People Tell The True Stories They Need To Get Off Their Chest
13. My Husband's Work Wife Is Trying To Destroy Our Marriage
“I (31F) am at my wits’ end with my husband’s (32M) coworker Sarah (30F), and his complete inability to see what’s happening.
Where do I even start? Three years ago, my husband Mark started working with Sarah. At first, I tried to be welcoming. I invited her to our BBQs, included her in group outings, and genuinely tried to be friendly. Big mistake. She spent the entire time making backhanded comments about everything from my career (“Oh, you’re just a yoga instructor?
How… peaceful.”) to my cooking (“I guess not everyone can master basic seasoning”).
The real problem is that Mark thinks she’s “just being funny.” Last month, she literally threw away the anniversary mug I gave him because it “clashed with the office aesthetic.” When I got upset, Mark said I was being too sensitive and that “Sarah just has high standards for office decor.” IT WAS A MUG WITH OUR WEDDING PHOTO ON IT.
Some greatest hits from Sarah:
She scheduled a “mandatory” work dinner on our anniversary.
She convinced Mark not to take a promotion because it would mean working with a different team.
She posts daily photos of them together with hashtags like #WorkPowerCouple and #WorkSpouse.
She tells everyone at their office that she “takes better care of him than I do.”
She changed his coffee order and now tells everyone she “trained him right.”
The worst part? My husband is completely blind to all of this. Yesterday, he actually told me about how Sarah said our new house (which we spent months searching for) was “charming, in a starter home kind of way.” He repeated this while LAUGHING.
I tried talking to him about it, but Sarah has convinced him I’m “just insecure.” She’s managed to insert herself into every aspect of our lives. They text constantly – even on weekends. She knows his schedule better than I do. She rearranged his entire desk and office wardrobe because his style was “too suburban husband.” THAT’S WHAT HE IS!
Last week, I suggested marriage counseling. He looked genuinely confused. He of course went and talked to Sarah about it. I found out from another coworker that she’s been telling people that Mark and I are “going through a rough patch” and that she’s “just being a good friend by giving him someone to talk to.” We weren’t going through anything until she started this nonsense!
The breaking point? I stopped by his office to surprise him with lunch (I know, I know, but it was his birthday and Sarah was supposedly out sick). Guess who was there? Sarah. She’d “miraculously recovered” and bought him a cake that said “To my work hubby” with a photo of them from the office holiday party.
She saw me and said, “Oh, Amy! You came too… how nice. Mark, you didn’t tell me your real wife was coming!”
I’m not crazy, right? This woman is trying to destroy my marriage while my husband stands there grinning like it’s all some big joke.
What do I do? Divorce seems extreme, but I’m running out of options here.”
12. I Thought We Were In Love...Until A Concert Ruined Everything
“I am 24m, she is 21, and we met at a job in a hotel (I was bartending, and she was a receptionist desk clerk).
Everything went smoothly from our first interaction in the hotel’s dining room. We were chatting, laughing, and all that. Two weeks after our first meeting, she invited me to go clubbing. We had a great time, kissed, danced, and it was one of the best experiences in my life—a whole night filled with passion.
She told me basically the same thing: that it was the best experience of her life.
From that point on, everything went even more smoothly than I had imagined. We’ve been chatting 24/7 online and offline about everything and nothing at the same time, having deep discussions about ourselves, past traumas, and experiences, and let me tell you—I’ve really begun to think that she was the one.
She was caring and loving, supportive, sweet, and funny, yet she had her own strong opinions, which I really adore. She had a strong yet loving personality. However, she mentioned some mental issues she was dealing with, like ADHD and many past traumas, but she was willing to attend therapy, and I was more than willing to provide every kind of support she needed because I am a strong believer in “love and care can make a difference.”
Within a month or two of that moment, I decided to propose an official relationship. She was reluctant at first due to the aforementioned reasons, but I was not pushing it and decided to wait for the right time. I saw the way she looked at me—the spark in her eyes, the smile.
I felt that the time would come. And it did. We were happy together and moved to different cities, although they were 30 km away from each other. I didn’t see it as a problem because our intentions were serious, and I didn’t want to be pushy or too insistent on living together.
I wanted to make this relationship work. Of course, due to the distance and both of us being hard workers, we started to see each other less—typically one day every two weeks—but nevertheless, those meetings were full of love and joy, and we confessed our love that autumn.
So it went on, and I always expressed my serious intentions about our future. She was all for it, calling me her future husband and the first real love she’d experienced—she said I was the guy who made her feel truly alive and happy.
She is an artist, by the way, and she even drew my portrait on the recent St. Valentine’s Day, which was really amazing. Nobody had ever done such things for me. I wrote her a poem, and she told me the same thing.
However, a week ago, while we were just chatting casually, she told me that she was going to a concert of her favorite band.
She sounded really happy, and I asked if I could join, but she harshly refused because she said it was for her and her female friends—a girl-only event. I was still upset about it; it sounded like a good opportunity to have some quality time together, and time was something we didn’t have much of.
However, I didn’t erupt or anything—I just stated that it was a missed opportunity nonetheless.
Within five minutes of that conversation, I received a long message saying that our relationship was going nowhere, that she was not ready for anything serious, and that it was never going to be “happily ever after till the end of time”—that she was not for me and that I was just wasting her time and nerves.
I was shocked to the core. She was going through a depressive episode at the time, and I asked if this was part of it or a thought-out decision. She told me it was the second. I didn’t know what to say. It felt like something died inside me.
I didn’t have any time to respond, and she said her last goodbyes and blocked me everywhere. (And if someone asks, it doesn’t have anything to do with the concert or the possibility of infidelity; we have talked about infidelity many times before, and it is disgusting to her because she was betrayed multiple times before.
And our intimate life was amazing every time we met.)
I have no clue what went wrong. I am completely devastated. It feels as if a person I deeply cared about just died in five minutes. No memories remain except those in my head. She just… disappeared. I haven’t been sleeping; I’ve been drinking until blackout this whole week, and I really don’t know what to do next.
It was her decision, after all, and I won’t interfere for answers. I guess love blinded me to any possible problems, or maybe I am overthinking. So, I guess that’s it.”
11. I Thought We Were Best Friends...Until She Started Messaging My Husband
“My (22F) husband (27M), I met through an online forum. There are probably 2k people who know of it, but only about 150 active participants at any given time, most of whom have been in it for at least 5 years. It ended up migrating to social media and Discord due to ease of use.
A few years before I met my husband, I ended up becoming close with a woman I’m going to call May for this post. We were in one of the many smaller Discord servers together, and, as this group tends to be male-dominated, we formed almost a sisterly bond.
We spoke every day for years and shared absolutely everything with each other, including very personal traumas. There was a point where I was even on her mom’s AT&T account despite never having hung out with her in person. I’m neurodivergent (I have autism), so our online friendship was the closest friendship I had.
May had been seeing a guy whom she’d met in the same circle, Brian, for around two years. Brian, while a great guy in personality, struggled heavily with booze abuse and had trouble keeping a job. As much as we loved him, May had been funding his entire lifestyle, and it started to take a toll on her.
While she agreed that she didn’t have any future with him, she absolutely refused to leave. She ended up messaging my husband, Paul, on Messenger to ask for advice from both the perspective of a man and as someone who had been a friend of his.
This is apparently where it started.
I didn’t have any reservations about May talking to Paul. She had been my close friend for years, and I had already introduced her to multiple previous partners without issue. She had also been messaging me frequently to coordinate wedding plans, even buying plane tickets to travel to be my bridesmaid.
It was incredibly important, as this would be both the first time we met and a very special event in my life. However, at some point, May started shifting the conversation with Paul to wedding plans instead of her relationship problems. Instead of making travel plans with me, she started repeatedly asking that my husband arrange everything because I was too stressed with the rest of the wedding.
Paul deferred everything back to me the first few times. When she saw that, she shifted.
During this same time period, I was recovering from a complicated pregnancy loss that resulted in me having multiple surgeries. I went into a very deep depression afterwards and wasn’t feeling my best self emotionally or physically.
My husband has always struggled with both anxiety and autism, and that only heightened things. We began fighting more than normal. While things were still okay, they absolutely weren’t perfect. May had been privy to everything that had been going on in our lives, and I felt comfortable venting to her when we got into arguments.
When Paul denied her requests to make travel plans, she ended up shifting to the topic of our arguments. From what I saw in their conversations, May initially brought up how something I had messaged her sounded weird, that maybe something was off with me, and it didn’t sound like something he would say.
She was technically telling the truth, as she had taken a sentence I said out of context and cropped the screenshot to remove any explanation I had offered on it. Paul was hesitant to believe her, but the next morning, he came back to ask again out of fear.
Within the span of weeks, May had convinced Paul that I was being unfaithful and looking for a discreet way to cancel the wedding without telling him I had a partner from an affair. As she was my best friend, my husband took her at face value.
She would often crop things out of context or twist events I had told her and retell them to him, framing them as weird and suspicious. Despite it all, Paul refused to leave me until he had concrete proof that I had been unfaithful. Instead, May switched back to bringing up travel plans.
Rather than the girls’ night we had planned, her goal shifted to drinks and a movie with Paul. She talked about how she would comfort him and give him a much-needed break, taking him to all his favorite places. She would follow it up by sending him Spotify songs that reminded her of him, calling him cute, and texting him good morning.
The worst part wasn’t even the unfaithfulness. She had tried to tell him I had actually terminated our pregnancy, and that the miscarriage was a plea for sympathy. While Paul shut this down multiple times, it had clearly been planted in his head.
I started to notice something had shifted in Paul.
Instead of my usual attentive husband, he stopped participating in wedding planning. He spent most of the day glued to his phone. I begged for communication, but he would pretend to be oblivious to whatever I was complaining about. Our fights shifted from spats as a result of heavy emotion into accusations of me acting suspicious or being untrustworthy.
A lot of these days are a blur to me now. In a moment of weakness, I went through his phone. That’s where I found all of the messages he had sent to May.
There had been quite a few suggestive text messages mixed in with what May had sent him.
While Paul did not acknowledge them, it had absolutely been an emotional affair and an attempt at a physical connection on her part. He acknowledged this and we spent a long time talking. The conversation was productive, but the scars of arguing with my husband about whether the baby was even his or if I had lost it on purpose will never, ever leave my head.
My husband and I ended up pursuing couples counseling to discuss what led to this. We found out through a therapist that this most definitely fit the bill for incredible manipulation, if not brainwashing. He had been convinced I had been unfaithful to him and was waiting for the other shoe to drop at any moment.
His reaction had been mostly sane for someone who fully believed these things to be true.
I ended up leaving many of our Discord servers and group chats. I reached out to May’s partner, Brian, and informed him of the situation. Initially, May pretended this was 100% Paul’s fault and the affair was totally one-sided. However, as soon as I messaged Brian, the conversation changed. May sent me multiple long paragraphs detailing how I should die and that I was a compulsive liar, making up things that never happened. Brian responded with hostility, insisting I had been the one who was unfaithful.
I messaged a few of our mutual friends to ask for advice and received an incredible number of screenshots of May telling them I had been engaged in an affair. The dates on them went back long before she’d ever mentioned the idea to Paul.
She had even named specific people and places. Luckily, all of the people she named were also in the community and able to provide an alibi that not only proved it did not happen, but most often, we were on opposite sides of the country on the dates she named.
When this avenue failed, May made multiple long social media posts about how I was witch-hunting her because I ruined my own marriage by being unfaithful. I deleted my social media, choosing not to engage. Normally, that ends things like that, but for the last 9 months, every single day, May has made at least one post detailing a similar story to her initial posts.
She accused me of using her to cover up my affair, using substances and abusing my husband. The posts happened so often that I started tuning them out by default. People would often provide me with screenshots, but I simply ignored them. That seemed to only anger her further, as things continued to escalate.
Paul and I continued with our wedding after much discussion. However, the night before, we received multiple calls to our cake and food vendors from people impersonating me and telling them we had called it off. She even attempted to pay cancellation fees but was thwarted only because we had to come in person to void the contract.
After we managed to figure out the situation with the wedding vendors, May called the police. She insinuated to others and the cops that I was underage and that my husband was mistreating me. Specifically, she claimed I was 16 and only my husband knew, as he was happily taking advantage of me.
Due to me entering the community when I was underage and being younger than many other members, some of them believed her. Once she had convinced them enough, they turned on her for not calling the cops. This resulted in a visit from our local police department, as well as a call from the state police after she had contacted Internet Crimes Against Children.
I was easily able to prove my age, but the police report she made only convinced people further as it seemed like evidence.
By this point, I acknowledge that this was internet drama and there was nothing I could do but turn off my phone.
Once the police report was cleared, I deleted any trace of myself left online and decided to try reaching out to people in person. Instead, May retained an attorney. She alleged that I had doxxed her online and that people had shown up at her home, threatening her as a result.
With her new attorney in tow, she emailed both my job and the college I was attending, telling them that I was being charged with harassment.
I study nursing and I work with children who have developmental disabilities. In my state, you can’t work or attend school for either of these things if you possess a criminal record.
Any kind of allegation of this sort is incredibly serious and enough to get you expelled. I had to file my own police report and pleaded with both institutions to believe me. While the police were unable to do anything, as May lived in another state and it was out of their jurisdiction, I was able to provide a police report I had made about her to both and get my name cleared. However, the continued calls to my workplace meant that I was asked to quit for the safety of the children.
Losing my job broke me. My profession was my passion, and I struggled to find meaningful work due to my autism. Saying it gutted me is a complete understatement. I was very upset. May had also claimed to work at a daycare for children with disabilities and was pursuing her own degree in early childhood education.
I had had enough and decided to report her to both her job and her own school. While I had the addresses for both, neither claimed to recognize her. I ended up spending an entire weekend calling around to different agencies and universities within 4 hours of her address.
None had ever heard of her. In the state she lives in, educators and people working with children have to sign up for a registry. She had never been entered onto it.
I looked back through our conversation and found that May’s story of what she did changed often.
Particularly, I noticed that when I entered my field, May had changed from working in a Montessori school to working with children with disabilities. Before, she had claimed to be studying biology and shifted it to childhood education when I expressed that I was considering the same field.
The more I read, the more I noticed the same pattern of behavior. When I mentioned a band, May would parrot having interests in the same things. If I had a hobby, she would slowly start telling others she was even better than me at the same activity.
After a week of obsessing over it, I realized May had never even told me one thing she was interested in that I hadn’t brought up first. We had been friends for years and I couldn’t name a single personality trait, interest, or hobby that was unique to her.
We spent hours on voice call, texting every day, and it was her agreeing with me before coming back a week later to announce that, actually, she had thought that before I had ever even said it.
I started to actually lose my mind. Between the constant harassment, pregnancy loss, and couples counseling, I felt like I was going insane.
I had long since been off the internet, and I couldn’t escape her. I decided to come back to social media and announce my findings with all of the screenshots of the emotional affair included. I was met with a lot of support. A few other women came out, sharing that May had done similar things to their partners or had been catty to them in the past. Our mutual friends would thank me for sharing and ask what they could do to help this stop.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so supported in my life, but none of the support stopped her.
Within a week of reactivating my social media, I had another woman making posts about me. We had been in the same community, but she was rarely active so I was not well acquainted with her.
She made 10 or so posts, mostly insulting my appearance and repeating similar phrases to May. She thanked God that my child was dead because there was no need for more of my genetics on this planet. While I had too much going on to pay proper attention to her (and she had me blocked), it was relayed to me that her own husband had admitted to being unfaithful but wouldn’t admit with whom.
An anonymous account reached out to her, claiming to be me and that I was the affair partner. Doubly, I started receiving calls and texts to my phone number often from men claiming they’d spoken with me on hook-up sites and that I was looking to share photos and meet up.
I felt I had little left at this point. I couldn’t engage with my support system, lost my job, and left college to avoid any more trouble. I spent much of my time locked in the house and forced to clean to try not to think about it.
I had attempted to go to the police twice more and was told that there was nothing that could be done. I couldn’t afford to hire my own attorney. Brian would reach out to me via email, explaining that May had been confirmed to be unfaithful to him.
One of our other friends’ partners had left their partner and they had begun going out just hours later. When he refused to give her attention after she messaged his mother and childhood friends calling him a substance addict, she attempted to report him for crimes.
As vindicating as it was to learn that this was not a unique experience, it had been 9 months since I confronted Paul about the text messages, and they had never once slowed. No matter how much or little attention I gave her, it kept going.
I wish I had a concrete way to end this, but unfortunately, May has made 2 separate posts about me today. I am lost on what more there is to do. Without a job, I can’t hire a lawyer, and even then, it’s hard to proceed with us living in different states.
I feel so isolated and cut off from the world. My marriage will likely dissolve as a result of the strain this has put on our trust, regardless of therapy. I’m not sure what there is left to do.”
10. I Took A DNA Test And Uncovered A Dark Secret In My Dad's Family
“I am from a tiny town down south. My grandparents — let’s call them Bob and Mary Brown — were married at the age of 16 and 15, respectively, in 1917, and produced over fifteen children (through research, I have “found” three more children who died in infancy).
My father, Ed, is the youngest child, born six years after my aunt when Mary was approximately 51 years old. My father has nieces and nephews who are older than him because some of his siblings were already married and having children when he was born.
Another family was down the same dirt road from my grandparents: Paul and Sara White and their fifteen children. Everybody went to the same church and primary school (most stopped education around eleven or twelve. My father was the first to complete high school and attend college).
Other families were scattered on this dirt road and in the area, but it was a small community of families of formerly enslaved people still working on the same land.
Mary died in the 1980s-something, and Bob passed in 1991. Paul White died in the 1980s, and his wife died around 2001.
Before Sara White passed, she sent word through family members that she wanted to speak to my dad. Because the families were close, this was seen as Sara just wanting to see him one last time. However, my dad did not get to see her before she passed.
About twenty years ago, after church, one of the Whites’ children, Lucy, approached my father to speak with him privately. After they spoke, my father was visibly upset but did not say anything as we drove home. A few days later, my dad called his brothers and sisters (four sisters, five brothers) and delivered a bombshell: According to Lucy, my dad’s birth father was Paul White.
My aunts and uncles were livid! They were ready to fight! My aunts and uncles swore that my grandmother would not have been unfaithful to her husband. She was known as one of the sweetest, meekest, and most devout women you would ever see. Her nickname was “Ms Sweetie” because everyone loved her.
She loved my grandfather, and he loved her. And, in a small town, infidelity is gossiped about, sometimes openly.
Still, no one, not even my aunts and uncles, had ever heard anyone say my grandmother had children outside of her marriage. No one had spoken of this in the fifty-something years of my father’s life, so it was a shock to hear.
My aunts and uncles assured my father he was their full brother and put the matter to rest. According to them and my father, the central players were all deceased; my father had grown up as Brown, and no gossip would change that. Life moved on, Lucy never spoke of it again, and my father joked about it sometimes with us.
Recently, I did a DNA/ancestry test, and my results came back earlier this week. Lucy White, who had also taken the test, was listed as my aunt, a half-sister to my father. We shared over 15% DNA.
I called my father (I live across the country now) and told him to sit down because I had news.
Without mentioning the White family initially, I explained to him that I’d taken a DNA test, and some of the results were… troubling. I told him that Lucy White was listed as my aunt, and I allowed him a few seconds to figure out on his own what that might have meant.
Eventually, he said, “Paul White might be my father,” in a confused, astonished way. I explained that we didn’t know exactly what the results meant and that perhaps Lucy White was Bob Brown’s daughter, making Lucy and my dad half-siblings.
My whole family uses humor to deal with everything, so my father and I joked about what the results meant.
However, I knew he was upset. Ultimately, he said he wanted to know and asked me to send him a kit. I also suggested getting one for my uncle (his brother) to verify things. (My uncle is old and would have no idea how to work on a computer, so he would have my father do everything and get the results.)
The more I have thought about this, the stranger the story feels to me. According to family and friends, my grandmother started to show signs of (what they believed to be) early-onset dementia a few months before she gave birth to my dad. They said she did not even know she was pregnant until a few days before his birth.
My father was the only child born in a hospital because my grandmother had gone to one due to the abdominal pain she was having. Also, the nurses named my father — according to the stories — because my grandmother was not lucid enough to name him in the days after his birth.
My grandfather would joke that he knew my father was his son because he “paid $50 for him” when he was summoned to the hospital for his wife and newborn child.
I want to add a little context here. I am from a Black family from the South.
This took place in the mid-1950s. The family was poor. They didn’t have a car, and lived in a small home that never had running water or a bathroom. How my grandmother got to town and to the hospital, no one really knows.
My grandfather only knew his wife was sick in the hospital, but he was unable to get to town immediately. I also want to mention, this was back in the day when women did not drive, and very few of the men had cars. The wives stayed home and raised children while the men worked (and had their fun, as was gossiped about a lot).
My grandfather didn’t have a car, but Paul White did.
I am having a tough time believing my grandmother did not know she was pregnant. She had more than fifteen children; she had to have known she was carrying a child. And no one has ever questioned the paternity of any of her children.
Ever. Not saying she was a saint, but no one has ever said anything bad about her. It is odd that she would wait until her fifties to be unfaithful to my grandfather, and with a man so close to the family. Even the idea of her showing signs of early-onset dementia strikes me as odd now.
What if her symptoms were a result of her inability to cope with something that happened to her? For her to have been so out of it that she didn’t know she was pregnant or able to name my father strikes me as incredibly telling.
I have speculated that she was traumatized because she had been unfaithful to her husband and was now carrying a child due to that affair, but again, her personality, demeanor, and history lead me to believe she would not have been unfaithful.
My father grew up living with one of his older brothers, who was married, but this was (I believe) due to my grandmother’s declining mental health and my uncle’s ability to provide a more stable home for my dad.
My father also spent some time in his teens with another older brother in a different state, but returned home because he hated the winters up north.
My father loved his mother very much. He never spoke badly about her and remembers her as a sweet woman.
He speaks fondly of her whenever she is mentioned. She passed when he was in his mid-twenties. Also, of the fifteen children that survived infancy, there are now only three left: my father, his brother, and my aunt (their sister).
I don’t know what to do next.
I am going to send my father one of the DNA/ancestry kits. He wants to know, but also doesn’t want to know. He is in his seventies, retired and healthy, and living a good life (although my mother passed last year). He has a social life, loves spoiling my nephews, etc., and he travels often.
He worked in law enforcement for many years and retired with a ton of friends and colleagues who absolutely love him. He has lived a good life, and continues to, and I believe he wants to keep his peace and happiness intact.
I guess I just wanted to get this off my chest.”
9. I Thought I Would Never Hear From Her Again...Until She Did This
“Victoria and I worked together in a bar back in the late 1990s. Her friend (Emma) was seeing my friend (Mark), so the four of us would often hang out together when we weren’t all at the bar. People would often assume that Victoria and I were a couple, although we weren’t.
Both of us left the bar and went on to work elsewhere in proper jobs. We stopped hanging out with Mark & Emma, but for some reason, Victoria and I still saw each other most weekends. We often had complete strangers comment to us that we made a good-looking couple, and she would always correct them and say that we weren’t together.
I have to admit, this stung—I had developed feelings for her, and to hear her tell random strangers that there was nothing romantic between us just told me (vocally and repeatedly) that those feelings weren’t reciprocated. So be it.
After a couple of years of this, I realized that nothing was going to happen between us and started seeing other girls.
I still regarded Victoria as one of my closest friends, so we still hung out. I introduced the girls I was seeing to her, and they all hated her. Every single one of them saw her as competition. I didn’t see this. I regarded our relationship as strictly platonic, as I had no indication from her that there was any romantic interest on her side, and I’d already moved on and buried my own interest in her as I knew it wouldn’t lead to anything.
Then, out of nowhere, we had what I call our “Harry Met Sally” moment. I was going through a particularly bad breakup. Victoria took me out for some drinks to cheer me up. We had far too much to drink, and we ended up sleeping together.
I hadn’t expected it, hadn’t planned on it, but falling asleep with her in my arms and hearing her say “I love you” made me feel the most content I had ever felt.
She freaked out the next morning. She told me that she didn’t want a partner.
She kicked me out of her apartment. I spent the next couple of days texting her, messaging her on social media, basically being all kinds of pathetic and needy. I was panicking, thinking that our night together had ruined everything and that I was about to lose my best friend, and I was desperate to keep her in my life.
It turns out that our night together had ruined everything, and I had lost my best friend. She told me to never contact her again and blocked me. That was 15 years ago. I haven’t seen her or spoken with her since.
A few years later, I get a notification from social media to say that Victoria had sent a friend request. I accepted. I didn’t reach out to message her—she had, after all, told me not to contact her ever again—so I was waiting for her to make the first move, if she wanted to.
A couple of days later, she unfriended me.
A year later, the same. She sends a friend request, I accept, and a couple of days later, she’s no longer showing on my friends list.
This happens a few times over the years, to the point where I get a friend request, and I leave it a few days before I respond.
By the time I go to accept, she’s already deleted the request. At this stage, I’m finding this behavior bemusing. It’s nice to know that she’s obviously still thinking of me, but beyond that, I just find it odd. Then five years or so go by without this annual routine, and while I hadn’t exactly forgotten her, I wasn’t thinking of her either.
Then I got a friend request from her last year. This time, I accepted it immediately. Again, I don’t message her. If she wants to talk, she knows where I am. She doesn’t message me, but for a change, she doesn’t unfriend me either.
Now, I’m not a big social media user.
I basically check it once a week to see if my favourite bands have announced tour dates or if my local bars have got any gigs on that I might want to go to. Every now and then, I’ll post something—a photo from a gig I’m at, something amusing I’ve spotted—but I never get a “like” or a comment from Victoria.
In fact, she seems to be on social media even less than I am. A couple of times, I’ve even checked my friends list to see if she’s still on it, and yep, she’s still there, but the two of us are just going on about our lives with no involvement whatsoever with each other.
And that’s fine. I’m very happily married, she’s living with someone and they have a kid together, we’ve both moved on, and we’re both better off for it. Everything’s Zen.
Anyway, this week we had an election in the UK. I posted something vaguely political on social media (I know, I know, venting into a sea of nonsense)… and Victoria liked it.
It’s the first thing I’ve posted in the year that we’ve been “friends” that she’s reacted to.
Except Victoria now has a new surname.
So I check her profile. She’s just got married. Literally that day. There’s a gushing monologue about how happy she is to be married to her husband, there’s a bunch of photos of her looking absolutely beautiful in her wedding gown… and there’s me thinking, “Hang on, you’re getting married and before the ink is even dry on the wedding certificate you’re heading onto social media to ever-so-subtly let me know that you’re married, even though we haven’t spoken in 15 years.
What’s up with that?”
If you’ve read this far then thank you for indulging me and my rambling monologue. I suspect I already know the answer to this, but am I overthinking this?”
8. I'm Worried My Homeless Friend Is Just Going To Show Up At My Place
“I worked with this girl for 3 years and have known her for 6 years. Let’s call her Lin. She’s from the Philippines (we live in America) and she had a very traditional marriage (common in their culture) with an American man who did everything for her.
He unexpectedly died 2 years ago and she was left with nothing.
Now I have helped Lin out a lot. I took in her dog (he’s now mine). His teeth were in bad shape when she gave him to me, and I paid $900 for his vet care/teeth removal. I agreed to store a lot of her things/clothes for her at my house.
I helped her apply for numerous jobs.
The one thing I wouldn’t agree to was to let her live with me because my home is my safe, private space and she doesn’t respect my boundaries. I let her stay over for 4 days once, and she woke me up at the crack of dawn each day, arguing with her new partner over the phone.
She let my indoor cat outside and nearly lost her because she didn’t latch my door after I told her 50 times to keep the door latched because it blows open.
Lin doesn’t listen to anything I say and talks over me. She isn’t willing to learn how to do things on her own (such as applying for jobs).
She has this attitude that she’s helpless, so she doesn’t really try. Of the multiple jobs she started, she quit during the first week because she thought they would be too hard for her.
Lin’s “partner” is from the Philippines and talks to her 24/7 over video chat.
He is controlling and verbally abusive. He has told her that she can’t wear makeup and can’t work at any factories because there are too many men around. He changed her social media account to his name, has read all of her messages, and has deleted most of her friends.
She got fired from one job because her employers saw her speaking to him over video chat (use of phones was prohibited). I’ve already tried to convince her to break up with him twice to no avail.
Lin quit her last job (that she actually liked) so she could go to the Philippines and see her family and him for 6 months.
I kept her car in my driveway, and while she was gone, it got repossessed. She decided to come back here to the United States to “make money” to send back to her family. She willingly came back, knowing she’s not going to have a car or any sort of plan on where she’s going to live or work.
I can’t believe her stupidity at this point and have started distancing myself from her/ignoring her messages.
I know Lin has mooched off two of her Filipino friends who took her in, but they each gave her a deadline for when to get out.
Since I’m ignoring her, she texted my mom, telling her she’s going to be homeless soon. She asked my mom for our other coworker’s address (my mom works with me). My mom asked why, and Lin said she wants to go to our coworker’s house and ask if she can stay with her.
This person was never even friends with or close to Lin. Heck, she may not even remember her!
At this point, I’m terrified that Lin is going to Uber to my house with her luggage and beg me to take her in. What am I going to do in this situation?
She already showed up uninvited to my house once, planning on spending the weekend with me without even asking first! She literally sat in my driveway for 3 hours before leaving (I pretended I wasn’t home). She’s that insane!
I feel like my only option would be to call the police, but that feels too extreme.
There’s still a part of me that feels bad for her. She’s so incredibly dumb. It’s unbelievable! But I absolutely cannot live with her. I just want her to go back to her home country, but she likely doesn’t have enough for a $900 plane ticket.”
7. I Just Wanted A Quiet Birthday...And It Ended In Disaster
“Today, I woke up early at 8 AM.
My dad was calling. I spent 2 hours while she slept in. I made breakfast nicely and then we settled down on the couch.
I like to keep my birthday extremely low-key. I don’t need anything flashy, expensive, or a big party. I just wanted to relax, especially because we lost our 8-month-old puppy Thursday night.
So, we have a tradition that we’ll take the kids to the local Christmas lights attractions on my birthday, and there are a couple of extra things like snow tubing and whatnot.
Well, as I’m getting the kids ready, they keep running away and doing whatever.
She’s all about herself and making everything big for photos. Not exactly what I think we really ought to worry about, but to each their own. So, after about 30 minutes of waiting to go, we were ready until our neighbor came down the sidewalk.
She quickly shut the door, as she doesn’t like them, and I’m like, “I’m just going to get the youngest in the car.” Well, my neighbor struck up a conversation, saying, “Oh, it’s your birthday?
Cool, happy birthday.” He asked, “What’s going on with the house?” as I had some work going on; we both had to leave, and that was it — and she flipped her crap at me. I feel that’s a normal interaction.
For some reason, she just hates the neighbors.
I don’t know what her deal is, and I said I just don’t share that hatred because crap is normal. Even with the people I hate, I can still have a friendly “good weather” conversation. But I really don’t see a reason to pick a fight or blatantly ignore neighbors.
Next, she decided she was canceling the family outing because of the small chat. So, we spent 30 minutes just going back and forth. Finally, she came, and things seemed fine for 10 minutes until she re-ignited the argument and demanded a divorce.
During the ride there, she brought up previous people about whom she had manufactured false narratives in her head and just called me unfaithful, over this whole interaction with our neighbor.
We finally got to where the Christmas light attractions were, and we calmed down. The night seemed to be going okay, and everything appeared defused until she decided we all should go ice skating. We had just taken a picture, and my arm was still around her neck.
Then, I hit a dip in the ice and lost my footing. I couldn’t fall forward onto the kids or sideways because there were other kids. I just tried to fall back and twist, but I may have slightly nudged her forward. She goes, “You did that on purpose.” I said, “No. It was an accident.
Sorry about that.”
That seemed to be the end of it until she got in the car again and said that I artificially engineered myself falling so I could push her as some perceived payback for earlier. I said, “That is a freaking insane conclusion, and it was an accident.
I really don’t know why we are rehashing this crap.” Then, I said, “I’m not having the conversation,” and turned up the music. She turned it off and continued to yell and berate me as I was driving. Then, she demanded that I pull over and get out of the car so she could leave me stranded on the side of the interstate.
She even threatened to call 911. On me. On my birthday.
She made it clear when she got home that she intends to get a divorce. She went to every length to try and keep me in the cohabitable area and just left me with all the main chores and to clean up our dog’s crap that he had decided to take into our room.
So, happy birthday to me. It really feels great to be appreciated and loved on my birthday.”
6. I Decided To Give Her One More Chance...And Then I Walked In On Her Doing This
“I (M26) met my ex-partner (F25) two years ago. We met at a friend’s birthday party. We were polar opposites. I am pretty stoic, serious, and don’t speak much. She talked a lot. And smiled a lot. I liked that. She was open and liked sharing things about herself.
Kind of naive, which I found very cute.
She lived with a roommate, but after eight months, I asked her to officially move in with me since she basically spent most of her time at my place. I knew she wanted to move in, but didn’t want to be the one to ask first. If I asked, then it would look like I’m the one more interested, more invested in the relationship.
But as stubborn as I am, I didn’t really care about power plays like that. I’m tired of playing them at work. So I asked, and she moved in.
Now I know my upbringing and work made me too serious, at first glance at least. I actually consider myself very emotional and open.
It’s hard for me to make friends, but the ones I do, I keep very close and in high regard. At work, I’ve seen a disheartening number of families fight and curse and swear at each other for a few thousand bucks. It changed my outlook on people, as you can never know what someone really thinks about you.
I just thought how sad it would be to spend the one life you have with someone you don’t truly like and respect. So the few relationships I have, I try to take care of as best as I can.
So I did my best to nurture a good relationship with my partner.
I took her out on dates very often. In winter, I had less work and was often free. I would make a meal and take it to her at work, keep her company while she was eating, or help around with what I could. She was an assistant bookkeeper.
I was never clingy; I just thought it was a good way of showing her how much she means to me, how much I respect her. As I think, those little everyday things are the hardest to do, but they show how much you care.
But after a few months after she moved in, I felt like she was taking it for granted. Like, she started expecting me to do that. Like it was my job to make her happy, and all she had to do for me in return was to exist. Again, petty games.
She would often be on her phone while at home, not bothering to put that much thought or work into giving back. I began feeling doubts about the relationship. I know what spending time on your phone or coming home late usually means. At best, it’s a bad sign.
So on two occasions, I asked her to talk. I’m not a mind reader, and I’m not going to play any games. And I hate passive-aggressive behavior. And both times she said that nothing was wrong, that it was work, stress, or whatever. A crap answer—I knew her well enough to know that was a lie.
But I wasn’t going to say it a third time. So I distanced myself. And the first few weeks, she didn’t really react. Either she pretended not to, or just didn’t care. Maybe she thought I was doing it to get her attention or something, that I would just get over it or that it was a power play.
I still think her opinion of a relationship is a push and pull until someone comes out as a “winner” and becomes the dominant one in the relationship.
But she did go back to being much more affectionate after some time. That didn’t really change my mind, though.
I didn’t show it, but I was thinking of breaking up. I didn’t really visit her at work, and I stopped doing the little things I did. She asked a couple of times why I stopped, that she loved those things, and I didn’t know how to respond.
Yes, she went back to being affectionate, but only when I distanced myself. And the fact that she could change how she acted like that changed my view of her. And it cheapened all the things I did. I just told her that the way we were the last few months was not how I imagined my life to be.
I think she was a little surprised at that answer, but kind of brushed it off. And the last few months were like that.
Until last month, it was her friend’s birthday, and she made a party of sorts, which she invited us to. I had work to do, and I generally disliked parties.
But she loved them, so she went with a friend. As I was driving home from work, I thought that maybe I should go anyway. Maybe she would appreciate it. Her friend’s place was a house with three rooms, lights off, and she had some cheap party lights on.
And everything smelled of smoke. I found her friend first, congratulated her and started looking for my now ex-partner. I saw her in the corner of the room behind some dancing people sitting on a chair next to a guy facing her, caressing her arm up and down, both looking at each other.
I felt my heart hit my ribcage. I don’t think she saw me, and I didn’t stand there for too long.
I left right after. I drove home, took off my clothes and just crashed on the couch. My heart still beat fast, but my eyes were drowsy from driving and the smoke.
I was just tired. I fell asleep pretty fast. But I woke up very early the next day, made myself a coffee, and waited for her to wake up. At first, I thought about cursing at her, but my mind went back to the times I woke up next to this person.
I can’t describe it well, but I just felt tired of it all at that point. Whatever it was that I felt, I was going to break up with her.
And when she woke up and walked in, she didn’t ask me why I didn’t sleep in the bed. I looked her in the eyes.
I wanted to ask about last night, but just couldn’t. I was just looking at her, fishing for her to look back, and when she did, it was silent for a second and then she started crying. I wanted to ask her why she was crying, but I felt a lump in my throat.
I just couldn’t get the words out. I stared at her for like 20 seconds and the lump didn’t go away, but once I could speak again, I asked her why she was crying. She said her friend told her later that I was there, that I looked for her.
But since she couldn’t find me, she knew I had left. She didn’t say it, but it was sort of implied that she understood I probably saw her and that guy. I don’t know if they did more than what I saw them do, but I didn’t care to find out.
She just cried and I switched between looking at her and my coffee cup. I just couldn’t speak, and even if I could, I didn’t know what to say.
When she calmed down a bit, she said, “Please don’t leave me.” And at that point, I felt like crying.
I cried maybe three times in my adult life, but man, that hurt. Last night it didn’t really hit me because I was still in shock, but it came to me then. But I wasn’t going to freaking cry in front of her. All I could think about was that I would rather die than cry then and there; that thought held me together.
I just hit the table with my hand and went to the other room. We avoided and ignored each other for the rest of the day after that. But it was a weekend, she didn’t have to go to work, and I got a friend to take over for me if they needed me for anything at my firm.
The next day, when I got up, I sat at the kitchen table, drank my coffee, and waited for her. She walked in, and I didn’t want to look at her. She was looking at me, though. After a minute like that, she said, “Do I really have to pack?” in a very sad voice.
And I couldn’t say much. I just kept looking at my coffee. She packed a bag later that day and left. I don’t know where she went.
After a couple of days like that, she called me on the phone and asked to meet. I didn’t really want to, but we had to talk about her moving out her things.
We met at a park; since it was early, it was pretty empty. I was there first, so I was waiting for her. When she came, we just looked at each other and said, “Hello.” (Which was freaking weird, and sad at the same time.
It just goes to show how shallow people’s relationships are. Two years together and we’re down to a “Hello.”) She sat next to me, and without looking at each other, she asked if I could forgive her. I didn’t even say anything before she started saying she loved me, that she wanted to grow old together, that last year was the worst time of her life, that she didn’t know why she acted like that or did what she did that night, that she misses us being fine, and how much she misses me giving her a bath.
(Something we did.) At this point, she was silently crying.
But honestly, I just felt annoyed. This conversation I wanted to skip, because it felt like a business deal. I wasn’t going to forgive her for how she acted the last few months, let alone what she did with that guy.
If I could skip time, I’d skip that conversation. I think she was fishing for a hug, or a way in, so to say—whatever to get me talking. I told her I’d help her pack if she needed my help. She just stopped talking and kept crying silently.
I walked away, though; I didn’t think there was much to talk about at that point, to be honest.
That was two weeks ago and she sends me a message here and there. Nothing serious or rude, but I ignore most of them. Maybe she wants us to stay friends, but I don’t.
I mean, we can be friendly, just not close. When I see her, I won’t avoid her. She can live her own life and I’ll live mine.
We’re supposed to meet the day after tomorrow for me to give her some essentials. She said she’ll organize a friend sometime later to pick up the rest of her stuff…
I also expect she will want to talk, and my one hope is that I keep it together. I don’t want to argue; it’ll only make me feel bad later, no matter what I say. The time for talking is a long way gone.”
5. I Think I Need To Cut Off My Mom
“I’ve (37F) always been pretty good with money, never taking on student loans and always paying for cars in cash. The only debt I have is my mortgage, and it’s less than what most people pay for a car. I’ve got a decent job that brings in about $150k a year, so I’m not exactly struggling, but I wouldn’t consider myself rich either.
My family leaned on me for financial help from a young age. Even in elementary school, I was saving up for those times when my mom would need help paying bills. Looking back, I realize that wasn’t normal for a kid, but I thought it was just because we were tight on cash.
As I got older, I saw it was more about poor money management.
I’ve got two siblings (25M and 30F). I’ve covered their tuition, car costs, late bills—you name it. There were times I was asked for money that really tested me. Like in college, when I only had enough for rent and essentials, my mom would still ask for my whole monthly check.
It’s a miracle I didn’t end up flat broke. There was even a time my sister asked for a loan when I was unemployed. Yep, unemployed. I somehow managed to save a few thousand dollars even then.
I’ll admit, I’ve leaned on my mom too.
During the 2008 crash, I was barely finding part-time work. My mom let me move back in with her and even fronted me gas money for my first week at my new job. I paid her back as soon as I got my first paycheck. Once I saved up $5k, I moved out and never asked for financial help again.
I never tapped my siblings for money either.
Lending money has always made me uneasy, but once it’s out of my hands, I try to treat it as a gift. But last year, everything changed.
Once I landed my first job, I made it a priority to make sure my mom was doing okay financially.
You see, she’s never been great with money—frequenting pawn shops, juggling overdue bills, and dealing with debt. So, I made her a deal: if she handed over a copy of every bill she had, I’d make sure they were all sorted. It took a bit of convincing, but she eventually gave me a list of every bill and how far behind she was.
I’d ballpark it at a couple grand. She had a cycle of which bill she’d let slide, just enough to dodge any utility cut-offs. I cleared all her bills, and for the first time in her life, she wasn’t behind on any of them. She must have been around 55 years old then.
After that, she stopped relying on pawn shops and was super diligent about keeping everything up to date.
Next, I thought it was a good idea to help her set up an emergency fund. I opened a high-yield savings account, put in a few grand, and told her I’d match whatever she saved. She stuck with it for a while, but eventually lost interest. Looking back, I probably asked too much.
She’s never been one to hang on to money, and when she did have some, her instinct was to spend it. Emergencies, to her, were more about things she’d been wanting for a while.
Then came the debt. She was buried in it, always financing home repairs and car fixes because she didn’t know how to save and preferred to wait until things broke.
The monthly payments got so high that sometimes her fridge was practically empty and she could hardly afford to eat.
After taking another look at her finances, years after getting all her bills sorted, it hit me that her situation just wasn’t sustainable. I advised her to consolidate her debt while interest rates were still low.
Together, we came up with a plan to manage her payments. This adjustment ended up saving her about a grand every month after covering all her bills. With a pension, an extra thousand bucks each month, no more lingering debt, and a few grand saved for emergencies, I thought she was on pretty solid ground.
I started dreaming about taking her on vacations and thinking about what she’d like to do in her retirement, instead of what she had to do to make ends meet. But, well, life had different plans.
And that brings me to the tough decision I had to make about not being able to cover my mom’s financial needs anymore.
My dog, my companion of 15 years, passed away. I raised her from a pup, and she was like a piece of my heart outside my body. She had a terminal health condition that was supposed to limit her life, but with good care, she lived a full 15 years without any issues.
Always running around like a puppy, the last two weeks of her life were the only time she seemed her age. I tried everything to save her, but in the end, she passed away in my arms. The vet bills were steep, but to me, it was the best money I’ve ever spent.
It gave me peace knowing I did everything for my loyal friend.
Her passing coincided with my own health issues that made it hard for me to even do basic tasks. It’s been a year, and I’m still not back to my old self. So, I’ve been forced to prioritize my own well-being.
Not long after my dog passed, my mom brought up a costly car repair. I asked her not to request money this time, as I needed to rebuild my savings after the vet expenses. Yet, two weeks later, there she was, asking for financial help with the repair.
I paid what I could, but I couldn’t help but wonder why she needed it when she should have had an extra $1,000 monthly.
A month later, she broke down, saying she could barely afford food. To my shock, she revealed over $50,000 in debt, all accumulated in a single year.
I did the math and realized she’d never pay this off in her lifetime. Her credit was shot, and she couldn’t refinance or consolidate her debt. Interest rates had shot up, leaving her in a dire financial situation.
I decided to step in again, paying off her high-interest debt and leaving her with a more manageable $25,000 in debt.
It gave her a few hundred in breathing room, but she’s struggling.
At this point, I mentally checked out of providing further financial support. I had given her the tools to succeed, but she chose a different path. I stopped funding her vacations, and once I’m healthy, I plan to take trips by myself.
I’ve poured years into ensuring her financial stability, only to watch her squander it. Any time she brings up money, I no longer engage—I’ve done enough.
I’ve also decided to distance myself from the finances of my siblings (that’s another story). Taking on the financial emergencies of my family has quadrupled my stress, and it’s been too much.
I’m eager to live the rest of my life for myself. Despite my illness, I’m determined to improve my health, and I’m looking forward to adopting a new dog next year. I’ve even started splurging on things I once thought frivolous. It’s liberating to finally live life on my terms.”
4. I Suspected My Husband Was Having An Affair...And Then I Saw The Messages
“I have been with my husband since 1995. Going on 29 years. My entire life has been wasted.
I just found out that my husband, whom I loved—the one that I had to get over a ridiculous amount of deep-seated childhood trauma in order to trust—was not the person I believed him to be.
It was pointless.
For a week, I kept getting this sick feeling, and something was telling me to check his phone. I don’t do that, so I ignored it; however, that “urge”—whatever it was—kept getting stronger, and so I finally did. It physically made me sick.
I’ve never felt so freaking worthless, disposable, unloved in my life. I really think I would feel better if he’d actually been meeting someone and having an old-fashioned, cheap, intimate affair.
He has been catfished for about the last month. It took 3 seconds and a reverse image search to find 14 more profiles on every platform.
The sweet, caring, and loving messages he sent her—that’s what I wanted more than anything. I’ve been trying so incredibly hard to be more laid back (I’m a Type A with an anxiety disorder), to be more supportive, less critical, and more patient. I even told him, “I know I can be short and pushy sometimes, but I’m making a conscientious effort to be less stressed and cause less stress.” He accepted my apology, and I’ve been doing as I promised. But now I don’t know why.
What was the point?
He knows my trauma. He knows my dad said, “Nobody loves you; they never have, never will. You’ll grow up one day, and even your husband will figure out he could have done better.” I don’t like going into detail about everything from back then, but that is something I explained clearly and told him I couldn’t handle—being made to feel that my father had been right.
I told him, “If you want to step out, man up and tell me what’s going on.” I could handle that. It would hurt, but it would be better than being blindsided by the realization that my father had been right. He told me he wouldn’t do that; if he ever even thought about it, he’d leave me first. He didn’t do that.
My love language has always been small trinkets. I’m happy with a card. Just a little something that says, “I was thinking about you when I saw this.” Just that tiny little thing once or twice a month, and I’d be over the moon. It’s been a few months now since I got one, but I saw that he’s transferred $545 to the catfish since July 26.
She got the sweetest messages, just to reply “OK, love you,” so he sent more money. I would have given anything to be talked to that way, and he keeps piling it on with her while getting nothing back. He’s convinced he’s going to leave our life in the southeast U.S.
to go live with her in the upper Northeast. He’s never met her. Or him, whatever. I was speechless. In 45 years, I had never been speechless until earlier tonight. I don’t like the feeling.
Why am I not good enough? I try to be the friend I would want.
I try to help as many people as I can because I know the feeling of not having help and feeling abandoned. I can’t do that to anyone. I’m not a saint, nor am I perfect by any means, but I couldn’t do that to anyone.
Especially him. I feel so dumb. He did exactly what he promised not to do. I feel like everything was sucked out of my chest cavity the second all the air left the room. What the heck did I do? This is my punishment. My life has been wasted. I even messaged her and asked if she knew about me.
I felt that I needed to know. She did. She said it didn’t matter, though, because it was just money—no feelings were involved. But mine were. I always thought I’d rather have a bad day with him than a great day with someone else.
I guess he did not concur after all.
I know it sounds insane, but I feel like I would have rather been beaten than this. I was tossed like garbage for nothing at all. He proved my father right all these years later. I couldn’t go my entire life without admitting he was right.”
3. My Husband Admitted He Has A Crush...And I'm Not Okay With It
“Several years ago, I could tell something was bothering my husband and asked him about it. After about a week, he sat me down and explained that he had a new female coworker whom he was smitten with. They had lots in common, and she was super attractive.
I believe he referred to her as “a prettier, skinnier version” of me. Ouch. He told me all of this because, as he explained, he wanted to remain faithful, be a good husband, etc. He had no intention of doing anything with her, but wanted me to know that this was the internal struggle he had been dealing with.
It was a lot to digest. Basically, the message was, if you were more attractive, I wouldn’t have to experience this moral conflict. Having dealt with body issues and low self-esteem for a long time, it was pretty painful to hear. Fwiw, I’ve never been obese.
Overweight and cellulite-y at times, sure. It comes and goes in waves depending on how active and food conscious I am, but anyway…
I cannot recall whether it was that same night or within a few days that he told me he was going to hang out with this coworker he was crushing on.
He invited me to come along. It was a daytime activity that matched an interest we all had in common. Perhaps we could become friends! But I was still so hurt by the recent revelation that I didn’t go. I told him I’d prefer he didn’t hang out with her, but he went anyway.
His reasoning was that since he was open and honest with me and not planning to do anything with her, logically, I shouldn’t have any issues with it. He could’ve chosen not to disclose any of it. Sometimes I think that would’ve been better.
I know he hung out with her at least one more time shortly thereafter, even taking photos of their time together and posting them on social media.
That also kind of stung, especially when a few friends were like, “Who’s that woman your husband is posting photos of?” His rationale was that she was new to town, had never been to this attraction in our city yet, and it’s a place he (and we) liked to go.
So it all added up to him going with her. Since it was her first time at this great place, the outing had to be documented, and posting the photos on social media was an efficient way to share them with her.
He’s never apologized for any of this because, in his eyes, he didn’t do anything wrong.
He didn’t have an affair and he was open about his feelings. To some extent, I agree with his perspective. Maybe I was/am just being an illogical, emotional, jealous woman. But it’s been years (maybe six?) and it still eats at me sometimes. I think it was pretty selfish to put his desire to hang out with her above the additional hurt it caused me.
Okay, I’m done now. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.”
2. My Wife Was Completely Normal...Until We Had Our First Kid
“My wife (Let’s call her Laura) and I have been together for fourteen years and married for nine. We were together since high school and had our firsts everything. By some luck, we managed to get through the odds of high school lovers breaking up and managed to get married at twenty.
I enrolled in university while she worked part-time to support our expenses. We were grateful as my parents had paid for my college and her parents helped us rent out an apartment so we didn’t have too much debt or any other financial obligations. We had a small wedding in between when I was in Uni with just immediate family.
Within a few months after our wedding, we realized that she was pregnant. Needless to say, we weren’t thrilled. Our initial plan was for me to finish university and get a job so that she could go back to studying and get her degree before we plan a family.
Before everyone yells at me, no we weren’t being careless. We used protection.
Our baby girl was a force to reckon with and no birth control was stopping her from coming into the world and kicking our butts. Laura wasn’t so overjoyed during the initial months of her pregnancy.
I did mention the A word once if she wanted to and told her I would be fully supportive either way. She instantly shut me down, saying that wasn’t an option (she comes from a pretty religious family. We were only allowed to move in together because I popped the question and made her my fiancée.) Around the fourth month, we found out the gender and I saw my wife slowly warming up to the idea of having an actual human being inside her, and at almost 18 weeks, she felt the first movement of the baby inside her stomach.
Now that I think of it, it was an instant change. Though I didn’t realise it then, looking back, it was all right there from her very first pregnancy. Before we got the pregnancy news, she had applied for an accounting course and had gotten admission (I had found a job by then).
She had even started her classes and continued attending them though she was pregnant. I first noticed her reluctance around week 30 when she continuously took a few sick leaves even though she wasn’t sick. I confronted her about it and she broke down saying she didn’t want to attend Uni while pregnant because her stomach was getting big and everyone was noticing that she was actually pregnant.
At first, I thought she was embarrassed to be pregnant in front of her classmates at a relatively young age. But upon further talking to her, I realized that she wasn’t embarrassed. Rather, she was afraid someone would try to hurt her. She was terrified of falling down the stairs or slipping or eating something she wasn’t supposed to or drinking booze accidentally, etc. I was confused and like any other person thought her fears were way too irrational. Why would anyone try to purposefully hurt a pregnant woman?
I asked her if she felt like she was being threatened by someone and she simply shook her head no. She begged me to let her drop out just until the baby was old enough to go to daycare or be placed with a babysitter.
She promised me she’d continue with her studies after.
Fast forward a couple more months and she gives birth to our beautiful baby girl. I was so instantly in love with her and so was my wife. During the remaining months of her pregnancy, my wife rarely went out and that too only for appointments at the doctor.
I called her mother and asked her to be with my wife for some time so that she wouldn’t be alone all day. My wife wasn’t a big fan of that idea either but she liked the idea of not having to do rough jobs around the house since her mother would help her out.
After delivery was the worst. My wife didn’t let anyone help her out with the baby. Since my wife and I are the oldest in our families, our little girl is the first grandchild on both sides. Everyone was so excited to meet her but my wife was so on the fence and overwhelmed with anyone holding our daughter that it started annoying everyone.
Soon, everyone started talking behind her back. I tried my best to defend her and asked all our relatives to give us space since she was a new mom and needed her space.
Laura didn’t let anyone help her out with our daughter. She barely let me take care of my own child.
She was overworked and running on no sleep but would still let no one help her out with our baby, not even me. Once, she fell asleep for almost six hours after not getting any sleep for days. I didn’t wake her up because I wanted her to get some decent sleep and took care of our baby by myself.
I fed her the bottle of milk Laura had pumped and changed her diapers, etc. When Laura woke up all heck broke loose and she started having a mental breakdown, calling me a terrible person for basically letting her sleep and she called herself a horrible mother for not being awake to care for our child.
At this point, even I was overwhelmed and frustrated. I put our daughter to bed and shut the door before sitting her down and having a long talk/argument with her. She started crying, explaining she was scared something would happen to our child if she wasn’t there to take care of her.
She had read about conditions where babies have passed away suddenly or while being entrusted to someone else who is not the mother. I didn’t understand if this was normal or not. At that time, I wrote it off as a mother being concerned about her baby.
I have heard about new mothers having their hormones all over the place. I told her I understood she didn’t want another person near our child but that she had no right to keep me away. I explained that we are a team and we would be raising our baby together not just her alone.
Since that day, she loosened the knot just a little with me to give me enough gap to take care of our baby to give her time to get some good sleep.
As our daughter grew older, I tried to convince her to go back to college and that we could send our daughter to daycare or ask one of the grandparents to babysit while she was at Uni.
She quickly shut down the idea saying that our daughter was a toddler and now was a very important time for her since she will start retaining memories. She said there’s no way she’ll let her daughter get attached to someone else as it was her responsibility to raise the baby and not anyone else’s.
I tried my best to convince her that her education was important. I told her that if someday God forbid something happened to me, she will need a degree to get some decent job so she can take care of our child and herself or that she will be struggling to make ends meet.
This seemed to get through her and she finally agreed to study but that too was only an online course that she could study at home. She just had to write an exam at a test centre as per requirement.
When our daughter turned three, we found out that my wife was pregnant again.
We were still on protection so I was confused as to how this happened. I asked her about it and she admitted to sometimes forgetting about taking her pills on time. I wanted to get mad at her but it felt wrong to put all the blame on her because the burden of contraception didn’t have to fall all on her and I wasn’t being very careful either.
Since I had a stable and comfortable paying job, money wasn’t a big issue. Since our parents had helped us out in the beginning, we were able to save up a bit over the years without any huge student loans.
It was the same thing all over again with baby number 2.
She wouldn’t leave the house much. The only people she really let be around her were me and her mother. Sometimes her sister too. She rarely left the house except for anything our child needed or for appointments, etc or if she had any exams she needed to take.
I tried talking to her about it again, but she was never interested in addressing the issue of being so possessive. The baby was born and there she was all over again, never letting anyone other than me or extremely rarely even her mom around her and the kids.
I remember seeing dark circles under her eyes and telling her there was no need for her to take on so much of the load by herself. That she could let me take at least a quarter of it when I’m home. She kept saying she didn’t like the way anyone else handled things, etc.
Even our intimate life took a big hit after our second baby because my wife was exhausted and drooping by the time she returned to bed. Sometimes she’d even get the kids to sleep in between us because she “felt horrible” making them sleep alone in another room.
She stopped that once she saw an article about a baby dying because of co-sleeping, after which she gave me a huge lecture to make sure that I would never do that. I literally had no intention anyway.
I was desperate by this point but as time went by, I learned to give in and just let her handle the children the way she wanted. Whatever she was doing, it was all for the safety of our children so I guessed it couldn’t be too bad.
Our kids grew up. Laura had calmed down a little since the kids got older and I in no way wanted it to go back to how it was with a new baby. Laura was still very involved and overly cautious of our children. She found work close to our house once our youngest was old enough for preschool.
She would drop them both off at school before heading to work and pick them both up before returning. We have school buses on our route but whenever I mention it she brings up the statistics of school bus accidents and bullying saying it’s not a good idea.
Our oldest has a best friend and had asked us to let her sleep over at her friend’s house and my wife almost blew up at the request. My daughter cried all night and I had to cuddle her to sleep to comfort her and promise her loads of books (she loves reading) to get her to stop crying.
I had to convince her best friend’s parents to let the sleepover be at our house instead.
Our youngest is five now and my wife is pregnant again with our third child. Since my wife had calmed down relatively from before, I thought maybe as we got older, she’s gotten a bit easier on herself and the children.
Now, all of this was just important background. What actually happened was something that occurred a week ago. While playing a sport in school last week, a random small boy in my daughter’s class accidentally kicked a ball in our daughter’s direction and hit her head.
The teachers quickly took her to the hospital and she had to get stitches.
Safe to say, my wife went ballistic. She got hysterical and started crying. Our daughter is okay and the stitches will heal in no time but my wife is not taking it well.
When the boy’s parents visited us to formally apologise with their son (an eight-year-old boy who looked terrified out of his wits), my wife went crazy angry at the parents. She started threatening to sue them for damages and get restraining orders. I have no idea where all those ideas came from.
The parents were shocked. I quickly apologized to them and sent them on their way. My wife kept rambling about suing them. She then talked about pulling the kids out of school so she could homeschool them. According to her, that is the safest choice.
She kept going on and on about how school was unnecessary and dangerous. After that, I did something I’m not proud of. I yelled at her. I was so mad and frustrated and annoyed. Years of pent-up frustration just poured out of me. I think for a moment I forgot she was even pregnant with my baby.
She looked at me with teary eyes before getting up and walking away.
It’s been almost a week now, and neither of us has taken the effort to apologize or speak to each other. The only communication we have is regarding the children. I am absolutely adamant about not pulling the kids out of school.
They deserve to have a normal school life with friends and a typical growing-up experience. I’m not about to take that away from them because my wife gets crazy protective over them.
I don’t know how to handle this. Other than this one issue, our life is great.
She’s honestly the best woman I could have met. I know she loves me like crazy and I love her too. The funniest part is that before the kids, my wife was an extremely shy person. She hated confrontation and would run away from arguments.
She had a tough time making friends because of how shy she was. But it all changed once she became a mom. I must say in the beginning, it was beautiful for me as the father of our children and her husband to see how a shy and timid woman could go fierce and loud when it affected her baby.
But the love/obsession she has over our kids now is getting too much for me and now to even our kids. It’s already starting to suffocate my daughter. It’s putting a dent in our relationship because she always wants to have the final say when it comes to decisions regarding the kids.
I want to have an equal say in the matters of our kids without being made to look like a villain for having a different opinion from her.
We have another one on the way, and at this point, I’m scared. I’ve already booked an appointment with the doctor to get a vasectomy.
I’m done with our third one. I’m already dreading how she’s going to be with the new little boy born.
I’m already looking into therapy, but it’s going to be a bit hard to convince her. Is there anything else I can do to get her relaxed about the children?
I hate watching our relationship crumble like this.”
1. I Thought I Could Move On With My New Family...Until My Ex Did This
“Last year, I two-timed my partner of 8 years (Annie) with a colleague (Jess), with whom I now have a three-week-old son. I have no excuse. It cost me my job and the majority of my friendships, along with the love of a good woman.
I deserved it all and I have never expected any sympathy for my actions.
Annie delivered my stuff to my parents’ house before I even knew she knew about the affair. She didn’t even confront me, she just cut me out of her life without a word.
I messaged everyone we knew begging them to ask her to talk to me, and I sent hundreds of messages telling her how much I regretted everything and wanted her back. I never got a response. Jess saw the messages and it obviously caused issues between us in the beginning, but she fell pregnant quickly so we moved past it for the sake of our family together, which we both wanted. I am 100% committed to the relationship and haven’t even looked at another woman since things settled down.
In the final stretch of Jess’ pregnancy, about a month ago, I saw Annie in a shop for the first time since the breakup. She was pretty cold towards me but said that a few months ago, she found a keychain my grandad got me when I was very young.
It’s not valuable but she knows it means a lot to me, and she said I could come collect it the following Saturday morning. I explained that was 6 days after Jess was due to give birth so I’d probably need to be home, but she just said I could either get it on Saturday or it was going in the bin, so I agreed on a time to go over.
My son was born a few days late (but he’s perfectly healthy and wonderful), so he was less than 24 hours old on the Saturday I needed to collect the keychain. I planned to pop in on the way to the hospital, but when I got to my old house, Annie invited me in to talk about how things ended between us.
I thought we had a good conversation and that both of us walked away with closure. She let me apologise for the way I treated her, wished me the best with my new family, and hugged me as I left. I admit I held on tightly for the hug, but it was purely because of the relief, not lingering feelings.
I spent less than an hour at her house, then headed to the hospital. I didn’t tell Jess about any of this because I know she still feels insecure about Annie, and I didn’t want to add fuel to that.
When I arrived at the hospital after seeing Annie, Jess had revoked my access, and the ward manager wouldn’t tell me why.
I ended up being removed by a security guard because I was denied seeing my son for the second time ever, and didn’t respond well to being blindsided.
I tried calling Jess and her mum over and over, and the only response I got was a screen recording of a message from Annie.
It was doorbell footage of me walking through the door at 9:30, then back out just after 10:15, and the hug is only partly caught, so it does look like we could have been kissing. The message Annie sent with it said “Did he even shower and change his clothes between sleeping with me and holding his son?
Congratulations on being stuck with him for the next 18 years. I hope it’s everything you dreamed of.”
No one believes this is a setup at all. It’s something I would never have expected from Annie, and no one else would either, so they’re completely rejecting the idea that this is a lie.
I sent her a message asking why she did this, assuming I’d still be blocked; her response was that she wasn’t going to let me play innocent, and that I may have deleted all of our messages over the past few months, but she hasn’t.
Obviously, there are no messages, but she blocked me again straight after, so I have nothing at all to exonerate myself with.
She waited in silence for almost a year, then took the most cruel and vindictive revenge she possibly could. I have met my son once, minutes after he was born, and now Jess is refusing any contact with me and won’t let me see him.
Court will take months and my heart hurts every minute of every day. I know what I did to Annie was horrible, but I don’t deserve this. I have no one to talk to about it because not even my own mother believes me. Her only question was why I ruined my life with a baby when Annie was willing to reconcile, and that’s about the most supportive thing she’s said to me since I was dumped. The few friends who stuck with me are assuming the worst too, and it’s killing me that not a single person I know sees this for what it is.
Everything is ruined.”
