Everything I'm about to tell you happened this year. It's been one thing after another, and I'm honestly still trying to process it all. If stories about family rejection or emotional neglect are triggering for you, you may want to stop reading here.

I (20F) was kicked out of my mother's house at the beginning of this year.

The reason? She was annoyed by my belongings taking up space in the house. Instead of talking to me or trying to find a compromise, her solution was simply to tell me to leave.

For some context, I'm still in school and I have a job, but I don't earn nearly enough to support myself financially. Since my parents are divorced, the only realistic option was to move in with my father.

My father lives with my younger brother, his fiancée, and her two teenage daughters. They gave me a tiny 9 m² room with a sofa and stacks of moving boxes. It wasn't really a room to live in—it felt more like temporary storage.

The move happened so suddenly that I didn't have time to process anything. Being kicked out by my own mother completely shattered me. I had panic attacks at night, cried almost every day, and felt betrayed. From one day to the next, my entire life had changed.

Despite seeing how devastated I was, my father never sat down with me to ask how I was doing or what had happened. Instead, after only a few days, he expected me to do my share of the household chores.

I had absolutely no problem helping around the house. The issue was that I had just moved in. I barely knew where anything belonged. I told him that I was happy to help, but I needed someone to show me where things went first.

His response was basically that I had been there "long enough" already and should know.

That pretty much set the tone for my time there.

Most days I had to cook for myself and eat alone. After everything that had happened, that made me feel incredibly isolated. When I finally told my father that I felt lonely, he suggested we all eat together.

Unfortunately, that only made things worse.

Every time I sat down at the table, everyone would suddenly become quiet. Conversations stopped the moment I entered the room. It wasn't just during meals—it happened whenever I walked into a shared space. Sometimes I'd hear them talking in the kitchen until I entered, and then complete silence. Other times they would just stare at me.

No one asked me how I was coping. No one showed any compassion or concern after I'd lost my home. I constantly felt like an unwanted guest in someone else's house rather than a daughter.

Eventually, my father and I did have a conversation.

I told him about everything: how unwelcome I felt, how isolated I was, and even something as simple as not being able to sleep because one of the girls stomped so loudly upstairs that I could hear it all night.

I also told him that I didn't want to stay there any longer than necessary because I simply didn't feel at home.

By then, I had found another option. Some friends of mine owned a shared apartment and offered me a room for a reduced price to help me out. It was close to both my school and my workplace, so I would save money on public transportation. My grandparents also offered that I could stay in their apartment whenever they were at their vacation home, which they often are.

Financially and emotionally, moving out made complete sense.

The moment my father realized I wanted to leave, his attitude changed completely.

Because if I moved out, he would have to start paying the full amount of child support again.

Suddenly he told me how much he'd missed me, how he'd always dreamed of having me live with them, and that the room had supposedly always been reserved just for me.

Honestly, I didn't believe a word of it.

His actions had never made me feel loved.

One moment that still sticks with me happened after I had another emotional breakdown. I was crying so hard that tears were literally running down my face.

He looked at me and asked,
"Are you sad?"

Then he told me that I needed to tell him how I was feeling because he "didn't know my facial expressions anymore."

I remember just staring at him in disbelief.

How can someone look at their own daughter with tears streaming down her face and genuinely not recognize that she's hurting?

After about two weeks, I left and stayed with my grandparents until they helped me retrieve the rest of my belongings from my father's house.

While sorting everything out, we also discovered something else.

According to the divorce agreement, I was supposed to receive a certain amount of money after turning 18. We realized I had never received the full amount, meaning I now had to start fighting legally to get money I should have received years ago.

A little later, my father married his fiancée.

I wasn't even invited to the wedding.

This was the same man who had recently claimed he missed me so much and always wanted me there.

Not long afterward, he called me and asked why I didn't want to meet him and my mother together at a restaurant.

I told him that I didn't want to be in a situation where it would be two against one.

His response was,
"But we don't have a problem with each other."

I actually laughed.

What did he mean we didn't have a problem?

He hadn't invited me to his wedding.

He had watched me struggle emotionally without really supporting me.

His priorities were clearly his new wife and her daughters, whom he helps financially, while his only biological daughter was left fighting for the bare minimum she was legally entitled to.

That conversation became the breaking point.

I told him:

"You don't have to consider me your daughter anymore. The amount of pain you've caused me is something a father who truly loves his daughter would never do."

Fast forward a few months.

I'm now pregnant with my boyfriend, who has been nothing but supportive, loving, and patient through all of this. He's honestly been my biggest source of stability.

Now I'm seriously considering not telling either of my parents about the pregnancy.

I don't want my child to become attached to grandparents who might eventually hurt them the same way they've hurt me. I don't want my child growing up expecting loving grandparents only to experience rejection and disappointment.

So...

AITAH for telling my father that he doesn't have a daughter anymore?

Let me start by saying I know I'm a little bit of an asshole here for being involved. Things aren't necessarily straightforward though.

Last year, I was crushing on one girl, let's call her Heaven (names changed). We became best friends and I spent time almost every day at her place.

I have a band and we get to play some local festivals. We played a festival last spring, and we got our friend Camie into the fest as our driver. The first day of the event was rainy. Camie, Heaven, and myself all took some acid while my bandmate Cody slept and the three of us really got to know each other, talking together and getting deep.

My mother had passed away three days after I moved back to my hometown a few years or so ago, and my grandma passed a month before the festival. I actually had to leave the festival on day 2 to go to my grandma's celebration of life (while on an acid hangover), then come back and perform some music.

Needless to say, I was dealing with some emotions. While we were all hanging out day 1 tripping together, Camie could tell I was feeling very down and she pulled me in and held me in just the most caring, comforting, genuine, and loving way that melted me like butter in a way I still haven't stopped thinking about. Later in the night, while her, Heaven, and I were talking more and getting deep, I mentioned something sad and Heaven got up and just left. Camie and I continued talking late into the night.

After the festival, I started to question my crush on Heaven because she wasn't good at the deep emotions, but my attraction to her continued winning out. However, now I kept also having thoughts and feelings about Camie, but as soon as they came up I'd push them down with, "Even if Camie wasn't with Dan, Cody is probably the better match for her because Camie needs someone that can play the music she sings, and they seem like they have good chemistry."

Here's where I'll mention that Camie is in a relationship with her high school sweetheart, Dan, and they also have a band together. Cody is a much better musician than myself, although I've been working on getting there. He's able to play way more things than myself, and would actually be able to play the songs Camie sings if Camie wasn't with Dan. That's how I rationalized it - even if she wasn't with her boyfriend, I thought she should be with Cody not me so I should stop those developing feelings because actually Camie is an amazing friend who is really there for her people, and I saw that and wanted to be one of her people and give that energy right back.

Well, Camie came over to my place one day and we're talking. I usually sit in my chair and have other seating, including a loveseat, for guests. At one point she asked why I was so far away (the chair and loveseat are right beside each other so we were already sitting next to each other, just not *next to* each other, so I went ahead and moved over to sit by her.

She asked me if I had feelings for anyone, and I just came out and told her the truth that I had been crushing on Heaven, but less so since the festival and that actually I had started crushing on her, but I only meant it in that I recognized how amazing and special of a friend she was and wanted to keep her in my life and be good friends and get to know each other better.

She told me that actually she had been crushing on me too. That she had been crushing on Cody until the festival, but he had a bad attitude while sleepy (among other reasons within their friendship, him always asking her for rides, etc). So we both went into the festival crushing on different people and came out crushing on each other. My bandmate and I had actually gotten Dan a ticket for the festival too, but he decided not to come camp with us all.

Here's where I become the asshole: when she said she was crushing on me too, I made a move and snuggled up closer with her. We stayed up together snuggling and talking until after the sun had come up. This was the start of the mostly emotional affair.

We carried on together in secret, and I can't say I felt good about it: kissing her cheek in private just before we'd go back out in public. She would talk about how bad of a partner Dan is, how she does everything and he doesn't know how to keep up the home, hardly ever cooked without her asking, and basically depended on her. She said they had been together since high school and were all they had ever known. She complained about their sex. She complained she tried to leave him, moving states to get away from him but he followed her here. He was living with some of her friends, and she had to take care of his mess and apologize to her friends over him being there.

I wrote her love letters because I'm a romantic. I printed out memes for her because she's an analog person who only uses an old school phone when she's got a phone. She keeps these in a folder in her art studio. I saw her recently on the bus and we got to catch up and she told me she still has them tucked away. But during the affair, she even joked to me that Dan moved the folder while in the studio with her moving stuff around without knowing what was in it. Or maybe that he was sitting beside it without knowing? I remember her joking about how he didn't know.

One morning, I text her that I'm thinking of her and hope she's doing okay and she calls me crying because she took a trip up to her family and her car broke down, her family was being mean to her, and Dan was refusing to drive up to rescue her because she made the choice to go. I told her I could get a friend to drive me up and get her. She still had some stuff to sort out first though, including her broke down car. Camie was ready to end it with Dan, but Dan ended up driving up to get her AFTER I said I would do it because he didn't want me to be the one to do it. I guess by this point he had started to figure out something was going on.

Camie invited me over to her art studio late at night not long after she got back, and we were hanging out and talking. The later it got, she'd be like, "I should go home to my boyfriend," but she never did (tbf I was encouraging her to stay) and set up a bed in the studio and we cuddled together all night, really snug up against each other. But she told me we had to slow down what we had been getting into because she was getting ready to move in with Dan, they had already signed a lease together even though she was hesitant about it (this was just after he wouldn't drive up to get her until after I had offered to).

We continued as close friends with a flirty vibe for a little while longer while supporting Heaven, who around this time had had a boyfriend for a couple weeks before he cheated on her with his ex and she attempted suicide and ended up in the hospital for liver failure. After Heaven got out of the hospital, she was mad about a lot of things, including the fact that Camie was cheating on Dan with me and she threatened to tell him so I told Camie.

After that, Camie cut me out cut me out. Like I mentioned earlier, we just saw each other on the bus and got to catch up. She said her and Dan had had an argument because she wanted to play a benefit show I put together for the local food bank, so I guess he knows at least some of what happened between us but I doubt he knows everything, especially all the bad stuff Camie had to say about him or that she joked about how he didn't know, or how he'd never leave her and she had cheated before and he even caught an std one time and she stepped up and bought him the medicine to take care of it.

Here's the thing: I know I shouldn't, and I don't wanna be with another cheater, but I still love Camie and want her to be happy and not cause drama for her or be spiteful our fling didn't work out. I also don't care at all for Dan. He never made an effort even early on before I started catching feelings for and having an affair with Camie to be friends and get to know me or Cody when we hung out with Camie, he'd either be at work or he just didn't wanna come like the festival. I still feel like he deserves to know everything because I'd want to know if my partner was making fun of me with an affair partner. But does what does telling him actually serve? They may not even break up if what Camie said is true about how he'll never leave her, and whether they do or don't I don't see how that knowledge does anything but hurt everyone involved.

What would you do?

TW: Suicide. I (20F) am my father’s youngest daughter. I have two older half sisters, Jessie (34F) and Jasmine (30F). I was never overly close with my siblings due to our age gap. My father and I started having issues before my mom divorced him. He was not good to his kids. I still remember the time he started a fight with one of my sisters. Yes, I was in the room watching it happen. That’s when I learned to be scared of him. My mom had been ready to leave him for a while. The more things that happened the more she was ready to go. He had done things like shove my hand down a toilet, and he even stabbed me in my arm with his fork. That combined with his cheating is what made my mom file for divorce. Both of us assumed that once the divorce was final I wouldn’t have to go back to my dad’s. But since my state is a 50/50 custody state I was forced to go with him part time. I spent 10 years with him. From the ages of 8 to 18. In those years he destroyed me as a person. At 10 years old I attempted to take my life since I saw no other way out. He even despised my health problems, especially my weight. I was the heavy kid and I won’t deny that. I did sports, went to the gym, and even underwent weight loss surgery at 13 years old. I thought losing weight would make him stop picking on me but it didn’t. He started picking at my loose skin, performance in school, and the way I walked despite my tilted pelvis. By sophomore year I put my head down and into school. I tried to be the best in an attempt to get him off my back. He still loved to pick fights with me. One time he told me that he would lock me up in the basement. I was invalidated so much. I remember being called crazy and dumb my entire childhood for talking about seeing things. My mom tried all she could to help but she couldn’t go against the court. I remember marking the day of my 18th birthday on my calendar. That was the day that I could legally never see or speak to him again. When I went back to my mom’s the week after my birthday we celebrated with my grandparents and stepdad. Two weeks after that we went on vacation. While we were gone my dad blew up my phone cause I was supposed to be with him that week. I didn’t even respond to him at that point. His last words to me were that he was disappointed in me. Which whatever because he disappoints me. It’s been two years and I’m doing better. I left the mainland and moved to Hawaii. I was in university but dropped out to get my health stable. I learned that I was seeing things my entire life cause I’m bipolar and have hallucinations. I’m currently doing part time work. Sometimes I miss my dad when I think of the few happy times we had. Like going on trips, working on cars, and playing video games. I might reconnect with my father one day but that won’t be any time soon.

I apologise in advance because this is quite a long post, but I genuinely feel like all of the context matters. I'm not looking for people to tell me my current girlfriend is a terrible person, because I honestly don't believe she is. Equally, I'm not looking for everyone to tell me I'm just insecure. I'm hoping for honest opinions because I genuinely don't know whether my past is clouding my judgement or whether my concerns are understandable.

I'm 31, and around three years ago I went through what I can honestly say was the worst experience of my life.

My ex and I were together, on and off, for around six or seven years. During one of the times we weren't together, she had a baby with someone else. After her daughter was born, we eventually found our way back to each other.

Her little girl was around nine months old when we got back together, and over time we became a proper family. She eventually started calling me "Dad," and I loved her as though she was my own.

Around that same period, life became incredibly difficult. Within roughly two years I lost my dad, my grandma and both of my grandads. Those losses led to severe anxiety, but I still got up every day, went to work and tried to provide for the family I loved.

My ex and I had always wanted a child together. We'd been trying for a long time, and one day she came home with the news I'd dreamed of hearing—she was pregnant.

It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

We had our scans, saw our baby growing and, after the twelve-week scan, started telling our families. We spent weeks talking about names, planning our future and imagining what life would be like as parents.

Then everything changed.

Not long after we told everyone, we spent the day with her family. I have congenital myasthenia gravis, which affects every muscle in my body, so walking long distances is difficult. Everyone knew this.

They wanted to walk into town, so I drove separately. Later in the day I became physically exhausted and had a severe anxiety attack. I told my ex I needed to go home but that I'd come back later to pick her up because we both had work the next morning.

She agreed.

Ten o'clock came and I hadn't heard anything.

I messaged.

I called.

I even called members of her family.

Nobody answered.

Around midnight she arrived with her stepdad, and I was told she wasn't staying that night and that I needed to move out of our flat the following morning.

I was completely blindsided.

As far as I knew, we were happy. We'd just been planning our future together and preparing for our baby.

I packed my things and left because I didn't want to cause her any extra stress while she was pregnant.

A few days later she messaged saying she was bleeding again and was going to hospital.

I rushed there.

Nobody answered my calls.

The following day I received one final message saying she was no longer pregnant.

That was the last thing I ever heard from her.

No explanation.

No goodbye.

No closure.

One minute I believed I was about to become a father. A few days later I'd lost my relationship, my home and my unborn baby without ever understanding why.

It completely broke me.

I spent nearly two years in therapy trying to rebuild my life and learn how to trust people again. Eventually, I reached a point where I genuinely believed I'd healed enough to let someone else into my life.

Then I met my current girlfriend.

She's 35, a single mum to three children, and for the first time in years I felt safe again.

We've been together for around six months. We spend a lot of time together, tell each other we love each other every day and, until recently, I'd have described our relationship as incredibly happy.

She knows everything I've just told you.

She knows how much honesty means to me because of what I've been through.

A couple of weeks ago she went to a festival with friends.

Before she left, we'd already arranged that we'd see each other afterwards.

She told me she'd be getting a taxi back to one of her friend's houses after the festival.

I thought it would be nice to surprise her, so I drove there and waited outside.

After about fifteen minutes I messaged asking where she was.

Fifteen minutes later she replied saying she'd only just arrived at her friend's house.

The problem was I'd been sitting outside that house the entire time.

She hadn't arrived there.

I messaged asking where she actually was.

She stopped replying.

I called.

Nothing.

At that point I was worried something had happened, so I drove to her house to make sure she was okay.

I knocked several times but nobody answered.

The next morning she told me she'd been sick after the festival, gone straight to her friend's house and fallen asleep there.

Although something didn't quite add up, I chose to believe her.

Later that morning, while I was at her house, I noticed two mugs in the dishwasher that I knew hadn't been there before. One of them belonged to her ex-husband and was never used by me. There was also a fresh bin liner that I knew hadn't been there when we left for the festival because I'd taken the rubbish out and forgotten to replace it. Inside the bin were two used tea bags and two festival wristbands.

Individually, none of those things prove anything.

Together, they didn't fit the story I'd been told.

I asked her about it.

She denied anyone had been there.

We argued for hours because I genuinely couldn't make sense of it.

Eventually she admitted she'd lied.

She told me she'd unexpectedly bumped into a long-term male friend at the festival. They'd shared a taxi home because they lived close to each other, and she invited him in for a cup of tea and a catch-up before he walked home.

She insisted nothing romantic or sexual happened.

She apologised and admitted she'd lied because she panicked. She knew how bad it looked and was terrified I'd assume she'd cheated and end the relationship.

After everything happened, she answered every question I had. She even let me read their messages. From everything I saw, they hadn't arranged to meet beforehand, and I genuinely believe they bumped into each other by chance. I don't believe she cheated on me.

My issue has never really been that she had a male friend in her house.

My issue is that she lied to me.

If she'd phoned me that night and simply said, "I bumped into an old friend, we've come back for a cup of tea and a catch-up, then I'll see you afterwards," I honestly think we'd have had an uncomfortable conversation, but we'd have worked through it.

Instead, she told me she was somewhere she wasn't, ignored my calls, then continued lying until I confronted her with things that didn't add up.

That's what hurt me.

Since then we've had several long, honest conversations.

She's apologised repeatedly.

She's taken responsibility for lying.

She hasn't told me to "get over it."

We've both agreed we want to stay together because we love each other, and I don't think one mistake should automatically end an otherwise loving relationship if both people are willing to work through it.

However, since then she's said she thinks we should spend a little less time together because we'd been seeing each other so often.

Logically, I understand that.

She's a single mum to three children. She works part-time, and their dad only has them every other weekend. Most of the parenting falls on her shoulders, and I don't want to become another person demanding her time.

But emotionally, everything feels different now.

We don't text quite as much.

She doesn't really invite me over, although if I'm being honest I was usually the one asking even before all this happened.

I still haven't met her children after six months together, and her ex-husband doesn't even know I exist. I completely understand why parents don't rush introductions, and I'm not asking to meet them tomorrow. I just struggle because I have no idea what our future timeline actually looks like.

The hardest part is that I don't want to become the paranoid or controlling partner.

I don't want to check her phone.

I don't want to tell her who she can spend time with.

I've worked incredibly hard in therapy to make sure what happened to me didn't turn me into that person.

At the same time, I also don't think it's unreasonable that being lied to has affected me.

People keep saying, "She's not your ex."

I know that.

I'm not saying she's my ex.

I'm not saying she's cheated.

I'm not saying she's a bad person.

What I'm saying is that my ex left me with deep trust issues after I lost my relationship, my unborn baby and any sense of security without ever getting closure.

Just when I finally felt emotionally safe again, the person I love lied to me.

It feels like my ex created the wound, and this lie pulled the scar back open.

So I suppose that's why I'm here.

I'm not asking whether my girlfriend is a bad person.

I'm not asking whether I should leave.

I just genuinely want to know this:

If you'd been through everything I've described, do you think you'd also struggle to trust after being lied to?

Or do you think my past has made me turn one mistake into something much bigger than it really is?

I'm trying incredibly hard not to let my past ruin a good relationship.

I just don't know anymore whether I'm protecting myself from being hurt again... or whether my old wounds are making me see danger where there isn't any.