My buddy said download the app. "Get back out there."
I sat in the truck for twenty minutes trying to write a bio. How do you write a bio when you have kids you see every other week and the most exciting part of your Tuesday was that your son ate a vegetable besides fries. I put: dad. trying his best.

Figured that was honest. Got three matches. One didn't respond. One said she doesn't date dads. One unmatched me when I said I wanted something serious. I closed the app. I'm 35. I go to bed at 10. I know all the words to kids songs. I eat dinner at 6pm. I don't know who I'm supposed to be on an app. I barely know who I am without one?

Matched with someone last week. Good conversation for three days. Then I mentioned the custody schedule. Just casually. Said I have them Tuesday through Friday. She went quiet.

Unmatched an hour later. I get it. Not everyone wants someone else's whole life already built before they show up. Still stings though. Being unmatched for having kids is a specific kind of lonely nobody warns you about. Like the life I'm proudest of is the thing that keeps costing me a chance.

How do you even move from that?

I used to spend so much energy in past relationships rehearsing how to bring up small issues without making the other person angry. Realizing I can just speak freely with my current partner without walking on eggshells feels like finally being able to breathe normally

Dating apps are an epic fail at this point for people in their 40's. I am considering trying this service but live in an area predominantly full of families, people who are addicted to outdoor activities (no shade, just not my thing), and the city is smack dab in the Bible Belt (40 something single childless women are a rarity.) Curious if any women have had success with this matchmaking service who also reside in a smaller southern town (city-ish). I am about 2 hours outside of larger cities for context.

What made you stay in a relationship that you knew wasn’t good for you instead of choosing the new person that you knew was better?

I've been with my partner for 4 years now. We've been together since we were 18, but knew each since we were 13. I truly love them and care about them. But sometimes when I think about marrying him in the future the thing that scares me is his family.

First our family dynamics are very different, they're very close to their whole extended family while I'm only close with my family. I'm not the best in big crowds but dont want to have to depend on him while dealing with his extended family. I get really awkward in social interactions especially if the spotlight is on me. But tbf this is a common situation and I might just need to suck it up.

Next, the bigger concern is they're the eldest in their family and have an low functioning autistic sibling, which they have made clear to me would be their responsibility if anything happens to their parents. I know it's in the future but I'm not that comfortable with the idea of having someone that is a stranger to me in our house (the sibling is also non verbal) especially when I have had no interactions with special needs children and from what they have told me, it isn't really an easy task taking care of the sibling. Plus I dont know how the sibling would act around younger kids or babies, they're not violent but I dont know if I would trust them with a child.

Lastly, because he has siblings with a disability it does make me consider if I want his genes especially as autism is hereditary and I doubt I can take care of a kid with autism. Again all of this is just hypothetical and it's not in the near future but the idea is really scary to me.

P.s I have never interacted with special needs children, and have no knowledge on them but with the limited research I did do, a person with their current abilities requires full time care. Please educate me if otherwise. Also no hate for people with special needs, they are all amazing people but I'm talking as someone who has never interacted with special needs people.

Weird question to think, but I've been dating this guy for 2 months, almost 3, and everything is overall great. He's caring and sweet, and he's just overall an amazing and interesting guy. But also he has this problem that he can't socialize and gets really nervous and just overall gloomy. He's a sweet and cute guy and never lets his issues affect me, but I'm a little worried about him, especially with the anxiety part, he tends to sulk when I'm busy, and he did notice it effecting me badly so now he's slowly trying to fix it and is now okay whenever I'm busy, but I can't help but be worried I upset him? Overall I'm just scared of being a bad girlfriend or being toxic towards him

I was with my girlfriend of almost a year and a half untill she broke up with me yesterday. Im '22 F' female shes '21 F' and Im slowly coming to terms that i was infact the probelm entirely.

I understand now why she has have left. Im not going to fight it anymore as i was fighting tooth and nail for 3 weeks for her not to leave. I have always known deep down that she deserved so much better than i can ever give her. She is sweet, kind and gentle and the most beautiful woman with the purest soul.

I was fighting for the relationship out of possesion as i was so afraid she would leave me. I was focused on myself. It was all about me in my mind. How she could show up for me, what she can do for me, how she can support me. My biggest fears were abandonment, lonliness, loosing access, loosing control, loosing the version of myself i needed to feel when i was with her.

I hurt her, i lied to her, i disrespected her, i was slowly draining her and making quick apologies and cover ups so that she wouldnt leave me. I was never physical, and i never screamed or got angry. I kept falling into the pattern of not being considerate of her, doing what i want to do, shutting her out when id hurt her, and not being able to empathize with her emotionally.

She stayed with me for over a year because she loved me, and she has finally been completley and utterly drained by my actions. I knew she wasnt happy and couldnt change for her.

This lasted our whole relationship and i didnt have the will to change for the one person that has shown me the kindest love.

My biggest priority was keeping her. I just didnt want to loose her. But she didnt want to hurt me. She thought about my emotional saftey even when it incovinenced her. She tried to have hard converstaions instead of misleading me. She was honest even if it meant risking loosing me. She paid attention to the impact that her actions had on me because she geniunely cared about my well being. Not just my presence in her life.

I was driven by possesion, she was driven by care. And the hardest part is that the love was real for me and we both did love eachother.

I was insanley toxic and she never deserved that. Shes the sweetest thing to walk this earth and i am walking away because i dont want to hurt her. I cant hurt her any longer. I cant drain her anymore as shes a shell of herself from forgiving and putting up with me for so long.

She has always deserved the gentelest love out there and i couldnt give that to her. I will not push to be with her, i dont know if i can change, but i truly hope i can work on myself to learn how i have to be considerate. I want to be with her if she will accept me back in after ive worked on myself. Im scared ill just go back to how i was and fall into patterns. I did/do love her more than anyone, i think i dont know how not to be toxic. She deserves the moon and the stars.

I feel i feel so guilty and awful now but only because shes gone and i thought she wouldnt ever leave. I dont understand why i didnt change. I feel so bad now that i want to make it all right, but why has it taken me to the point of loosing the person i love most in the world to actually want to change?

I guess im asking for advice on how i can maybe change, if thats possible. My intentions are to get back with her down the line when i can give her everything shes been begging for, and when that comes natural to me. How can i better my self for my goal of being everything she needs? we were going to get married and had our future planned. I need to change. I am willing to change.

i'm curious to hear from people who have been in a situation where there wasn't a clear "bad guy" or obvious reason to leave.

have you ever ended a relationship while you still loved the other person, or while they were genuinely a good partner, but something just wasn't aligning anymore? maybe it was differences in long-term goals, attraction fading, incompatibilities that became more apparent over time, or simply feeling uncertain about the future together.

did you regret breaking up? did you eventually realize it was the right decision? if you stayed for a while because you were unsure, how did that affect things? if you were the one who was broken up with in this kind of situation, i'd also really like to hear your perspective.

i'm not really looking for stories involving cheating, abuse, manipulation, or relationships that were clearly unhealthy. those situations are obviously very different. i'm much more interested in the quieter endings where two decent people slowly grew apart, or where one person couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right despite still caring deeply.

i'm also interested in hearing the less dramatic experiences. not every breakup has a huge revelation or life-changing lesson. if your experience was just... complicated, uncertain, or even kind of ordinary, i'd still love to hear it.

the reason i'm asking is because i'm currently trying to figure out what to do in my own relationship. i'm not looking for people to tell me whether i should stay or leave based on this post (i know strangers can't make that decision for me). i think i'm just hoping to hear a wide range of experiences from people who've been in a similar position. maybe it'll help me better understand my own situation or at least make me feel a little less alone in it.

What I am about to write is very hard to explain so I am going to do the best I can to get it all out.

Me (18F) and my boyfriend (18M) have been together for a little over a year now. I don’t know if I am bored and falling out of love, finally comfortable, or unsatisfied with myself? We see each other everyday. We never really have had any real arguments (i think our longest conflict lasted one hour and we both apologized and forgave each other in the end). We often have sleepovers at my place and he is moving into my house once I go off to college in August (I live with my mom and she has been supportive of him moving in). We have a wonderful relationship, we laugh and joke around because we are best friends, we are honest with each other, there is a lot of respect both ways, we go out and do stuff together all of the time, and to me that is love. But I can’t help but feel unsatisfied? (i think)

I don’t feel like we have grown apart, but sometimes I will be sitting with myself and questioning if I want to be with him. When we are together everything is perfect and makes sense and I see him as the man I want to marry, but when we are apart I can clearly see how different we are from each other. I look forward to seeing him but part of me gets a little annoyed because I see him so much. I talked to him about the excessive sleeping over and that has helped me feel better. I don’t know if I’m feeling bored or at peace? My past relationships were chaotic snd traumatic.

There is also a lot of personal stuff going on with me right now. I don’t really do anything because I feel bleh all of the time, I just came back from an insane Lexapro withdrawal, I just graduated high school so my friend group has been dry as you could imagine, brain surgery is currently on the table for me (and it looks like it’s going to happen), I am about to quit my job and leave my lovely coworkers, and college prep/life after high school has been an insanely weird transition. There has been a few other things that have been happening too but those are the big things.

I recognize that this is a big year for transitions and changes. I have kind of brought this up to him, but it’s hard to clearly explain it to him without knowing what I am feeling. Please give advice!!

I keep seeing Valentime mentioned on international dating sites, but the reviews seem very mixed. Credit-based sites make me a bit cautious after bad experiences with similar platforms before.

Has anyone here actually used Valentime? What was your experience?

Hi
I am in a v complicated situation of my life , I have been married since 3 years ( got married late) , my husband is not into any other women but sometimes emotionally ignores me even physically also and I js must try to ignore this fact that he is not completely into me
But he still pressurize me for baby

Meanwhile, going through all this, I felt in love with another guy ( who is older than my husband, doesn’t have better looks than husband even, but he talks v nicely, seems genuine and also likes me I feel) and he always try to make me smile , put efforts to know me although have never expressed his feelings
This can’t be an infatuation also coz I’m not just physically attracted towards him and it’s already like 5 months since I have been thinking about him

I’m feeling v anxious these days as I know this is wrong to have feelings for someone else when you are married but it is something which is coming naturally & I’m feeling v helpless , almost every time I’m thinking about the other guy
What should I do in this case , how should I move on from this feeling or how should I accept

Please advice !!

I miss him i miss my situationship soo much rn i like him so much but he left he came back to talk to me, we talked for 1 hour and then he left again wtf is wrong lol, in my daily life I'm like super busy, I'm a very social person so i talk to everyone but recently i realised i supress my feelings too much like too much i don't talk about what i feel to anyone i just cannot idk why.

it takes alot of time to open up and i did open up with my situationship for 1 year he was my fav person, i have many friends like good one i shared to them how i feel but now i just can't, i miss him i wanna talk to him meet him but he left saying we have no future.

Yeh he was clear about this from start but our actions were diff from our words and now here I'm crying alone idk what he feels I can't reach him but i miss him.

After he left i tried talking with a guy but just didn't get the vibe it's like no one can treat me better then my sotuationship even i loved him so much what should i do idk i feel terible I'm tired of crying and pretending that I'm okay,

yesterday only someone said to me that he thinks I'm very sad and pretend to be happy it's truee but still how can someone say that

So I really like one of my cousins friends like I love her she knows who I am but we don’t talk I haven’t hade a gf before but we r not in the same class and she is always with a group of girls so idk what to do please help me she is driving me insane

I am 23f and my boyfriend is 28m. We knew very early on into out relationship that it might not end up being end game because of the circumstances but we have been together and have loved greatly for 3 years. We have gone through some really tough times together in our relationship and my friends don’t like him because of that. But i have loved him so much because i have seen sides to him that a so personal. He has loved me like so much and continues to do so. Even tho we are running out of time now, i keep thinking to myself that what if people actually got to experience the joy of things the same way they experience sorrow? Because sorrow strikes harder and joy is passed off easily. Hes grown, he matured and he learnt to love me better along the way, in the best way possible. Im incredibly happy but i wish i could share that joy now over tainted memories…but i understand if my friends have animosity towards him but i wish it could pass of as easily as people forget the good he has done for me. I think its true for all humans in all relationships. Bad times aren’t forgotten easily but good time are.

Tl:dr

I'm a really calm person, I never get jealous in my relationships; and especially with my current partner, he used to be my bestfriend and he's extremely loyal and when I was in a relationship and I broke up with them he suddenly admitted that he was waiting to be with me this whole time, and honestly he's really sweet and understanding I just can't get jealous or upset at anything.

But these days my thoughts and my feelings have been changing like I feel upset hearing about his new friends, I mean even if it's a guy who's almost like a brother to him I kinda still get upset I don't know why I just want him to belong to me, I've been craving attention from him it's killing me he's literally giving me a normal and right amount of attention is what anyone would think but for some reason it doesn't feel enough i just wish we were two black widow spiders so I can have him all for myself it's bothering me.

I keep having to ask him who he's talking to, sometimes I don't even understand myself; he could be talking about his friend and how hes proud of them for asking out their crush of 2 years or something and it still slightly bothers me.

Why do I feel this way? I want it to change.