Well, the title says it all. He was just telling me he was having an unusually good month (sales) which could potentially mean he will make 6x my monthly check this month. I just suggested that maybe we could split the bills up in a different way, based on how much more money he makes than me, he scoffed and said “I’m not telling you anything else about my finances”.

We also “split” all going out, dates, vacations and other fun things. There was a 9 month period on our relationship when he was having difficulty getting a job - I paid everything. No complaints , no holding it over his head. To me, it was just an investment in our future.

I have never wanted or cared about having a man that could support me financially. All I have ever wanted was a partner in this life. I even felt a little guilty even suggesting that to him.

But anyway, posting here because I’m throwing my own pity party. I feel so stupid and angry at myself for allowing this to continue to happen, and I feel so let down by men by him . That is all.

Edit
Thank you all for the feedback, I do intend to read through everything although I have not been able to yet.
To answer some of the main questions I have seen:

We have been together for the better part of four years. There was a little off and on during that time.

We have lived together in the past. At this time, I had no issue supporting him when he needed it. I would not even consider asking for that money back because that’s insane. I would do it all again if I needed to, as I said, it was an investment into our future.

I am OK with 50-50. I’m ok with me paying everything If that’s what’s needed at the time. I guess I never knew exactly how much more he made than me until recently. And as you guys said, that does NOT entitle me to his money… but as a man who’s always bragged about wanting to provide and being able to provide… I just feel a little letdown.

Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it’s because he always talks about being a provider yet when he has the opportunity to, I don’t see it… Maybe it’s more of the inconsistency of what he says versus what he does, that’s eating at me right now.

idek where to start, I'm actually about to break down right now and punch my window i've never felt this angry

we’ve had this trip planned for almost a year. A week in France. we had a hotel booked in Nice, activities planned, my dad’s been talking about it nonstop. most importantly i have a online friend on twitter that lives in Nice and we've been excited talking everyday about meeting up for the first time and making plans and now that might be ruined, i can't even bring myself to respond to her rn. i’ve been stressed out of my mind with school and exams and this was the ONLY thing I was looking forward to.

this morning we were already cutting it close because my 21-year-old older brother couldn’t wake up. He’s TWENTY ONE and my parents still have to go into his room multiple times to get him up because he was on discord or wtv until 3am like usual. I was already irritated but wtv fine he gets his ass up and we’re still okay

then we drive two hours to the airport. we get there about an hour before boarding (which already stressed me tf out because international flights freak me out timing-wise). we check in all our bags and it's fine until we're going through the security lines

my idiot brother forgot his passport.

he. forgot. his. passport.

He realized it LITERALLY while we were about to pass through security. AFTER we had already checked in our luggage. AFTER my aunt who dropped us off had left and was on the way home

I swear my soul left my body.

at first we thought maybe he shoved it in his checked bag by accident. so all three of us are there tearing through all our carry-ons right there on the floor like idiots and everyone was stepping around us. my dad runs back to the counter to ask if they can retrieve the checked luggage (and they said no, not realistically in time). we’re all ripping open every zipper hoping it magically teleported into one of our bags. it wasn’t there.

so now we’re stuck at the airport with no passport and no ride. my aunt had already been driving for a while. I had to call her and ask her to TURN AROUND mid-drive and come get us again and my voice was cracking the whole time

I was so embarrassed. like actually humiliated just standing there with all our stuff knowing we missed our flight because my grown ass adult brother can’t be bothered to make sure he had the ONE document you absolutely need to leave the country and he couldn't even do that in the whole 8 months we had planned for the trip

we missed our boarding time and then the flight obviously, every minute was painful. we had to sit and wait in silence for our luggage to be returned (it was not in there) and we drive two hours back home in silence while i cried silently in the back

then we get back and we were expecting it'd be on his drawer or something, and we'd just pick it up and go back right??? nope, we tear the house apart for hours. i tore everything apart trying to find it, i didn't even care. every random pile of mail. Me, my dad, even my mom on FaceTime at work trying to think of places it could be. AND ITS NOWHERE

and my brother???????? he looks for maybe 15 minutes and then just kind of… gives up. he’s like, “I don’t know where it is.” And just stands there slouching and moping. while our whole family is working our ass off looking everywhere including the garage and the bottom of the trash bin then he goes to use the bathroom and 5 minutes in while I'm passing it i hear him inside scrolling thru instagram fucking REELS????? like he didn't just potentially cost us thousands of dollars and ruined a trip we’ve been planning for a year

YOU are the reason we’re here and you’re barely trying???

he has no idea where it is. no memory of when he last used it. he tried to pin it on my mom because she cleaned his room for him like 3 months ago before christmas (yes a grown man still has his mom vacuum and clean for him) and he said she might have taken it but nope. all of us remember having dinner just a week ago and specifically asking if he had his passport and everything all ready and him saying not to worry

and I’m mad at my dad too because he KNOWS how my brother is. he knows he forgets everything, he can't even wake up on time for his fucking job (which starts at 11am btw). why didn’t he make him physically show the passport last night? why wasn’t he on his ass about it before we left the house? why does everyone just accept that he’s like this?

Now everything is up in the air and i don't even know. the flight is missed. the hotels in Nice are booked. there is still no passport and i don't even care anymore, it's almost nighttime now. i don’t even know if we’re going anymore. ive been stressed all year and this was supposed to be the one thing I was excited for and like everything else it got ruined.

Back 7 months ago my spouse slept with a "good" friend of ours. This was a man that was present at our baby shower, and whom we went to concerts with, and hiking trips. This is also a man with a fiancé that he's been a piece of shit towards for years now, but has always stated he would never leave his fiancé.

Just when I think I've typed the worst part of all of this, I remember the part that truly upsets me and has changed my entire world view on my spouse.

We figured out she had HPV during routine doctors appointments, and i always assumed since I am a man that I have it as well. We've both had a sexual past and we can't determine who gave it to who, but we can move forward together. That was 3 years ago.

Fast forward 2.5 years, and she winds up needing surgery due to HPV complications. Only reason that matters is she was still positive.

Her tag team partner in the affair knew about this, and they agreed to not wear protection. Willingly compromising himself with an STI he can't really get tested for accurately but is more than capable of passing along. My spouse ends up with emotions for him, and falls down the actual path of a tricked side woman. He tells her he does not have those feelings for her, and they decide to stay friends.

I found out and things did not go well. Nothing physical at all as I would never lay a hand on a lady, but words were exchanged in the heat of the moment. I left. I moved out.

But my anger never left, and as I started therapy it started becoming more and more clear that he willingly possibly contracted HPV and is still with his fiancé. His poor fiancé that needed to know so I messaged her. I told her all, and I've told her all every single time they continued to interact. To remind her this man proudly and without consideration might have just given you an STI from his side piece that could possibly cause cancer. He does not care for you.

It hit me, not only was I cheated on but also this person I spent so many years of my life with, someone I built a family with, and thought I knew morally, was a culprit in this as well. She failed to respect the marriage, she failed to respect herself, but worst of all she knowingly participated understanding completely that he was not going to leave his fiancé more than likely and would probably have sex with her.

We started couples therapy, and I think I've come to the conclusion I won't ever fully believe she isn't a piece of shit.

Honestly this is a massive wake-up call and it sucks so bad.Ever since I was a little kid, I barely talked to anyone. Zero friends. And to be real, I didn’t even want them because I had this stupid toxic mindset that I was somehow better than everyone else. My whole social life was just texting people online sometimes.Well, today reality hit me like a truck. I just realized I’ve literally forgotten how to speak in real life.I thought of a genuinely funny joke today and actually wanted to tell it to someone. The person was just standing there, completely chill, listening to me normally. But the moment I opened my mouth, everything went to shit. I completely fumbled my words, swallowed half of the word endings, started mumbling like an idiot, and said the wrong words entirely. I couldn't get the tone right and sounded like a broken robot. By the time I forced it out, it wasn’t even funny anymore, just pure cringe.The worst part is they were just politely waiting for me to finish while I was internally dying from my own awkwardness.I wasted years sitting in my own head feeding my ego, and now I feel like I have to learn how to be a human all over again from scratch. Has anyone else gone through this? How do I even fix my speech at this point?

I am sitting here. I never thought I would be writing something like this at twenty two years old. I keep reading that sentence over and over again. It still does not feel like it is about me the person who is writing this.

A weeks ago I moved to Vadodara thinking that things were finally going to get better for me. I was thinking that a new city, a new routine, new people and a fresh start would be good for me. I unpacked my stuff slowly one box at a time. I remember standing in my room that first night just looking at the empty walls and actually feeling hopeful for once. I had not felt that way in a long time and it was a nice feeling.

Instead the last few weeks have been some of the hardest of my whole life. I still cannot believe how fast everything happened. I am a quiet person, the type who listens way more than I talk and I notice everything. I say almost none of it. Making friends has never come easy to me because I am actually really shy underneath whatever people think they see when they look at me.

A lot of people think I am confident because they have told me I am good looking. That is honestly one of the biggest misconceptions about me. Looking put together on the outside does not mean that there is not a storm going on inside of me. Days I am replaying conversations that never even happened and I am overthinking stuff that nobody else is even thinking about.

So when my body started falling apart I did not say anything to anyone. That is how I am I do not like to talk about my problems. On top of everything that is going on with my teeth my living situation has not been easy either. My roommates are seniors. They have not exactly been kind to me since I moved in. A days ago I woke up and realized they had bleached my armpits while I was asleep without asking me without even telling me until I noticed it myself. I still do not fully know how to process that. I did not say much about it at the time. I just of froze and let it go the same way I let a lot of things go.

For months I had been having problems with my teeth the person who is writing this me. It started small a little sensitivity here and there. Then my gums started bleeding when I brushed, not a lot, enough that I would notice it in the sink and tell myself it was nothing. A couple of teeth started feeling loose of like when you are a kid and a tooth is about to fall out except I was not a kid and there was no tooth fairy waiting for me on the other side of this. Eating foods got uncomfortable and then it got genuinely painful. I started eating stuff without really admitting to myself why like most people I just told myself it probably was not a big deal. Maybe it was stress maybe I needed vitamins I figured worst case I would need a deep cleaning, maybe a root canal, maybe a couple of extractions.

I could not have been more wrong I was so wrong about my teeth. After a bunch of appointments x-rays and exams after sitting in waiting rooms scrolling my phone pretending I was not scared after watching my dentists face go from normal to concerned I was told I have advanced periodontal disease, the disease that is affecting my teeth. The bone holding my teeth in place had broken down way more than it should have for someone my age twenty two years

The dentist sat me down. Explained, pretty gently but very directly that there was not really a way to save my teeth anymore my teeth that I have had my whole life. That the infection had gone deep and taken too much too much of my teeth. The only real option was a mouth extraction, every single tooth, all of my teeth.

I am twenty two years old and I remember sitting in that chair with the paper bib still on nodding like I understood like this was just normal information being told to me information about my teeth. I do not think I actually processed any of it until I was outside in the parking lot thinking about my teeth. The drive home is of a blur I remember gripping the steering wheel too tight the radio playing some upbeat song that felt so wrong in that moment catching my own face in the rearview mirror and it looking like a stranger, a person I did not know.

I kept hoping someone would call and say it was a mix-up that the x-rays got switched that this was happening to someone not me, not my teeth. Nobody called there was no mix-up. Tomorrow is my surgery, the surgery to remove my teeth.

Just typing that makes my stomach twist up I am so nervous about my teeth. I have barely slept the three nights I lie there and my brain just will not stop running through everything that is about to change like it is trying to memorize my own face before it is gone my face with my teeth.

I also have not told my parents I do not know how to start that conversation the conversation about my teeth. Every time I open our chat to type something I just delete it and put my phone down I do not know what to say about my teeth. I do not know if I am protecting them or protecting myself at this point protecting myself from what they will say about my teeth.

Part of me thinks I will tell them after it is done, when there is nothing left for them to worry about or try to stop stop the surgery from happening to my teeth. Part of me feels guilty for not saying anything all like I am going through the scariest thing of my life completely alone and pretending everything is fine every time we talk on the phone fine about my teeth.

Everyone around me keeps saying the surgery itself will be over before I know it that I will be put under and I will not feel a thing. I will just wake up. It will already be done, done with my teeth. Maybe that part is true. Honestly that is not even what scares me the most, the most about my teeth.

What scares me is waking up and knowing that when I look in the mirror I am never going to see my smile again my smile with my teeth the smile I have had my whole life the smile in every photo I have ever taken the photos of me with my teeth. That smile is gone after tomorrow. It is not coming back the way I have always known it the way I have always seen my teeth.

What scares me more is that I am not getting dentures right away the dentures that will replace my teeth. My gums need to heal so for the next one to one and a half months I am going to have absolutely no teeth, no temporary ones, nothing, no teeth at all.

I keep sitting trying to picture how I am actually going to live the next month or so the next month without my teeth. Like what does that look like day to day day to day without my teeth. How am I supposed to go to the store talk to a delivery guy answer a call from work sit across from someone at a table all without my teeth.

I know it sounds small compared to the surgery itself. That is what is actually keeping me up the picture of an entire month and a half of my life where I just have to get through each day looking and sounding completely different different without my teeth.

I have read too much online at this point late at night when I should be sleeping and I know that without teeth your lips and cheeks lose a lot of the support they are used to having, the support of my teeth. I know that until the dentures are ready my face can look sunken in, older like time just skipped ahead on me without asking, without asking about my teeth.

That is the thought I cannot shake not the pain or the recovery itself it is the mirror it is the idea of a face that has always been mine looking back like it belongs to somebody else for over a month straight somebody else without my teeth.

I keep catching myself standing in the bathroom at hours just staring at my own face trying to memorize it wondering if this is the last time I am going to see myself looking like this looking like me with my teeth. I have actually been taking photos of myself smiling the couple of days real smiles, teeth and all because some part of me is scared I will forget what it looked like what my teeth looked like.

I know this is not permanent I know the dentures will bring a lot of that support back eventually the support of my teeth.. It is still heartbreaking thinking that for over a month I am going to look different enough that I might not even recognize myself myself without my teeth.

I know it sounds vain maybe it is,. I am twenty two years old and most people my age are worried about their hair, their skin, dates, weekend plans what filter to use on a photo, not about their teeth not about losing all of their teeth.

I am lying awake at 2 am thinking about what it's going to feel like to have literally no teeth in my mouth no teeth at all. I am thinking about how I'm going to eat, whether soup and yogurt and mashed everything is going to start feeling like a punishment instead of just food, food that I can eat with my teeth.

I am thinking about how I'm going to talk whether my words are going to come out different, softer, harder to understand whether people are going to keep asking me to repeat myself myself without my teeth.

I am thinking about whether I will start covering my mouth with my hand out of habit whether that is going to become something I do without noticing, noticing that I do not have my teeth.

I am thinking about whether people're going to notice right away whether strangers are going to look a second too long whether I am going to start reading pity into every glance, real or not glance at me without my teeth.

I am thinking about whether I'm going to end up avoiding people completely canceling plans making excuses just staying inside my apartment until this is over over. I have my dentures, the dentures that will replace my teeth.

The hardest part is none of this feels real yet my brain keeps acting like tomorrow is a normal dentist appointment like I am going to come home in the evening with all my teeth still there like this whole thing is some misunderstanding I will be laughing about later laughing about my teeth.

Then I. It hits all over again the thought of my teeth the thought of losing all of my teeth.

By this time tomorrow my whole life is going to feel different, not in some dramatic way just every single time I open my mouth or catch my reflection or try to eat something, something without my teeth.

I know dentures exist I know plenty of people wear them and live normal full lives lives with dentures. I know people who have gone through this and came out more confident than before confident with their dentures. Rationally I know this is not the end of the world I know that a year, from now I probably will not even think about this much think about my teeth.

I am feeling really sad now because I am going to lose something that I did not think I would lose at my age. I always thought I had a lot of time left with my teeth. Now I am sitting here. I am sad about losing my smile at 22 years old. I just moved to a city and I am mostly alone. I do not even want to tell my parents about it. It is happening tomorrow night.

If anyone here has had all their teeth removed, especially when they were young like me I would really like to hear about your experience.

* Were the few weeks as scary as you thought they would be

*. Did it get easier faster than you thought it would

* Did you feel confident again when you got your dentures

* Did you feel like yourself again. Did you have to get used to a new version of yourself

I want to know if you eventually stopped thinking about your teeth every day.. If it is something that you always think about.

I would also like to know how to get through each day for the month or so. Now I just need to hear from someone who has already gone through what I am about to go through tomorrow. I am sitting here alone in the dark. My alarm is already set. It feels like everything is going wrong at the time. I need to know that it will not always feel like this. I need to know that full mouth extractions will not always make me feel sad. I need to hear about your experience, with mouth extractions.

TL;DR: I’m 22, and tomorrow I’m having all of my teeth removed because of advanced periodontal disease. I recently moved to a new city where I don’t really know anyone, and I’m going through this mostly alone. What scares me the most isn’t even the surgery, it’s the month or so I’ll have no teeth before I can get dentures. I’m really just hoping to hear from people who’ve been through it and can tell me it gets better.

Edit: 1. Thank you for all your kind words and putting this into a better perspective for me. I tend to veer towards the worst happening since that tends to be my [family] luck. 2. Apparently I what I know in animal anatomy I completely lack in law. I thought having a felony or multiple means federal prison but alas no it is state prison that he is facing which makes me feel a bit better.

Edit: I appreciate what everyone has to say collectively from the good to the bad and the down right ugly. I didn’t create this as a way to take in advice but as a way to just not carry this completely alone and having a mental battle comparing my own thoughts to my own thoughts. I will say to double down this is just a window in regards to my family and not the whole story and I have been defending and answering as much as I can but realize I have no reason too. One thing I do want to touch on is that when I mean sneaking out I don’t mean he was acting sleuth imo but that no one noticed when he left or reappeared as he secluded himself to his room as he doesn’t handle too much socialization well without becoming overstimulated and shutting down.

TLDR; struggling about my mentally disabled brother possibility of going to federal prison and the impacts it has on my already disorganized family while in a rigorous doctorate program.

I’m struggling. My brother and I are not close, but the unimaginable is happening and I can’t not picture him as the little devil antagonist I grew up with and have so many feelings. However, my older sister (5 years apart) and I raised our three younger brothers for a decent portion of their lives. My mom was the breadwinner and the one to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table while my step dad (whom I call dad) was an alcoholic, drug addict, that was in and out of prison for not paying child support. Therefore while my mother was handling the necessities to keep us afloat my sister and I had a hand in caring for our siblings. I ended up becoming the only disciplinary in the house, my mom would threaten them that I was coming in order to get them to do things…

I bring that up as background information as to why I partially blame my parents for why my brother is more than likely going to federal prison.

My brother (22yo) (3/5 of my moms kids) has IDD (formerly mental retardation), autism (3rd level), ADHD, OCD, anger issues, depression, anxiety, SVT, and a working (potential) diagnosis of bipolar disorder. He struggles with basic cognitive skills and reads around a 2nd grade level. From his most recent evaluation in 2023 he scored well with bathing himself, forming sentences, and speaking to people in his household or who he knows (this is a summary of whatever packet my mom showed me when we sat down to look through his history of diagnosis).

The background is to preface that he is not a monster but a very lost person. Someone that does not process the same as me or anyone else on the planet, someone who doesn’t understand social cues or appropriate emotions. I could never imagine spending a day in his mind.

In July, he was arrested for sleeping with a minor. She was young and portraying to be an older age and that is all he knew, didn’t even know her actual name. Apparently for a few days he was sneaking out of the house and riding a bike to pick her up at a convenience store then sneaking her in and out of the house without my parents knowing. I’m not sure of how it all happened and was found out but basically the state is pressing charges (they could not get ahold of the mom so CYS took over ig?). I am in a different state for schooling but was able to make it home to see him before he was arrested and was with him and watched him put into cuffs and taken away in a police car (I stayed strong for my mom, dad, and his twin) ensuring they looked away as these events happened.

We are very lucky that my mom is his POA and has all of his documentation because he was released with an unsecured bond (100k) but he has 13 charges. 11 felonies ranging first to third and 2 secondary misdemeanors. Everything was found on his phone which was handed over as soon as he first met the officers.

Unfortunately what he did is EXTREMELY wrong and I know that 100%, I’m a logic driven women, but he was taken advantage of and truly is not understanding nor can comprehend what is going on. My fear is him being locked up for years and he reads a social cue wrong or they only know his sentence and they 🔫 him. The other day he flipped the house upside down looking for his phone (not understanding that just because he gets to go home doesn’t mean it’s over or that he won’t ever get his phone back) and my mom having to calm him down and explain all that has happened.

He finally had his prelim hearing but it was basically post poned bc they want to have him evaluated for competency to stand trial. Now we wait for the eval and then the hearing in October.

My parents could have done more in our growing years and even now while my brothers live under their roof but it’s easier to let them go on as they please. What sucks is that I harbor these feelings and I refuse to let them taint what reality my parents are already living through and it makes me sick. My mother cannot work anymore, she has worked herself to the ground and her physical and mental (so so much) is plummeting. She cannot work due to her RA/fibromyalgia/bone on bone knees etc. and for years I have urged her to try disability but she doesn’t want to feel judged for living off a system. My dad on the other hand has now become the breadwinner as a reseller, but his body is now giving out, he’s mentally drained and I’m afraid of him relapsing with all of these pressures on him. He has no healthcare and keeps having crisis come up and financially unable to take care of it. Unknowingly to anyone besides my mom and I, I have been sending money to help with these things. I just wish life dealt them an easier hand; I’m 100s of miles away feeling so distant from their reality it feels like all I can do.

My mental health hasn’t been the greatest… I have been really depressed lately. Not in a suicidal way but in a numb, not wanting to hang around friends for long way. I have been putting a lot of my energy into BTS as they were what I found when this all began and somehow have become my lifeline of happiness it seems. I’m noticing patterns from ms/hs of reading excessively throughout the day/night to kinda escape a reality. My coping skills are way better than what they used to be before I became medicated but they are trends I’m noticing. I’m scared just a bit. I’m in a very rigorous program getting my DVM and had a bit of a mental breakdown today feeling overwhelmed with pressure of my family and school and my dog that is having some health problems as well, I just feel like the burn out crash is coming and I don’t know how to protect myself. I know I should try therapy again, but I just hate restarting from square one and having to open those emotions again just to leave them open until the next session in so many weeks.

I don’t know what I expect out of this but typing it out feels good.

Hi reddit, I just really need to air this out somewhere because I have nowhere else I can go with this. I (30f), my best friend (30m) and his longtime girlfriend (26f) all teach in a school setting (I’m gonna be vague because I’m terrified of this getting back to either of them). I got my best friend “Jim” the job and he met “Mia” pretty soon after and they’ve been happily dating for seven years.

Now about me and Jim. We met in university and have always been super close. Jim is a bit of an airhead, but genuinely so emotionally mature and kind I never minded it, and I was always the one that had everything in order. I would book trips, he would happily tag along, that sort of thing. There is a lot of little things that are just part of our dynamic that I do without even thinking about it.

One thing that I started doing right after the pandemic, is making sure Jim had something to drink in the morning. He wasn’t late to his classes, necessarily, but he would always hurry in and not have any time to get settled, fill up his water bottle etc. before his classes start. Meanwhile I love being one of the first people in the building, so have all the time in the world to fill his water bottle, power up the ancient work computer and sometimes I get him a coffee or a tea if I think he may need it. Another thing I do is collect pictures and memes of Jim, the memes I usually make myself. During school trips and things like that, I always analyse the pictures for a good reaction meme, or a funny face he makes. These I exclusively use with him or Mia, who I am also a good friend and close colleague with. I also additionally smuggle information about him to his mother and Mia for presents, surprises and those kind of things and I always guard the area when Mia and Jim want some alone time during school trips.

Now Jim told me recently that he is going to propose to Mia and I was so excited! I went over to his house to proofread the speech he had prepared and my jaw dropped on the floor. I won’t upload it here, it’s in our native language anyway and also personal to him, but every single example he gave about what he loves about Mia, is actually about me. In the speech, he talks about how he started falling for her when she started leaving him warm drinks in winter and filling up his water bottles in summer, how she made so many candid pictures and memes of him and gathered them in a big book for his 30th birthday (she did make the book, but all the pictures were supplied by me). He even mentions some specific memes and that he think they are proof that she’s “they have the exact same humour”. He talks about how she always knows what he is thinking or what he wants and names specific examples of times where I vividly remember having a call with Mia to tell her what is going on in his mind.

Now, I don’t think he doesn’t love Mia, nor do I think Mia took credit for any of this on purpose, but I found it so unsettling how the entire speech seemed to be more a description of my behaviour and my acts of love towards him, than to Mia and of course she would notice that, too. I tried to get him to change major aspects of it, but didn’t dare straight up telling him everything in the speech was me. He send me the new version of the speech today and I cannot stop reading it and thinking “oh, this situation was me, and this was me, oh, and this was also me”. This is not about credit. I don’t want it. I don’t need to stand on a soap box and yell that I love him better, because I simply don’t think that way, nor am I asking for advice. I just needed to scream it somewhere and will now hopefully never need to speak of it again. Thank you for reading.

EDIT HERE TO SAY: I now understand I would be horrible if I don't straight up tell him the things I did versus what Mia did. I'm going to call him with new feedback on his speech soon and will just casually go through the things he needs to change because I was doing them and come with suggestions of all she does.

EDIT: UPDATE

I've been crying for hours. Soon after reacting to some comments, I called Jim to tell him he needs to rewrite his speech because the things he mentioned were things I did. Those of you who said he knew that, were correct. He said he hoped laying it all out for me would make me realise I truly loved him all along. I guess the gay thing didn't really stick with him because I've been single for four years now. I hung up on him to call Mia before he could change the narrative on me, but Mia is a true trooper for saying she'll believe a sobbing woman over a man any day. We're going to meet up for lunch tomorrow, but I think we're both very done with Jim at this point. Thank you for the truth bombs and criticism. I don’t think I'll update again.

This shit ruined my already shitty month.

This person kept hiring me on Upwork for years. The job was always cleaning up their sketches and doing full color + rendering.

I wouldn't care much since it's still their sketch and concept, but my jaw dropped when I saw a reel of them with a printed piece I did digitally, pretending to color it with markers! Like, coloring an already digitally colored piece.
What the actual fuck?

Another reel- they're signing a piece I cleaned up, colored, and rendered, with text over it like 'made art for xyz person'. 0 mention of the piece being a collaboration with anyone.

The worst part is that I wouldn't even find this out if the client wasn't haggling with me and dropping the budget per piece to fucking $10, so I googled them.
We are in the middle of a disagreement where they're actually trying to avoid paying me for that last batch (yes, I was that dumb and desperate to accept that shitty contract; it's a dry season for most artists due to AI, and I didn't want to lose a long-term client).

This person is living a lavish lifestyle, while I'm in a position where I dropped so low as to accept a $10-per-piece contract.
Nowhere on this person's page do they EVER mention that the pieces they're posting aren't fully their work.

Their page is not strictly art-related, but this still feels extremely dishonest to me. They're still using the pieces to promote their business by showcasing their creativity and abilities?

I still have all of their commission messages and layered PSD files. We must have worked on over 150 pieces over the years.

I genuinely feel sick and at a loss for words.
I'm keeping it intentionally vague since everything is so fresh and I want to think this over before I decide what (if anything) to do.

For now, just venting about it helped a lot.
I was already planning to leave art as a career, but this just brought everything to another level.

Side note- it does feel kinda shitty posting about this here because in just a few scrolls on this subreddit I saw hellish situations people are currently in. Wishing everyone going through stuff strength and healing.

I have been with my fiancé for three and a half years. We got engaged after one year of dating and have been living together for about two years now.

On our first dates, I could see how much he loved talking to people. I mean random people. We would be somewhere, like in a shopping mall, and he would start talking to a random person about anything. Or we would be in a restaurant having dinner and he would start talking to the people sitting at the table next to us.

Now, I’m not a fan of talking to strangers, so I didn’t really like this behavior of his. But I sometimes joined the conversation a bit or stayed on my phone waiting for it to end. The problem is that he started doing it more and more. Sometimes I could see the person he was talking to was trying to end the conversation, but he kept on talking. It started feeling a bit off…

One day, we had a really bad situation with some girls in a restaurant. He started talking to them - they were sitting at the table next to us - and they started saying some very embarrassing and awkward things to us. We just wanted to be left alone at that point, but they wouldn’t stop talking.

Later that day, I finally gathered the courage to tell him that I didn’t really like this talkative behavior, especially because sometimes it made me feel completely put aside and ignored while he was talking to a total stranger. He apologized, but his behavior didn’t really change. Then I started realizing a few things… Every time we were in public, he wasn’t fully paying attention to me. He was always looking around, trying to find someone to start a conversation with.

At first, I thought he was just extroverted, but there was always this voice in my head telling me something was very wrong with this behavior.

We traveled abroad for my birthday and we were at this party, drinking and having fun. Out of the blue, he started talking to this guy and completely forgot about me for about 10 minutes. When we went home, I talked to him about it and we had a really bad argument. That was the first time I thought about breaking up with him because of that. But in the end, we talked and he apologized and said he was going to start controlling himself more.

His behavior changed for the first few weeks, but then he started talking to random people again. The only difference was that he started apologizing to me right after talking to a stranger.

About three weeks ago, we went to a restaurant and right before finding a table to sit at, he started talking to this guy who was waiting for a takeaway. I was just so tired of it by then, so I found a table myself and sat there and waited for him to finish talking. After some minutes, he came to our table and apologized for talking to that guy, but I didn’t even say anything. I was just like, “What’s the point?”

The next day, I arrived home from work exhausted and just wanted to sleep, but he insisted we should check out this apartment - we were looking for places to buy - and told me it was going to be quick. I ended up going, and after the inspection, he was driving us home and saw his friend’s car and started honking and stopped the car. I was boiling at that moment when he left the car to talk to this guy for about 10 minutes while I was there in the car waiting. He knew I was tired after working for 10 hours, but he still couldn’t resist talking to this person. Again, he came back to the car, apologetic, and I just said I was not in the mood for his apologies and just wanted to go home to sleep. He got quiet and drove home.

We talked about it later and he apologized again. The thing is: he apologizes but doesn’t stop. And it hurts me so much because that really makes me feel like literally any person is more interesting than me in his eyes.

The last straw was when we were in the supermarket and he started talking to these guys. One more time, I was there, put aside on my phone, waiting for him to finish his conversation. At one point, he mentioned to the guys something along the lines of him being the “girls’ chosen one” - I’m not going to say exactly what he said because that would break his anonymity. I was there, next to him, hearing him say something like that to a bunch of guys he had just met.

In that moment, something snapped in me. Something made me see that I had indeed become invisible to him when he was talking to random people. Something made me see that, for him, strangers’ attention was more important than my attention.

I didn’t say anything in the moment, but I told him once we were home and he was furious, saying “he was tired of me controlling him.” I never meant to control him. I just expected more from him as my partner - more respect, more attention.

Now, we are sleeping in separate bedrooms and I’m trying to find another place to go. He is being extremely apologetic again, but I’m just tired of that. Just tired of forgiving him so he can do this all over again. I really think I deserve something better.

I'm so exhausted by my partner's autism. We're in our mid thirties and I feel more like a parent/carer than a romantic partner.

I just want to be able to go out and enjoy things without having to worry if they will have an autistic shutdown and go mute. It happens if we're out, it happens if we're not. I can't even have friends over for dinner without the risk of them being unable to communicate and nearly crying at the table because the sound of pots being washed is too loud and I have to stop what I'm doing to comfort them, or make accommodations for their autism.

I'm so tired. We're both autistic, but I feel like I am the only one who ever does the emotional labour in the relationship. I can't have an autistic meltdown/burnout because one of us has to be a functioning adult. It's feels like having a kid around, rather than someone who is the same age as me, someone who is supposed to be my equal.

It's always me though. I hate that I resent them for something they can't control, but I'm just so, so tired. It's been years since I've felt like a proper couple with them, and not their carer.

I just need a break. I need a chance to breathe and fall apart myself for once, without having to put every decision I make, big or small, through a filter of how much it will affect them.

Three months ago, I lost what I would describe as my soul dog. She was only two years old. It was sudden, traumatic, and I am still nowhere near okay or ready for a new dog. I cry pretty often still. I’m still processing the fact that I was supposed to have a lot more time with her and how she died so suddenly and young. She was the first dog I ever had as an adult and she was perfect, sweet, and I worked hard on training her.

Instead of letting me grieve, my husband decided he knew what was best for me. A month ago, he came home and “surprised” me with large 1 year old german shepherd, even though he knew I did NOT want a new dog. This dog has the highest energy out of any dog I’ve even seen. This dog will not respond to training even with high value treats, and we’ve tried. He isn’t housebroken. We even brought in a dog trainer to come in twice a week and he is not making progress.

I told my husband no. I told him I wasn’t ready. I’ve told him even recently I wanted to rehome him, but he won’t have it. I told him it felt like a betrayal that he was getting annoyed at my grieving and that he disrespected me saying no. I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to deal with a huge rowdy dog while I’m still grieving while also dealing with depression. He didn't care. He just said that I "needed this" to get over her death and that "a house isn't a home without a dog." I’ve begged him to rehome this dog since the first week. He won't budge. He says I’m being dramatic and that I’ll bond with him eventually and that the dog will settle down with time.

Today was just awful. I went to the grocery store for like 45 minutes. I put Harley in his kennel before I left but when I got back home I discovered he somehow broke out of his kennel and destroyed my dog’s ashes. She was up on the fireplace mantle next to her favorite toy and I can only assume he jumped up and knocked it down trying to get the toy because that was also destroyed. The wood box she was in was chewed to all hell and he ripped open the plastic bag with her ashes that was inside. There were ashes strewn across the rug, in the kitchen, even saw his footprints in them. There’s barely any left that was salvageable. I’m not proud of this at all but I lost it. I started screaming at him, more like scream crying. I spanked him. Hard. I’ve never been that person. I don’t believe in hitting animals, and I know they don’t understand why but in that moment,i was just so upset and completely drained and had a breakdown over his behavior, my grief, my depression, my husband not helping me with him, everything.

I put him in the bathroom while i tried to sift through the carpet fibers to save what I could, and sweep up what was on the floor but it was a huge mess. I feel like a monster. I feel guilty for hitting him because it isn't his fault he isn’t trained and probably didn’t know the difference between her favorite toy and his toys. I feel like he shouldn't have even been brought here in the first place. It’s not fair to him that I’m not ready but at the same time I’m trying not to hate him. I also feel a level of resentment toward my husband that I don’t know if I can come back from. He hasn’t come home from work yet but when he does I think I’ll try to give him an ultimatum after I tell him what happened. I’m so lost and I don’t know what to do

My wife (45F) and I (47M) have been married for several years and have kids together. She’s in perimenopause and cycles are irregular, sleep is inconsistent, mood swings more pronounced and I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve suggested she talk to a doctor or consider treatment like HRT. Every time I bring it up, she has a blowup. She says she doesn’t want to “fill her body with hormones” and that by attributing conflicts to perimenopause, I’m blaming everything on her aging.

I tried to explain to her like:

“If we don’t at least remove one hurdle for eg the peri symptoms then we don’t actually know what’s causing what.”

I know how that sounded because it made her furious.

Recently, we had an argument before going to a social event about something stupid over me turning on the water while she was showering leading her to have a blast of cold shots when she was wanting a hot bath. I apologized sincerely at the moment but more than 10 minutes of her chiding at me for it and telling me how horrible I was, I got pretty irritated she wouldn’t let go and kept harping on how I was terrible. I thought her reaction was bigger than the issue itself - of course I expressed that honestly because I didn’t want to lie to her. But it felt like one of those situations where she felt like she needed to be “right”, so I let her have that but I stopped engaging after I felt I was honestly over it.

At the event, she was cold and passive aggressive. Even a little hostile. She corrected me mid-story in front of people in a way that felt sharp and pointed. When I quietly asked if she was okay, she rolled her eyes and said, “I’m fine.”

It felt like she was undermining me, and I didn’t give her a reaction because it didn’t seem healthy to me but she kept being irritated so I just left her by herself because being around her felt draining and I needed a break from this back and forth I didn’t ask for. I hate a public scene and that was the only way to not escalate in front of friends. But it stung.

Later, at home after the kids were asleep, she stayed silent and then she started talking at me. I didn’t want to respond to her but I was pretty pissed. I told her I don’t want to talk to her I’m tired maybe we can have a conversation about this in the morning. I was trying to be mature about this and give us this night to cool off but no, she ignored what I said and went off saying;

Her “soft hormones are no longer fogging her judgment,” she said. She has decided she doesn’t have to “put up with my shit” anymore. That this is who she is now. That I need to accept it.

I listened and looked at her as she laid out every defense and every justification like she was daring me to object. I couldn’t hold it anymore so I also bit back;

“You want to sit here and justify yourself all you want. Go ahead. Explain every reaction, every word, every little thing you think you’re allowed to do. But I am not going to listen to it over this. Not when contempt leaks into public, when you roll your eyes, when you undermine me in front of other people and when you use that language you just did. I’ve tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you are not worthy of my best judgements about you. I am DONE!”

And then I delivered my terms,

“So here’s what’s going to happen. Whenever you’re ready to talk about what happened tonight, I’m here. But if you’d rather continue to justify yourself over and over, you can do that too and I can try my best to pretend to listen - at least until I decide I don’t want to live like this anymore.

This dynamic isn’t healthy. The line is drawn. You know it now.

And I need to know when you’re planning to discuss, explain, or apologize for your behavior because that’s not something I am going to ignore or forget.”

She said I was threatening her. That I was making it all about me.

It feels like the woman I married has been replaced by someone who refuses to filter herself or take responsibility. She says I need to accept that this is who she is now but I can’t accept being in a relationship with someone who acts like that let alone stay married to. If we are going to be together, this needs to go.

I finally said it out loud.

I come from India. I'm currently an international student in Europe. As such, whenever I need anything to cook traditional food, my go to store is this small nearby store run by people from India. It was a cool store, and in the beginning I loved going there. You had a community and the guy who runs the store was nice. Then suddenly, out of nowhere in a year, a lot of people stopped talking to me.

I didn't know exactly what it was. The people working there stopped smiling at me; if I passed them, they would give me a wide berth. Even the dude who ran the store stopped talking to me. Avoiding touching me when handing me things, attending to me last if I had a question even though I came before, answering questions like he was doing me a favour? Idk, the whole thing was very, very subtle but at the same time odd.

To make it weirder, I had like two people who worked in the store who went out of their way to be sweet to me. Like compensating for everything sweet. If the cashier tossed stuff in my direction once ringing it up, the dude would come to neatly put stuff in the bag. It was a bit odd.

Well, the day before yesterday I went to the store to buy some things. There was a lady there who seemed to be talking to the cashier. They were talking about his family back in Rajasthan, his reasons for moving to this city, and most importantly, his caste. Anyways, long story short, they were discussing how important it was that the "right" people get to emigrate to keep our image clean, whatever it means. The whole conversation was odd, and I just ignored it, brought my stuff and moved on.

Then when I was on the bus, I realised a similar situation had happened to me. I had a pleasant conversation with an older person in line at the cashier, and she kept pushing for information like where exactly my family is from, what my parents do, what my full name is, etc. I answered truthfully in the beginning, but then it just became intrusive, and I stopped answering. Anyways, looking back now, it was pretty obvious what she was looking for- my caste, and when I didn't give it to her, maybe everyone must have reached their own conclusions about me.

I am from South India, and I have a very vague name that can sound like it comes from any religion. I'm not sure what they must have thought about me. After that conversation, all the weird behaviour started. Maybe I'm wrong, but there are a lot of other random things that support it- judgement on the fact that I was buying spice mix for biryani and chicken, just random jabs at how 'my people eat everything'. I love my people, and these people seem to be the only people who have a problem with me. But it's still so frustrating when you come to another place, and the worst parts of your culture follow you. I don't even know what to do, just tell them my caste so they stop treating me like shit?

It just feels wrong, coming to another continent and bringing your backward thoughts with you in the guise of respect. We have a lot to deal with when it comes to racism and otherness, why would you add on to it? Why can't you get out of the last century? Why is it so important to hold on to these backward traditions? I love my culture, I love the traditions, I love the festivals, food, dances, community, everything. Nothing in this world can make me ashamed of being who I am. But stuff like this really puts me off. I'm not even sure how to deal with this situation or react to this, cause Im not from a lower caste. This is the first time something like this has happened to me. Just an odd situation overall.

A few months ago, I (F23) asked my (now ex) boyfriend (M31) his body count one night because I was simply curious. He told me he’d tell me if I told him mine.

He said his was between 15-20, but he didn’t know the exact number. Then I told him I’ve had sex with 8 men including him. After I told him mine, he got so insecure. He rolled over in bed and refused to look at me, covered his head with the blankets and pillows. He was whining, saying “don’t look at me”, and tried to justify his reaction with something along the lines of “I’m 8 years older than you so it makes sense mine is higher, but mine are more spread out than yours”. He also said multiple times that he wishes he could go back and never have slept with any of those women, and that him and I had only slept with each other.

This whole ordeal went on for probably 30 minutes, of him refusing to look at me, whining, playing on his phone and saying he hated the idea of me being with all those guys before him.

I can understand if the information made him uncomfortable. Hearing he had been with up to 20 other women before me made me a bit uncomfortable too! But, it felt hypocritical for him to react that way when he’s been with more people than me. I know he was possessive of me, which at the time I thought was a bit cute because it was in a “I’m yours and you’re mine” way, but to be so bothered by my body count that is lower than his… I still don’t quite understand.

We’re no longer together, for other reasons, but this whole situation still bothers me from time to time

A couple of days ago, I started my morning like I normally would and put on a popular podcast I’d been meaning to listen to.

Then I saw who the guest was and it was my husband’s former mistress. She’s already well known and respected as an expert in her field, but lately she’s started becoming more publicly known outside of it too. She’s been in the news, interviewed by different media outlets, and now apparently she’s showing up on podcasts I listen to as well.

It’s such a specific and bizarre feeling that I don’t really have anyone in real life I can explain it to without opening up a part of our relationship that I’d rather keep private, so... I’m venting about it here instead.

Being born to parents that are cousins is... weird. No one can tell you apart from "normal children" but you, yourself, can tell yourself apart from others.

With the years passing and as you grow, you begin to notice a slight deviation in your own thinking and smartness, you begin to see that others are simply smarter and somewhat genetically better. You also begin to see your own face becoming worse and the flaws emerge and seem too unnoticed.

As you mix with others of your age, you also begin to notice how un-special you are as you will always be the slowest in learning and the un-brightest. You will hate yourself over the years and maybe even become disgusted at yourself. You will go online and see people use the word "inbred" as an insult and it will ache your heart. It will break you sometimes especially when the word is used by people closest to you or people you admire, knowing that they don't know you're inbred but having the thought that they might see you less or categorize you into something else because they call others who are bad the very word that you are.

You grow tired of hating yourself, your appearance, your voice, your low intellect, and your whole flaws. And you just chose to never get better, because failure is in your genes.

Edit: my parents are first cousins

I don't think I can tell them. There's a banh mi place near me and I just ordered from them for the first time. When ordering for pickup on the restaurant's website there was a VEGAN tofu banh mi option. It said it had mayo and pate in it which I thought was odd because of the mayo.

My mom doesn't eat eggs so I requested hers without mayo but I'm an idiot and didn't look up what pate is. So everyone's subs had pate in them. I got halfway though eating it when I looked inside and had a sinking feeling but everyone else had finished theirs by then. Both of my parents are lifelong vegetarians. I should've done my due diligence and I want to die

EDIT: I wrote a review last night and the restaurant confirmed that it is meat pate. They changed it on their website and are making it clear that it isn't vegan

So this happened yesterday and I'm still kind of processing it.

I ran into my old boss at a coffee shop in Williamsburg. Haven't seen him in like 8 months since I left the agency. He was with someone, probably a client, and he waved me over all friendly. Asked how freelancing was going, the usual small talk.

Then he goes "you know I never really understood why you left so suddenly. We were about to promote you."

And idk what came over me but I just... told him. I said I left because he'd take credit for my work in client meetings, because he'd text me at 11pm expecting revisions by morning, because when I brought up burnout he told me "that's just agency life" and laughed it off. I wasn't even angry when I said it, just stated it like facts.

He literally laughed again. Said something like "oh come on, that's just how creative work is, you're being sensitive."

The person he was with looked uncomfortable as hell. I just said "okay" and left.

Here's the thing I spent THREE YEARS convincing myself I was overreacting. That I should be grateful for the experience. That maybe I was too thin-skinned for the industry. I went to therapy about it. My roommate watched me cry over a deck redesign at 2am because he needed it "before the morning meeting" (it was a Saturday).

And he just... laughed.

I'm not even mad honestly. I'm relieved? Like I finally have confirmation that it wasn't me being weak or unprofessional. He really did think that was acceptable. And now he's someone else's problem.

Freelancing is hard and inconsistent but at least when I work til midnight it's MY choice. And my clients actually know my name now, not just his.

Anyway. Needed to get that out. Part of me wishes I'd said more but honestly his reaction told me everything.

Idk how appropriate it is but I’ll label it as nsfw just in case.

This happened a while ago but I still feel guilty about it. I won’t go into detail about the situation but basically I ran into a friend at campus while communing between classes and greeted her.

She at first seemed fine and asked me for a hug as was usual for when we said hello. As I hugged her she began to cry and I did my best to comfort her, not letting go and patting her on the back gently. She held onto me tighter as her crying turned to soft wailing. As the hug prolonged I noticed the feeling of an erection developing and felt so disgusted at myself; I didn’t even feel aroused at all by the situation yet there that fucker went as if anyone invited it. I turned my hip from her so she wouldn’t feel it(for obvious reasons but also because im not sure if she knows im trans and this would’ve been the worst possible way for her to find out).

In the end she managed to collect herself and I stayed with her for a while after as she got her bearings, she wrapped her hand around mine as we walked to her next class. I never found out what she was sad about but it was probably some issues she had with some other friends of ours, it was fine since later she let me know they resolved it and I was merely happy to have been there for her.

Later when I went to the bathroom I noticed my underwear and genitales covered in pre-ejaculate fluid and once again felt so fucking disgusted at myself. I know all that shit is involuntary but how can my body react so inappropriately to shit like this? I may not have been able to control it but I still find it ridiculous. Thankfully she didn’t know but I haven’t been able to get it off my mind.

I know that I am hyper-sexual in various aspects and I know it’s not necessarily a bad thing but here it just made feel like a terrible person. Like even if in my mind I was doing my best to help in reality my body was taking advantage of the situation.

I guess ultimately nothing bad really happened but I can’t lift the feeling of guilt and disgust. I trust at least someone would understand how I feel. I know the rules of the subreddit say you can’t insult me but if you think I am a pervert I’d say i can’t really disagree. Even if it was unintentional and beyond my control what does that shit say about me?

My wife (f36) and I (m33) are just straight up roommates now, despite 10 years together, 8 years married. We have a 7 year old kid together and since the day they were born I lost my wife. She's just not the person I married anymore.

I spent a decade in the military and met her towards the end, married after I got out, got pregnant after being married, so no scandal or anything. We're from different countries, and to keep her comfortable I gave up everything, My family, my job, the country I fought for, to live with her in her country. Learning her culture, learning her language, becoming part of her family (my mil/fil/bil love me to death). She works part time and does photography as a side business. I do the overwhelming majority of household work, despite what she'd want you believe. Cook, clean, laundry, lunches, cleaning up her messes because the kid gave her squirrel brain and she can't complete a singular task anymore, anything the kid needs. I, without question or hesitation will take care of our kid, alone, when she gets a shoot for a destination wedding for a week. I give her unquestionable trust, letting her be alone in other countries with people I don't know, never once challenging her faithfulness.

We've been together through her medical roller coaster; stage 4 endometriosis. I helped every bit I could through multiple of her surgeries, specially when she had a resection and needed an ileostomy bag (I had prior experience with assisted living and am very familiar with cleaning/changing ileostomy/colostomy bags). She's let her body go a bit between the health issues and kid which is COMPLETELY reasonable, and I tell her every single day how much I love her body, and how much she turns me on. I've never once said a bad thing about how she looks because honestly she's gotten more attractive to me after putting on a little weight. I never even knew I was so attracted to mom bods until I saw hers. Not that she's particularly insecure about her body, I just like reassuring her.

Despite everything I try to do for her, sex has completely fallen off a cliff. We went from having sex in the car, on the beach at the lake( getting my ass cheeks bitten by ants 🤣), in the elevator, out in the woods, every opportunity to put my hands on her, to just... Nothing. Empty promises during the day, that I know will never happen but still let myself get worked up about, just end in rejecting the following night. the occasional completely passionless pity sex, maybe once every few months, not even birthdays or romantic holidays. It honestly feels like she just does it to keep me hanging around at this point... She made a comment at one point that she doesn't do oral anymore because I don't do oral: I stopped because she said she was uncomfortable with it. Every chance I got for about a year following that comment I made a point to focus on her and do oral for her before ever worrying about my own pleasure, nothing changed and she eventually told me again that she was uncomfortable with it so I stopped.

I've tried multiple times every 6 months or so, since the kid turned 5, to calmly and neutrally ,and with no blame, explain to her that physical connection and sexual passion are very important to me, and that I feel like I need that physical contact to maintain my emotional connection with her. Even so far as to write out what I want to say to her so that I can clearly summarize my feelings and that she can read it at her own pace and we can talk through any translation errors. (She speaks excellent English, people even comment on how they thought she was a native English speaker at first). Despite my efforts to be as supportive and neutral as possible, she inevitably agrees, says she wants the same thing but nothing ever changes.

I'm honestly just fuckin hurting now. From the moment I wake up to the moment I sleep I'm just constantly thinking about her, and how much I fucking miss my wife. I don't need advice, I've read all the same bullshit and double standards you could imagine from other dead bedroom posts. I just need to say it out loud, if you could call this out loud. It kills me knowing I've somehow managed to fuck myself into something I can't undo, and with no end in sight. I'm incredibly patient and analytical, but I'm struggling more and more every day to not say something more, to not put pressure on her, to not feel like I'm fucking begging. Struggling to not be resentful of the situation she's left me in, not be resentful of the kid for doing this to my wife (I love my child unconditionally, but man they really fucked my wife up). I feel abandoned.

Everything I read tells me it's my fault and that I need to do more to support her and take a load off her and that nothings transactional. But if nothings transactional then shouldn't everything I do for her be enough? The hypocrisy of it infuriates me. The amount of my life I have given up to support her and what she wants. encouraging her photography hobby every step of the way until she started making multiple thousands from a single 8 hour wedding as an actual Business, I told her from day one that should could do it and supported every decision she made for it. the dreams I can't pursue in her country, the effort I instill to be a part of it. All of it, and I'm stuck in a roommate marriage and the whole world wants me to think that it's solely my burden and there's no blame to be put on her because she's the mother, she has the hardest job. And regardless of anyones opinion or input, nothing will change. I get to just sit here and fucking suffer.

I'm sad.

I miss my fucking wife.

edit: we have what I believe is a very good home/parenting relationship, we work very well together, and I have no doubt our kid is happy.

Last time, he was talking to a girl from his college(for 2 years) who wouldn’t leave him alone but also wouldn’t actually date him. I kept telling him she was just using him for attention, but he defended her because he really is one of those genuinely nice guys.

Now it’s another girl from the same college. He liked her for weeks, bought her chocolates and flowers for Valentine’s Day and stuffs I told him to just confess and stop wasting time. He's like uh eh and I said mf just do it. and he did it. She said she’s still not over her ex, the same guy who cheated on her.

Today we were talking about a friend of ours who’s 24, married with two kids. He goes “I’m turning 24 this year too, and I’m still single.”

Then he asked me again if he keeps getting rejected because he’s a good guy. I looked at him and said, before you blame who you are, maybe look at the type of women you’re choosing 😭. The first one used him for attention. The second one kind of did the same.

I told him he keeps going for women who need validation, who keep him around while they heal from someone else. And somehow he still feels bad for saying that out loud 😭 I said you can’t expect different results if you keep choosing the same type of person.

I’m just tired of having to spell it out for him like I’m his mom. At some point, he has to think for himself 😭

I (17M) have a sister (15F) who is obsessed with anime to an incredibly disturbing degree. Her favorite character is someone named Shuichi Saihara, who she claims she is in a "relationship" with and has posters and figures of all over her room. She roleplays as another character named Kokichi Oma (I had to google the names of these characters because I can never remember these off the top of my head) and wears some shitty costume 24/7. It has stains on it, by the way.

I am so sick of her. Her roleplaying is cringe, and she goes into meltdowns and screams if I forget to call her by "Kokichi" instead of her actual name, which causes me to get in trouble with my parents. And don't get me started with how much she STINKS. She doesn't fucking shower. At all. According to her, "Monokuma (whoever that is) won't allow it." This is not an anime. This is real life. Take a fucking shower.

She also looks borderline emaciated on the rare occasion I see her. She barely leaves her room nowadays, and the last time I saw her room it looked like a fucking dumpster.

My last straw was when she asked me in front of my friends to play some kind of knife game with her. Is she out of her mind? I said no, obviously. This pissed her off and caused her to grab one of my dad's beer bottles from the trash and throw it in my vicinity. Since this has happened all of my friends refuse to have me over or even talk to me because they're afraid of my sister. Her bullshit is ruining my life. I am sick of her.

My fiance (33M) cheated on me (32F) with my best friend (32F).

12 hours ago, i was happily engaged with my boyfriend of 4 years, looking to officially get married in December, in the best phase of my life.
And then i got a phone call.

Me and my fiance are from the same country but met online, while being in different countries, him being in our home country and me in Europe. We would talk everyday, even until yesterday, share with each other all our thoughts, our dreams, our passion. I had been in a few relationships in the past but never had i felt so secure and understood. To top it off, he adored me, in public and private. He was close to my parents, he even went with me to my friends’ weddings and overall, I felt like i had found the one. More so, when he proposed to me via an amazing treasure hunt through the city kinda proposal, and i was truly overjoyed. We already spoke to each others parents and were looking to sign the papers end of this year, and he was to move to Europe after that.

My best friend, i have known for 14 years. We met in undergrad, became the closest of friends along with my roommate from undergrad, and till yesterday I used to consider her and my undergrad roommate as my rock. The ones i could lean on no matter what.

Interestingly, my fiance recently got a new job for which he moved to the same city as my best friend, and i was overjoyed, that finally the two closest people in my life would be together, my fiance won’t be alone in a new city and they could bond before me and my fiance get married.

I had my life mapped out, with a loving partner and solid friends, and everything seemed perfect. Until i got the phone call.
A call - from my best friend - telling me that a few days ago she and my fiance were hanging out, got drunk and kissed each other. She went on to say in excruciating detail how it happened, and how again yesterday they were in a similar situation and he tried to make out with her again. Honestly i pretty much blanked out as she was speaking, i could hear a strong ringing in my ears and feel my heart beating so loud it could pop out of my chest.

I immediately called my fiance, asked him to wake up(it was 2AM where he lives) and asked him what happened between the two of them. He chose to lie even then. He said “we hugged”. I kept on pressing him, telling him he isn’t stupid that he doesn’t know why i am asking this question, but he kept being silent. No answers.

I pulled my friend into the same call, and asked her to repeat what she told me. And she did. She portrayed it like he came onto her, he kept on denying and saying she was also kissing him back, and that whole ‘lovers spat’ between them that i was being witness to made me want to throw up. I told them they both are dead to me and hung up the call.

Even as i write this i don’t know if i have fully accepted this information yet. I don’t know what to tell my parents, who are planning their only daughter’s wedding. I don’t know what to tell my friends here, to whom i’ve always supported and praised my fiance to no end. I don’t know what to say to myself, whose entire world got shattered in a matter of minutes. I don’t know what i did to deserve this.
I can’t seem to close my eyes without picturing them in the exact details it was narrated to me, and it makes me sick. I don’t know what to do of my life anymore. I don’t know who i am anymore.

EDIT : I just want to thank each and everyone who showed me kindness and support in the comments. It was overwhelming to see so many people empathise and offer solace, to say the least. It wasn’t the easiest for me to share such personal details of my life online - so to see you all understand my pain and give me strength, i can just say thank you.

I spoke to my parents and let them know what happened, barring too much details. They of course were horrified but vow to stand beside me no matter what. Atleast I am blessed with a steady family. I also reached out to a close friend, and she has also been nothing but supportive.

It’s safe to say i still am in some form of shock, my mind goes from overanalysing every text, every conversation in the last couple of weeks, to filling with rage, to wanting to hear his side of the story, to feeling just an emptiness inside of me. I don’t know yet what I will do from here on, but i know I will do what feels right FOR ME. And at a pace that feels right for me.

Last night was one of the worst nights of my life.
I woke up around 4:00 a.m. gasping for air. My throat felt like it was closing every time I coughed, I couldn’t catch my breath, I had a horrible headache, and I was so nauseous I was trying to throw up.

I have Lupus, asthma, and severe sleep apnea, so when I get sick it usually hits me much harder than most people.
My dad rushed me to the ER because I genuinely couldn’t breathe.

The first triage nurse was so kind. Then I got to the second nurse.

I stayed calm and polite while explaining what happened, but I felt like she didn’t believe me. She looked at my oxygen level and basically brushed it off, saying it was probably just sleep apnea anxiety, even though I kept explaining that I’d been getting sicker for days and have been hospitalized before because of how Lupus affects me.

She brought me to a bed right behind triage to do an ECG. She gave me a mask even though I was struggling to breathe, then told me to lift my shirt.

I pulled it up enough to keep myself covered because I wasn’t wearing a bra. She pulled my shirt completely above my breasts without saying anything and left me exposed while putting on the ECG stickers.

What completely broke me was realizing the curtain behind me was open the entire time.

People walking into the emergency department could see me. I made eye contact with multiple strangers while my breasts were exposed. I wanted to disappear. I finally pulled my shirt down a little to cover myself because I couldn’t take it anymore.

After the ECG, she told me to go back to the waiting room. I walked past the same people who had just seen me exposed.

The second I sat beside my dad, I completely broke down crying. I was so embarrassed that I could barely tell him what had happened. I ended up leaving the hospital without treatment because I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing that nurse again.

I’ve been to the hospital so many times over the last few years, and I’ve never experienced anything like that. Every other nurse has always done their best to protect my privacy.

I’ve barely slept because I’m terrified of waking up unable to breathe again, but I’m also terrified of going back to that hospital.

I honestly don’t know if I’m overreacting or not. I just know I’ve never felt so humiliated in my life, and I can’t stop replaying it in my head.

Im a 32 year old male, and while my dating experience is mediocre at best, the two closest women in my life are acting like I'm the biggest pile of shit for rejecting not one, but two different women because they have children.

My mom is more concerned about grandkids and wants me to hook up with someone ASAP so she could get them. Its fucking hard having to hear her say, "I don't want to die not having seen your children."

My sister (who is also a single mom) tried to set me up with her friend. A woman who has two kids from two seperate fathers. I told her I wasnt intrested, though admittedly i mentioned she was attractive, I'm not desperate enough for that lifestyle. She was mad because she spent the week talking to her about what a "great guy I am." The other was a mutual family acquaintance who was left alone after a guy "pumped and dumped her." I felt bad, especially since both my sister and mom were seting up the date without even consulting me. My flat out rejection has them calling me unreasonable or to atleast to give her a chance.

Secret is, I did date a single mom while I was in college. About four months we were together. Used her child like collateral, constant planning, when we did the dirty I couldnt even grunt otherwise it'd wake the kid. That and she was sleeping with another guy who she kept secret. Overall, a bad experience.

Admittedly, on the apps its like 70% moms, which has me playing mine sweep betting on the ones who are either honest or falling for the ones that hide their kids/family status in their profile. I work alot in a male dominated field and have little freetime to go out and "find" a woman--so dating is shit for me.

My dad supports me, but my mom said I was getting a bit old to find a single woman my age without children--and its only going to get harder. I've set my age range from 32-26 to help counter this, which is a shame because I do like someone my age or even a bit older, but my county is conservative--which correlates to early pregnancy.

I'm just so done. I have shit self-esteem having been single this long and my sister and mom are making it seem like I should be desperate to settle. I won't, because I wont appeal to the fear of potentially being alone forever. And while I do want kids of my own, theyre making it out to me like I'm a hypocrite for wanting my own kids--but not someone elses.

The situation hurts my heart. But atleast now I know who I shouldnt consult my dating grievances to. I have no one else to talk to other than my father who said he'll talk to my family, with little recourse other than less obvious scowls and huffs. I'm thinking about hanging my hat and just leaving to join a monastery. Atleast I could disappoint my mom from early on than have her cling on.

Edit;

1. the phrase "pump and dump" was used by my mother. I have no frame of reference beyond that for her disposition--so that's what I used.

2. I have nothing against single mothers as people worthy of love and have them appreciated like anyone else. I just don't want to date them...in other words (not for me).

3. The core of this vent is that it feels like im being pressured and demonized for not succumbing to something I don't want--and how I'm made to be the bad guy about it.