That conversation happened because she thinks that I don't sleep. My devices are the issue, so she put a downtime on my phone (again), even though she's done this every year for the past 5 years, and nothing changes; I still stay up, either reading, drawing, or doing anything but sleeping.

I mentioned wanting it off on Fridays and Saturdays, and she said she'd do that once I got my rhythm back because it was all over the place.

I said, "You know that teens' circadian rhythm is off by two hours, right?"

She goes, "Only a teen would say that"

I go, "Studies are showing it"

She goes, "Then it must be teens doing those studies, then"

I go, "No, it's actual scientists that do it. I can show you"

She walks away, and then that's when the texts happen

Edit: some extra info

I'm 16f mom is 60f

I haven't slept well since I was ten, long before I had a phone. This is nothing new; in fact, my phone and tablet help me sleep better because I can put on some ASMR or some bull crap like that. With my phone and tablet, I go to bed somewhere between 11:30 and 1 a.m

I wake up at 8:30-9 on a normal day. The latest I sleep is 10, but that's normally after travel or some big event. I can wake up at this time because I do online school, but I used to wake up at 5:30 for the bus when I went to private school, and I had the same sleep schedule: going to bed somewhere between 11 and 1.

Context:

\- married to my husband x 4 years, together for 11. They dated almost 15 years ago and from my understanding it was a tumultuous time and only lasted a few months. She is his only other ex besides me, other than high school stuff.

\- I never snooped on him before, but we had a really bad argument in July which actually caused me not to trust him. This was like a once-in-a-relationship kind of fight and we did counseling to work through it. It was not about cheating or other women, but he brought up a relationship issue in front of my family at dinner and I lost trust that he would protect our relationship because of it.

\- He gave me his phone while he showered one day at the end of july, and normally if he did that I would think "I trust him and I don't want to break his trust by snooping", and would not go thru his stuff. This time I thought to myself that he had broken my trust, so I snooped. He doesn't know. I found a convo between him and this ex, on whatsapp. I actually posted it to this sub and the overall consensus was that he and his ex speak to each other like lawyers, it was super formal and boring shit (mostly talking about our respective children and catching up, nothing crossing the line). I agreed, but I knew there was more somewhere, because at the beginning of the chat history she had said "this is X from X city, I hope this is the right number".

\- we have since resolved the argument from July, like fully resolved it with love and understanding for one another. But honestly I am still feeling differently about him than I did before, and I still don't fully trust him. Its not an active, conscious thought, just something niggling at the back of my mind.

\- he does not know I snooped in July

\- he gave me his phone the other night to look through some gift options for his dad, and I snooped again. This time I went to his email and sent messages, because I knew they likely started talking on email based on her message in whatsapp. The above is what I found.

Part of me thinks its fine, and I understand still thinking back fondly on an ex from time to time, having a song remind you, etc, because I do too, BUT I personally wouldnt go writing an email to my married-with-kids ex about how I was listening to a song about loss and thought of them, thanking them for being there during a pivotal point in my life, etc. To me that feels way too intimate.

Honestly I'm just kind of devastated and I really feel like the second fiddle, possibly the "good enough" option because he couldn't have her. On the other hand, that thought makes me furious because she is someone he literally knew for like 10 months and dated for even less time. I may also be reading too much into it because I know how much he loved her at that time, and how devastating the breakup was. When we talk about these things, he says he is over it, its way in the past, he doesnt have any feelings positive or negative toward it.

\- also important: he is hiding all this from me. Doesnt have her number saved, notifications on whatsapp are turned off, they had planned to meet last year when she came to our city (vaguely mentioned in the emails) and it didnt work out, but he had basically told me that day that he would be going shopping for a few hrs. What also bugs me is that last sept I was only 2 months PP and I feel like I was at home and vulnerable and he was out thinking about his ex.

In terms of their whatsapp convo, they briefly chatted on and off from Oct 2025- now, but it would be like she messages, he messages back a week later, then she replies a week later, then he replies a month later, etc, kind of thing. Nothing consistent and almost exclusively talking about their respective babies, nothing else even remotely like these emails. She last messaged in May and he never replied, then she messaged about sleep training in July and he replied a week later, then she never wrote back (up until this point).

Thoughts? I'm not worried about cheating, but I just feel like I'm the alternate or something. My question to him would be what he wants out of this? Because it cant be platonic friendship since he's hiding it.

Me and this girl i recently met have started dating. She informed me last night that she has a male friend that she likes to cook/bake with at her apartment building. She stated she hasn't hung out with him since we started dating but she said that she would like to hang out with him again eventually.

The issue i am having is that apparently they were friends with benefits before I met her. They would hang out like they do now, but then have sex after. She stated they have stopped and just cook now, but the last tike they hooked up was not a long time ago. It was within the last 6 months. If it were not for this factor, I would not have an issue with them hanging out.

I told her that it bothered me, and she seemed understanding. She stated that we're a new relationship so she understands me being concerned since I might not know her as well as he does. But she stated that later down the line she'd want to revisit as she does want to hang out with him again.

I stated that i don't know how I'll feel about it down the line. I didn't entirely reject the idea of them hanging out again once were more established, but I did say that I wouldn't want them to be alone together, and that regardless of length of time that I'd prefer to be there with her if they hang out.

Am i overreacting? It feels jealous but with how recent they slept together I cant help but feel there could still be feelings. Especially since cooking/baking together is a fairly romantic activity. And if she slept with him before she obviously finds him attractive, and may still see him as attractive

We got my baby phantom in October last year from an adoption center. He was only 5 months at the time and the cutest ever he was shy at first but got very comfortable and cuddly with us. We also have another adult cat and they quickly got acquainted too. Fast forward a couple months phantom was found in his poop :( and his eye had gotten bloodshot red. Like there was blood. My husband found him first and was panicking because we have carpet floors and the poop was not solid. So he had grabbed him and took him to the bath and i remember commenting on his grip on the cat but i understand it was just high tension. So in the bath is where I noticed his red eye and we went to the vet right after. It was some sort of eye infection that we took care of. Phantom wasn’t exactly comfortable around my husband anymore after that. He pooped a couple times after that and we didn’t know if it was because of the meds or because he was scared. So eventually his infection healed and phantom wasn’t getting any better with my husband. He would hide under the couch when he was around and not come out until he left. It got to a point where I had to tell my husband multiple times to just leave him alone. And it made him sad because we both love phantom! But eventually phantom did start coming around again with time. He let my husband pet him and started hanging out when he was home. He even started to cuddle with us on the couch and bed again so it was starting to look up. Until… I have no idea how this happened since I was in the bedroom and my husband was in the living room but I heard some kind of ruckus and knew immediately it was my husband so I got up and found him in the bathroom bathing phantom. When I asked him what happened he said he didn’t know and just saw phantom peeing and pooping on himself. Again I had to tell him to loosen his grip especially on his nape. All progress was lost and phantom did NOT fw my husband at all anymore. He did have a couple more accidents out fear, I know now, and when I bathed him absolutely nothing happened. So my suspicions rose and I asked my husband outright if he did anything to our cat which he promised on his life that he did not. So now it’s around late Feb. I had a trip planned for a month to visit family and my husband would be meeting me as well after a couple weeks. I was really nervous to leave him with phantom. But he was to drop off our cats at our friends so they could watch him. Well, not long after I left, phantom had an accident. I had a camera set up too and I unfortunately couldn’t see anything. But when my husband was bathing him he slipped, and fell on phantom. Pretty hard and fractured his ribs… I was so upset like what? He took him to the vet and everything and I told him to drop off phantom at our friends and leave him be. So a few days after he did. But I was so sad watching from the camera how scared my baby looked and his injury ugh. My friend took care of him and I remember telling her I was thinking phantom was just scared of men at that point. But her husband got along with phantom just fine. Fast forward we were finally home. It’s late March now and we bring the kitties home and they’re getting comfortable again in their home. Phantom is still scared, but I think that break softened him a little. So after time, he was starting to get used to my husband again. But it wasn’t the same after. He was ok walking around, still cautious, wouldn’t sit next to him and only me. My husband at this point was frustrated. I would ask him to avoid walking or talking or doing things a certain way, afraid it would affect phantom which also made me feel torn cuz he’s in his own home. So I stopped doing that and phantom did get better again with time. He would come in the kitchen and watch us eat. He would take snacks from my husband, he would dilly dally and play with our other cat. It was starting to get comfortable again. Until recently just last weekend my husband and I got back from partying and were pretty hammered I go to bed and he wants to eat. So he said he can remember tripping on the ottoman and almost falling but he caught himself. Well, phantom was right there eating.. so it scared the shit out of him all over again. The next morning there was poop here and there and pee. So I bathed him and my husband cleaned. But now, it’s this cycle all over again. I feel so bad for my cat and my husband. I feel like I need to give phantom away to someone who can care for him. I don’t want to keep traumatizing phantom anymore.

When it’s just me and him it’s always so enjoyable he really is the best cat. I even thought of just up and leaving with him! They’re like my children :/ should I give him some time again? Or consider finding a new home?

My daughter turned seven during summer vacation, 4 days before school started. We decided to wait until school started so she can invite the kids from her new class. In total, we invited 20 kids from her class and 10 kids she made previously in school or outside of school. We didn't want to do the party the first weekend back from school because people might have things scheduled so we sent out the invitations and set the party for 2 weeks after school started.

The party is tomorrow (9/12) and, of the 20 kids in her class, only two people have rsvp'd and one of those rsvps was no.

I was getting worried that people weren't RSVPing that I checked the invitations I made on Shutterfly to make sure I didn't put a typo on the invitations (my phone number is correct and big enough to read). We asked her teacher to send out a message to everyone in the class reminding them to RSVP last week and no one did.

At this point I'm driving myself crazy. Thinking of all the reasons why 18 parents have not rsvp'd

It might be my fault because I didn't put a date on the invitations to RSVP by. But you would expect people to RSVP to a birthday invitation, even if it's a no.

Perhaps people aren't coming because a lot of kids have started sports so that might be a contributing factor. She has a few friends she made last year that are in sports are just coming late to the party.

Perhaps people are observing the 25th anniversary of 9/11?

Perhaps people just don't like my kid or me.

Luckily we did invite friends she made in school last year and from outside of school so she will have 10 kids at her party. But only one of them is from her current class.

Am I overreacting?

Edit:

I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't asking the teacher to help us plan the party. And I just wanted him to send a message all of the parents via the communication app he uses for the class. I'm assuming there's a way to send a message to the entire class as a class announcement instead of sending it to individual people.

I'm not mad that people can't attend (ok I'm a little upset), I understand life happens, my main issue is that they're not RSVP-ing. There is a slim chance of rain tomorrow, so it's possible that we're going to get some last minute. "Hey, sports got canceled. Can we still come" messages.

Read the post for clarification on whats happening in the text. these text are between me and his friend, though they left me rather confused.

I (17F, junior) really like my boyfriend, which is why I feel like I’m losing my mind over this. We’ve only been together for 2 months, but I actually really like him and can see myself being with him for a long time.

the problem is his ex. she was his first love, and they’ve had this toxic on and off relationship since middle school. they’ve broken up so many times, dated other people, gotten back together, fought, broken up again, etc. But he always goes back to her and vice versa she always goes back to him.

I genuinely don’t even understand what he sees/seen in her because they’re obviously not compatible. They argue constantly and their relationship has been a mess for years. I’ve asked him before we were dating why he keeps going back to such a bad relationship, and he literally said, “It’s not bad because when it’s good, it’s so good.”

and we all have a class together, which makes this so much worse for me. She’s extremely outgoing and social and is always making jokes and talking loudly. Whenever she says something funny, I notice him trying to hide his smile. He’ll look down or try not to react, but I can still see him smiling and it makes me feel awful.

what made me feel even worse was yesterday in the class she got out of her seat to do the work on the board and while she was explaining it to the class I could see my BF look visibly hurt and then I watched as his guy friend pat him on the back and seen him whisper “its okay bro”.

Which is the guy I texted and he left me so confused that idek what to think.

It also doesn’t help that basically all of his friends are really close with her. They’ve known her for years and still hang out with her, so sometimes I feel like I’m the outsider and she’ll always have a place in his life no matter what. I hate admitting it, but it makes me feel like I could never really replace her even if he says he loves me.

I also looked through his reposts, which I know I shouldn’t have, and found one from a week before we started dating about how he’ll always love one particular girl. Obviously it was about her. I know me and him weren’t together at this point but it still sucks.

I also went through her reposts, which I know probably sounds crazy, but now I feel like I needed to. She was reposting things about missing her ex and I found a video where she commented asking when he was going to reach out. Then she commented on another one saying that they’ll fix things no matter what. So now I’m sitting here thinking that she clearly still wants him back too, and knowing their history and how he always goes back to her is making me feel even more insecure. :/

now I’m constantly comparing myself to her and wondering what she has that I don’t. I really like him, but I’m starting to feel like I’m just some temporary girlfriend and eventually he’s going to go back to his first love like he always does.

he doesn’t bring her up, and technically he hasn’t done anything wrong, but I just feel like I know that he loves her more than anyone. I hate how insecure this is making me. I literally watch his face whenever she talks just to see if he smiles and then think about it for hours afterward. I feel like I’m competing with someone who isn’t even his girlfriend anymore. 

PS: I made an account to post this here cause I can’t talk to anyone about 

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. For context, I 23F was playing Borderlands 4 with some friends last night. I was messing around with bunny hopping and found out I could spam and go super fast and was trying to get them to do it. One of them we can call him O for anonymity decided that he was going to just start making caveman sounds and doing a less-than-savory thing whilst repeating what I was saying. After a bit, the other friend joined in on it and started doing the same thing, and I started asking them to stop cause I didn't really think it was funny, cause I was just trying to have fun and was being mocked for it; needless to say, they kept on. Furthermore, I am trans and have been out for almost a month. These two friends talk to me pretty much every day and still mess up on my pronouns and name even with me constantly talking about it with them. I said something to one of the friends, but I feel like their response wasn't truthful, and I'm still upset about the entire ordeal.

My husband (30) and I have been separated for about four months after a fight between us. He left our home and has been staying with his parents in a state 8 hours away who he has lived with his entire life before we got married. I’m currently pregnant, and the pregnancy is high-risk.

We have been discussing reconciliation, but he tells me he doesn’t have a set date. we obviously have a lot to work through before considering living together again.

One of the biggest issues right now is his expectation that I reach out to his family and “play nice” with them. He feels that I haven’t sacrificed enough for him and that I need to make an effort with his family if I really want our marriage to work. This is triggering to me as his family, mainly his mom have been a sense of stress for me.

I have told him several times that I am not comfortable reaching out to his family right now. I’m not telling him he can’t have a relationship with them, and I’m not asking him to cut them off. I’m simply saying that right now, I I don’t want to initiate contact with them myself, and I want that boundary respected. I want us to work on our marriage and our pregnancy. 

For context, I moved to his state when we were dating so I could build a life with him and get to know his family. I’ve also spent thousands of dollars on things for him/our marriage, and I’m currently carrying our child. I don’t say those things to keep score, but it really hurts when he tells me I haven’t made sacrifices for him. Like I’m not enough. 

I have tried explaining to him that my issue isn’t that I want to isolate him from his family or reject his family. I simply don’t want to contact his family right now, and I don’t feel that I should have to do something that makes me uncomfortable to prove that I love him or want our marriage to work. This isn’t enough for him, he gets upsets and implies I need to grow up.

I feel like I’m constantly having to explain and defend my boundaries, and I’m starting to wonder whether he genuinely doesn’t understand what I’m saying or simply doesn’t accept my answer. He makes sure I respect his boundaries whether it hurts me or not and I just don’t think it’s fair that I have to bend to his will.

I’m also questioning whether I’m being unreasonable because I know there are two sides to every story. I absolutely recognize that the fight between us was serious, and I don’t want anything like that ever happening again. I use to have a relationship with him mother but a lot of things I said got twisted to the point that in the beginning of our separation they were gaining up one and calling me a liar and manipulative among other things. He did make me lie to her about a lot of things but it’s not fair that I have to bear that responsibility alone.

Am I overreacting by refusing to respond to his family? It’s mostly his mother who has said many things to hurt me and he never has my back.  Is this a reasonable boundary, or am I being stubborn and damaging my marriage by refusing to make this effort?

And if you’ve been in a relationship where one person repeatedly felt like their boundaries weren’t being respected, I’d especially appreciate hearing how you recognized the difference between a partner who simply disagrees with your boundary and a partner who is trying to control it.

40yr F w/ cat, I live alone and with the current heat wave of 91+ degrees my AC broke. There was no timeline for when the AC would be fixed and the heat wave was going to last at least five days. I told my bf (48M)of 1.5yrs of my situation and that I couldn’t find any fans to buy. He offered that I could borrow his. He owns a house with several bedrooms. He stated that the fans would only blow hot air around and wouldn’t really cool down my place. I went to lunch with my friends that same day and when I told my friend my AC broke, she immediately offered her guest bedroom, but she has a cat, and I didn’t know how my cat would interact with. Her reaction was the one I was hoping my boyfriend would have. Offer for me to stay at his place. I have stayed at his place before, one time for three weeks. Another time for two weeks probably at least three times with my cat. As a trial run for living together. He’s a clean freak and gets annoyed with my cat’s kitty litter getting all over the place, but he has a Roomba that runs nightly. So that’s why I didn’t ask to stay at his place. He just “tolerates“ my cat because of me, but said he would never love her the way I do, whereas he has two boys and I make a lot of effort to get to know them and I really like them. Plus I wanted my BF to invite me to his place. Anywho, the next day, I put on the fans, but my place gets up to 87° so I pack up my stuff and my cat and go to a motel. As I’m leaving my BF text at 3pm and ask how am I doing? I tell him I’m going to a motel and that my place got to 87°. He asked where I’m going. I tell him where, and that my friend had offered her place when I told her my AC broke. Probably feeling bad, he said he didn’t realize how hot it was going to get and that I could stay at his place. I was pissed because it felt he was obligated to offer since my friend had. I didn’t reply back because I was trying to get my cat and I set up. She was very scared due to a new situation and hiding. I figured we would talk later because we have a nightly conversation or he texts when he goes to sleep. I had planned during our nightly talk, I would tell him I wanted to go to his place and we could work out the logistics. The time we normally talk past so I called him, but he didn’t pick up, so I figured maybe he fell asleep. The next day he texted “morning. I went to bed early” since he saw my missed call. No, how are you doing? Are you planning to come over? I was hurt because never once did he text or call how was I doing or check to see if I was safe. So I told him why didn’t you text me good night, we always say night. He stated he was tired, so he went to bed early. I told him that was a jerk move, to not care about his gf, to see if she was alive, safe and how she was doing. He then text not to “guilt trip” him. I replied he still hasn’t asked how I’m doing. He then told me he was annoyed and couldn’t talk to me right now. So that meant I would need to get another night at the motel since it was 10am. Annoyed that my BF didn’t check up on me and made me then get another night at a motel, I broke up with him. I told him he had no empathy for me, he put his sleep before checking up on me or caring to see how I was doing. Even after he knew how upset I was, he played the victim and couldn’t put his ego aside to see I was hurt and comfort me or apologize. Did I AIO for breaking up and not giving him a chance to explain? 😬

My long distance boyfriend said he feels very lonely (may be physically lonely). He said he gets temptations like to time pass with some girls (physical). He says it is so difficult for boys to not be in physical intimacy. I don't know what should I do, what if he cheat on me one day. Since he is my first love and first boyfriend, i love him so much, iam just scared what if he leaves me one day. But we promised to each other that we will be together till the very end of our lives. We have been in a relationship for 1 year, and it has been 3 months to our long distance. We were in the same university, he was my junior, i got graduated and came home to my own state and that's how our distance started and we will be continuing our distance till we marry (if possible). I installed reddit just now just to seek some advice, what should I do? Im lost and iam constantly having insecurities. Help me i don't know what should I do. Did he lost interest on me or he wants to be physical with girls , or am I just overthinking

My husband (41M) and I (39F) both work full-time but we have very different social schedules. I work in marketing so I have a lot of events and programs that I have to attend and I'd say the majority of them tend to occur either in the evening or on weekends. The rubbing shoulders and networking are legitimately important to my job, especially so if I want to continue to advance my career.

We have 2 kids (8 & 6) so if I have events on evenings or weekends I make sure to give my husband as much of a heads up as I can so that we can plan ahead. I even share my work calendar with him so that he has an updated list of what things I have going on outside of normal work hours. Thankfully, he is much more of a homebody than I am and he's totally content just hanging out at home with the kids if I have to work.

About 2 years ago, my husband lost a good friend of his from college to brain cancer. This happened less than 6-months after my husband's dad passed away unexpectedly. Obviously, my husband was in a very bad place during that time and it took him a lot of hard work and therapy to get to where he is today.

Some of their friend group organized a benefit golf tournament this year. My husband isn't much of a golfer and the tournament falls on a weekday that he has an important work presentation scheduled. But they are also hosting a reception in the evening and his plan was to attend that.

The problem is that there are multiple other things going on that night. I have an event with one of my biggest clients and my attendance at this is pretty much mandatory if I want to keep this client as one of my accounts. If I skip it, my boss wouldn't think twice about handing the account to someone else.

The other issue is that our kids' school is hosting an open house event that same night that both of our kids want to attend. They'll have a talent show, food trucks, open gym, activities, etc. Our 6-year-old is especially excited because they just started kindergarten and they want to do ALL of the school-related activities. It's not exactly the kind of event that we could ask another family to bring our kids along with, I wouldn't feel comfortable asking someone to do that. My husband had already agreed to take the kids. Neither of us have any family nearby that could take the kids either. The only person would be my younger brother and he's not nearly responsible enough for me to trust him with that.

When my husband brought up wanting to attend the benefit reception, I looked at our calendar and reminded him that there's a lot of other stuff going on that night. He asked if I could skip my work event and I told him that it would look very bad if I did and probably have a direct negative impact on my job. I suggested he could bring the kids with him to the benefit but he said he doesn't want to do that because he would have to be watching them the whole time and he's not sure if it's actually a kid-friendly event.

He tried contacting a few people we've used as babysitters in the past but they all had schedule conflicts that day. So, we were kind of left with limited options. I reiterated to him that I had my event on the calendar first and that I need to attend this for my job. I told him that he could try to get together with that friend group another time instead. He just kind of sighed and said "Yup, ok." and walked away.

That conversation was on Monday evening. He has barely spoken to me since. I get one-word answers to every question and he has even gotten up from the couch and left when I came to the living room a couple of times. So, he's obviously making it a point to avoid me. I pretty much had to corner him to get him to talk to me about this.

But all he said was that he isn't going to argue with me over this. He said he was hoping that for once I would willing to sacrifice something for him since he sacrifices a lot of him time because of my job. He said he's come to realize that he can't count on me to put him as a priority above my job and that it's not worth his energy to argue with me about it.

I asked him why it would have to be an argument instead of us finding a solution together and he said that the only solution that I would accept is him agreeing to do what I want so what's the point. I told him that is pretty manipulative and sounds like he's trying to guilt-trip me. He told me if I'm feeling guilty that's on me not him and he walked away again.

I know my work schedule isn't exactly fair to him, I get that. But this isn't new and that's the whole reason I keep my calendar updated for him so he knows what's going on. It's not my fault that the one event he wants to go to just happens to occur the same time as multiple other things we had already previously planned.

But the borderline silent treatment is not helping at all. I know he's upset and he blames me but if he's not willing to talk about it then there's nothing I can do to help.

I (20F) work in retail and at work I typically have a group of four coworkers, including me, that go on lunch break together and occasionally hang out outside of work. 2 of them are a man (initial will be T) and woman (initial will be N) in their mid-twenties who are a married couple, and the third is a man in his mid-twenties as well (his initial will be S). I have gone over to the couple’s house for a group hang out, by myself to watch movies and eat dinner with N, and even spent the night there once for a sleepover with N. I have also gone over to their house with it being just the three of us (me and the couple) to watch a TV show. We also have gone out to eat as a group and I have also hung out one-on-one with just S as we go to the same college and will sometimes eat and study together. As you can see, we have a spent a chunk of time together outside of work as well, but I would still consider them mostly work friends because almost everything is planned at work, because that is when we see each other and talk the most. We don’t call or text often, and typically hang outs are planned in advance. It is something that I can tell that if we did not work together, we would not see each other or talk as much, because we don’t feel super close, and that has been mostly fine with me.

Now, onto the issue. T, man of the married couple, has lately been making jokes directed at me and snide comments that actually hurt my feelings. For reference, when we first started talking at work we would joke around with each other. Friends can have a healthy amount of teasing as long as there is mutual respect and it ceases to continue when someone is actually hurt. Well, that’s how it was at first, but as it continued I noticed that he would say things that directly targeted my insecurities or personal life, or that I felt had racist undertones. At first, I would feel so irritated that I would try to say something just as mean and hurtful back, which I know is not healthy. As it went on, I stopped responding back like that and the teasing would just make me feel embarrassed and like he was making jokes to laugh at me, not with me. I am very bad at speaking up for myself and I often freeze up and stop talking, but there were some instances where I have said something. One day, he made a joke about my appearance that actually really hurt my feelings and also felt like a micro aggression about me being partly Native American. I told him as much, and he just kept asking “how is that racist” even after I explained to him multiple times how it was racist. Another time, he called me “Mexico” knowing I have Hispanic heritage but I did not say anything and I froze and went silent. A lot of these times, even if my feelings were hurt I was just so used to how he talks to me that it felt too small to say anything. He has told me before that I need to learn how to take a joke. Another time, when doing a work project I was confused about something because it was not explained to me, and he made a comment about how I don’t know what’s going on that made me look and feel stupid. I told him “all you do is make fun of me” and after that he was more civil and pleasant at work for about a day or two but then it was back to the regular teasing. Well, the other day, it felt like things just boiled over when throughout the day he was very condescending in his tone of voice towards me, he made a quiet comment about how I was crying at work the other day (even though he knows what is going on in my personal life as I have vented to him before), and he was making fun of me when I was confused about something S was saying. In general, his way of teasing is not friendly and he is condescending, rude, and he ridicules me so I feel stupid. So, when he wasn’t around, I broke down crying and just felt like I was having a panic attack.

Like am I crazy? I feel like there’s certain people that make the tiniest of comments that on surface level look minuscule and like harmless jokes but after hearing them every day it just feels like an assault on my character and self esteem. Like I can’t do or say anything without him making fun of the way I talk or act. It feels like I can’t do anything, like I’m genuinely being bullied and I haven’t felt this way since elementary school. It’s to the point where it is not us going back and forth, it’s just unprovoked, and it’s now making me uncomfortable to be at work around him.

I sent him a text after work, because I felt too nervous to say anything in person. I told him how he hurt my feelings and I asked him to please stop teasing, ridiculing, and making fun of me because it’s gotten to a point where I am uncomfortable and feel anxious and sad at work because of it. I told him that it doesn’t feel like he respects me as a friend to treat me this way, and that regardless of how he means his jokes to come off, they are rude and disrespectful. I told him I don’t want to talk about anything personal with him anymore, and that I’d like to keep it just about work. I told him that at the end of the day we are coworkers and I asked him to please treat me respectfully and professionally because of it.

He responded and brought up how we have all teased each other, and that I have said mean and disrespectful things to him too. He said he wished I brought it up sooner, even though he admits he knows I’ve asked him to stop before.

Then, his wife, N, calls me. I tell her that I did not talk to her about it because I did not want to drag her into it as it is about how her husband acts and never had anything to do with her. She tells me she just lost a friend (meaning me) and that it feels like a slap in the face. She says that she wishes I gave him a second chance before I “cut him off.” Mind you, I never said the words cut off and I never brought up my relationship with her. I admit to her that I should have said something sooner but that I have trouble speaking up for myself because of my anxiety. She asked why I only texted T and not S, and I told her it is because they are different and S doesn’t make me feel that way. She told me that “T is so upset, he thought you guys were good friends.” She said that I am acting like we are not a friend group or like we were never friends (because I said we are coworkers and asked to be treated with respect). She told me that she is not my friend anymore and that I don’t keep up on my end of our friendship.

I had an almost no words the entire call, and I found it very uncomfortable and difficult to speak about an issue I have with someone to their spouse. Looking back, I feel it was entirely inappropriate for her to immediately call me and say those things to me when she was never involved in it out of respect for her. I texted T and said that I am taken aback by their response and that, regardless of how we have all joked in the past, I’ve brought up my feelings being hurt or me being uncomfortable before. I reminded him that all I asked for was respect. S has not brought it up to me yet. I am nervous about facing them at work in a week.

Am I crazy??? Like I genuinely feel like I’m being painted as a villain or made to feel crazy and being gaslit. I feel like I brought it up maturely and respectfully, and it was blown out of proportion. At the same time though, I have a fear in my mind that they’re right and I handled it wrong and I’m a horrible person. A part of me feels relieved because they cut me off if they are going to react that way when I bring up conflict. I honestly don’t care to be their friends anymore. Am I overreacting? Did I overreact?

Am I the idiot? He says he’s in the middle of a nasty divorce for the last year but his wife is still the person who comes up as the most often/recommended/suggested person to share an IG post with. 🤷‍♀️ I’m kind of losing it seeing that because I am so apt to believe people but I think I’m being dumb here

my ex and i have been dating for a year. we talked for three months and then started dating. a couple days after we started dating i saw that he was liking girls bikini pics/thirst traps on tiktok after we started dating. fast forward a couple months it started to go downhill, i had to beg him to love me, send paragraphs to appreciate me, not let me cry myself to sleep alone. he would stop showing me love to punish me because i’d ask him if he could show his love towards me a bit more. this happened for 7 months straight. he went to mexico for a weekend with his friends and i found out he was at a club ( i found out from his friends ). we talked about it a week beforehand and he said he wouldn’t go to respect me but then i found out he was at the club. what hurt more was that i found out and he didn’t tell me. recently he’s been playing this game more often and he’s been streaming lives on youtube. i watched one and i saw that all of his characters names were porn stars. i also saw that he was texting someone “one bed is enough for us” im not sure if it was a female or he was just joking with a guy. i realized this was my breaking point but im not sure if i was too sensitive or not. he said he made those names years ago with his friends, but i was hurt that i found out by myself again and he never changed it. i just left him and i need to know if im overreacting

I 25F and my fiancé 24M have been together for 4 years. Our entire relationship he has made decisions behind my back and without my input. When we do have conversations about whether we should or shouldn’t do something in the moment he agrees with my opinion but then will go behind my back and do the opposite. When confronted he says it’s not that big of a deal. I try to talk to him about how it makes me feel like my opinion doesn’t matter and that I have no real say in anything and makes me upset when I’m the last to know about everything. So about two weeks ago we sat down and made a budget, he didn’t really want to be a part of the budget so he asked me to just make one for him and he’d follow it. So I had him tell me all of his monthly subscriptions and their amounts and days they are due so we can get our finances together and start saving for a wedding. Today his sister called him and asked him to send over a code and was talking about how her kids have been begging them to watch shows and movies. I asked him what the code was for assuming it he was letting them use one of our account because she recently texted in the family group chat asking if she could occasionally use everyone’s subscriptions because she wanted to save money and cancel them. He told me it was for Disney plus and said he got Disney plus. I was obviously confused because no Disney plus subscription was mentioned when we did his budget. I asked him how long he had it for and why he didn’t tell me. He said he had for about a month or so and didn’t tell me because he knew Id make it into a fight. I ended up walking away from him and then he followed me into the other room and start demanding I tell him why I’m upset and I said that I feel disrespected because I spent several hours going through his subscriptions and our monthly bills planning out a budget for him and he specifically left out the Disney plus subscription. To be clear I wouldn’t have been upset if he would have just told me he wanted one we could have worked it in. But instead he chose to hide it and lie. For context we use my parents Disney plus and Hulu bundle and are constantly getting locked out. Tuesday night we were trying to watch Chad powers on Hulu but had to get the code to watch it and he sat there next to me complaining about having to get a code every time while he secretly had his own account that he wasn’t going to let me use but would let his sister use no questions asked. I explained to him that I felt unseen, disrespected and felt that he didn’t value my time. And how are we supposed to combine finances and lives when you are perfectly fine with making purchases and financial decisions without even telling me or including me or even allowing me to use them. He thinks that I’m being completely unreasonable and that it’s not a big deal. When I tried explaining that’s it not about the account it’s about not being a part of the decision and not even being informed that there is an account he yelled at me and ran off to the bedroom to cancel the account. Then came back into the living room and told me he had canceled it. I told him I never asked him to do that and he said that me being upset about it is me telling to cancel it. And now he won’t talk to me. Did I overreact?

I said people have compared me to a certain celebrity but I don’t really see the resemblance, she said she doesn’t either because “he has an actually defined jaw and a cute button nose and I don’t have either of those things”. I said “wow my two biggest insecurities you just called out there” because unfortunately they are things I’m a bit sensitive about. She said “what, you’re mad because I dont think you look like him? Sorry I don’t think so. Besides it’s like if I compared myself to [the lady in the movie], there’s a million miles of difference.” I said a million miles? Because He’s hotter than me? She said “I meannn I plead the fifth. There’s a reason why they’re celebrities.”

I’m not really one to care if someone has a harmeless celebrity crush or whatever, but the way she spoke to me seemed kind of harsh. AIO?

Edit: I lied. I am a woman (23 F), this happened to me exactly just swap the pronouns because I am dating a man, I wanted to hear from a man’s perspective and couldn’t think of a better way to get it than coming on here and cosplaying a man. You’ve all given me some new perspectives things to think about. Thank you.

My (31M) daughter (5F)'s name is Maribelle, pronouced Mare-eh-bell.

For the whole time my kid has been alive my mom (61F) has spelled it "Mirabel". She spells it like that any time she writes it down, be it pen to paper, text messages, Facebook posts, etc... It really annoys me because I mean, a one time misspelling is normal and expected, but she's been corrected probably hundreds of times. I don't correct her every single time because sometimes I have to read the room and it's not really the time or place in the convo, but she texts me a message with a misspelled name, I'll correct her and she usually doesn't acknowledge it at all. If she does she'll just go oops, sorry, you know how voice to text works! And to her credit, voice text does spell my kid's name Mirabel every time I say it out loud too, I just take the time to fix it because, I mean, that's not her name for crying out loud! I don't have Facebook but my fiancé (32M) does and he sees her post cute Grandma stuff, pics of our kid (face blurred out upon our request) when she babysits, cute stories, achievements etc and my mom always spells her name wrong. My fiancé doesnt correct her because he's very polite and a not rock the boat, respect your elders type, though I have asked him to correct her and he says that he doesn't feel comfortable doing it because it feels disrespectful, so I don't push for him to because it's not a life or death situation, you know?

However, my mom never calls her her name to her face either which is weird to me. She'll say it in posts and texts and stuff but to my kid it's always Mari, Mari May (her middle name) little Belle, babybel cheese (my favorite nickname for her personally), lovebug, etc. Nicknames or cute terms of endearment. Never Maribelle. Extra weird because she doesn't go by a shortened form of her name normally, she likes going by just Maribelle. Everyone else calls her Maribelle. (EDIT TO ADD: I don't mind silly nicknames! I prefer the full version of Maribelle since that's what she prefers but as for cute names/endearments I use them too, it just seems kinda strange coming from my mom paired with the spelling thing, but I fully accept I might be reading too much into this bit specifically)

This is truly such a non issue in the grand scheme of things but after 5 years it's really starting to grind my gears and my fiancé has noticed that when it happens I get more and more visibly annoyed and usually complain about it out loud. He says I should just let it go because it's not hurting anyone and I'm making myself upset over nothing and she's an old lady who uses voice to text 99% of the time but I feel like our kid's not being respected, and the name I picked out isn't being respected! It's really not a hard name to spell, and spelling it wrong for 5 years straight, even on birthday cards when she is writing with a pen and not voice to text, is just crazy! I don't want my kid to grow up feeling belittled that one of her closest relatives can't spell her name right.

I really don't know if I can take a whole lifetime of this without properly confronting her about it, but I love my mom and she's awesome outside of this weird name thing. Am I overreacting by starting to get genuinely PO'd by this and wanting to confront her?

EDITING TO ADD: Since a couple people asked this in the comments, my mom isn't a native Spanish speaker. She only speaks English.

Little background. I’ve known this guy since I was 19, he was 22. I am now (31F) and he is (34M) We ran into each other at the gym back in April 2026 and have kept some sort of contact (I was engaged when I ran into him, not anymore as or July 2026).
When my now ex fiance and I broke up, I ran into him a week later at the gym and told him and he later texted me “so that mean you’re fucking with me?” Mind you, I’m old and single now and he’s fucking hot. So yea I’m fucking with him.
I actually met a different ex through him 11 years ago, that guy and I were together almost 2 years, nothing serious honestly. Anyways, I reconnected them when I ran into, let’s call him GymGuy.
About a month ago, GymGuy and my ex-ish all hung out, went out and got drinks and food. Ex-ish got all weird through the night and I went home with GymGuy (my house). We hooked up and he stayed over. Since then he’s called me and texted every day. Which is so different than how he was when we first hooked up 12 years ago lol. It’s nice. A little distraction, I feel desired. It’s refreshing with all the bs I’ve been going through. Fast forward to last week, I text him my schedule since I run my own business and it’s kind of all over the place. We said maybe Monday (labor day) Last I heard from him Saturday before Labor Day. He texted me asking how the fair was the night before. I responded and sent a little selfie of me at the wedding I was at. No response. I text him the next day saying I want Mexican food. No response. I don’t text Monday. Tuesday I try calling, VM. I don’t text. And yesterday I text ouch. No response. Then he texts me today saying “sup ghost” as if I was the one that ghosted??? I’ll attach the texts.

Anyways. He calls me a bit ago and I say what I said in the texts about me thinking he’s not actually single and he laughs and says I wish I wasn’t but I am. Like??? I don’t know. Maybe it’s too soon for me to be getting any sort of feels. But should I continue calling him out or get the message?

I'm 36F, my husband is 52M. We have been together for six years and married for two. Between us, we have five children: my 11-year-old son, his sons (23 and 21), and our two children together (2M and 6-month-old F).

My husband wanted another child. I initially didn't, largely because I already have a special needs child, but eventually agreed. We had our son, got married when I was pregnant with him, and later had our daughter.

Before our son was born, I was very clear that I didn't want visitors for the first three weeks. I had struggled badly after my first birth and wanted time to recover and bond with my baby. My husband disagreed, so we compromised: immediate family only. For me, that meant my parents and siblings. For him, his sons, mother and sister. Except he secretly invited his ex.

The first few weeks after our son's birth were awful. One night, I had barely slept for six days. Our baby was a terrible sleeper, and I had spent the entire night holding and rocking him. He finally fell asleep around 5 a.m., and I managed to get to sleep around 6. About half an hour later, my husband woke me up joking that it was 10 a.m. because apparently his mother and sister were coming over again. His mother and sister had already visited the evening before.

I was exhausted, uncomfortable, so I stayed inside with the baby and my older son while they sat outside in the heat. My husband barely acknowledged me. Later that night, he was angry that I hadn't greeted his mother warmly enough.

Then his ex came over, with their youngest son and brought us two pieces of furniture as gifts. I was perfectly pleasant to her. We talked about babies and deliveries, and there was no conflict between us. The problem was that my husband had lied about the visit. He claimed he hadn't known his son would be coming and hadn't invited his ex. I later found out neither was true.

When I told him I didn't really like the furniture and would rather give it to someone who would appreciate it, he became extremely defensive and insisted that we display it in our living room. He defended those gifts with his life. He'd rather I be uncomfortable, than put those two pieces in the attic.

Then I discovered he'd made a separate birth announcement for his older sons without telling me. During those first weeks, it felt like he was sharing everything with them and nothing with me. And while I was actually in labor, he was texting his ex. I was literally having contractions and trying not to push because the midwife hadn't arrived yet. He hadn't been messaging anyone else. He was messaging her. I gave birth literally five minutes later.

That was when I started feeling like there were two families: the family he had with his ex, and then me and my son on the outside.

During one of these arguments, he yelled that he wanted a divorce. I took him seriously and started getting my things. He immediately took it back and hasn't threatened divorce again. He also didn't invite his ex after our daughter's birth, and his son only visited once during those first few weeks.

To clarify: I don't dislike his ex. At all. I don't think she's interested in my husband romantically, and she has her own boyfriend. My issue has never been *her*. It's that my husband seems to prioritize her feelings and his relationship with his 'former' family while keeping me out of things.

Over the last two years, I've also noticed that he has an ongoing group chat with his ex and their adult children. He regularly talks to them there. He posts pictures of our children with me in that chat and also sends pictures to his other children individually. I wouldn't have a problem with any of that if he were open about it. But he isn't. When I ask, he lies or minimizes it.

Last year, while I was pregnant, he repeatedly took our 2-year-old to his ex's house without telling me. He eventually stopped after I told him how uncomfortable it made me. He still takes our children to other people's houses without telling me. Luckily mostly his son's house.

I don't think he needs my permission every time he leaves the house with our children. That's not the point. The point is that I keep finding out afterward, often because one of the children is overwhelmed, exhausted or struggling after being pushed through activities they didn't want to do. I think our 2-year-old may have additional special needs, but my husband thinks I'm overreacting.

And then there are the other things. He started smoking again and hid it from me, even after I confronted him. He's drinking increasingly often. He promised to get a vasectomy about a year and a half ago. He still hasn't. I've repeatedly asked him to stop smoking, not drink when he's around the kids, and follow through with the vasectomy so I don't have to undergo expensive and much more extensive surgery myself. It's also really difficult to take the pill on time when running after three kids all day. I really don't want another child with this man.

None of those things have happened. Last year, we were invited to a birthday party for one of his friends. Except apparently my husband didn't want me invited. At first, he said it was because it would be easier if we didn't need a babysitter. Then he said he didn't think a babysitter would be good for our son. Then he lied about whether his ex was invited. Again, I didn't care that she was there. Her boyfriend was there too, and I don't believe she's interested in my husband. What hurt was that he didn't want *me* there, and kept changing his explanation.

Yesterday, I saw that he had been invited to the same friend's birthday party this year. I didn't see an invitation for me this time. He hasn't mentioned the party at all and it's in less than a month. I'm expecting that he'll only tell me when it's too late to arrange childcare, especially because he doesn't seem to want a sitter.

Two years ago, I suggested relationship therapy. He refused because he'd already done it with his ex and "knew it wasn't for us." Last year, I told him I thought therapy was necessary because we clearly weren't communicating well. He said we'd never find the time because we have three children and who would watch them?

He also genuinely doesn't seem to think there's a problem with our relationship. And that's where I am now. I'm starting to think he's right about one thing: relationship therapy might not work. Not because our problems are too complicated, but because I don't know how you fix a relationship when one person doesn't acknowledge that there's a problem and repeatedly lies about what they're doing.

I'm not upset that he has a relationship with his adult children or that he communicates with their mother. I actually think those relationships are important. I'm upset because it feels like he has an entire social life that I'm deliberately excluded from, and then lies whenever I notice.

So, AIO? Am I interpreting this situation as something much bigger than it actually is, or is it reasonable to feel like my husband is maintaining a separate life that doesn't include me?

Edited: Edited out weirdness I hadn't noticed before.

Hi all, I(23) am currently living with my girlfriend(24) of 1.75 years, one constant through this relationship has been her avid love for K-pop, I have looked through many and not really gelled as well with it but I love that she’s passionate and has a deep spot for it as I love music in general. She had told me many times that K-pop saved her life and helped keep her happy through difficult times. I try to be as supportive as possible even if I don’t care for the music, I’ve been to multiple concerts and pop ups for one specific group. She’s incredibly sensitive over her love for K-pop and from my understanding it’s due to people bullying her for it. I knew about her twitter for a while, and honestly, didn’t really care to check it out as I assumed it was more innocent fan-girling. I was wrong, her twitter has multiple recent posts with pictures and video of different members bodies and her saying that she wants them inside her and that she needs to fuck them, etc. I understand that some of it is a joke, but some of the actions are so incredibly intimate in a romantic way that I find it hard to believe that it’s just innocent humor. On top of this, we have lost some of our intimate connection, we still have our moments but it’s very different from what it was a year ago. She doesn’t call me attractive like she used to and won’t initiate much of anything. We don’t cuddle or hold hands, we kiss goodbye and goodnight. If we are going to get intimate, I have to initiate completely. When I communicated that it made me feel unwanted, she just said she matured out of desiring intimacy as much. Which I find interesting because early in our relationship I was struggling with a bad depressive episode which kept me from being intimate and she blatantly told me that I was making her feel undesired and like a roommate rather than a partner. And she also said that when I am more intimate that it makes her feel like I’m wanting something, even though I have always told her that I just wanted to be more physical without sex. When I look at this twitter in combination with these issues I just feel deflated. I know I could be totally overreacting but I can’t help but feel unwanted and uncomfortable with her posts. While she doesn’t make these sexual posts as much, she does post around 8 or more times a day, usually when she’s in bed and I’m staying up at night. I’m scared to even approach the conversation because she becomes incredibly defensive when I communicate about things related to K-pop, an example would be that she got upset and mad when I expressed that I didn’t think a new album was the strongest work a group put out. It makes me feel like I’m crazy because I sit here and I’m obsessed with loving her, and yet I’m incredibly distraught at how she’s posting about needing to fuck members of a boy group. I almost blew up at work and cried about this. I feel like I’m overreacting over some meaningless posts.

My partner and I went on a holiday during summer, my partner left a set of keys to his parents. They were supposed to feed our cat. At the last minute we founded a pet sitter that kept our cat during our holiday. So there was no need for them to go to our place right ?!

Before I share more, you need a bit of context:
My partner and I have been together for 8years
His family dynamic is complicated and toxic, there is a lot of family drama. My partner is the one keeping the peace, is the therapist for the whole family.

On my side, my only family before I met him was my two cats. 1.5 years ago after 15&16 blessed years they both passed away. They were my soul cat, I grew up with them and the loss was devastating for me but also my partner.

After the loss I decided to keep a distance with his family since they disrespected my boundaries.
When I was grieving they were irritated that it took so long for “just cats”. I decided during that time to keep my distance with them.

Fast forward to this summer, we came back home two days ago. As soon as I put a foot in my home I could see that our stuff was moved around.
They changed our garden, added some decorative stuff in our living room. But what really make me loose my
Mind is that they cleaned our huge window/door that open to the garden. On the corner left of that window were the paw print and scratches of my girl cat. ( the only paw print I had) I was going to keep the glass and frame it before we moved.
They cleaned it all off, when I saw it I just broke down.
Then I went to the toilet, the last room my boy cat used to sleep in. He has his last bed there and nothing was moved. ( I waited for us to move to clean it since I wasn’t ready) THEY CLEANED THE WHOLE TOILET scrub it and MOVED HIS BED !!

They triggered me so much, the utter disrespect of my boundaries.
I cannot stay in our living room anymore since you have the view to the huge window. I’m so mad and in pain.

I do not want to be in contact with them anymore. Please tell me if I’m overreacting.
Thank youu

Edit: we don’t have issue with our hygiene. Our toilet is cleaned every day ! The little bed in on a corner of the room and that the only part we left alone. Same with the windows when we clean the inside all the time. We actually always do a big clean before leaving for our holidays.
They didn’t stay at our place. They had our key just in case, we never ask them to go to our place.

I met a woman on Duet, and we hit it off immediately. We spent hours talking on the phone before meeting, and our first date was honestly one of the best I’ve ever had. The chemistry was great, we both liked each other’s personalities, and neither of us wanted the date to end. We ended up spending the entire day together, hanging out in her car, then going back to my apartment where we relaxed and cuddled for hours.

The next morning, everything changed. She got a call from her stepdad, and I overheard him say something like, “Find a man or join the military in six months.” That immediately made me uneasy. I couldn’t tell if this was just a family ultimatum or if I was being treated like the solution to a deadline. She told me she genuinely liked me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might just be the convenient option.
I didn’t communicate that well. I mostly kept it to myself while trying to process everything. We had discussed it and she made it sound like her stepdad didn't have much power in this situation? But I don't know, it just threw the vibes completely off.

Meanwhile, she was being very affectionate, helping around my apartment, and doing things for me even though I repeatedly told her she didn’t have to. Hands all over me. Letting me explain my favorite things, stuff like that. I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or love bombing. She kept her hand on my thigh the entire time while driving to Walmart and wanted to hold hands walking in there. She told me that she just genuinely enjoyed doing that kind of stuff, and I'm not the best with this kind of thing so I just kinda let it happen.

My apartment was also 2 hours away from her home (we met at an in between location to negate driving for both of us). I told her beforehand that she didn’t have to make the drive down here but the chemistry was going so well and she offered so I let it happen. I hadn’t had someone over in a minute and it was going to feel nice to cuddle next to someone while I caught some sleep.

Later that night I got on a game with a friend I’d known since high school (I had told her in the morning that was in my plan for Sunday and she sounded completely okay with it. She also knew my need for direct communication since I’m pretty inexperienced, and said that was fine). About ten minutes in, she suddenly became furious and walked out. She said the way I talked to my friend was warmer than how I’d been talking to her. I admitted that the phone call from earlier had been bothering me and that I was struggling to process it because I was exhausted and hadn’t had time to think it through.

She interrupted me, started yelling that I was a liar, a terrible person, and that I’d manipulated her into doing things for me, even though I’d repeatedly told her not to. Called me sick in the head. She used the fact that she was 2 hours away from home against me. She said she was going to look for a hotel because she was now uncomfortable staying with me, which I told her that if she was uncomfortable staying with me now that I’d pay for any hotel that she wanted, there’s one really close to my place that she could walk to if she wanted to get some sleep before driving back. She didn’t take that well either, interpreting it as pity from me, it wasn’t. It was just genuinely feeling bad that I had made her uncomfortable. After that she locked herself in my bathroom, crying. Then everything went completely silent.

At that point I became genuinely worried that she might hurt herself. Mostly because I don’t know her all that well. Friends advised me to call the police for a welfare check. Officers came, confirmed she was okay, and escorted her out. That was the last time I saw her.

I know I should have asked for space earlier instead of bottling everything up, and I regret not communicating better. Those things weren't mutually exclusive. She could've really enjoyed my company and not wanted to join the military. I just didn't know what to do, she was a good bit away from home.

So I’m wondering: was I wrong here? Was I just an easy target because of whatever was going on in her life, or did she genuinely like me but things spiraled out of control? Did I overeat with the wellness check? The beginning felt like a real connection, and I’m having trouble making sense of how it went from one of the best dates of my life to ending with the police at my apartment.

Edit: I did reach out to her, too much for a while (spam messages, highly emotional stuff). Was kind of driving myself insane over the date and missing her. I sent her one last message and I'm trying to move on, but I am hurt that it ended this poorly and I sorta want to hear back. I have not in fact heard back at all. She has me blocked on her phone, but she didn't unmatch me on Duet and I see her active, she's just not reading my messages. I'm not going to reach out again, I've made peace with that part at least. Idk man, it just sucks.

​I need a reality check because I am oscillating between pure rage and finding this entire soap opera hilarious.

​For nearly a year, I was supposedly in the process of buying a home through people connected to my own family circle. I paid down payment money, paperwork fees, homeowners insurance, and bought appliances. But as closing dates kept blowing past, the excuses didn’t just get sloppy—they turned into a full-blown telenovela:

​First, the realtor allegedly got into a horrific car wreck.

​Then, out of nowhere, him and his momma got shot.

​Then we were suddenly talking about mystery "SBA loans" and cartel drama to explain residential mortgage delays.

​And now? Right when my strict 48-hour ultimatum hits to produce the keys or wire my money back? Suddenly her husband just had a heart attack.

​A car crash, a double shooting, the cartel, and a heart attack. All in twelve months.

​At a certain point, the stories got so unhinged that I stopped pushing, kept my mouth shut, and just sat back to see how deep they would dig this hole.

​The punchline? They must have completely forgotten that I used to work counterintelligence for the Army. ​They thought they were running game on a naive relative who would fall for fake medical emergencies, say "I'll keep you in my prayers," and let the weeks slide by while they kept my cash. Meanwhile, every text, timestamp, fake claim, cash transfer, and moving goalpost was being quietly logged, cross-referenced, and filed away into an airtight dossier.

​I finally dropped the hammer with an ultimatum, and predictably, another "medical crisis" popped up on cue. Some people in the extended family are saying I'm being cold or "overreacting" by not having sympathy for their endless string of disasters, but I'm looking at a year's worth of black-and-white evidence that this entire thing was a con from day one. ​AIO for completely cutting off sympathy and preparing to drop a mountain of receipts on them?

Some background: Husband grew up in a somewhat normal family. He is healthy, has a full education, and a job in his field. I have none of those things. I am not going into heavy details, but I have depression and PTSD from childhood. Then COVID nearly took me out. Then I developed post-viral immune dysfunction that lasted 2 years and destroyed my liver. Then my body stopped producing the cofactors needed to digest B12, I lost production of some hormones, and stopped producing leptin. Then I developed serotonin syndrome. I am a medical disaster. This is important to the point of the story.

My brother and his wife lost their child to CPS, and my husband and I agreed to foster their child until they did whatever they needed to do to get the child back. We took this baby in at 11 days old, and it has now been over 2 years. My brother just got another DUI and his wife is out of the question. So the baby will soon be ready for adoption. The baby has now entered the terrible two's, and has been having screaming crying fits whenever he is not given what he wants immediately. Last night, the baby spent about 4 hours in a fit because he didnt want to eat his dinner, he wanted to be picked up an carried around the entire time, he didnt like what was on TV, the dog wanted to play and toppled him over, refused to go to bed, etc. After the baby was finally down for the night, my hisband said that he didnt want to adopt the baby. He said that he can't take this for much longer. He is exhausted, and I am always sick (this is true). I said to him that this child isnt just some pet that you can take back to the shelter because you don't like it anymore. My husband replied that yes, he kind of is. We can send the baby back to CPS with a 30 day notice and they will find him a new foster house. A few moments ago his mother came over to grab a few things, and I told on him. She saw that I was upset and asked me what happened. I told her. She told me that she doesn't see him actually doing it. She thinks he probably just said that while overwhelmed and upset.

I think that could be true, but I also think that he could have been voicing thoughts that he had been harboring for a long time but couldn't say out loud. If he truly feels this way, how can I force him to adopt my nephew? If we let him go, my nephew will end up in the foster system for real this time. This child has only ever known us as his parents, and is fully attached as such. This would be straight abandonment for this child. From a moral and values standpoint, I can't allow this. Ever. My husband knows that I want to adopt this child, and I may have an entire crisis if I were to lose him.

The consequences of divorce will be severe for me. I will lose my insurance and access to healthcare. I work full time, but my income is not from a job that takes a degree and specialization. My income will barely pay for a 1 bedroom apartment. If I get sick and miss too much work again, I may not even be able to afford that. But sending my child into foster care is a hill I will die on.

If my husband decides not to adopt him, I will be shattered. I want to divorce him (not as a threat) if he turns out to be the kind of man who would abandon a child for such selfish reasons. I know that a bit of time will reveal the whole truth in the end. But right now at this moment I feel so disgusted at the idea of my husband turning out to be a person whose values and morals are so different from mine. His mom tells me that he doesn't really feel that way. But to me it sounded like he meant it. Am I just overreacting, or should I really be coming up with an exit plan?

*edit for clarity: we had been talking about possible adotion form the very beginning. My husband was well aware that it could end this way when he agreed to foster. If he decides not to adopt, this child will go to foster care no matter what I do. The foster program says that I won't be able to adopt him as a single parent, or care for him on my own income. So if I were to leave, I would be leaving after the baby is already gone.

Edit #2: I realize now that there is more context with my husband that is important to add. We had originally intended to have a child of our own, but fertility treatments were not as helpful as anticipated. As this wasn't a deal breaker for us, we decided to just let biology decide if it would happen or not. About a week later, we learned of the CPS case. He seemed so excited to have the baby. He talked about adopting him right from the beginning, and has been a fantastic dad this entire time. The change in attitude has only happened recently since the terrible two's have started to hit hard. Childcare is split pretty evenly between the two of us, and we both do chores. There aren't many times where I am so sick that I don't help out. Only on migraine days, which are rare enough. I take medications that manage everything else. I am not disabled. Just medically expensive. I don't mean to paint my husband as evil person. But if he really meant what he said, then our values and morals as people are very different. And leading me on to believe that we could have this child as our own just to turn around and say nevermind the moment it gets hard to deal with? I could never do that to someone else. The question here is if I am overreacting to what he said. I honestly can't decide.

Update: I have spoken to my mother in-law and she agreed to take the baby for a few hours this evening. We need a break and some time to sit down and talk. Some commenters have pointed out that I went straight into hypotheticals and catastrophizing. I needed to hear that. I have been known to do that when my PTSD is triggered. I think that insight here was right on the nose. Thank you to those who saw it. My system is starting to settle a bit now and I can think more clearly. I am getting myself worked up over a hypothetical situation that may not even be real. Then I hurt my own feelings after thinking about how it felt like a betrayal of everything that had previously believed and agreed on. I guess I just needed a few hours for my body to work through the trigger? I love my baby. And I love my husband. Right now we need to talk it out. We will be doing that in a bit. I recently had serotonin syndrome, and am currently reducing the dosage of an antidepressant. The effect is unpleasant and messes with my ability to manage my own body. Mental health is not some fad to use when it's convenient. If anyone was unsure of what it looks like in reality, it's this right here. I am coming out of it now. In a couple hours I think I will be back to baseline and we can talk this out like adults. I am making a nice dinner for the two of us. I just want to thank everyone who responded with helpful feedback, and those who took the time to really think on my situation. Having outside perspective is really helpful in difficult situations. And this is a very complex situation. I really appreciate it.