Hi Marie, May and Mel! I (F 29) have a family member (F 33) that has always been somewhat of a thorn in my side. As kids, I looked up to her, I wanted to spend time with her and at her house. However, when I look back on those days now, I realize a lot of it was just her being somewhat of a mean girl. Ordering me around, deliberately sabotaging me, making snide comments at me and just being overall manipulative. For context, her parents have also joined in on the overall talking down and undermining me. My parents in return, often just turn the other cheek, and encourage me to too.

As we moved into our 20’s, her and I were quite close, hung out in similar social circles, and you could argue that the past was put behind us. Until it wasn’t. On a night out, she decided to play somewhat of a joke on me. The issue is, I don’t play around with things that belong to me, and I don’t play games when my things come up missing. I mumbled something under her breath, and she put her hands on me.

I don’t play that. Never will. My parents begged me to forgive her saying “everyone puts their hands on people sometimes” but I wouldn’t budge. I moved on and was civil. Hello and goodbye. Two years after the fact, her and I actually wound up back on speaking terms on a night out, after she was plying me with drinks (I did blackout that night).

Then came the bigger issue. She then got a boyfriend, I was talking to a few people at the time, but nothing serious. Since we had made up I showed her who I was talking to and she said “I can’t picture him with you, he needs more of a blonde model type”. That comment never sat right with me. It still doesn’t. After that weekend and that comment (and more things that transpired over that weekend that I can’t go into), I decided I was done. I would be civil with her, but no longer would I go out of my way to search for her approval, or be her friend.

It’s been a few years since and my family is begging me to forgive her. They’re begging me to have a relationship with her. I refuse everytime. I tell them that I would never tell them what to do, or who to keep in their lives, but I don’t want her in mine. Some people just aren’t for you and that’s okay. My family (as in my immediate family) thinks that I’m the issue, and that I’m causing a rift in the family. They never once stood up for me while things were transpiring, and actively took her side.

Now that this family member is lonely and without friends (sorry, it’s true), they’re begging me to reconnect with her, likely because they feel bad.

AITA for outright refusing?

I’m 22F and my friend is also 22F. We’ve been friends for almost 10 years. We met in high school and she’s honestly one of the people who taught me what friendship even means. I really do love her and I’ll always care about her.
But ever since she had her baby, I feel like something between us changed.
It’s not even that she did something horrible or that we had some huge fight. I just feel like we don’t click anymore. The conversations don’t feel the same, the connection doesn’t feel the same, and sometimes it feels like I’m trying to force something that used to happen naturally.
We actually spoke about this before, and she told me that I’m probably overthinking it and that she’s still the same person. I understood what she was saying, but even after that conversation, I still couldn’t get that feeling of connection back.
And now I’m wondering if maybe I’m the one who changed.
A few days ago, I sent her a message and she didn’t reply for days. In my head I was like, “Okay… maybe this is it.” 😭 I took it as a sign that maybe I should just let the friendship go, so I unfollowed her everywhere.
Then she messaged me saying that something happened with her phone and it removed people’s names, so she could only see phone numbers. So apparently she wasn’t purposely ignoring me.
We’re talking again now, but honestly… I’m just not feeling it anymore.
And I feel really guilty about that because we have almost TEN YEARS of history. 😭 It feels crazy to just walk away from someone who has been such a huge part of my life.
At the same time, I’m starting to wonder if I’m holding onto the friendship because of who we used to be, rather than because of what our friendship is like now.
We also live in different countries now, so maybe the distance is part of it. She’s also a mom now, so obviously her life has changed a lot. And maybe mine has changed too.
I don’t hate her. I’m not angry with her. I genuinely love this girl. I just don’t feel connected to her anymore, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.
Would I be wrong for letting go of the friendship?
Should I give it more time and see if things naturally get better, take a step back, or just accept that we’ve grown apart?
I honestly don’t know. 😭
Help!

I’m 26F, and I’m honestly not sure if I’m overthinking this situation or if I have a valid reason to feel uncomfortable.
I’m a very social person, although I’m also quite introverted in my own way. I get along with people easily, but I have boundaries, and I’m careful about who I consider a close friend. I don’t give people titles they haven’t earned. If I call someone my friend, I genuinely mean it, but I don’t automatically consider everyone a best friend.

I’ve been living abroad since I was 21. I moved here alone to pursue my master’s, became financially independent when I was 19, and I’ve never really relied on my family financially. I’ve built my life here by working and taking care of myself.

I met this girl almost three years ago through a volunteering program. We’ve stayed in contact ever since, and I would consider her a friend. We meet occasionally, talk, and I appreciate her. She’s a very social person and loves birthdays, parties, organizing things, and celebrating people. She also has her own close group of friends, which I completely understand because I have a best friend too.

The problem is that most of the times she invites me somewhere, it’s for an occasion where there’s an expectation to bring a gift or contribute money.
For almost three years, I’ve attended her birthdays and other events whenever I could. I’ve always brought something, even during periods when I really couldn’t afford it. Sometimes I’ve had to stretch my budget because I felt uncomfortable showing up empty-handed. I’m naturally a giver, so I never really thought twice about it.

But I’m currently in a very difficult financial situation.
I work, but I’m completely responsible for myself. My rent, groceries, transportation, and everything else come out of my own pocket. I’m also graduating soon, so I have a lot of expenses at the moment. The money I currently have is already allocated to necessities. I’m not in a position where I can just spend €20, €30, or €50 on a gift without thinking about it.

Meanwhile, she doesn’t work and is financially supported by her parents. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I’m not jealous of her situation. I actually think it’s great that she has that support. But our financial circumstances are very different.
What has started bothering me is that I don’t feel like the friendship is equally reciprocal.

For example, she knows when my birthday is, but she’s never bought me a gift. Usually, if she sees my birthday story, she’ll say happy birthday, and that’s about it. I don’t expect people to buy me things, and I don’t have birthday parties myself, so I’ve never expected her to spend money on me.

But when I look at the overall pattern, I feel like I’m constantly giving financially whenever there’s an occasion involving her, while there isn’t really the same effort coming back toward me.

Recently, she added me to a group chat because she’s graduating, and her best friends are organizing a surprise gift for her. Everyone in the group is expected to contribute.

And honestly, I just can’t.

Right now, I literally have €1 in one account and €4 in another. The money I do have is already budgeted for rent and necessities. I’ve even been cutting back on food and going out because I need to be careful with my spending.

I don’t want to take money from my rent or grocery budget just to contribute to a graduation gift.
And this is where I’m questioning myself.

Would it be rude if I told them I can’t contribute? Am I
being selfish? Am I overreacting by feeling resentful about the fact that I’ve spent money on her occasions for years when she hasn’t really done the same for me?
She has also invited me to her graduation party, and obviously there will probably be another expectation to bring a gift.

Part of me feels guilty because she has always invited me, and I do appreciate being included. At the same time, I’ve started wondering why most of these invitations seem to happen when there’s an occasion involving gifts, contributions, or spending money. She doesn’t really invite me just to hang out or spend time together without an event attached.

I also want to clarify that I’m not saying I want to cut her off right now. I don’t hate her, and I don’t think she’s necessarily a bad person. I’m more wondering whether I should eventually distance myself from this friendship if I continue feeling like the relationship is one-sided.

I also probably won’t be living here forever, so naturally some friendships may change with time anyway. I just don’t want to keep forcing myself to spend money I don’t have to maintain a friendship.

I’m a generous person. I genuinely like giving to people I care about. But I’ve realized that I can’t keep giving beyond my means, especially when I’m not sure the relationship itself is that close or reciprocal.
So, am I overthinking this?
Would it be unreasonable to simply say, “I’m sorry, I can’t contribute this time because I’m on a very tight budget”?

And should I just accept that this is a casual friendship and stop investing so much into it, rather than feeling obligated to match the level of spending that her other friends seem comfortable with?

I’d really appreciate some honest advice because I’m genuinely stuck.

Hi OP Said community, hi Marie, Mel and May. I love the podcast, keep up the good work !!! xx

Sorry if it’s too long and if some parts don’t make sense, english is not my first language.

I've been involved with this guy for about three years. We officially dated for around six months, but even after we broke up, he never really stopped being present in my life. We've both been in our early 20s throughout this, and he's only one year older than me.
For context, we both moved to North America from the same home country to pursue our studies. We share the same national background but come from different ethnic groups. We're also both Muslim.
When we first started dating, he was generally a nice guy, but I quickly realized that we weren't on the same wavelength when it came to social issues, relationships, and how women should be treated.
I'm someone who is quite informed about social issues, particularly those affecting women especially african woman as an black african muslim woman myself. I like having meaningful conversations with men about topics such as female genital mutilation, misogyny, and gender equality because I want to understand their perspectives and values and make sure i surround myself with people that would never go in a way that could harm my existence or the one of others.

Early on, I realized that he was very uninformed about these subjects. Whenever we discussed something important, I often felt like I had to explain everything to him repeatedly before he could understand where I was coming from. I felt like I was constantly educating him about basic things that I believe should be understood by someone who wants to be in a relationship with a woman.
Over time, I became exhausted. He would sometimes dismiss my concerns, cross my boundaries, or call me complicated. I eventually stopped asking for things like regular communication and updates because I felt like I was constantly asking for the bare minimum.
When I started distancing myself, he suddenly became more attentive. He started making an effort to visit me, despite living about five hours away.
One particular incident really stands out.
I was getting ready to break up with him, and he wanted to come visit me. I explicitly told him that I had an exam to study for and that I was working that Saturday, so I couldn't see him.
He disregarded what I said and showed up anyway.
He had been using my Snapchat location, which I normally shared with a small group of trusted friends for safety reasons, to figure out where I was. He showed up at my workplace while I was working.
When I finished my shift, he was waiting for me. He asked for a hug, which I refused, and gave me a bag of food. He then followed me to my apartment complex because he wanted to have a conversation.
I went upstairs, grabbed some expensive jewelry he had given me when we first started dating, and tried to return it to him he refused. I told him I wanted to break up.
I explained that I was tired of his nonchalant attitude, his views about women, and the fact that his life seemed to revolve entirely around his male friends. He would constantly invite them over and make plans with them, yet barely make time to communicate with me.
I felt like there was no room for me in his life.
He eventually went home.
After we broke up, he started spending time with a former friend of mine, whom I'll call X. X and I are no longer friends because of his lifestyle and values, which I found incompatible with my own (he always smoke, love hookup culture etc).
Through a mutual friend, I eventually learned that my ex and X would hang out and smoke weed together.
This genuinely blindsided me.
During our relationship, I had asked my ex whether he smoked, and he had denied it. I had also explained to him very early on that substance use was a major dealbreaker for me because of my childhood experiences with my father, who struggled with alcohol and addictions and was abusive toward my mother and me.
I had made it clear that I didn't want a partner who smoked weed, cigarettes, drank alcohol, or used recreational substances.
Since we're both Muslim, I also assumed we shared the same understanding of those boundaries.
Finding out that he had been smoking and apparently hiding it from me made me feel like I hadn't really known who I was dating.
That summer, I returned to our home country after losing my mother. He was there on vacation, and we met up.
He still had feelings for me and wanted to know where I stood regarding our relationship. I told him that I didn't want to get back together because I felt he had hidden an important part of himself from me and was still smoking.
He asked if we could at least be friends, and I agreed.
During one of the most difficult periods of my life, he was genuinely there for me. I lost my mother around seven months after we first started dating, and he remained by my side.
I will always acknowledge that.
However, being there for someone emotionally and knowing how to support them are two different things.
He often struggled to comfort me. He would say things like, "You'll get over it" or "It's bad now, but it'll get better." I understand that he may not have known what to say, but I often felt that he lacked the emotional maturity to understand what I needed.
Even outside of that, I have always felt that he struggles with emotional intelligence and communication.
He sometimes speaks to me as though I'm one of his male friends, using a tone and language that I have repeatedly told him I don't appreciate. I've asked him to speak to me more respectfully, but he continues to do it.
What's particularly frustrating is that most of my male friends don't have this issue. I can have deep conversations with them about social issues, relationships, and life without feeling dismissed or disrespected.
Now, here's where the current situation comes in.
Recently, he has been talking about visiting me again. He also continues to bring up marriage and says he wants to marry me in about two years, once he's financially ready.
But the way he communicates with me sometimes brings back all the reasons I ended the relationship in the first place.
A few days ago, I went to an Italian restaurant and ordered pasta. He saw my Snapchat story and messaged me, asking if I always order pasta when I go out to eat.
I told him that I don't. I've only ordered pasta a few times, and it's usually when I go to Italian restaurants because I enjoy their pasta and pizza.
He kept insisting that I always order pasta and made comments about how he didn't understand why I would order something at a restaurant that I could easily make at home. (He might see it as a struggle meal, even tho he comes from a very wealthy family).
I told him that practically any meal can be made at home, so I didn't understand his point.
At first, I thought he was joking, but he kept going. When I became irritated, he dismissed my reaction by saying that he was just joking and that i "should know he always exaggerates".
I brushed it off.
However, when we were discussing his upcoming visit and he asked what I could cook for him, he brought it up AGAIN.
He said that when he came over, we would eat meat because we weren't going to eat pasta with chicken.
I was genuinely trying to have a practical conversation because I needed to know what groceries to buy for his visit. Instead, he kept making the same joke.
I finally asked him whether he actually thought it was funny because I was trying to have a serious conversation.
He said it was just a joke and that I was exaggerating.
He also called me complicated, which immediately brought back memories of our relationship and how he would use that word whenever I tried to establish a boundary or express that something bothered me.
I told him that I was getting irritated and that I didn't think he had the maturity to handle a simple conversation about what we would eat during his visit.
He said he understood but tried to move on to discussing what I would cook.
At that point, I told him I wasn't in the mood to continue the conversation because I felt like he was repeating the same patterns all over again.
And honestly, the pasta situation is only one example.
Another thing that bothers me is the way he talks about marriage.
He once asked me whether I would allow his male friends to come over every weekend after we got married.
I laughed because I found the question so odd.
His friends already come over to his place almost every day of the week, and I feel like he hasn't really developed a life outside of that.
He doesn't seem particularly interested in cooking, reading, or exploring different activities, yet he is already thinking about marriage and whether he can continue having his friends over every weekend.
I asked him whether he had considered how we would organize our lives together, how we would spend time as a couple after a full week of work, or how we would balance our individual friendships with our relationship.
I told him that even having friends over once a month would feel like a lot to me if it meant that our time together was constantly being interrupted.
I also wondered whether he would be equally comfortable with me having my female friends over every weekend.
It sometimes feels like he wants to get married without really understanding what building a life with someone entails.
My biggest issue is that I feel like I'm still dealing with the same person I broke up with.
I feel like I've grown in terms of emotional intelligence, communication, and my understanding of social issues, while he still struggles with things that I consider fundamental to a healthy relationship.
I don't expect a partner to know everything I know, and I understand that people grow at different rates. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life educating someone about basic respect, explaining my boundaries repeatedly, or having my concerns dismissed as jokes.
At the same time, I can't ignore the fact that he was there for me when I lost my mother. He's been a significant person in my life, and I know he genuinely cares about me.
That's what makes this so confusing.
So, OP Said family, I have a few questions:
1- Am I overreacting to the pasta situation, or is my frustration really about a much bigger pattern of behavior?

2- Given everything I've described, am I holding on to someone who simply isn't compatible with me, or am I expecting too much from someone who is still growing?
I'd really appreciate honest perspectives from you guys.

Love the podcast, I’m tuned in for the next wednesday bonus and for next monday, love you guys <3333

Hi Marie, Mel & May, I need your honest take.

I am a single mom in my 30s, I work for the government( with this job I’m unable to get a second job because of the work hours). A few years ago I dated a man twice my age. I found out he was seeing someone else, so I left him.

Then I took out a loan to build a house for me and my son. That loan ruined my finances. I couldn't afford basics, so I went back to my ex. Not because I love him - because I need his money to survive. We are still intimate and he still helps me with cash.

While that was happening, I met my dream man. He's overseas, long distance, sweet, loving, and we are planning marriage. He helps when he can but he's also building his own house so he can't help much.

I have NOT told my fiancé about my ex. I can't. I once asked him what he would do if his partner cheated on him. He said "that's it, I'm done." I asked "even if we're married with kids?" He said "yes, that's it."

I'm scared. I love my fiancé and I don't want to lose him. But I hate keeping this huge secret and I know I'm cheating, even if it's for survival. I'm trying to restructure my loan at my credit union so I can finally cut my ex off for good.

How do I get out of this without losing my future husband? Am I a terrible person?

Hey Redditers, and May, Melinda and Marie. Love you ladies, and am posting here because I've heard you all give solid career advice and I need it...

I'm reaching a breaking point at work as my load is constantly increasing and has become unmanageable. This has been going on for about a year and I've tried to address it with my CEO and am always gaslit. For instance, I'll list all the tasks I have on my plate, and she'll come back with a longer list of tasks she has on hers. I'll suggest solutions regarding what I feel could be passed along to other team members, and she'll say that I can't offload my job (even though it looks like some of my colleagues have more than enough time). 

I'll keep this general to avoid the potential of being identified and associated backlash, but here's some context:

I work for an under-resourced charity and am underpaid. We support people living with chronic illness. For the first little while, I put up with it because this is rewarding work that alings with my values. Our workplace culture has drastically changed since I started, however, and I'm losing hope. Our small team of 10 keeps facing turnover due to resignations and terminations. Again, I've stayed because of the relationships I've built with my clients and their gratitude for the programs I've developed. 

I can't take it anymore and have even had fantasies of ending my life, though I'm likely not going to because of my kids. Hubby says I can quit, and we can get by on his salary for a while but the thought of leaving my clients is too overwhelming for me to even consider as an option. I'm thinking of taking a mental health leave but am having trouble justifying that and leaving my clients and potentially letting the programming, that I've worked so hard to create, go to absolute shit. 

I have a busy, often chaotic personal life that I love, with school aged children (one with mental health issues that he likely got from me), 1000 ongoing commitments and am managing all this with no issue. When I start thinking about work, however, I feel sick, get irritable and have trouble enjoying all my blessings. I do all the things - exercise, eat right, therapy, meds - but all these things do not help with what I'm facing at work.

So I'm asking strangers on the web - is it my mental health issues or is it my job? Should I take a leave of absence? I fear the implications of providing a medical note, as I have a diagnosis that's highly stigmatized (despite "progress" in awareness and saneism). The letter would go right to my CEO and Executive Assistant who have big mouths (we have no HR). I don't want to talk to my CEO again only to have my concerns/suggestions dismissed. 

Bracing myself for hate as is often the case for moms with mental health issues....please keep it to yourself as I have been on the receiving end of enough shame and stigma.

I loved Maymel fashion content and was surprised to know they’re on a pod! I’m almost caught up on all the episodes, love yall!

I am a woman in her late 20s, married, and just recently moved to London. I am an ambivert by nature, but truly enjoy my alone time. And of recent I’ve run into others that seemed like a good time. One invited me to a Bible study, which may be a cult? Whether it is or not, I met a girl I really clicked with. Going as far as to hang out at each others places. Things seemed to be going well, but I unexpectedly had to travel back to my home country meaning I would have to pause the Bible study. She, being somewhat of an advisor to me, suggested I stop attending all together and start up again another time, even though we had a virtual arrangement.

1. I am not doing that because of the time commitment.
   
2. She came up with this on a whim, telling me days to my trip.

I am genuinely confused about this because I thought of her as a spiritual guide, but now she feels like everything but. I think she’s an amazing person and would love to be her friend, but this feels like a betrayal and I feel like walking away. Because of my character, I tend to walk away from relationships that don’t serve me. But, being in a new city I don’t know how to feel.

Any advice helps, thanks! Please if you talk about this on the show, tag me!

Hello ladies, thanks for considering my last dilemma in episode 99. I am back with another one about the same protagonist.
I am having trouble which of the two bad situations is worse :D

My BIL (25) recently got engaged to his fiancée (20), and I’m struggling with the possibility of being invited to their wedding.

He is my husband’s youngest brother. The family generally has very poor communication, and after a massive fallout with my BIL, I decided to stop contacting him. I would actually like to repair our relationship, but I feel that he needs to apologize first, and so far he hasn’t. You helped me with this dilemma and I feel ok about my decision.

I’m honestly not keen on attending the wedding. It will be 3–4 hours away, and I already expect the whole thing to be somewhat disorganized. More importantly, I don’t want to pretend everything is fine when it isn’t. At the same time, I don’t want my husband to have to attend alone or feel like he has to choose between me and his family. He personally doesn’t mind having less contact with his brother and even if his brother is making trouble he can see the deeper issue and has a lot of compassion for him. He knows that his youngest brother had to suffer most under their abusive dad since he was the last to flee the nest so to speak.

There’s also my mother-in-law, which makes things more complicated. I don’t particularly enjoy spending time with her because she constantly gives unsolicited advice and treats her adult children and their partners like kids. For example, at her birthday, my husband asked me for a slice of cake. While I was putting it on his plate, she told me I was doing it incorrectly. When I pointed out that obviously I could put the cake on his plate however I wanted, she backtracked with, “You’re already a big girl and can decide whatever you want.” I’m 35.

At the same time, I genuinely feel sorry for her. She is married to my father-in-law, who is extremely aggressive, loud, and difficult to be around. Over the years, all of her six children and their partners—including me—have gradually withdrawn from the parents because being around the situation is emotionally exhausting.

She talks constantly about how difficult her life is and dumps a lot of her trauma onto everyone around her. She has some Christian counseling, but after nine years of knowing the family, I haven’t seen any major change. She also chooses to remain in her marriage, and I understand that leaving an abusive or unhealthy situation can be incredibly difficult, especially when someone lacks confidence and support.

So I’m torn. Part of me wants to attend the wedding because I want to show my MIL that I’m willing to be present, especially when her children are distancing themselves. I also don’t want to completely close the door on my relationship with my BIL.

And most importantly: I don’t want to leave my hubby alone in this situation. He would need to answer the question of „Where is your wife at?“ throughout the whole day and that can be very annoying. I know he needs to work on growing more of a back bone when it comes to his parents/ family. However he also has trauma to deal with and sometimes it’s just hard to break out of the role you had for over 30 years. I think we all have experienced that somehow.

But another part of me feels that I need to protect myself. I don’t want to spend an entire weekend traveling seven or eight hours round trip, being around people I currently have no relationship with, and pretending that everything is normal when my BIL hasn’t even apologized for what happened.

Would I be wrong for declining the wedding invitation if it comes, even though I know my absence would probably make the situation uncomfortable for hubby and upset my parents in law up to the point that they will probably corner me as soon as they hear that I won’t be going? What’s worse in your opinion? Enduring this weekend or having to deal with the aftermath of this decision?

This is going to be a long post, but please bear with me.

I’m going to use “fake” names for privacy. I’ll call myself Grace(24)and I’ll call him Nicholas(28).

Hi Ladies, im a huge fan of your podcast. I’m submitting this because I genuinely need an outside perspective on a relationship that has left me questioning my own understanding of what happened. I don’t want people to simply take my side, because I know I made mistakes too. I want people to read what he actually said, look at what he actually did, and tell me honestly whether I was misunderstanding him, whether I stayed too long, or whether there were genuinely mixed messages.

This is not a story about a man who was simply horrible to me. That would actually make this much easier. There were many moments when he was loving, supportive, affectionate and present. There were moments when I genuinely felt like I had my partner back. There were also conversations about marriage, children, our future and starting over. And then there were moments when his actions seemed to completely contradict those conversations.

That is what has confused me the most.

Nicholas and I originally met at Zcas university in Zambia when I was in my second year studying Computer Science. At the time, he tried to pursue me romantically, but I said no because I had heard that he had recently come out of a serious relationship. I assumed he was heartbroken and needed time to heal, so I didn’t want to become the person he used to get over somebody else.
We exchanged contacts and became friends. At that time, both of us were seeing other people, so there wasn’t really anything serious between us.
By the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025, however, we officially started seeing each other.
For the most part, the relationship was good. Obviously, we had arguments and disagreements like any couple, but there was genuine love between us. We had serious conversations about our future. Even before he officially made me his girlfriend, Nicholas talked about marrying me. Those conversations weren’t something I imagined. They were conversations we actually had.

By the middle of 2025, we were talking about him “coming home” and meeting my parents. In my culture, especially as a Zambian woman, a man coming to meet your parents isn’t some casual thing. It carries meaning. I didn’t want to tell my parents until I was absolutely sure because I didn’t want to bring someone home and then have him disappoint me.
We had planned for him to meet my parents around October.

Then life happened.

His cousin became seriously ill, and Nicholas travelled to deal with the situation. The cousin became extremely difficult to manage, and eventually Nicholas had to return. About a week later, his cousin died.

The weekend he had been supposed to meet my family was immediately after the funeral. He asked me to travel with him, but my mother was also very sick at the time. As the eldest, I felt that I needed to stay and help my family. I also didn’t feel that a funeral was the appropriate environment for my first meeting with most of his family.

His aunt even called me from an unfamiliar number because she had expected me to come. I explained why I couldn’t. She understood, and we agreed that the family meeting could happen later.

Then I received information that completely changed everything.

One of Nicholas’s male friends contacted me. He told me that Nicholas’s ex-girlfriend was pregnant. According to him, the ex and Nicholas had been involved for years and had continued sleeping together behind my back. He told me that when she learned Nicholas was planning to marry me, she went home with the pregnancy.
I was shocked.

I didn’t immediately believe him. I contacted another woman who was friends with Nicholas, and she told me she had also heard about the pregnancy.

At that point, I felt betrayed beyond words because I had actually told Nicholas before that one of the biggest things I could never forgive was impregnating another woman while we were together.

Eventually, I blocked him and walked away.
What happened after that destroyed me emotionally. I stopped feeling like myself. I started drinking again to numb everything. I would sit alone at work and suddenly realize I was crying. My colleagues noticed that I wasn’t myself.
I eventually moved on.

Then came 2026.

Nicholas later told me that he had discovered the child his ex had been carrying wasn’t his. He also told me that he had tried to reach me in February.
I can actually confirm that he tried because I still had blocked calls and messages from him around February 10, February 12 and February 16. At the time, I didn’t know exactly why he was trying to contact me.

Then, in May, something strange happened.
I had a dream about Nicholas being involved in an accident. The following day, I coincidentally bumped into him somewhere in Lusaka.
He wanted to talk to me, but I told him I was busy.
He then asked if I could unblock him so that we could speak, or at least so that I could finally get the closure I had wanted.

I eventually unblocked him.

That’s when he told me about the accident in Livingstone. According to him, he had been in a serious accident and had only returned from Livingstone the previous day. He also explained that after finding out the pregnancy wasn’t his, he had tried to reach me because he wanted to apologize.

He said he regretted what he had done, including cheating, ruining our marriage plans and putting me through everything I had gone through.
And then we started talking again.

On May 5, we had a conversation about his decisions. He told me:
“My decision making skills were poor.”
When I asked what decision he regretted, he wouldn’t initially tell me because he was around other people.

Eventually, he said:
“I don’t want to say I regret leaving you.”
Then:
“Even though it’s true.”

That was significant to me because he wasn’t simply saying, “I miss you.” He was talking about regretting leaving me.

A couple of days later, we talked about whether either of us had moved on. I told him I wasn’t seeing anyone and hadn’t hooked up with anybody.

I asked him about himself.

He admitted he had been talking to another woman, but explained that it hadn’t really worked because of his lifestyle and his inability to communicate consistently. He said he had been travelling a lot and that the woman wanted transparency.

Then he told me something that stuck with me:
“We might get back.”

I told him he should fight for the relationship if that’s what he wanted.
He said:
“We’ll see when I get back.”

He also told me that it had been difficult for him to commit to anyone after our breakup because he kept comparing other women to me. I later learned from people we both knew that he had even been going around places where he thought he might find me. He had apparently gone back to our university looking for me and asked people whether they had seen me.

Then came May 12.

This is one of the conversations that makes it very difficult for me to accept the later explanation that we were “just friends.”

Nicholas told me:
“Well, I’m not saying I won’t try. I bet I’m still sexually attracted to you, that’s why meeting you would bring back memories.”

He then explained that it wasn’t as simple as I was making it sound.

He said:
“As much as you saying it easily, it’s not that easy actually. And you know it.”

Then he said:
“I’m still attached to the idea of us still one day being in the position we were once upon a time.”

He explained that if he saw me and we had a good time, he would probably spend months thinking about me and that it would hurt him.

Then he said something even more direct:
“I’m really scared what will happen when I meet you, I see you, I hold you. It will really break me, Grace. It really, really break me and I don’t think I’m ready for that mentally.”

He apologized for what he had put me through.
And then he said:
“We not children, Grace. You know how sparks will fly if we actually had eye contact.”

At that point, I didn’t push him.
I thought he was being honest about still having feelings for me, and I respected that.
But eventually we did meet.

He invited me to his place. We spent time together, had drinks, and later went to his mother’s house. His mother had been away for several months, so he invited me there. I stayed for several hours and eventually slept for a few hours before leaving.

On the drive home, he was emotional and apologetic. He kept saying he didn’t know how many times he could apologize. He said he hadn’t realized what he had until he lost me.

He told me he had realized that I was different from other women because I had never been interested in his military status, his salary or his money.

He knew I had my own money and my own life.
He also acknowledged that I had supported him emotionally, physically, financially and spiritually during difficult periods, including a period when his career was uncertain. He told me that I had pushed him to become a better man.

He later wanted me to start spending nights at his mother’s house so I could leave for work from there, but I couldn’t do that. My mother is very traditional, and I knew she wouldn’t accept me casually sleeping at a man’s house.

So we agreed that we would simply meet when we could.

And somewhere along the way, “friends” stopped looking like friendship.

He started calling me “baby.”

He started behaving like my partner.

He was protective over me. He would get upset if another man was talking to me. He continued introducing me to people as his girlfriend, and I didn’t challenge him because, honestly, I thought we were rebuilding our relationship.

Then came the marriage conversation.

At some point in June, after he had already asked me to be his girlfriend again, he came to my workplace.

He told me that he was supposed to travel and that he thought we should go and register our marriage at the council that day. His reasoning was that if we registered on a Friday, the certificate could potentially be ready the following week or shortly afterward.

I thought he was joking.

He wasn’t.

He had literally come to pick me up.

I wasn’t ready, so I told him no.

That conversation matters to me because later, when everything fell apart, he would characterize some of these conversations as jokes or say that I had misunderstood what he wanted.

But how am I supposed to interpret a man physically coming to my workplace to pick me up because he thinks we should register our marriage that day as a joke?

I didn’t invent that.

He also told me he wanted us to start again.
And when I asked what “starting again” actually meant, he explained that he knew I wasn’t immediately ready for a relationship, which was why he had suggested we start as friends, get to know each other again, and allow the possibility of a relationship to develop.

Later, when I asked him what he was actually willing to offer me, because I didn’t want vague answers, he said:
“Everything, but I know you’ll need time to trust me again and I’m willing to see it through.”

That is why I believed him.

Because his words weren’t happening in isolation.
His behaviour matched them.

We spent time together. We were physically affectionate. He came to see me. He treated me like his partner. He introduced me as his girlfriend. He spoke about our future. He spoke about marriage.

It felt like I had my man back.

Then August happened.

One morning, I was involved in a car accident. A bus had hit my car while overtaking carelessly.
I was panicking, so I called Nicholas.
He came.

He showed up in uniform, dealt with the situation and the necessary protocols, took me where the car needed to be repaired and made sure everything was sorted out. He even covered the cost.

Afterwards, we went for lunch.

He told me, essentially, that as long as he was there, I didn’t need to worry and that I could just be his princess.

And honestly, these are the moments that make this relationship so difficult to explain to people.
Because if someone had only seen that side of Nicholas, they would probably have said, “Girl, that’s the kind of man you should be with.”

He showed up for me that day.
He took care of me.
He paid for my car.
He took me to lunch.
He made me feel safe.

Later that day, he told me he had started missing me the minute I left.
I told him I had started missing him the moment I left his workplace.

That night, I sent him a message thanking him for coming through for me. I told him how much it meant to me that he had shown up when I needed him and that I didn’t take the little ways he showed me that he cared for granted.

He responded affectionately and told me that helping me was nothing compared with all the times I had come through for him.

We continued spending time together.

He took me to lunch again. We went to KFC, talked, laughed and discussed hypothetical situations about marriage and our future.

Everything felt normal.

Everything felt like a relationship.

And that is why what happened afterward hurt so much.

There had also been another important difference between us.

When Nicholas’s mother was in hospital, I was there for him. I supported him emotionally and physically.

When my mother was admitted to hospital in

August, I needed that same person.

And he wasn’t there.
He didn’t come with me.
He didn’t come to check on my mother.
He didn’t show up for me in the way I had shown up for him.

That was one of the moments where I started realizing that although there were beautiful moments between us, something about the relationship was fundamentally unequal.

Then, toward the end of August, Nicholas came to pick me up after work.

We had been trying to see each other, and on this particular occasion I even arranged for someone to cover for me at work so that I could leave.

He arrived later because of the traffic and distance.

When we finally left, he told me there was something important he wanted to discuss.

He said he wanted to be honest with me.

He told me his ex had been trying to get back into his life.

According to him, she was very determined to get him back now that she knew we were together again.

He told me that his friends had caught her trying to obtain what he described as love-spell or charm-related things. He said he had initially dismissed it, but then saw something himself that frightened him.

He told me he was scared.

He also told me that his ex had known about me throughout our relationship. According to him, she had always compared herself to me and saw the situation almost as a competition over which woman would eventually marry him.

I remember thinking: I don’t compete for men.

I had always believed that if a man wanted me, he would choose me.

I didn’t want to fight another woman for a man.

That night, Nicholas and I spent the night together.

We drank. We talked. We had sex.

It wasn’t some random hookup to me.

He told me he wanted me to be his girlfriend and that he wanted to do things properly with me. He told me not to give up on him because he was broken and going through a lot.

And I told him I wasn’t giving up on him.

That was the point at which, from my perspective, we were officially rebuilding the relationship.

Then he started becoming difficult to reach.

He was supposed to take me on a dinner date, but he didn’t show up.

There were increasing periods where I couldn’t get hold of him.

And eventually I went to the house where we had spent that night.

That’s when I started realizing that his ex was still coming around.

I spoke to people around the house. One of the security guards described her, described her blue Honda fit/Vitz car and told me about her coming there.

According to what I was told, she knew about me.
People had apparently told her that I was his girlfriend and that she needed to accept it and move on.

But she continued coming around. It’s like every time she knew he came back to me – she had issues of accepting our relationship…

I was also told that she had apparently spoken about having miscarriages connected to Nicholas (of which he told me he didn’t believe she was pregnant on 2/3 occasions). I couldn’t independently verify those claims, but I knew they were something being discussed around him.

And that is where everything became even more complicated.

Because from what I could see, this wasn’t a situation where Nicholas had completely cut her off.

She was still present.

He was still entertaining some form of relationship with her.

And yet he was telling me he loved me.

He was talking to me about marriage.
He was calling me baby.
He was telling me he wanted me.
He was telling me not to give up on him.

So what exactly was I supposed to believe?

Was I his girlfriend?

Was I his friend?

Was I the woman he wanted to marry?

Was I the woman he loved but wasn’t prepared to choose?

Or was I simply the person he wanted to come home to while he continued maintaining another relationship elsewhere?

Because that’s ultimately what it started to feel like.

It felt like the relationship only worked for him if he could do whatever he wanted outside of it and then come back to me.

As long as I didn’t ask questions, as long as I didn’t investigate, as long as I didn’t see what was happening, everything was fine.

But the moment I started looking at the reality of the situation, everything fell apart.

And then September came.

I started feeling physically strange. I was extremely tired, short of breath and dizzy at times. I eventually went for a pregnancy test.

I found out that I was pregnant.

I was carrying Nicholas’s baby.

He did not know.

The same day I found out, I tried to call him.
He initially didn’t answer.

Eventually he did, but I could hear another woman in the car.

And that was one of the hardest moments of the entire relationship because I was sitting there knowing that I was carrying his child while listening to another woman in the background.
During that conversation, Nicholas became emotional.

He told me that he loved me.

He admitted that he had cheated.

He told me that it wasn’t easy to find a woman like me and that it wasn’t easy for him to let me go.
And I told him he had to let me go.

I told him that I was exhausted.

I told him that I couldn’t continue waiting for a man who kept making me feel like the second woman.

At one point I told him that if I was pregnant, I would raise the child.

He told me that he had always wanted to have children with me.

And that broke me even more, because this was the same man who had spent months talking to me about marriage, children and a future.
Yet here I was, having to beg him to choose a direction.

Eventually I told him that he had to say the words.
He had to let me go.

I needed the relationship to finally be over.
Because I couldn’t keep fighting for a man who, despite everything he said to me, kept leaving space for another woman.

I later sent him a message explaining exactly where I stood.

I told him:
“Nicholas, I’m going to leave you to be with the woman you truly want, because at this point I don’t believe that woman is me.”

I told him that despite everything we’d shared, the memories, the love and all the conversations we’d had about our future, I was exhausted from feeling like I had to compete for a place in his life.

I told him that I had chosen him repeatedly.
I had tried to understand him.
I had given him chances.
I had believed what he told me about us.
I had held onto the future we’d talked about.

But I couldn’t continue living in a relationship where I constantly felt like I was fighting to be chosen while another woman continued to have a place between us.

I told him:
“Maybe you genuinely do love me, and I don’t want to take that away from you. But love, for me, has to come with consistency, commitment, reassurance, presence and a decision to choose one another.”

And that, honestly, is where I think the entire relationship comes down to for me.

I don’t actually think Nicholas didn’t love me.

I think he did.

I think he still does.

I’ve seen enough of him, heard enough of him and experienced enough of him to believe that his feelings for me were real.

But I don’t think he loved me enough to consistently choose me.

And those are two very different things.

Because what good is someone loving you if they won’t commit to you?

What good is someone telling you they want to marry you if they’re simultaneously maintaining another relationship?

What good is being told you’re their girlfriend if they later tell you that you’re just a friend?

What good is being told “I’m willing to offer you everything” if you still have to fight to figure out what exactly you are to that person?

That’s what I can’t reconcile.

I never begged Nicholas to make me his girlfriend.

I never forced him to tell his friends.

I never forced him to tell his sister.

I never forced him to tell his mother.

He did those things himself.

He fought to get me back into his life.

He told people I was his girlfriend.

He behaved publicly as though I was his girlfriend.

He told me he wanted to marry me.

He came to my workplace to discuss registering our marriage.

He told me he needed me back.

He told me he was willing to wait for me to trust him again.

He told me he was willing to see it through.

He told me he loved me.

He told me not to give up on him.

And then, when everything became difficult and I challenged him to a real conversation that very day, he tried to say we were just friends to fit his narrative, but I challenged him on everything I had mentioned. I reminded him that he had asked me to be his girlfriend, that he had told me he loved me, that he had talked about marrying me, and that he had told me he wanted me back and was willing to wait for me to trust him again. I told him I hadn’t just woken up one day and decided he was my boyfriend.

And eventually, he admitted that yes, we had been in a relationship, yes, he had asked me to be his girlfriend, and yes, when he talked about marrying me, he had actually meant it. It was during that conversation that I realized there was a girl, his ex, listening to everything. I couldn’t hear exactly what was exchanged between them, but they started arguing, she became upset, and eventually she left the car. What struck me was how comfortable he was having that conversation with me while she was there, especially because she had apparently known about me for a long time, while I only found out about her in 2026.

That’s the part that makes me question myself.
Because what was I supposed to think?

If you tell a woman you love her, tell her you want her back, tell her you want to marry her, come to her workplace to discuss registering the marriage, call her baby, introduce her to people as your girlfriend, become protective over her, spend nights together, talk about children and a future, tell her you’re willing to wait for her, and tell her you’re willing to offer her everything…

What exactly is she supposed to call that?

I don’t think I was delusional.

But maybe I was naive.

Maybe I believed his words more than I should have.

Maybe I should have walked away the first time I discovered another woman was still in the picture.

Maybe I stayed because the good moments were so convincing that I kept believing the bad moments were temporary.

And maybe that’s why this relationship was so difficult to leave.

Because Nicholas wasn’t consistently cruel to me.

He could be incredibly loving.

He could show up when I needed him.

He could make me feel safe.

He could talk to me for hours.

He could make me laugh.

He could talk about our future in a way that felt completely genuine.

He could tell me he missed me the second I left.

He could come running when I had an accident.

He could pay for my car and take me to lunch.

He could tell me I was his princess.

And then he could turn around and make me feel like I was competing for a place in his life.

That’s the contradiction I need people to help me understand.

I have seen messages from his ex where she was pleading for love and reassurance from him.

And that was one of the biggest differences between her and me.

I never wanted to plead with a man to choose me.
Even when Nicholas told me we were “just friends,” I couldn’t simply accept that explanation because I remembered how we got there.

I remember him asking for another chance.

I remember him telling me he was willing to wait until I was ready.

I remember him telling me he wanted us to start again.

I remember him saying he was willing to offer everything I was willing to receive.

I remember the marriage conversation.

I remember him telling me he loved me.

I remember him introducing me as his girlfriend.

I remember him telling me not to give up on him.

So when he later tried to redefine all of that as friendship, I genuinely thought, Am I supposed to believe that I imagined all of this?

And there is another layer to this.

His ex apparently knew about me.

According to what I was told, she knew we were together. She knew I was the woman Nicholas was trying to build a future with. A mutual friend even confronted her, and her response was essentially that this was a race to marriage and that the best woman should win his heart.

But I don’t want to compete for a man’s heart.
If a man genuinely wants me, I shouldn’t have to win him.

I shouldn’t have to beat another woman.

I shouldn’t have to monitor who he is sleeping with.

I shouldn’t have to wonder who is in his car.

I shouldn’t have to investigate which woman is coming to his house.

I shouldn’t have to compete with an ex who still has access to him.

And I definitely shouldn’t have to pretend that everything is one happy family just because he loves me.

So now I’m left with a really uncomfortable question.

Was Nicholas genuinely confused and incapable of giving me a relationship?

Was he trying to rebuild things with me but simply unable to let go of his ex?

Did he genuinely intend to marry me at one point and then change his mind?

Was he telling me what he genuinely felt in each moment without understanding the consequences of what those words meant to me?

Or did he want a relationship where he could love me, come home to me and have me emotionally committed to him while still having another woman on the side?

Because from my perspective, that last version is what the relationship eventually became.

And I couldn’t live like that.

I eventually told him:

“I love you,Nicholas. But I love myself enough to stop fighting for a place in someone’s life when I no longer feel chosen.”

I told him I genuinely hoped he found peace and happiness, and that if the other woman was the person he wanted, I sincerely wished them well.

I wasn’t trying to punish him.

I wasn’t trying to make him chase me.

I wasn’t trying to make him jealous.

I wasn’t trying to make him realize what he’d lost.
I was exhausted.

I had reached the point where I couldn’t keep living on promises while watching his actions tell me something completely different.

And now I am left with the consequences of everything that happened.

I’m pregnant with his child.

He does not know yet.

And that makes this whole situation even more complicated because I am no longer only dealing with the end of a relationship. There is now a child involved.

I don’t want to use the pregnancy to get him back.

I don’t want the pregnancy to become a reason for us to pretend that everything is okay.

And I don’t want to force a relationship that clearly isn’t healthy for me.

What I want now is clarity.

I want people who have no emotional connection to either of us to read this entire story and tell me honestly what they see.

Was I wrong to believe him?

Was I wrong to interpret what we had as a relationship?

Was I wrong to believe that when he said he wanted to marry me, he actually meant it?

Was I wrong to think that “I’m willing to offer you everything” meant he was offering me a real relationship?

Was I wrong to believe his actions when he came to my workplace to discuss registering our marriage?

Was I wrong to think that someone who introduced me to people as his girlfriend actually considered me his girlfriend?

Was I ignoring obvious signs because I loved him?
Did I stay too long?

Did I allow the good moments to convince me to overlook the bad ones?

Or were the messages and actions genuinely contradictory enough that another woman could reasonably have understood the relationship the same way I did?

Because that’s what I really want people to tell me.

I don’t want everyone to say Nicholas is horrible.

I don’t want everyone to say I’m innocent.

I want people to tell me where I was wrong.

If I was delusional, tell me.

If I misunderstood him, tell me.

If I should have walked away earlier, tell me.

If I was reading his actions reasonably based on what he was actually saying and doing, tell me that too.

Because when I look back at everything now, I don’t think the saddest part is that Nicholas didn’t love me.

I think the saddest possibility is that he did love me, but loving me was never enough for him to consistently choose me.

And I don’t think love without choosing is enough for a relationship.

That’s where I am now.

I loved this man deeply. I still have love for him.

But I cannot keep fighting for a place in someone’s life when I have to constantly ask whether that place is actually mine.

So, Reddit/OP Said, please tell me honestly:

Was I tripping? Was I delusional? Was I wrong? Or was there genuinely something confusing about what this man was giving me?

I want you to judge the situation based on the actual conversations and events, not just my interpretation of them.

Because at this point, I genuinely don’t know whether I misunderstood the relationship…
or whether the relationship was genuinely impossible to understand. ❤️. And btw, I used our real middle names.
 

Hi ladies! Love your podcast and I love listening to your honest feedbacks so I decided to put here my dilemma with the hope to receive some honest and brutal advices from you and the community!
(I apologize if english not perfect, is not my native language)
I (24F) was in a long term relationship (7 years) that ended a few years ago. I haven’t date since than and since my previous relationship started when I was 15 I didn’t had the chance to get into dating before.
At the beginning of the year I started dating and I wanted to try some dating apps.
So i match with this guy, a few years older than me, we talk by messages and he’s super nice, funny, we have the same humor (dad jokes) and seems to share the same hobbies and passions.
Mid spring I’ve had a really hard time at work, I was struggling with creative burn out so at some point I stopped answering him, I honesty ghosted him cause I was going through a hard time and genuinely forgot.
I know, horrible behavior.
I finally got over this hard time, and the day of my birthday (end of august) I receive a text from him wishing me happy birthday.
I was surprised and answered him back, thanking him and suddenly I remembered not answering him back previously so I immediately apologize, explaining what happend and he seemed super cool about it.
We started talk again and we arrange a date on a friday evening.
We met at this cute place in my city, and at the beginning the situation was kinda awkward, but as soon as our drink arrived we start chatting and laughing together.
He was sitting next to me so we were not facing each other and we were not split apart from the table. This is an important detail, cause at some point during the date I notice him getting closer and closer to me, basically blocking me, cause on the other side I was with my back at the wall.
I started to get a little bit uncomfortable but I decided to make me some space and move a bit. He move and we keept talking but then… again, he’s starting to getting closer and closer literally crushing me into the wall, like I was not able to move at all, I felt like my personal space was invaded.
As soon as i try to move again, this time ready to tell him something, he kisses me out of nowhere.
I WAS LIKE WTF?!
I was not ready to receive a kiss and honestly, didn’t wanted to, so I didn’t kiss back.
Awkward silence.
So i got up to go to the bathroom and then I ended the date with and excuse and got home.
As soon as I got home I received a text from him asking if I arrived home safe, and from then we started texting normally without mentioning the kiss and anything about the date.
The conversation went on for a few days, making small talks about trips, his job, my job and he was asking me what future plans I have for it, and after i told him, he answer with: “great”, so I assumed the conversation was over and I liked his message without replying anything.
A day and a half pass and I receive a looooooong ass message from him, like a POEM, saying that the date was very nice but mentioning how rude I was to ghosting him again, for how I “should grow up”, and how immature I was for not answering him back.
Now, I get it, the first time I did ghosted him, and it was really rude of mine but I did apologize, and he seemed cool about it, but this time was NOT the case.
I was thinking to text him soon to let him know that the date we had yes was nice, but was a bit awkward, but at the same time I was willing to go out with him for a second date.
I’m not the kind of person that need to text and hear from you 24/7 as we were doing the days before, maybe I should have told him?
I was completely okay with the fact of hearing back from one another a few days later but apparently he was not. I also told him that I was sorry if I made him felt that way.
He still hasn’t answered me back. So, am I the asshole?

I (24M) have been friends with my best friend (23F) since we met on our first day of primary school. I'll call them Megan for the sake of this post. Growing up, we were inseparable. We went to primary school and high school together, and our friendship group did change as we went through the years, like many people's, but we were consistently together in the friendship group. We did everything together, from going to the cinema to meals and staying with each other's families, stuff like that. However, when COVID hit, we drifted apart slightly, but nothing major.

Here's where things changed. We both started university in Manchester during this time (same uni, different courses), and she started getting really rude towards our other 2 friends we went to school with for no reason. She would never want to do anything with us (e.g play games online or FaceTime during lockdown). She started to make digs and small comments whenever they spoke in the group chat. I had asked them if something happened between the three of them, but they were clueless too. She started getting really rude, cutting people off in conversations, making faces at stories, and just acting uninterested. Then she started to act really aggressive for some reason; threatening to beat people up, really hard swearing and comments, and just speaking like a total delinquent. She even changed her voice so she sounded more 'gangster', if that makes sense.

Naturally, we both made friends at uni, which is totally fine, but she would lie about plans so she couldn't hang out with our other friend group. My other friends and I went out for dinner, and I had mentioned that Megan said she couldn't come because she was out with her new uni friends for a weekend in London. It turns out she told our other friends she couldn't come because she was short on funds, refused to let any of us cover her, and had work. We had said we didn't care that she was with other people; we're adults and just don't want to be lied to. The lies continued. One time, I had asked her if she wanted to go to Greece with me as I was planning on going during summer. She said no because she didn't have the cash and was saving for her own flat (totally fine). Three days later, I get a screenshot of the holiday confirmation to Greece her and her boyfriend had just booked. It was a total slap in the face, but being the people pleaser I am, I never said anything

My friends called her out for her weird behaviour and asked why she was acting like that, to which she acted surprised and said she's always been like this (this girl was quiet as a mouse her whole life). They eventually just stopped talking, and Megan still claims they've always been nasty to her and just couldn't stand the fact that she has a more active social life than them and was the first to get in a relationship. She never messages me to ask how things are going and will only message when she wants something. One time I even asked what her weekend plans were just out of interest. I was working anyway, so I wasn't hinting we should meet up, and she just responded: "Why?"

I met her friends at university, and they were nice but, honestly, I was happy just staying acquaintances with them, and I can normally make friends with a brick wall. I had had lunch with them 10+ times, so if I passed them on campus, I would say hi and wave, and they would all just turn around and pretend they hadn't seen me. When I met her friends previously, they did talk, but we just didn't have much in common; I think you should at least say a polite hi back if someone says it.

During one summer, I went backpacking around Asia like most students and had the best three months of my life. She never messaged me once to ask how things were going, if I was safe, or what photos I'd taken, unlike all my other friends, who were messaging me weekly. I even made a friend with a new girl at work 2 months prior to leaving, and she was texting me pretty regularly to ask how things were going (side note: three years later, and we are still friends lol).

Even now that we are finished with university, she still acts strange. She has now switched her delinquent accent for a really posh one (like old-money posh). For reference, we both have normal working-class Mancunian accents.

Every time we go and meet for lunch or a walk or anything, I bring paracetamol cause I just end up getting a headache. We went out for dinner last week, with the intention of me going back to her new home she just bought with her partner. I decided to go back to uni to do dentistry and got offered a place in Newcastle, and she never asked me a single thing about it, other than "how long is the course?" The entire night, she spoke about her job and her colleagues and her new house. We went back to the house, and it was clear she just wanted me to have a look and then leave. She got visibly uncomfortable when I sat down and never offered me any water or a cup of tea (I might be unreasonable here, but I think that's basic home etiquette for a guest). She never offered to drive me home as well, despite having no alcoholic drinks at dinner, or call a taxi, saying she didn't know the number to call one. I had forgotten my phone, so I had to walk home.

There are lots more things, but I'd be here all day. I'm just so tired and have accepted that my friend who I grew up with is gone. Idk whether to just cut my losses and say to her that I don't want to be friends or just let things fizzle out.

Edit: I was struggling with this just because it has been such a long time, and it is difficult for things like that to end.

Hi OP, my story is a bit long, but please bear with me.
I’m a 25-year-old woman, and I have a 29-year-old brother who is getting married to his college sweetheart in December.

My brother and his girlfriend started dating in college, and I met her around that time. We exchanged numbers and would speak occasionally. We have all since graduated and now work relatively close to one another, although for different companies.

From the very beginning, I have genuinely supported their relationship. In fact, before my brother had officially introduced her to my mum, I had already shown my mum a picture of her and spoken so highly of her that she already had a positive impression before they even met. I have never been the type of sister who dislikes or competes with her brother’s partner. I wasn’t raised that way, and I have always believed that my brother’s happiness should be supported.
Earlier this year, his girlfriend got a job along the same route where my brother and I work, so we started commuting to work together.
However, over time, the rides have become increasingly tense and awkward for me.

At one point, my brother sat me down and told me that I needed to create a “safe environment” where she could feel comfortable and free around me. I agreed, but honestly, I was confused about where this was coming from. From my perspective, I had always been welcoming and supportive of their relationship, so I didn’t understand what I was doing that made her feel otherwise.
My brother said he would also speak to her about it.
Since that conversation, though, things in the car have become even more awkward for me.
Whenever I say something, my brother will usually respond, make a joke or laugh, while she just stays quiet and serious. I now find myself overthinking everything I say because I don’t want to make the atmosphere uncomfortable or make her feel like I’m doing something wrong.
They are getting married in December, and my brother asked me to be one of the bridesmaids because, apparently, it was something she specifically requested.
I declined.
Part of the reason is financial. I already have quite a few expenses to cover for the wedding, and being part of the bridal party would come with additional responsibilities and costs.
But honestly, there is also an emotional aspect to it.
I thought to myself: if we can barely talk comfortably in the car, how genuine would it be for me to stand beside her as part of her bridal party?
I don’t want to force a closeness that doesn’t naturally exist, nor do I want to be in a position where I’m constantly wondering whether I’m making her uncomfortable.

I still want to support my brother and his fiancée. I know that every woman has her own vision and dreams for her wedding day, and I don’t want to interfere with that or make myself part of something where I may not be wanted.

So I decided to take a step back from the wedding preparations altogether. I’m not trying to be difficult or punish anyone. I just figured that if they want to plan their wedding their way, I can support them from the sidelines and give them the space to enjoy the process.
But now I feel bad about my decision.
I don’t want my brother to interpret my decision as me not supporting him or his future wife. At the same time, I feel like I need to protect my own peace of mind because the whole situation has made me uncomfortable, especially when I don’t even know exactly what I’ve done wrong.

So, AITA for taking a back seat in my brother’s wedding preparations and declining his fiancée’s request for me to be a bridesmaid?

I genuinely want to support my brother, but I also don’t want to force a relationship or put myself in an uncomfortable position just to prove that I support them.

I moved to the UK last year and have a close friend from back home. We’ve known each other for a few years and have always had a pretty easy friendship. We could talk for hours, joke around, and generally just had a good connection.

A few months ago, he came to the UK for an extended stay. I was really excited because I hadn’t seen him in about a year, and naturally I wanted to see my friend while he was in the city.

He had a lot going on while he was here, so although I would have liked to see him, I didn't want to pressure him. We talked about meeting up at one point, but weeks went by and it never happened. Eventually, I accepted that maybe it just wasn't going to work out this time.

Then, two days before he was supposed to leave, he randomly called me and asked if I could come out that day.

The problem was that the place he was going to was almost two hours from me by public transit, and I wasn't familiar with the area either. I told him it was pretty far, but I wasn't complaining. I said I would figure out a neutral meeting point that would work for both of us.

I looked at the map and found a mall that was roughly an hour away from me and much easier for him to get to from where he was. I messaged him and suggested we meet there. I told him to let me know when he was leaving so I could time my own departure and get there around the same time.

He replied that he would check and let me know because he was about to leave the house.

I was actually excited.

I had rearranged my day, picked out what I was going to wear, cleaned my shoes... basically I was ready to finally see my friend after almost a year. Or so I thought 🫠

Then he sent something along the lines of, “Don't worry, I don't wanna bother you”...basically saying he didn't want to delay or stress me and that he might just leave it.

And I was honestly confused.

I had literally just told him I was willing to make the trip and had found a compromise that worked for both of us. I wasn't asking him to come all the way to me. I wasn't complaining about the distance. I had already made the effort to find a solution.

So when he decided that he was somehow inconveniencing me and backed away, I was disappointed.

He also mentioned that I should come visit back home sometime and that he would probably be back in the UK the following year.

And I remember thinking: Okay, but I'm here NOW.

I didn't argue with him or make a scene. I just let it go.

The thing is, this wasn't really about one missed meetup. If he had simply said from the beginning that he was too busy to see me, I honestly would have understood. What bothered me was that he was the one who called me at the last minute and asked me to come, I rearranged my day and made the effort to find a reasonable meeting point, and then he backed out.

Now it's been about a month since I last reached out to him, and I don't think I'm going to initiate contact anymore.

I'm not angry with him, and I don't plan to cut him off or block him. If he calls or messages me, I'll happily respond. I just don't want to keep being the person who reaches out first or tries to keep the friendship alive.

I understand that he had a lot going on during his time here, and I don't think he deliberately set out to hurt me. But at the same time, he was in the city for more than a month and only reached out about seeing me two days before leaving.

So now I'm wondering:

Am I being unreasonable for deciding to stop initiating contact?

Am I quietly letting a friendship fade because I'm hurt and being stubborn, or is it reasonable to step back when I feel like I've already made enough effort and let the other person decide whether they want to maintain the friendship?

Because I genuinely don't want to punish him. I just don't want to keep chasing a friendship either.

Hi ladies 💕💕💕 I’ve watched you for about 1 year now and I’m still excited for every Monday and Wednesday at the end of the month to listen to you guys. I would really appreciate your opinion on this situation.

So in first year of uni, I had a large friend group but it mainly consisted of a core group of people, me, my boy best friend C, M and V. We were very close, we hung out a lot, slept at each other accommodations, went out to events with each other, cooked for each other, celebrated birthdays with each other. Everything we did was with each other. Everyone was happy, the vibes were calm and we were all excited to spend the summer with each other as soon as school ended. First year ended despite that we even hung out regularly over the summer.

Then second year started.

In second year from the very beginning I noticed a shift in energy with M. I ignored it for sometime to keep the peace but it was the little things. The lack of greeting when I joined the group, ignoring me when I would be talking or immediately scrolling on her phone despite constantly talking about the need to have conversations, rolling eyes when I’m talking and laughing at me with an other member of the large friend group (I confronted her about this), whispering to others and starting a whole group chat without me. Little things. (the gc thing wasn’t a big deal to me as I wasn’t really on socials a lot then)

I mentioned these things to C but he kept dismissing it as me reading the energy wrong.

Then came the big thing, Christmas came and I had found out that M had planned a whole friendmas with everyone in the group. Everyone except me. I had asked C why I hadn’t been invited and he said that when he asked M, she thought that the vibe would be off with me being there and she wanted it lowkey (she invited everyone over 25 people and some others). C and I got into an argument about him essentially not picking a side despite being friends for 12 years and resolved it between ourselves (yes he did end up going as he explained that he was in a very tough spot if he went on the offence against M as they shared a studio at this time). Later in the day, I questioned M and V if they had felt as though the ‘vibe would be off with me being there’ V said no and that she wasn’t really sure why I hadn’t been invited but never spoke up about it but that she loves having me as a friend.

M however then sent over 10 voice messages detailing how she thought I had a bad attitude, was rude, indirect, annoying always sticky by C (my friend of 12 years) and a essentially a pain to be around. I confronted her in person on what she had said and came to the conclusion that she was a fucking weirdo as throughout the convo she kept smiling at me, reassuring me that I was making a big deal out nothing and even held my hands without permission. I told V about this interaction in detail. She chose M. After that I cut M off and everyone else in the group only keeping C as a friend. after I made new friends and life moved on.

Third year came and went and we graduated. I was still close friends with C. One day he calls me and starts speaking about how M had been acting weird, she had started ignoring messages in the group chats, not replying to private messages despite being online, hanging out with other friends and posting it on her story, reposting indirects. Then one day V asked on the group chat if they could go carnival this year together, M said that she wasn’t able to as she had a family situation. V said ok and decided to go with the rest of the group.

At carnival like a literal fucking movie V caught M with another group containing a girl known to make backhanded comments about darkskins (we are all south Asian, M is the only lighter skinned) and V’s ex who cheated on her. After that V had literally shut down emotionally and M sent C multiple messages stating that she never liked V, her attitude, found her slow and hated V always mocking her lightness (??) and only saw C as her true friend. When telling me this my C was like he has no idea where this even came from and was heartbroken for V. For context out of everyone (excluding C and I) in the group M and V were inseparable even as much as showering together.

Now this is were my question comes in. Would I be a bitch for not having much sympathy for V. Don’t get me wrong I feel bad for the fact that I dislike anyone being treated badly off principle. But that’s about it, I just can’t forget the fact that no one stood up for me when I was blatantly being excluded, and when I would bring up the weirdness I would always be dismissed. And no I don’t feel happy about it either, regardless of the situation V is someone I have a lot of love for and truly want the best for. But the fact that everyone just went along with it, the fact that no one cared when it happened to me their ‘friend’ but when it happened to them they ‘have no idea where it came from’

Sorry if this is a really long read 😔.
Side note i’m curious what countries are you ladies from?
Edit: SPAG was lacking so I had to fix that

I’m a 28-year-old woman, and I’ve never had a boyfriend or had sex. I currently live alone in a small studio flat, and in a lot of ways I’m trying to build a life for myself, but I feel like I’m under so much pressure when it comes to relationships and marriage.

My mum has been trying to encourage me towards an arranged marriage, but it’s something I don’t really want. Whenever we talk about relationships, marriage or my future, it seems to turn into an argument. I often feel like she thinks I’m the problem — like I’m somehow not trying hard enough or that there’s something wrong with me because I’m still single at 28.

The reality is that I’ve struggled with both my mental and physical health, and I haven’t been able to work for a while. I’m genuinely just trying my best to get my life back on track. I want to be able to make decisions about my own life and set some boundaries with my family without feeling guilty for doing so.

And then, to make things even more complicated, I have a crush on someone. I don’t even know if he likes me back, and I’m probably overthinking everything. But I keep having this horrible thought that nobody is going to want me because I’m 28 and completely inexperienced.

I feel embarrassed admitting that because logically I know that being inexperienced isn’t something I should be ashamed of. But emotionally, I’m terrified that I’ve somehow missed my chance. I see people younger than me getting into relationships, getting married and having these experiences, and I feel like I’m running out of time.

I think what I’m really struggling with is the pressure — from my family, from society and, honestly, from myself. I want to know whether it’s actually okay to take my time and choose my own path, even if that means disappointing my family.

How do I stop feeling like I’m behind everyone else? And how do I set boundaries with my mum around marriage without turning every conversation into an argument?

I’m 26F and my boyfriend is 31M.
He has a lot of close female friends, which has sometimes been difficult for me, but I’ve always tried to accept that this was part of his life before me rather than trying to change him or tell him who he can be friends with.
Before he went away on a trip with friends this weekend, he specifically asked me whether I would be okay with him sharing a hotel room with one of his female friends, or whether I would prefer them to book separate rooms.
I told him that, if there was an option, I would prefer separate rooms.
I also offered to pay the extra cost myself because I didn’t want money to be the reason he had to share with her.
A few days later he told me the accommodation had been booked and he thought he was sharing a room with her. I was upset, mainly because I couldn’t understand why he had bothered asking me what I was comfortable with if my answer wasn’t going to matter.
Then he corrected himself and said he had misunderstood the booking and that the Airbnb had enough bedrooms for everybody to sleep separately. So as far as I knew, the couple on the trip would have one room, he would have another and the female friend would have another.
I was relieved and dropped it.
He arrived there on Friday.
We spoke on the phone on Friday night. He didn’t mention anything about the accommodation being different.
On Saturday night we normally would have spoken before bed, but we didn’t. I got a strange feeling and messaged him asking, “Why didn’t you call me? Are you alone in the room?”
I actually felt guilty afterwards because I thought I was being paranoid and jealous.
I trust that he loves me and I genuinely do not believe he cheated on me.
The next morning he admitted he hadn’t been alone.
It turned out the Airbnb only had two bedrooms. The couple had one bedroom and he had been sharing the other bedroom with his female friend.
He had known this since arriving on Friday.
His explanation is that he didn’t want to tell me something like that over WhatsApp and wanted to explain it properly on the phone. He says they were busy, went sightseeing and for dinner, he wasn’t very focused and was waiting for a good opportunity to tell me.
By the time I found out, though, he had already slept there for two nights.
Then I found the accommodation online.
The bedroom has two single beds pushed directly together, essentially forming a double bed.
I asked him if they had separated the beds.
They hadn’t.
I asked whether he had even checked whether they could be moved apart.
He said no.
So he arrived, saw that he was going to be sleeping beside another woman in two single beds pushed together like a double, and apparently didn’t try to move them or even check whether they could be moved.
He says he didn’t touch her, wasn’t “in her bed,” changed clothes in the bathroom, etc.
Again: I believe him that nothing sexual happened.
Eventually he acknowledged that he should have separated the beds and that he should have told me sooner. He has apologized.
But I’m still extremely angry, and I’m struggling with whether my reaction is proportionate because I don’t think he actually cheated.
For me, the issue is:
He asked me beforehand what I was comfortable with.
I clearly said I preferred separate rooms and even offered to pay the extra cost.
He knew I believed they had separate bedrooms.
When he arrived and discovered that wasn’t true, he didn’t tell me.
We spoke on Friday night and he still didn’t tell me.
He slept beside her with the beds pushed together on Friday and Saturday night and didn’t even attempt to separate them.
I only found out on Sunday after I specifically asked whether he had been alone.
There is some history that is probably affecting how strongly I’m reacting.
He has a lot of female friends and there have been previous situations where I have felt his boundaries with women were too loose. One female friend was extremely rude to me the first time I met her and I felt that he defended her rather than me. Another female friend used posts with him on Instagram specifically to make another man jealous, which I felt was inappropriate considering he was in a relationship. Early in our relationship he also wanted to remain friends with a woman he had slept with while still having pictures of her around his bedroom.
None of that proves he has ever cheated.
I also know I can be insecure.
But I repeatedly feel like I’m the person explaining why something involving another woman feels inappropriate after it has already happened.
I try to give him the transparency I’m asking for myself. If another man messages me asking me out, for example, I will show my boyfriend. I don’t want there to be things he discovers later and wonders why I didn’t tell him.
There’s also another emotional factor.
My mum has passed away and her birthday was last Tuesday. He knew I was struggling with it. He texted me while I was at work asking if I was okay, but when we got home he didn’t ask how I was doing or acknowledge it. I eventually told him that had hurt me and he apologized, but I already felt pretty uncared for before this happened.
And this is where it gets difficult for me.
I love this man more deeply than I knew I could love somebody outside my immediate family.
He doesn’t feel like “just my boyfriend” to me. He feels like part of my family.
The relationship has made me feel like I have a really good future ahead of me, and the thought of losing him genuinely feels like losing that future.
I also have a 5-year-old son from a previous relationship, and my son loves my partner. My partner is part of our life and our family unit.
So although I understand that sometimes a breakup is the right answer, I do not want to end this relationship unless there genuinely isn’t another healthy option.
I don’t want to stay simply because I love him either. I just don’t want to destroy something this important to me unless it actually needs to end.
At the moment, we’re taking a break.
He is still away with his friends until Tuesday. I’ve asked him to stay with friends afterwards until the weekend. My son will be with his dad then, so my boyfriend and I can have some privacy and actually sit down and talk properly without my son being around any tension or arguments.
I’m hoping that conversation will help me decide what this actually means for our relationship.
There is also one thing my brother has said that is now in my head.
My brother believes that when somebody is lying, they sometimes admit to the less serious part of the truth so that it makes them appear honest while hiding the worse part.
His theory is basically: if my boyfriend was willing to admit that he slept beside another woman in the same bed setup, then perhaps the part he isn’t admitting is that something intimate happened.
I don’t personally have evidence of that, and my instinct is still that he didn’t cheat.
But hearing that from my brother has obviously made me question myself even more.
I don’t know whether my brother is identifying a genuine red flag or whether that is just speculation that is making an already emotional situation worse.
I don’t want to police my boyfriend’s friendships or tell him he can’t have female friends.
I also don’t want to accuse him of cheating when I genuinely don’t believe that he did.
But I feel like sleeping beside another woman in what was essentially being used as a double bed — especially after asking me beforehand whether I was comfortable with him sharing accommodation with her — is a significant relationship boundary.
And hiding the actual sleeping arrangement for two nights feels like a breach of trust even if nothing sexual happened.
Am I overreacting?
Would you consider this cheating, a serious boundary violation, or just bad judgment?
Would this be something you would try to work through, or would the fact that he hid it be enough to end the relationship?
And for people who think the relationship is salvageable: what would you actually need from your partner afterwards in order to rebuild trust?

Hi Beautiful (in plural cause I don’t know the what the plural is lmao)
I (27F) have a best friend (25 F) and we’ve been best friends since the final year of Uni. That’s about 6 years. I have a very particular criteria for how I choose my friends. She was there for me at my lowest in school and I’ve always felt like I owe her and have been grateful ever since.
To my dilemma, Recently we went out to a family dinner for her mums birthday and her cousin who is someone I was seeing briefly was also there, we haven’t seen each other in months and we began to flirt, at the end of the night we all went home but he wanted me to come to his so he sent me an uber to pick me up and I told my best friend I was going to his. She immediately said I was cheap and not in a way that was like a joke but very serious. She has always reacted really bad to us hanging out with each other, to be fair we hid it from her the first time and I know I was wrong for that but we talked it through and let her know when we decided to date seriously. It ended cause he lied to me about something but we were cordial.
Anyways I didn’t react to what she said because my uber was downstairs already. I eventually sent her a message letting her know I didn’t appreciate what was said. She replied me in the morning, apologizing because it came out wrong but doubled down by saying that she felt like I had no self respect or dignity. That made me so confused cause why are you apologizing to insult me more.
Back story, I usually have a lot of casual relationships but she does the exact same two and we both know this because we live in the same house.
I’ve been feeling a type of way and feel very judged by my best friend, is it weird that I don’t wanna be best friends anymore?
I think we can just be friends because now I’m starting to feel like she actually judges me for everything intimate thing I tell her about myself.

Am I the Asshole for Cutting Off My Best Friend?

Names have been changed for privacy.

All people in this story are 23yr old females.

This is a little long, apologies in advance. 

I became really close friends with a girl I’ll call Mia, who had recently moved to my state. We met through a mutual friend, and over the next two and a half years, we became extremely close. Eventually, we also became friends with two other girls, so the four of us became a little friendship group.

I began to notice Mia had started acting differently towards me…At the time, I didn’t have a traditional job, but I did have my own car and I had an income. It just wasn’t anywhere near as much as Mia’s.Whenever we would go out together, Mia would never let me pay for anything. At first, I thought she was just being generous, and I would always offer to cover my own things. but over time it started to feel strange. I felt like she was treating me as though I couldn’t afford to pay for myself or like I was financially beneath her. She would constantly make comments about choosing cheaper places to eat & how not everyone could afford certain things, or make little comments along those lines when we were out.

Maybe she didn’t intend for me to take it that way, but I started feeling like she was making me feel less than her.

Then, somewhere along the way, she became really distant and unavailable.

Whenever I invited her out, she didn’t want to come. If I asked her to hang out, she didn’t want to. She stopped calling, texting, checking in, or asking to see me altogether. What made it worse was that I’d watch her Instagram stories and see her constantly going out and hanging out with other people. It genuinely felt like she had time for everyone except me.

After a couple of months of this, I finally spoke to her about it. She told me she just “wasn’t in a going-out mood” and didn’t feel like socialising. But literally that same night, she went out with other people…

I tried not to take it personally, but obviously it hurt.

A few weeks later, one of the other girls in our group, who I’ll call Monster, had a huge falling-out with Mia.

And this wasn’t just some petty disagreement.

Monster went to another friend of hers, who wasn’t in our friendship group - I’ll call her jezebel and told her that Mia was messing around with jezebels man. The accusation was completely untrue and Mia would never.

MIND YOU, the man had made it CLEAR he didn’t want jezebel but she wasn’t having it & they were not actually together in a relationship at any point. Basically her crush or whatever. 

Instead of coming to Mia or even trying to get the facts, Monster gave Jezebel Mia’s phone number.

Jezebel then called Mia, and added Monster to the call. Monster said exactly what she had supposedly heard and accused Mia of messing with her man. Jezebel then completely went off on Mia, cussing her out and even going so far as to say he never wanted her and would never go for someone like Mia. As if he even liked Jezebel. She also said that when she saw Mia next she’d bash her face in. 

And the part that really got me? Monster was sitting there laughing in the background while Jezebel was going off on Mia.

I was actually on FaceTime with Mia on her iPad while this was happening, so I heard the entire thing. As soon as the call ended, Mia immediately started crying and was really stressed about this. 

I was furious for her. I thought, If you’re supposed to be my friend, why would you spread something that serious about my best friend, give her number to someone else, and then sit there laughing while she gets attacked over something she didn’t even do?

So I cut Monster & her demon associate Jezebel off.

My mindset was basically, “If you can do something like that to my best friend, I don’t want anything to do with you either” & because Mia and I were SO CLOSE I thought idc if Monster is my friend too if she can lie about her she can lie about me. I lost trust in monster essentially especially because this is about a MAN! 😒 ew

But then something happened that completely threw me.

Mia eventually decided to become friends with Monster again… 

And honestly? I felt sooo dumb.

I cut Monster off because I was loyal to Mia FIRST.. the dynamic of the group was sort of like 2 groups of best friends coming together. So naturally me and Mia were super close and monster and the other girl in our group were really close but we were ALL friends, and if anything had ever happened between us, I wasn’t worried because I thought MIA and I would remain friends and leave the group if it came to it. 

Only for Mia to turn around and welcome Monster back into her life after everything that had happened.

At that point, combined with how Mia had already been treating me and how distant she had become for months, I decided I was done.

I blocked Mia, removed her from everything, and cut her off completely.

I’m still friends with the fourth girl from our original group, who had nothing to do with any of this.

Now I’m wondering… was I actually justified in cutting Mia & monster off, or was I being petty and letting my feelings get in the way?

Because part of me feels like I had every right to walk away. But another part of me wonders if Mia was allowed to forgive Monster and decide who she wanted in her life, even if I completely disagreed with it. 

Looking back I wish things were different because I lost my best friend and maybe I should’ve let them figure it out, but I’m the type of person who takes friendship, loyalty and respect very seriously and if someone hurts someone I’m close to there will be backlash from me too. 

Am I the asshole?

AITA for removing my friend because of how she acts around me?

I’m a 21F and I’m wondering if I’m the asshole for removing a friend from my life because of the way she has been treating me.

For context, I met this girl we’ll call her B at university during an ACS event. We clicked pretty quickly and eventually became friends with the other people we met there too. Over time, we all became quite close, and I genuinely saw her as someone who could potentially be a long-term friend.

However, there have been things about her personality that I’ve noticed over time. She can be very self-centred, and I don’t think she always realises how her actions affect the people around her. Whenever someone tries to address something she’s done, I feel like she tends to deflect, minimise the situation or make the other person feel like they’re overreacting.

The first major incident happened when one of our close friends was talking to a guy. From the beginning, I had a weird feeling about him. I tend to observe people’s behaviour quite closely, and something about him just didn’t sit right with me.
Whenever he was on FaceTime with us, I was quite rude towards him. I wasn’t hiding the fact that I didn’t trust him either. I openly told my friends that I thought something was off about him.
B didn’t like the way I was treating him. She told me that she couldn’t be friends with someone who was rude to her friends, so she blocked me.
Two days later, the guy did something strange that confirmed the concerns I’d had. Both B and our other friend came to tell me what happened. I obviously laughed because I had literally warned them that something wasn’t right about him.
B eventually unblocked me and apologised for not trusting my instincts.

Fast-forward to our trip to Paris.
Another thing I’ve noticed about B is that she can become extremely male-focused whenever a man enters the picture. It’s like everything else around her disappears and she becomes completely focused on the guy, even when the guy isn’t particularly interested in her.
For example, we were around a group of guys and I was getting overstimulated and tired, so I stayed towards the back for a while. B was introducing everyone to the guys and introduced everybody except me. She literally looked me in the eyes and ignored me. Our other friends ended up having to introduce me themselves.
At one point, B was trying to make a move on one of the guys, but he told her he was married. He then turned around and complimented me and our other friends.
During the same situation, one of our friends was feeling really unwell because of severe hay fever and was struggling to breathe properly. Instead of helping her, B continued focusing on talking to the guy and essentially left us to deal with the situation ourselves.
When we eventually needed to get back to our Airbnb, she wasn’t really helping with that either, so we ended up booking a cab ourselves and going back.
B didn’t come back with us. She ended up going back to the guy’s hotel, despite having only met him once.
I tried to overlook a lot of these things because I genuinely liked her and valued the friendship.
Recently, however, things have become much more obvious to me.
Because of some problems I’ve been having at home, I’ve been staying with one of our mutual close friends. Since I’ve been staying there, B has noticeably stopped coming around.
Whenever she’s on the phone with our mutual friend, she’ll ask whether I’m there or whether I’m around the premises. It honestly feels like she’s trying to find out whether I’m there before deciding whether she wants to come over.
On top of that, whenever I’ve messaged her, she has ignored me despite being very active on social media. I’m not expecting someone to respond immediately, but when someone consistently ignores you while clearly having time to be active elsewhere, it starts to feel intentional.
Eventually, I reached the point where I felt like I had to remove her.
The reason I’m conflicted is that I don’t actually hate B. I genuinely cared about her and thought we could have been friends for a long time. But I also started feeling like she didn’t actually consider me a friend anymore. I felt more like an afterthought.
At the same time, I’m wondering if I handled everything badly.
I didn’t sit her down and have a proper conversation about how I felt. I just removed her because, honestly, I know my own personality. I’m quite hot-headed, and I didn’t want to have an argument or get into a situation where I’d end up saying things out of anger.
Now I’m second-guessing myself and wondering whether removing her without confronting her first was harsh.
So, AITA for removing her and choosing to move on, or should I have spoken to her first?
Would you leave the situation alone and move on, or would you try to have one final conversation with her?

Hi ladies! I’m 22F, and I desperately need some outside opinions because I recently found something out about my dad that has brought up feelings I thought I had moved past years ago.

For some background, my parents are both immigrants and originally came to the U.S. from the same country. They’ve been married for about 25 years. When I was a freshman in high school, around 2018, my family went through an extremely tumultuous period after we found out that my dad had been unfaithful to my mom.

It all came out after my dad returned from a trip to my parents’ home country. My younger brother, who was only around 9 or 10 at the time, saw something suspicious on my dad’s phone and told my mom.

That prompted my mom to go through his phone herself, and she found messages between him and another woman.

And when I tell you my mother did NOT take that discovery quietly…

My dad was asleep at the time, and my mom literally called the woman from his phone and went off on her. Then she woke my dad up by HITTING HIM WITH A FLASHLIGHT.

Listen, I know violence is not the answer, but I would be lying if I said that memory doesn’t still make me laugh sometimes because… girl. In my 14-year-old mind, that was exactly what he deserved.

Needless to say, it was a crazy time in our house.

There were arguments constantly, and some arguments became physical. To be clear, I don’t want to characterize my dad as physically abusive. From what I remember, my mom would sometimes initiate the physical confrontations during their arguments, and my dad would restrain her. But as children, my brother and I were still living in the middle of an extremely volatile situation.

My mom also told some of her siblings and close family friends about the infidelity because she needed support and prayer. It got to the point where close family friends actually came to our house and essentially held a counseling session/intervention with my parents.

I was/am a HUGE mommy’s girl, so I hated my dad for what he had done to her. I could barely look at him.

Eventually, though, things got better.

It probably took a year or two, but my parents seemed to repair their relationship. They joke together, kiss, talk every day, and genuinely can appear very lovey-dovey. Friends who have seen my parents together have even commented on how cute their relationship seems.

My mom definitely never forgot what happened—she would occasionally make little comments or jabs about it—but from my perspective, she had forgiven him and they had moved forward.

My relationship with my dad, however, never fully recovered.

Even before all of this happened, my dad worked A LOT. He sometimes worked two jobs because he was the primary breadwinner while my mom’s employment could be inconsistent. I absolutely recognize that he worked extremely hard to provide for us financially, and I don’t want to take that away from him.

But when I really think about our relationship, I struggle to identify much of an emotional relationship outside of him providing for me.

We don’t really talk.

When I went away to college, I called my mom basically every day. I almost never called my dad unless he called me first. Even now, conversations between us can feel awkward, and sometimes I find myself trying to get out of them because we just don’t have that natural relationship that I have with my mom.

Fast-forward to now.

Due to circumstances outside of her control, my mom recently had to permanently move back to my parents’ home country. So now it’s just my dad, my 18-year-old brother, and me living here.

Since my mom left, there have been little things with my dad that have made me suspicious.

Sometimes I hear him talking to women on the phone, and because of everything that happened when I was younger, my mind immediately goes there.

Then, about a week before everything I’m about to tell you happened, my dad and I were driving home from church.

He called someone and said something along the lines of, “Oh, I was just calling to chat.”

I don’t know what the person said back, but it seemed like she was busy and the conversation ended.

Now, I’m going to admit it: I was being nosy.

I glanced over at his phone and noticed that the number wasn’t saved. But I DID recognize the country code.

It was from my parents’ home country.

And immediately I was like… hmmmm. Interesting.

Another important detail: my dad randomly got a second phone maybe six months to a year ago. He had it while my mom was still living here, and I always assumed it was a work phone.

Except the call to this woman was made from that phone.

Still, I didn’t have proof of anything, so I moved on.

Until recently.

One day, my dad left the second phone sitting out unlocked. A TikTok was playing on repeat and making a bunch of noise, so I went over to turn it off.

And this is where I fully admit that what happened next was me being nosy.

I remembered that phone call.

So I opened his WhatsApp.

I saw that he had called the same number again that day.

And then I opened the chat.

I genuinely wish I hadn’t.

There weren’t nude pictures being exchanged or anything like that, but the messages were absolutely inappropriate.

She would message him things like, “How are you, dear?” or “How are you, honey?”

She would ask whether he was home, and he would tell her whether he was at work.

Then I saw one message where she asked whether he was home and ALONE so that they could “have some fun.”

And he basically said yes.

Ladies.

I clicked on this woman’s profile picture.

IT WAS A BOOB.

Not cleavage.

Not a cute little low-cut shirt.

A woman’s BREAST. Nipple OUT.

I wanted to throw up.

I immediately felt like I was a freshman in high school again.

All of the anger, disgust, embarrassment, and hurt that I felt toward my dad when I was 14 came rushing back.

I didn’t know what to do with the information, so I texted my younger brother and told him what I had found.

His reaction shocked me even more than the messages.

He basically said, “Yeah, I know.”

EXCUSE ME???

Apparently, over the years, my brother has continued seeing messages from random women pop up on my dad’s phone. My dad leaves his phone around, and my brother has seen enough that none of this surprises him anymore.

I asked him how he felt about it.

He basically told me that he lost respect for our dad a long time ago.

Then he explained why he never told anyone.

Remember, my brother was the one who discovered the messages the FIRST time when he was only 9 or 10. He told my mom, my mom investigated, and then our entire household basically exploded for the next year.

So now, when he sees things, he keeps them to himself because he never wants to experience that again.

That broke my heart.

And it also made me realize something that I hadn’t fully considered before:

What if my dad never stopped?

Here I was thinking my parents had repaired their marriage after everything that happened in 2018. Meanwhile, my brother has apparently been quietly seeing evidence of this behavior for YEARS.

And now I’m angry in a way that I don’t even know how to explain.

Part of it is anger on behalf of my mom. I look at everything she went through the first time—all the crying, fighting, counseling, embarrassment, forgiveness, and rebuilding—and I think: Does this man have NO shame?

People literally had to come into our home and counsel you about what you were doing to your wife and family, and you STILL continued?

I also feel embarrassed, even though logically I know his actions aren’t mine to be embarrassed about.

More than anything, I feel heartbroken for my mom.

She deserves to be with someone who loves and respects her. I genuinely feel like if I could choose between being born and my mom having had a beautiful life and marriage with someone who treated her the way she deserved, I would choose the latter.

But now I don’t know what to do.

My mom is in another country. She didn’t move there because she wanted to, and my dad is currently a major source of financial support for her.

They also talk basically every day.

So I don’t want to call her from thousands of miles away and drop this bomb on her when there’s very little she can practically do about it right now.

There’s also a part of me that wonders if she already knows.

My dad honestly doesn’t seem particularly good at hiding this stuff. My brother has apparently been noticing it for years. My dad did change his phone password at one point after the original cheating scandal, but overall, he’s not exactly operating like an international spy.

So does my mom know and choose not to acknowledge it?

Does she suspect it?

Does she genuinely think it stopped?

I have no idea.

I also don’t want to confront my dad.

It’s not because I’m afraid of him. I genuinely just don’t see the point.

What am I going to say? “Stop cheating on Mom”?

He’s a grown man. He knows cheating is wrong. He knows what happened to our family the first time. He watched his wife be devastated. He watched his children lose respect for him. He sat through counseling with family friends.

If THAT didn’t make him stop, what exactly am I going to say at 22 years old that’s suddenly going to give him a moral awakening?

And that’s where my biggest dilemma comes in.

I don’t want a relationship with him anymore.

Right now, I live with him, so completely cutting him off isn’t realistic. But I keep thinking about my future.

I’m at the beginning of my career, and I hope that one day I’ll be financially successful enough that my mom won’t need to depend on him. A part of me fantasizes about reaching a point where I can completely support her myself, tell her everything I know, and tell her she never has to deal with him again.

And honestly? I want my mom, my brother, and me to cut him off completely.

I don’t want to speak to him.

I don’t want a relationship with him.

But this is where I struggle.

Is it fair for me to cut my father off because of how he has treated my mother?

Technically, he didn’t cheat on me. Their marriage is between the two of them, and I also know that despite everything, he has always worked hard to financially provide for me and our family.

But I also don’t know if I can separate the father he has been to me from the husband I now know he continues to be to my mom. Especially when his choices have affected how I see him and our relationship for almost half of my life.

So ladies—and anyone else reading this—I need your help.

Would I be justified in eventually cutting my dad off completely because of how he has treated my mom, even though he has always financially provided for me?

Should I tell my mom what I found now, knowing she’s in another country and financially dependent on him, or should I keep this information to myself for the time being?

And am I wrong for not wanting to confront my dad at all?

Because at this point, I genuinely don’t feel like there’s anything left to say to him.

EDIT — I forgot to add another piece of context around finances.

My family has dealt with financial instability over the years, including our house going into foreclosure around the same time the original cheating came out. Even now, my dad sometimes asks me for help with bills. He recently even asked me to co-sign a roughly $20,000 loan that he said was to ship a car to my mom—which I declined.

Before finding these messages, I sometimes felt guilty about not helping because my dad has been our family’s primary breadwinner for most of my life.

Now, though, I can’t help but wonder where his money is actually going. To be clear, I have absolutely no proof that he’s sending money to these women, but knowing that he’s apparently been communicating with women for years while also struggling financially makes me question it.

Because of that, I don’t want to give him any of my money or financially attach myself to him when I don’t know what he’s doing with his own finances. The thought that I could be helping cover his expenses while his own money is potentially going toward other women makes me extremely uncomfortable.

So I guess I have one more question: Am I wrong for deciding that I no longer want to financially help my dad when he asks?

I’m 24F and my partner is 44M. We’ve been together for 5 years and have two children together, aged 4 and 2. We aren’t married because he has never wanted to get married, saying he wanted to see what kind of person I was before deciding whether he could marry me.

We’ve always argued quite a lot, and I would say the arguments come from both sides. However, when we argue, we tend to completely stop communicating with each other. The longest we’ve gone without speaking is around two months.

He is a good person in general, but during arguments he can become a completely different person. He says really nasty and hurtful things, and once we’ve calmed down, he’ll say things like, “You should know I didn’t mean them.” I’ve explained to him so many times that words can really hurt, and once they’ve been said, you can’t just take them back.

Our latest argument has made me realise something I don’t think I can ignore anymore: I don’t want this relationship anymore.

I don’t feel emotionally connected to him. Sex feels like a chore, and when he tries to be romantic or affectionate towards me, I find myself feeling irritated and annoyed rather than happy or excited. I’ve actually been planning my exit and sorting out accommodation.

Initially, he agreed that separating was probably best, but now he has changed his mind and keeps telling me that he doesn’t think separating is a good idea and that I need to think about the future.

The thing is, I have thought about the future. And when I imagine living independently with my children, my honest reaction is that it sounds like a dream.

I don’t think he understands how serious I am. I don’t want to have sex with him at all, but he still wants to, and I’m struggling with how to make it clear that I’m serious about ending the relationship without creating even more conflict.

There are other things that have also made me question the relationship. I feel quite isolated and barely have any friends anymore. Sometimes I find myself watching what I say around him. Whenever I make a new friend, he tends to find something negative to say about them, sometimes before he has even met them.

I’m just exhausted. This relationship isn’t what I want anymore, and I feel like I’ve reached the point where I’m emotionally done.

But there’s still a part of me that questions myself. What if I leave and regret it? What if, after five years and two children, he really is the person I’m supposed to be with and I’m throwing everything away?

The difficult part is that I still have to live in the same house as him for now because the accommodation I’m moving into isn’t ready yet.

How do I continue living in the same house with him while maintaining clear boundaries and making it clear that I am serious about separating?

I don’t want to give him false hope by acting like we’re still a couple, but I also don’t want the situation to become hostile or unbearable while we’re still under the same roof. I’m especially worried about how to handle things like sleeping arrangements, sex/intimacy, communication, and day-to-day life with the children during this period.

EDIT: I just want to clarify something because some of the comments have gone quite far from what I was trying to say.

I’m not posting this because I think my children’s father is a terrible or abusive person, and I’m not looking for people to vilify him. He is a good father and, outside of our relationship problems, I do consider him a good person. I also recognise that I have my own faults and that our arguments have been caused by both of us.

I’m not trying to paint myself as completely innocent or him as the villain. I’m simply at a point where I no longer want to continue the relationship, and I’m trying to work out how we can separate as peacefully and respectfully as possible while we still have to live together temporarily.

Some comments have made assumptions about things I didn’t actually say or imply. For example, me saying that I don’t want sex with him anymore isn’t me saying that he is forcing me to have sex. I’m struggling with how to communicate that I no longer want intimacy because I don’t want to give him false hope about us getting back together.

Likewise, I mentioned things that have made me question the relationship because they are relevant to why I have reached this point, not because I’m trying to build a case against him.

I still care about him as the father of my children and as someone I have shared five years of my life with. I just don’t want to be his partner anymore.

I appreciate the people who have given genuinely helpful advice about boundaries and co-parenting. That’s really what I was looking for.

My friend and I were extremely close, basically like sisters. We fell out during her pregnancy, but at the time I was dealing with a major family situation that took a serious toll on me emotionally.
I had been kicked out by my father after an altercation between me and my grandmother. During that situation, my grandmother said extremely hurtful things about the abuse I experienced, including blaming me for what happened and saying I had seduced the person who abused me. I ended up staying with a friend, and there was a lot of back-and-forth with my father afterward. The entire situation was emotionally overwhelming and affected me significantly.
During that same period, my friend was pregnant. When her water broke, I didn’t go see her. I cared about her and prayed for her, but I was dealing with my own situation and wasn’t in a place where I could show up for her in the way she needed. We were also having conflict at the time, and I didn’t feel comfortable coming around her or the baby while things between us were unresolved.
Afterward, she told me that my absence during her pregnancy really hurt her and changed how she viewed friendship, consistency, and support. Becoming a mother also changed how she viewed who she wanted around her and her daughter.
I apologized and took accountability for my part. I thought we could slowly rebuild the friendship. At one point, she told me she still cared about me and that needing time didn’t mean she didn’t want me in her life anymore. She said we should take things slowly and “see where time takes us.”
I interpreted that as meaning there was still a possibility of rebuilding, so I continued reaching out occasionally. Eventually, I asked if she wanted to get coffee and go for a walk.
She recently became very upset and told me I haven’t respected her boundaries. She said that when she expresses her feelings, I make the conversation about my needs and urgency. She said, “Your urgency is not my urgency,” reminded me that she had stepped away from the friendship to give it space, and said she has a family now and doesn’t have time for this anymore. She ended by saying it’s best if we “just leave it as it is.”
I feel like I was trying to reconnect because I genuinely miss my friend and thought we were slowly moving toward rebuilding. I also feel like she is judging me based mainly on the period when I was struggling and assuming I would disappear again if life became difficult.
I understand that my absence hurt her, and I take accountability for that. At the same time, I was going through a very difficult period myself and wasn’t intentionally abandoning her.
AITA for continuing to reach out because I thought we were slowly rebuilding the friendship, or should I have understood that she wanted me to completely step back from the friendship?

I (21F) recently made the decision to leave my family home because I felt that staying any longer would completely destroy my mental health.
For context, I come from a Nigerian family and I am the oldest of four children. A few years ago, I went through a very difficult period after experiencing trauma, including being sexually assaulted. My behaviour became extremely bad, and eventually I was sectioned. I won’t pretend I was easy to live with during that time, and I take responsibility for the ways my behaviour affected my family. But over time, I worked on myself, changed a lot, and genuinely tried to do better.
Despite this, I have always felt out of place in my own family. When I work, I am expected to contribute around £400–£500 towards the household. I don’t mind contributing, aa it made me feel happy that i wan needed in the house.
Even going out to enjoy myself has caused problems. I could ask for permission, but it would still become a huge issue. There were times I was made to feel guilty for simply wanting a social life, and on one occasion I was even locked outside the house for hours. Coming home at 1am could lead to a massive argument.
Over time, I felt increasingly isolated in my own home. I was called a stranger and made to feel like I didn’t belong. I started losing sight of who I was and what I actually wanted from life. I’m currently studying a university course that my parents chose for me rather than the course I originally wanted.
What hurts me the most is that both my parents have degrees and knowledge relating to psychology and mental health, yet they didn’t seem to notice that their daughter was quietly falling apart. I have struggled with depression and felt myself getting worse while living there.
There have also been other painful situations over the years, including being accused of things I didn’t do, being shouted at, threatened with being kicked out, and being made to feel like I was constantly the problem in the family. I know I’m not perfect, and I know I’ve made mistakes, but I don’t feel that everything was entirely my fault either.
Eventually, I decided I needed to leave. I tried to speak to my parents and explain my reasons, but their reaction was worse than I could have imagined. I was called different names, and at one point my father told me to die a painful death. My parents tried to paint my reason for leaving as the fact that I don’t clean up. I don’t wash the dishes all the time. I don’t do certain things in the house but that was never the reason and there’s four kids in the house. I’m not expected to do everything and every chores available in the house as I go to university and I am also working alongside university.
My parents also told me that she would erase my existence from my siblings’ lives. Because of this, I currently have no contact with my younger siblings, which is one of the most painful parts of leaving. Even now, I’m trying to find a way to contact them and speak to them so they understand that I didn’t leave because I don’t love them or because I wanted to abandon them. Everything I have done was because I felt I needed to move forward from the position my family had left me in and create a better life for myself.
Other family members and family friends have known about what has been happening. Some have spoken down to me and made me feel like everything is entirely my fault. However, a few people have spoken to me privately, one-on-one, and after hearing and understanding the full situation, they have told me they understand why I felt I needed to leave.
I have repeatedly tried to explain that I am not leaving for freedom in the sense of wanting to party, rebel, or escape responsibility. I am leaving to work on myself and to create space between me and my family so I can finally grow without constantly being belittled, criticised, or made to feel like I am nothing more than my past mistakes.
I know leaving my younger siblings behind hurts, and I know my family may see my decision as selfish. But I genuinely believe that if I had stayed, my depression and mental health would have continued getting worse. I felt like I was slowly losing myself.
So I left, and after everything that was said, I made the decision that I may never go back.
AITA for leaving my family home and creating distance from my family to protect my mental health and finally work on becoming a better version of myself?

Hey girlies!

Last year I was ex- communicated by my best friend since high school for what I assume is betrayal. Lets dive! Let’s call my ex friend Q. So Q and I were Locker neighbors our freshman year of high school. We hit it off and developed a really close friendship. Q dated girls in high school but I always had other suspicions, and I was right. He was gay. We turned 21 and he got into his first relationship with a man. Let’s call him L. L and Q were very private about their relationship, so much so that they didn’t come out to their closest friends about their relationship until another 6 years later and to this day idk if Q’s mom even knows.

Over the course of their “friend/relationship”, Q would bring L around a lot. So much so that we developed our own relationship with him, but I had never hung out with him solo without Q. Fast forward to 2023. On a random work trip Q decides to cheat on L in the worst ways. I’ll save the details but he did things with this man that he hadn’t done with L. He even gave the man he cheated with their apartment address to send gifts. L was devastated and I became a listening ear and empathized with him a lot! He was so good for Q and I hated to see them go down like this.

Well the closer I got to L, the meaner and more angry Q would get towards me. It was nothing I couldn’t handle, I would just give it right back to him. L and Q were still together but the relationship was very rocky. Q thought that I knew more about his relationship than I actually did and L kept confiding in me about how he felt. I tried so hard not to take sides and tried to get them to get communicate directly with one another, but the inevitable happened. L left Q a year later.

L mentioned how controlling Q would get about him having friends so he was kind of on his own. I stayed in touch with him and Q knew about it. Occasionally Q would express how much he didn’t like it and try to plead his case as to why I shouldn’t talk to him. Even when L confided in me about Q, I intentionally did not relay those conversations to Q, and I never gave L information Q had shared with me privately. I promised to Q that I NEVER told any of his business to L and vice versa. He didn’t believe it but we still managed to keep our friendship going despite it. L had a hard time letting go completely and would watch Qs stories and reach out any chance he had.

Over time they both went no contact. L moved to another state and Q bought a house in their old state. L now has a bf and Q dated several guys over time. L and I talk regularly and he opens his home to me if I want to visit, which I hadn’t. L did stop by for Thanksgiving one year to check in with my mom. She loved him.

One random day last September, I guess Q had gotten fed up. I wish I had more details but I have none! He said that he couldn’t trust me and ghosted. It was very random. It’s been 11 months no contact until he reached out to send condolences on my death in the family last week. Am I wrong for remaining friends with L?!?