I love him and that would make him come back but that wasn't it at all. I was thrilled when he dropped by a friend. yesterday because I thought he'd finally changed his mind and he had, but he still looked

very upset. When I asked him what was going on, he told me that he didn't want me to sign away my rights anymore because his stepdad had told him that he couldn't afford to pay for his college tuition. So here he was since there was no other option. His mother alone couldn't pay for it all so he had to stick to the custody agreement if he wanted to go to the college of his choice. He sounded and looked very upset about all of this and that was quite hurtful.

It's not like I treated him badly, if anything it was the other way around. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why he hated me so much. I hadn't done anything to warrant this level of hatred for my own son, and it just really made me mad that he hated me for seemingly no reason apart from his mother's brainwashing. She taught him really well, I'll give her that. I kind of snapped at him when he said this because I just couldn't take this treatment anymore where I give my son everything and he gives me silence. I told him that he didn't have to stay with me if he didn't want to and there were still other ways to pay for college.

He could take up a job or a student loan if that's what he wanted. And if he thinks that I'm the worst father, then he absolutely should go ahead and get himself adopted by his stepdad because I don't want him to suffer anymore. Of course, I was being very sarcastic when I said this and he did pick up on it. He looked pretty ashamed while I was saying all this and didn't respond so I continued to rant. I couldn't help it, it just kept coming out on its own. I think the years of pent-up frustration of being hated by my own son for no reason was finally getting to me. The dam had broken and there was no holding back anymore. I told him that I hadn't willingly gotten divorced, it was his mother who'd wanted it in the first place and the only reason she hated me so much was because I hadn't fought for our marriage.

I don't know what lies she'd fed him while he'd been staying with her, but I could assure him that the divorce wasn't my fault. alone so he could throw out all the incorrect notions he had about my marriage with his mother. He was just 17 and he knew absolutely nothing about me or the life I'd led and if he was going by whatever bull crap my ex-wife had been telling him then he was in for a nasty reality check. I was not his enemy and I hadn't even wanted a divorce in the first place but if that's what she wanted then I wasn't going to stick around either. I knew that he was upset about the divorce but I tried my best to keep things as normal for him as possible. Even while I was staying separately, I'd visit at meal times, but he'd be

the one ignoring me because his mother had convinced him that I was the one responsible for the divorce. I told him that I regretted ever letting him stay with his mother during the divorce in the first place and trusting her not to fill his mind with horrible ideas about me. I finally ran out of steam after that and my son was pretty much dumbstruck. He had nothing to say and I knew that whatever I'd said had gotten to him because he looked shocked and apologetic at the same time. He didn't say much after that, just mumbled that he was sorry, and then went back to his mom's house. It's been a day and I haven't spoken to him since then and I feel really bad about what happened. I should have kept my emotions under control, at the very least and I feel horrible for yelling at him even though

he's just 17 and has been manipulated by his mother for the past two years of his life. I also do think that it was really cruel of him to tell me that the only reason he was coming back was so that I'd pay for his college tuition. That was just not okay, in my opinion. So I'd have for yelling at my son after he told me that he didn't want me to sign my rights over Update 1. Hi there. I'd just like to thank you guys for the love and kind messages and I'm so happy to see that so many single dads have been able to resonate with my story. Stay strong, guys. I've also noticed that a lot of you guys have been asking if I'd ever suspected my ex-wife of cheating.

Honestly, no, I hadn't. Even while we were getting divorced, there was nothing that made me think that she might have been cheating on me. Maybe there were signs but I'd never picked up on it, I don't know. And really, it just doesn't matter to me anymore. I don't think it's relevant whether she was cheating on me or not. She's already proven that she's a horrible person by trying to use our son to hurt me, I don't need any more proof of her being a trash person. As for why I didn't try to get my son to stay with me when I was living at my friend's place

in the initial months of the divorce, I did. I really did, but my son insisted that staying at home was more comfortable for him and since he was in school, I didn't want to cause him or my friend any more trouble than I already was. I'd try to visit him from time to time but the environment there was so hostile because of my ex-wife that I wouldn't be able to stay for long and eventually, even he started hating me. So that was what really happened. I don't know what more I could have done to avoid this. I really did my best to keep my son away from the drama of the divorce, but my ex-wife made sure to drag him into it and made him hate me. By the time I realized what she was up to,

it was too late for me to fix things and my son was already too far gone. It's been a few days since the last time I spoke to my son and we've been texting but haven't called or visited yet. I haven't heard from my ex-wife yet either, so I'm assuming that he hasn't told her about me yelling at him either. Under usual circumstances, he would have instantly complained about it and made sure that my ex-wife caused a lot of hue and cry about it, but if he's not doing that and trying to make me look like a bad father, then I guess it means that he's finally coming around. I'm not getting my hopes up yet, though, because I don't want to be let down. But I hope that I hope that he calls or visits soon so we can discuss our relationship at length and fix things between us soon enough.

Update 2, My son finally visited me today and it was an interesting meeting, to say the least. I won't say our relationship is miraculously fixed now because obviously, that's not how this works. It takes time and hard work to fix something that has been broken for so long but today was a start, at the very least, and I'm happy about that. He seemed very awkward and uncomfortable initially, but he did apologize to me for the way he'd been behaving. He admitted that when his mother and I were getting divorced, she did make it a point to tell him how I'd ruined their marriage and wasn't even trying to fight against the divorce and salvage it now, and he believed it. He didn't know any better and since he was just 15, he just wanted someone to blame and the most convenient option was to blame me for everything that was going wrong.

Things didn't get better once his mother decided to remarry. My son said that it was all his mother's idea for him to put up posts with his stepdad and make it seem like they were a tight-knit family when in reality, they weren't even that close. He did it just because he wanted to get back at me for tearing the family apart because he wasn't aware that it was actually his mother who'd filed for divorce. It was also his mother's idea to ask me to sign my parental rights away so that his stepdad could adopt him legally, but as it turns out, she hadn't even discussed this with him and had just sprung it on him without warning. His stepdad had been really taken aback and had said that while he did like hanging out with him, he didn't want to adopt him since he really didn't feel that connected to him yet and needed some time to make up his mind. He also mentioned that he didn't want to pay for my son's college tuition which he inevitably would have to pay if he adopted him. It wasn't as if he couldn't afford it.

He could but he just didn't want to. All of this had taken a toll on my son which was why he looked so upset the other day but he said that my outburst was really, necessary because it made him realize a lot of things that he needed to know. I was relieved that we were finally talking about this and he was finally realizing that he'd been lied to and manipulated by his mother. It was an incredible day for us and we finally seemed to reconnect a little. I know it's going to take a long time for us to get back to normal, but this is a good start. I told him that no matter what has happened in the past, I'm still willing to forgive him for

all of it for a fresh start. He also promised me that he'd confront his mother about whatever she'd been telling him all these years and he even suggested getting therapy together so we could fix our relationship in a more healthy and effective way. I'm happy that this is finally happening and even more thrilled that my ex-wife will finally get what she deserves. She's a horrible, horrible person and doesn't deserve to be a mother at all. I know this sounds harsh but I said what I said. If she's willing to use her son just to make me feel bad then she's just to make me feel bad then she's, clearly an unfit mother and I think I'm going to file for full custody soon. Of course, I'd have to discuss it with him first because who knows, maybe he still wants to

stay with her in spite of everything and I wouldn't want to stop him if that's what he wants even though that'd be very disappointing. I'm going to talk to him and find out what he wants and then, I'll talk to my lawyer. I truly wish that he finds out what a disgusting and selfish woman his mother is and decides to stay with me instead. I don't say this lightly, but I do. wish the worst for her. For years, she's been manipulating and gaslighting our son just so that she can make me feel bad. I can't even imagine how heartless someone has to be to even imagine

doing that, let alone actually go through with it. She's deranged and absolutely doesn't deserve a son like that. I truly don't know how I lived with her for so many years and how she went from a sweet, caring wife to a narcissistic and self-centered monster overnight just because I lost my job. But at least now both my son and I know what kind of a person she really is and she'll finally get her comeuppance. Updated three, my son just texted me saying that he's coming to my place and he needs me to pick him up from his mother's place. He said he's carrying a lot of stuff and so he needs me to drive him home. He can't just take the bus like he usually does. I'm in shock right now because I'm pretty sure that he's decided to move in with me. This is really

sudden, but I'm already in front of my wife's house and waiting for him to come out. My son has told me to wait for a few minutes and I can hear the sound of fighting inside the house, but I can't make out who's yelling at who and what they're saying. I so badly want to go in and bring my son home with me, but I don't want to trespass because I'm sure that my ex-wife will leave no stone unturned to get me into trouble. So I'm just waiting out here for my son now. Update 4. Okay, so I'm finally back home after a really long evening. and I'm exhausted but I feel like I have to share this just so that I can make sense of whatever has happened so far.

Like I said, I've been waiting for my son outside my ex-wife's house earlier because he texted me to come pick him up. A few minutes after my update, he finally came out, and even then, I could hear the sound of yelling coming from inside the house. My son looked furious while walking to the car with his bags and I soon noticed my ex-wife chasing after him. She looked angry as well and as soon as she spotted me sitting in my car, she headed straight towards me and started yelling at me from outside the car with her face right outside the window. It was pretty scary, but I told her that if she didn't back off then I'd call the police so she did take a few steps back but she didn't go away. While I helped my son load his stuff onto the car, she continued to scream at me because apparently she believed that I'd been the one who had turned her son against her and was calling me every name in the book but I didn't care, I knew the truth and so did my son and that's all that mattered. She continued to scream at me even as we drove away and all of a sudden, while we were just

a few yards away from her house, she threw a freaking rock at the car and ended up breaking one of my tail lights. I drove a little further away and then called the police immediately to report her. My son and I were both shocked by what she'd done and I couldn't believe that she was acting so unhinged just because she'd been exposed. I pressed charges against her and finally, came back home a few hours ago. My son had a total mental breakdown and I know he's taking this really badly so I'm going to take him to a therapist first thing in the morning tomorrow. I've also made up my mind to file for full custody tomorrow itself as well as a restraining order because what happened today was simply just unacceptable. I'm still hoping that her current

husband realizes what a nutcase he's married to and escapes while he still has the chance to. I hope that I managed to get full custody of my son and the restraining. order against my ex-wife soon enough as well. I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse is employed overseas while I care for our two children at home. I began reconnecting with a friend from my youth and came close to engaging in a romantic relationship with her. However, my spouse chose to forgive me afterwards. I confessed everything. My wife and I are long distance.

She works abroad. I take care of our sons, four and three, and do odd jobs. Originally we lived with her, but our kids ended up put in a dangerous situation and I didn't want that to happen again. Quitting her job wasn't an option in her eyes, so I moved to our home country with the kids while she stayed. She visits us a few times a year. I moved in with close family friends. It was a hard and painful decision. I had a lot of resentment over my wife prioritizing her job over a job over a

family. But I love her. I couldn't imagine not being with her. I thought about divorce, but we decided to try to work things out. The other woman was my friend when we were little kids. After my mother died, I left my hometown and moved in with my dad and didn't see that friend. But I stayed connected with some other people from that town throughout my life and when I moved back home with the kids I started visiting my hometown more. To see my mom's grave and visit my old neighbors. When I met my old friend again, I was excited to see her. But I'm nostalgic for everything from my childhood. It started out innocent. I was just happy to have another connection to that part of my life. Anyway, she has a son too who is six, and so we ended up taking our kids to the

park together while we had a coffee and caught up. It was innocent and I told my wife I'd reconnected with her and my wife was fine with it. She jokingly asked if she should, be jealous, but she didn't mean it. She trusted me. So I feel so terrible. We met up a couple times a month from then on. I don't really know when it lost its innocence. But I realized I started becoming infatuated with her. We'd hug every time we met up and before we left and I would feel so wistful when she would hug me. She would start talking about how her ex mistreated her and her son and I felt so protective. She started making comments like, my son, is so good with, your sons, it's like they are brothers.

And I talked to her about some of the stuff that bothered me about my relationship with my wife and she sympathized. I realized that I enjoyed the attention and I found myself entertaining fantasies that I was with her instead. I kept thinking about if I had never met my wife and had instead moved back home and reconnected with my old friend. And we'd somehow had our same kids only with each other. We both could have been happy and been spared so much pain. If I'm trying to be objective, she's a better match for me than my wife. She puts her kids first. She appreciates me for who I am. My wife does too, but I feel like me and the kids are always an afterthought for her. Even when she's home and spending time with us, she is always, always thinking about her job.

My wife is a good person and she does good work. But her job traumatizes her and she was already traumatized before she started it. She started doing her job to cope with her past but she's also retramatizing herself over and over. And my kids and I pay the price. I'm not trying to justify my actions I'm just trying to explain. My childhood friend was always complimenting me on my looks, how good of a dad I am, my physical strength. It's like she appreciated the unique things about me. And I feel like my wife loved me just because I was there for her.

Like she would have loved anyone who loved her and I was just the only one who did. It wasn't always like that, but that's how it started to eventually feel with my wife being so distracted by her job all the time. I didn't really notice it until I reconnected with my friend and noticed the contrast. I should not have let things get that far I know. But at first it was just an occasional thought and I just brushed it off as intrusive thoughts and telling myself, yeah, everyone has inappropriate thoughts, but what matters is your actions. But I just let it go too far. In hindsight some of our friendly banter was really more like flirting and it was not appropriate. That's an action, not a thought. Anyway, today was a reality check. She said she wanted to talk to me about something serious without the kids there so I let my other friend who I live with babysit and met up with her. And she basically confronted me with the fact that we obviously have feelings for each other and said I should leave my wife for her. But it was like immediately I realized the amount of bullshit I was feeding myself in her.

I instantly felt so bad. I didn't deny having feelings but maybe I should have. She kept insisting I think it over and when she saw how upset I was she said she'd let me think it over then left. I should have told her, no, there is nothing to think over, I love my wife and I'm not leaving her. But I didn't say anything. That in itself is weighing on me. I need to tell my wife. I know. I just don't even know where to begin. Next time she's coming home is October. I feel like this is the kind of thing to say face to face but I don't want to wait that long. and I don't want her to come all this way to have a nice time and ruin it. I could leave the kids with my friends and go visit her.

But on top of the money issues and logistical issues even that thought makes me sick. I keep imagining her smiling and being delighted to see me and then how devastated she's going to be when I tell her. I can't stop thinking about her face. I feel sick. I don't want to tell her at all and just never see my childhood friend again. I'm also mad at myself for letting my stupid fantasies ruin a friendship and a precious memory, but I know it would be wrong to keep seeing her and impossible to just be normal friends now. But I know honesty is the best policy.

I owe it to her to be honest. I just don't know what to do. I feel so wrong and stupid. I don't want to tell my friends. I think one of them would be really angry at me for almost cheating and the other might actually encourage me to leave my wife. I feel like I need someone to tell me what to do because I can't process. Edit 1 Okay, the comments are overwhelming and I need to sleep.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk to my friends about what's going on and, after being yelled at probably, see if they'll be able to watch my kids while I visit my wife and tell her what's going on. If not, I can probably ask a few other people. If not then I'll just tell her over Zoom. I'm also going to text my childhood friend that I don't want to see her. her again and then block her. I'm not going to leave my wife. If she leaves me, I'm going to stay single. I'm not going to date my ex-friend. I will always love my wife and I don't think it would be fair to anyone for me to date anyone else while I still love her. To stop from having to answer the same questions over and over, my wife is an aid worker. She doesn't do it for the money.

She does it because she believes God called her to do it. I do get jobs and some times construction. I choose to work more flexibly and spend more time with my kids. I put my wife through college. I'm not freeloading off her, I am kind of freeloading off the friend I live with, I'll admit that. But we're all happy with this arrangement. The reason I left with the kids is because we got carjacked at gunpoint. My wife changes location a lot so living somewhere safe but still closer to her isn't really an option. It's either travel with her officially through her organization, or stay put somewhere. I don't think my childhood friend originally intended to cheat with me, but I guess it doesn't matter anymore. Edit 2, everyone telling me to get a stable job so my wife

can come home, you misunderstand. You think my wife and I haven't spoken about this. She is never going to quit her job. She made that very clear. Her job, her job, her job, her job, is her priority. I promise you she's not doing it for the money. I'm not forcing her to do it by refusing to work more. If she said she would even consider quitting if I found a more stable job I'd do that in a heartbeat. Anyway, I'd talk stuff over with my friends. They were understanding. The plan is to fly over and see my wife next weekish, but we still have to make arrangements. I thought about contacting my wife's boss to see if we could do a surprise visit, But it seems like it would be so cruel to show up and surprise her and make her happy to see me only to break her heart.

So instead I called my wife saying everyone is okay but I have something bad to tell her that she should hear in person and I'm going to fly out to see her. She said I should just tell her because otherwise she's going to worry about it the whole time. So I almost did. But then she said no, don't tell me. I want to see you. So I didn't. Update 1, a lot of people ask me for an update, which I will, but I have a couple of things to say first.

First, I wanted to thank everyone who commented civilly, regardless of your opinion. I especially appreciated hearing from people who have been in a similar situation or in a similar situation to another person I mentioned. I wasn't thinking very straight at the time and I don't think I thanked everyone properly, but it was very kind of you to take the time to share your perspective. The other thing. I should have said something at the time, but a lot of people bashed my wife and I didn't defend her as much as I should have. So I'm going to set the record straight now. First of all, people were saying she was cheating on me.

But she would never, ever do that. She is honest and loyal, and a much better person than I am. Second, people were saying my wife is negligent and doesn't care about me or our kids. This is also wrong. She's very loving. Yes, she is busy with her job. But she says she thinks about us every moment. And when she is home, she spends as much time with me and the kids as she can.

She does get distracted and think about things at work that stress her out. But that's because she sees things that get to her. It's not because she doesn't care about us. She's not like half the parents out there that ignore their children. kids because they're distracted by their phone. People were also bashing me in a way that I think was kind of over the top. But honestly, you can bash me, but don't bash my wife. Me having problems in my relationship doesn't mean she deserves to be bashed. I actually showed the post to my best friend. And she pointed out that a lot of you are probably just being sexist. You

attacked my wife and said she didn't care about me or our kids because she doesn't get to see us much. But my friend pointed out that there are a lot of jobs that mostly men do that mean they don't get to see the kids much. And no one says that they don't love their kids and need to quit. So for everyone who said my wife doesn't love our kids, would you say the same to dads who are in the military, truck drivers, work on oil rigs? Would you say that they're all definitely cheating on their wives? Or tell their wives that they should leave them? If not, you're being sexist. And for everyone who told me to get a better job so my wife can come home, would you say that to a woman who is married to a guy who does one of those jobs?

For everyone saying me and my wife shouldn't be married or have kids because she's an aid worker, do you think there shouldn't be any aid workers? Or do you think no aid workers should be allowed to get married and have kids just because of their job? You realize a lot less people would be aid workers if it meant they couldn't have a family, right? You don't make any sense. Anyway, I saw my wife and told her everything, and we actually had a nice visit. She was glad to see me in spite of everything. And she insisted I not tell her anything bad until after she showed me something. Which was confusing to me, but I agreed.

Anyway, it was a little waterfall. And it was beautiful. She said she visited the waterfall whenever she got a chance and it reminded her of me, and she wished she could show it to me every time. I nearly cried when she said that. I almost couldn't even tell her after that, but I already told her I was going to tell her something bad so I had to. Anyway, we sat there by for a while until she said she was ready to hear my bad news. So, as much as it killed me, I told her everything that happened. She tried to be calm and understanding, but I could tell she was hurt. I almost wished she would have yelled and slapped me.

but she just thanked me for being honest. She asked what I was going to do. I said I wasn't going to stay in touch with my former friend either way, but I hoped she would forgive me and come home to us in October like she planned. She said I was already forgiven and asked me for more details about what exactly happened and my feelings, which I did my best to answer honestly. It was hard though. I could tell she was getting more and more upset.

Eventually she just said okay and we walked back to her base without really talking at all. That night we talked more. She knows it's hard for me to live the way we do and she just asked me again if I was sure I still wanted to be with her. I told her I knew she wasn't going to quit her job but I talked about how one of the hardest things is that even when she comes home, her mind is on her job and it's hard to see how sad and stressed she always is. She said she'd bring it up in therapy and try to work on being present in the moment with her family. She kept pressing me on if there was anything else she could do better besides quit her job and I told her how I felt about how sometimes it seems like she only loves me because I love her, and I could be anyone. She cried, apologized, said it's not true, and told me as many

specific things she could think of that she loves about me. I did the same for her. She said she was glad we talked and glad I was willing to keep working on our marriage, because from the beginning when I told her I had something bad to tell her in person she just assumed I wanted a divorce. She said she's always worrying I'm going to leave her, but she's grateful for every day I don't. I promised her I don't plan to and told her I worry the same thing sometimes. It was a really good conversation. The other days, I went to her job site with her for a bit and helped out with a few things. The local kids were teasing me. my wife about me, which was adorable. Things aren't perfect, but they're going to be okay.

Also, I know a lot of people said that my wife should leave me because what I did was as bad as a physical affair. And, confusingly, a lot of people said I did nothing wrong. I think it's somewhere in between. I did something wrong but I did stop it before it got that far. And a lot of other people say I should divorce my wife. But I'm not divorcing her. She has her flaws but she's also one of the best people I know. All of her flaws are because she's been through things that I can't even imagine. I chose to love her in spite of the things she can't give me. I will always love her.

I'm not someone who can stop loving someone. Even if we divorced, I'd think about her and wonder if she was okay every single day. I can't be in a relationship with another person even if I wanted to because I'd never be over her. it wouldn't be fair to them. It's my wife or no one for me. Update 2. Hi. This is sort of an update of my previous posts in this sub. You can see them on my profile. The sub won't let me link them, but it's also a lot of other stuff to get off my chest. I made a post here a while ago. It was about how I realized I was in an emotional affair with my old friend while my wife was working in the Philippines. That issue is resolved, my wife forgave me.

I haven't spoken to my old friend at all anymore and I'm much more careful with my other female friends. However, some of the comments I got on my last posts have still been weighing on me. And my wife is home now, and she had a lot of big news that I want to get off my chest. First, the good news is my wife is pregnant again. And I'm happy about it, in spite of everything. I know. Some people in my last post were asking if I was using protection to avoid. bringing more kids into the world. And honestly, no, we didn't. And I didn't want to admit that

for obvious reasons. I don't have any defense for that other than I'm stupid. The other major thing is that my wife probably has OCD. Basically, my wife realized she was late and probably pregnant a long time ago, but originally didn't tell me or take a pregnancy test. She said it was like there were two different people in her head, and part of her was screaming to go get things figured out, but the part of her that actually had control refused to do anything besides carry on as usual. She was too scared to take a pregnancy test and get proof that she was pregnant because she knew she wouldn't be allowed to go on her next assignment because of Zika virus. Basically, it was a lot of screaming at herself to do something about it before she finally got

the courage to tell her therapist what was going on and actually take the pregnancy test. So even though she got pregnant in July, she hasn't had any kind of care or anything yet. Also, I guess she'd been hiding a lot of things from her therapist because she knew the therapist would make her take a break if she knew exactly what was going on in her head. So she wasn't honest with the therapist about how she felt compelled to do this job, how she felt when she wasn't doing it, etc. But she knew she needed to do right by her baby so she finally told the therapist about the pregnancy, how she was having such a hard time doing anything about it. And then everything else came out. My wife described to me a bit more about how it feels to be in her head. It's not just that

she thinks God wants her to do her job. The way she said it basically, she constantly thinks about all the bad things happening in the world, everything terrible that she's ever seen. Every time she she could have helped someone but didn't even if she had a very good reason. And it makes her feel like she has to be working. She thought all these thoughts were God speaking to her, but she didn't tell the therapist that because she thought she wouldn't understand. She told me when she finally told the therapist, she basically asked her if she thought God was loving. And if so, why God would want her to constantly be thinking about things that made her miserable? That question finally made my wife open to accepting that she might have a mental illness rather than just having God talking to her.

She is home now, a couple of weeks earlier than she was supposed to come, so she can get prenatal care ASAP and a more in-death mental health assessment. I guess her therapist just thinks she is OCD but can't actually diagnose her or prescribe her medication or anything. I feel so bad for her and like I failed, too. I feel like I should have tried to dig with her more about what she was feeling. My wife was more open with me than the therapist about her thoughts and I feel like I know. knew something was wrong. But I assumed she was telling the therapist everything too, and that the therapist was helping to the best of her ability. And as much as I'm happy that I hope this means things are going to be better now, I know my wife feels awful and that makes me

feel awful. Basically, she was really devout and religious growing up, but after some stuff happened to her she kind of lost her faith and felt like if God existed he didn't approve of her. I met her around then and she was definitely in a very dark place for a while. She says that when she started having her thoughts about how she could fix the world it was really reassuring because she thought she was finally getting her faith back. So it's been pretty crushing for her to not have that feeling anymore. I'm hoping her therapist is able to help her with that as well. My wife doesn't trust religious leaders anymore, so that makes it a lot harder for her to have

to go through that. I believe in God, but I don't believe the same things as my wife and I'm less devout than her, so I don't always know what to say. I have told her I'm so sorry for what she's been going through, and that I'm so proud of her for finally going to her therapist for help even though it was so hard. I told her I'm glad she was open with me and I hope she knows she can rely on me for anything she needs. And I told her I'm sure God knows how hard it was for her to get help and he's proud of her too.

That made her cry, I think in a good way. Anyway, she's been home a few days now and we're just taking things one day at a time. Freedatal appointments coming up next week, but we're still trying to figure out the OCD appointment stuff. So far we've just been cherishing the family time as much as possible. The best news, my wife says when she's done with maternity leave, instead of going back to work she might try to go back to school. She wants to get her masters and learn another language or two, and she says part of the reason for that is that she would have more choices in her assignments and possibly be able to work with refugees here in the U.S. instead of traveling all over. That way we could find somewhere to live permanently as a family. She says she's not sure yet and she wants to spend some time figuring things out.

But I am hopeful for the first time in a long time that we might be able to be happy together as a family Sunday. I am really just hoping everything turns out positively. I feel bad for being happy, since this is so hard on my wife, but I really hope it'll end up being a positive thing all around in the end. We've told my two closest friends, who we live with, about the new baby, but no one else yet, except Reddit strangers. My best friend is almost as excited as me. She keeps coming to me talking about gender reveal party ideas. like randomly in the middle of talking about the election or whatever. We're keeping it from the kids for just a while longer because she's not very far along yet

and if God forbid the baby doesn't make it, we don't want the kids to be upset. So I keep telling her to be a little more subtle and she keeps forgetting. But luckily the kids have no idea what she is talking about when she does that. Anyway, that's my big news. Someone asked me for an update and I wanted to clear that. the air and get some of this stuff off my chest anyway. I hope you enjoy this story. Nurtured our foster child as part of our family for 19 years, but now her biological guardians who deserted her have reappeared and she's choosing them over us. Greetings, all.

My spouse and I, 47F and 47M, have an adopted daughter Lily, name has been changed for privacy reasons, who turned 21 a few weeks ago. We adopted her when she was just two years old because her biological parents, Becca and Harry, 46F and 47M, weren't ready to raise a child all on their own. Becca and Harry were old friends of ours and they'd never been very keen on having kids, so we were very surprised when Becca announced that she was pregnant and that she was keeping the baby as well. But after the baby was born, they started having a lot of fights over petty things and would often come to my wife and me separately for advice or just a rant about what's been bothering them. This went on for a long time until it finally got to a point where

they couldn't even talk to each other without fighting and so Becca decided that she wanted a divorce. We tried our best to convince her to give their marriage one last chance back then, but she'd made up her mind. We'd all been friends since college and lived close by as well so we were also really upset about what they were going through and did our best to help but we couldn't fix their relationship for them. We also had a lot on our plate at the time since my wife and I were trying to conceive but were struggling to get pregnant so it was just a messy time for all of us. But then one night, Becca and Harry showed up randomly and asked us to watch Lily because they decided to patch things up and stay together instead of getting a divorce and heading out on a date

after a really long time. We were happy for them and so we agreed to watch Lily for the night but then two days passed and they still hadn't come back for Lily. I made several frantic phone calls and texts and was about to call CPS on the third day when I finally heard back from Harry who told me that he'd been offered a job in Switzerland and he decided to take it up. He also said that he wanted my wife and I to adopt Lily because having a kid had been a mistake and they no longer wanted to be parents. They were done with this and since they knew that we've been struggling with getting pregnant,

he wanted to help us out as well by letting us have Lily. I was appalled that they were abandoning their daughter because they weren't up for the job anymore and let them have it on the phone but that wasn't going to make them change their minds. So after a few days of contemplating, my wife and I decided to adopt Lily because none of this was her fault and she deserved to be loved like any other kid. We informed Becca and Harry about our decision but we also told them that they couldn't reverse this even if they wanted to so they should think things through and they seemed sure enough so. we went through with the adoption process and soon enough, Lily was legally our daughter. We also cut Becca and Harry off because even though they'd given us Lily, we couldn't just continue to be close friends with people who had abandoned their daughter two years after having her because it was a tiring and thankless job.

It was shameful that they'd not only failed as parents but they'd also failed as friends because the least they could have done was be transparent with us but they chose to lie to my wife and me. After we adopted Lily, the two of them only returned for all the legal paperwork and then we never heard from them for a long time until recently. We raised Lily and stopped trying for another child because Lily was all we needed to complete our family. She fit in like the last puzzle piece and we've never thought of her as the daughter we adopted, she's always been our own. Of course, she was still always aware that we're not really her birth parents but she didn't know the full story until she turned 18.

Even after the truth was out, we didn't change, and neither did she. It was all going smoothly until eight months ago when Harry reached out to me on Facebook and told me that he and Becca were back in town and were desperate to meet Lily just once. We hadn't spoken in almost 19 years so naturally I was skeptical about letting them see Lily, let alone spend time with her. But Lily was an adult and I believed that she could make her own decisions for herself so I told her that her biological parents were here and wanted to meet her. She took a few days to think about it, but she agreed to meet them because she was curious to know more about these people and her own past, so I arranged a meeting between them because Lily felt awkward talking to them herself. My wife wasn't happy about any of this, but we couldn't exactly stop Lily for meeting her bio parents either because she was an adult and her own person now, so no matter how weird we felt about this, we just have to suck it up and deal with it. After that first meeting, Lily told us that they wanted to build a relationship with her for real this time and she wanted to give them a chance. We didn't stand against that because, like I said, she was free to do what she wanted to.

It stunned a little that she was going to keep in touch with these people who had abandoned her when she was just two and they hadn't even bothered to check up on her for 19 years but I decided not to say anything. It's been almost six months since then and as far as I know, she's been meeting Harry and Becca for lunch every day. every weekend. Lily lives on campus but her college is a four-hour drive away and it's not practically possible for my wife and I to drive down to see her every weekend so we try to make it every two weeks instead. We weren't happy that Becca and Harry got to see her more frequently than we did but we couldn't help it either and we hoped that she wouldn't hold it against us either. We were really pumped about seeing her next weekend though since Lily was graduating and we were expecting her to invite us to the graduation ceremony. But she dropped a

bombshell on us two days back when we were on a call and I just casually mentioned how her mother had already picked out her dress for the ceremony and she told me that we weren't actually invited to the ceremony. She said that she'd already given the two tickets that she had to Harry and Becca and she hoped that we'd understand. I was literally numb for a few seconds after that and didn't even hear what she said next. The last thing I remember her saying is that she wanted to give them a chance to be parents again and was counting on me to be more empathetic and compassionate towards Harry and Becca. I didn't take that well at all. I told her to go to hell and then disconnected the call as soon as she said that because I didn't even know what to say to her.

She tried to call me several more times, but I didn't answer because I was having a full-blown breakdown over what my daughter had just said and couldn't even bring myself to speak. My wife had been out at the time so I didn't even have her by my side to help calm me down and I ended up sobbing uncontrollably for the next half an hour or so. When I finally had the courage to check my phone again, I found a text from Lily saying that she was sorry for what she was doing to us, but she really just wanted to reconnect with her biological parents and give them the joy of parenthood that they'd never experienced. I couldn't understand why she was choosing those people over us who had literally raised her and taken her in when her own parents hadn't bothered about her. Harry and Becca didn't even deserve the first chance at parenthood that they got, let alone a second one. I didn't even want to speak to my daughter, not even to change her mind because I was beyond devastated.

I waited for my wife to come back home and when she did, I told her what had happened and had broken into tears once more while I was talking to her. Surprisingly, she took it a lot better than I did and even consoled me even though she looked equally upset with Lily's decision. She told me that we'd done our best as parents to raise her but now that she was an adult, we didn't have any control over her and she could do whatever she was. wanted to. I protested and said that we were the ones paying for her college tuition and yet she'd invited Harry and Becca who had never even lifted a finger to help us out financially even though I could tell from their Facebook profiles that they were a lot more financially well off than they were. I went off on a rant about how unfair all of this was but my wife only had one thing to say and it put everything into perspective. We couldn't force someone to love and respect us no matter

what we do for them so now, the only way forward for us was to sever ties with her gracefully and with dignity for our own sake. Two days back, I couldn't believe that she was even suggesting that we give up on Lily but after I calmed down the next morning, I could see that there wasn't much else that we could do. I didn't even want to cut her off to retaliate but just so that it wouldn't hurt anymore and so, I called her up and told her that her mother and I had decided to cut her off because we couldn't just sit by and watch her pick Harry and Becca over us after all that

we'd done. It hurt and while we wished nothing but the best for her, we were too old to be hurting like this and couldn't tolerate this degree of disrespect. She was free to invite whoever she wanted to her graduation ceremony and we were also allowed to be offended by that. When I told her this, she started sounding really panicked and nervous and told me the real reason behind her decision which seems just as strange now as it did back when she first told me. She told me that the only reason she'd agreed to let Harry and Becca attend the ceremony over us was that they'd promised to pay off her entire tuition if she let them attend as her parents and get photos clicked with them and also went back to Switzerland with them for a few months after she graduated so that she could spend some time with. Becca's mother who had Alzheimer's and had lately been asking for her granddaughter, referring to Lily. She said that she'd return all the money we'd spent on her tuition so far and we'd end up saving a lot of money in the process.

and she'd also be able to do good for some old lady with Alzheimer's. She could have just invited all four of us, but she said that then it would have been really awkward and weird for her to explain her family situation to the people at her college since nobody knew she was adopted so she just hadn't invited us because she'd assumed that we'd be understanding about it. And she hadn't told me about the real reason earlier because she didn't know how to bring it up without sounding materialistic. But even after she explained her reasoning, I wasn't satisfied and stuck to what

I'd said because I don't think it's fair to my wife and me to be left out of such a huge milestone in our daughter's life just because she'd feel weird about explaining two sets of parents to her friends. So I told her that my decision still stands and if we're not invited to her graduation ceremony then we're not part of her life anymore, that's it. My wife also agreed with what I said and I don't think I'm being too unreasonable. I'm not telling her not to accept anything from her biological parents and neither am I asking her not to go to Switzerland with them, for Becca's mother's sake. All I'm asking of her is to invite her mother and me to her graduation ceremony but she's been saying that I'm being really unreasonable and putting her

through a lot of stress just before an important event. Ida for demanding that my daughter invite my wife and me to her graduation ceremony along with her biological parents who abandoned her 19 years ago. Update 1. Hey, everyone. First of all, I just want to thank everyone for the kind messages and comments and to everyone who took out time to give me advice on how to deal with this situation. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's been really helpful and informative because this is a really complicated situation and we weren't sure if we were being reasonable with what we were asking of our daughter. But now we know that we were being perfectly fair and we've stuck to our guns. There are still three days to go before the graduation ceremony and we still haven't concluded

what is going to happen. My daughter and I last spoke 24 hours ago and I told her point-blank that she was being disrespectful and selfish right now and that if she wanted us to continue being a part of her life then she had to make a choice. She could either choose to include us or to leave us out, but the choice had to be hers. She sounded really distraught on the phone and it broke my heart, but I wasn't going to back down because she wasn't a child anymore and she needed to know that her words could hurt and her actions had consequences. So she can't just exclude us from important life events because it's embarrassing and then expect us to be all right with that. Update 2.

So there's just one day to go for the ceremony and by today, my wife and I had pretty much given up any hope of being invited. But an hour ago, Lily called us up and told us that she'd finally managed to buy two more tickets because someone else's parents wouldn't be able to attend and now she could invite us all. She sounded really upset on the phone, but she did apologize to her. to us for whatever she'd said and done and told us that she wanted to have a serious discussion tomorrow after the ceremony. So she asked us to book a hotel nearby and stay overnight. I know this is what I wanted all along, but I have mixed feelings now. I'm still going to attend, but I just feel unwanted and it almost feels like she's only inviting us because she feels

obliged to and not because she actually wants us there. I know I sound like a bitter old dad right now, but that's just how I feel and I truly regret ever passing on that message from Harry to my daughter all those months back when he initially got in touch with me. I feel like they're taking over the role of parents and I just can't stand it. My wife is throwing herself into work like never before and I know that she's hurting as well, but unlike me, she keeps her emotions to herself and I honestly envy her right now because I'm afraid that when I finally see Lily. I'm either going to start crying like a baby or I'll be so angry and hurt that I'll end up ruining the ceremony for all of us. I also don't know how I'm going to react when I finally

meet Harry and Becca because it's been 19 whole years since I came face to face with them. I don't like them, never have ever since they abandoned Lily, and now that they're back, I find myself hating them more than before because they're the ones who stirred up so much trouble for our family by returning. I know part of this is on Lily as well, but I just feel like things were going so well for all of us before they came along and ruined it all. I honestly just hope that Harry or Becca don't try getting too friendly with us just because we used to be close before they left because I don't think I even want to speak to them. It's bad enough that I'll have to sit through the entire ceremony knowing that they're also there, celebrating something that they

played no part in but I'll just have to accept it and make my peace with it if that's what Lily wants us to do. Frankly speaking, I just want to be there for Lily. I don't care what people think of me for this, but at the end of the day, she's still my daughter and even if she makes a couple of bad choices here and there, I still love her too much to just cut her off. Update 3. Hi, everyone. So my wife and I finally came back home today after spending the weekend with our daughter. Lily, Harry, Becca, my wife, and I went out for lunch after the the ceremony. We didn't interact much at the graduation itself and only got together after it ended and it was just for Lily that we went out altogether. The other day, as soon as I saw her

in her robe and cap, I felt all my anger and hurt melt away instantly. All the confrontations and discussions could wait for another day because I wanted that day to be all about my daughter and her achievements. After that, at the restaurant, it was uncomfortable and awkward and honestly, you could cut the tension in the room with a knife, but Lily's the one who got the conversation going and before we knew it, Harry and Becca were sharing their life story with us to explain their side and why they were back here all of a sudden. All those years ago, Becca's parents had also moved to Switzerland with her. With time, they'd started and expanded their business and soon, they were making big bucks. They wanted to get back in touch with us so they could at least

contribute somehow to Lily's education and cover the cause of raising her, but they were too ashamed of themselves to actually contact us and even when they tried to, they realized that we'd moved out of the house we used to live in and had changed our numbers as well. As for social media, I wasn't even on Facebook until a few years ago and my wife still isn't. We've just never been too big on social media and neither had we bothered to keep in touch with our other friends from college so nobody knew of our whereabouts which is why Harry and Becca couldn't find us and neither could they apologize and make. Amends. It was only last year that they found us on Facebook while randomly searching since they did think of us and Lily really often, as did we, and found me there.

They wanted to reach out to me but didn't out of fear and shame about what they'd done. But then they had to contact us to put them in touch with Lily when Becca's mother got diagnosed with Alzheimer's and began asking for her granddaughter. Becca was inconsolable when she was telling us about how she just wants to give her mother the one last meeting with her granddaughter before she passes on and if it's possible, she'd even want us to visit her because Becca's parents knew how tight-knit our group of friends was and it was a great experience. It was often her house that we crashed at after night outs. I felt awful for her and so did my wife so we ended up consoling them and put all our

differences aside for old time's sake. They told us that they would love to have us over for a couple of weeks, at the very least, so that we can spend some time with Becca's mother because her situation isn't looking too good right now and they've spent the past six months traveling back and forth every couple of weeks just so they're able to bring Lily to Switzerland just once. And as it turns out, Lily's initial decision to leave us out of the ceremony was her own and hasn't been influenced by them. In fact, they'd even wanted us all to be present at the event but nobody in Lily's circle was aware of her complicated family situation which is why she'd been hesitant to have us all here at once. She admitted that it was a bad decision that she made and

she was being selfish by not thinking about how we'd feel if she left us out. She was just embarrassed that she'd have to explain why she had four people attending her graduation when she told them it'd just be her parents and she felt like she owed it to Harry and Becca more because they were already so distraught but even she felt like she was doing something horribly wrong by leaving us out. She apologized to my wife and me and it was just a really tearful and emotional reunion in general for everyone involved. Harry and Becca also apologized for dumping Lily on us without any prior warning or discussion all those years ago and said that we were the only people they trusted but they just couldn't deal with guilt so they tried to be sly and they truly

were sorry about what they put us through all these years. They admitted that they were young and didn't know what they were doing so they ended up making one bad decision after another and now that they were in their 40s, they'd realized over time how badly they'd messed up and would do anything they could to make things right with us once again. And I know a lot of people aren't going to like what's coming, but we decided to forgive them and even agreed to visit Becca's mother once because that lady had made us all many a hangover cure for us to turn our backs on her. It's been almost two decades since we stopped talking and now that I'm in my 40s, I just can't hold on to this anymore and want to end this animosity. I know it's a huge deal,

but I truly think they've grown up and have changed for the better. And they're the ones who gave us Lily, the greatest gift we could have ever asked for, even if the way they did it was messed up. As for Lily, we obviously forgive her. What she did was incredibly stupid and selfish, but she's just 21, and when she realized that she'd messed up, she wasted no time in making things right either. We're all planning to go to Switzerland in a couple of weeks, and while I don't suppose we'll ever be as close as we used to be,

I'm sure that this is for the best. I hope you enjoy this story. The mother's new partner insisted that I address him as father even though I was 35 years old. Upon my refusal, he became emotional about his responsibility as a parent and left for his parents' residence in tears. I'm a 35-year-old man and for some backstory my dad died when I was 19, leaving my mom with me and my two siblings, I'm the oldest. It took some time but eventually my mom started dating again. We don't live together per se but our houses back onto each other and have a gate so it's pretty common for her to offer to do my laundry or me just go over for dinner or go look

after our dog, that kind of stuff. Plus me and my siblings go over there for dinner every other Friday night or so. A bit after she started, the men she's been dating have been getting younger and younger and I've never had a problem with them. She's been very open to me and my siblings that she wants to get married again and we've always been supportive. At least after the initial shocks, L-O-L. The latest guy is by far the most serious and they've been dating since around last June. He proposed at the start of autumn and they want to get married next summer, again, me and my siblings are fine with this because it's her life and we trust him.

He's a nice guy and they clearly love each other. But anyway. So long and short is, this weekend, her fiancé, let's call him Phil, calls me and asks me if I could come over. I say yes, sure, I'll be over after work and I assumed he just needed help with some DIY stuff they're doing. When I get over there he calls me sport and says we need to talk. I should mention this is something he does to me and my little brother, calling us thing sport, scout, little buddy, or my personal favorite, calling us red and blue seemingly out of nowhere. My brother is thirty by the way. He tried it with my little sister, twenty-eight, two once and called her princess once but

he stopped when she just stared at him. So thing with Phil is that he reminds me a lot of Charlie Day's character and horrible bosses and that his sole ambition has always been to meet a girl, get married, and have a family. When he told me and my brother this, my brother made some joke about how maybe our mom's going to come short on the last part and he got very upset, but they made up after. Anyway, so I go round and I ask if my mom's around and he says no, it's just him and that we really need to talk man to man. I say sure and he starts talking about how he's always wanted to be a father, etc., and raise a son to call his own and then he drops this bombshell by saying, Now I know I can never replace your father, the man who made you, but it would mean the world to me if you could call me dad.

I'll admit it, I sniggered a little. And then I knew he was serious because he looked like he was about to cry. And he didn't drop it either. I asked if he really meant it and he got really emotional and started talking about what it means to be a man and how his purpose is to have and provide for a family and he wants me and my siblings to be part of that family. Like he reiterated he'll never replace my father, and this did rub me the wrong way a bit, but he's ready to step up and be my dad and provide for and protect me and my siblings. And I'm just sat there thinking, dude, I'm a decade older than you and live in a separate house. I don't need providing for and even if I did, I don't think a guy a third of my age who works part-time at the hardware store and is into collecting manga is the man to do it. No offense if you are into that LOL, just, I don't know, I was a bit taken aback.

I was in shock so just said okay and he gets emotional again but in a happy way talking about how he wants to go camping or go to a baseball game. I don't even like baseball LMAO. And how he joined the Lions this year and how he wants to bring me into it too is his boy which just feels so surreal. Even more so as I'm a Shriner so all this talk of service and charity isn't the brag because again I'm 10 years older than this guy. Well I ended it by just saying, this has gotten a bit too weird and I was going home. He got very upset and I left, called my brother and he agreed it sounds weird as fuck. Later my mom called me and she, wasn't disappointed but admitted it's made him very upset and depressed. I told her that if he's embarrassed, he doesn't need to be, I get he's excited about

the marriage and we can just laugh this off as a funny story. She then said that wasn't what he was upset about, he, and she too a bit, is upset about the fact he poured his heart out and I rejected him. She said, yeah, it is a bit kooky, but this is how he proves to himself he's a man and I guess I was a bit angry and said something like, first off it's not my job to certify what's between his legs and second this doesn't prove he's a man, it just proves he's a nut job. I apologized immediately, but she said she didn't want to hear it and hung up. She called back 10 minutes later and we apologized and she begged me to just go along with it until he has some kids to call his own. I won't go too much into the details here, but she sort of let slip they plan to try IVF treatment

because she's not ready to give up on being a mom just yet. And while I, uh, have my own thoughts about whether or not that's a good idea, I'm not here to litigate on that. We finished up fine and I reiterated I'd support her and she agreed that it was definitely a stressful situation for me but begged me to at least think about it. Which leads me to here. I did think it over and obviously I'm going to say no. I had a dad and he died, rest in peace dad, and that's the only dad I've ever needed, I've ever wanted and I'll ever bestow that title on. I'm not asking if someone's unreasonable or what I should do, more so what I should say. This clearly means a lot to him for some reason and I deeply love my mom so want to try and minimize the damage.

Especially as we're still so involved in each other's lives and they live behind me. How can I make it clear to them, as painlessly as possible that I think this is weird and borderline offensive? I really don't want to rip the Band-Aid off because I fear what it might do to the family. Edit, showed my brother the post and he laughed so hard he started coughing L.O.L. then said we should call him Dr. Phil and each other blue and red, so swapped the nicknames he gave us around, thoughts? Edit 2, as people were asking, he has no access to my mom's money or anything like that. She rents the house and it came pre-furnished and otherwise has no real assets. She doesn't make a lot of money anyway so there's no pecuniary motive we could think of. Update, November 16th, 2024. Anyway, so I told both my siblings and we agreed we collectively put our foot down with Phil family dinner next week, especially after an incident where Phil referred to my brother as sport and asked if you wanted to go see a baseball game with him. Admittedly, I was a bit spurred on by what you all said and got involved, pinging him back with on no

tickets for me daddy and my brother responded with Daddy wants to me all to himself M. Hot and Phil took a few minutes to respond before saying he was shocked, speechless and disgusted. He then messaged me in private to say he was utterly appalled and that he'd never disrespect his own father the way you boys did. I kind of lost it at this point and said right, that's because you're not my father, Phil, you're a 24-year-old man-old man-child dating my mother. You have no right to my respect, especially not to the respect a father gets. I immediately said sorry but then blocked his number and left the group chat. Apparently he sent a similar thing to my brother who responded with more daddy stuff and Phil blocked him.

Well, uh, that aside, I don't think that family dinner is going ahead. After the original post blew up it seemed someone from his Lions Club found it and reported to their chair or whatever and Phil has either been expelled or resigned or in the process of one of the two. He has removed nearly all mentions of the Lions from his social media and no longer mentions being a member with his last post. on it being some cryptic goodbye post where he kind of drones on about what it means to be a man in the modern day and the duty of fatherhood bestowed on all men at birth. Really weird shit. My mom called me half in a panic, half in a rage after, about the stuff I'd been telling about him before breaking down and saying we need to meet, which we did and got my brother to go over

too. I know he has temporarily moved back in with his parents in the next town over but from my understanding they still want to go ahead with the wedding. But I think that's more so because they've already spent money on it. When she said she was determined to have more kids, plural, my brother did step up and asked if she really thought that was a good idea at her age, and I pointed out that assuming she had the baby next year, and she lived to 80, they still wouldn't have finished college. She just stammered on about how people live longer these days before breaking down crying and admitting she's not ready to give up on mothering due to some deep-seated trauma and fears about the family breaking apart that I won't go into for her sake.

When we reassured her that we weren't going anywhere she calmed down and we had a very good honest conversation where she's agreed to drop the IVF stuff on the grounds that it'd be too expensive and unlikely to get greenlit. But she's still adamant it's scientifically possible and she should be allowed to do it from an ethical standpoint because she has to win that argument, and has agreed to look into fostering instead. Me and my brother highly doubt anything will ever come of that so we're not that worried anymore. The very good news is she's also agreed to look into therapy slash psychiatric help to deal

with her trauma and we've helped get her in touch with a nice lady in town to unpack all this in a more healthy way. So at least one person is getting the help they need. I have no idea what's happened with Phil or what's going to happen with him but I did make it clear to my mom that he is not my dad, he's not even my stepdad, I'm not a kid. And he's never going to be either one outside of legal fuckery. She relented pretty quickly, I think she's finally broken out of her shell at least, and we've agreed that if things go ahead that's going to be a huge red line though I don't know if he'll want to be friends with me

after all this LMAO. Anyway, thanks for the help on the original post y'all. Edit, bit of an update as I can't respond to everybody but I think the marriage is off. Phil has gone AWOL again and has had a huge argument with his family as they've demanded he call off the wedding and date people his own age. This apparently made him snap. Me and my mom have met his mom an older brother who said Phil is very insecure around girls his own age and has never been able to talk them hence his preference. This very deeply upset my mom and after some begging from all of us. She has agreed to push the wedding back though she wants to keep dating him. I have no idea where Phil is, though his brother assumes he's couch surfing with his

D&D friends who have been sending me and my brother some not nice messages because clearly we're just jealous of the Mulf Hunter. If any of you socially inept fucks are reading this, I don't need to chase middle-aged folk because I can talk to boys my own age like a normal person. Peace. Next story, girlfriend told everyone she was excited about our planned baby. But then I found toxic herbs in our drawer and learned she caused a miscarriage for social media attention. I, 28M, have been dating my girlfriend, 26F, for four years. She has told me she always wanted children. We just didn't actively try for one though.

I never pressured her into having a baby, it was more so her idea. I make enough and we own a home so having a baby is something we can do. So, to clarify, I'm not mad at her for this. I'm extremely concerned and I feel like everything she has said about her wanting a baby was a lie. Abortion is also legal up to 21 weeks of pregnancy in our state. So she told me she was pregnant, she was having symptoms and took a test. She was happy about it and excited. I was happy as well and offered to make an appointment for her.

We both went together and she was six weeks pregnant. We have been planning, she even told her friends and family. She ended up having a miscarriage at around nine weeks. It was sudden and she was upset and I comforted her about it. It seemed very tough for her so I did my best to try and make her feel better. I had to retrieve something from a drawer in our bedroom and I found some herbs covered under a bag. It was paineroyle and mugwort. I was confused because I have heard of paineroyal being used to cause self-abortions.

I asked her about it and she immediately became defensive and told me that she didn't know where it came from. I kept trying to ask her about it and she ended up telling me she used it to have a miscarriage. She was crying and I was just in shock. I asked her why. I told her she didn't have to lie to me about it and I'm confused because she was the one who really wanted a baby. She didn't give me an answer about it. I told her that we need to go to the hospital to make sure she isn't hurt, since Paineroyal is toxic, but she kept declining. It's been a few days and she seems fine.

I've been trying to ask her about this, but she just says she doesn't want to talk about it. Apparently, she was telling her friends and family she had a miscarriage and has been accepting condolences. She's avoiding this, but I don't want to push it towards her anymore. I'm not too sure what to do about this because I'm worried she might be having some type of mental breakdown or something. I eventually told her that she should not tell me about having a baby again, and I can't trust her about it anymore. She was upset hearing that, but what else could I say about something like this? This might make me a huge asshole, but in the back of my mind has been thinking she might have did this for attention from her friends and family. I'd quote to do and I feel

like a horrible person for even thinking this stuff. Edit, I'm thankful for all the info on the herbs and all of the advice. I can't comment for a few hours because I'm going to not be on Reddit but I'm going to talk to her tonight, and tomorrow or whenever everything is calmed down I will make an update. Update 1, December 2nd, 2024. Firstly, for some context, we have a planned parenthood that specializes in abortions like five minutes away. I understand people thinking she didn't want to get an abortion because of protesters. I completely understand. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I drive by that specific place every single day for work. I have seen no protesters. It's usually empty besides a few cars on the side of the side of the road. But, I still understand

why she wouldn't want a medical abortion from reading the comments. I asked her why, what was her goal here? She was trying really hard to avoid the conversation and left the room, but, I apologize if this makes me an asshole. But I told her if we can't have a conversation about this I have to end the relationship. She came back in and said the reason why she did this was because she never felt like her family gave her enough attention in life, and didn't feel supported by them so she wanted to tell them she had a miscarriage so they can feel bad for her. I was confused because she could have just gotten a medical abortion and lied about it instead of just harming her body with a toxic herb. I asked her about that, and she told me she wanted to have

the experience of having an actual miscarriage. I was so confused and in she was so confused and in shock so I didn't say much else because all of this just sounded crazy to me. She told me she didn't want me mad at her and she doesn't want to break up and she was literally begging me to not break up with her. I asked her, is there any chance the baby wouldn't have been mine? She said no. I told her she needs to get therapy ASAP. I thankfully make enough to afford therapy and I told her I will pay for her if she just please go to therapy. She agreed. I also told her, I also told her, told her she needs to go to the hospital and I was telling her all of your comments about the septic that can happen in liver and kidney damage and that kind of scared her into going to the

hospital to get checked out. We went to the hospital last night and thankfully she is okay. Apparently she drank around one cup of it a day for a few days. I found out she was also taking some other things, high dose of vitamin C, turmeric, parsley. That's pretty much it for now, but I'm not too sure where to go from here. I love her and I do want to be with her, but all of this is so out of the blue. Thanks for all of the comments on the last post. If anything else happens I'll make another update. Comment where Op has replied.

Commenter one, she sounds like she has some serious mental health issues like others have said. If you choose to stay then I would be cautious moving forward having kids with her. She's willing to cause herself self-harm. for the sake of attention. There is no telling what she would do if you guys have already had the child. I've seen mothers fake their child's illness for attention before. She comes off as deeply troubled and manipulative. I don't think she wants to hurt anyone out of malice, but it's still very concerning. If you stay, therapy is a must. Hoop, thank you. Yeah, the idea of having a baby is well off the table now. I'm not too sure where I'm going to go with this, but I'm

heavily thinking about leaving the relationship after reading the comments. I'm just worried about her possibly harming herself if I do break up with her update 2. December 4th, 2024. A lot has happened from my last post and now everything is calmer now. I'm hoping this will be my last update. Apologies since this is going to be long. In my last post I told her she needed to go to therapy ASAP. Told her I will pay and everything. I just hoped for the love of fucking God to just for her to please go to therapy. That was the only thing I wanted.

I haven't set up anything yet, because she told me she doesn't want to go to therapy now. She told me she will never do what she did again and doesn't believe she needs therapy. I was going back and forth with her on this, but she was very insistent on not wanting any therapy. I told her I can't move on in this relationship if she doesn't do therapy. She was arguing with me about it and told me if I loved her, I will stay in this relationship regardless and it wasn't even that big of a deal. I was pretty pissed hearing that because not only did she purposely miscarried the baby we planned for, she harmed herself for no reason, in her words, to experience a actual miscarriage, and I can't even trust her anymore. I was thinking about

telling her parents at this point and I accidentally brought it up out of worry of her mental health slash me being pissed off and she begged me, dot on the ground begged me to not tell her parents. I took her word, because I didn't want her to lose her mind even more over this. I told her I absolutely have to leave this relationship. I told her it isn't my responsibility anymore because this has honestly been making me lose my mind too. I was holding it back but I can't really take it anymore. Also yesterday, before this fight, she publicly stated on Facebook that she had a miscarriage and was tore up about it. Accepting condolences again in the comments. I brought that up to her, and she told me the same thing in my last post, she was pretty much

just wanting to feel important to friends slash family. She was so nonchalant about it and honestly seemed like she thought I'd think I wouldn't care. I told her to stop posting about it and to stop telling people. Back to when we were having the fight, I told her seriously I can't be with her anymore. I will allow you to stay here or you can go back to your parents. She was laying on the ground crying at this point. I had my phone ready because my gut feeling was telling me that she might do something to herself. She would come out of the room she was packing in and come close to me and hug me out of nowhere. She said that if I'm breaking up with her she wants a last final hug. The wildest thing is she came out of the room with one of my shirts on, a shirt

she was not wearing before, take it off right in front of me, and tells me here's your shirt back. I don't know what she was trying to do. She finally ended up leaving and went to her parents. Right before she left she was crying and I think it started to hit her that I was actually being serious. She was messaging me and calling me constantly, ranging from her just fixing this together, saying she wants therapy now, and her saying she will never do what she did again. I've been ignoring all of it. I realize this is not my responsibility now, and her parents can take care of it. Like what my worry has been, apparently, she did try to harm herself.

Her mom messaged me about it. She said that her daughter is at the hospital and I'm assuming now on a whole because she tried to kill herself. She is physically fine. That is the last of it, and I'm thinking this will be my last update. I am not going back to her, and I'm going to try and stop thinking about all of this. And get a good lock for my door. Thanks for all of the advice on the last post.

Edit 1. I am telling her parents now. If anything happens I will just update it here edit 2, I ended up telling her parents. I had messages relating to this between me and her, took photos of the herbs she used, told them everything. Thankfully, they didn't accuse me or do anything drastic and thank me for telling them. They said they will tell the hospital what I told them. Not too sure what's going on at the moment or what's going to happen after since she is being held right now. I will update this if anything else happens. I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse's passing rendered me a solo parent until my childhood companion relocated to the area with her partner. However, she was

revealed her emotions to me four weeks prior to her wedding. Wedding. My point 35M, friend Brie, 35F, just told me she loves me four weeks before our marriage, and I am not sure what I am supposed to do here. I want to know if I am doing the right thing. To give some context, I lost my wife two years ago. I have a five-year-old daughter. I have not dated in the last two years because I have major trauma from losing my wife. I still love her a lot and don't think I am ready to move on. I invested all my time in my daughter, who looks exactly like her mother, and my work to keep my sanity for the last two years.

I have been friends with Bree since we were in elementary school. We lived in the same neighborhood growing up and were best friends. She is an awesome person, and we were inseparable growing up. The weirdest part was we had completely different personalities. She was very outgoing and always had a lot of friends. I am a big introvert and Bree along with a few friends was all I needed. Bree was a serial dater and I don't remember any time since middle school since she was single. Bree and I never dated though.

Bree and I also went to the same college. She never had a stable boyfriend, but just jumped from one relationship to another. I, on the other hand, did not date seriously until I was in my job. junior year. When I met my wife, she was a freshman and we hit it off instantly. We fell for each other and spent all our time with each other. This strained my relationship with Bree as I would generally hang out with my wife instead of her. That was the time Bree and I slowly started drifting apart. After college, I moved to a different town for my job, and Bree and I occasionally messaged each other, but nothing beyond that. Brie attended my wedding and that was the last.

time I saw her. We kept in touch, but mostly by commenting on each other's pictures or keeping each other updated on significant life events. Brie did reach out to me when my wife passed away and we talked on a phone call. Last year, Brie and her fiancé moved to my city. I was still grieving, and both have been amazing support for me and my daughter. My daughter loves dancing, and Bree helped me enroll her in dancing and gymnastics classes and sometimes takes her to them. I also became good friends with her fiancé, who is indeed an incredibly good man. My daughter also loves Auntie Bree and Bree sometimes helps me babysit. Last week, Bree came to my house and asked if we could talk.

Her tone sounded serious. She told me that over the last few months, she feels like she has started to develop feelings for me and is not sure anymore if she wants to go ahead with the wedding. She felt I also had started developing feelings for her. I told her that I am not ready for any relationship before I can deal with my mental health, for which I go to a therapist regularly. She tried to convince me that she loved me, we are soulmates, and she felt that we were meant to be together. However, I do not have the same feelings for her.

I love her as a friend, but nothing beyond that. We were both of her. We were both of her. emotional, but she said she was glad we talked about this. She left after that. Bree called me that night and told me not to talk about our conversation to anyone. I thought a lot about it and decided that I would not tell her fiancé about me and my conversation from last week. I feel it's their relationship, and I do not have the right to ruin their moment if Bree decides to go ahead with the wedding. However, I feel guilty that her fiancé does not know anything about this and is going into a where Bree might not be fully ready for it. Can you guys give suggestions on what I should do

in this case? Am I wrong for not telling her fiancé about our conversation? Update 1, the last month has been crazy, and my whole world has turned upside down. Again for context, I lost my wife two years ago and we have a five-year-old daughter. Bree and her fiancé Jason, 33M, moved to our town a year ago, and we have reconnected as friends and they have done a lot to cheer me up during this year and bring my life to normalcy. After Bree told me that she loved me, I told her that I was still not ready to move on as I still miss my wife. She said she understood, and I did not hear from her or Jason for a few days. The guilt was killing me, as I was not sure if I should tell Jason about what she told me. Thanks to everyone who commented on the post, it helped me think the

situation through. I finally called Bree after a few days and asked her to meet me for lunch. I talked to her and asked her if she was going ahead with her wedding. She broke down and told me she was not sure. I told her that she should at least talk to Jason regarding her feelings and not be dishonest with him. I also assured her that I would not say anything to Jay, but I just wanted her to be happy. She said she understood and left. That night I put my daughter to her. I was to sleep and was watching TV. Around 9.30 p.m., I heard a loud knock on my door, and it was Jason. I opened the door, and he was in tears. He started yelling at me and asking me why I had to steal Bree out of all the people. I tried to calm him down, but he just kept on shouting.

I was trying to get him to sit down on the bench on our porch. I told him my daughter was sleeping upstairs, but he slowly was getting more and more physical. He punched me in the face, and I was able to push him off. I told him to get out of my house, and he sat in his truck and drove away. I immediately called Bree, and she was crying and did not sound well on the phone. She told Jason that she could not marry him, because she had feelings for me. I was really scared for her, after the physical altercation with Jason, and told her to gather some clothes and get out of the house.

She did that and came to my place. I just didn't feel she was safe with Jason. I consoled her for almost two hours and was able to get her to sleep. The next morning, we had to call her parents to let them know about what had happened. Bree kept a brave face, but I could see how much she was hurting. Her parents asked her to take a few days off, and immediately come back home, and she did take a flight in the evening to go home. Over the next two weeks, the wedding was called off.

Bree and I were talking every day and she was just very exhausted. She talked to Jason a few times and kept on asking her to take more time to think. However, I think Bree just wanted to get out of it and decided to just break it off with Jason. Currently, Bree is staying with us for the last two weeks. She still has a job here and started going back to work last week. I have talked to Bree in detail about what happened. Bree told me that Jason and her were dating on and off for the last four years. Jason is not very career-oriented, and Bree is very good at her job.

She felt he was a nice and reliable person, but was unsure about him from the start. She felt that she was not getting any younger, and hence they decided to get married. When she heard about my wife passing away, she just felt really bad and wanted to be around me to comfort me. When she got her big promotion, which meant she could work in a corporate office, she immediately chose my city and moved here. Jason also moved here and got a new job. She never had any romantic feelings for me back then. As she started hanging out with my daughter and me, she started feeling the bond we shared when we were growing up. Except, I was the broken one and she was taking care of me. She said that she realized that she was enjoying her time with us, more than with Jason.

She realized she made a mistake with Jason, and what she wanted was right in front of her. Since, she slowly started thinking about me in that way and finally told me about it. She knew her relationship with Jason was over the moment she confessed to me. It's a shitty situation, but I am glad that she realized that before getting married versus. After. As for Jason, I feel bad for him. He is moving back to our hometown closer to his family. He is currently in their apartment and will move sometime next month. I know a lot of you would be curious if we were dating.

We are not dating. I don't think I can date anyone right now and neither should Bree. She is my friend, and I am happy that she is staying with us, and plans to be here until everything is sorted out. My daughter loves having anti-Bri around too, so that's a bonus. Plus, it's really nice to see her slowly get back to normal. Thanks again for helping me during my last post. Cheers.

Additional information from OOP. One of the comments from the post really stuck out to me when I was trying to decide if I wanted to tell Jason myself about what Brie told me. Following is the comment. I would not share your conversation. I'd also find a way to pull away from spending any time with her that also does not tear her out of your daughter's life. Not that she is or ever will replace your dear wife and your daughter's mother because that is impossible. But your daughter at a young age had already lost her mom and I'd hate to see her traumatized by having another woman in her life abruptly leave. My daughter really loves having her around and I also do not want her to lose Brie.

I have thought about the pros and cons, and I feel I'm happy she is staying. with us at this point. Update 2. November 8th, 2024. I wrote a post nine months ago about my friend Bree telling me that she loved me a few weeks before she was supposed to get married. For context, I lost my wife three years ago, and we have a six-year-old daughter. Bree and her fiancé, Jason, moved to our town a year ago, and Bree confessed her feelings for me just weeks before her wedding. Things went south quickly, and and Bree ended up breaking up with Jason and canceling the wedding. She was staying with us when I last shared an update.

The family members didn't know that Jason had assaulted me, and I had to assure everyone that we were safe and okay. I'm feeling particularly happy this week, so I thought I would share an update. Firstly, the reason Bree moved in with us while Jason was still in town was because I had a temporary restraining order, Tiaro, against him. Bree also filed for one but was denied, as he had never directly threatened her safety. She said she felt secure with us because of the TRO, and I agreed. Jason didn't cause any issues after that, though he continued texting Bree, asking her to work

on their relationship. Eventually, he moved back to our hometown in February, and we haven't heard from him since. Bree got her own apartment once Jason left town, but she remained very much a part of our daily lives. I enjoyed having her around, and my daughter loves her. In April, Bree brought up the idea of us dating again. I explained that I wasn't over my wife's death and didn't want to be unfair to her because I still love my late wife deeply. Bree told me she knew she could never replace my wife, nor did she want to. She shared a beautiful analogy, said my heart is like a big pot. It holds a lot of love for my late wife, but it also made room for more love when my daughter was born. Loving her wouldn't erase my love for my wife or daughter,

it would simply mean there's more room in my heart than I realized. I took a month to think it over, talking to my mom and mother-in-law, late wife's mom, who both encouraged me to give a relationship with Bree a chance. We officially started dating in May, and it's been surprising how quickly we fell in love. I think the strong foundation of our friendship helped a lot. The last six months have been amazing, and I've never seen my daughter so happy. She's a big chatterbox now and insists that Bree comes to all her school events and recitals. Sometimes, I feel a little jealous of their bond and even a bit left out of their little chats. The reason I'm writing this update is because I'm planning to propose to Bree this Christmas. It's not a surprise proposal, we went

engagement ring shopping last weekend and finalized the ring. We also have wedding plans for next summer. I know it seems quick, but I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone else. Brie deserves to officially be part of our family. My daughter is thrilled, and she and Brie are already shopping for dresses for the engagement photo shoot. Our families couldn't be happier, and we planned to get engaged at a small gathering of family and friends over Christmas weekend in our hometown. I know some people judged me for taking Bree in after she left Jason, and others judged her for leaving him at the altar. Life isn't easy, trust me, and things don't always go as planned. But I'm grateful Bree found the courage to tell me how she felt back then. Thank you all

again for your support on my last post. Comments where OPP has replied, commenter won, downvoted. Thanks for the update. Glad things worked out and wish you both a great future. OOP, thanks. We are excited for the next chapter. Comment her two, wait, so why didn't she end her relationship before ever sharing with you that she had feelings for you? OOP, it was such a crazy time, four weeks before the wedding. I know the right thing should have been the right thing to do.

However, I am also glad she did not go through with the wedding when her heart was not at the right place. I feel bad for Jason too, but I think it's better for him it happened, instead of learning about it after getting married. I did initially blame myself for all the pain that I caused Bree. I know she would have been married, happily, to Jason, if I did not exist, but through therapy, I have learned to let go of the guilt. It was something I could not control. Commenter three, so you explained to her that you were still grieving your wife,

and she gave you some stupid analogy to pressure you into dating her. She sounds desperate and dumb, and not a good influence for your child. I feel bad for your daughter. I seriously doubt your wife would approve of this for her. Commenter four, her analogy was pure manipulation and you are too stupid, or too horny, to see it. It's been less than a year. Good luck, dear horny man, you are going to need it. Your wife would be ashamed of the damage.

you are going to end up doing to your daughter and all this. You let a manipulative woman con her way into your bed and home. Next story, dying father finally told me why he hated me entire life. He never wanted a son, and wanted me to give me up for adoption but my mother wouldn't let him. I have three sisters that I love and a mother I adore, not always though. I hated them when I was younger because while my father would yell at me or belittle me for everything possible, they were the apples of his eyes. I did my best at school in karate, nothing impressed him, not when I earned a full scholarship to a prestigious university, not when I was the valedictorian of my year group, not even at 26 when I managed to start my own

small company that has grown considerably since. No matter what I did, I was made to feel worthless, less than a person, good for nothing, useless, a failure. I have lingering issues about it to this day. When I was younger, all I wanted just once was for my father to say I'm proud of you, nothing even close. He doted on my sisters and mother though and I'm not proud to say I hated them for it as much as I hated him. How dare they get away so lightly, how dare they get his smiles and laughter and kind words when all I had to get was cruelty. It took me a long time to finally begin a relationship with my sisters or mom that wasn't the jealous, angry son. Today we are all very very very.

close, I love them to death and would do anything for them. Some time ago my father was diagnosed with cancer, he's had other issues as well, suffered through two heart attacks and a stroke and it seems as if his body can't carry on anymore. He's dying and I don't care, I don't have it in me to care and if he died I could live the rest of my life having never seen him before he passed or knowing that I won't attend his funeral. He wasn't present at my wedding either, I did not invite him which was very noticeable to many of my family members, but I didn't care. I'd found a woman who loved me and that I loved and I wanted to share that day with people in my life that I love or strongly like.

My uncle was always sympathetic to my cases growing up, my father, his older brother was an asshole to him and he understood why I wouldn't want my father there even while other family members thought I should have still invited him. Here's the thing he wants to see me, he probably has only a few months left and now wishes to see me. My wife, mother and sisters all want me to pay a visit to him, while my wife thinks I should go just once, she isn't pressuring me, she knows my history with him and says if I decide not to go. That's it then, my mother and sisters, however, do think I should go and have all spoken to me several times in the past month about this. The only person who's laid off

bugging me about it is my older sister. I'm the second child, she's 34 and she was the one who say my father be a dick to me from as far back as she or I can remember, my two other sisters are several years younger, 26, 25. We met recently to talk about it, my older sister and I and for the first time in years I broke down crying, I literally just let it out. I told her I can't do it, I tried to put everything in the past, but I can't, I hate that man and what he did to me mentally. I can't forgive him and she says she understands, she said she'd speak to my mother and sisters however my mother and sisters tend to be very pushy. Anyway, do you all think I should go at least once?

Update, so I went to see my dad and it basically went like shit. I caved, I fucking caved and decided fuck it, I'll see what he wants. Maybe this is something worth hearing. I visited the hospital by myself. No wife. No mom. Just him and I. He looked old.

and tired and just as I predicted I didn't find it in me to be angry, this wasn't the man I remembered, this was just some old broken man. It would have been a waste of my time to feel angry and yet I did. I was so pissed off because I couldn't stand across from him eye to eye and let him see that the son he treated like dogs hit had built a wonderful life for himself. We didn't say anything to each other for around an hour. Then eventually I found my voice and said, you know, this is the last time we'll ever see each other right. No response. Then he replied, I know. So I asked him why now? Why did he want to see me so badly that he had to send a message through my mother for me? And here is where I learned that my existence was fuck all to him. He admitted that he did it just to give my mom closure, she didn't ask him to do it, but he knew she wanted it. So I asked him why he treated me the way he did my whole life and he replied, I never wanted a son, never had any interest in one.

It fucking hurt, but I kept listening and he kept speaking. He said that in the first few years of my life he tried his best to care about me, but eventually he realized he couldn't. Then came the final nail in the coffin of my relationship with that man. I never loved you, but I didn't hate you either. I just didn't care for you because I never wanted a son, I wanted to give you up for adoption when you were younger, but your mother would never have forgiven me, so I did my best to push you aside and you would always try and get my approval for stuff. I felt bad at times but I just didn't care for you by that time I was crying. Me a 31-year-old man left my dying father in his hospital room and went to my car crying.

I could have gone my whole life not knowing that. Fuck my mom, my sisters, my wife and my dad. I'm just so pissed right now. There was a part of me that hoped we would bury the hatchet, Nope, I just learned he never gave a fuck. I will never speak of my father again. I will not attend his funeral or visit his grave. When he dies I'll be at the bar drinking because the fucker is gone from this world and I will I can to be the father he never was.

Edit, I just want to say thanks to everyone for your kind words, both in comments and PMS, they really helped a lot. Particularly while I was hung over this morning and laying in bed thinking about life. Also to the stranger who gave me gold, thank you. Never had that before and it was quite unexpected. I've got a ways to go still, I feel like yesterday opened up wounds I didn't even realize had never really healed and I'll be talking to my wife about it and most likely a professional as well. I won't cut my mom or sisters out. I am not angry at them. Their experiences with my father were different from my own and I do not fault them for that, however, right now,

the best thing for me, is just to not be around them as much. So I don't think they'll be seeing slash hearing from me for some time. Once again, I sincerely thank everybody, it was your comments and PMS that made me realize, yeah, it hurts like shit, but I can't let him have any more power over me, I'm in the prime of my life and I've built a nice life for myself. I don't need a dying man's approval anymore

because I've done the best I could for so long without it anyway, so here's hoping things will get better soon. I hope you enjoy this story. Just a gentle prompt prior to the video starting, you will be presented with two anecdotes in this video and both contain recent developments. Moving on to the initial narrative. My partner's domineering jealousy completely spoiled our Vegas trip, and I've had enough of it. Three weeks ago I went to Las Vegas with my girlfriend Laura, her best friend Sarah and her boyfriend for a vacation getaway. We're all college students we had just finished.

final exams and we had been planning this trip for about six months. There were issues before we even got there, by the time we boarded the plane was just about full. Sarah and her boyfriend got the last two seats together but Laura and I were forced to sit apart from each other. No one wanted to give up or swap seats. I gave her the option of the two final seats, a little girl and her mom were two high school slash college volleyball girls. I sat in the window seat next to this extremely chatty five-year-old girl and her mother in her late 20s or early 30s. I entertained the kid for about three hours of our five, six-hour flight until she fell asleep. My older sister has a child about that girl's age so I'm used to it.

Once the little girl fell asleep the mother was making small talk asking how I was so good with children, general things nothing invasive or anything. When we got off the plane, Laura was already livid, she said I didn't even look bothered by the fact that we didn't get to sit next to each other almost like I enjoyed getting away from her. I mean the flight sucks and I would have much rather slept or been next to her, but I'm not going to mope around and make a bad situation already worse. It was a 6 a.m. who really wants to playing with a 5-year-old for 3 hours. Anyways, eventually she got over it and apologized after Sarah talked her down about it. We go to our hotel on the strip and check in and it turns

out they booked a single penthouse room through some promo Sarah's parents provided for the four of us. It wasn't terrible, but I had only met Sarah and her boyfriend maybe a handful of times before this trip. I would find out later talking to Sarah that Laura begged her to do it this way despite Sarah's original plan to have us in joint rooms. We walked the strip the first day and there were tons of very attractive girls walking. I mean it's Vegas I don't know what she expected, but I noticed maybe after 15 minutes of walking Laura was staring at me instead of looking at the sights like everyone else. She was watching my eyes as we walked not like a hey look at me give me attention but more like her trying to see what or who I was looking at what we were walking. I told her she was missing the sights and I told her that she had nothing to worry about. We went to this huge outlet mall and every sale associate that tried to give me coupons or such she would nearly throw a fit.

Asked one of the girls working about a product Laura had interest in and even then Laura came over and basically awkward and tactlessly took hold of the conversation. It was the most embarrassing thing I've ever witnessed in my life. I apologize to the associate before we left I felt so bad for her. Riding the bus to the night shows, Sarah's B.F. and I let them take the last two seats while we stood hanging on to those support things. There was a couple in from of us that were obviously hammered, so drunk they were even holding on to anything when the bus started moving they both fell back of course and we caught them. Laura said later that we didn't know them and should have just let them fall instead of putting our hands on them. The third day Laura and I didn't even go out of the hotel because she was feeling sick so I stayed with her the entire day, which wasn't a big issue but she didn't even want me to leave for food had me use room service. She seemed happy and content sitting in the hotel room watching movies.

The day before we were leaving we ate at this nightclub, restaurant place, and our server was a show girl or call girl. I don't know the proper term, but she flirted with us so much when she noticed how Laura was reacting. She just did it even more. I tried to play it down, but the damage was already done. I pretty much mentally checked out that day, I understand no one likes to see their so get flirted with, but I'm pretty sure it's that girl's job to try to tempt people into taking her card. Sarah's BF got hit on worse than me and Sarah just laughed about it, even joked with the showgirl. I was ready to end the relationship as soon as we got back home. But when we got on the plane, she was smiling and happy telling me about how she had seemingly a great time in Vegas.

I brought up the trip once we were back home and alone and she apologized and said she wasn't feeling like herself. I pushed her a bit more and she eventually told me about a past ugly relationship where she was cheated on twice, and the guy treated her like dirt and tried to control her. It almost seemed like she was trying to guilt me into staying and for the most part it was working but I couldn't stop thinking about the trip. She basically deferred a lot of the blame onto a previous relationship and mood swings, though at first she said she didn't think she did anything wrong. I'm not perfect by any means and I'm usually quick to get out of relationships, to the point where I'm unsure if I'm running away too soon like I normally do or if this is one of those situation where leaving is acceptable and the right thing to do. I'm not looking for something perfect everyone has flaws over the years I've realized this, but I've never been one to try to fix someone else and it's something my older sister says

is my biggest issue as a person. You keep looking for the whole package and you don't ever still around long until if you see a few missing pieces. Is basically what she told me, I usually trust my sister's judgment but I feel like she might be a bit off the mark this time. Laura has never acted like this before, but this was our first real outing. We typically spend time with her friends and just the two of us around college campus. It's been three weeks and she's pretty much her normal self, but we have two other trips planned one with Sarah and her BF and Laura's family and another with a much large group of people for the summer about a month.

I can't handle a repeat of Vegas. Am I trying to leave too fast? Should I stick around and see this through and work with her to fix it? Outside perspective. How do these things? typically play out. More info, I have talked to her and I was as firm and brutally honest as I could have been about it. I didn't let the Vegas trip slide despite her trying to push it away and make it disappear. Her words were that she would try her best to change but she didn't know

if she could or if this was just how she had always been. She saw the wrong she did and even her best friend told her that her behavior was unacceptable but still, she just seemed indifferent about whether she could change or not. I know trust issues are tough to overcome, but she seems to lack all types of motivation and when I told her that basically I needed change or I was going to have to rethink our relationship, she sat there with a blank stare on her face, almost as if telling me, to leave. I don't know if it was a guilt trip to make me feel sorry for her. If she doesn't think I'll actually leave or her pride refusing to accept that she has to change or she will lose everyone close to her. Walking out immediately,

immediately after two years together and this being the first time something like this has happened seems premature if the relationship is otherwise solid. Not to dismiss our relationship but to me. Spending hours in each other's dorm and time around campus is one thing but actually interacting outside of it is huge to me. I feel like in the two years we've been dating that she's always had excuses to try to keep us like that. I'm an active person. I play sports for my college and outside of that she never wanted to. to do anything. Even going on the trip, she was so apprehensive about it, that we nearly didn't even go with them. She used every excuse she could think of for us to spend another summer

lazing around instead of doing stuff. I think maybe I've been too clueless or naive to pick up on the subtle warning signs that maybe my relationship has always been like this. Update. So, after my post, I went and I talked to Laura's best friend Sarah basically asking her about Laura. I wanted to know if there was anything I should know about Laura's previous relationships or past that she wasn't going to tell me out of worry, embarrassment, or trauma that would explain her behavior. I explained to her that after what happened in Vegas I was on the verge of ending the relationship that I was so put off by her behavior that I couldn't handle being with her. Sarah was quick to tell me there wasn't anything but I was skeptical, she seemed to be hiding

something. Being Sarah's good friend, she told me to give her one more chance. and made some last-minute plans for about eight of us to go to the beach last weekend. Laura didn't want to go obviously and I didn't even try to force her to go. Sarah and a couple of the other girls convinced her to come along and that it would be fun to go as a big group. Of course, this beach trip went about as badly as I expected it to go. She wanted me to keep my shirt on the entire time we were there despite everyone else including herself stripping down to a bathing suit. Once I took off my shirt, she would ask me every hour or so if I was ready to put it back on so I wouldn't get sunburned.

Walking the boardwalk every flock or group of girls we walked past she would look at me to see if I was looking at them and if I was looking, she would scold slash guilt me. If I weren't looking then she would get jealous and tell me that those girls were staring or looking at me, it was highly embarrassing and so obvious. At one moment, this beach volleyball lands next to our towel and this girl comes to get it and I hand it to her and she says thanks you and kind of looks back at me as she's running back to her friends. The volleyball landed next to us two, three times and Laura was convinced that they, a group of ten people, were doing it on purpose and sending the same girl to retrieve it so she could get a better look at me. I'll admit I was already going to end our relationship just off those things prior but what really set me off was when I was swimming I was pretty far out near the restriction buoy and I saw these two, brother and sister maybe around 12 or 13 and they obviously having trouble. I think they went too far out and got tired.

Neither of them were strong swimmers and I noticed they were drifting further and further so I swam over and asked if they needed help getting back closer to shore. I swim and pull them both back closer to shore until they touched the bottom. They were both extremely grateful and I heard the sisters say that their parents told them never to go out that far. Laura asked me what I was doing with those kids out there. I told her I was helping them get back to shore and she said isn't that what lifeguards are for.

Two of the couples sitting next to her looked mortified but all I could do was shake my head. I broke up with her that night and told her I really hoped she got the help she needed to be more comfortable with herself. She was overly dramatic, crying and sobbing, desperately telling me that she would change if I stayed. She said that she needed me to help her and that it would be entirely my fault that she was the way she was. I decided to leave before I said anything hurtful because I was getting angry and that's when she blurted out that she was pregnant. I look at her and just roll my eyes and leave. I haven't had sex with her since her last period purposely. I think she realized that because

eventually she came out of the hotel room and yelled down the hall for me please not to go. I stopped at Sarah's hotel room just to inform her and her boyfriend that I was leaving. I drove myself for a reason. Sarah apologizes and admits to me that Laura wasn't even in an abusive relationship prior to me. Her ex-boyfriend went to coffee with a coworker, who was also his childhood friend of 15 years, and Laura accused him of cheating on her emotionally. I think it's safe to say I dodged a bullet, I've deleted both of their numbers and I don't plan on contacting any of them again. Now on the next story, story two. Girlfriend refuses to tell her family about me saying it's to protect her daughter.

I'll try to make this short. I want to know your opinion on this because maybe I'm blinded by love or something. I'm seeing a woman that has a 13 year slash oh daughter. We met online and we've been exclusive for about six months now. She lives in a nearby city, about one, five hours of travel time between us. and we see each other usually one day per week, she sleeps here usually. She is divorced, not legally divorced yet, for about one year and is exes from the same city as her. I'm madly in love with this woman.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that I never liked someone as I like this girl. I tend to be a rational guy but I guess this girl is my weak spot, so an outsider's advice will be great, my problem is that she doesn't want to tell her daughter about me yet and I totally understand that. We don't know each other that well and she has to protect the kid since she doesn't know if the kid will be hurt by knowing her mom is seeing someone else, or if she'll suffer from an eventual breakup on our relationship, etc. I'm fine with that, but this is causing some issues in this relationship that I think it's a bit too much, here's a summary of most of it. I'm not allowed to go to her city, because it's a small

city where everyone knows each other, and someone could see us together and tell her daughter, and that would break the confidence bond they have together since the daughter wouldn't hear this from her mom, but instead from other people. Her friends and even her mother don't know about me. She says that it's just the way she is, she doesn't like telling other people about her personal life, and also, her daughter could discover something from them if she tells them about me. She said she has some trust issues because of her past relationships, so she doesn't trust me 100% yet.

She told her ex that she was seeing someone. I think this is strange as hell, because it breaks everything about the previous points. When confronted, at one point I told her it seems like I'm her lover, she says she like me a lot, but she's not ready yet to show me to her family and friends. I was sure I was not her lover when we ran into her ex at a rock show. She said that we should not kiss there so we wouldn't taunt him and don't get into a fight, but near the end of the concert, she started kissing me and he eventually saw it. I already said I love you and it was true.

She said it to me once when she was really drunk and never said it again. When I asked why she said that, she said she wanted to say it when she really felt it, she didn't want it to feel forced. So, my question is, do you guys think she is still protecting her daughter, or has she just realized that we won't have a future together? I honestly have no problem with shallow relationships. Actually, my last year was basically that and I was pretty happy, but I'm really emotionally invested in this girl so if this relationship doesn't have a future I want to get out of it ASAP. I told this to her about two months ago, we almost broke up, and she said she wanted another chance to make things different because she really likes me, but here we are, two months after and everything is still the same, am I overreacting?

Is she just using me for stress relief or something? Maybe she's using me to get her ex back. I'm starting to get crazy. Thank you for reading this. More info, we started by being FWB for a month or so until my birthday when she told me she was falling in love with me. By that point, I was also developing feelings for her and we decided to start dating. I didn't mind all that secrecy when we were FWB, but I thought that after dating things would change. When I told her about this, the day I told her it seemed like I was her lover, not her boyfriend, she said my requests were reasonable and she would work on these things. It's been two months since that talk. And I'm not seeing much change, now, about her divorce, she says that she's just too busy to handle it right now, but it's not a religious slash conservative family thing. From what she told me, they would be totally fine with her dating before being legally divorced since they are already separated.

On the other hand, she hasn't even started the divorce legally, that is a red flag for sure. Also, I want to go to her city, but she's stalling. My limit of waiting will be a couple of months at most, it will be her birthday by then and the way she acts will tell me a lot, where she'll be, where she'll invite me, etc. Also, I know I'm not a secret because I know for a fact that her ex saw us kissing on a show, maybe they are in an open relationship or something, but I know for sure that I'm not a secret to him. him, just to everyone else. And yes, I'm sure it's the guy because I stalked both on Facebook when we started dating, not my proudest moment. But I also don't know her and she's not a fan of talking. I eventually confessed to her that I did a background check on them and she seemed to be cool with it. They were together for a long time, 16 years, I think. According to her, she was the one that

asked for a split because he was really sexist and abusive. She wasn't. She wasn't. She doesn't allow to go out and see her friends, and every time a guy talked to her he would be jealous as hell, etc. She says he's not taking the divorce well and has become a more violent person according to their mutual friends, i.e. he usually didn't get into bars slash show fights, but now he's starting to do things like he's pissed at life because he lost his girl. It's also one of the reasons she says she doesn't want me to go to her town because she thinks that her ex will want to fight with me. Regarding the show, she told him about me before the show, and at the show, she said, Okay, let's just not make out so he doesn't think we're taunting him. The show had a ten-hour duration and lots of bands. At first, we didn't do anything.

Eventually, we started holding hands, and by the end of the show we were lightly kissing. One of his friends saw it, and of course told him, and then he started going every ten minutes to where we were, but we never kissed in front of him. I started thinking about how the guy must feel, so I didn't want to rub I stole your girl loser. On his face or anything. She doesn't live with him anymore. She lives with her mom and her daughter now. Or at least that is what she told me, but I can't be sure because, you know, I can't visit them.

Equals slash at this point, I'm conflicted between having a really good time together, we really have, or having some self-respect in dumping her, and yeah, the self-respect option should win here. It's just that I got caught in feelings that I never had in 34 years of life. Anyway, I'll ask for a timeline, and if she isn't able to even think about that, it'll actually say a lot and proves that she doesn't see a future with me. Update. So I decided to talk to her. Unfortunately, it was via WhatsApp since we live a bit far from each other. I'd prefer it was in person, but then I would have to wait until Saturday and I'd rather get this out of my chest ASAP. So, about the divorce, she says they are not together,

and it's not a piece of paper that will change anything. She still doesn't want to talk much about why she isn't starting the legal divorce. She did say something about him working informally, and this would complicate things on the money split because legally slash officially, it's like he never earned any money in his life. About the hiding me, she still insisted that it was in the best interest of her daughter that I shouldn't be seen in her city and be known by her friends or family. She said that unfortunately she couldn't give me a time frame of when she would be able to change this, and she understood if it was a deal breaker for me. So, I had no other choice but to break up with her. She apologized for being complicated and hoped that someday we could be friends.

I still don't know if I'm happy or sad. I really needed to get this burden off my shoulders and I know I wouldn't be able to continue a relationship with these restrictions. On the other hand, I can't help but think that I lost an awesome girl and maybe the one. I know that you only got my side of the issue and you think she's a monster or something. But it's not true. Unless she's the greatest actress ever. When we were arguing about this face to face two months ago, she had to be. had an explanation for all of those issues. Seeing deep in her eyes, I truly trusted her on all the

excuses she gave and I know she's a sweet, awesome girl and mother. But I can't work with what she is able to give me at the moment. And it's a bummer, anyways, life goes on. Thank you all for the feedback and help on the previous thread. I hope you enjoy this story. Devout spouse insisted that our son stopped participating in gymnastics because she believed that being in the company of girls would lead him astray. When I declined, she spread rumors that I had taken him against his will and physically assaulted her. This is the latest in a string of disagreements that we've recently begun to have regarding our son as he enters his teen years. I met my wife in youth group before eventually getting married years later, but she's also been the more stricter one between

us. And while I believe in being strict to a point, I believe there are some times when she's been unreasonably strict, times where I've had to step in and put my foot down. I remember when our son asked to skip youth group on a Friday to go to a friend's birthday party, but she said no because God is supposed to come first, and while I get that, I told her she was being unreasonable, along with how missing an occasional Friday wouldn't hurt. A similar conversation took place on one of his birthdays, when he wanted to sleep in, but she wanted him to come. I again chose to tell her that it wasn't a big deal, and although he was allowed to stay home in the end, she was upset in the car and most of the time at church. In addition to this, she doesn't want him to

have friends who aren't Christians either, and that was one of the bigger arguments we have. When I asked her why she felt like that, she pointed to many mistakes that she made after drifting from God after graduating high school and thinking that she didn't need him, and that she was trying to help him avoid doing the same thing and stuff like that. I told her that while I understood where she was coming from, forcing him to do slash go to something he doesn't want to, will not help him long term and only make him resentful later on, but she's convinced that he'll turn to drinking and other stuff like she did. And she often says those memories often stick with her to the point where she doesn't want

him ever having to live her mistakes. The reason I'm writing this is because of our latest argument. She wants him to quit gymnastics because she thinks that being around a bunch of girls in tights is unhealthy, along with how God wants us to shield our eyes from things that could distract us from him. She also says the sport provides a lot of easy opportunities for him to become lustful in an environment that seems completely normal, and I already knew that trying to talk her out of this one would be almost pointless, but I tried nonetheless. I told her that while she can think whatever she wants, it doesn't mean that others will think the same way. I also told her that there's nothing immoral about doing gymnastics and especially

since he's passionate about it, but she said she didn't want him around an environment that often harbored girls of different ages. And that the last thing she wanted was for him to start looking at younger girls. This is where I snapped and told her that while I supported her desire to talk to him about purity, that she is wrong for putting her religious bias. in everything and assuming the worst for our son. I also told her that she is wrong for assuming our son would think like that, along with how she's wrong for viewing gymnastics in that light. She then told me that she'll no longer drive him or allow him to go at the end of his current class, and I told her that she's wrong and constantly over the top about everything, along with how

she's presenting a demented example of Christianity to him. I then went to bed, since I had work in the morning, and the conversation took place right when I was heading to bed, but she said wanted to talk to me first. When I went to work today, my son called me and told me what she said, that she had told him that this would be his last semester in gymnastics, along with saying that it is her duty to protect him while he lives under our roof. When I came home today, I wanted to talk to her over dinner, and I told him that he could take his food upstairs, but she told him that we were going to eat at the table, and when we were done, she said that her decision was final, since she is the one who has to drive him in the first place, and when I

tried to talk to her. She didn't want to hear it. Eventually, I told my son that I would talk to her and not to worry about anything, and he looked a bit better after I said that, probably because he knew I usually sided with him, but I'm slightly torn on this one. She's the one who drives him, and she's the only one who can while I'm at work. I'm considering asking someone else to carpool him, but I'm disgusted by the fact that I even have to do that, but my main issue is how she doesn't want to renew him at the end of the semester, so I'm considering using my own money to pay for it myself, but since our finances are combined, I know she'll throw a fit about it. And there's still the issue of how he's getting there. I'm open to any advice that I can get

to make this work. I believe that she's wrong and that he shouldn't have to quit just because of her assumptions, but I also know that the real issue lies within our marriage. I'd suggested counseling to her, but she refuses to go, so I went by myself for a while, and it did do some good. I want to make things work, and I understand that she's been through a lot, thus why she's so adamant about him staying close to God. But, I disagree with the way she's going about it, and I'm questioning if I'll ever be able to fully get through to her. T.L. DR. My wife wants my son to quit gymnastics because she thinks that being in the environment will make him lustful, along with how she doesn't want him surrounded by girls in tights because it's unhealthy, based off of her

personal experiences of running away from God and making mistakes before coming back to him. Thus why she's big on purity and other stuff as well. Update 1, it's been a couple of days since my original post, so I'll get right into it. The short version of last time was that my wife wanted my son to quit gymnastics because she thinks that being around other girls in gymnastics apparel would cause his mind to lust and be ungodly, and this is in the aftermath of her talking to him about purity and whatnot. Over the years, I've been too passive about her ways. When she dealt him into wanting to skip a single youth group meeting to go to a birthday party,

all under the impression that God is supposed to come first in everything. She also doesn't want him having friends who aren't Christian because she thinks that that will push him further away from God, and I consider this a contradiction to the Great Commission that is in the New Testament. Not that I'm someone who advocates trying to bring religion into every conversation and come off as that weird person, but Jesus spent the majority of his time around people who weren't perfect saints, the opposite of what she's mandated. When she tried to force him to skip the party to put him first, I overruled it, taking

the easy way out. When he wanted to hang out with friends who weren't necessarily Christians and she threw a fit, I wanted to tell her that that's a form of being prejudiced by judging someone based off an imaginary image in our heads that has nothing to do with their actual character and before even meeting them. But I took the easy way again and just told him he was fine to keep them, when I believed that that shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. I did the same thing again in regards to the purity talks that she wanted to have with him too, and I agreed and let her have them, although I was rather quiet during the talk that we had.

And I now regret and realize just how much of a mistake that was for these reasons. Being completely honest, this whole situation that has been brewing for years has made me grow tired of her religious nonsense and somewhat religion as a whole. Since it can sometimes become a scapegoat for petty beliefs that people want to promote under the guise of something like that, and I think it's very manipulative. For years, I did nothing because the thought of separation and the opinions that would follow from our church and parents and friends would be overwhelming, considering how some really consider it taboo to get divorced even if it's none of their business.

But, to be honest, I don't really care anymore. I've been growing more numb to religion over the past few years because of her, and after hearing her suggest that our son would look at girls in the very same environment that he's grown up around for years in a lustful way. Just doesn't sit well with me, and that's putting it nicely. She's sexualizing a sport and suggested that our son could become a predator if he stayed, and that has resonated more than anything else she's ever done, along with making me wonder if she doesn't have that kind of mindset herself already.

So, what did I do? Before doing anything, I decided to talk to her one-on-one about the matter. I asked if she had anything against gymnastics personally, and I told her that trying to make him quit would only make him hate us. She replied something along the lines of how the world has a habit of making everything that isn't sexual, sexual, and that the gymnastics environment promotes girls in clothing that can be easily looked at wrongfully, then going on to say. stuff about how God wants us to have clean eyes and stuff like that.

When I suggested that perhaps she was projecting her personal problems on her, which I debated if it'd be too harsh to say, but chose to anyway. She just said no and didn't want to talk about it. I eventually asked if she'd be willing to go to counseling with me, a professional counselor who we'd find within the area. She said no, and then I offered talking to someone inside the church second. But she became defensive and said that I was trying to embarrass her in front of her friends, to which I told her wasn't true, but that she wasn't cooperating when a marriage is supposed to be about working things out. She then proceeded to get upset and say that I'm wrong for allowing our son to stay in an environment where he'll grow older

as younger girls keep coming in, and that it says a lot about what I'm comfortable about looking at, by allowing him to do so. And I was done after that, since I felt she was accusing me of being unfaithful simply because I don't think he should quit gymnastics. Sure, I could talk to other parents and try to arrange a carpool, and I could drive him myself if I could get off early enough from work on some days too. But I can't control what she does at the home when I'm not there, since she already talked to him behind my back on numerous occasions while I'm at work, trying to explain why she wants him to quit and whatnot,

and if she doesn't want to talk or cooperate with me, then what more can I do? I talked to my son, told him that we'd be going up to my parents for the weekend and potentially a bit longer, and I was direct in telling him why. I told him again that I'm on his side and that she is sexualizing a sport and minors in a way that is very inappropriate, and that the last thing we need is to deal with that as he goes into his teen years. I also apologized for enabling her for so many years while being afraid of the idea of separation, and while I heavily debated whether or not I should be this direct about explaining everything and. his age. I did because I didn't want him to feel that I kept things from him as he grew older and throughout this situation, and I also told him how it was making me stressed at work and unable to focus on my job, which allowed him to open up and tell me that he feels guilty about wanting to go, which I told him was wrong and that he has nothing to feel guilty about.

But the fact that she made him even have these doubts, is something that didn't need to exist in the first place, and my parents are helping me look into a lawyer and other ways to comfort him. A lot of this is on me for allowing it to go on for too long, but I just want to know how to help him with the guilt that he voiced in the aftermath of her words. Besides telling him that I'm on his side and that she's wrong. She's already implanted that doubt whenever he's in the gym now, and I just want to help him navigate it to the best that I can and undo the damage that her bullshit has caused. As for my wife, she didn't know that we left until after we got there, but I told her exactly why we had left, and she was slid. slightly apologetic on the phone. I asked her again if she'd be willing to go to counseling, but she accused me of trying to manipulate her into going. So I told her to call back if she had

a change of heart, but my main priority remains undoing the damage she's done to him while recovering mentally myself and potentially working through a separation unless she shows that she's willing to change, which I have my doubts about, considering we left and she still wouldn't consider counseling. Just being up here, though, is more peaceful and needed from the stress of work and being in that home. Final update, it's been almost a month, so I wanted to come back to this. I'm not going to lie, I'm really tired at this point, and I wrote a lot the last two times, but I don't think I will this time because I'm really losing my energy about it. Basically, when we were still staying at my parents, I told her why we left and that I'd return

if she had a change of heart when we first talked, but she refused to budge on her stance that it is inappropriate for him at his age to be in the same gym at little kids and preferably girls from a purity standpoint. Since she believes that the world has a habit of turning everything that isn't sexual into something sexual, and she believes that the sport just serves as a candy to lustful people who can watch girl run around in leotards as she often points out, and she's told him this bullshit while I'm at work, and it drove me crazy. I couldn't focus when in the back of my mind, she's at home telling him shit that I'll have to undo later, and I've stated in my update that a lot of her behavior is on me for being lax over the years,

but I'm trying to do better, but it's been really stressful and it still is almost a month later. When we were at my parents, we stayed there for a little while, but she began to tell her parents and mutual friends false things about me, to the point where her parents and some of them began to call me or message me on her behalf and call me a bad husband along with other things, and apparently she told them that I kidnapped our son. Along with other things about how I'm this horrible person because of her lies, not to mention something about me putting my hands on her once too, which I swear never happened once in our life or even when we were talking about going to counseling. My parents told me that she was trying to guilt me into returning under

her terms and that I should continue to stay with them because she has truly gone off the rails, and we've been here ever since, but I've taken a leave from work because my mind hasn't been in a good place for over a month. And that's from everything that happened at our house and the new lies and the stress my son feels in finding a lawyer and researching other legal things with my parents, and it's taken a lot of time out of my parents' lives too, but they've been amazing and I want to thank them when it's all over and even before then. From talking to the police and organizing documentation for them and my lawyer, I'm tired right now, and my parents are too, but we're still trying to figure it out and know that this will

probably be a long process, and I don't care how much it costs to debunker lies and get us both into therapy. My son, however, does not want to go, and I told him alongside my parents that he could go with me or alone only if he wanted to and that we weren't forcing him, but he said he didn't want to at the time, so we've left it for a bit instead of forcing the issue, and I've begun talking to one in my spare time online as well. And my parents are helping me pay for it a little. However, my son doesn't want to do gymnastics anymore, and he's still hard on himself for everything that's transpired despite the many times me and my parents have tried to assure him that nothing is his fault. All of it is mine for letting her go down this slippery slope for so long, but he's had no desire to do

it and has voiced guilt about being around girls and making them uncomfortable without even knowing he was, but I told him that that was his mom putting that in his head and that it isn't true. But I regret going along with her desire to teach purity and keeping us in a church that ostracizes people for having an abortion like one girl I mentioned in my second update, the same church that she has spread her lies to about me, and I have no intention of ever returning there again. In regards to his schooling, that's another mess at the moment. He hasn't been in class because she went to them too, and my lawyer thinks it's best to hold off on that for the moment for his well-being with others and the fact that she could show up there herself, but he wants him to go back

sooner rather than later, and I do too. And I'm trying to see if there's a way that he can do most of his work online or something, but I'm still working on that at the moment, but most importantly. I'm trying to help encourage him to speak to someone for how he feels that's far beyond how I'm able to help him from a professional standpoint and standing by him until he decides to do anything else. From a mental standpoint, he feels guilty like I said, not just for what happened with mom, but about the things she said to him about him lusting after girls without him knowing it at

gymnastics, stuff that I don't want him developing a complex about over her nonsense, but my other main priority is getting a divorce after this last straw. I can't take it anymore, and I don't know how much longer this will continue. Probably a while, but he's tired of gymnastics and not in a good state right now, and my parents think it's best to probably have him go to see someone sooner rather than later, which is why I'm probably going to make him go at some point. Although I don't know the best way to do that without coming off as forceful in a way that he'll resent, and if anyone has any advice on how to make him go in a way that doesn't make him upset or resentful or unwilling to potentially help us with some of the legal stuff she might have said to him.

Although I know that that is not my first priority. I'd really appreciate that as it hasn't been easy on him, and I just want it to be over, but I'm aware that this is the consequence of letting her get away with small things over the years that boiled into this, but if we can come out all right. Then maybe we can both somehow be stronger at the end of it. Next story, boyfriend's surprise was flying in my estranged parents without telling me. When I left, he got mad at me for ruining his surprise and said he had a right to meet them. My boyfriend, 26M, and I, 23F, have been dating for a little over eight months,

and on early November it was my birthday. I was excited, as it was the first time we were going to be spending either of our birthdays together, and he had spent all of October teasing a surprise he was planning. Now, for context, I should mention I have a very complicated relationship with my parents. He knows this, and we have spoken in detail about why that is the case. My parents are out of my life, and have been for the past two years, he knows all this. Because of my relationship with my parents, for the last couple of years, I spent my birthday with my best friend, who I consider family.

So, when my boyfriend let it slip on my birthday that the surprise he had planned was a family dinner, I had sort of assumed it meant my sister and her husband, and my friend and her partner. I was wrong. The surprise he had planned was flying in my parents from a whole different city. I was confused as to why he would bring them, but I might have overreacted. I don't think I even stayed there for more than 30 minutes before I walked out of the restaurant and drove home. I don't really remember much of it. I just couldn't sit there and listen to my parents belittle me while my boyfriend was sitting there. The next day, my boyfriend showed up to my place.

I knew we were going to talk about the previous day, but I guess I was expecting him to apologize. He didn't. Instead, he got angry at me for ruining the surprise he had been planning for a long time, and he said he just wanted to give me a chance to have a normal relationship with my parents. I understand where he is coming from, I guess, but I really didn't appreciate the way he went about it. I told him this, and he wasn't really receptive. He just said that as my boyfriend he had a right to want to know my parents. I can really see what he means, but I can't help to still feel like I'm owed an apology. So, am I the asshole for ruining my birthday surprise?

Comment where OPP has replied, comment her, O.M.G. Your son ta. Your boyfriend, however. I suspect this isn't the first time he's disrespected you. He has no right to know your parents, your siblings, your friends, your bank balance, or even your favorite color. Does he always make everything about him? Whoop? What really surprised me at that it really was the first time?

He's always been really sweet and thoughtful it didn't even cross my mind he would have done something like this update. December 1st, 2024. First of all, sorry for not replying to any comments at all. I got overwhelmed by the amount of attention the post was getting, and I didn't really know how to deal with over a hundred people telling me to break up with my boyfriend. We did break up. I wish I could say I confronted him with all the comments and their carefully constructed arguments. Don't get me wrong, they definitely did help me, but I am terrified of conflict, so it's probably not the dramatic update a lot of people were hoping for. I should say, we did technically make up the day after my birthday surprise slash ambush.

I posted about it because I was feeling discontent with how we resolve things. Now I see it's because things weren't resolved at all. He just made me apologize about it without giving me an opportunity to be angry. I thought I could tell him to come to my apartment next week, so I had more time to figure out a natural way to bring it up, and then when we had a conversation about it we could move on from it. I ended up bringing it up after we had lunch together yesterday, while I was driving him back to his place. I hadn't even meant to do it, but I didn't know how to behave with the underlying anger that I now had. So, in the end, I just asked him why he had done it, trying my best not to sound angry as I generally don't like being angry. He said he wanted to get to know the people that raised me.

His answer was bullshit for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one is that I have literally told him that my older sister is the person that raised me. When he met her and her husband, we all joked that it was like meeting the parents. I told him that he had every right to want to meet whoever he wanted, but he had no right to go behind my back and force me to be around people I have cut out of my life. The next thing he said is truly what made me break up with him. He said he doesn't understand how someone can stop talking to their family. I cannot stress enough how many times I have explained to him why I have stopped talking to my parents.

He has asked more than once. After he said that I think I had a realization. He doesn't understand me, he has made no efforts to do so. So I told him that after I dropped him off at his place I didn't want to see him anymore because I don't want to put an effort with someone that doesn't care about what I want. He didn't take that well, but his emotions are not my problem anymore. Right now, I mostly feel really sad. I know I'm probably better off like in the long run, but breakups suck, and I did love him.

I think I'll be okay, I really appreciate everyone's support. I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse covertly assured her child he could inherit my company upon completing his studies to entice him to attend. Presently, he has finished his education and is enraged that I am not transferring ownership, and he is making threats. Cut us off. I, 52M, got married to my wife, 50F, two years ago after dating for three years. My wife has a son, Joe 21M, from her previous marriage and he recently graduated with a business

degree. Joe and I, get along well but it's not like we're the best of friends, and neither do we share a father-son relationship. My wife's ex-husband is still a part of his life and they meet pretty often so it's not like he's missing out on anything either. Now the problem is that my wife had promised her son that he could take over my business once he graduated from college. I have a moderately successful catering business of my own that I inherited from my father when he passed away. I've been running it for almost 20 years now, not counting the years that I have been running it alongside my father before inheriting it, and I have no intention of giving it up.

Not until I retire, at least, and there's still a lot of time to go until then. I really don't know why my wife thought it would be a good idea to promise Joe that he could take over the business without even consulting with me first. Last week, we attended his graduation party and he took us out for dinner a little later in the evening and that's where this came up. While we were having dessert, Joe started talking about how he wouldn't have to go looking for internships or jobs, unlike his other friends from college, since he already had a plan in mind and then he smiled at me. I was obviously lost, but I still smiled back and looked towards my wife so she could explain

what was going on. She said nothing at the time and we finished dinner then left to go back home because Joe was going to spend the night with his friends in their apartment. On the drive back home, I decided to ask my wife what Joe had been talking about when he said that he already had a plan in mind. That's when she confessed to me that she'd kind of promised Joe before he left for college that I was going to let him take over my business when he graduated. I was a little shocked and told her that she needed to inform him that that was not going to happen because obviously, he was still very young and inexperienced so I was not going to hand over the reins to him so soon, or maybe never at all because there were far more capable and

deserving employees of mine who could run the business. My wife began to argue with me. My wife began to argue with in the car and told me that I was being silly, that she trusted Joe and knew that he would do a good job if I just let him try once. I argued back and told her that there was no trying when it came to my business that my dad had started and given to me to take care of and grow. He could either handle it or he couldn't. And in my opinion, right now, he was not ready for it. He was fresh out of college and kids his age needed practice because they were just not mentally ready to take on the pressure. So he needed to intern somewhere and if he did a good job then maybe I would let him work under me, but he still had a long way to go before I trusted him to take over my business altogether. When I said this to my wife, she completely freaked out at me and started accusing me of being selfish and not thinking about Joe and his financial well-being.

She told me that I was not acting like a father at all and I was being really self-involved. To which I said that it was true because I actually was not Joe's father so I really did. didn't need to act like a father figure to him. At that point, she got really upset and she made me pull over, and then she climbed down from the car and walked all the way home. But it was fine because we were just a couple of blocks away from our house anyway. I didn't go home right away and instead, hit the bar because I was also very upset about this fight with my wife.

I thought that she was being unreasonable and I still think so. I came back home around midnight and by then my wife had already fallen a so we didn't get a chance to discuss it that day. When we woke up the next morning, she pretended that everything was fine so I didn't bring up the argument from the previous night either. But two days later, when Joe called me to ask about the business, I told him point-blank that his mother hadn't discussed the idea with me first and if she'd bothered to do that then she would have known that I was not going to hand over the business to him. So he needed to find a job like all his other friends because whatever his mother had said was not

happening anymore. He thought I was kidding at first so I really had to force him to believe that I really wasn't going to let him take over. Now that I think of it, there had been a lot of instances over the last couple of years where he had hinted at taking over the business, but I had always laughed it off because I thought he must be joking. Had I known about the promise that my wife had made to her son, then I would have addressed those jokes and nipped this in the butt. After I told him that I was not letting him take over, he flipped out on me and yelled at me for making false promises and being selfish, just like his mother had, and then disconnected the call before I could even defend myself. I was at work at the time so I didn't tell my wife anything since I was still busy

and figured that I would talk to her once I got home. When I did get home, my wife was furious and she didn't even wait for me to take off my coat before she started screaming at me. She told me that apparently Joe had called her right after the phone call with me and had tore into her for lying to him and leading him to believe that he would be allowed to take over my business once he graduated. And she told me that this was all my fault because now Joe was cutting us all out of his life since he didn't trust us anymore. I told her that none of this was my fault because I wasn't the one who told her son that he would be allowed to take over my business. I didn't make any promises to him and neither did I make any promises to her that I didn't live up. to. She had lied to her son for years and now, whatever Joe had decided was good for him. Because had my mother lied to me the way she had then I probably wouldn't have wanted to speak to her

either. She got so mad that she just stormed out of the house while sobbing and told me that she was going to live with her sister for a while. I didn't try to stop her either because I was in a really bad mood after that argument as I honestly didn't see how this was my fault. She left that day and it's been three days since then and she hasn't come back. We haven't even been able to talk to each other because I haven't called her and neither has she tried to call me so it's just been radio silence on both ends. Yesterday, I thought she'd called me but instead, it turned out to be her older sister who rang me just to berate me for the way I'd been behaving. She told me that my wife had been miserable ever since she left the house and hadn't stopped crying for even one second because now she felt like she was losing my husband. not only her son but also her husband. I'll admit, that made me feel terrible about myself because

the last thing that I wanted to do was make my wife cry. Her sister also told me that the only reason my wife had lied to her son about allowing him to take over the business was because her son was actually planning not to go to college in the first place. Apparently, Joe had been telling his mother that he actually wanted to join a band and see how that worked out for him, but my wife wanted him to go to college and get a degree first. The only way that she could think of was to give him the incentive of having a ready-made business to take over once he graduated. She didn't discuss it with me first because she knew that I was going to say no,

but she believed that once he graduated, I would change my mind and see what a responsible young man he had turned into. She had also intended to discuss it with me at least once over the years, but she just failed to do so because she felt shy to ask me about it since it wasn't her place to talk about the business and Joe wasn't my son. I told her sister that I understood where my wife was coming from and I realized that she was just very concerned about her son's future. But that was still no excuse to lie to both her son and also me, in a way. Her sister told me that it wasn't her place to interfere in our marriage either, but she just wanted me to know that my wife was willing

to work on our marriage as long as I apologize to her for being so hard on her and Joe. After saying that, she disconnected the call while I struggled to make up my mind on what to do. On one hand, I really wanted to reconcile with my wife and make things right, but on the other hand, I didn't think that this was my fault. So I don't understand why she wanted me to apologize when it was actually she who should be apologizing to me. It's been one whole day since the phone call and I still haven't been able to make up my mind on what to do. I'd offer telling my stepson that I was not going to let him take over my business after my wife had promised him without asking me first. Update one so, I decided not to apologize to my wife.

After I read the comments here, I realized that I really wasn't in the wrong. If my wife wanted to convince her son to attend college, then there were several more clever and effective ways than just straight up lying to him about something that even she knew was not going to be possible. And even after that, she still had the chance to fix it by talking to me at least once, but she didn't even do that and decided to spring it on me after he had already graduated. So now, if she wants to make this marriage work, she is going to have to be the one who sucks it up and apologizes to me. It's been close to a week since she left and there's still no word from her.

I have no idea what's going on in her head and what she plans to do in the future, but one thing's for sure, I am not going back to her begging for forgiveness like all the other times. She is the one who created this mess so she's going to have to be the one who cleans it up. But thank you, guys, for all the advice and help, it actually helped me clear my head a little because she always does this. She screws up and then I'm always the one who has to go running after her, just so that we can be together. Well, that might have worked for her before, but this time, I am putting my foot down. I cannot constantly be the one chasing after her and putting all the effort into making our marriage work. Update 2, it's been almost two weeks since my wife left and we haven't been talking.

I almost contacted a lawyer today because I didn't think she would come back anytime soon. But, thankfully, she came back today at noon. She hasn't said much to me yet, but she has said that she's sorry for the way she behaved. That's good enough for me for now. I don't know what's going to happen with her and her son, though. If we are to go by her house sad she's seems, I don't think that she's fixed her fight with her son yet. To be honest, I don't even think I can call it a fight per se because what really happened was that she lied to her son and now that the truth has come out, he's refusing to speak to her. I hate to be the one to say it, but I really don't think that he did anything wrong here. She has apologized to me but like I said,

she's still very upset and isn't talking to me like she used to before. It's been very quiet around the house even though she is back. Joe has blocked me. I don't know if he has blocked his mother as well, but if he has, then that would explain why she is acting this way. Since she can't even reach out to him right now, even to apologize to him. If she talks to me or asks me for advice, then I'll probably tell her to try and contact some of his friends to pass a message onto him.

It'll be kind of embarrassing for him, but at least she'll have a way to speak to him. I don't even know what his father has to say about any of this because my wife hasn't talked to me about any of this yet. I am kind of curious to know what everybody else thinks of her plan to get Joe to attend college. I mean it succeeded, Joe did complete college and graduated but now he's not even talking to her so I would say it kind of backfired. It's really saddening because I know how much she loves her son and how it was so important for her that her son goes to college. But now it's just all a total mess and she has nobody but herself to blame. Update 3. It's been two days since my wife came back to me and she'd been really weird and quiet the past two days but today, we finally had a talk about everything that had happened since the

graduation. Once again, she told me that she was sorry for talking to Joe without even asking me first if I was okay with that promise. I said that it was okay and thought that, that would be it, but instead, she just started crying and had a total breakdown while we were talking and I was quite taken aback. As soon as she started crying, I hugged her and tried to comfort her, but there was just no consoling her. She went on crying and serving for almost an hour, and she kept mumbling about how she was so sorry for disappointing everybody in her family and that she wished she was a better wife or a better mother, but unfortunately, she'd failed at both. It was concerning how badly she had broken down and I felt awful for not

checking up on her when she was at her sister's house because clearly, she had been going through a lot. I know it was her own fault, but she still is my wife and I should have tried to at least make things better. After almost an hour, when she finally stopped crying, I asked her if there was anything that I could do to make her feel better. She told me that she really just only wanted to talk to Joe right now to make things okay with him, but just as I had suspected, he had blocked her from everywhere. And she didn't have any phone numbers of his friends to get to him. She tried to contact him through his father her, ex-husband, but even he had said that Joe did not want to speak to her and had told her that he was not going to help her out here because she was the one

at fault so she had to figure out her own way to make amends with him. So I told her that I would find a way for her to contact Joe and get to work almost immediately. I did some stalking on social media and found out who were close friends of Joe's. I remembered this one kid who seemed to be really close with him and I found his account somehow. Once I found him, I sent out a message to him and hoped that he would see it and put us in touch with Joe. We explained everything that had happened and I just pleaded with the guy to make a phone call and put us in touch with Joe. One hour later, my wife received a call from a number that she didn't recognize and we were positive that it was Joe's friend calling. We answered the question. We answered the call.

call and thankfully, it was Joe on the other line. I didn't hear the entire conversation but I could hear my wife's end. She was apologizing profusely and I almost felt bad for her because I knew how much she loved Joe. They went on arguing for a while and my wife explained why she had done what she had done and told him that he would really appreciate that he had a college degree later on in life. And then she went on to say that if it was the only way to make him go to college, then she would do it again and she started getting aggravated after a while. I could tell that the conversation was not going the way that my wife had planned because she was getting all red in the face again and her neck was getting blotchy, so I tried to tell her to hang up and that she could have this

discussion later. But they continued talking and soon enough, it turned into a full-blown shouting match where I could also hear Joe yelling at his mother and my wife dishing it out just as rudely. I'd never heard my wife speaking to another person this way, so this was a surprise, especially because the person she was speaking to was her own son. She called him a lot of horrible things and then she ended the call by saying that he was exactly like his father. After she ended the call, she was pretty hysterical and just ranted about how disgusted she was by her son for the next 15 minutes and I let her, because she needed it to get

all that negativity out. After she calmed down, I asked her what exactly had happened and she told me that on the call, Joe had accused her of lying, which she said was true, and apologized and he him for that. But then he told her that she was a terrible mother and that she had apparently ruined his life by forcing him to waste his years at college when he could have just as well joined the band and made a future for himself as a musician. He told her that she had ruined his dream and that he never wanted to speak to her again because she was one of the most selfish and heartless people he knew. That is really when my wife snapped because everything

she had done up until this point was for the betterment of her son's life. She knew that he would never be able to make it big as a musician because as harsh as it sounds, he was just never very good at it and he was always kind of tone deaf. And even most of the people that he had been in the band within high school were now pursuing other things in life but he was the only fool still chasing after that dream. This is the exact same thing that happened with her ex-husband, where she had told him that she didn't want him to start a new business especially when the one he'd started before was still failing and he'd accused her of being unsupportive, which had eventually led to a lot of fights and problems in their marriage which ended in divorce.

That's what she meant when she told Joe that he was exactly like his father. She told me that she had always tried to look out for her son's best interests and tried to stop him for making bad decisions that would affect his future. But now, she knew there was just no point in trying anymore. Because he clearly was so oblivious that he didn't even know what was good for him and what wasn't. She told me that if her son now wanted to make her the villain in his life, she was cool with it and she wasn't going to try making things better anymore. She was sick of being blamed for every single thing that went wrong in his life or her ex-husband's life. So it was an emotionally heavy day for my wife, but I'm glad that she at least

tried to sort things out, even if it went south eventually. She made a mistake and then she tried to correct it, but if they can't see that then well, that's on them. She's calmed down considerably since then and we had a peaceful dinner. She didn't bring up anything about Joe or her ex-husband after she had her meltdown. She's asleep right now and I'm really hopeful that by tomorrow, she'll be feeling better about all of this. Update 4. Hi, Everybody. So it's been almost a week since my wife stopped talking to her son and today she received a call from her ex-husband, saying that Joe wanted to talk to her and she needed to visit them at his house. She needed to come by herself because this was a family thing and I wasn't part of the family, so they wanted me to

stay out of it. But my wife was very firm and she told them that she could either go to his house with me or she wouldn't be coming at all because she didn't want to deal with their nonsense on her own. So eventually, they agreed to let me come but they told me that I had to stay out of whatever discussion that they were going to have. Which wasn't going to be a problem for me because I wasn't really interested in talking to either her ex-husband or Joe. When we got there, it looked like all of them were ready to drag her to court or something because they had these serious looks on their faces and I think they were probably trying to intimidate my wife but lucky for her that doesn't work on her.

Once we were sitting in the living room, Joe wasted no time and told her that because she had forced him to go to college and waste three years of his life doing something that he had no interest in, it was time for her to stick to her promise and make me let him take over my business. Now I know that I'd said I wasn't going to interfere but as soon as he said that, I entered and asked him if he was crazy because that was obviously never going to happen. Not now, not ever. Not even if he was ready because, at this point, I just didn't like the guy. He wasn't my son and I owed him nothing, so I told him so right to his face.

And his father then told me that I wasn't part of this discussion, so I need to just shut the hell up. That really rubbed me the wrong way because this was my catering business that they were talking about, so of course I had to be part of the discussion. I argued with my wife's ex-husband for a little bit, but my wife made me stop because it wasn't worth it and I knew that, so I just fixed him with a dirty look and then kept quiet. Joe continued to insist that my wife talked to me and let him take over the business soon or else he really would cut her off. I expected my wife to hesitate a little, but she didn't and I was really proud of her.

She told Joe that she was doing nothing of the sort and that if he didn't want to be thankful that she helped him out in securing a future for himself then that was fine with her. But he couldn't make any demands like these. She apologized for lying to him but that was it and she told him that she didn't know him any more apologies for anything else because, at the end of the day, she was just trying to look out for him. And if he couldn't appreciate that then she really would prefer for him to cut her off. Her ex-husband told her that he was going to take her to court if she didn't live up to the

promise that she'd made and she laughed right in his face and asked him if he even knew any attorney who would fight his case for him, knowing that they didn't even have a contract or any agreement to show for the promise that she had made. He got really flustered and told her that he wanted her out of his house right now and we obliged even as we were about to get into our car and drive back home. Joe made sure that he screamed at his mother and told her how awful she was. But we chose to ignore it and just got back home as fast as we could because we didn't want to waste any more time on them. We're home now and we hope that this situation with her son has blown over. So we won't have to meet them again because today was a huge waste of our time and energy.

I hope you enjoy this story. Tom admitted his fixation on my spouse and had a collection of covert pictures of her. Presently, his marital union is terminated as his spouse evicted him and is leaving. For full custody. My brother-in-law just told my wife he is in love. He is in love. with her. Anyway, yesterday my brother-in-law out of the blue asks my wife if she can meet him for lunch, there is something he needs to talk to her about. My wife tells me about it before accepting and asks if it might have something to do with my sister. Maybe they are having problems and he wants to discuss with another woman. I find it odd, but I tell her to go find out. So she accepts and they meet for lunch at a place near her office the next day. That's where he tells her that he is in love with her.

He lays it on thick, how beautiful she is, how she makes him feel, how he would treat her if she were his, how it was love at first sight, blah, blah, blah. Mind you, this man is married to my sister and has two kids. He and my wife had a friendly relationship, our families see each other often as we are a close family. He does text her frequently but there was nothing overly sexual. My brother-in-law texts and calls my mom too. So none of us thought anything of it. I want to stop a moment and emphasize that my wife isn't cheating on me with him. My wife and I share an iPad and I see every one of her texts from there.

We are also looking at each other's phones all the time so none of that is going on. So she doesn't let him finish, walks out and calls me immediately to tell me what happened. While she is on the phone with me the texts from him start. He didn't mean it, he thinks it's only infatuation, blow. blah, blah, blah. She leaves work early to come home to talk to me about this and her phone is blowing up the entire time with calls and texts from him. I tell her to answer and she put him on speaker so I can hear.

He's crying begging not to tell my sister. Apparently when we were together this past weekend he thought that she was flirting with him and that he thought they had a moment when they were alone in our kitchen. Now, my wife is a major ball buster and I suppose I can see how that can be taken as flirting. He asks if she told me, to which I answer yes as I am on speaker. Then he starts begging me. This went on a while. My main question was whether he had cheated on my sister before.

He said no, swore on his kids' lives. It's just my wife, he said I should understand. So I'm done listening at that point and told him I wasn't going to do anything tonight and I would call him tomorrow. That's where we are right now and I really don't know what to do. My wife says drive over there right now and tell my sister, but the idea of wrecking my sister's family is killing me. Thinking about what it will do to my nieces makes me want to vomit. I know the right thing to do is tell my sister, but I'm also thinking about my wife as well. It's not her fault, but there is sure to be resentment toward her for my family.

Even if my sister doesn't divorce him and they reconcile I can't see how we are ever together again like we were before, if at all. This whole episode can tear my family apart. I don't give a shit about him, he tried to destroy my family, but I do care about everyone else. I don't know what to do. Any advice will help. Update 1, so everyone that told me last night that I couldn't wait to tell my sister was right. A little after 12 last night I get a call from my sister and says that she has to tell me that my wife tried to begin an affair with her husband. So he tried to pin it on her.

I told her that's not the case and I will be right over. So I get on the phone, wake my mother and father, tell them what's going on, wake my younger brother, tell him. My mom and dad head to my sisters to sit with their kids and my brother comes to our house to sit with ours and my wife and I head over. My sister is out in the front porch with my brother-in-law when we get there. He looks beaten, he knows we have texts and voicemail. I really don't know what he was hoping to accomplish. My wife gives my sister her phone, she sees the texts, listens to the voicemails and he starts sobbing before she can say anything. My brother-in-law is a firefighter, a big tough guy so this is a scene.

My sister is pretty tough, she tells him to stop it, pack a bag and go. She can't stand to look at him. There's more begging but she has no patience for it. So my sister walks off to talk with my wife. I see them hugging so at it. least I feel like they are okay. They have actually been friends since college, I met my wife through my sister. So they are tight. The thought of this wrecking her friendship had been weighing on me. This leaves me with my brother-in-law. He's broken so I feel more sympathy than anger. He says he's

sorry, he just couldn't help it. It's not hard to fall in love with my wife so I get it but damn man. He eventually picks himself up and leaves. So we are there all night. My sister starts asking my wife why her husband would think any of this would work out. He had to have some reason to believe that she felt the same way. My sister says they hadn't been having problems. Everything was as it had always been. My wife is crying at this point and says there's nothing you haven't seen.

She gives my sister her phone again and they read every text ever sent over the past two years, nothing there. My wife was just herself. She has a playful personality and so does my brother-in-law so they tease each other. She does the same to my mom and younger brother as well. The only thing she could think of was the moment in the kitchen this past weekend he referenced. They both went for the fridge at the same time and they playfully jostled for who would get there first. He lets her win but he reaches around her waist to get a beer slowly and she did feel the way that he did it was little inappropriate. She says she should have called him on it but didn't want to make it a big thing.

She feels maybe the fact that she didn't give him hope. My sister doesn't blame her so at least that's good. So then my sister starts going through his MacBook to see what else she doesn't know about. She's angry and frantic at this point. She guesses the password, starts searching and finds a lot of pictures on of my wife on that computer. They went back years and always isolated on just her. We had gone as couples to the Caribbean a few years earlier. My wife wore a bikini, she usually doesn't but since it was adults only she did.

There were probably 50 of her in that bathing suit. So he's been secretly been snapping these for years. Does this now enter retraining order territory? This has taken a creepy turn. I'll update when I have more. Comments, Mace 1, the fact that you so casually said you wouldn't do anything tonight and you would call him tomorrow and not tell your sister ASAP is highly suspect. Can't imagine a situation where any man would want to have lunch with my wife alone to share something with her and I'd be okay with that.

You really said wait until tomorrow after he professed their undying love to your wife. Something is afoot and there is more to this story you're not sharing, Op. We are all pretty close. My sister and my wife are college friends and we are family. I know this guy well he's not a stranger. I just needed some time to process. My whole life just changed. Yo, yo, yo, damn, he does text her frequently but there was nothing overly sexual so since the constant text to your wife from your sister's husband were only a bit sexual, you let it slide. Anyways, I can't believe you didn't go straight to your sisters tell her and beat his ass. Op, the texts never crossed the line. I see all of them and he knows that. We are family at never. We are family. It

occurred to me or my wife that things could take this turn. Like I said my wife is a ball buster and she treated him like a brother, like family. Update 2, I've shared with my wife many of your comments. It makes her feel better that virtually everyone here holds her blameless, it makes her feel better so thank you. Unfortunately the mess continues. My sister agreed to talk to her husband last night and let him explain. She puts my wife on FaceTime during this conversation. so there will be no lying. I'm listening in as well off camera. My sister is also recording the whole thing. He admits he's been obsessed with my wife for years. It started the day he met her. My wife and I were dating at the time, but he met my wife before he met me. Like I said my wife and sister are long-time

friends and my sister wanted to introduce her boyfriend to her friends. He thought it was only physical for a while but over time he knew it was more. My sister nearly kicks him out right there but listens a little more and she eventually asks what made him think that my wife would leave me for him. He answers that there is obviously mutual attraction and he figured it would begin as an affair and then things would progress from there. My wife and sister explode at that point, a lot of cussing, a lot of screaming. Phone call is over, my wife hangs up because at this point she is concerned for me. She's shaken and distraught, assures me the attraction was one-sided. I never thought it wasn't. Even if she did find him physically attractive, I know she would

never act on it. She's just not the type. Early on in our relationship she caught me admiring her as she was dressing, asked if I liked what I saw before her face turned cold and told me never to fuck up where I'd never see it again. She meant it, she's serious about trust. Anyway, I knew my brother-in-law was a little C-C-K-Y, but my God I never knew he thought that highly of himself to be able to pull off something like this. I talked to my sister later on and she is contacting the lawyer Monday to see what steps she can take to limit his exposure to her kids. As far as she is concerned, he is detached from reality. That's all I have for now. I'll update once the dust settles a bit.

Comments, Paul N. VA, my wife and I were talking about this and that's what we thought. He wanted to start an affair and then go from there. There is no way to recover from asking your sister-in-law to have an affair if the feeling isn't mutual. You've torched everything. Incredibly high-risk gambit with a low success potential. But, he would have done this sooner or later, with or without the kitchen incident. Op, he had made comments to me many times through the years that my wife was out of my league. I would just laugh and agree, she is. I guess he thought his gamble was not so high risk. Update 3, this is likely to be my final update as I don't see much more happening after this besides divorce processings.

Thanks for all the comments, they have helped my wife's son with the guilt. Anyway, my brother-in-law returned home yesterday, not because my sister wants him back but because she can't legally stop him. They are done, I think he realizes that now. The lawyer tells my sister that since my brother-in-law's behavior over the past few days has been documented there is a good chance she will be granted full custody. He doesn't seem to even want to fight her on that. My sister will be fine, any love she had for him is gone and she doesn't seem to broken up

about it. The kids don't know what happened yet, but my brother-in-law was never around much anyway when the kids were home. He slept at the fire station many nights and put in a lot of overtime. But it is certain to be hard on them once they know what's going to happen. Many commenters have said that there must be more women, but as far as we can tell there hasn't been. It's really just the obsession with my wife. She has blocked his phone but on the same night he returned home he sends my wife an email from account he just made. It started with an apology but then took a turn. He said, He said he never got to finish at the restaurant that day.

Then he went on for paragraphs and paragraphs about all the things he loves about my wife and the desperation he felt that lead him to do what he did. He mentioned their mutual attraction again and the sexual tension that he always felt was between them, and ended with a rather large section about me. Let's just say I didn't know he had such a low opinion of me. He was quite certain that I was not satisfying my wife properly. Anyway, we sent the email to my sister and it will go to the lawyer. It might be enough to get him removed from the house.

Finally my wife isn't great but she is doing better every day. She does blame herself for being too comfortable around my brother-in-law. She is always careful to set boundaries with other men. In case you haven't figured it out already, my wife is pretty stunning and gets a lot of male attention. with my brother-in-law she felt safe to be herself since he was family. Surely no lines would be crossed. She and my sister are cool and there doesn't appear to be any resentment so that makes me happy. We will all be okay. It will just take time. Thanks to all who commented and voiced their

support. Comments. Any decision 470, what a bomb that he threw in to blow everything up. Please take steps to secure your home and car. Recommend the restraining order so he can't come around trying to explain or convince or apologize to your wife. Hoping your sister can do what needs to be done and can move on to a better life-op. I don't think my brother-in-law is dangerous, just conceded. The guy was quite the ladies' man before getting married and still got plenty of attention even after. His ego is bruised. But I do have cameras and an alarm. P.A.A. 1826. Thank you for sharing this sad story, it has been helpful for me. My wife has been casually pursued by a married member of my club and she is usually too surprised and modest to assume what

he's after. When he first started, my wife thought it was just harmless banter, but I didn't and told her I didn't think so. As it continued, she finally realized I was right, so when I had to tell him to knock it off, she was relieved. It took three incidents. for him to finally get the message. Op, my wife is mad at herself because she is usually so careful. She's had so many incidents when she was younger with guys she was friendly to that ended up making unwanted advances. Now on to the next story.

Story 2. Wife was sleeping with her boss in exchange for promotions and expensive gifts. I exposed their affair to his wife in HR, got them both fired, then filed for divorced. Hey everyone. I was married to my wife for three years before she cheated on me. My wife and I were not strangers before we started dating. We had known each other through a charity volunteer organization we both joined. And even though we weren't friends initially, we used to say hi and hello whenever we saw each other.

About a year after I joined the volunteer team, I realized I was heavily crushing on her, and this pushed me to get closer. We became friends and would go out together to eat after our volunteer sessions. From there, our friendship bloomed, and my feelings for her grew. Long story short, after months of hanging out with each other, we started dating, and we married after a year and six months of dating. In the one year and six months, I dated my wife, I believed I knew everything about her. We had opened up to each other about our past. She insisted we open up because it was important for our relationship.

and marriage, and I agreed. I told her about myself, my exes, and everything she needed to know, and she did the same. But some years down the line, I realized that she only told me the things she wanted me to hear. Before I learned that my wife was cheating on me, our marriage was beautiful and blissful. We were like Lewis and Clark. Loved each other so much, and I was always happy to be around her. My wife worked for a top marketing agency in our state and was great at what she did. At least, I believe so because of the promotions she got, the increase in her earnings, and the bonuses. On my end, I worked as a business consultant, but my earnings were less than hers. For once, I was never jealous of her. Instead, I encouraged her to work harder and hit her monthly

targets. It was even a relief on my end that she had a great job, and we could collaboratively take care of the bills, rent, and other expenses at home. While we were still together, she told me about how her colleagues in her office hated her for no reason, and I had even noticed the look on their faces once I had to drop her at the office. When she said this, I didn't think it was that serious, and I believed her colleagues acted that way because they felt threatened by my wife's success and the speech she used to climb the ladder. Also, my wife was one of those sassy drama queens that loved to draw attention or be the center of attention wherever she went, and she was a high-taste fashionista who loved to wear expensive things. So, I thought it was also one of the reasons some of her colleagues did not like her.

Most times, when she talked about it, we would laugh and joke about them, but it was never anything serious. We were so close that we talked about everything and anything that happened during the day at our different workplaces, and this is. helped us bond better. When we were dating, I knew my wife was a career-driven woman, and she always said she could do anything to be successful. Whenever she said this, I thought she meant dedication, working harder, committing fully to the organization she worked for, and the other attributes that could make anyone successful. I never knew that she would go as far as giving her body in exchange for success. I honestly believe she earned everything she got from her hard work and dedication to her company. The day I found out, I was cleaning our home office. In the past,

it was always my wife that cleaned our home office. But she didn't have time to clean it for a while because she had been so busy with work. Also, our home office was in no condition for use because it was so untidy, so I decided to clean it up. After cleaning, I was trying to move things back and organize them, and that's when I stumbled on a hidden stack of gift cards and receipts for for expensive jewelry and other stuff from an undisclosed source. Initially, when I saw them, it didn't make sense to me that they were hidden, I could tell they were hidden because of where I found them. But after going through the gift cards and receipts, I knew something was off.

Before I made this discovery, I never questioned my wife about the expensive stuff she wore or bought. I knew she was earning well, and she loved things like that. And I also believed she must have gotten most of them during discounts. season like she claimed. I knew I would do my own digging, so I returned everything to the position I found them, organized our home office, and waited for her to come home. When she came home, I welcomed her as usual, and we had our regular chats and gossip. Later that night, when she was sleeping, I went through her phone, and to my greatest surprise, I found out she had been sleeping with her boss. This was a shock, but after I went through their conversation, I understood

why she got all the bonuses and promotions. I was angry and thought of the best way to pay her back, then an idea came. Her boss was a very popular man in our state, and that was because his wife was a well-known real estate agent. I decided to find her online, and I got her direct contact in no time. The next day, I contacted her and asked that we meet. When she agreed, we met at a coffee shop, and I presented all the gift cards, receipts, and asked her if her husband gives her as much as he gives my wife. When she saw the screenshot of the text messages I had sent to my phone, and all the receipts and gift cards, she was so mad and heartbroken at the same time. And on my end, I forwarded everything to my wife's company HR, and after an investigation was

carried out, she was fired, and her boss was demoted. While all this happened, I confronted my wife and told her I knew she had been sleeping with her boss. At first, she tried to deny it and said I was beginning to sound like her colleagues, but after I showed her the receipts and chats, she began to cry and said she could explain. She said she had to sleep with her boss because she realized that hard work alone would not take her to the level of success she wanted and that she did it for us. When she said she did it for us, I almost lost it. I ended up kicking her out of the house, and by this time, she didn't know I had forwarded everything to her hour. She found out after being fired and was forced to move locations to find a new job.

After she moved out of my house, my next step was a divorce. So to make things more difficult for her, I made sure our divorce case was taken to court several hours away from her new workplace. Eventually, we divorced, and she is out of my life for good. I pity the next man she will end up with because she won't stop cheating. on her future spouse until she gets the kind of success she wants. Meanwhile, never listened to what women say, especially about their past. My wife told me she had never cheated on any of her partners before and wouldn't do such a

thing in the future. But she was getting favors and promotions in exchange for her body the whole time. I have no intentions of being in a relationship anytime soon because, at this moment, my peace of mind is my top priority. I hope you in Enjoy this story. Partner ceased engaging in physical affection and refused to explain the reason. However, I later discovered that they were feeling uncertain about a certain issue. In response, I organized a spontaneous celebration to cheer them up and improve our relationship. We're married four years later.

Pretty much the title. I'm very concerned about her at this point and I have no idea what to do. I, 25M, and my GF. 25F. Back in Aprilish, we were having sex two to three times a day. We live in an apartment together, she's been taking online classes for her master's and I'm working from home since the lockdown started. At some point, she got really busy and tired with a project, so we obviously stopped having sex temporarily. Since it's gotten over though, which was nearly four months ago at this point, she's turned me down every time I've tried to initiate or set the mood for sex.

I have never pressured her, I usually wait a couple of nights before asking again when she tells me she's not in the mood, which turned into waiting a week, which turned into waiting two weeks. At this point I'm really concerned, we've never gone anywhere near four months without sex before, we've both always had pretty high sex drives. At this point it's important to note that I do not press the matter or pester or pressure her in any way. The moment she says she's not in the mood, I back off immediately. I don't think I've fucked up anywhere because she's always quite apologetic when she turns me down. Our relationship is pretty much perfect in every other way too, we cuddle and hug and have game nights and

movie nights, it's never felt like we're drifting apart at any point. She hasn't been behaving differently, like she's upset or depressed. We give each other plenty of space too, it's not like we're constantly together, we have our own friend circles and we curl up on our own devices from time to time. I've tried talking to her about it, but she gets really upset and keeps insisting that nothing is wrong. I drop the matter pretty quickly too because I don't want her to feel like I'm pressuring her to have sex. I just want her to let me in and tell me what's wrong. I honestly don't care about the sex, but I know there's something she's not telling me and it's gone on long enough that I'm getting extremely worried about her.

Update 1, thanks to everyone who replied to my previous post. There were some mixed responses, with some people suggesting I insist on addressing it with her because she's hiding something, with others recommending I give her time to open up on her own. Ultimately, I decided to sort of go for a combo of the two. Friday, when we were both done with work, we sat down and had a discussion. I told her that I could give her the space and time she needed. until she was ready to talk to me about it, but I couldn't leave it unaddressed.

She needed to acknowledge that there at least was something that she didn't feel ready to tell me, and that was fine, but she at least needed to acknowledge its existence. If only so I stopped feeling like I was going crazy. She started sobbing when I was done and then she started explaining everything. Some background that I didn't mention in my previous post because it didn't really seem relevant is that my girlfriend has PCOD. One of the consequences of this is that she finds it very difficult to lose weight and has been insecure about her body for most of her life. About a year ago, completely of her own choice, I have always told her that she's beautiful

to me no matter what her weight, she resolved to start losing weight, both for her health and to feel better about her body. She started going to the gym a couple times a week, and I was supportive and also cut out all my own junk food consumption in solidarity. Since the lockdown started and gym shut, apparently she started slowly gaining some weight back due to stress eating and lack of exercise. I am ashamed to say I did not even notice that she was torturing herself over her weight all this while. She admitted that she stopped having sex because she was terrified I would stop finding her attractive after seeing her naked. I reassured her that I think she's gorgeous and attractive no matter what and I tell her this every day, but she was afraid that would have changed once I saw the weight she had put on.

The rest of the conversation consisted of me reassuring her that she's beautiful and her appreciating but not really believing me. After a bit, she asked me to change the topic, and I reluctantly agreed. We had a fairly quiet dinner, she was a little sad and relieved at the same time and having told me, I think. And I was busy scheming. The next morning before work I told her she looked lovely again and she gave me a wan smile, like she appreciated it but didn't really believe me. But that was okay. I was going to convince her.

I asked her to pick up the groceries that evening because I was going to have a meeting run late. The moment she left home, I got to work. I dug out some fairy lights and a bunch of candles from storage and started setting them up in the living room. made a couple of playlists and charged the speaker. Snuck down to the florist and bought a giant bouquet. Some more background, I hate dancing because I suck massively at it, while my girlfriend loves it. She used to go dancing every month or two with her girlfriends before lockdown.

I'd join in sometimes because it was worth how happy it made her, but she definitely missed it way more than me. So when she got back, naturally I greeted her with what were probably the most ridiculous dance moves in the history of mankind. I'm not gonna lie, folks. She laughed. She laughed a lot. She took a short video, and we both laughed while watching it later.

My movement resembled a five-year-old practicing kung fu more than it resembled dancing. And I had stuck a rose in my ear for maximum ridiculousness. Totally worth it, though. I have no idea how she ever thought she's ugly, her smile is just so fucking radiant. We danced like idiots for a while before I switched to the slow dance playlist. It was definitely the happiest I'd seen her in a long time. I'd been a bad boyfriend and somehow missed how much she missed everything else.

I should have done it months ago. I told her all this. Told her she's the most beautiful woman in my eyes and always will be. And yeah, we had sex. Last night was all about her. She needed to feel special and I had been missing that for too long. I offered to make dance nights a weekly thing afterwards. Kind of as a substitute for the workouts she's been missing, if she wants.

She tore up a little, she knows how much I hate dancing. She told me that wasn't necessary. Apparently sex is just as much of a workout as dancing. And we have a lot of missed workouts to catch up on. I'm certainly not complaining. In all seriousness, though, I'm going to dip into my savings a little and order a home treadmill. She can't afford one right now because of college bills, so I'll surprise her with it. Smile.

Thank you to everyone who helped me out with their advice. Edit 1. Oh, wow, I am completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support here. Thanks for all the awards. I just logged back into this account, but I promise I'm going to read each of the replies. One thing I saw pop up a couple of times that I just want to reassure you guys about is that she's mentioned wanting a treadmill but not being able to afford one several times in the past, so I know she wants one. However, I figured that it's dumb to take the chance, and one surprise was good enough,

and if there's anything this whole experience has taught me, it's the importance of communication. So I'm going to bring it up at dinner tonight that I comfortably have enough saved up to purchase a home workout machine. Since I saw cycles slash ellipticals being mentioned, we'll figure out which one we want, and that I'd love to buy one for our home for both of us to use. Thank you all so much once again for your advice. Edit 2. R-I-P-Me, L-O-L, the comments are coming faster than I can read them now. There's no way for me to reply to every one of them, unfortunately. There are a lot of fantastic suggestions for diets, exercise machines, dance classes and everything in between, so thank you so much for all of them.

She has a great endocrinologist whose advice she will ultimately be following, but there are some great points to bring up with him. It is really touching and overwhelming to see all this support. Thank you all so much. Final edit, she loved the idea of getting some equipment to do our workouts at home together, so we're going to sit down and do our research tonight before picking the one we like most. We've gotten some fantastic advice here and we'll be looking at ellipticals, bikes, rowing machines, just dance on the switch and a bunch of other stuff that you guys suggested. To all the people who commented to insist she's cheating on me because I'm a simp, LMAO,

thank you for setting the exemplary standard for being macho. Insulting strangers online is so delightfully masculine. The lovely folks who told me to dump her because she's fat get the disappointing but not unexpected shithead shout out as well. For the overwhelming majority of people, though, I am just breathtaking by the kind and supportive comments we've gotten. Thank you for the treasure trove of advice and LPTs and all the love. You folks are amazing. Update 2, December 24, 2024. Hi everyone. I decided to do a quick Christmas Eve update on my profile page in case anyone was still interested, because a lot has happened in four years. We're both doing well. We got engaged about three years ago and adopted a cat, but it went a bit downhill from there because of a bunch of different health issues that hit her consecutively. She's largely recovered from the temporary ones, and the permanent ones are a lot more under control now thanks to regular health checkups and medication.

but it was a rocky couple of years, not for our relationship, just for us in general. All the medical issues also meant she hasn't worked since, which isn't an issue financially but for other reasons which I'll come to in a moment. She's doing a lot better mentally now as well, at least relative to last year. She still struggles with self-esteem and feeling like a burden to her loved ones, especially me, especially because of the aforementioned lack of work over the last few years. She's a lot more communicative about these things now though instead of bottling them up, so she's not let our relationship suffer for this.

And I like to think that even if her self-esteem hasn't gone up, her way of coping with it is a lot healthier now, and that's an important step in the right direction. She's even been looking to get back to work over the last month or so, despite the challenges of low self-esteem, severe imposter syndrome, and having to explain a year's long absence, and I'm really proud of her for not just getting her. giving up after the hand she's been dealt health-wise. I'm doing really well. I switched jobs and

fields about a year back and I'm making a lot more money now, and I'm enjoying my work a lot more too. I actually started therapy recently as well, because there were some personal discipline issues I wanted to fix, and I ended up discovering a whole host of other issues I had repressed, and bringing them back out into the open and dealing with them has been simultaneously terrifying and liberating. But it's also made me a much better friend and partner, so looks like I'm going to have to keep braving them for as long as it takes. As for the biggest one, as is probably obvious from the title, we got married two months ago. We would have done it a lot earlier if she hadn't had a bunch of health issues pop up unexpectedly, but with her on the

end, we were finally able to plan and organize the thing so everyone we wanted to be there could be there. I honestly sometimes still find it surreal, like WTF I'm a husband. It still feels like I'm dreaming sometimes and I'm still that clueless wide-eyed college kid, but I look at the woman sleeping next to me and I remember all the ways I've changed for the better, all the ways I've grown up because of her influence, and I feel really lucky to have her. And I know that I, and she, still have a lot more growing up to do, but I'm feeling this overwhelming contentedness within because we get to do all that growing up I don't know if I'll update this again, maybe if I get reminded of this account sometime in the future, and something major has happened

since. Until then, happy holidays everyone, and I hope the new year is your best year yet. Next story, teen daughter told me my wife was cheating, so I kicked her out and divorced her. A year later, I found my daughter's diary where she admitted she made it all up to get her mom back. I, 43M, was married to my wife, Laura, 31F, for six years. I also had a kid from my previous marriage, Sarah 15F. It was really hard for me to date and get to know women after me and my daughter's mother divorced due to infidelity issues. Regarding the fact I had a kid and trust issues, so meeting Laura was really a blessing. We met at a aquarium where I was with my daughter and she with her niece. That day I kept noticing her and how she was treating the kid

and it brought a smile to my face. The next time I met her was a year later, at the said niece's birthday. It turned out that Sarah and the niece was at the same class and seeing her again was a pleasant surprise. It was like fate. I mustered up my courage to speak to her and finally talk to her. She was a great company and she spoke really well and it made me like her more. Since it's been three years to my divorce I shot my shot with her and decided to take her out for a coffee. And next thing I know we we've been married for six years. Lara has been an amazing wife and a mother. She treated Sarah well and since her mother was not in the picture, she quit her job and took the responsibility to take care of her full time.

She even decided to wait two of kids until Sarah was a little older hence she didn't want her to feel left out and was scared that Sarah wouldn't get enough attention. She thought Sarah multiple languages and shared her culture with her. Her relatives is amazing with her and treats Sarah no less than a bio daughter of Lara. She even have shared her recipes and baked goods with my family and everyone looks forward to holidays whenever Lara hosts them. She and my mom has developed a great relationship. My friends and family tells me that I won lottery with her and it really feels like it. Even when Sarah's bio mom showed up after abandoning her own daughter for nine years, she was the one who encouraged me to let Sarah connect with her and let her be in my daughter's life.

She tried her best to help Sarah get to know her mother and even built a friendship with Anna Sarah's mother. However, earlier last year, around me I noticed that my daughter was distancing herself with Lara. This was weird as my daughter never had any fallout with the relationship with Lara as most teenagers do with their mom. Even Laura noticed and cried about it multiple times. So one night I decided to talk to my daughter and ask her what was going on. Sarah told me that she found out Laura was having an affair with someone and she's hurt that Lara betrayed her and me. Hearing that felt like someone was crushing my heart and the hurt on my daughter's face

intensified it. I went straight to my room and woke Laura up and yelled some hurtful things at her. I'm not proud of how I handled the situation and I agree I could have done better. However, the only thing I can think about was how hurt my daughter was. I kicked her out that night, and that was the last conversation we had without a lawyer present. Around November our divorce was finalized and I moved on with my life. I did do some things I regret to Laura so I didn't want to make it hard for her, and just wanted to be done with her so there was no revenge and petty actions involved. I did let my family know the real reason and they were

disappointed to say the least. My daughter also doesn't have a relationship with Laura and we cut contact with her family and threatened legal action if they tried to meet with us. I didn't want anything to do with her. During August I decided to surprise my daughter with a trip to celebrate her 16th birthday. Since I was dealing with the divorce last year, I wasn't able to really celebrate with her. So I decided to pack her bag and take her straight to airport from her sleepover with friends. I asked my younger sister to help me with packing Sarah's clothes. While she was packing, I saw a notebook on her nightstand with a Polaroid of her and Lara peeking. Curiosity got the best of me and I opened it to find out it was her dairy.

This might have been wrong of me to go through my daughter's dairy, but I went through it. And I have not been well ever since. She wrote about how she lied about Laura having an affair and how she even made evidence to make me believe her if I questioned her. She wanted me and her mother to be together be a family and kick Lara out of the picture. However after Laura left us is no longer in her life, she's regretting it. It felt like my heart broke for the second time. I started crying and I haven't even cried when Laura at I divorced. My sister noticed me and I asked her to leave and keep it a secret from everyone.

She asked what happened and I showed her the dairy. She was shocked but told me that she respects my decision and vowed to keep her mouth shut. I drank the night away and just have been in automotive mode like a robot. From work to home and drank till I black out and return to work with a raging hangover. My daughter has noticed it, but I told her it was just a stressful time at the work. But last Sunday she blew up at me saying that she noticed that I've been different since Laura left us and told me if I wanted to stay with a cheating re, I was more that welcome to abandon her. her. That did hurt like hell, but I just left to my room and laid on the bed and cried the night away. It had been around two weeks since I found out about it, but I haven't said anything to my daughter.

I want to bring my emotions under control before saying anything I'd regret, and I don't want to repeat the mistake of taking actions while I'm hurting. And quite frankly now that I'm thinking with a sober mind, I'm not really sure how to confront my daughter. I need the closure and I don't think I can just act like nothing happened. I am quite ashamed to say so, but I want my Lara back. So Reddit, thank you for taking your time to read and I hope you can help me with this and please be kind. Update, first of all, thank you all for the advice. I did check the comments frequently yesterday, but was not able to reply as I was overwhelmed. A lot of you have been asking how the confrontation with Laura went. It wasn't as excessive as a lot of you were assuming.

I woke her up and asked her why she cheated on me. She asked me what I was talking about. I just said that I don't want her in my house anymore and she needs to leave because I can no longer bear to look at her face. That she was the least person I would expect to betray me. She looked at me shocked and just started crying and she didn't say anything else. She called her cousin to come get her and she just left and before she did she said that she swears that she never cheated on me and she would have never even thought. to. That was the last time we saw each other. I blocked her and never contacted her directly and she didn't. Now that I think about it, I think the way I treated her hurt her too much.

She grew up in a conservative family so she never dated nor had any relationships as she was expected to get arranged marriage. So I really was the first one after her first arranged marriage broke up. It's not my place to say why it ended but it wasn't her fault. And about the evidence, she just had some screenshots of chats that I never saw. I believed Sarah without a doubt because she was my daughter. I'm not telling this to defend myself or anything but to give a perspective on why I acted the way I did. When I was with Anna, my younger sister actually told me that she knew Anna was cheating on me as she saw her in the AP during a night out. When I confronted Anna she gaslighted me and I wrote an apology letter to her in the AP who was a manager at my workplace because that was the only way she was.

would forgive me. However, she left me and Sarah when we were spending holidays with my parents, stole some valuables from my parents' house in our apartment and drained our savings account in which I had my inheritance and college fund to buy us a new house. She basically left me and Sarah broke and heartbroken. I always had my regrets about not believing my sister because she didn't have any evidence so it seems that my poor judgment cost me my wife. I forgot to mention in the last post but after the fight me and Sarah had she's currently with her mother. As for the diary, she brought it over to her mother's house but my sister had taken some pictures at the time as I was not in a great headspace. And for the writing, I'm sure it's her

handwriting as she and Laura have quite the same handwriting. I also saw the question about whether my daughter went to therapy when Anna came back. She didn't as Anna didn't want to send her to a shrink and now that I think about it was stupid of me, but I just wanted to give Anna a chance to be a mother, I guess. Laura didn't push for it as Anna through quite the tantrum but brought Sarah a diary so that she can write what she can't say to others. Also, my daughter has never done anything like this before and the biggest lie she has ever said was about not cheating on an exam but later cried and confessed to it.

I really don't have any idea why Sarah would do it and I'm not sure if Anna had a hand in it. I don't have a solid plan but I think I'll start by sending Sarah to therapy after confronting about the affair. I haven't yet decided what to do with Lara. It hurts to even think about her and I keep remembering about how I vowed to be there for her, but I never was able to. Also, I never abused Laura, but considering what she had done for me and Sarah, I don't think it was fair to her for me to raise my voice at her. I hope you enjoy this story. My relative's spouse continued to gaze at me and took action. Upon sharing this with my relatives, they accused me of false and have since cut off contact with me, leaving me with no one to turn to.

To confront him. I, 23F, have lived with my cousin Rose and her husband Dumbo, both 33, for over a year for economical reasons. We have had a lot of issues but I could handle them. Six months ago I began to realize that Dumbo was looking at me more. I've always been sure to wear appropriate clothing in front of him and I've never even been without a bra outside of my room. of my room. Even so I noticed that his eyes were going to other places constantly like my boobs, ass or more below. I thought that it was just my imagination, but just in case I started wearing around the house oversized hoodies and sweatpants and nothing body fitting. But I still

noticed that when we would have conversations he would deliberately stare at other places. One night as I was lying on the couch laughing at a video on my phone he came up to me, asked what I was laughing at and before I could answer he bent down and put his head on my boobs at an angle he could look at the phone screen. I was in shock and I am ashamed that I just let it happen. That's when I knew I had to tell someone, especially my parents, but I didn't have the courage, so I stuck it out. More comments were made but the one that disgusted me the most was when he said, hey, is it me or have your boobs gotten bigger? I asked why the F he was looking at me that way and that he was so off for that. but he just laughed. I got the courage to tell my stepmom and dad and they were both shocked.

They said that I needed to move out ASAP, and that I also needed to talk to Rose about Dumbo's behavior and I would also need to talk to Dumbo. It took a bit of pushing, but I finally got the nerve to sit down with Rose and tell her everything that had happened and this was the reason I was moving. She said that she would talk to him, but in the end this was my problem with him and I needed to fix it. I thought that after she spoke to him he would come to me and apologize or say something at least, but that never happened. Two days after I told Rose that I was expecting an apology on his behalf, and I was going to talk to him myself about everything. She said that would be useless because he said he was never going to talk to me again as he claims he did nothing

and apologizing would mean him owning up to what I claimed happened, that both of them were going to wait until my dad was back in town so he could solve everything. He could. He could claims that I am just trying to put my family against him and ruin his reputation. I left to go to work after that. But in my mental state I forgot something and when I came back I caught her talking to her mom them talking about how they didn't believe anything I had said and that the three of them would tell my parents that I'm trying to divide the family. With three people ganging up against me I am worried that they'll manage to change my parents' mind. I think I fucked up by bringing this whole thing up, I may have just ruined my whole relationship with

everyone, possibly ruined a marriage, and in the end I'm starting to even doubt my own judgment on what could have just been a misunderstanding. I fucked up by not staying quiet. I'll update if it's requested. Comments where OPP has replied. Commenter one, stick to your guns. You don't need anyone who won't stand by you when you tell the truth. You know who they are now. Oh, O-P, I know the truth. But man when it's three people including the wife of this dumbo trying to bring you down its heart. Thanks for your words. Commenter two, you could probably reconstruct when this happened from your phone history. If possible, similarly figure out the dates and times of other instances of harassment. These things are more convincing when they're documented with

times, especially if, for example, they always happen during your cousin's working hours and days. If nothing else, it'll feel good to have it solidly documented. And more easily shared if you ever need to do so to defend yourself from accusations of slander. I don't primarily mean legally here but socially, just in case that's unclear. OOP, I only noticed six months ago. What I can say for anyone who wants details is that he only does this when my cousin isn't close by, for instance, when she's in the room or bathroom. I have noted down for myself all the situations I have remembered because I wanted to be as sure as possible before bringing to light something this delicate.

It's just when it's three against one you begin to doubt yourself. Update 1, November 2, 2024. Well, I'd like to say thank you to everyone that took the time to comment on my last post. It's because of you that I finally saw that I was not fucking up even though now my relationship with basically my whole family is. Unfortunately the result was not a pretty one. I spoke to my parents and the whole conversation was just off. To begin with, they don't understand why it took me so long to speak up. I tried explaining that for me this is a very sensitive topic and on top of that I was

scared of how everyone would react. Second, it is well known that I usually have a very strong attitude and don't have an issue with telling people to fuck off or standing up for myself, which in their eyes makes it strange that I wasn't able to do that with Dumbo. Yes, I don't have a problem with doing that to people that have no major impact on my life and to be honest even today I am asking myself why I didn't react this way with him, although I wanted to, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But I also know that if I did Dumbo and Rose would run off to my parents complaining about how disrespectful I am and it would have been messy either way. Third, they say things don't add up

because in the end I never took their advice which was to remove myself from the situation and second to have a conversation with Rose and Dumbo. I have found a nice place to live as of December 1st and I spoke to Rose as I honestly didn't want, nor did I feel comfortable speaking to her husband in the beginning. Like I said in the first post, when I told Rose I was going to speak to Dumbo, she said no because he wasn't going to listen and she agrees that we have nothing to talk about. I explained this to my parents but they weren't having it. They said that I need to face Dumbo as he is the one causing the issue for me.

I told them very clearly that I wasn't going to force him to sit down and listen to me, but according to them that is exactly what I should be doing. My dad says that at the end of the day, I don't know what Dumbo's intentions were and this won't get solved until he and I talk it out. That a lot of people look at me and it's not that big of a deal. He's angry that I've done nothing to solve this matter myself, and even if I know that Dumbo won't listen that that's not the point, the point is trying. I reminded him that he wasn't just looking, it was constant comments, staring and putting his head on my boobs. I told him once again that I wasn't going to force a grown man to listen to me. But he kept on saying that I wasted their time by

not taking their advice. Finally, my parents ended it by saying that because I haven't been transparent with them and it seems like I basically wasted their time then that is how they'd like to keep our relationship. With a wall up. I had prepared myself to take a step back for my parents if needed. But the fact that they did it because I wasted their time just hurts. I feel like they went into this convo with the mindset of not believing me and nothing I could have said would have changed that. Just the fact that they're telling me to force this man that's 10 years older than me to sit down and listen knowing damn well that because I don't want to be alone with him his wife would have to be there and she'd be jumping down my throat every two seconds.

is like telling me to flip a hot pancake with no gloves and to try to not get burnt. Knowing damn well that I will. He never offered to be moderator. I had a feeling that this would have been the result. So in a way I do feel like I did fuck up. In the end, Rose and Dumbo are perfectly happy, or so it seems, they both still have a great relationship with my parents. My relationship with all of them is messed up and I'm feeling pretty depressed.

Once I move out completely I will be in a better mental state. I won't have any toxic people in my life. I'll be saving money as the new place is a lot cheaper and most importantly I know that I still have people that love and support me even if it's very few. Once again, thank you to everyone that gave me words of support on my last post, it means so much. Update 2, November 9th, 2024. I didn't expect to be updating again, I thought that everything had ended when my parents blocked me, but no. Since my last post, my parents still have me blocked, but only on

social media. They have been calling me since and telling me that it's up to me to make this right. That basically my entire family is mad at me for trying to destroy the family dynamics, that because I still haven't confronted Dumbo. They all think that I am lying in blue what could have been a simply awkward moment into a big deal so that I could have a proper reason to move out and be independent. According to them, unless I speak to Dumbo face to face, I will have proven their theory of simply lying to get out of the house with anyone questioning it.

They have made it clear that they think I have fucked up by bringing this to light and if I choose not to confront Dumbo, they will proceed to have me blocked and will have me marked as a liar. Oh my God, the pressure I have been under to speak to this man has been making me sick at this point. Yes, I could simply block my parents on everything as well, but that wouldn't. stop them from showing up to my house, and I'm too much of a coward to do so anyway. Even though I'm freaking out, I have decided to talk to Dumbo tonight once I get the courage

to do so, just to get my parents off my back, because I can't handle another phone call with them where they accuse me of being a liar. Deep down I know I didn't fuck up by telling my family about Dumbo harassing me, but I swear to God that if I had known everything that was to come out of this I would have simply moved out and kept my mouth shut. Any advice is needed and I deeply appreciate those that personally message to check up on me after my first post. Comments where Op has replied. Commenter 1, I am genuinely so fucking sorry this is happening to you.

I don't have much in the way of advice but I hope you know that you're not in the wrong and you're not a bad person for speaking up. Don't let them tell you otherwise. Boop, I'm freaking the fuck out, I really don't feel comfortable talking to this guy but But on the other hand, if I don't, the only family I have here will basically turn on me. I'm locked in my room till I get the courage in to talk to him. Commenter too, do not talk to this person alone, but also not with your family they are shit and will gang up on you. Please bring an outside friend and record it if you can.

You really shouldn't even talk to this person and be moved on to your own place and have everyone blocked they are not looking out for you. Stay safe and good luck. Oop, I'll be recording everything. Update 3, November 10th, 2024. To begin, I'd like to thank all of those that have given me advice and shown support during this hard time. It's given me more strength than you know. I've been asked some questions, so I'll answer a few. One, why did I wait six months to bring this up?

This is a very serious accusation to bring up, I wanted to be asked. absolutely sure that I wasn't imagining anything and that I was sure of this, I was also terrified of how my family would react. 2. Why didn't I speak to Dumbo from the very beginning? I didn't have the courage and didn't know how he'd react so I went to my parents for guidance. 3. Why didn't I bring this up until after I moved out? Simple, I thought my parents would have my back. Now to the update. After my last post, I spoke to Dumbo.

Even though many advised me not to, I caved and I confronted him. I recorded the entire conversation like many suggested and even made sure to send it to a few people just in case. Dumbo was quiet the whole time I spoke and apologized even though he admits he stands by the fact he did nothing. His wife, my cousin, Rose, was laughing, snorting and making side remarks the whole time, the urge to tell her to fuck off was big, but I didn't want to make things worse for myself. The conclusion of our talk was this, they don't want to move on from this, but we will be civil, we will keep communication to a minimum until and after I move, he will make sure to never be alone around me and lastly that our conversation was basically pointless and that even if I had spoken to him first place like everyone said. He says the result still would have been the same meaning we would all be divided. I told my parents all of this this morning as they wanted to know how the talk went, and even though I told them this was all said by Dumbo, they still have.

said that I was trying to justify my reasons for not wanting to have the conversation with him. And basically they think I only caved into this to prove that I wasn't lying, because in the end, I never showed any signs of abuse or said anything. They have made clear that I have dived the whole family and that it's going to take time for them to heal from the pain and distress I have caused and that in the future, my family may or may not reach out to me again. After all of this, my biggest fuck-up was how I went about this. I should have waited until I was in my new place and away from these people, at least that way a lot of this could have been avoided. Many have said that because I am 23 I am old enough to deal with this alone, to those who said this, thank you, I have learned that family will not always be there to back you up.

Speaking up will never be a fuck up, but the way you go about things most definitely can be, as you can see here. If I had done, said or acted in few different ways I think the outcome could have been a bit. bit different. In the end, I know I still have people that love and support me, my move out date is just around the corner and eventually my mental health will be okay. In the meantime I will focus on packing and being around those I love. Thank you once again for all your support. This will be my final update. Comments where Ope has replied. Ope want her parents not believing her at all. Ope, you honestly couldn't have said it better. They have their mind set on what they believe.

I'm not going to waste my time trying to change it, it's been shown that no matter what happens they find a way to make this my fault. Commenter 1, the way your parents still found a way to turn what Dumbo said as you making excuses for yourself is incredible. Unfortunately family won't always stand by you and I'm so sorry you've had to go through this, at least there are still people that love you. I'm sure you haven't had time to properly process this whole shit show, but please, once you move out and settle in please take the time to grieve. In the end this is still a loss. Sending you so much support and I'm proud of you. Ope, thank you for your support, with time I will take time and process. Next story.

Stayed silent for two months and collected evidence after finding out my wife was cheating. She's mad when I confronted her, but I'm sorry. I felt nothing. Hello everyone. My 30M, wife, 34F, and I have been together for eight years, five of them married. I thought we were the kind of couple that could tell each other any problem. I loved her deeply and always believed she felt the same way about me. Like many couples, we had our ups and downs, but I never thought it could lead to infidelity. For months ago, I started noticing changes in her behavior. She was more distant, always glued to the phone and avoiding our conversations, you know the typical

thing about a cheating person. Well, one day, I came across a message on her phone that confirmed what I feared the most, she was seeing someone else. It was like a punch in the stomach. I felt anger, sadness, and an overwhelming sense of betrayal. But instead of confronting her right away, I decided to wait. My main reason was to protect myself and a possible divorce. If I was going to face this situation, I wanted to have solid evidence, so I spent the next two months gathering messages, photos, and anything else I could use if things got legally difficult.

During those two months, I pretended normality while the pain piled up. I watched her act like everything was fine, and with each passing day, my feelings for her faded. The love I once felt was replaced by indifference. If anyone says that love for someone doesn't go away, well, it's not entirely true. When I finally gathered all the evidence, I confronted her. I showed her everything I knew, and although she tried to deny it at first, she finally admitted that she had been having an affair. She said it was a mistake, that she still loved me, and that she wanted to work things out.

But by then, I didn't feel anything anymore. I didn't scream, I didn't cry, I didn't even get angry. I simply told her that it was okay, that we could get a divorce, and that we could each move on with our lives. My lack of emotion baffled her. She said my indifference was cold and cruel, and that if I had truly loved her, I should have fought to save our marriage, which was ironic coming from her. But the truth was that I did love her very much. Only after two months of living with the betrayal in silence, I just didn't care. Wow. Honestly, I didn't expect the number of messages I've received in the last few hours.

I apologize for not responding to the comments, but rest assured, I am reading them. My inbox is filled with hundreds of replies, and I'm truly surprised by the support and the number of people who took the time to share their experiences and opinions. At first, I felt overwhelmed reading so many stories from people who have gone through similar situations, some even worse. I never imagined that so many people could relate to what I'm going through. I guess it's eye-opening to see that infidelity is more common than I thought. And yes, there were also comments that made me question if I disconnected emotionally too quickly, but after reflecting, I believe I did what I needed to do to protect myself. Some people told me I should have tried to save the marriage, but the truth is, I don't think I could have.

The betrayal felt like a wall that went up between us, and once I saw everything clearly, there was no way to go back to what we had. It's not that I don't want to love or be loved, it's just that the chapter with her is over for me. Does that make me cruel? I don't know, but it's my truth. One of the most impactful things was seeing how many people are stuck in relationships. where trust has been broken and they don't know how to move forward. To everyone who asked how I'm doing it, I don't have a definitive answer.

For me, it was a slow process, day by day, watching the love fade until it was just gone. There were also some messages from people in my wife's position, those who had made mistakes but genuinely wanted to make things right. It made me think, what would have happened if I had confronted her before my feelings faded? Maybe things would have turned out differently, but honestly, I don't think so. Once trust is broken like that, it's nearly impossible to go back to what it was. Anyway, I want to thank everyone who shared their words, whether they were supportive or critical. You've given me a lot to think about, and I'm grateful for that.

I'm processing all of this little by little, but if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that, for the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe and look forward without the weight of what happened. Thanks again. Update 2, October 29, 2024. Hi everyone, for those of you who don't know, I'm the guy whose wife cheated on him with someone else and he became indifferent. I'm doing this mini update because many of you asked me to give one, but I'm lazy today, so don't expect a long one. Well, for starters, the divorce is in progress. The notice was delivered to her at one of her friend's houses, since the house we live in is mine, from my mother's side. Moving on to the divorce, she didn't take it well and called me to tell me that she would contest it, that we weren't getting a divorce.

I didn't say anything, I just hung up because it bothered me to hear her voice at that moment. I read comments that say indifference is a way to protect yourself from strong emotions, and they were right. After a couple of days, I started thinking about the time invested in my marriage and I really got angry. For her, eight years of relationship was nothing to open her legs to another jerk. For those curious, her lover is someone older, maybe 40 or 47, and he has a wife and kid. I don't care if the idiot has a heart attack or something, my soon-to-be ex and that guy are just trash that came out of the same landfill. Sorry, I was getting angry as I was writing, so I took some time to calm down. Back to my soon-to-be ex, I really don't care if

she decides to contest the divorce, she's just making things harder for herself, since all of our assets are separate, including the house where I live. For the moment, that's all I can share with you. Thanks for your advice, and to all of you who commented that I should work things out with her, screw you. You don't decide for others, you just show that you have problems. I'd rather divorce a thousand times than stay with a traitor with no morals. I hope you enjoy this story. My relative's spouse continued to gaze at me and took action. When I informed my relatives, they accused me of falsehood and now they are all avoiding me,

so I had to confront him. I, 23F, have lived with my cousin Rose and her husband Dumbo, both 33, for over a year for economical reasons. We have had a lot of issues, but I could handle them. Six months ago I began to realize that Dumbo was looking at me more. I've always been sure to wear appropriate clothing in front of him, and I've never even been without a bra outside of my room. Even so I noticed that his eyes were going to other places constantly like my boobs, ass or more below. I thought that it was just my imagination, but just in case I started wearing around the house oversized hoodies and sweatpants and nothing body fitting. But I still'd noticed that when we would have conversations he would deliberately stare at other places.

One night as I was lying on the couch laughing at a video on my phone he came up to me, asked what I was laughing at, and before I could answer he bent down and put his head on my boobs at an angle he could look at the phone screen. I was in shock and I am ashamed that I just let it happen. That's when I knew I had to tell someone, especially my parents, but I didn't have the courage, so I stuck it out. More comments were made but the one that disgusted me the most was when he said, hey, is it me or have your boobs gotten bigger? I asked why the F he was looking at me that way and that he was so off for that, but he just laughed. I got the courage to tell my stepmom and dad and they were both shocked. They said that I needed to move out ASAP, and that I also needed to move out ASAP, and that I also needed to

to talk to Rose about Dumbo's behavior and I would also need to talk to Dumbo. It took a bit of pushing, but I finally got the nerve to sit down with Rose and tell her everything that had happened and this was the reason I was moving. She said that she would talk to him but in the end this was my problem with him and I needed to fix it. I thought that after she spoke to him he would come to me and apologize or say something at least, but that never happened. Two days after I told Rose that I was expecting an apology on his behalf, and I was going to talk to him myself about everything. She said that would be useless because he said he was never going to talk to me again as he claims

he did nothing and apologizing would mean him owning up to what I claimed happened, that both of them were going to wait until my dad was back in town so he could solve everything. He claims that I am just trying to put my family against him and ruin his reputation. I left to go to work after that. But in my mental state I forgot something and when I came back I caught her talking. talking to her mom them talking about how they didn't believe anything I had said and that the three of them would tell my parents that I'm trying to divide the family. With three people ganging up against me I am worried that they'll manage to change my parents' mind. I think I fucked

up by bringing this whole thing up, I may have just ruined my whole relationship with everyone, possibly ruined a marriage, and in the end I'm starting to even doubt my own judgment on what could have just been a misunderstanding. I fucked up by not staying quiet. I'll update if it's requested. Comments where OPP has replied. Commenter 1, stick to your guns. You don't need anyone who won't stand by you when you tell the truth. You know who they are now. Oh, O. P, I know the truth. But man, when it's three people including the wife of this Dumbo trying to bring you down its heart. Thanks for your words. Commenter 2, you could probably reconstruct when this happened from your phone history. If possible, similarly figure out the dates and times of other instances

of harassment. These things are more convincing when they're documented with times, especially if, for example, they always happen during your cousin's working hours and days. If nothing else, it'll feel good to have it solidly documented. And more easily shared if you ever need to do so to defend yourself from accusations of slander. I don't primarily mean legally here but social just in case that's unclear. OOP, I only noticed six months ago. What I can say for anyone who wants details is that he only does this when my cousin isn't close by, for instance when she's in the room or bathroom.

I have noted down for myself all the situations I have remembered because I wanted to be as sure as possible before bringing to light something this delicate. It's just when it's three against one you begin to doubt yourself. Update 1, November 2nd, 2020. Well, I'd like to say thank you to everyone that took the time to comment on my last post, it's because of you that I finally saw that I was not fucking up even though now my relationship with basically my whole family is. Unfortunately the result was not a pretty one.

I spoke to my parents and the whole conversation was just off. To begin with, they don't understand why it took me so long to speak up. I tried explaining that for me this is a very sensitive topic and on top of that I was scared of how everyone would react. Second, it is well known that I usually have a very strong attitude and don't have an issue with telling people to fuck off or standing up for myself, which in their eyes makes it strange that I wasn't able to do that with Dumbo. Yes, I don't have a problem with doing that to people that have no major impact on my life and to be honest even today I am asking myself why I didn't react this way with him, although I

wanted to, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But I also know that if I did Dumbo, and Rose would run off to my parents complaining about how disrespectful I am and it would have been messy either way. Third, they say things don't add up because in the end I never took their advice which was to remove myself from the situation and second to have a conversation with Rose and Dumbo. I have found a nice place to live as of December 1st and I spoke to Rose as I honestly didn't want, nor did I feel comfortable speaking to her husband in the beginning. Like I said in the first post, when I told Rose I was going to speak to Dumbo, she said, no because he wasn't going to listen and she agrees that we have nothing to talk about.

I explained this to my parents but they weren't having it. They said that I need to face Dumbo as he is the one causing the issue for me. I told them very clearly that I wasn't going to force him to sit down and listen to me but according to them that is exactly what I should be doing. My dad says that at the end of the day, I don't know what Dumbo's intentions were and this won't get solved until he and I talk it out. that a lot of people look at me and it's not that big of a deal. He's angry that I've done nothing to solve this matter myself, and even if I know that Dumbo won't listen that that's not the point, the point is trying. I reminded him that he wasn't just looking, it was constant comments,

staring and putting his head on my boobs. I told him once again that I wasn't going to force a grown man to listen to me. But he kept on saying that I wasted their time by not taking their advice. Finally, my parents ended it by saying that because I haven't been transparent with them and it seems like I basically wasted their time then that is how they'd like to keep our relationship. With a wall up. I had prepared myself to take a step back from my parents if needed. But the fact that they did it because I wasted their time just hurts.

I feel like they went into this convo with the mindset of not believing me and nothing I could have said would have changed that. Just the fact that they're telling me to force this man that's ten years of older than me to sit down and listen knowing damn well that because I don't want to be alone with him his wife would have to be there and she'd be jumping down my throat every two seconds is like telling me to flip a hot pancake with no gloves and to try to not get burnt. Knowing damn well that I will. He never offered to be moderator. I had a feeling that this would have been the result. So in a way I do feel like I did fuck up. In the end, Rose and Dumbo

are perfectly happy, or so it seems, they both stay. have a great relationship with my parents. My relationship with all of them is messed up and I'm feeling pretty depressed. Once I move out completely I will be in a better mental state. I won't have any toxic people in my life. I'll be saving money as the new place is a lot cheaper and most importantly I know that I still have people that love and support me even if it's very few. Once again, thank you to everyone that gave me words of support on my last post, it means so much. Update 2, November 9th, 2024. I didn't expect to be updating again, I thought that everything had ended when my parents blocked me, but no. Since my last post, my parents still have me blocked,

but only on social media. They have been calling me since and telling me that it's up to me to make this right. That basically my entire family is mad at me for trying to destroy the family dynamics, that because I still haven't confronted Dumbo. They all think that. They all think that I am lying in blue what could have been a simply awkward moment into a big deal so that I could have a proper reason to move out and be independent. According to them, unless I speak to Dumbo face to face I will have proven their theory of simply lying to get out of the house with anyone questioning it. They have made it clear that they think I have fucked up by bringing this to light and if I choose not to confront Dumbo, they will proceed to have me blocked and will have me marked

as a liar. Oh my God, the pressure I have been under to speak to this man has been making me sick at this point. Yes, I could simply block my parents on everything as well, but that wouldn't stop them from showing up to my house, and I'm too much of a coward to do so anyway. Even though I'm freaking out, I have decided to talk to Dumbo tonight once I get the courage to do so, just to get my parents off my back, because I can't handle another phone call with them where they accuse me of being a liar. Deep down I know I didn't fuck up by telling my family about Dumbo harassing me, but I swear to God that if I had known everything that was to come out of this I would have simply moved out and kept my mouth shut. Any advice is needed and I deeply appreciate

those that personally messaged to check up on me after my first post. Comments where Op has replied. Commenter 1, I am genuinely so fucking sorry this is happening to you. I don't have much in the way of advice but I hope you know that you're not in the wrong and you're not a bad person for speaking up. Don't let them tell you otherwise. Boop, I'm freaking the fuck out, I really don't feel comfortable talking to this guy, but on the other hand if I don't, the only family I have here will basically turn on me. I'm locked in my room till I get the courage in to talk to him. Commenter two, do not talk to this person alone, but also not with your family they are shit and will gang up on you. Please bring an outside friend and record it if you can. You really shouldn't

even talk to this person and be moved on to your own place and have everyone blocked they are not looking out for you. Stay safe and good luck. Oop, I'll be recording everything. Update 3, November 10th, 2024. To begin, I'd like to thank all of those that have given me advice and shown support during this hard time. It's given me more strength than you know. I've been asked some questions, so I'll answer a few. One, why did I wait six months? to bring this up. This is a very serious accusation to bring up, I wanted to be absolutely sure that I wasn't imagining anything and that I was sure of this. I was also terrified of how my family would react. 2. Why didn't I speak to Dumbo from the very beginning? I didn't have the courage and didn't know how he'd react so I went to my parents for guidance. 3. Why didn't I bring this up until after I moved out? Simple, I thought my parents would have my

back. Now to the update. After my last post, I spoke to Dumbo. Even though many advised me not to, I caved and I confronted him. I recorded the entire conversation like many suggested and even made sure to send it to a few people just in case. Dumbo was quiet the whole time I spoke and apologized even though he admits he stands by the fact he did nothing. His wife, my cousin, Rose, was laughing, snorting and making side remarks the whole time. The urge to tell her to fuck off was big, but I didn't want to make things worse for myself. The conclusion of our talk was this. They don't want to move on from this, but we will be civil, we will keep communication to a minimum until and after I move, he will make sure to never be

alone around me and lastly that our conversation was basically pointless and that even if I had spoken to him first place like everyone said. He says the result still would have been the same meaning we would all be divided. I told my parents all of this this morning as they wanted to know how the talk went, and even though I told them this was all said by Dumbo, they still said that I was trying to justify my reasons for not wanting to have the conversation with him. And basically they think I only caved into this to prove that I wasn't lying, because in the end, I never showed any signs of abuse or said anything. They have made clear that I have dived the whole family and that it's going to take time for them to heal from the pain and distress I have caused

and that in the future, my family may or may not reach out to me again. After all of this, my biggest fuck-up was how I went about this. I should have waited until I was in my new place and away from these people, at least that way a lot of this could have been avoided. Many have said that because I am 23 I am old enough to deal with this alone, to those who said this, thank you, I have learned that family will not always be there to back you up. Speaking up will never be a fuck up, but the way you go about things most definitely can be, as you can see here. If I had done, said or acted in few different ways I think the outcome could have been a bit different.

In the end, I know I still have people that love and support me, my move-out date is just around the corner and eventually my mental health will be okay. In the meantime, I will focus on packing and being around those I love. Thank you once again for all your support. This will be my final update. Comments where Ope has replied. Ope want her parents not believing her at all. Ope, you honestly couldn't have said it better. They have their mind set on what they believe.

I'm not going to waste my time trying to change it, it's been shown that no matter what happens they find a way to make this my fault. Commenter one, the way your parents still found a way to turn what Dumbo said as you making excuses for yourself is incredible. Unfortunately family won't always stand by you and I'm so sorry you've had to go through this, at least there are still people that love you. I'm sure you haven't had time to properly process this whole shit show, but please, once you move out and settle in please take the time to grieve.

In the end this is still a loss. Sending you so much support and I'm proud of you. Ope, thank you for your support, with time I will take time and process. Next story. Stayed silent for two months and collected evidence after finding out my wife was cheating. She's mad when I confronted her, but I felt nothing. Hello everyone. My 30M, wife, 34F, and I have been together for eight years, five of them married.

I thought we were the kind of couple that could tell each other any problem. I loved her deeply and always believed she felt the same way about me. Like many couples, we had our ups and downs. but I never thought it could lead to infidelity. For months ago, I started noticing changes in her behavior. She was more distant, always glued to the phone and avoiding our conversations, you know the typical thing about a cheating person. Well, one day, I came across a message on her phone that confirmed what I feared the most,

she was seeing someone else. It was like a punch in the stomach. I felt anger, sadness, and an overwhelming sense of betrayal. But instead of confronting her right away, I decided to wait. My main reason was to protect myself and a possible divorce. If I was going to face this situation, I wanted to have solid evidence, so I spent the next two months gathering messages, photos, and anything else I could use if things got legally difficult. During those two months, I pretended normality while the pain piled up.

I watched her act like everything was fine, and with each passing day, my feelings for her face. The love I once felt was replaced by indifference. If anyone says that love for someone doesn't go away, well, it's not entirely true. When I finally gathered all the evidence, I confronted her. I showed her everything I knew, and although she tried to deny it at first, she finally admitted that she had been having an affair. She said it was a mistake, that she still loved me, and that she wanted to work things out. But by then, I didn't feel anything anymore.

I didn't scream, I didn't cry, I didn't even get angry. I simply told her that it was okay, that we could get a divorce, and that we could each move on with our lives. My lack of emotion baffled her. She said my indifference was cold and cruel, and that if I had truly loved her, I should have fought to save our marriage, which was ironic coming from her. But the truth was that I did love her very much. Only after two months of living with the betrayal in silence, I just didn't care. Wow. Honestly, I didn't expect the number of messages I've received in the last few hours.

I apologize for not responding to the comments, but rest assured, I am reading them. My inbox is filled with hundreds of replies, and I'm truly surprised by the support and the number of people who took the time to share their experiences and opinions. At first, I felt overwhelmed reading so many stories from people who have gone through similar situations, some even worse. I never imagined that so many people could relate to what I'm going through. I guess it's eye-opening to see that infidelity is more common than I thought. And yes, there were also comments that made me question if I disconnected emotionally too quickly, but after reflecting, I believe I did what I needed to do to protect myself. Some people told me I should have tried to save the marriage, but the truth is, I don't think I could have.

The betrayal felt like a wall that went up between us, and once I saw everything clearly, there was no way to go back to what we had. It's not that I don't want to love or be loved, it's just that the chapter with her is over for me. Does that make me cruel? I don't know, but it's my truth. One of the most impactful things was seeing how many people are stuck in relationships. where trust has been broken and they don't know how to move forward. To everyone who asked how I'm doing it, I don't have a definitive answer. For me, it was a slow process, day by day, watching the love fade until it was just gone.

There were also some messages from people in my wife's position, those who had made mistakes but genuinely wanted to make things right. It made me think, what would have happened if I had confronted her before my feelings faded? Maybe things would have turned out differently, but honestly, I don't think so. Once trust is broken like that, it's nearly impossible to go back to what it was. Anyway, I want to thank everyone who shared their words, whether they were supportive or critical. You've given me a lot to think about, and I'm grateful for that. I'm processing all of this little by little, but if there's one thing I'm sure of,

it's that, for the first time in months, I feel like I can breathe and look forward without the weight of what happened. Thanks again. Update 2, October 29, 2024. Hi everyone, for those of you who don't know, I'm the guy whose wife cheated on him with someone else and he became indifferent. I'm doing this mini update because many of you asked me to give one, but I'm lazy today, so don't expect a long one. Well, for starters, the divorce is in progress. The notice was delivered to her at one of her friend's houses, since the house we live in is mine, from my mother's side. Moving on to the divorce, she didn't take it well and called me to tell me that she would contest it, that we weren't getting a divorce. I didn't say anything, I just hung up because it bothered me to hear her voice at that moment.

I read comments that say indifference is a way to protect yourself from strong emotions, and they were right. After a couple of days, I started thinking about the time invested in my marriage and I really got angry. For her, eight years of relationship was nothing to open her legs to another jerk. For those curious, her lover is someone older, maybe 40 or 47, and he has a wife and kid. I don't care if the idiot has a heart attack or something, my soon-to-be ex and that guy are just trash that came out of the same landfill. Sorry, I was getting angry as a little. I was getting angry as I was writing, so I took some time to calm down. Back to my soon-to-be X, I really don't care if she decides to contest the divorce, she's just making things harder for herself, since all of our

assets are separate, including the house where I live. For the moment, that's all I can share with you. Thanks for your advice, and to all of you who commented that I should work things out with her, screw you. You don't decide for others, you just show that you have problems. I'd rather a thousand times than stay with a traitor with no morals. I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse is insisting I sever connections with my closest companion after she damaged my spouse's wedding gown, but my companion argues that my spouse lacks a sense of humor. Ailey and I met through a mutual friend in 2012 during a pub quiz at university.

I was quite attracted to her and actually told her so at the end of the evening, but she told me she had a boyfriend even though she was flattered all the same. Fast forward three years later. I meet Eliza at the Edinburgh Fringe and we just clicked immediately. Politics, music, cinema, whatever the subject approached, there was a spark that I'd never felt with anyone else. Like she just made sense with me. Her personality was just vivid. It's hard to describe, but I'll try. On first impression, she was so knowledgeable and enthusiastic. She was so knowledgeable and I was taken aback by her intensity. From that point onwards, we were inseparable and I was dead certain of our future together

long before we got engaged. Enter Ailey again. I start a new job at an advertising firm with a position in web design and she was one of the only people I knew. At first it was a little awkward given our history, especially considering that she was now married to the boyfriend she was dating back then. But there was no one else I knew at the firm and we both had point. partners at this point, so it couldn't hurt to be friends, right? And to be honest, I'm glad because I feel like our chemistry as friends superseded any potential

we might have had as a couple. She's clever and has a bit of a cheeky personality. I'm quite dry and sarcastic myself, so I reckon we have a pretty fun dynamic. Eliza doesn't seem to feel that way, though. Sometimes when it's been the three of us she has expressed a feeling of being left out or that Ailey has been making fun of her. I don't see it, it's just our dynamic. But there have been a couple of nights where Eliza's been in tears because of something that Ailey has said. One time Eliza got out of her seat and Ailey sat down where she was sitting to show me a video on YouTube. When Eliza came back and she saw Ailey leaning next to me and was upset for the rest of the night. Sometimes there have been times when Ailey has said something that

Eliza has read as a come on. Like when I said I missed swimming because I felt out of shape Ailey said the two of us should go together with a playful punch. Eliza didn't say anything at the time but her discomfort was visible. Things really came to a head though on our wedding and I think the stress of it really got to Eliza. During the reception Ailey bumped into her and red wine spilled all over her dress. She was bawling the entire evening. We're now on our honeymoon and Eliza has said she hopes for a fresh start, but she feels like Ailey might have spilled her wine on purpose. She's suggesting that I cut ties with her and if I'm honest I'm not so sure I want to. Where do I go from here? Comments where OPP has replied. Noy thanks. The number of

times I've bumped into someone and spilled my drink on them is exactly once in my entire life and I was a shit-faced teenager. You are either astoundingly naive or Ailey is somehow the unlucky luckiest woman in the world to accidentally spill her red wine on the bride on her wedding day. I think you know which one is more likely. Your wife won't be staying your wife for much longer unless you start actually listening to her and stop dismissing all of her fears as baseless insecurities. Goop. Ailey was getting a drink from the bar, Eliza had taken off part of her gown for dining and dancing

purposes and was leaving our bedroom to return to our table, they bumped into each other and Eliza had a huge red stain over her dress. Ailey made an offhand joke and fled, and Eliza ran up to me in bits and pieces. It sounded really bad when Eliza told me, and she was in bits about the wine spilling all over her dress, and I went to Ailey and asked her what the hell she was up to. Ailey was so mortified and told me she wanted to sink into a hole, she's dyspraxic and has struggled with falling at impromptu moments. I've actually witnessed it happening before, there was a media.

at work and she gets our colleagues coffee, the moment she came and she tripped and fell, coffee flying everywhere. RIP underscore dirtbag. Ailey bumped into your wife and her wedding dress, spilling wine all over it, and made an offhand joke before fleeing. What kind of response is that? She's a really awkward person and doesn't know how to interact with people sometimes. There have been times I've been upset with her because of how glib she's been about personal issue. Star Valiant So someone who has a habit of accidentally saying or doing things that make your wife cry accidentally also managed to spill red wine over her white dress on the biggest day of her life, and you don't think that's at all suspicious. If you knew, and imagine here that you somehow knew for certain, that she'd done it on purpose, what would your reaction be?

Would it change how you thought about her? Give it some thought. Goop was doing it on purpose. I love Eliza and want us to be happy and I can see that I've really fucked up here, multiple times. Ailey is a good friend, but if she's deliberately being a wind-up merchant and harming my marriage, then I'll have to cut the cord and stop chumming up to her so much. Eliza sometimes says to me that she can intuit people's opinions and feelings within minutes of meeting them. I've never been like that, my folks have always said that I'm

terrible with picking up on basic things. I was at an aunt's house when I was a kid, talking her ear off and she said, oh, it's getting late multiple times, it was only until my mom dragged me out that I picked up that she wanted me to leave. Symbol, Ferran. It really sounds like you're putting your friend first. No wonder your wife is unhappy. She comes back in tears from hanging out, and you still invite Ailey to the wedding? What was that conversation like? She got really upset one time during banter because me and Ailey liked to roast each other regularly and Ailey roasted her a little too hard, I guess. We were singling out things to insult each other on and the subject went to Eliza and Eliza mentioned that she had webbed feet.

Since then Ailes called her leapfrog. When I say it, Eliza takes it in good stride, but when Ailey says it it's this massive problem. I don't get it. Eliza has suggested that Ailey's being serious when she says it as opposed to when I do, but she roasts me the same way too. She said I looked like a yuggalo's poodle that day because I was wearing baggy metal clothes and hadn't styled my hair so it was frizzing all over the place. Secret Beans 1367 Why haven't you stuck up for your wife all those times Ailey has hurt her? Hoop.

I guess because I didn't know that I needed to. It seems like it's a prospective thing. Eliza is a passionate person who cries at Deluxe puppy adverts and the intensity is great for a partner but it can cause problems with friendships. She reads a lot into things her friends do thinking it's intentional and when she talks to them about what they did, they will be completely shocked and unaware that they hurt her. Ailey is a very sarcastic person in general who rolls with the punches and to me it reads like they struggle to gel rather than intentional cruelty on Ailey's part but for what it's worth Ailey has told me that she's really keen on alexie. Eliza and thinks she's a top girl. Update 1, January 25th, 2024. Posting this here BC, it keeps getting deleted on relationship underscore advice. You know I posted here recently looking for guidance on how to deal with my wife's anxiety and hurt revolving around my friend and a seems

like I got read the riot act, probably rightly so. I have been completely inconsiderate of Eliza's feelings and how she feels about these rostings and you alerted me to the possibility that Ali is is doing this just to be a little shit. I sat down with Eliza and we had an in-death conversation about the wedding incident. I got her to describe the event step by step in her own words. I was leaving the lobby into the dining venue and Ailey was a little tipsy at this point and already stumbling from the bar. She was initially walking slower but seemed to speed up when she saw me. We collided into each other and she pulled an ashamed face and made a joke about me looking like Rosamund Pike and Gone Girl before scurrying away. She seemed embarrassed in the moment,

but she didn't apologize to me. I heard from other people that she was appalled about what happened, but I never heard anything from her directly. It just paints a picture of habitual microaggressions from her that is festered into this ugly anxiety whenever she's around. I pretty much predict whenever I'm in her vicinity, there will be weird behavior or uncomfortable comments and I don't want to continue being in a situation where my husband brings someone into my home, who resents me simply for existing. That was a real gut punch to me. For me, I always felt like it was just insecurity about me fancying Ailey for 10 minutes

Yonks ago, but Eliza is really torn up about this. She said that the honeymoon has been miserable because the memory has been swirling around in her mind and she feels like I'm going to downplay or dismiss it. No one should feel like they can't just be themselves, especially not at home. I didn't realize what a shithead I'd been and I apologized profusely to Eliza and decided to phone up Ailey to confront her about the wedding incident. So I did and it, it didn't go well. Basically I told her that Eliza was really hurt by the wedding dress incident, that she had been hurt by her behavior for a long time and that if she can't bring herself to apologize to Eliza's face at least she should pay towards getting the stain removed. and if she couldn't bring herself to even do that then our friendship had to stop.

To say that Ailey was taken aback would be an understatement. She was completely blindsided, asking what was wrong with their interactions that made me want to go to such extremes. I mentioned the leapfrog comment and she went, but even you call her that, stating that Eliza called her Garfield cause of her weight and bright orange hair. When I mentioned that she ran towards Eliza and didn't apologize for spilling wine on her, she got really upset. and started shouting that she wasn't running at her to hurl wine at her dress, she was running from her because she didn't want to talk at that moment because she feels like Eliza hates her and she doesn't know how to go about it. She started pointing out times when Eliza had been funny towards her and I basically said right, but this isn't about when Eliza has hurt you, this is about when you've heard Eliza and it's got so bad that it needs to be talked about and she started laughing, it was really uncomfortable. I know she does this when she's anxious about something. Eliza asked me if things were okay from the other room and Ailey demanded if this was set up

and when I tried to explain myself, she hung up. Her husband even phoned me, insisting that he would pay for the damage if it is less stressful for me. I told Ewan, husband, that I appreciated that, but I needed to know where Ailey stood regarding what I just said. Ewan told me that Ailey makes jokes whenever she's anxious or uncomfortable, and that they've wrote about it in the past, but the wedding dress incident is a major issue and that he wants to smooth things over as much as I do. So him and Ailey will pay towards dry cleaning,

whilst a condolences hamper is sent to Eliza. Eliza was relieved that Ewan was so understanding, but she wasn't thrilled about Ailey's reaction. Basically said that the Garfield comment was always about her hair and never about her weight and that she was deliberately trying to make it seem like the bad behavior went both ways. I don't think it's went both ways either, because I've never noticed Eliza roasting Ailey in any real way. Eliza has suggested we try marriage counseling, I was a bit shocked at first because we've only been married a month, L.O.L. But I decided maybe that's the way forward because if Eliza reckons that we need counseling for it, then it's clearly a problem. So yeah, me and Eliza are going to try marriage counseling in my future with

Ailey is uncertain. Update 2, February 3, 2024. So after the rightly deserved bullocking you gave me in the last post, you'll be happy to learn that Ailey and me aren't talking anymore, and it's probably for the best. Eliza and me received the condolences hamper in the post and it was primarily, soaps. Not in the sense of fragrant body lotions or luxury packages, or even organic bars, just regular, run-of-the-mill soaps. There were were two dispensers that were faintly rose-scented but it was so mild you had to really look for it. There were several white soap bars that didn't smell of anything, really, it was so confusing. The only items that suggested it was a proper gift basket were a six pounds bottle of chardonnay

and a box of roses chocolates that looked a fair deal more effort than the cleaning equipment at the nearest pub. The weirdest item though. A pair of women's underpants. not lingerie, not anything lacy or risque, like, just a plain pair of white pants. They were actually kind of grubby, there was a faint orange lining on them. It just didn't make sense to me because if they were meant to be for Eliza, they were at least six sizes too big. And if Ailey really was making a move on me, they were again around six sizes too big, also,

why would she choose such disgusting pants to try and seduce me? It weirded me out so much I rang up Ailey, asking why I had soap and grubby knickers in our condolences hamper. She kept making dry remarks to her husband about there being a strange noise on the other end of the phone. I didn't get anywhere with her and insisted that Ewan should talk to me instead because getting anywhere with her was like pulling teeth at this rate. After some disgruntled remarks, she passed the phone over. Ewan asked what was up and I explained the whole situation. He was momentarily surprised when I described the hamper as looking like the luggage of a janitor that lived under a bridge. He said that it was a small package, but there should have been several luxury gifts that weren't simply sanitary items.

Apparently there was a bottle of chardonnay, a bottle of charades, one box of rose chocolates, a lint bar, a selection of crackers and some assorted cheeses. Somehow that got replaced with leftover soaps bought in bulk and as why fronts that Ailey found ever so hilarious, and apparently found ever so hilarious to send to my wife. He was hugely apologetic and embarrassed, stating that he'd pay us the cost towards the lost items. I was raging at this point, but I tried to be collected and said right, let me talk to Ailey again, please, and he got her on the line. I told her that she had the chance to make it right and she blew it, and she groaned and told me that Eliza's jealousy has crippled our friendship

and she was sick of having to flatter her insecurities. I said no, you were Eliza's insecurities and we rode for a bit. Eventually it ended with me saying that this had been building up for a while and that her attitude had been giving Eliza grief for years. Ailey said none of this would be happening if Eliza knew how to take a joke and I just told her that a joke isn't ruining her wedding dress and then sending her your husband's stinky wife fronts. She said I sold out my principles for a girl who's threatened by other women. After the phone call Eliza was not so much hurt as she was confused at first, because she was

wondering if there was a mix-up until I explained to her the joke. She seemed pretty much resigned to the idea that Ailey would always be a shit, and I told her the likelihood of that happening was very slim considering she's cut me off for standing up for her. I think the counseling has made us stronger and in a weird way I'm glad this happened. Because if your friendship falls apart the moment you try to protect your loved ones, then they probably weren't that strong friendships at all. Shame I won't be speaking to you and from now on, he's a top lad.

Comments where Ope has replied. Material underscore cellist. I just hope that you finally feel stupid and you apologize and make it up to your wife. How the fuck didn't you know your friend was bullying your wife is beyond me? Ope. I have apologized to Eliza, multiple times. I should have been more assertive with A. and told her to cut her shit out then.

I'm aware that this is entirely on me for being permissive towards someone who was really just being a bully towards my wife. I'm trying to do better. Mixed meat. I'm glad you are seeing the light, but why were you permissive before? Why was it only now did you finally believe her and confront Ailey? Did you like the attention? Was it easier to dismiss your wife's concerns as being petty over a crush than to critically consider her feelings and the situation. Also, don't you still work with Ailey? Ohp. I think it was because I saw it as

lost in translation, like it was something that worked with me and Ailey but didn't with her, and assumed that she would figure that it was the sort of banter we encouraged and joined in at some point. Elizas from a very sincere, straightforward family that say what they mean and don't necessarily make jokes like I do. The whole idea would be lost on them and they would be really confused and upset thinking that we were actually insulting each other. Eliza's brother nearly jumped me once just because I said that's plenty when she was rambling on a little, that's a still game reference for the transatlantic pals across the world.

I like it when she rambles, I think it's cute and it's a running joke between us. But he found it so personally offensive, though, like he thought that I was just telling her to put a sock in it and started ranting at me for disrespecting his sister like that. Eliza started hiding her face in shame, it was that extreme a reaction. I think I should have been paying more attention, though. Eliza told me that when she's tried to chat to her Ailes just been like I don't do small talk and they've sat in complete silence. Apparently when she tried to chat at another time she was totally non-committal and yawned so loud that it woke up our dog. I only found this out recently because Eliza didn't want to inconvenience me and I feel so ashamed of my behavior.

I felt like there was just crossed wires, but Ailey really was bullying Eliza and finding creative ways to essentially make her uncomfortable and squeeze her out of our dynamic. I don't know why or how she thought any of that was appropriate, but it's irrelevant as my wife should never be scared of telling me how she really feels. Yeah, I work with Ailey. That is a complication that I hadn't considered. I wouldn't worry about her causing drama in the workplace because she values her job greatly, but I wouldn't be surprised about some of the same. some passive aggressive attitude being thrown my way. Oh well. I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens,

but I'm uninterested in any form of reconciliation if she's going to be that disrespectful. Additional info. The reason that Ailey is out my life is because I raised the point in the first place. That's more to do with her than me or my passivity. And yeah, I'm aware it was a problem, you're damn right it was a problem, but it feels like even when I'm trying to write the wrong I'm getting a finger-wagging really. I don't mind criticism but at this point it feels a bit like I'm getting blows for new reasons.

I didn't pick up on Ailey's shitty behavior before. I felt like it was crossed wires at first but the reason why she isn't talking to me is because I told her off for treating Eliza like shit to begin with. I should have done it long ago, I acknowledge that, but let's not start fantasizing about a future where I'll just welcome her back in with open arms for treating my wife like that. It's not going to happen because I want a future with Eliza much more than I want a pal to have lunch with. I've messed up, I know I have and I want to change it. Let's just be moving forward. Upwin asked if the underwear was his. I didn't. I stopped fancying Ailey in 2012 after she said she was

taken. I didn't sleep with her and I don't really care for that kind of speculation, it's It's just untrue and adds more fuel to the fire. People come across this stuff Earl and it just exacerbates problems. Eliza came across one of the videos about my post on YouTube or TikTok and it stirred up a lot of painful feelings, especially reading about your reactions. She was shocked that I sought online advice because I usually try to handle things by myself. She was more shocked by the comments that were overwhelmingly on her side. It helped her acknowledge how she was.

shitty and awful everything done to her had been and we had a long talk about it. I've agreed not to talk to Ailey, as she is clearly only interested in causing trouble for a cheap laugh. I mentioned the situation to H.R., even the stinky underpants, and they said they'd speak to her and keep an eye on any potential developments but so far no trouble. As far as I know Ailey's been having lunch with another colleague and I now go down to a neighboring cafe to grab a baked potato. Whenever I've been in her vicinity, she's just mumbled all right, so I'm guessing there were some words, between her and HR, I mean. Oop on how his wife is doing.

She's doing well. So far, so good. We had a really successful couple's counseling session and it opened my eyes towards so much of my behavior, and how I was essentially permitting bad behavior for so long. I realized that it was because investing in something emotionally heavy or even just a problem makes me really anxious, so I try to distance myself from conflict. It used to be whenever my relatives fought, they would sort of figuratively pull at me like a rag doll into taking their side,

and that behavior upset me so much that any sort of conflict was off-putting to me. But I realized that when I essentially do that, I leave problems completely unsolved and cause my loved ones' pain due to my own anxieties. So if someone is mistreating someone I love, I'm not in their corner like I should be. A big part of these counseling sessions is figuring out how to manage accountability and not just being like, oh, it's my childhood, blah, blah, blah, and stepping up the mantle into making things right. Me and Eliza now do daily check-ins, like how are you feeling today, how are you managing that, is there anything you're not happy about and what can be done to help you? So far it's been really helpful, as she seems in much better spirits and we've been having date nights again, which is great. Aside from the occasional disagreement, things genuinely have improved.

As for A. Lee, well, things haven't changed much, but luckily the work situation has been tolerable. I'm surprised how much I like eating outside work, TBH. Can't stand the canteens, the food is shite. I hope you enjoy this story. Just a kind prompt prior to the video commencing, you will listen to two anecdotes in this video and both contain recent developments. Moving on to the initial tale. My dad is cheating on my mom with the young women.

What should I do? I need advice. I never post on Reddit and I'm also on mobile so sorry if formatting is ugly. Today I experienced the definition of EFF around and find out. Some backstory. Almost a year ago my family experienced the loss of my grandpa, my dad's father. It was sudden and it struck my father really hard, he started having more emotional outbursts, being more reclusive, etc.

And we tried our best to be understanding and help him in any way he needed. He found himself a therapist and seemed to be working through a lot of his feelings and thoughts. He still wasn't acting entirely like the him we once knew but death affects everyone differently and this made his behavior easy to excuse. My dad and I don't live in the same city and so we often meet up at halfway points for lunch. We have always been close so it's commonplace for us to talk our feelings, emotions, and recent life events with each other. Now the story. During our first lunch since my grandpa's passing I noticed my dad talking a lot about this new girl at his work, we will call her Stacy. He said that Stacy was helping him a lot of his trauma and being there for him.

Stacy's husband had been through some similar traumas that my dad had experienced and that was being brought up in therapy so he said she offered him support. He really felt he could be himself around her, he made it abundantly clear that he did not feel he could be himself around his wife of 20 years, my mom, but that he could with Stacy. I thought this was an odd comment to make and I think this is where my suspicions of their real intentions began, but I knew he was struggling it made me feel relieved that he had someone he trusted. It struck me a little weird that she was 29, but again, sometimes workplaces can create weird and unexpected friendships and with me being 26 I wondered if maybe he saw her as another daughter since I wasn't able to be around much due to distance.

He assured me that Stacey was married to a man named Andrew. They were strictly friends, but in his own words, people from his work had started to think something was going on between them so they had stopped talking at work and had moved to texting. He even went so far as to later in the conversation say that he thinks a strong marriage should be able to survive someone cheating. I assured him that that wasn't healthy and that I'm not sure what kind of relationship he wanted with his wife, but I did not want a relationship founded on infidelity. Obviously my alarm bells were going off. With what little information I had on Stacy I went and found her online, I stalked her and just like my dad said, she was seemingly in a young happy marriage with Andrew. She kept her social media pretty

private, but from what I could see she looked like your average 29-year-old woman. I couldn't possibly imagine what she would want with my dad and if anything I thought maybe my dad had a work crush that he was reading too much into, no one wants to think that their dad could be capable of a full-blown affair. Over the next few visits with my dad I would hear him continually talk about Stacey when telling stories about work or talking about his friends. She always seemed to come up, I couldn't help but notice that he would avoid calling her by name she would just be she or her or girl from work. It's as if he completely forgot the things he had told me about her or as if he was afraid to say her name around me. Infidelity is never mentioned again but he is always talking about

how he's fighting with my mom, Lily, how as he goes through therapy she might not like the man he's becoming. He tells me how he's standing his ground and getting into verbal arguments with her. I imagine this is self-sabotage due to his guilt because of the cheating. Fast forward to today, about a year since I first heard about Stacey, I went on my laptop, which I do not use often. I opened Instagram and I realized I still had my dad's login credentials saved on my computer from a one-off back in 2016. My dad is and always has been sketchy with his password, so I assumed that likely it wouldn't work, but I tried the login anyways. To my surprise, I was in. I won't even pretend like I didn't know exactly what I was looking for or like I'm above looking through his

DMs. This is also where I fucked around and found out. I opened their DMs which were pretty bleak at first. I thought that I could rest my suspicions, more like hoped, until I couldn't. It started out with sending corny photos to each other. Things about you can kiss me whenever you want. I'm yours and your arms feel like home and I'm homesick, really juvenile weird shit. things I wouldn't send to a coworker if you paid me, still in denial I kept scrolling and that when I saw it, nudes, from her only thank God. Full-blown sexting conversations, conversations about their existing partners and the potential of leaving them for each other. I love you's, conversations with their plans to sleep together

for the first time, etc., etc., etc., you get the picture. All of my suspicions laid out in front of me. He was willing to risk it all for a married woman three years older than his daughter. He was willing to hurt the woman he had supposedly loved for 20 years, destroy his family, destroy Stacy's family for what? Absolute effengie selfishness. The worst part for me was that they actively talk about their existing partners in this chat. Stacey is always making fun of my mom. Does Lily wear lacy bras for you? Does Lily let you go down on her with her bush, L.O.L. As if Stacy couldn't become more a disgusting human, as if she's not already sleeping with a married 53-year-old father of two, she has to degrade his wife, an innocent victim in this situation.

They assure each other that they love their current partners so much that it hurts and they don't understand how they can have the capacity to love two people at the same time, is disgusting and childish, I don't know how this ends, they still work together and closely together, I cannot bring myself to tell my mom. I don't want my dad to know I know, I don't want him to feel backed into a corner like he has to tell my mom, I want him to tell my mom because he knows it's the right thing to do, I have looked up to my dad my whole life and I feel like the whole view I have had of him is this selfless, loving, caring family man has been shattered. I'm so disappointed in his actions, and I don't

know what to do, it's eating away at me. Edit. I was told it would be beneficial to add that my parents do have a kid who is a minor who lives with them. I have not known about this affair the entire time, I found out about it on Thursday, so please stop saying that I'm intentionally holding this secret for my father. My parents share an email account and I will not see my mom in person until probably Christmas. Relevant comments were the Oop answered. Stinson 555. Armed with this info, I would set up a one-on-one meeting with mom and tell her and bring the evidence. In volatile situations like this, it is best to be proactive versus reactive. Advise her to go into stealth mode and to act like nothing is going on. Next steps, one.

Help mom find two, three divorce attorneys and schedule the consult. The consult is usually free, have her present the circumstances and find out their approach. She can then decide whose style she likes most and retain them. Have her gather the following documents. A, last three years tax returns. B, 12 months bank statements, retirement account statements, investment statements. C. copies of mortgage slash deed slash title to the home.

D, if they own in vacation or rental real estate make copies of the docs from hashtag C, E, 12 months worth of credit card statements. C, phone bills. Have your mom try to see if she can get access to his wallet while he is sleeping and if so check it for any new credit cards. If she finds any, have her screenshot them. What state are you in? Depending on the answer, infidelity may qualify her for a fault

for the divorce filing. Helping her prepare for this will give her a leg up for a softer landing. If you can find the info for her a fair partner spouse, she can and should make contact the day your dad is served. B.T.W. He can be served at work, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. OOP replied, I have decided to take your advice. I'm going to tell my mom as she deserves to have the upper hand in decision-making since my father

has been the holder of all decisions for months unbeknownst to her. I'm currently just waiting for a time when she is not around my dad so I can call her and drop the bomb. They're currently driving up to their cottage together so it doesn't feel fair for me to not let her have room to grieve slash figure out her next move. I will post an official update when I have one, most likely Monday when she goes to work. Update October 23, 2023. Update, my dad is having an affair with a 29-year-old woman. So, I finally called my mom. Her and my dad had spent the day together at their cottage, so I waited until they were home

and then asked if she could go somewhere alone so we could talk on the phone. Her reaction was nothing like I imagined, she sounded like she already knew. Her reaction also made me feel like this wasn't the first time this has happened. She laughed and asked me what I thought I saw. She blamed herself and said that she doesn't meet my dad's needs. I explained to her that that's not fair and that she doesn't deserve to be lied to and cheated on and put at risk for STDs. I said the way they spoke about my mom in the chat was disgusting and that this was wrong. She asked to see the screenshots, so I sent them to her.

She kept reassuring me that her and my dad were in it for the long haul and wouldn't divorce. I told her I didn't care about that. I said no matter her decision, I supported her either way. Even though it wasn't what I was anticipating, I felt relieved. I felt like a weight had been lifted. She thanked me for telling her and said that I would always be her sweet girl. Everything seemed to be going well until she spoke to slash confronted my dad and called me back. I don't know what happened with the conversation between her and my dad, but it's clear that he is a master manipulator and not at all the person I thought he was prior to all this.

My mom's tone had completely shifted on the phone. She was scolding me. He confirmed the affair. He confirmed everything I had said and brought forward to her. Somehow they're blaming me, they're telling me I'm wrong. My mom told me that she's read all the screenshots I sent but had nothing to say about them. They're staying together and in her words this is just a bump in the road. They've had highs and lows and they'll have lows again.

I said I would support her either way so I can't be mad but I can't help it be sad at how she thinks of herself to accept this behavior. I love your dad and he loves me. What a horrible message to send to your child. She told me that guilt does bad things to people and that she thinks I got myself worked up over nothing. She told me if was wrong of me to look at his Instagram messages and that it was a breach of trust,

ironic considering my dad committed the biggest breach of trust there is in a marriage. I also never would have looked at his messages had he not planted this seat of infidelity in my brain. She explained my dad is very angry with me and she doesn't know if our relationship is reprable. I assumed my dad would be mad at me, of course, but for my mom to seemingly side with him and turn her back on me too is almost too much to take. I know she's being manipulated but this is where it ends, I guess. I can't stand to look at either of them. I feel like I was just orphaned.

I can't fight a fight someone doesn't want me to on their behalf. Deep down I know I'm not to blame for this. Don't get me wrong. But it's really hard to not feel awful when your parents, whom you've trusted, turn their back on you. I do feel like I did right by myself in telling my mom the truth, but I can't help but think that everything would have been easier if I never said anything. My dad still follows Stacey. He has blocked me and my fiancé on all social media platforms. He's quite literally showing that he chooses his AP over his daughter. I know he's reacting out of embarrassment and anger, but I've blocked him in return.

He doesn't get to choose when he comes back into my life. All of this hurts a lot. Relevant comments. Agoros. Bum. Like you said, this wasn't the first time and it may well be that they already have an understanding about extramarital affairs, and that may run both ways. So you notifying her didn't tell her much she didn't already know.

Instead it just made it awkward for her to discuss it with you. Ultimately, people are not. are complicated and you don't know their sexual history, which predates your existence, it is, and will, remain fundamentally unknowable to you. Your dad is a piece of shit, though, for how he is reacting to you. Hoop replied, in Stacey and my dad's DMs they both outlined the fallout they believe would occur if their respective partners found out about their affair. I don't believe even if my mom and dad have a don't ask don't tell policy like another reditor suggested that it is a two-way Street, but you're absolutely correct. I don't know their agreements within their marriage nor do I want to,

L.O.L. Seeing the things that my dad said in his DMs was way more than I ever needed to know, I do find my dad's reaction of anger. Very telling, though, honestly the relationship I have probably would have just told me of their agreement had there been one. Cressel I 90. Have you asked your mother if she'd expect you to stay in that situation if it were you in her shoes? If she says no, ask her what example she thinks she's setting by doing so herself. You can support her and distance yourself from the situation, and from them, them blaming you for telling the truth is wrong and separate of the support for what she chooses. And you can also support her and choose to limit or forego the relationship you have with your father entirely. I have a feeling when your wedding

approaches your father is going to want to play perfect dad in all the events and pictures. Will you allow him to? Hoop replied, when it comes to my mom, I told him, I told him, her I would support her either way. As much as I don't agree with her choice I'm not in her position and I don't know what kind of factors are coming into play for her to stay. Who knows, they could be waiting for my younger brother to move out before they call it quits. For now I am NC with my father and I am willing to be LC with my mom but no one has spoken to me since so I think it might be NC with all. As it stands currently I don't anticipate inviting my father to my wedding which is really hard to stomach. We never planned for a big

wedding so his presence was definitely going to be a big one on our day. Unless something is massively repaired during that time, I don't need the added stress. Now on to the next story, story two. My friend's ex, who ghosted her and left without a trace, had the nerve to ask for a place in our home. This isn't my ex, but my best friend's ex, she and I have been friends for years and live together now. And now we live with my parents who adore her like their own daughter. I got to be. I got to her permission to post this. My friend, 30F, came to the U.S. from Latin America at 19 as a student. She also started dating her ex, 29M, after many years of hanging with each other both during vacations and online. I knew them both since H.S. and they seemed good together. She tried to convince

him to move together a few years before their breakup. He was living with his parents who wanted him to leave. At this point she had already finished college and had a job. She had a job. in the U.S. that granted her a visa. He had quit college and worked part-time. From what I can gather, he didn't want to leave his parents' place because free food and no rent. So instead she asked me if I wanted to move with her so we could afford a bigger place. I said yes and we moved together, adopted a cat and a dog, and pretty much became Grace and Frankie. Around the start of the pandemic, things got bad for them. This is what I was told and what I saw. never talked or hang out or anything. I was in a breakup at that time myself, so I wasn't really

on top since I had my own issues. But my friend cried so much, she didn't even get a happy birthday. After a year of no contact, she assumed the relationship was over. She changed all her social media to single, which she could see, took him off for emergency contacts at work and at her doctors, and just moved on with her life. This year my stepdad's health has gone downhill and my mom needs help caring for him. She works full-time as a therapist. I work from home and my job is very flexible. So I put in the idea of all of us living together and I'll care for my dad. Eventually I'll care for my mom too. My mom loved the idea and asked my bestie if she wanted to move with us too so we could all be together and also because at this point, I can't see myself

not being in the same house as her. We've come to terms in being single ladies. Heck, we've joked that one of us should adopt and we've become parent-slash-ant dynamic. And now the joke is more serious since I'm considering it and she's incredibly supportive. No, we're not dating. She's straight, I'm by. We're just incredibly close after all the BS we've lived through together. We found a perfect house, four bedroom, two and a half bathrooms, enough space, a yard, everything we need, and we got it after a bunch of difficulties and arrangements. Since I don't have immediate plans for adopting yet, I have a ton of paperwork and years of planning ahead, we made the extra room into our office slash gaming hub, we both work at the

same place, totally not on purpose they were hiring and we both needed visas. And as proud first-time homeowners, we posted pictures. Her ex, who by this point has been MIA for three years, messaged her saying he was so excited to move into the new house. She told him this was her house with me and my parents, he said since they were a couple she should kick me and my parents so he could move in. I want to point out that my parents bought the house. We, friend and I, will pay them our parts over the years, and if she decides to move out, I'll finish paying and I'll buy her part out. This is all in paper and signed. So she obviously told him he was not moving with us and that he ghosted her so there was no relationship. He went on a tirade that he never broke up with her,

that she was abandoning him, that she never cared about him, etc. I got pissed off, took the phone from her and told him he could live in a bare cave for all I care, but to leave my friend in our house alone, he went ballistic and began calling us some names. Referring to the LGBTQ plus community. That would probably get this post flagged. So I'll leave it to your imagination. My friend started crying and I was absolutely done with him. I never thought he was abusive, but my friend confessed to me that this was not new.

He always had issues with the two of us living together and accust her often of cheating on him with me. We ended the call, and I told her she needed to block him for her own sanity's sake. She deserves so much better than this man child. She got me to leave my abusive ex when I was in HS. She took me to the hospital when he beat me up and call my parents. My friend is family and I'll be dead before I let some bastard with commitment issues make her suffer. Since then he's gone on a major campaign in our friend group to say my friend abandoned him and left him homeless since apparently he cancelled his lease after he saw we bought a house.

He also claims were lesbian Satanists that probably abuse our pets and our mooching of my parents. Most of my friends know the story and know my friend and I moved together at first out of necessity. Then we just don't see ourselves not living together. So yeah, my friend's ex is a nutcase and if he ever gets close to her again, I will personally give him a free vasectomy update. My friend's ex who ghosted her and left without a trace, had the nerve to ask for a place in our home. Hey everyone, a bit quick on the update, but some people asked if our friends knew where the ex was hiding for three years and I was actually curious. Since I was down for the count at work today, I had time to check with my friends and find out more. Apparently my Besty did ask them, but they didn't know.

From what they tell me, he kind of got back into everyone's life in the last year or so, but he was part of the group because they were Besty's friends, not really his. I don't personally know many of his own friends, to be fair. I did track down the ex's sister thanks to social media and poked her for info. She's very nice and always treated my Besty right. I told her what her brother did and her response was very interesting. Apparently, the ex was dating other girls, until his parents decided to move outside the U.S. He's now living in a friend's couch.

The last she heard was a couple of days past when they went out for coffee. He was saying he got this brand new house and was going to be moving in this week. As far as she knew, my bestie begged him to take her back and let her live in his house. I did correct her and said that no, Bestie is living with me and my parents, in our new house. Her reaction was, of course, he lied and just thanked me for letting her know he was bullshitting. Aside that, I do want to report we are safe. He doesn't know where we live and most people don't because we're not really ready to open Pandora's box and having friends come over. We also need time to figure out who we want in the know.

We won't be going to the police unless something serious happens just because this is technically not a crime, but we are going to keep recordings and printy text conversations. If he tries anything, we have all our papers in order and just in case I plan to contact our company's HR so they know the situation. The company we work for can provide us free legal counsel if things get bad. Update my friend's ex, who ghosted her and left without a trace, had the nerve to ask for a place in our home, October 25, 2023. Well, seems I'm stuck in a saga now, once again, I have full permission for my friend to share this. As my first post said, my friend's ex-ex said, ghosted her and then decided to try to move in with her, and by extension me, after years of no

contact, my friend told him where he can go. For a bit, it was actually pretty calm. She did cut contact and block him as many suggested, and between the two of us, my bestie and I did some culling and our friend group of people we knew were passing information to her ex. We've settled in the new house together and she actually gets along better with my parents, sometimes than I do. Guess she's the golden child now. Sadly, eventually we had to adult and get much-needed food. We went to Walmart in town together and by some bad luck we crossed paths with her ex. I wish all of it was just awkward glances and each on their way, but no, at first he tried to talk to her.

My friend said she didn't want to speak to him and didn't want him near her. I mostly reminded him I wanted to rip his spine and beat him to death with it. Sadly that didn't deter him from following us around like the most obnoxious toilet paper stuck to shoe. We did our shopping and headed to the car with him still after us. I told my friend for her to get into the car and start the gear and lock it while I loaded the groceries. Her ex then decided to appeal to me to talk to my friend about taking him back. I don't know what power held me back from committing a felony, but pretty sure I've earned a PhD in self-control. I told him, in no uncertain terms, where he could put his reconciliation and that if he kept following us, I will make sure his legs were out of the equation.

I got in the car and my friend began to driving back when we notice a car following us, and we knew it was following because the direction we were going was not usual. To rule out a possible neighbor, we actually did a full U-turn almost back to the store, stopped to get some fast food, ate in the parking lot, then headed again back home, and the same car was after us. Now, as much as I talk of violence, I have to admit I was terrified. So was my friend. Neither of us has a gun permit. Best we carry is a can of pepper spray, and we know her ex does have guns. So yeah, we were not comfortable at that point. Instead we headed past our neighborhood, and following the usual advice from TV,

drove to a police station. Once in it, we did write a statement and I got scolded about the confrontation in Walmart's parking lot. The reason we know it's her ex was because when we got home, she got a call from him and a new phone number saying I know where you live now. We immediately called the police, so there's where we stand. Cops just left a few minutes ago, and my brother is going to be staying over for a few weeks until we get the row and some sturdier locks. Also, I want to clarify a few things. A lot of people asked why originally my friend took a whole year of being ghosted to accept the relationship was over. While I get it, trust me, please understand that when my friend came to the U.S., she had no one,

she's cut contact with her toxic family. She literally only had her ex. I moved into the U.S. a year later and also came alone at first, but my parents were able to become citizens and I had them. When her relationship died out, she lost not just her boyfriend, but his family who pretty much were as close to her own family as she could get. It's not easy, and I personally can't imagine. imagine how lonely she felt. I could spend Christmas with my parents, she had no one for that

first year. So please, don't judge her on it, because she doesn't deserve it. It's not easy to be an immigrant when you have no place to return to. I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse declined to transport me to a medical facility when I went into labor as he was dining with his relatives. An unfamiliar individual assisted me in delivering the baby, and it resulted in a positive outcome. Out he is a divorce lawyer. I am Selena, 30, F. I am a new mom to a few days old, Eddie, M. I wish I could say that this is a happy time for my family, but it is not.

I am going through a divorce right now and everyone around me is blaming me for it. I know being a single mom is tough, but I can do anything to get my son out of the toxic environment that he would have had to face had I not ended that marriage. I have made great mistakes and I need a few honest opinions, so, here goes to nothing. I have been dating Roberts since high school and he treated me well. He did all the dreamy things that every girl wants. Plan dates, get me flowers, take me to do my nails and whatnot. The only thing he prioritized over me was his sister and mother and I never had an issue with that, I guess.

I took it as a green flag actually. I thought, oh well, he treats the women in his wife. life so well, he is a real gentleman. If I ever get to marry him and become his wife, then he will probably treat me exponentially better. Well, I can't even tell you guys how wrong I was. The moment I married him, the chase was over. Now, began a new phase. The taken for granted phase. Emotional abuse is something that you realize gradually with time and not at once. It's also very difficult to break away from something like that when you really love that man. Looking back now, I know there were countless instances where I know I should have realized

that Robert couldn't set boundaries or know what to prioritize. But love makes you blind. My sill and Mill were made of honors at my wedding and they both wore white with long trails. When I pointed this out to Robert that the bridesmaids and the maid of honors were all supposed to wear pink, he said that it really didn't matter and that I was ruining our big day by being sulky and instead should just focus on something different. That was not all, though. They were in every picture and even photobombed the couple's photos. Even the photographer got tired and told my sill to stop, to which my husband the kiddo was just having fun, let her be. I am sure the pictures would turn out better with her in the frame.

My sill is no kid. She is 25 years old who herself is about to get married next year. I was so embarrassed. That day I realized that I was wrong about Robert all along, but it was too late. I was already Robert's wife. The only good thing was that my cousin and his wife had gifted me a house as our marriage gift, so we moved in there after our marriage. We didn't see much of my in-laws, but Robert went over to their house every weekend and never stayed home. With me. When I pointed out that we didn't even go on a honeymoon trip, he said that we would take the trip after his sister got married so that his sister and future bill could come along with us. In this context, it would be right to point out that his future bill was a freeloader and his sister too was unemployed. I had tried

talking to her and pointing out that marriage brings a lot of financial responsibility as well, but she laughed it off by saying that her brother will take care of all her financial responsibilities. I realized that I couldn't do much about it unless Robert supported me, which he didn't, so I didn't broach the subject again. So, yeah, the red flag. The red flag. were screaming to be acknowledged, but I thought I could fix him in our marriage. I don't know why I decided to take up the role of Bob the builder, but then there I was trying to win over him by winning over his family. When I saw that Robert wouldn't stay a single weekend with me, I decided to go with him. The first and only time I went there, his mother and sister were not very pleased to see him. What was even more surprising was that Sarah, my Sills, 26F, Freeloader fiancé, Dylan, 26M, was all. He was all. The same thing. He was all. The same thing. Was all also there. So basically, I was the only one who was never asked to join. I had taken a cake with me and I told them that I had come along because I wanted to surprise them. My sill said a nasty surprise I see. They all laughed as if Sarah had cracked the world's best joke. Robert's mother,

Beatrice, 56F, said that they didn't have enough food for me because this was family time for them so they didn't expect outsiders. I looked at Robert expecting him to say something about how. how I am a part of the family way more than Dylan as I was his wife, but he was looking out of the window and was completely zoned out or at least pretended to be zoned out. I told Robert that I would drive back home and he meekly handed me the car guys and his mom cheerfully said by and that I should not behave like a jealous child and intrude upon Robert like that. I was so ashamed that I left without saying anything and cried on my way home. Robert came back home that day with flowers and chocolates and took me out to eat at my favorite continental place the next day, so yeah,

he was not blind to the vile treatment, he just chose not to stand up against it. For the whole week after that till the next weekend, Robert treated me like a queen and then as the weekend arrived, he was gone to his happy family. He would come back and overcompensate till the next weekend. This happened in the first few months of our marriage and then even this special treatment stopped and, in its place, came dismissal. If I ever said something, about how I feel lonely on weekends and want to spend time with him, then he would accuse me of not understanding his duties to his family and how by now I should be used to his weekend brunch with his family. He often told me that I was overreacting.

I was deeply unhappy and I shared this problem with my mom. Mom said that if we make a baby then maybe I won't feel so lonely and Robert would be more at home and involved at home. I told her off and said that it would really be a very selfish reason to make a baby, but she successfully planted the thought in my head and I kept toying with her. the idea. We both would be working parents so I might have to drop the kid off at my mom's before I left for work but on weekends, I would actually be able to spend a lot of quality time with the kid. Would the father of the baby not want the same? Slowly a sort of baby fever got hold of me and I

asked my husband if he thought that we were ready to be parents. He was super excited and said that even his mother was suggesting so. I asked him why his mother wanted us to have a baby and he shrugged and said that she was ready to be a grandmother and she was getting old, so having a young man who could take care of her would be a good thing. I told him that he couldn't use our baby to take care of his mom and that I didn't think that he was ready to be a father. We argued and the baby talk was off the table. I don't know what changed after that, but suddenly Robert started staying home on weekends. He went back to treating me like he used to before marriage and he even booked tickets to Maldives for our much-delayed honeymoon. We had a week-long honeymoon in

Maldives and Robert made me feel very loved and special. He said that he wanted to make it up to me for making me feel bad. Fool that I was, I stepped right into his trap and after coming back from our honeymoon, we realized that I was pregnant. Robert was overjoyed, I was apprehensive. Robert convinced me that we were ready to be parents and took extraordinary care of me in the first three months of the pregnancy. He took me to the doctor, made sure I had my vitamins, stayed home on weekends, ordered every food I craved, and bought things for our baby. In the fourth month, things went back to how they were before our honeymoon. He had got me pregnant and made sure that there was no way I would do anything to not have the baby.

That was the whole point of the act. In the weeks leading up to my labor, I was severely depressed. My mom came over to take care of me, but she always made excuses for Robert's behavior simply because he was rich and that was all that mattered to my mom. My due date was in December's third week. Two weeks before my delivery my mom went to her brother's funeral. With the due date so close I couldn't go to my uncle's funeral. I begged my husband to stay home that weekend. I was sad about my uncle's death and felt lonely.

That was the one day I didn't want to be home alone. I told my husband exactly this and he said, Sell, you are going to be a mother and make a lot of sacrifices in the future, so being alone for a day is nothing compared to the sacrifices that you have to make in the future. So, I will suggest that you better sleep it off. I will see you tonight. Don't wait up for me. I will have dinner with them.

Bye, honey. Take care. Remember you have to take care of yourself for our little Eddie. He didn't even wait for my response and took the car keys and left. I was feeling exceptionally sick that day so went to lie down for a little Eddie. a while and fell asleep for an hour or so. When I woke up, I had terrible cramps. I saw that the bed was wet and realized with terror that my water had broken. Immediately I called my husband. He cut the call twice before he picked up. He sounded positively annoyed. I literally shrieked that my water broke.

He said, so why are you wasting time calling me? Call the hospital or something, I don't know man. Gosh, you are a grown-up woman. Pull yourself together and face the situation. I am literally between brunch with everybody. Even Dylan's parents are here. Stop. Calling. Me.

The line went dead. I stared at the phone in my hand, then stepped out on the street. Robert had taken the car so I couldn't even drive myself to the hospital. I flagged down a car. A gentleman stopped his car and quickly held open the door for me. I was rushed to the hospital. The gentleman whose name was Mr. Singh did all the formalities and asked me if I would like him to call somebody. I gave him my husband's number and after some time he came and told me that no one was picking up.

Mr. Singh, a stranger, stepped up in that moment. After I had given birth to Eddie, he was the only person who came to meet me. He brought fruits, baby clothes, and chicken wings for me. My eyes watered. I felt like my uncle's spirit had sent this man because he couldn't be here in person. Mr. Singh congratulated me and patted my hand. I gave Eddie to him and he mumbled a prayer for him. He told me that I reminded him of his daughter and if I ever needed something. I should give him a call. He left his card with me. I saw that he was a divorce lawyer. I thought my guardian angel was giving me all the signs so without hesitating.

I told Mr. Singh that I wanted a place to stay. I wanted to move to a house. He said that he has a penthouse and he can move me there and said that I needn't worry about the rent till I start working. Before he left, he turned around and said, by the way, you can call me uncle, child. Meanwhile, my husband called at night. I watched it ring but didn't pick up. I told the nurses that I didn't want my husband to find out I was there. So, I asked them to not tell him in case my husband called up.

They agreed. My husband left me a text asking me in which hospital I was. I didn't reply. The nurses asked me if they should call social services. I asked them not to. The nurses and doctors were very kind and understanding. I didn't even take my mother's call because then she would definitely tell Robert where I was. Uncle Singh came the next day and told me that all was ready for me to move in.

He said there's not much to prepare anyway because that used to be where his daughter lived. She had recently moved out of the country and taken up a job somewhere in Germany. He said it would be nice to have someone live in his daughter's penthouse because he terribly missed his daughter. He told me that his wife was also eager to meet me. Uncle drove me to their penthouse which was neat and beautiful. Auntie was in wait and immediately said about making things comfortable for me. They repeatedly asked me if I wanted something and I told them that I wanted nothing more than to continue staying there. I then told them everything that happened and asked my uncle to start the divorce proceedings.

He asked me if I was sure about it and I said that I had never believed in something more. My uncle told me to tell my husband about my son's birth. So, I texted Robert about it. He told me that it was really careless of it. me and that we had to immediately go and meet his family with Eddie. I told him that it was bold of him to think that I would take my son to meet his toxic family. He was quiet for a while and then said, don't be a kid. We have to take Eddie to his godmother.

I asked him who decided that Robert's sister is the godmother and he asked me to stop being ridiculous because it was supposed to be that way from the start. I couldn't keep it together anymore and screamed, you know what's ridiculous. It's you. You are the damn joker. I had to take a lift to the damn hospital and give birth alone. If you loved me and your son, you would have rushed to us. You are so damn selfish and your family is crazy.

You are not going to be a part of my son's life. You will hear from my lawyer soon. I am divorcing you. I was fuming when I cut the call. Auntie was looking really concerned when I cut the call and said that my husband was not a man, he was a child. I laughed. My first laugh in ages. My mom called and started going on and on about how terrible I was and how Robert called her to tell her what happened. She told me that their family was pressing charges because I separated my son from them. Apparently, I am a selfish mom who only

thought of myself and hence, I deserve to be dragged to court and have my son taken away from me. They were saying that my depression made me unfit to be a mother. I told my mom that I didn't give a damn about what they were saying because I know I'm going to win the case and take full custody of my son. I cut the call and decided to not take any calls from my family members. I started applying to freelancing positions to supplement my income. I already had a job, but if I had to raise my son comfortably then I needed some more. Suddenly my phone started buzzing continuously with texts. I was getting hate texts from my sill, mill, and Dylan's whole family.

They were calling me names and a villain for breaking their family. They were threatening to break into my house and take my son by force and saying things like the only thing that is saving you right now is the fact that you don't know your address. Otherwise, we would totally come over and teach you a lesson, you stupid cuss words. I was shivering while reading these texts when Andy took the phone from my hand and said sternly you are going to eat and get some rest. I will look after Eddie till you wake up. You are not going to check your phone and not stress. Your uncle will take care of everything. When you wake up, your uncle will take you to the police station to lodge a complaint.

We need to file a restraining order. Yeah, so, guys. I really wanted to vent and I thought writing it out would help me collect my thoughts. I wrote this while taking a long bath in the bathtub. I will be off to sleep soon. What has been really bothering me, though, is the question. that is if I did the right thing by not letting Robert meet Eddie. Will this affect his child's brain in some way?

I don't think Robert is a positive role model in any sense, so I don't know if his presence would have adversely affected him or not. Ida. Update 1. I have been reading your comments and even though I hate to admit it, you guys are right. Divorce is bound to have some sort of an impact on Eddie and so will the absence of a father. I am just glad that Uncle and Andy Singh will give the baby the love he deserves. I talked with Uncle's daughter yesterday.

She is a scientist. I was telling her the circumstances under which I ended up in her penthouse. In the end, she said that it was God who designed the meeting. She was really worried about her parents, but now that I was there, she saw her mother genuinely happy after a long time. She asked me to not worry about the rent just yet. I thanked her and to my surprise, she thanked me back. I can't tell you guys how incredibly lucky I feel. Uncle Singh will be the positive male role model in Eddie's life.

I have thought and thought about it and I think when he starts asking difficult questions, I will answer him as truthfully as I can. I will try teaching him how to become a man and not some sort of mama's pet. Well, I guess we have to see what happens. Well, coming to the update now. After I woke up from my nap, Uncle, and I went to file the restraining order. Andy has been taking great care of Eddie, so I can confidently say that Eddie is in good hands. There's been a lot of peace since the restraining order was filed but today when I went out to work,

I don't if I am hallucinating or something but I think I saw Dylan from the corner of my eyes. I don't know I could be paranoid. I haven't told Uncle Auntie about this because I don't want to unnecessarily worry them. The restraining order has been filed against Robert's family so technically there's nothing stopping Dylan from trying to contact me. I don't want them to find out where I live. I will keep you guys updated. Update 2, hi guys. Last night my penthouse got egged.

Auntie and uncle had gone home for the night and I was alone. I ran to where Eddie was sleeping and held him close. He was badly scared and crying his eyes out. I felt so scared and stifled. I was low-key having a panic attack when the egging stopped after 15 long minutes. I couldn't move and just tried rocking Eddie back to sleep. When Eddie fell asleep, I put him on my bed and lay awake by his side. The next morning when Andy came to meet me, she was absolutely frantic.

She wanted me to move in with them in their house, but I told her it wouldn't change a thing because then the next time, it would be their house that would get egged. I think I was right in my suspicion. Dylan had followed me but there's no guesswork in law. So, we can't directly file a case against him. We have filed a vandalism charge against unknown people. Uncle is currently getting cameras and a new security system installed as I type this. Our court hearing is next week, by the way.

I will keep you guys updated. Update 3, I am dead tired. This is going to be a short update. I just want the hearing to be over. The drama is going overboard at this point. Last night, Dylan tried to break into the house. The security system immediately notified 9-1-1 and he was caught. He was wearing a black balaclava.

He was taken away by the cops. On interrogation, it was found that they had a plan of kidnapping Eddie. I could be portrayed then as a careless mother and the custody would go to Robert, but the fact that he was caught changed the whole game. Now, there's no chance in hell that they would win and more importantly, some of them are going to go to jail. Update 4, Robert's family denied being involved in the kidnapping. Yeah, I am so not surprised.

Dylan was head over heels in love with Sarah, but his beloved Sarah has abandoned him. As far as my uncle told me, nobody even went to visit Dylan in custody. We had a court hearing today and uncle totally ate Robert up. Things look like they are going to be in our favor. After the hearing when I was leaving, Robert ran up to me and held my hand. He said he had realized his mistakes and asked me to move back with him and our son. I was tempted to give in, but then I remembered all the times that I had given in and then things had gone back to as they were.

I removed my hand from his and asked him to play his stupid tricks on someone else. I told him he has some growing up to do and a man who himself didn't behave like a grown-up. Couldn't be expected to raise a child. A child raising a child is an unheard of thing, isn't it? Boom. Mike drop. He couldn't even get a word out before I got an uncle's car and left. I mentally fist pumped myself for this amazing comeback. L.O.L. What do you guys think of my comeback?

Also, wish me luck for the next hearing. Update 5. Guess who got the custody of Eddie and massive child support? None other than your girl, Selena. The only thing is that Robert got visiting right. I don't think it will be nice to deprive my child of his father so I am not going to appeal it, even though I am sure that if I do appeal it, we would win. I don't want Eddie to grow up and blame my selfish desire to win as the reason for his dad being someone he doesn't know. I told Robert exactly this, but I said that I have a condition. He can never take Eddie to meet his grandmother and sister.

If I find out anything fishy going on behind my back, then I won't hesitate one bit in terminating his visiting right. I have landed a very well-paying freelancing job along with my regular job. I am also starting a blog for new single moms which is gaining a lot of popularity. I am getting a few sponsors already. You guys can check out my blog too. Gosh. I am so excited for this new mom life. As of now, mom life is treating me well.

I love being Eddie's mom. Also, my mom is back in the picture. After the kidnapping attempt, she is finally convinced that I did the right thing by getting out of that marriage. She apologized to me and thanked Uncle and Annie profusely. The first time she saw her grandson, she cried. She held Eddie close and cursed Dylan. She said she couldn't believe that someone would actually try doing something so horrible to a child. There's no bigger pain for a child than being separated from its mother.

I couldn't agree more. Dylan's trying is ongoing. Uncle says that with that kind of evidence against him, there's no doubt that he is going to jail. Meanwhile, Sarah is already getting married to some rich old guy whom she met at a party. Apparently, they are getting married after only dating for a week. I am getting updates of their family from a friend who stays near Robert's house. Your girl is getting all the tea. L.O.L. Oh, by the way, I had asked Robert to move.

move out of our house. I mean, come on, it was a gift from my side of the family, so it is only fair for him to move out. He moved out this week, so I'm going to return to my old house. I am so thankful to the Singh family that I don't even know how to show it to them. I stayed with them for two months for free. I tried paying them rent, but they wouldn't accept it. In the end, they only took a month's rent and said that itself was my uncle's fee for representing me and that they wouldn't take a penny more from me. Update 6. Guys.

Sorry, I couldn't get back to you guys sooner. I know, I know. It has been six months, but gosh. Being a mom is a full-time job. Thank God for my mom and auntie. They take turns to look after Eddie when I go to work. These two women have been a real help. I come back home to eat tasty and nutritious meals,

and then I can spend the rest of my time playing with Eddie before he goes to sleep. My uncle visits us every weekend and I met his daughter too who has recently come from Germany. She stayed a week with us and she is just as kind as her mom and dad. When she was about to go back to Germany, I asked her to be the godmother of my son. She hugged me and Eddie and cried her eyes out. My cousin, the one who gifted the house, is the godfather of Eddie. When I told him what all had taken place in the last six months, he was not surprised. He said that he always got immature vibes from Robert and had his doubts.

He was just sorry that he couldn't be there for me during that time because he was out of the country himself, so I couldn't get in touch with him and even if I had managed that it wouldn't have been of any help. These few months has been the time of many of Eddie's first. He learned to roll over and try crawling. He also said his first word be. My mom tells me that it's just a random sound that he made but hello. He really likes his bumblebee soft toy. Robert keeps on sending new toys every month. He visited us last week and it was really awkward between us. It kind of hurt me too that the man I loved so much has become a stranger, but I guess that's life. Bad things happen but one has to keep their head up. I left Robert

alone to play with Eddie. It was a good idea because I could get a lot of work done as Robert looked after the baby. When I was done with all my work, Robert had already put baby Eddie to sleep. He was lying on Robert's chest and he looked absolutely tiny and fragile. Robert himself was half asleep and it filled my heart with such sadness of what it could have been. My therapist tells me that it's only human to feel this way and therefore to not feel guilty over being sad for Robert. So, I pulled myself together and clicked a picture of father and son. I got that picture framed and gifted it to Robert on his birthday. He looked at it for a long time and then thanked me. I think that there's a significant change that has taken over him now

that he is a father. A change that was a long time coming.