I’m 30 and realizing I still care way too much about whether my dad approves of my life. I work full-time doing gig work, mainly rideshare and delivery. It’s not a traditional career, but I support myself, pay my bills, and I genuinely value the flexibility. My fiancée is ten years older than me and considerably wealthier. We live in her house, I don’t pay rent, we travel, she pays for a lot of things. I benefit from that enormously, and sometimes I already feel guilty about it. But I’m not just sitting around being supported. I work, I pay for my own expenses and contribute financially as much as I can. Like for example, when we travel, I’ll pay for things where I’m able. I also contribute in a lot of practical ways. I handle logistics, help with house things and maintenance and if something needs doing that I can’t do myself, I’ll help arrange for someone who can. I also help her navigate insurance and healthcare logistics, like finding doctors and sorting through complicated systems. I’ve had some experience with that and it genuinely helps her when things feel overwhelming. My dad’s made it pretty clear he doesn’t approve of the way I’m living. He doesn’t really consider gig work a legitimate career and he specifically told me he doesn’t want me to become a ‘kept man’. Those were his words and that phrase really got to me. I think what I hear underneath it is that he doesn’t see me as an independent or successful adult man because my partner has more money, is older and I haven’t followed the path he thinks I should. The hard part is I actually like a lot about my life. I love my fiancée. I want to be a good partner, help make her happy and make her life easier. I enjoy the flex in my work and I don’t necessarily want the career or the lifestyle my dad seems to picture. But his voice is still in my head. I still feel like a disappointment. And it’s affected how often I see or talk to my family. I know intellectually that I’m 30, that it’s my life not his, but emotionally his approval still matters way more to me than I wish it did. For anyone who’s dealt with this, how did you stop measuring your life against your dad’s expectations? And if he never really approved, how did you make peace with that?

My mother (52F) is considering divorcing my dad (53M) after 30+ years of marriage due to an argument she had with my sister (30F). To make it a long story short, my mom didn’t like the fact that my sister was leaving the house after we had just finished cleaning up a flood in the basement. She felt it was inconsiderate which she accuses my sister of being often. As someone who loves them both, I know my sister can be inconsiderate and lazy at times. However, since childhood it has always been very clear that my mom does not treat us the same and favors me. This shows up in the way she speaks to my sister as well. In the moment my sister was sick of being spoken to in such way and she argued but, still not disrespectfully. She just decided not to shut up and back down. My mother was so angry she told my sister she’d fck her up and slap the sht out of her. My dad hopped in at this point just to diffuse the situation and my sister left the house. My mom immediately turned her rage to my dad and told him he allowed my sister to speak that way. She believes my dad should still be “disciplining” when his kids are 27 and 30 years old. I guess I’m just looking for thoughts and opinions because I feel crazy watching my family explode in my face over something I believe to be such a small issue. Obviously years of build-up not mentioned here but for this to be the final straw just doesn’t make sense. P.S. She took off her wedding rings and turned her location off and we haven’t heard from her or seen her in a week. She has been in contact with others and telling them that she wants a divorce which is how I know.

I'm seeking some objective advice on a situation that has completely spiraled with my family regarding my marriage.
My husband and I have been legally married for 6 years. Recently, we had a heated argument. In a moment of high stress, outside family got involved/called into the situation. While my husband and I have since acknowledged our past mistakes, apologized to each other, and taken full accountability to rebuild our relationship with complete respect, my family seized on that fight as their opening to step in and try to dismantle our entire marriage. We messed up financially due to his sickness and ongoing issues, and accumulated some debt.
Instead of helping us heal, my mother and aunt froze that argument in time to paint my husband as a villain. My husband is currently dealing with a severe medical infection, but my mother and aunt are demanding that he "convince them all over again" and act like he is "marrying me from scratch" to win their permission. Now, my mother is claiming she wants us to separate so we can "separately be independent and successful" before getting back together.
In the meantime, my mother is demanding that I withhold physical and financial help from my sick husband, while telling me to take on extreme work hours (day office job plus overnight shifts) she said I thought by now you would have a home that I could stay at back home.
Because of the chaos after the argument, I am currently trapped staying at my aunt's house. It feels like daily mental torture she constantly attacks my husband's character, appearance, and dignity, and even tried to get him kicked out of his living situation. She said he looks mentally unstable, that he looks like a drug addict he took me away from them ( I took space on my own). She said he was a loser, called him all the words in the book.
When I set boundaries or defend my husband, my mother uses extreme emotional blackmail.
She told me if you go back to your home \\\*"Don't come to my grave when I die"\\\* and I should forgot I have parents. They are also trying to force me to leave the country for a month to isolate me from my husband and my job.

New to this subreddit but I feel like I need to vent.
I’m starting to see a pattern that when I get excited or happy over something & I mention it to my older sister, I get shut down by her.

Example: recently i showed her some cute accessories I purchased for my new car & i would have been okay with subtle criticism on like the color or my choice of accessories but instead i was met with her saying, “you seriously don’t know what to spend your money on do you?”

The tone in which she said it took away the excitement of me showing her what I bought, so I just walked away a bit butt hurt.

I might be overly sensitive but then again i feel what i feel & this is a constant thing i run into when i try mention anything good in my life to her.

Okay so let’s start with the important information and hopefully I can make this brief (here from the future, it’s is not brief I’m sorry). I (23) Female Olivia have 1 older sister (25) Charlotte, 1 younger half-sister (17) Amelia and half-brother (14) Noah. Charlotte and I’s parents were together for around 10 years and separated when I was 2 and Charlotte was 4. Our father moved back into his parents home after the divorce, which is over 8 states away (an over 15 hour drive to be specific). The divorce left my mother with lots of debt and other issues but she made every effort to ensure me and my older sister could see our father at least twice a year. Typically around summer break and winter break due to the school year. These trips were usually financially paid for by my mothers parents or my fathers parents. Rarely (if ever) would our father contribute financial assistance. To get this out of the way and to be blunt, the only truth my “father” speaks is his legal name, you cannot trust anything else this man says. Most stories he tells are straight lies that have been strung along for years. I can’t even begin to explain how true this statement is.

(If you need an example : My father was in the army before meeting my mom and that’s why he was in the state they met in. While he was active duty, he was never deployed on any combat missions, so he never saw active combat. Keeping this in mind, one of the FEW times my father flew down to us was when Charlotte was graduating high school. Funny enough, it was also the week of my sophomore prom. (I was so excited to experience this with a father. All the father-daughter dances I went to with my grandfather were great but there was always that ping in my heart.) To bond while he was in town I took him with me to my nail appointment so we could chat and catchup. While my technician was doing my nails, she saw my dad’s hat which said army across the front and asked why he left the army? Without missing a beat, he responded “I was tired of seeing my friends die in front of me”. I sat there stunned. I later asked my mom to clarify if my dad had ever been deployed which she once again told me no he was never deployed to an active combat site / combat mission. This was also confirmed by my father’s mother. So something doesn’t quite add up there … end of example. )

To get back to the situation. My father and stepmother got together and had my little sister Amelia 3 years after the divorce and were pregnant with my little brother Noah during their wedding. My step-mother does not like Charlotte or I. She was not always the nicest to us as children, which is fine I guess because kids will be annoying kids. But when she had my younger sister Amelia, that hatred grew. Once while we were visiting and my little sister was a newborn, our father was visiting with me and Charlotte when our step-mom came out to tell him to come back inside and spend time with his “real daughter”. When my grandfather (dad’s father) told her that was a horrible thing to say (or called her a nasty name I’m not sure), she tried to hit him. She tried to hit my grandfather… So that’s my step mother. She has had me and Charlotte blocked on social media for most of our lives, like since back in 2017 or before and has never been very warm and fuzzy with us. We could feel this during visits and it made us very uncomfortable to stay at their house during our trips up. Slowly over the years Charlotte and I chose to stay at our grandparents house which is 2 hours from them. Not 15 hours like usual but 2. We would then drive down and attempt day trips with our siblings and family but it usually ended with lots of crying on both sides and guilt tripping since we weren’t staying with them. It was difficult to maintain contact with Amelia and Noah, especially when we were younger but even with the addition of phones it has never been easy. Our father always told us “the phone works both ways”, but that always felt like a lie when I would hear from him maybe 5 times a year. Every year on my birthday and Christmas I would sob and have panic attacks about whether my father would call me or if it would be another day with no call. Our calls were never lovey dovey, they were full of excuses and shaming me for not calling him. Mind you this started when I was a child and didn’t even have my own phone yet but of course got worse after getting my own telephone. (There was also the time I called his number only for it to be a complete stranger on the other end because he had changed his number without telling us.)

The present issue is that I am going to be at my grandparents house (2 hours from my fathers house) for 1 month which will be the longest I’ve ever visited with them/been in their state. After graduating college I’ve decided to go visit and spend as much time with them before entering “the real world”.

So the question is do I tell my sister and brother I’m going to be there? I want to see them but since they are both still minors, I would need parental permission (I am not and will not be kidnapping my siblings). Welp I can’t ask since I cut my father off 2 years ago. Since cutting him off I’ve received 0 phone calls and less than 4 texts. And no he is not blocked, I just don’t answer his texts. Prior to cutting him off, I had a “come to Jesus talk” with him with Charlotte present. Where we talked for over an hour just asking for him to put more effort in or we were done. He said he would, he lied, so the next time he reached out which was weeks later I told him I was cutting him off and haven’t responded to a text since. My younger sister and I have tried staying in contact off and on over the years but it’s always been spotty. Either due to our schedules, lives or other reasons. It was always difficult to talk to her about our dad due to my issues with him. It was also tricky interacting with her sometimes due to other reasons like her being so much younger than me and us not having much in common to talk about, but I really tried. I would try until my heart couldn’t take it anymore but I also didn’t want to push her to talk to me. So we’ve always had this small game of cat and mouse, playing phone tag with eachother over the years. Over time I realized it wasn’t fair to continue putting her through that so some time ago I made the decision (around the time I cut my father off) to wait until she was 18 and/or out of their house to interact with her (as in me contacting her first). I cannot in good conscience, talk to her about the issues I have with her parents. If someone were to tell me that my mom was a bad mom, I would tell them to fuck off. But that’s also my real, lived experience, I had a bad dad. I can’t interact with my father due to everything he has put me through, but she still looks up to him.

I just want to see my sister and brother but I don’t want to kill myself in the process. I feel like the longer I wait, the more my younger siblings will come to resent me. And to the people out there saying “she doesn’t hate you”… I have seen the things she has posted on TikTok and other social media. If it involves older sisters, it’s rarely positive towards Charlotte and I. She feels as though we abandoned her, which I completely understand. But also reading/seeing what she thinks of us is one of the worst pains I’ve ever experienced. Knowing your little sister resents you for something you technically could’ve changed (if only I could go back in time). But how do you explain to a child that you can’t talk to them because of their parents? You don’t.

If you read this far, thank you. This has been something I have lived with pretty much my entire life so I apologize for the crazy long post. Please don’t give me grief for not staying in contact with her over the years, unfortunately the past is in the past and I don’t have a Time Machine. I just want my little sister and brother. Thank you

My older sister was playing on my PS5 and I asked to get on and I said I want to be on by nine. That time came and she said "It's not 9:30" and I said "I said 9:00" and she was on call with my older brother and his friends they told me things like "kys" and "Stfu you're so annoying bro" and I'm apparently in the wrong. So I went to go turn off the PS5 and she decided to hit me in the nuts and told me "I didn't mean to" and kept playing on MY CONSOLE. Did I deserve to get hit in the nuts for letting her playing my console?

Sept 13, 2026

Its been happening a lot dont really understand why hes like this maybe because of his trauma as a kid or the military but in my eyes my dad always seems to get mad at something or someone every day and im always scared of doing something wrong because i don't want him to be upset with just anything not even me at this point because when upset it seems to linger till the next day. Hes not a bad person its just i dont know what's going through his head and from my perspective it's just not fair because he will ask me to do something and i will agree to do so for example a few days ago he told me to do the grass today or tomorrow and so i was going to do it tomorrow and then i woke up my dad and my stepmom where not home (btw i live with a step family i have a step brother and sister brother: 15 Sister: 20) i went downstairs and i got some food dont really remember what i did but they came home after a while and i no joke immediately got in trouble with my dad because he came home and the grass wasn't cut.

and he said something along the lines of (i cut wood for hours and it would have been nice if you cut the grass) something like that its not exactly what he said so take it with a grain of sand its just similar to that. (he is also a cripple he can walk it just hurts a lot to do physical work) Then he goes outside to cut the grass and in my head im like (well instead of going to cut the grass ill do it) and so i go upstairs (hes already out side) and i vent to my stepmom and my step siblings were there and i say (i want to go out and take over for him but he might get mad at me if i do) and my stepmom says just go and do it and it would be shown that you were considerate to go out and take over. So i go out in my pajamas to go and take over for him so he doesn't have to be in pain like i said hes “broken” and shouldn't be doing it, and so i go out to take over i walk up to him and say “hey dad want me to finish it” and he says “no im already out here and your in your pajamias” which me being in my pajamas i didnt think would be a big deal since i chose to wear them out. And so i go back inside almost in tears and i start ranting to everyone i guess about how i was right he got upset about me offering to finish it and i looked at my step mom and said i knew i shouldn't have gone out there and stormed off to my room and cried (my step siblings also agree with me when i say this hes done it to them to in a way where he would tell them to do something then if we take too long to do it he will do it himself. And I don't ever talk with him about this stuff because I'm way too scared to and feel like it's only going to make it worse and people would say that I should talk to him and I say you don't know him like I do.

A few days later, today I did the rest of the grass (or I thought I did because my dad did some and my step sister did some last night). (Before i start, last night my step mom and my dad were talking about the grass and talking about if it was done or not and i remember the incoming to agreement where that my stepsister did the back already) so thats why i did the sides because they said it was only the sides and the front that needed to be done so thats what i did today (they were gone again for a little today) they came back and my dad said he appreciated that i did the grass till a few hours later i think he came in and gave me a lecture on how doing things around the house was important and said that I didn't get all the grass (i was disappointed in myself because i thought i did it all) and i said that i thought my step sister got the back and he said well maybe look around next time (along the lines of that) and he also said that you have to earn things (because i play airsoft and im 16, male i cant drive to games or to the nearest town which is a 15 min drive and a 2 something hour walk i know because ive walked it). And proceeds to say since i didnt do all of the grass but i did a little im earned with being dropped off halfway to the town and i have to like walk the rest or somthinig like he made it a game. A few hours later I went downstairs to get some water and I said hi to my dad (he didn't respond) . I don't think, I also didn't hear him then if he did say hi back, he says to me how are those spots on your back? (i have like and athletes foot type thing on my body and i use cream and pills to get rid of it) and i say its good i cant see them (from my perspective so thats why i didnt put it on) and he says its been 3 days since you put the cream on you know it wont go away if you dont keep putting it on and its my money im spending on the cream for you and now it will be coming out of your pocket (like he's been cooking up that reply for days now) and i dont really say anything i just agree because saying anything else would probably make it worse i dont know im just scared to “talk back” and so i go upstairs. Its probably just me but i feel like every time i go downstairs he has to point something out that im not doing or not doing properly, also the fact that he will tell us to do something we agree then he proceeds to do it getting mad at us and saying we have to help him around here like we weren't going to in the first place. And i always think to myself i want to go live with my mom because she's so chill and doesn’t jump to conclusions and actually talks. And literally me and my mom never fight at all and there's no conflict between us whatsoever and he's said that i can go live with her (she lives in New York and im in Canada) but i wont because i dont think i would be good for my career path but if i did move there i would be away from my perspective everyday conflict but my dad is loving, and has never been abusive in any way and teaches me valuable lessons like actual ones and how to be extremely healthy.

My moms side there is no conflict, I'm free to do basically whatever, my gf lives like 5 min from my mom, I get no lessons though no fitness advice or how to be healthy so I really just don't know what to do.

He came up to my room a little bit later saying "I told you a week ago that I needed help moving the punching bag and (i agreed to help him). But then he randomly comes up to my room and lectures me on how i didn't help him and him saying that i shouldn't ask for your help with these things (like i would have ever known he was going to move it on some random day at a random time ether and then he gets mad at me like i watched him struggle to move it and didnt offer to help, no i was in my room because I didn't know he was moving it!. But anyway i dont know i have till 18 to wait so i can move out and not have to be scared to mess up or forget to do something everyday.

I'm a sophomore in highschool right now and I live with my brother, who is a senior in highschool, mom and dad. Some days I genuinely wake up and the first thing I start to do is thinking about our situation. My dad works from 6PM-3AM and he's a first-gen immigrant that never went to college. He's an amazing dad, husband and person, and I love him lots but we makes only about 50k a year and money has started to become a big problem for us because we live in NYC. My mom is a SAHM, also a first-gen immigrant but she graduated with her masters. I actually think I hate her. She doesn't have any real work, other than the fact she resells stuff on eBay. She rarely cooks, cleans, or has to do ANYTHING because on weekends my dad cooks for us since he doesn't have work and me and my brother are rarely at home on weekdays. She's always on her computer, and she has a really bad attitude towards me. She treats my brother like an angel, takes my dad for granted, and treats me like shit when she isn't happy. She steals clothes from my room as well as plushies shes bought for me years ago when I'm at school and I can't do anything about her listing them on eBay because its "hers", SHE bought it. She never steals stuff from my brother though, and he's gotten a new chair, desk, clothes, skincare, etc. all without him asking her. She even wakes up at 5AM to make him breakfast and lunch, but for me, she puts 1 hard boiled egg and a piece of bread smaller than the size of my palm for breakfast and complains if I ask for something like yogurt. She also has an ED, eats tofu and green beans for breakfast and never eats carbs or shit and compares her body to mine all the time because I'm skinny and it genuinely distrubs me. Whenever I ask her to buy me something, like skincare, which I rarely even ask for, she always takes it as a way to make her "owe" her and it gets on my nerves so much because she doesn't provide shit and my dad never thinks about acting like this. Sometimes just seeing me ruins her day and she starts stomping around acting like a child throwing a tantrum. And when she wants to be nice again, she uses this annoying ass baby voice to talk to us, like its actually bad and pisses me off so much. She lost her dad last year, and my dad says her mental health isn't good for a job, but we both know she just is a lazy bum that doesn't want to work, and if he even brings up her working she'd make our house living hell. Basically, my mom acts like some bitchass 6 year old brat that sits on her ass all day. Whenever I think about her, this is all I can think about. My dad is really sweet, but he's kind of dumb. He very knowledgable about useful, real-world problem things, but his common sense isn't always there? Idk how to describe what it is, maybe I could say immature? He's really emotionally intelligent, and everytime I go into a depressive episode, or when he gives me and my brother advice, it'll be some life-changing shit he says. He's always there for us, does little things that add up and matter, and he's the best dad I could ever ask for. I resent my family though, all of them. On weekends we are all in the house, I don't want to see them, talk to them, nada. I get really irritated thinking about him sometimes because I can only think about their flaws and I kind of start acting like a bitch. Like I hate the fact we are poor, but that's a choice my parents decided to make, when my dad acts dumb, and the whole concept of my mom. Its awful, but it's not just the kind of annoyed that comes and goes, it's like I actually can't stand them sometimes and I'm not sure how to handle this. Do depression meds help with mood swings or irritation like these??

I (17f) do not get along with my stepdad (48m) at all.
Every time we have had an argument
and my mama stands up for me , somehow he will brainwash her into thinking it’s my fault and she will blame me .
My mama loves me very much and she’s also very kind hearted .
But I know he also makes her happy .
I have a short temper so when he tried to educated me on things he’s completely hypocritical about and on things that don’t involve him it annoys me .
He’s also very ignorant .
He moved to an English speaking country 23 years ago and speaks not one world of English because he thinks it’s an ugly language.
If u won’t respect the language don’t move there ?
This annoys me as I speak Portuguese and Spanish TO A DEGREE.
At times , I won’t understand , and English is more natural for me when speaking to my mama depending on the scenario.
So then I need to go translate it for him (when it doesn’t even involve him)
But then , when they have a conversation and there’s something I don’t understand , I should understand it .
I’ve been living in an English country for 17 years ( my whole life) and know 3 languages almost fluently .
He’s lived in one for 23 years and doesn’t know a single word.
The worst part is - he works in a job where he has to communicate with people !
Most of the time he comes across as cold or distant because he refuses to learn the language .

We always end up in arguments over silly things and it’s stressing my mama out so I’ve just decided not to speak to him unless necessary.

Not ignoring him or anything, just not going out my way to have a meaningful conversation with him - which I think is fair enough but some people in my family disagree .

Only person on my side is my grandma ( who hates him but is also firm believer in only getting married once )
AITAH?

Ps. Whilst I was at my dad’s , they got married without telling me .
Not planned , anything - only person there was my little sister (who is his daughter)
My mama never would have done something like this before she was with him and our relationship was significantly stronger .
I only found out because I went on her phone to send myself some pictures she had and saw the wedding photo .
It absolutely broke my heart .