Reddit Stories - My partner VANISHED prior to my MARRIAGE PROPOSAL, and after 5 years, I

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #marriage #proposal #disappearance #heartbreakSummary: After five years together, my partner mysteriously vanished just before I planned to propose. The emotional turmoil and confusion left me questioning everything about our relationship. I struggled to cope with the sudden loss and sought answers, hoping to understand what led to their unexpected disappearance.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, marriageproposal, disappearance, heartbreak, emotionalturmoil, love, commitment, trustissues, mystery, coping, loss, questions, lifechanges, personalstories, adviceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6816713/support.This episode includes AI-generated content.

Episode with two stories, first part. I hope you enjoy this story. My partner vanished prior to my marriage proposal, and after five years, I discovered that she had eloped with my sibling. As a 29-year-old man, I have remained unattached for the last five years. Because my girlfriend disappeared from my life altogether five years ago. Since then, I've been single and haven't even tried to talk to any other woman because I've still held out hope that someday she might come back to me. I was with my girlfriend since senior year of high school so she and I were together for almost six years before she vanished. We stayed together throughout college even though we could only meet once or twice a month because of the

distance. My girlfriend and I had a happy relationship in my head, at least, and on my 24th birthday, I was about to ask her to marry me surrounded by our friends and families. But then the day before my birthday, she literally disappeared. She said she was going to be late coming home from work so I waited all night but she never came back. I made countless calls and sent at least a hundred texts but there was just no response and I even tried to get in touch with her friends and family members but they'd all blocked me. Our common friends had no idea where she could be and some of them just told me to forget about her, so even if they knew, they didn't let me know. I couldn't find any of her social media accounts either and it was like she'd just

disappeared without a word overnight. I still don't know if she knew that I was about to pop the question the next day or if the timing of her disappearance just lined up but that was it, she was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. I even considered going to the cops to file a missing person report but changed my mind at the last moment. Because she wasn't missing, she just didn't want to be found by me. I made a lot of fake accounts on social media under different names to find her but with no success, she'd probably either deleted her account or she was using some other name just like me. Whatever the case was, she was untraceable and eventually I had to give up

because I was emotionally exhausted trying to look for her despite knowing that she didn't want me to find her for whatever reason. I honestly believe that she was happy with me and she sure played the part when we were together. So instead of moving on with my life, I chose to wait for her to come back. If not to get back to me, then only so that she could at least explain what went wrong and I could have some answers. I did try to make things work with a couple of other women

and went out on a few dates, but I just find myself thinking about my ex-girlfriend whenever I was out with anyone else, so I stopped because it was just too painful for me. For almost four whole years. I haven't said yes to or asked out anyone on a date because I just couldn't. I'd be fine otherwise,

but every time I'd even consider going out on a date, my ex's face would pop up in my head like a warning sign, so I just gave up on it. For five years, I'd been waiting for her and I knew it was futile, but I didn't know what else to do. I started going to therapy three years ago and it helped me deal with my feelings and cope with the situation healthily so I'm not always moping or working but I wouldn't say that I've forgotten about her. I know it sounds pathetic but I was really serious about her and I couldn't believe that she just disappeared without an explanation. But two weeks ago, I overheard a conversation between my brother, 33M, and my mother, 62F, when we were visiting her. My brother doesn't live here.

He moved to Canada for work when he was 22 and has stayed there ever since. He comes back twice a year for a couple of weeks, but that's about it. This time, though, he's been here for at least a month now because our mother is really sick. She's been diagnosed with a heart disease and it's serious so while my brother was supposed to go back two weeks ago, he decided to stay on. My brother and I have been on good terms but we've never been close per se and it's mostly been because of the distance. We used to be friends as kids but then he left for college and we lost touch. Then he went away to Canada and built a life for himself there and I stayed here so there wasn't much scope for us to ever reconnect. But we've been getting along well ever since he came back and it was nice to have him here,

even if it was for our mother's sake. Last week, I went over to my mother's place to drop off some soup for my dad because he'd said he'd be late and I had a spare set of keys as well so that my mother wouldn't have to come to the door to open it. I went in quietly and was about to enter my mom's room to check up on her, but I stopped in my tracks and froze when I heard my mom and brother in there talking about my ex. My ex had a really unique name and we didn't know anyone else by that name so I was sure that it was her that my mom was asking about. She asked my brother when he was bringing her and the kids down here because she wanted to see them once since she was getting too old and sick to travel now.

My brother told her that they'd been trying to think of a way to bring them here without alerting me and said that it's just too risky which is why they haven't been flown in yet. As soon as my brother said that they were trying to avoid me, I was sure that this was my ex. He was referring to. referring to and for a few seconds, I just stood there silently because I couldn't make sense of what I was hearing right now. I left without a word and once I got home, I decided to log into one of the fake accounts I'd made five years ago to do some digging just to confirm what I already knew. I'd always searched for my ex-girlfriend's name on social media but never my brother because he told me that he hated social media and wasn't active anywhere. And it never occurred to me either that he might be lying because I'd never even imagine that he and my ex might be linked.

I tried to find him by his actual name but couldn't so then I used his nickname that our parents called him and luckily, he had a public account on Instagram with around 200 followers. He must have blocked me because I'd never seen this account. I scrolled through it to find several photos of him with my ex and a kid who looked like the spitting image of my ex, apart from the eyes, which looked like my brothers. I think I must have just to find. I just a kid who looked like my ex and sat there and wept for an hour because this is where she'd been all along and everyone had known but they'd helped my brother cover it up instead of telling me the truth. For five years, my own family had been gaslighting me even though they knew exactly where my girlfriend was.

It made me sick to think of all the times my parents tried to comfort me when I'd go crying to them in the initial days of my heartbreak. They knew all along but never told me and it was sickening. And as for my brother, I couldn't even believe that he had the audacity to steal. the life that was meant to be mine for me and then come back here and pretend to be my friend every single year after that. I was disgusted and I just wanted to cut them out of my life entirely. I didn't want to see any of their faces ever again. But before I did that, I decided to leave them all a little message because I wasn't going to just disappear like my ex did. I wanted them to know that I knew what they'd done and I was never going to forgive them for it. They'd ruined

my life and for five years, they'd refuse to do anything to help fix things either. Oh, I'd also found my ex's account from my brother's account and she'd used a completely different name so obviously I hadn't been able to find her earlier. The funny thing was this name was one of the nicknames I used to call her way back when we first started dating but she told me that she hated it so I stopped and it never even occurred to me to try searching for that name either. So make of that what you will. But I sent everyone the same message and it was just one line. I told them that I knew what they'd done and all I wanted to ask was why. That's it. Because that's all I really wanted to know.

These people were my family, my home, and they were supposed to be the ones helping me out in times of trouble. But instead, they'd chosen to hide things from me, lie to me, and just make a total fool out of me. I thought that I'd feel better after sending that text, but I didn't so I ended up calling up a few of my friends back from high school, went to the nearest bar, and got so drunk. that I had to be carried back home. I was in such a state that I didn't even go to work for the next two days. It wasn't just the hangover or the binge drinking but the pain and betrayal. Five years had passed and nobody thought that they owed me the truth, or an explanation or some closure, at the very least. It felt like I was going to drive myself crazy thinking about all that was going on and so I didn't even check the messages that my family had sent me in response to what I'd texted

them. I'd also texted my ex on her Instagram account because I didn't have her number, but she didn't respond to me at all until yesterday. She sent back two paragraphs explaining that she was married and even had a child now so the fact that I even found her account and texted her was really inappropriate. She told me that she didn't owe me an explanation or closure and neither did my brother so I should just forget about her. She also told me that if five years hadn't been enough for me to be able to move the heck on then maybe I was the problem and not her so instead of being a creep and texting her asking why she'd left me, I should go get myself checked because there's clearly something wrong with you. That's what she told me. I didn't

know what exactly I'd been expecting, but this was not it. I absolutely didn't think that she would blow up at me like this because all I asked for was an explanation and nothing else. It's not like I was asking her to get back with me because I knew she was happy with her life now and I wanted the for myself, which is why I'd asked her a really simple question, just so that I could move on myself. I didn't consider the repercussions of this and I still don't know if I was actually wrong for asking her to explain why she'd run away with my brother instead of just coming clean to me and actually breaking up with me like a decent person. The rest of my family keeps trying to call me but I'm not interested in talking to them and the few common friends

that we used to have are no longer part of my life anyway so I don't really know whom to talk to about any of this. So I'd have for texting my ex-girlfriend after I found out that she'd been with my brother these past five years after she disappeared without an explanation. Update one, it's been a week since I posted and I haven't been able to post further updates because I was too busy catching up on all the work that I'd missed. I realized that even though I wasn't exactly wrong for texting my ex and asking her for an explanation, I did realize that it was all pointless. She was just a horrible human being who cheated on me with my brother despite being with me for six years and then left without a word to start a family with him. That was how it was

and I needed to accept that this knowledge was all the closure I was going to get. For the first couple of days before she texted back, I didn't know how to feel because it was all so overwhelming but now, I feel considerably better regarding this situation. I'm glad that my ex said what she did because it just made me realize that I dodged a bullet because she was. I was she was the problem here and not me. I'd given that relationship my all, but she preferred my brother over me and so did the rest of my family, apparently. I'd lost my girlfriend way back anyway, but I had to relive that all over again when I found out about her and my brother. And this time, the loss was much greater because not only did I feel like I was losing my girlfriend, but I was also

losing my family. They'd betrayed me and continued to betray me every single day for five whole years. I swear I wouldn't even wish this upon my worst enemy because I'd been nothing short of an emotional wreck these past few days. Even my therapist seemed surprised when I told her what had happened so it's pretty bad. I still haven't responded to my family and I don't think I'm even going to read their texts because there's just no point. There's nothing that they can say or do at this point to make things right, not anymore. I know my mother's sick right now but after what happened, I don't know if I'll ever be able to forgive her. The only thing I can do right now is try to move on. Update 2. Hi, everyone.

My brother came to my house today to have a civilized discussion about our situation. That's what he said while waiting outside my house, calling me immature and juvenile because I refuse to let him in. It's been three whole weeks since I overheard my mom and brother talking and found out the truth and since then, they'd all been texting me to try and get me to talk to them, but I hadn't even opened their texts to check out what they'd been saying, let alone respond to them. So as a last resort, my brother came to talk to me today. I didn't even understand why they were all so desperate to get me to talk to them

because as far as I was aware, my family only cared about my brother or else they would have been honest with me from the beginning. So there was no need for them to act so desperate now just so that I wouldn't cut them off because I knew they didn't care about me as much as they did about my brother. My brother kept trying to reason with me, he kept telling me that he and my ex had fallen in love on one of his visits back home and they tried to stay apart but it didn't work so they just had to run away and my parents kept it a secret so that my feelings wouldn't be hurt. The plan was to let me know once I found someone as well so that I'd at least be able to have some emotional support. I don't know why he thought that would be a better option than just being honest with me from the beginning.

Imagine I had actually found someone in these past five years and then they came clean to me about what had happened. That would have 100% ruined my existing relationship at the time. Listening to him tell me about their original plan, I was relieved that I didn't find anyone and I found out the truth by myself. After a while, I finally snapped at him and told him to leave me alone or else I'd have to call the police to force him to go and I really didn't want to do that. So he lost his cool as well since he'd been trying to convince me for almost half an hour, standing out in the cold, and told me that the only reason he was even trying to get me to talk to him was that our mother was extremely apologetic and all this stress about me not speaking to them anymore was worsening her health condition. If mom hadn't been sick, he wouldn't even have been here

to talk to me and would have happily continued to live his life while I struggled to deal with the pain of it all. My brother truly is a piece of work, but at least he did leave after telling us me that he didn't care if I spoke to him or not, but Mom wanted me to talk to her and that was all he was here for and had it not been for Mom, he would have even flown his wife and son here just to rub it in my face. The taunt really got to me and I almost wanted to open the door and beat him to a pulp but I refrained. I told him to go to hell, he cussed at me and it took all the self-control I possessed

for me to hold back then. He went away and I've been trying to distract myself by watching Netflix but I just can't at his taunting voice out of my head. I can't believe that my own family can be this cruel. It was bad enough that they cheated, lied, and betrayed me and now he's here, at my door just to make a mockery out of my pain. That's a new low. I don't know what to do about the situation with my mother, though. Obviously, I don't want her health to get worse, regardless of what they did to me. Maybe I'll have to talk to her at some point because I don't want a guilty conscience if her condition gets worse. I'm sure the rest of my family won't let me live it down if that happens

and will hold me responsible for it. So I might just go visit her whenever my brother and father aren't home. Update 3. Hey, guys. I finally met my mother and talked to her yesterday and I'm actually thrilled right now. It has been since I met her because I made her promise me that she and dad were going to change their respective wills and leave most of whatever they had to me. I've heard that if they left everything to me, it could potentially become grounds for my brother to contest the wills, so I'm making sure that they leave him as little as they can. It took a while to persuade her, but I made it very clear to my mother that the only way I would agree to keep in touch with her was if she promised me this or else she could forget about ever speaking to me again. I had to

push very hard, but she did agree to it eventually and our family lawyer is going to come over the day after tomorrow so I can personally witness the rewriting of the wills. And guess what, this is going to be a secret that I'm going to keep. For so long, my parents had kept secrets from me for my brother's sake and now, the tables were about to turn. He would know how it felt to be betrayed by your own family just because they wanted to favor one brother over the other. It's manipulative and cruel of me, but they didn't spare my feelings when they were all covering up my brother and girlfriend's affair so I don't think I owe them any kindness or compassion at all. Not a single one of them. It's significant too because my parents are not.

are relatively well off and it's a considerable amount of money that we're talking about here. It finally feels like I got him back and I got him back good. People think living well is the best revenge but this comes kind of close. Two, if you ask me. Yesterday, when I met my mother, I was skeptical about what was going to happen and I didn't really have a plan as such. I didn't know what to expect but at least my brother and my father weren't home. It was just us.

As soon as I entered the house, my mother burst into tears and hugged me and started apologizing while talking about how much she regretted her actions but it just didn't hold any meaning to me. I felt empty and numb even while she was crying and only comforted her out of habit and not love. She then ended up confessing that she and my dad had known about their affair all along after they'd caught my ex with my brother in his room one night while he was visiting. My girlfriend and I had been together for almost four years by that point so this was two years before they eloped. I was in the other room and I had no clue but my brother begged them to keep it quiet and so they did because they knew they were in love. They all meant to tell me but they just couldn't get the timing right.

And then I decided to tell my parents that I was proposing. They told my brother and within days they'd arranged a flight for my girlfriend to move to Canada to avoid the proposal altogether while I searched for her like a madman. they'd warned all their friends, relatives, and literally anyone who was likely to talk to me to never speak of my ex's whereabouts and that was how they made sure I never got to know. I must say that my family was quite impressive when it came to acting and I'd nominate them all for Oscars if I could because they played the perfect parents, comforted me day and night, and pretended to be there for me. And behind my back, they'd attended my brother's wedding, and their baby shower and would

often take vacations which just meant that they were going to visit my brother and my ex but would Photoshop themselves into other locations just to fool me. They went to such extreme and insane lengths just to fool me. My mother was telling me the truth now just so that I would forgive her, but if anything, it just made me feel even more frustrated and outraged. So I gave her a piece of my mind and then told her that now if she wanted to make it up to me, she'd have to change her will. It just popped into my head when she was telling me all about their secret life and I knew that even if I didn't have the emotional support system I wanted, I could at least demand monetary compensation. So that's what I did and soon enough, I'll be entitled to 90% of whatever my parents have and my brother will end up with nothing. I'm obviously still going to cut him out of my life entirely and I've told my mother that as well, that she's the only person whom I'm still willing to keep in touch with only because she's sick.

She wasn't too happy about it, but she should be grateful that at least I agreed to speak to her after everything that they've done to me. Although I might change my mind later, I don't know. All I do know is that my brother and ex deserve each other and I deserve better. So that's what I'm going to look for now, better. I don't need any closure from either of them anymore. I'm done. That's the end of the first story. Let's begin the second one. I hope you enjoy this story.

My spouse's sibling attempted to make advances towards me, and now my spouse is finding it challenging to move past it. Apologies for the length of this message. Just as the heading suggests, my wife's sister made a pass at me at a recent family gathering and I have no idea what to do. For context, I think my wife Jenna is absolutely gorgeous, but she has some really negative body image issues. This is in large part because of her sister Mary who is very conventionally attractive, as opposed to Jenna's more unconventional but, in my opinion, striking beauty. Mary was a successful model until a couple years ago and now works in the fashion industry. In our early days of dating when I would tell Jenna she's beautiful, she would always say just wait until you see my sister. When I did finally meet her family, she would randomly press me for weeks to talk about her sister, whether I thought she would.

was more attractive than her, etc. I always told her the truth, that I think Mary is attractive in a boring way, and that I think my wife is much more beautiful and interesting to look at. She wouldn't let it go until I confronted her about how uncomfortable it made me and asked her what was going on. This is when she told me that she always had a chip on her shoulder about her looks because of being compared with her sister growing up. They fell into the classic smart one slash pretty one dynamic their whole lives. She also said Mary had a habit of being flirty with all of her exes, and warned me that it would happen to me eventually. She then started sobbing and begging me to not cheat on her with her sister, to which I forcefully said I would never cheat on her with anyone, let alone her sister.

I've been crazy about my wife since day one and there's literally no woman on earth who could come close to her. I honestly didn't believe her about the flirting at first, I assumed it was just an extension of her insecurity, but I was wrong. Whenever we get together with my wife's family, Mary always finds ways to touch me and make little innuendo slash comments about me or my body. It's super uncomfortable for everyone, especially my wife, and I've called her out on it before. She'll cool it for a while, but eventually start doing it again. It's been six years of this, and every time it happens, my wife is upset for days and I have to do a lot of reassuring. On to the current problem. A few days ago, we were at my Mill's birthday party, and Mary asked me to help her grab some things from the garage.

As soon as we walked into the garage, she turned and pressed me up against the door with her whole body and started trying to kiss me. I immediately pushed her off and asked her what the fuck she was doing. She started giggling and saying she was just doing what we both have been thinking and kept insisting you know you want to. I told her she was out of her mind and ran out of there. I went straight to my wife and told her we were leaving. The whole ride home she was asking me what was wrong, I wasn't sure whether to tell her because I knew how much it was going to hurt, but I also thought Mary would probably try to spin it as me making a move on her so I knew I had to just say it. I told her everything and she cried the whole way home. For the last several days Mary has been calling and texting my wife doing exactly what I thought she would do, even telling my wife that I said she, Mary, was the hottest girl I've ever.

seen, which I had to assure my wife a million times that I did not and would never say even though she believes my account of the situation. She's been a complete wreck the last several days, she's hardly eating, she pulls away from my touch when I try to hug her or just hold her hand. She says she feels hideous and disgusting and I don't know what to do. This is the lowest I have ever seen her, and it hurts to see how much she's hurting. I have no idea what to do to help her heal from this. Reddit, what should I do? Update, my 37M, wife's 34F, sister, 29F, tried to kiss me and now my wife is spiraling, help me.

I got a few requests for updates, so here it is. I first want to thank everyone so much for your advice, it was extremely helpful and gave me a lot to think about. I'm especially thankful for the folks that asked me how I was doing. I realized that I have literally never had a chance to check in, with myself after these things happen, and I've actually been holding a lot of frustration and resentment about it all. I've been harassed for years and it has either been brushed off or it's been eclipsed by the impact it has on my wife, I don't blame her for it, but this has been a good lesson in me not burying my feelings for the sake of others, even for her. I also want to clarify a couple of things that came up, several people asked about how my wife's family feels about

all this, and I explained in a comment that her parents are toxic and treat Mary as the golden child, even though my wife is a freaking neuroscientist, amazingly talented musician, speaks three languages fluently and another two conversationally. My wife and her family are seriously the only people who don't seem to understand how exceptional she is. I remember meeting one of my wife's family friends and talking to them about her research, and they said, oh wow, her parents just told us she works at a university. Whereas my parents literally introduce her as the family genius to everyone. It makes me so effengy-gangery to think about how her asshole family has stolen her shine her whole life.

She's literally a Renaissance woman, but all they care about is looks and money. Some folks ask me why I would ever put myself in a situation alone with Mary given everything she's done. I have no good answers for that other than I never thought she would actually try to do anything. That possibility just didn't exist in my head, I realized now that I should have seen this would happen eventually, and that I should have been less concerned with keeping the peace and more concerned with shutting Mary's shit down before it escalated to this point. Hindsight is 2020. Anyway, onto the update, the night I posted, I told my wife that if she wanted to try to repair her relationship with her sister I would respect that, but that I don't feel comfortable being around her for the foreseeable future. I said Mary has obviously been deeply jealous of my wife her whole life because she is a hollow, ugly person whose entire value has an expiration date while my wife actually has substance. I said that I think her whole family is toxic and has done nothing but put her down her whole life,

but that only she can decide whether she still wants them in her life. I also told my wife that while I don't blame her for her emotional reaction, her insecurity is something that she needs to work on for our relationship to be healthy. What Mary did was sexual assault and she's been sexually harassing me for years, but I have consistently put aside my own feelings about this problem because of how it affects her, and that has prevented me from getting the support that I need, too. I told her that her reaction only serves to punish herself and me for her sister's behavior, and there's no reason to give her that kind of power.

I also told her something that a commenter said that really resonating. with me, the only people who have ever considered her second best are her and her family. Everyone else sees her for who she really is. She was crying the whole time and agreed that she needed to go to therapy to work on her insecurity. We were able to find a therapist who specializes in body image self-esteem issues to work with her individually, and were looking for a couple's therapist too. My wife sent a message to her parents and sister that explained exactly what happened

and told them she would reach out to them if she ever feels ready to her. prepare their relationship. We blocked all of them everywhere, but Mary has, of course, been spamming my family and our friends with nonsense, claiming I attacked her. I'm a substance addict. I abuse my wife, all kinds of bullshit that, thankfully, nobody believes. My wife is still down in the dumps, but I can see that things are getting a little better. She's eating and sleeping more and she's cuddling with me in the mornings again, which is nice. Now I'm planning a surprise getaway for us this weekend. We're going to one of our favorite places and I'm going to whine and dine her and try to make her feel like the goddamn queen she is.

I want to thank you all again for your help. You really helped me understand the severity of the problem and again, thanks for helping me connect with my own feelings about all this. Y'all are the best. Hopefully, final update. My 37M, wife's 34F, sister, 29F, tried to kiss me and now my wife is spiraling. Help me. So I guess my original posts got reposted onto TikTok and some other subs here on Reddit so I've been getting tons of messages asking for updates. It feels like things are mostly settled and I'm really hoping this will be my final update.

First I want to say that I've gotten so many questions about who Mary is and I'm just not going to say, suffice it to say that she's never been household name famous, but she made a living solely on modeling for about a decade from what I understand, so she must have been popular enough that fashion people might know her. I really don't know how that whole world works, but emo it doesn't matter how many names you drop. You're not famous if you don't have a Wikipedia page. Also got lots of comments that, mostly, jokingly called me a simp, and I can't argue with that. I totally am a simp for my wife, she's the coolest, I hope you all find a love that makes you feel this way. Okay, I think that's it, here is the actual update. My wife loved the getaway weekend,

we had a blast and by the end of it she said she felt like herself again. For a few days after we got back things were really quiet, so we were hopeful that Mary had finally given up, but I felt uneasy about it all. Many of you warn me that Mary would try to interfere with my work and while I initially dismissed it, I figured I would reach out to my boss just in case. I've been working at the same company for almost 10 years and she's heard me vent about Mary before so I didn't have to explain too much, my boss just reassured me that she knows my real character and would let me know if Mary tried anything. As you predicted, Mary did try to contact my boss a couple of days later, and the following is a recounting of what my boss told

me. Apparently Mary said that I needed to be fired because I was a predator and claimed to have proof that I assaulted her. My boss said that was a very serious accusation to make and ask Mary to explain what proof she had. Mary claimed there was a camera that caught the whole incident, and my boss asked her to send the video. Then Mary got flustered and said the police had it, so my boss asked her to send over a copy of the police report. Then Mary said it had a lot of private information in it, so my boss asked her to redact the private information and send it over. Then Mary said she didn't feel comfortable with that, and my boss told her that she could not take action against an employee based on word of mouth from a stranger.

Then Mary shouted at her about victim blaming and hung up. Unfortunately that was not the end of it. Last Wednesday, Mary somehow sent an email from my personal email account with a dick pick, not mine obviously, to the entire office. My best guess is that I must have left my email logged in on one of my in-laws' devices. She's definitely not smart enough to actually hack me, and I know this is completely beside the point, but of course she chose the weirdest-looking dick I've ever seen. I played team sports all my life, I've seen a lot of dicks, and this was something else. It's honestly kind of funny to think about Mary Googling gross penis or something in sifting through

hundreds of images to find Zhu is the right one. I had to apologize to everyone on staff and thankfully folks were surprisingly understanding. It's actually been kind of a nice bonding experience with my co-workers. I honestly didn't consider myself to be super well liked in the office, but it feels like everyone has been going out of their way to be kind to me and it means a lot. Anyway, at this point it was clear we had to escalate things legally. I really wanted to avoid it, but she forced my hand. My wife and I have a lawyer friend who helped us draft a cease and desist letter outlining her continued harassment and the material and emotional damage this is causing us.

My wife then sent a message to Mary and my in-laws with a copy of the letter and made it very clear that we would pursue criminal and her civil proceedings if her harassment continued. My wife's mom then called her crying and begged her to just let it go and leave Mary alone. My wife calmly explained that Mary is the only person responsible for this whole situation, and that their parents have always enabled her awful behavior. She also said something she later regretted but I think was pretty badass. Mary is going to stick you two in a nursing home and steal your money the minute she has the chance, and you deserve it.

After the way her mom reacted, my wife is firmly settled on cutting off her family completely. This happened on Friday, and on Sunday Mary's best frenemy, and sent my brother a message on Facebook to say Mary is going to leave us alone and to please not sue her. I told my brother not to respond. Then just sat and enjoyed the idea that Mary was out there somewhere freaking out

about the potential of having to actually face the consequences of her actions. It must be such a strange feeling for her. Since then, we haven't heard a peep from the grapevine. It feels like things are finally starting to go back to normal. My wife is starting therapy, next week and will be starting couples therapy in a month or two. She wants to do some work on herself first. She's also taking a short leave from work to rest and recharge. I'm so proud of her

for standing up for herself with her family and finally putting her mental health and well-being first. Thanks again for everyone who offered advice. This was a messy situation but it definitely would have been Messier without your help. Update My 37M Wife's 34F, sister, 29F, try to kiss me and now my wife is spiraling. Help me. I forgot about this account completely until today and logged in to see so many comments and messages asking for an update. It's honestly touching to see how many people care about this situation and want the best

for me and my wife. This will be a brief update. I don't want to make this a regular thing and the original situation has resolved enough that I am hopeful this will be the end of the saga. Mary and my in-laws have pretty much left us alone. My Mill still tries to contact my wife every now and then, but she's made it clear to her family that if the first words out of their mouths aren't I'm sorry,

she isn't interested in a conversation. As you can see, the past six months have made my wife a badass. She has done some amazing work in therapy and her confidence is growing all the time. It's not just with her family she's more comfortable asserting herself at work, with strangers, with friends, etc. She's even stopped putting up with some of my shit. To be fair that shit is stuff like my leaving my socks everywhere around the house, but I'm seriously proud of her for telling me to cut it out. I'm becoming a more responsible

and supportive partner because she's able to communicate her needs and expectations without feeling guilty about it, and I'm able to communicate things to her without intense emotions fully eclipsing the conversation. I didn't mention this in my early posts, but my wife does struggle with rejection sensitivity even outside of her family. Often if I brought up something that I felt needed to change, her emotional reaction to feeling like she did something wrong would be really intense and instead of dealing with the problem, it would become about regulating her emotions. Now my wife has really good coping tools that allow her to talk about the problem without thinking she is the problem. And the biggest update. She's

pregnant. We have a baby girl due in February. I am shitting my pants with excitement. We are going to love her so much and teach her that she is more than her beauty. She's going to have happy parents who love each other and work through issues as a team. The toxic cycle will be broken. Jenna's family doesn't know, and she's not sure of slash when she'll tell them. But if she does, there are going to be strong boundaries in place for how they can be a part of our daughter's life. And it'll start with family therapy. For now, she has one set of grandparents that will go to the end of the earth for her. And that's more than enough. My family has been absolutely incredible in their support, and they're so excited for us. Things are looking

better than they ever have. That's all folks. Thanks again for your support on this wild journey.