Bottle Warmer On The Go

...didn't expect this to go from the Kingsman Church Scene ...other modders sometime and really go over how the class "feels...He drank almost an entire bottle of water immediately, and then...you mean people didn't go in the pod? I thought ...just to have me go and crawl around a massive ...to feel like it's slightly warmer than room temperature.​ MapHackJunkie What... weirder the deeper we go. There's less light now and...

... time, I was sending the bottle warmer with LO every week and ... me if I forgot the warmer). Anyway, when I unpacked LO's ... realized husband hadn't taken the warmer, I asked him if he ... he serve up a cold bottle than a microwaved one. He ... down and he wanted to go to bed. He will apologize ...

... up and walk away, perhaps go scavenging behind the bakery for... the front door. I shall go check it," Rei stated, standing... the squirrels passed him a bottle of water with a mild... the gun and the whiskey bottle that had long since been... air tasted stale and felt warmer. There was nothing quite like...

... captivates the senses. The larger bottle is ideal for home use... your favorite scent wherever you go. Housed in the signature sailor-themed..., fun, playful scent for the warmer months of Spring and Summer. ...

...Deck how fast we can go, or stop, how much...the large sail, a warmer spot glowed.  Gray zoomed in... Solar Skiff”.   “There we go, and see? Now that the ...Gray’s ears popped.  The air bottle buzzer sounded.  Gray could ... quick disconnect from the bottle, and plugged it into the...He reconnected to his air bottle and opened the valve.   Gray...for the exit, his air bottle showing 40% remaining.   Outside, ...

... the vast majority of the bottle left. Now I have 2 ..., the Cozi claims it can go up to 25 watts, but ...would it be safe to go to it's maximum, or should ... like to go as high as possible, as I hear the higher/warmer the more flavor... when overloaded. As for wattage, warmer usually DOES increase flavour to ...

... the vast majority of the bottle left. Now I have 2 ..., the Cozi claims it can go up to 25 watts, but ...would it be safe to go to it's maximum, or should ... like to go as high as possible, as I hear the higher/warmer the more flavor... when overloaded. As for wattage, warmer usually DOES increase flavour to ...

... in. BO "Can this thing go any faster, Tsumari?!" TSUMARI "I'm... do I do with this?" "Go around the complex and a ..., a bathing brush, and a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, explaining ... away, he began to feel warmer inside. He still couldn't remember ...

... in. BO "Can this thing go any faster, Tsumari?!" TSUMARI "I'm... do I do with this?" "Go around the complex and a ..., a bathing brush, and a bottle of shampoo and conditioner, explaining ... away, he began to feel warmer inside. He still couldn't remember ...

Skip the wipe warmer, total waste of space. The ... must have list is the bottle washer and we specifically chose ... connection needed so it can go anywhere on the counter, the ...

... diaper on wrong, forgetting the bottle warmer, things like that — and my... breastfeeding is actually starting to go a little better at 5 ... now. Before, when we were bottle feeding more, he got more ...

... outta heeh," proposes Sally. "Less go see a bawl game. If... get inteh Ebbets Feel, less go see t' Bushwicks. Anyt'ing t'get... something in it from a bottle in his drawer. He says... like this guy.) (You're getting warmer...) (Never drop out of character... is "Scarlet vs. Amnesia...") (I'll GO ON STRIKE!)

... car to bring in another bottle and decide to take a..., the room is probably heated warmer than I prefer, I wonder... 40 ounce thermos in one go packed full of ice so... is by now 90°+ water bottle and it felt like an... exhaustion point. At home I go full blast hot shower to ...

... report I changed into comfortable warmer clothes (oversized t-shirt), grabbed the..., but I’ll wait until I go back to work and ask ... case they decided to still go to the beach house pool... didn’t have enough people to go out tonight either. We went ... night. I had brought a bottle of the Holland America sparkling ...

... opening you got… lost your bottle, mate? I'm a coat full... their faces were anything to go by. That should have done... been invited into, watching them go like she was trying to ... I had one." She's getting warmer. "People label themselves if you... at Hogwarts. The urge to go further hit like claws into ... fine," Harry bit out. "You go pale, sit. You vomit in ...

... paper. The documents inside the bottle — they were all on the... building. "An ice shelter is warmer than you'd think. The main ... each year. "We need to go and find the potato before .... "You should be able to go by boat at least this ...

... paper. The documents inside the bottle — they were all on the... building. "An ice shelter is warmer than you'd think. The main ... each year. "We need to go and find the potato before .... "You should be able to go by boat at least this ...

..., Bjorn bouncer, play gym, wipes warmer, diaper pail, diapers, clothes, bottles... want convenience items, highly recommend bottle sanitizer and baby food maker... he arrived. He loved Avent go whatever reason and hated Dr...

... times. Giant water bottle. Fans, multiple fans if going in the warmer months. If... something to spot it easily. Go in with little expectations and ..., that's the best way to go about the day.

... a bottle warmer. I have cooler bags from Amazon for when we are on the go..., you can get small ones that fit just one bottle. Leave the...

... flat as my tone could go. "What could happen, we're in...like this one." "Before you go any further with the biology ... contain heat or stay in warmer climates in general, because if ... keep that genie in the bottle at the moment. Good thing ... before I quickly let him go, he took a deep breathe ... about me attacking them. "I'll go make a call. You two ... the same page before things go off the rails." "I was ...

I am so stupid. I literally thought it was crucial for all baby milk to be warm, and painstakingly researched bottle/breastmilk warmers, both for the home and on the go. I’d done all the mental calculations. I bought a thermometer. I was so ready. You can apparently just give babies milk straight from the fridge. Wtf. Edit: I’m genuinely upset and I’m never going to shut up about this. NO ONE TOLD ME. submitted by /u/Happy_FrenchFry to r/BabyBumps [link] [comments]

I (26f) have a 4 month old baby: he was born prematurely and had a lot of feeding issues, so I exclusively pump breastmilk for him and we bottle feed him. This is great because anyone can feed him but inconvenient for me since I pump 6x a day even in the middle of the night. Once my baby was eating well from the bottle and sleeping 3+ hours at a time, my dad invited us to come stay with him and my mom every so often to catch up on some uninterrupted sleep. We happily obliged and since then, Thursday nights are spent at their home. My dad has historically done AMAZING with my nieces and nephews, so I wholeheartedly trusted him with my baby overnight and his house already had the facilities to keep a baby (safe sleep space, bottle warmer, changing table etc). My mom on the other hand has historically been a bit neglectful to my nieces and nephews so we have kind of universally agreed that my mom is not to watch any of our kids alone. I did give her the benefit of the doubt and trusted her to feed the baby and change him. Nothing more. Well, 3 weeks ago I come downstairs from a shower and my mom is feeding him a bottle that looked suspicious. I asked her if it was old and she said no. The bottle was hot to the touch. I took a pic of it and showed my sister, who said that it was very clearly a bottle of microwaved breastmilk. I got upset but kindly explained to my mom why you shouldn’t microwave breastmilk, which is because it can cause fat separation, nutrient loss and burn the baby’s mouth severely. She said she understood and we kinda forgot about it. A week later, I go to wash baby dishes and next to where she normally sits I find another microwaved bottle. I told her more firmly that if I saw it again, I would take the baby and leave. Lo and behold, Friday morning I hobble into the kitchen to get pump supplies and when I noticed my son wasn’t in the crib or with my dad, I got nervous. I went to my mom and found yet ANOTHER microwaved bottle. I thought I was crazy, so I took it upstairs to my husband who agreed it was nuked and started packing. We went downstairs together and I explained to my parents that we were leaving. My mother vehemently denied microwaving the milk and my dad said he had prepared that bottle himself. I KNEW someone was lying because my eyes don’t lie. I took the baby from my mom and she went in one of her narcissistic rants about how “I guess I’m just a piece of shit.” So I told my dad it has nothing to do with him and I love him and we left. My dad is extremely upset because he LOVES this baby. It’s his first biological grandchild and they already have a very special bond. But I had to stick to my word. My mom later admitted to my dad she did indeed reheat the milk in the microwave and she has since refused to speak to me or take accountability and apologize. But she can call my sister crashing out and saying I’m so mean and robbing her of her grandson… sigh. Anyways, AITA here? ETA: my father heated the bottle, my baby did not finish it, and my mother put it in the microwave for her to feed him the rest. My dad was completely unaware that she did that so he is absolutely not the problem here. I’ve always questioned why he stays with my mom and I think it’s because they’ve just been together so long he doesn’t know being alone would be better for him. He has never actually defended my mom and they don’t even sleep on the same floor of the house or sit in the same room together. It baffles me but I will not be bringing baby around if my mom is around, even if it hurts his feelings. He can find a way to meet us or hitch a ride down this way, ALONE, if he wants baby time. ETA (2): my sister who my mom called didn’t defend her. All 3 of my siblings and myself have our feelings about my mom, and we have all made the same mistakes with her and our kids. At the end of the day, even though she is a narcissist and a screw up, she is still our mom and we all want her to have a relationship with her grandchildren, but now for all of us except the one week old baby my other sister has, it happens at arm’s length. It is partly my fault for thinking maybe the sixth grandchild would change something, but you know what they say about hindsight. submitted by /u/Cute_Objective_7551 to r/AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]

[r/laundry](r/laundry) is filled with tales of woe - smelly armpits, mystery stains, socks the color of cream of mushroom soup - complete with mysterious embedded dark chunks. I personally love solving these problems (and the reactions when people post the process and results of disaster recovery are extremely popular there). But what of people who just have normal laundry and want a little tune-up? Or have never done their own laundry before? How about some love and guidance for the non-smelly, non-stained, non-crusty? Here's something for them. How I do normal laundry day-to-day. Getting Personal: What people are often surprised to learn is that I really don’t enjoy doing laundry. I don’t think it’s an act of service - I think it’s survival, and I further think expending the minimal amount of time and effort that respects my textiles (and the human and resource inputs that went in to making them) is the best use of my time. It just needs to be done right the first time, every time, so I can watch cat videos on the Internet. There’s no one right way to do laundry, just like there’s no one right way to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Much like slightly-stale sourdough with a skim of dijon mustard inside and a blend of sharp cheddar and either fontina or Monterey Jack, fried in Whirl is my favorite way to do the latter, this is my laundry default method, developed over the years of contending with my messes. 95%+ of the loads I do fall in this rubric. Also note that I’m in North America with water softer than about 75% of households. There are endless corner cases, including silk, wool, down, GoreTex and other waterproof technical fabrics, semi-synthetics like rayon, viscose, “bamboo”, modal, Lyocell and Tencel, silver-infused, FR and anti-static, pillows and stuffed toys, shoes and rugs. I’ll get to those later. This is for: Towels Sheets / Duvet Covers / Pillowcases Clothing (other than Dry Clean Only pieces) Which are at least 95% the following fibers: Cotton Linen Hemp Ramie Polyester / Dacron Nylon / Polyamide Acrylic Lycra / Spandex / Elastane Laundry Apartheid: Separating The Whites And The Colors Please note: I have a problem. I don’t think you absolutely need to do this much to have very good results. You could easily combine the dark and lights in a color family, for example, especially if you use a detergent with anti-redeposition or use color catchers. It’s also likely you could combine neutrals and embellished whites successfully. I have a lot of laundry categories. I also don’t look good in yellow or orange, so I don’t own it. If you do, good for you, and you could aim at the red loads and move the purples to the dark blues and greens. I wear a lot of plum and purple. I have a bunch of IKEA Frakta/Storstomma 80 liter bags hanging up, and stuff gets sorted into them daily. When they’re mostly full, I run the load. Black, charcoal, navy and dark brown Dark blues and greens Dark reds and purples Light blues and greens Light reds and purples Neutrals like khaki, tan, ecru, light grey and taupe Whites with stripes / embellishment Absolute plain white Socks & Underwear (cotton blends, mostly white) Sheets (by color) People Towels (by color) Kitchen & Pet Towels (all white, presoaked with chlorine bleach for sanitizing in my world) The towels and sheets get isolated in this scheme because for me, I need to dry the sheets on Delicate and the towels on High. Your sheets may be more durable or you may be willing to separate them between the wash and dry. They’re both full loads for me, without the need to combine to make a good load. Sorting like this gives me flexibility in the choice of chemistry, and doesn’t require me to take any special precautions to prevent color transfer in anything but the first wash of an item. I also care a lot less about lint, because the lint is largely invisible when it’s between items of like color and intensity. Pretreat: Don’t Make Your Detergent Do Everything I am a pretreater. One of the first laundry tasks I was ever trusted with by my legendarily persnickety mother was identifying stains for pretreating, and eventually I was trusted with her can of old-skool Spray ’n’ Wash with solvents. Detergents and equipment have improved a lot in the years since mumblemumble, but I still pretreat, in exchange for not having to check every garment for lingering stains between wash and dry. The Usual: Stains from Food, Plants and Animals Including Myself This is the most common cause of stains on my laundry. It’s like I never learned to use cutlery as a toddler. It’s also the most common cause of spots on most textiles for most people. My not-so-secret weapon against these stains? Enzyme pretreater. They’re safe on the listed fabrics regardless of color, they’re not smelly or environmentally sketchy, they work extremely well and there are many to choose from. There’s a list on the spreadsheet linked at The Lipase List on the Pretreater tab. Pick whichever one sounds good - they all work about the same because their formulae are about the same. ​I've got a stockpile of old-formula Tide Rescue that I'm emotionally attached to in a less-than-healthy way, but I've also been happy with Whole Foods and Open Nature. I'll pick up a bottle of the President's Choice next time I'm in Canada. Spritz or squirt the stains at least a half-hour before laundering, up to about a week. These removers are working so long as they’re damp, and once they’ve worked, the stain washes out with detergent - so don’t be discouraged if the stain still appears to be there before washing. The Not Uncommon: Mineral Oils I work on cars and do motorsports. I get automotive grease on me. Enzyme pretreaters are nothing special on this kind of oily soil. What works is nonionic surfactant, the active ingredient in many heavy-duty liquid detergents. Anything can work here. I usually have some Tide or Persil around for this purpose. If you get these spots, hit them with some liquid detergent at least fifteen minutes before washing. Penetration is improved if you dilute 1:1 with tap water. Tamping the mixture in with a brush or spoon can help improve first-wash removal. This is also a solid pretreater for waterproof/water resistant makeup stains. The Woes Of Living With Someone Who Takes Notes In Ink Ink merits special consideration. While many inks and markers and crayons will come out with standard wash, many will not. If I see an ink mark on something, I pretreat it with a specialist product, either Amodex or Carbona Stain Devil 3, Ink, Marker & Crayon, following the label directions carefully. These three categories cover 99% of my laundry woes. Ask [r/laundry](r/laundry) or DM me for advice if you have something else on your textiles. Don’t dump v1negar on it as a default. Check. Your. Pockets. I argue that it’s the responsibility of whoever wore the garment to check the pockets before things go in the hamper, barring some debility or being too young to understand the risks of not doing so (which in my case could rise to capital punishment). But it behooves the launderer to give a final check. The launderer is entitled to keep anything they find that they want, including cash, jewelry, electronics and snacks. Consider it a tip. Load The Machine: I have a 4.5 ft^3 LG front loader. Truly middle of the pack. If I’m using powders in the wash cycle, they go in the back of the drum now. We’ll come back to that topic. I add enough textiles to reach at least 75% of the way up the opening but not so many there isn’t a fist worth of space open at the top of the drum. Loading this full optimizes the mechanical action of the wash. I check the door seal drains for lint or hair or debris before shutting the door. If something has straps narrower than about 2” or is of delicate construction that could be prone to stretching (a sweater like a knit cotton cardigan, not a sweatshirt), it goes in a mesh delicates bag, alone. If it has screen printed graphics or is denim, it gets turned inside out to protect the surface appearance. If you want your jeans to exhibit more character at friction points, wash right side out. Zippers are zipped. Buttons and snaps are unfastened. Velcro is adjusted so no scratchy part is exposed. Hoodie strings are tied. When I still use a conventional top loader, like on vacation,I loosely load it dry to the water fill line that you can usually see on the agitator. I would then adjust the water fill level so, after a couple minutes of agitation, the textiles have between 3/4 and two inches of water above them. 1.5 is perfect. Chemistry: I’m a sweaty greasy mess who drops food. So obviously I use an enzyme detergent. I maintain a list at The Lipase List where you can find something you like that works with your water. I don’t care about the presence or absence of fragrance one way or the other, but if the product is fragranced it has to be unobtrusive. From an olfactory perspective, I really don’t want $5 of my perfume overpowered by $0.02 worth of laundry fragrance. As of this writing, I’m doing 85+% of my loads with 2 oz / 60ml of liquid 365 Sport Detergent from Whole Foods because it has an uncommon enzyme, DNase, that gets my clothes cleaner than my previous regimen. I’ve discussed why DNase matters elsewhere. I add 1-2 fluid oz (2-4T / about 20-40g) or so of an oxygen bleach. If a load is cotton-rich and lighter in color than “light navy”, it’s more likely to get Biz just because I like the effect of optical brightener. If the load is darker, it doesn’t get Biz - it gets an oxi without optical brightener, like Kirkland Signature (which I hate the smell of and am working through to use it up), Target’s Up and Up, OxiClean Free or 365 Oxygen Whitener. When I get to the bottom of this pile of oxi bleaches, I’ll switch to Febu to get all the goodies aside from optical brightener. ​The other 15% of these animal-fiber-free loads get 4.5T / 70ml ofTide with Bleach powder. It’s purely vibes and color that define which gets which when. Only things qualifying as lights or lighter get the TwB. I also use TwB on kitchen towels because they don’t get a lot of benefit from DNase - might as well save a little cash. Automotive loads get 3 oz / 90ml of Tide/Persil liquid and a cup/ 250mL of ammonia. You can’t beat the cleaning of a high-performance conventional-surfactant liquid on petrochemical soils. Ammonia helps the grease removal. I am a massive fan of citric acid rinsing. It leaves my cottons cottonier, my polyesters slicker and my animal fibers softer and smoother. I use a shade over 2 tsp / 10g citric acid crystals right in the softener dispenser. My machine likes the dry just fine and I don’t get residual crunchies after the wash. YMMV. Details of the Why of citric rinsing here ​Wash (Finally): TL;DR - warm water, Normal cycle, extra rinses, adjusting soil level as appropriate with just enough detergent to do the job, citric acid in the rinse. Wash Action: I generally wash on Normal because these items are Normal. I usually set the soil level to the maximum - this extends the agitation to get maximum cleaning with no downside except a time penalty. Temperature: I usually select a warm wash for clothing and a hot wash for socks/underwear, towels and sheets. The exception to this is clothing with automotive soils - it gets much cleaner on hot wash because of the nature of the soils. My warm wash is about 102F/39C. Barely over body temperature, slightly cooler than I like my bathwater or shower, completely appropriate for bathing an infant. Using water of this temperature lets me use half the agitation time as I would at 82F/28C to get the same cleaning results, and one fourth the agitation time as would be required at 62F/17C. Rinses are always cold on my machine. Rinse: Yes, please. All of them. As many as the machine will let me select. Even with perfectly dosed detergent, you’re going to get some carryover from wash to rinse, and at the end of the first rinse, my clothes are still of higher pH than my tap water. That’s a definitive indication that there is still wash chemistry in there. pH is easy to measure on finished fabrics (just touch pH paper to the damp textiles and see for yourself) and it’s therefore the best proxy for rinse thoroughness. Three gallons of extra water for each rinse cycle is pocket lint compared to the other ways we use water in the US, and it’s respectful to your skin and the textiles to get them throughly rinsed. My machine dispenses the softener cup in the last selected rinse, so my final pH is lower than tap water thanks to the citric acid. Spin Speed: Send it. Unless an item is stuffed or of extremely delicate construction (like a $500 bra), spin speed is a synonym for “how much detergent-infused water would you like to get rid of?” I’d like to maximize that. High speed spin it is. I then go off and ignore the machine for 2:07. It’s laboring. I don’t need to. I come here and talk about laundry. How (Not) Dry I Am: For as much time as I want my clothes to spend in the washer, and my longstanding enthusiasm for warmer wash temperatures, my feelings about the dryer go the other way. The dryer is where clothes (especially natural and semisynthetic fibers) go to die. Hot dry air is lethal to clothing. Overdrying is so much worse than any notional “overwashing”. Unless it’s a towel, if it’s going in the dryer, it’s going on Delicate, Sensor Dry, set to “less dry”, and all the “wrinkle guard”/cool down my 1987 Kenmore can muster. This leaves most cotton-rich fabrics barely damp to the touch, slightly damper at the seams. At the end of the cycle, they are room temperature and that trace of dampness ensures they never got too hot during the cycle to come up to “damaged fiber”. As a result, my lint screen has barely the faintest trace of lint from clothing loads (although, admittedly, we don’t wear a ton of fleece). Shirts and pants get hung out of the dryer, other clothing gets piled loosely in an open basket to acclimate / finish drying at ambient. Sheets get dried all the way to dry on delicate (a tiny fraction closer to the “dry” setting than the “less dry” and sometimes they need an hour laid out on the bed before they’re completely dry. Towels get dried sensor dry hot as a final microbial kill step and come out hot to the touch. If the item is more than about 75% synthetic content, it’s getting hung to dry right out of the washer. My laundry room is warm and dry and these fibers dry so quickly. Limiting exposure to heat is especially important for blends with Lycra/spandex/elastane. It’s like the fountain of youth for elastics to avoid dry heat. That’s it. That’s how I do laundry. Products mentioned here are mentioned because I like them; I haven’t been paid to mention any of them. Trademarks are those of the trademark holders. The work is my original work and I retain copyright. My financial disclosure information and how I get paid for this work can be found at https://www.kismai.com/about-kismai/Money submitted by /u/KismaiAesthetics to r/laundry [link] [comments]

I (45 F) have a best friend (43 M), let’s call him John and it seems our friendship is a point of contention for his marriage. My husband (47 M) and I bought a house about 7 years ago. We looked for YEARS (18 to be exact) for the perfect place to call home. We had a few close calls but nothing ever worked out until we found this home! We love it! Nice, big piece of property, 3 bed 2 bath (don’t have to share with the kids 🥳), in a private neighborhood and we bought JUST before Covid so we paid about $300,000 less than it would be today! When we moved in (the end of fall 2019) we noticed a house was being built next to us. One of the reasons we moved to where we did was because we were in the woods! Surrounded by nature and, over there, there is this half built house that clearly no one had been at for quite some time. My husband and I started researching “nice” things we could use to mark the property line and block the view (we didn’t want to put up a 12 foot fence or something). Once spring came we started getting serious about putting something up. One day we were out in our yard and John was at his house and working on it. He came over when we were outside, holding a bottle of whiskey and asked if he could use our hose. Needless to say, we were instantly friends! LOL! Over the next 5 years John and I built a real strong friendship. He confided in me about a lot of his life and how he couldn’t wait to be in the woods and away from the hustle of the city! John is married to a good woman (37 F), let’s call her Jane. They have 2 beautiful little girls together. My whole family adores the kids and really loves the whole family as if they were blood. I consider John a brother, Jane a sister and their girls my nieces! THEY ARE FAMILY! However, Jane and I aren’t as close as John and I are and it is a seed of contention in their marriage. For the first 5 or so years we lived here it was really only John coming to work on the house. Jane came a few times, usually with the kids, but was never here long enough for us to ever really connect. Because of the circumstances they really didn’t have a friend group here when they finally all moved into the house. So, one of the things I wanted to do is establish a foundational friendship with Jane, if nothing else. I never felt like she “liked“ me, for lack of a better word, and felt she always thought that we were having this crazy affair! First of all, My husband and I have been married for almost 25 years and I completely infatuated with him! I literally can’t get close enough to him! I would wear his skin if I could! (Enough of the crazy…..) Also, he could care less if I hang out with John. He trusts me completely and I trust him completely! Any-who, John is my brother! I have NO DESIRE to have any kind of non-platonic relationship with John! Jane and I were able to have a really good talk about this subject a couple weeks ago and she said about 25 times “It’s not you and your friendship!” As Charlotte would say “Bombastic Side Eye” 👀 If Jane hadn’t have said that so many times, I might have believed her! But, in the interest of friendship, I moved passed it and told her I appreciate her saying that because I feel like it is something that bothers her and reassured her that John and I are strictly friends. About a week later I was over their house hanging out with John. We hang out together sometimes on the weekends when our spouses are working. My husband works a lot of hours and Jane works in food service and weekends are money! We had no idea what time it was and Jane came walking in and we were all surprised. I asked what time it was and when we all realized it was nearly 11:00, I decided to go home. John and Jane argue a lot! They get very vocal and it get pretty crazy sometimes! I know that deep down they truly love each other, but they both have to be the right one and the loudest! I was at work the next day when I see that Jane is calling. JANE NEVER CALLS! My first thought was something was wrong so I stopped what I was doing and answered. All I could hear was John and Jane yelling at each other! Jane said “Can I please talk without you screaming in my ear?” and John said “Fine!” and slammed the door. Then Jane proceeds to tell me what they are arguing about. Her words were “Why can’t he spend time with me like he spends time with you?” That HIT me! I would hate to feel like someone, especially from outside of our marriage, was taking my time with my husband. Here is my dilemma, John and I are really good friends. He doesnt really have any other friends here. I feel like I should step away from the friendship to give them space to work on their marriage but I don’t want to leave my friend with no one to talk with. Also, he could take me stepping away as something that Jane caused with her jealousy and he could resent her more than he does already! WHAT DO I DO??? Do I end a friendship with one of best friends to help save his marriage? **EDIT** I changed the ages to our real ages because I didnt math correctly and I got a few comments about it LOL **UPDATE** So I wanted to give some more background on John and Jane’s marriage. They have been married for almost 10 years and together for about 15. In the beginning they were unfaithful to each other and did so many things to hurt each other. They have ALWAYS been in a constant state of mistrust and bitterness toward each other because of that. I AM NOT USING THAT AS AN EXCUSE for me to be able to continue the friendship. Just want you all to realize that this goes MUCH deeper than mine and John’s friendship. Also, we are almost never alone together. There is always someone else there. Whether it is my husband, another friend or children. There is almost always someone else there. The only reason we hang out at his house is because his kids are younger (mine are 16 and 23) so he needs to be at his house to take care of his kids. When it’s warmer, we hang outside, not in the house. I honestly can’t think of more than 2 or 3 times we were alone together and one of those times was in the car on the way to pick up a car for John! On the topic of mine and my husband’s marriage. It is obvious that some of you all have been very hurt and are untrusting but that is not us. We have been married almost 25 years and you don’t get that far without trusting your significant other. My husband is aware that I go over there and have a drink or two and hang out and he is totally okay with it! He goes over sometimes as well (just him and John) and they hang out just the two of them as well. ***Update #2*** I talked with Jane over the weekend. We had a really good talk. She actually asked that I don’t stop being friends with John but we did come up with some boundaries that made us both feel more comfortable. We are going to keep open communication and keep growing our friendship as well. Thank you all for your input. submitted by /u/Odd_Squirrel7954 to r/CharlotteDobreYouTube [link] [comments]

Basically what the title says. My MIL has said to us multiple times now that she has picked out a name for our son. (her first grandchild and due in March) When she first said this to me I told her we have already chosen a name and she responded that “her’s comes first” I just awkwardly laughed because I was so confused and didn’t know what to say. She’s now mentioned multiple more times to her son that she’s picked our child’s name and will be naming him. He very firmly said no every time. She still continues to casually say this and she’s not joking either. I’m not really sure what to do here because she has always been overbearing and controlling with him and it causes a lot of fights/tension. She listens more to me than my partner but I don’t know how to get it across to her that she doesn’t get to decide these type of things. I find the naming to be extremely disrespectful especially because I chose to give our son the same middle name as my grandfather, who I was extremely close to. She hasn’t even bothered to ask what name we picked. She’s also said things about how we don’t know what we’re doing because I put books on the registry and not a bottle sterilizer or diaper cream. I don’t intend on using a sterilizer or even bottles that much at first as I intend on breastfeeding. We’re also very much aware that babies use diaper cream I just didn’t care to add every little thing to the registry. I also just don’t feel the need to explain/justify this to her or anyone else. Any advice on dealing with an overbearing soon-to-be grandparent? ETA: My partner is a lot more strict with her than I am since he’s been dealing with this since, well, forever. We’re fully on the same page about not telling her when I go into labor and things like that. I’ve already gone NC with my own parents over 10 years ago at this point. He’s been mentioning it with his own parents more and more lately and while it makes me sad considering the great relationship I had with my grandfather, I do understand that they aren’t him and it can be unfortunately necessary. Also, I do have bottles on the registry, I just think all the random gadgets like bottle sterilizers or wipe warmers are unnecessary. submitted by /u/Troobaby to r/whatdoIdo [link] [comments]

So last night I was at at Christmas party where everyone was asked to bring a wrapped $25 white elephant gift for exchange. White elephant gifts are often meant to be silly, but in this group we usually get cool/practical/random things that are actually useful. Everyone did great picking out cool items and the game was a lot of fun... until it was my turn to pick. I chose a big heavy box, excited to find out what was inside. I tear open the wrapping paper and open up this taped up box to find.... 25 cans of green beans! Are you freaking kidding me?! For context other gifts that people brought included a mini igloo cooler (with soda inside), a mini smoothie blender, bottles of alcohol, a candle warmer with a candle, party games, etc. But of course, I was the one who ended up with the gag gift of more green bean cans than I know what to do with. The part that feels sh*ttiest is that I went a little over budget on the gift I brought, and ended up with something I couldn't get anyone to take off my hands. Ugh! If you're involved in a white elephant gift exchange this season, try not to make someone as sad as I was opening my package last night.. :( Edit: I donated the green beans to a local homeless shelter, they didn’t go to waste! Edit # 2: I didn’t think that I would receive such an overwhelming response to this post. Trying to get through all the comments and funny stories and apparently criticism over not wanting 25 cans of green beans 😂😂 Also for people wondering — it was not an office white elephant exchange. This was a group of friends/family at a small holiday party. submitted by /u/dental_oddity to r/mildlyinfuriating [link] [comments]

Some date context: • She was visiting my city for a few days. • We ended up hooking up in the first hours of day 1 of her visit, and I agreed that she could crash at my place that evening. She originally had a hotel booked that she 'wasn't happy with'. • We spent the rest of the day together while she did touristic things, but after 5-6 hours of that I discovered I really, really couldn't handle or stand her personality (and she didn't seem very into mine). • She was super manipulative, controlling, jealous, passive aggressive, and not able to take care of herself at all, or feigned helplessness for attention, she would film literally everything we did, wanted me to be her walking, talking selfie stick (and then complained about my photography), shard a photo of my flat interior on an Instagram story and wanted to share videos of me playing small, raw ideas on the piano (I told her no and she was clearly not happy), she was over 30 minutes late to meet and left me standing in the cold with zero apology, complained (very judgmentally) about my apartment being too cold (it was set to 20 degrees in Europe in December) while wearing next to nothing, slow walker, loud eater, materialistic, cagey and defensive... Really not my bag. • When we climbed into bed to sleep, she told me I was temporarily 'banished' from touching her due to how I'd handled the temperature of the flat. I told her 'ok', switched off the light and went to sleep. • I told her the next morning that I was sorry, but I didn't want anything else romantic with her. She told me she'd cancelled her hotel and had nowhere else to go (the hotel did seem legit, she'd shown me the reservations/contact with them), and I felt pity and said she could stay the other nights, but I'd sleep elsewhere in my flat. • We had a weird 48 hours from then on. Tried to do platonic things, she hopped from agreeing with me that there were no feelings to trying to kiss and bang me, telling me the whole trip 'could've been an e-mail' to trying to say she 'felt pregnant' after protected sex the day before and that I now need to buy dinner 'for two'. • The whole day I've tried to be as caring and courteous as I possibly could. I've paid for her all her meals, tried to make my environment cosier and warmer for her. • When I wanna go to sleep, she's already in my bed. I ask her to briefly move so I can take off this mattress topper so that I can sleep downstairs. She absolutely loses it, springs up and starts arguing, saying how 'unpredictable' I am (I told her and re-told her by text that this was the sleeping plan), that I should be 'nice about it' (I asked her to move in a quiet, calm voice after having done 30 mins of deep breathing), asked 'is it really that bad?', I guess about sleeping next to her, I left no comment... I remade my actual bed for her to sleep in and offered her a hot water bottle, which she declined, saying, 'Don't stress yourself'. I say 'ok' and go to sleep. • I go running the next morning, text her that I'll be gone for 1.5 hours but she can help herself to anything. I come back to my flat and she's gone along with all her stuff. No text, no note. Obviously I'm relieved and get on with my day. The text: • The text arrived out of the blue that evening, I guess while she took the train back. • Can't even begin... I am not gay 😅 I just didn't like her personality. That's not that I take the suggestion as an insult, frankly I'd love it if it I was, but nope. • I think she's basing it on the fact that I am quite a sensitive dude, feminist, empathetic, I might paint my nails a bit, I'm autistic so quite quiet, sensitive, have certain needs for space I need to look after... I know some lines crossover, but yeah. I was a little womanizer from the age of about 3. • The strap on thing (Jesus Christ), she'd told me she BADLY wanted to do things to her ex's butt. I mentioned that I'm open to that kinda thing, as many people of all sexualities are, and she suggested pegging. I've never done it, have no idea if I'd be into it, but said we could see what happens someday if we have some trust. This was now 'begging', apparently. • The name I've censored is one of my best (straight, male) friends. We've run insane Ultra distances together and affectionately refer to one another as each other's 'running boyfriend'. We say this even in front of his long term partner of about 10 years. • 'Hall of fame' refers to the fact that the first thing she saw and mentioned in my apartment was that I have no more than 3 photos of some ex girlfriends on my wall (of around 25 photos in total). They're from a long time ago, we still love each other as friends, and they were special times in my life. She was clearly massively jealous of this, and said she'd love to end up there. • I have literally no idea what she means about my Dad and brothers... I told her a bit about Dad, next to nothing about my brothers, and only after she ranted to me for hours about the bad relationship she had with her own Mum & Dad (no surprises there) • With the neighbor... I basically have a psychotic neighbor living next to me for years. He's super aggressive, shouts and bangs on my wall if I so much as drop a spoon. I've tried to find ways to deal with it where I can live my life, but try and keep peace because frankly I don't need daily conflict. Therefore, for example, I grind my coffee (loudly) before I go to bed at around 9pm rather than when I usually wake up to run at 5am. Otherwise I go about my day as I usually would as a relatively quiet dude, and the aggression has definitely gotten better. Apart from grinding coffee as I usually would, I never once asked her to be quiet or do anything differently. • I do breath work and meditation because it makes me feel calm and regulated after highly stimulating days, again, autism. • I would literally rather choke on my own vomit than host a loud party in my apartment 😂 Anyway. It's quite clear that she's deeply, deeply insecure, somewhat of a narcissist, and just couldn't handle a guy saying no to her. She seems like she's only ever had dudes that would essentially bow to her every wish, give her everything she wants without question, and then I come along and spoil it all. Of course there's so many lessons for me to learn, I am very much not off my own hook. I will never EEEVVVERRRR let someone I barely know stay in my flat for more than a night of a hook up. But of course let me have it, I deserve it. Edit - I've just realised I never once embraced the 7/10 line 'BEGGIN' FOR A PEGGIN' so I would like to retroactively add that to the story in numerous bouts. Thank you for your attention. submitted by /u/mdizzzzzzzle to r/Nicegirls [link] [comments]

This happened a few years back. I was doing long-haul, mostly cross-country routes, the kind that take you through vast stretches of nothing. You know the ones – where the radio turns to static for hours, and the only sign of life is the occasional pair of headlights going the other way, miles apart. I was young, eager for the miles, the money. Didn’t mind the solitude. Or so I thought. The route I was on took me across a long, desolate stretch of highway that ran between the borders of two large governmental territories. I don’t want to say exactly where, but think big, empty spaces, lots of trees, not much else. It was notorious among drivers for being a dead zone – no signal, no towns for a hundred miles either side, and prone to weird weather. Most guys tried to hit it during daylight, but schedules are schedules. Mine had me crossing it deep in the night. I remember the feeling. Utter blackness outside the sweep of my headlights. The kind of dark that feels like it’s pressing in on the cab. The only sounds were the drone of the diesel engine, the hiss of the air brakes now and then, and the rhythmic thrum of the tires on asphalt. Hypnotic. Too hypnotic. I’d been driving for about ten hours, with a short break a few states back. Coffee was wearing off. The dashboard lights were a dull green glow, comforting in a way, but also making the darkness outside seem even more absolute. My eyelids felt like they had lead weights attached. You fight it, you know? Slap your face, roll down the window for a blast of cold air, crank up whatever music you can find that hasn’t dissolved into static. I was doing all of that. It must have been around 2 or 3 AM. I was in that weird state where you’re not quite asleep, but not fully awake either. Like your brain is running on low power mode. The white lines on the road were starting to blur together, stretching and warping. Standard fatigue stuff. I remember blinking hard, trying to refocus. That’s when I saw it. Or thought I saw it. Just a flicker at the edge of my headlights, on the right shoulder of the road. Small. Low to the ground. For a split second, I registered a shape, vaguely human-like, and then it was gone, swallowed by the darkness as I passed. My first thought? Deer. Or a coyote. Common enough. But it hadn't moved like an animal. It had been upright. My brain, sluggish as it was, tried to process it. Too small for an adult. Too still for an animal startled by a rig. Then the logical part, the part that was still trying to keep me safe on the road, chimed in: You’re tired. Seeing things. Happens. And I almost accepted that. I really did. Shook my head, took a swig of lukewarm water from the bottle beside me. Kept my eyes glued to the road ahead. The image, though, it kind of stuck. A small, upright shape. Like a child. No way, I told myself. Out here? Middle of nowhere? Middle of the night? Impossible. Kids don’t just wander around on inter-territorial highways at 3 AM. It had to be a trick of the light, a bush, my eyes playing games. I’ve seen weirder things born of exhaustion. Shadows that dance, trees that look like figures. It’s part of the job when you’re pushing limits. I drove on for maybe another thirty seconds, the image fading, my rational mind starting to win. Just a figment. Then, I glanced at my passenger-side mirror. Habit. Always checking. And my blood went cold. Not just cold, it felt like it turned to slush. There, illuminated faintly by the red glow of my trailer lights receding into the distance, was the reflection of a small figure. Standing. On the shoulder of the road. Exactly where I’d thought I’d seen something. It wasn’t a bush. It wasn’t a shadow. It was small, and it was definitely standing there, unmoving, as my truck pulled further and further away. My heart started hammering against my ribs. This wasn’t fatigue. This was real. There was someone, something, back there. And it looked tiny. Every instinct screamed at me. Danger. Wrong. Keep going. But another voice, the one that makes us human, I suppose, whispered something else. A kid? Alone out here? What if they’re hurt? Lost? I fought with myself for a few seconds that stretched into an eternity. The image in the mirror was getting smaller, fainter. If I didn’t act now, they’d be lost to the darkness again. God, the thought of leaving a child out there, if that’s what it was… Against my better judgment, against that primal urge to just floor it, I made a decision. I slowed the rig, the air brakes hissing like angry snakes. Pulled over to the shoulder, the truck groaning in protest. Put on my hazards, their rhythmic flashing cutting into the oppressive blackness. Then, I did what you’re never supposed to do with a full trailer on a narrow shoulder. I started to reverse. Slowly. Carefully. My eyes flicking between the mirrors, trying to keep the trailer straight, trying to relocate that tiny figure. The crunch of gravel under the tires sounded unnaturally loud. It took a minute, maybe two, but it felt like an hour. The red glow of my tail lights eventually washed over the spot again. And there it was. A kid. I stopped the truck so my cab was roughly alongside them, maybe ten feet away. Switched on the high beams, hoping to get a better look, and also to make myself clearly visible as just a truck, not something else. The kid was… small. Really small. I’d guess maybe six, seven years old? Hard to tell in the glare. They were just standing there, on the very edge of the gravel shoulder, right where the trees began. The woods pressed in close on this stretch of road, tall, dark pines and dense undergrowth that looked like a solid black wall just beyond the reach of my lights. The kid wasn’t looking at me. They were facing sort of parallel to the road, just… walking. Slowly. Like they were on a stroll, completely oblivious to the massive eighteen-wheeler that had just pulled up beside them, engine rumbling, lights blazing. They were wearing what looked like pajamas. Thin, light-colored pajamas. In the chill of the night. No coat, no shoes that I could see. My mind reeled. This was wrong. So many levels of wrong. I killed the engine. The sudden silence was almost deafening, amplifying the crickets, the rustle of leaves in the woods from a breeze I couldn’t feel in the cab. My heart was still thumping, a weird mix of fear and adrenaline and a dawning sense of responsibility. I rolled down the window. The night air hit me, cold and damp, carrying the scent of pine and wet earth. “Hey!” I called out. My voice sounded hoarse, too loud in the quiet. “Hey, kid!” No response. They just kept walking, one small, bare foot in front of the other, at a pace that was taking them absolutely nowhere fast. Their head was down, slightly. I couldn’t see their face properly. “Kid! Are you okay?” I tried again, louder this time. Slowly, so slowly, the kid stopped. They didn’t turn their head fully, just sort of angled it a fraction, enough that I could see a pale sliver of cheek in the spill of my headlights. Still not looking at me. Still ignoring the multi-ton machine idling beside them. A prickle of unease ran down my spine. Not the normal kind of unease. This was deeper, colder. Animals act weird sometimes, but kids? A lost kid should be scared, relieved, something. This one was… nothing. “What are you doing out here all alone?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm, friendly. Like you’re supposed to with a scared kid. Even though this one didn’t seem scared at all. “It’s the middle of the night.” Silence. Just the sound of their bare feet scuffing softly on the gravel as they took another step, then another. As if my presence was a minor inconvenience, a background noise they were choosing to ignore. This wasn’t right. My internal alarm bells were clanging louder now. My hand hovered near the gearstick. Part of me wanted to slam it into drive and get the hell out of there. But the image of this tiny child, alone, possibly in shock… I couldn’t just leave. Could I? “Where are your parents?” I pushed, my voice a bit sharper than I intended. “Are you lost?” Finally, the kid stopped walking completely. They turned their head, just a little more. Still not looking directly at my cab, more towards the front of my truck, into the glare of the headlights. I could see their face a bit better now. Pale. Featureless in the harsh light, like a porcelain doll. Small, dark smudges that might have been eyes. No expression. None. Not fear, not sadness, not relief. Just… blank. An unreadable slate. Then, a voice. Small. Thin. Like the rustle of dry leaves. “Lost.” Just that one word. It hung in the air between us. Relief washed over me, quickly followed by a fresh wave of concern. Okay, lost. That’s something I can deal with. “Okay, kid. Lost is okay. We can fix lost. Where do you live? Where were you going?” The kid finally, slowly, turned their head fully towards my cab. Towards me. I still couldn’t make out much detail in their face. The angle, the light, something was obscuring it, keeping it in a sort of shadowy vagueness despite the headlights. But I could feel their gaze. It wasn't like a normal kid's look. There was a weight to it, an intensity that was deeply unsettling for such a small form. “Home,” the kid said, that same thin, reedy voice. “Trying to get home.” “Right, home. Where is home?” I asked, leaning forward a bit, trying to project reassurance. “Is it near here? Did you wander off from a campsite? A car?” There were no campsites for miles. No broken-down cars on the shoulder. I knew that. The kid didn’t answer that question directly. Instead, they took a small step towards the truck. Then another. My hand tensed on the door handle, ready to open it, to offer… what? A ride? Shelter? I didn’t know. “It’s cold out here,” I said, stating the obvious. “You should get in. We can get you warm, and I can call for help when we get to a spot with a signal.” My CB was useless, just static. My phone had shown ‘No Service’ for the last hour. The kid stopped about five feet from my passenger door. Still in that pale, thin pajama-like outfit. Barefoot on the sharp gravel. They should be shivering, crying. They were doing neither. “Can you help me?” the kid asked. The voice was still small, but there was a different inflection to it now. Less flat. A hint of… something else. Pleading, maybe? “Yeah, of course, I can help you,” I said. “That’s why I stopped. Where are your parents? How did you get here?” The kid tilted their head. A jerky, unnatural little movement. “They’re waiting. At home.” “Okay… And where’s home? Which direction?” I gestured vaguely up and down the empty highway. The kid didn’t point down the road. They made a small, subtle gesture with their head, a little nod, towards the trees. Towards the impenetrable darkness of the woods lining the highway. “In there,” the kid said. My stomach clenched. “In the woods? Your home is in the woods?” “Lost,” the kid repeated, as if that explained everything. “Trying to find the path. It’s dark.” “Yeah, it’s… it’s very dark,” I agreed, my eyes scanning the treeline. It looked like a solid wall of black. No sign of any path, any habitation. Just dense, old-growth forest. The kind of place you could get lost in for days, even in daylight. “Can you… come out?” the kid asked. “Help me look? It’s not far. I just… I can’t see it from here.” Every rational thought in my head screamed NO. Get out of the truck? In the middle of nowhere, in the pitch dark, with this… strange child, who wanted me to go into those woods? No. Absolutely not. But the kid looked so small. So vulnerable. If there was even a tiny chance they were telling the truth, that their house was just a little way in, and they were genuinely lost… “I… I don’t think that’s a good idea, buddy,” I said, trying to sound gentle. “It’s dangerous in there at night. For both of us. Best thing is for you to hop in here with me. We’ll drive until we get a signal, and then we’ll call the police, or the rangers. They can help find your home properly.” The kid just stood there. That blank, unreadable face fixed on me. “But it’s right there,” they insisted, their voice a little more insistent now. “Just a little way. I can almost see it. If you just… step out… the light from your door would help.” My skin was crawling. There was something profoundly wrong with this scenario. The way they were trying to coax me out. The lack of normal emotional response. The pajamas. The bare feet. The woods. I looked closer at the kid, trying to pierce that strange vagueness around their features. My headlights were bright, but it was like they absorbed the light rather than reflected it. Their eyes… I still couldn’t really see their eyes. Just dark hollows. “I really think you should get in the truck,” I said, my voice firmer now. “It’s warmer in here. We can figure it out together.” The kid took another step closer. They were almost at my running board now. “Please?” they said. That reedy voice again. “My leg hurts. I can’t walk much further. If you could just… help me a little. Just to the path.” My internal conflict was raging. My trucker instincts, honed by years of seeing weird stuff and hearing weirder stories at truck stops, were blaring warnings. But the human part, the part that saw a child in distress, was still there, still arguing. I was tired. So damn tired. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe this was all some bizarre misunderstanding. I squinted, trying to see past the kid, towards the treeline they’d indicated. Was there a faint trail I was missing? A flicker of light deep in the woods? No. Nothing. Just blackness. Solid, unyielding blackness. And then I saw it. It wasn’t something I saw clearly at first. It was more like… an anomaly. A disturbance in the darkness behind the kid. The kid was standing with their back mostly to the woods, facing my truck. Behind them, the darkness of the forest was absolute. Or it should have been. But there was something… connected to them. Something that stretched from the small of their back, from under the thin pajama top, and disappeared into the deeper shadows of the trees. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, a weird shadow cast by my headlights hitting them at an odd angle. Maybe a rope they were dragging? A piece of clothing snagged on a branch? I leaned forward, trying to get a clearer view. The kid was still talking, their voice a low, persistent murmur. “It’s not far… please… just help me… I’m so cold…” But I wasn’t really listening to the words anymore. I was focused on that… that thing behind them. It wasn’t a rope. It wasn’t a shadow. It was… a tube. A long, dark, thick tube. It seemed to emerge directly from the kid’s lower back, impossibly, seamlessly. It was dark matte, like a strip of the night itself given form, and it snaked away from the child, maybe ten, fifteen feet, before disappearing into the inky blackness between two thick pine trunks. It wasn’t rigid; it seemed to have a slight, almost imperceptible flexibility, like a massive, sluggish umbilical cord made of shadow. It didn’t reflect any light from my headlamps. It just… absorbed it. My breath hitched in my throat. My blood, which had been cold before, now felt like it had frozen solid. This wasn’t just wrong. This was… impossible. Unnatural. The kid was still trying to coax me. “Are you going to help me? It’s just there. You’re so close.” My voice, when I finally found it, was barely a whisper. I couldn’t take my eyes off that… appendage. “Kid… what… what is that? Behind you?” The kid flinched. Not a big movement, just a tiny, almost imperceptible tightening of their small frame. Their head, which had been tilted pleadingly, straightened. The blankness on their face seemed to… solidify. “What’s what?” they asked, their voice suddenly devoid of that pleading tone. It was flat again. Colder. “That… that thing,” I stammered, pointing with a shaking finger. “Coming out of your back. Going into the woods. What is that?” The kid didn’t turn to look. They didn’t need to. Their gaze, those dark, unseen eyes, bored into me. “It’s nothing,” they said. The voice was still small, but it had a new edge to it. A hardness. “You’re seeing things. You’re tired.” They were using my own earlier rationalization against me. “No,” I said, my voice gaining a tremor of conviction born of sheer terror. “No, I’m not. I see it. It’s right there. It’s… it’s connected to you.” The kid was silent for a long moment. The only sound was the thumping of my own heart, so loud I was sure they could hear it. The crickets had stopped. The wind seemed to die down. An unnatural stillness fell over the scene. Then, the kid’s face began to change. It wasn’t a dramatic, movie-monster transformation. It was far more subtle, and far more terrifying. The blankness didn’t leave, but it… sharpened. The pale skin seemed to tighten over the bones. The areas where the eyes were, those dark smudges, seemed to deepen, to become more shadowed, more intense. And a flicker of something ancient and utterly alien passed across their features. It wasn't human anger. It was something older, colder, and infinitely more patient, now strained to its limit. The air in my cab suddenly felt thick, heavy, hard to breathe. “Just come out of the truck,” the kid said, and the voice… oh god, the voice. It wasn’t the small, reedy voice of a child anymore. It was deeper. Resonant. With a strange, grating undertone, like stones grinding together. It was coming from that small frame, but it was impossibly large, impossibly old. It vibrated in my chest. “Come out. Now.” The command was absolute. My hand, which had been hovering near the gearstick, now gripped it like a lifeline. My other hand fumbled for the ignition key, which I’d stupidly left in. “What are you?” I choked out, staring at the monstrous thing playing dress-up in a child’s form, at the dark, pulsating tube that was its anchor to the shadows. The kid’s head tilted again, that jerky, unnatural movement. The expression on its face – if you could call it that – was one of pure, unadulterated annoyance. Contempt. Like I was a particularly stupid insect it had failed to swat. And then it spoke, in that same terrible, resonant, grinding voice. The words it said are burned into my memory, colder than any winter night. “Why,” it rasped, the sound seeming to scrape the inside of my skull, “the FUCK are humans smarter now?” That was it. That one sentence. The sheer, cosmic frustration in it. The implication of past encounters, of easier prey. The utter alien nature of it. I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I reacted. Primal fear, the kind that bypasses all higher brain function, took over. My hand twisted the key. The diesel engine roared back to life, a sudden, violent explosion of sound in the horrifying stillness. The kid, the thing, actually recoiled. A small, jerky step back. The expression – that awful, tightened, ancient look – intensified. I slammed the gearstick into drive. My foot stomped on the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, tires spinning on the gravel for a terrifying second before they bit into the asphalt. I didn’t look at it. I couldn’t. I stared straight ahead, my knuckles white on the steering wheel, the whole cab vibrating around me. The truck surged forward, gaining speed with agonizing slowness. For a horrible moment, I imagined that tube-thing whipping out, trying to snag the trailer, to pull me back, to drag me into those woods. I imagined that small figure, with its ancient, terrible voice, somehow keeping pace. I risked a glance in my driver-side mirror. It was standing there. On the shoulder. Unmoving. The headlights of my departing truck cast its small silhouette into sharp relief. And behind it, the dark tube was still visible, a thick, obscene cord snaking back into the endless night of the forest. It didn't seem to be retracting or moving. It just was. The thing didn’t pursue. It just stood and watched me go. And that, somehow, was almost worse. The sheer confidence. The patience. Like it knew there would be others. Or maybe it was just annoyed that this particular attempt had failed. I drove. I don’t know for how long. I just drove. My foot was welded to the floor. The engine screamed. I watched the speedometer needle climb, far past any legal or safe limit for a rig that size, on a road that dark. I didn’t care. The image of that thing, that child-shape with its dark umbilical to the woods, and that voice, that awful, grinding voice asking its horrifying question, was burned onto the inside of my eyelids. I must have driven for an hour, maybe more, at speeds that should have gotten me killed or arrested, before the adrenaline started to fade, replaced by a bone-deep, shaking exhaustion that was more profound than any fatigue I’d ever known. My hands were trembling so violently I could barely keep the wheel straight. Tears were streaming down my face – not from sadness, but from sheer, unadulterated terror and relief. When the first hint of dawn started to grey the eastern sky, and my phone finally beeped, indicating a single bar of service, I pulled over at the first wide spot I could find. I practically fell out of the cab, vomiting onto the gravel until there was nothing left but dry heaves. I sat there on the cold ground, shaking, for a long time, watching the sun come up, trying to convince myself that it had been a dream, a hallucination brought on by exhaustion. But I knew it wasn’t. The detail of that tube. The voice. The question. You don’t hallucinate something that specific, that coherent, that utterly alien. I never reported it. Who would I report it to? What would I say? "Officer, I saw a little kid who was actually an ancient cosmic horror tethered to the woods by a nightmare umbilical cord, and it got mad because I didn't want to be its dinner?" They’d have locked me up. Breathalyzed me, drug tested me, sent me for a psych eval. I finished that run on autopilot. Dropped the load. Drove my rig back to the yard. And I quit. I told them I was burned out, needed a break. They tried to convince me to stay, offered me different routes, more pay. I just couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that kid, that tube, those woods. Every dark road felt like a trap. I found a local job, something that keeps me home at night. I don’t drive in remote areas anymore if I can help it. Especially not at night. I still have nightmares. Sometimes, when I’m very tired, driving home late from somewhere, I’ll see a flicker at the edge of my vision, on the side of the road, and my heart will try to beat its way out of my chest. I don’t know what that thing was. An alien? A demon? Something else, something that doesn’t fit into our neat little categories? All I know is that it’s out there. And it’s patient. And it seems to have learned that its old tricks aren't as effective as they used to be. "Why the fuck are humans smarter now?" That question haunts me. It implies they weren’t always. It implies that, once upon a time, we were easier. That maybe, just maybe, people like me, tired and alone on dark roads, used to just step out of the cab when asked. And were never seen again. So, if you’re ever driving one of those long, lonely stretches of road, deep in the night, and you see something you can’t explain… Maybe just keep driving. Maybe being “smarter now” means knowing when not to stop. Knowing when to ignore that little voice telling you to help, because what’s asking for help might not be what it seems. Stay safe out there. And for God’s sake, stay on the well-lit roads. submitted by /u/gamalfrank to r/stories [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/throwaway756585 My [22F] boyfriend [25M] of 2 years wants to have a three-way with our mutual best friend [26M] after he tricked us TRIGGER WARNING: attempted coercion, involuntary drugging Original Post - rareddit Aug 21, 2017 (neccessary throwaway cause everyone knows my username) So the other night, my boyfriend Mark and I went to a birthday party, all hyped because we were going to finally see our mutual best friend John after about a month. John was in Russia for a month and had literally gone to the party (it was his sister's birthday) straight from the airport. He was all hyped to see us too, and after about an hour of hanging out with everyone else, John asked if we could sneak off and head off to his place to sort of catch up - we're all kinda introverted and crowded places get tiring after a while, and everyone knows that we're the trio that leaves every party first. So we're at John's place, just chatting and catching up and he takes out this capsule and swallows it down with water, telling us it's this plant based all natural stimulant that sorta boots your energy levels, saying he felt a little jet lagged. He very casually offered us one each, to try them out, but we said "no" and Mark teased him a little for picking up all sorts of things from all sorts of places (John travels a lot and does indeed always bring some fun snacks or protein bars or whatever). It was a really casual conversation and it somehow turned into John saying "I got them from the pharmacy and they let me take them on the plane, how bad could they be?" waving out this Russian bottle with plenty of capsules, and Mark judging the capsules as completely harmless and pointless, and us taking one each. It's hard to capture the moment here but it was a very, very normal and natural scene in our friendship. Fast forward an hour and I start to get a little euphoric so I excuse myself to the toilet. I splash some water on my face and when I look at the mirror, I notice that my pupils are really dilated. And the world around me seemed a little... warmer, for the lack of a better word. I go back to the guys and I tell them about this, to which John straight out confesses "Ok guys, don't hate me, but there was some Molly in the pills I gave you", explaining how he knows we'd never take it and that there's really no harm (weed is quite enough for both of us every odd now and then). I start to panic and while Mark feels completely fine and sober, he goes all "not cool, man" and we leave a very apologetic John. We sat on a bench outside his building and then Mark starts to really feel it too. It was really hard to stay mad at John, though, because everything felt so fantastic and we were so emphatic. We sat outside for a couple of minutes when Mark's phone starts to ring. And it's John and he's apologizing but we all feel just so damn calm and awesome so before long, the three of us end up in a park nearby, chatting and just having a good time. Soon it got a bit chilly and we discovered that cuddles just feel great. Everything was just so great. I felt completely sober and normal, yet oddly energetic (but perfectly rational) and full of empathy. Somehow the conversation turned into sex and John wondered if we'd ever include a third person in our bed. I didn't take the comment so I went all "woo exciting" but Mark took it more seriously and said "Maybe, but it's hard to find a good person for that", to which John very casually says that he'd join us were he invited, without it ever getting weird. But the Molly just made everything cool and ok so we let this slip by. This was a week ago. The following day when I was feeling the after effects, I wasn't so cool about what John had done but felt that what was done was done, and even though I told him off really loud and clear, the three of us hung out every day before John leaves for India on the 25th. Don't get me wrong, I will never trust John this way again and everyone knows it, and we really did have a huge fight about it. So today Mark tells me he's really been thinking about having a three-way with John and the two of them have already talked about it yesterday and now they're just waiting for me to say "yes". What even? I just widened my eyes at him, unsure if he was serious, and then just went to work and told him we'd talk about it when I get back. Here I am now, running out of excuses not to go home, typing this post. What the hell, reddit, what should I do? On one hand, I do feel like I got into a serious relationship too young (Mark and I are perfect together and we plan to keep it up) so yeah, this really could be a thrilling experience, but one the other hand, does it have to be with our best friend? John is good looking, very chill and just generally a good person, and I've always had a bit of a tiny crush on him (Mark knows ofc and kinda teases me about it). I'm afraid this will turn out way too messy and complicated, but I sort of feel like I have to say yes. What if I say no, though? I feel like that will just make this awkward and I'll be the bad guy. tl;dr: Mutual best friend John tricked me and bf Mark into taking Molly, and while on it suggested having a three-way, and now my sober bf wants to do it. What the heck should I do? RELEVANT COMMENTS aitchbee Look, this dude gave you drugs without your consent, knowing you'd say no if he asked. I don't think you should be having sex with anyone you can't 100% trust to respect your boundaries and right to consent. Even if you are into the idea of a threesome, I think John has totally ruled himself out. Secondly, in my experience, threesomes more often go wrong than not. That's not to say they're a bad idea, just that everyone needs to be really sure. You need a stone cold conversation about it, firstly with your BF, then with any potential third party. Your boyfriend should not have discussed this with the potential third party first and then brought it to you, and if you guys want to revisit the idea, discuss together first. In any event, if you're not sure, which you're not, it's definitely a no. OOP You're right. The thing is, Mark and John always make plans on their own and I just go along with everything, but it's never things like this. It's things like concerts, where to eat out, which movie to see in the cinema, because I always complicate things and can't make my mind up and I'm glad to have them make plans for us all, it really feels like a relief honestly. But this isn't a thing like that... I don't know if to them it is, but I feel like this is something they should've included me in in a very sober state. Thanks, I think this is how I will start my conversation with them. applekins20 Because this is something they should include you in on. This guy should not be trusted. And yet your bf is acting like you never got drugged, and even using the conversation that took place while high. At best it's scummy, at worst it kind of makes you wonder if it was planned between the two of them. Ironically I'm pretty sure he'd freak seeing his best friend have sex with you. But that's neither here nor there. You're going to have to polish that spine, OP. It concerns me that you say you "always mess things up" or "complicate things" when planning, because that tells me they may try to use that history against you to pull you to their way of thinking. Trust your gut. This feels off because it is off. OOP Thank you for pointing that out, that they can use that part of our history against me. I will keep it in mind, it's very important not to get trapped into that, because knowing myself I probably would. I am definitely not going along with it. Update Aug 22, 2017 (Next Day) Copy of the post Thanks to all your advice you awesome redditors, I made the decision to do and say the following regarding the situation with my boyfriend and best friend. There were so many comments I didn't get to reply to before I met up with the guys, but I've still read them all and I just want to say I'm so grateful to each and every one of you for taking the time to advise me. You guys made me feel less alone in this situation and if it weren't for you, I would've had no one to turn to. So I ignored all the calls/texts I received from Mark and John when I didn't show up at home yesterday. I slept over at a colleague's place and before it got too late I texted both Mark and John to meet me at a cafe first thing in the morning today to talk things through. When I showed up about 10 minutes early, they were already there and they'd already ordered my favorite drink. First thing I did when I sat down was telling them not to talk until I've got out everything I've got to say. And they respected that (mostly - they did try to interrupt me a couple of times). So to paraphrase what I said: "[To John:] I am not okay at all that you gave us MDMA without asking us explicitly first. It was very, very wrong. Even if you meant no harm, even if you knew we would like it, even if it was frustrating for you that we wouldn't taking it just because we decided that drugs weren't for us once upon a time, and even though it turned out to be just fine in the end - I am not okay with it. And no one should be. This is something you should never, ever, ever do to anyone. Drugging people is fucked up. I don't even know how you justify this to yourself and I don't even want to know. [To Mark:] As for you, I am not okay by how unaffected you seem by it, it honestly makes me doubt that you were as clueless as me about the whole deal and I even think that you guys might have planned this behind my back just to get me to agree to a three-way. Which. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Happen. Because of many, many reasons that we can discuss later. I am also not okay that you guys went and talked about it after the MDMA and that you [Mark] just brought it up casually like it's the most normal thing in the world to do. That's so many levels of messed up that I can't even begin to describe it. You guys should have talked about it together with me no matter what. At the moment, I trust none of you and I need to be on my own for a while. Both of you crossed a very thick line, and especially you John, and it can't be undone no matter what." In reality it wasn't as smooth and I shook through the first half conversation and couldn't really look either of them in the eye properly, and by the end of the "monologue" I'd sweat a bucket, but I said all I had to say. As lame as it may seem, I basically took out things I liked from your comments and things your comments made me realize and wrote this speech and read it over and over while I couldn't sleep. Then I proceeded with asking Mark to go stay with John till he has to leave for India (on the 25th), because we live together, and that we'll decide then how we (and mostly I) feel about our living arrangements. When Mark asked if this meant we were over, I said "I don't know", and that we'll talk about it some other day. Because honestly, I don't know. As for their part, at first they were a bit "you're overreacting" and "you can't be serious" and "come on, we would never", but when they realized how serious I actually was, both of them were super, extremely apologetic and regretful, and I could tell that John was seriously holding back tears. There was a lot of "fuck the stupid idea about a three-way" and "it's so irrelevant at this point if you feel like this". Mark just shut down and didn't say much, except things like "Ok, if that's really what you want" and "of course you can have all the time you need to think things through," and "you know me, you've known me forever, you know I would never, ever, ever let anything harm you." He literally seemed shocked at everything I said. At first they both tried to "talk some sense into me" and they denied everything negative ever, and promised their innocence while admitting their mistakes, but when I wouldn't back down, they just resorted to apologies of the sort "god I really wish I could take this all back" from John and "I can't believe I was so stupid not to see this was hurting you". So it was mainly positive. I asked them not to text or call until it was time for John to leave, and to just generally leave me to myself while I try to figure things out. Before I left Mark asked to hug me, and I let him and he said "Please don't leave me" and that was it. And when I started typing on here, this I got a text from Mark saying "John cancelled his trip so I'll stay with him until you want me to move back" with a follow-up text "If you ever do. No matter what you think, just try to remember I love you more than anything", and I haven't sent a reply nor do I plan to. So I don't know what I will do, I still don't know what to think, but having this talk was like dropping a huge burden off my shoulders, so I guess that's a step forward. Any advice is more than welcome, I don't know if again I am biased and think this went well or if it's just another ploy to manipulate me. So many questions buzzing now: Should I break up with Mark? Should I ever forgive John? Have all the years we've been friends meant nothing to them and they just decided to show their true selves at last? I feel played and stupid and I don't know what to think. I've trusted them more than anyone my entire life, but now... yeah, it's kinda hard to. I'm not allowed to post another update after this so I guess this is it, I suppose it isn't really closure yet but I don't think there will be a better time to write an update than now. I just want to express my immense gratitude for all your help, once again. tl;dr: When best friend John drugged me and my bf Mark with MDMA, he suggested we do a three-way and a week later, Mark said they'd talked about it sober and want to do it. I said no, and told them I can't trust them, but they were extremely regretful and apologetic and owned up to their mistakes, so how do I decide if I should trust them or not? THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7 submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/YoungDad_sucks Originally posted to r/parenting + r/offmychest + his own page Previous BoRUs: #1 originally posted by u/toohottooheavy, #2 originally posted by u/violue, #3 and #4 originally posted by u/Stephenallen1977, #5 [New Update - 10 months later]: I 16(M) have a 4 month old daughter - ex gf wants to go to College and I am worried NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- Editor's Note: removed some relevant comments from all older BoRUs for more space in this BoRU to fit in all posts. And also added paragraph breaks for readability Trigger Warnings: forced marriage, parental abandonment Mood Spoilers: wholesome and positive RECAP Original Post: October 4, 2021 Before anyone says anything - yes I knew about condoms. I was just dumb. Story time. My parents divorced when I was 10 but lived primarily with my mom. Tiffany's (16) parents are together. When our parents found out she was pregnant her parents kicked her out and my mom kicked me out. So now we live with my Dad. During the pregnancy my Dad took my mom to court and got primary sole custody - I know what this means because I had to go to court for my daughter. He sued Tiffany's parents for legal guardianship and they now pay child support for her and they are pissed and refuse to talk to us. I am in my bedroom and my daughter is in her bedroom and my ex is in the "guest room" that is now hers. My dad made a deal with us. We live with him until 18 with no rent payment at 18 we need to decide what it is we do. I wasnt really that good in school and Tiffany is an A student. So I took my GED and my dad got me into Welding school. I finish in 2 months. I also work full time so I do welding school at night. Tiffany goes to school and works on the weekends at Wendy's. This whole thing is a huge ordeal. We literally have no life. My dad helps but not that much because he feels its our responsibility which I agree but still sucks. I work 6 am - 3 pm at a warehouse and go to school from 6 pm to 10 pm. Tiffany is home by 230 and picks up our daughter from daycare. WE help each other a lot and then I head off to school and she stays with her at home until I get home and do it all over again day after day. When our daughter was born my dad made us go to court, we have 50/50 and I dont pay child support because she lives with us. Because I work full time I can get healthcare for my daughter and myself and that sucks it costs me 300 dollars a month and daycare is 400 a week. Literally Tiffany works just so we can pay for daycare and I pay for everything else. When we are short for cash my dad will help because he sees we are trying. My dad has been our rock. When we are tired and exhausted he will step in and give us a break here and there, but he makes sure we have everything we need and keeps us motivated. Tiffany wants to apply to college soon and I am worried because I dont want to keep living with her and I dont think I can keep our daughter full time as a welder working 12 hour shifts. But she says she will start at community college and work but wants to stay with us living together since its easier. Since I will be working and it will be best for us to stay with my dad. But my dad said at 18 we have to pay rent. She doesnt mind but I dont want to keep living with her because we arent together. I am unsure how to tell her this. My dad thinks she should stay with us as long as she is a full time student to finish her degree because i am already getting my career. I just feel that all this is unfair because the burden is on me. I guess I am ranting because I am scared and unsure of what all this means. Edit - I guess my thing about her living with us is that we are more like siblings now. We get along and joke and stuff but since she is my ex I feel weirded out by it. Maybe I need to take a breather since everyone is saying its a good thing. Also I needed to hear it from other people and not just my dad and he is pretty solid and i should thank him maybe take him for dinner or something. 2nd Edit - My dad isnt kicking us out at 18, but he wants us to be realistic to the world and pay bills. The money he gets from Tiffany's parents he just gives it to her, she is saving up money for a car and uses other money for her specific foods and clothes. Before I became a dad my dad always wanted me to live with him at 18 and figure it out and stay with him and save money to buy a house. When he found out I was going to be a dad he wasnt mad but disappointed and said everything has to change. He also is paying for my welding school of 20k and he bought me my car but I do have to pay my own insurance. He does help as long as he sees we are trying and not being lazy. When school recently started he took my daughter to daycare every morning and helped Tiffany with a routine to get school work done. Final edit - I have to get to class now. Tiffany wants to be a nurse or PA but the college told her nursing school is hard to get into and its best to have a high school diploma which is why she is still in high school and working the weekends. But someone mentioned a dual thing for community college and we will look into that. So we couldnt get daycare assistance because we are minors and they used my dad's salary. The funny thing is I cant open a checking account for myself because i am a minor but the bank allowed me to open a childrens account for my daughter because I am her parent lol the irony. I read every single comment and its given me a different POV and I guess college seems so far and I was counting years but its really not that bad she is like a sister now and those who asked I doubt we will get back together honestly I am not thinking about anything like that right now I am too tired to think of a relationship or that type of future.   Update #1: October 25, 2021 (three weeks later) Idk why I feel like I need to update but here it goes, Tiff and my dad went to the school and were able to get her enrolled in college courses because of her grades. She wont graduate H.S way too fast but she will have enough to finish h.s hours by next December so 6 months early. She reapplied for assistance we got a voucher for daycare so now its 50 dollars a week. She quit her job so she can focus on school but she doesnt start college until spring so thats cool it gives her some time. She still wants to be a nurse so thats cool too. I got a new job that pays more as a forklift operator and will give me an internship for welding which I wont be able to start until november/december until i finish my classes and then i have to do a 2 month internship but they are paying me really good. I started Monday. My dad and I had a long talk about my fears and he reassured me that its ok to be scared but we have a game plan. He is fixing up the basement to make 2 bedrooms and a living room like a little apartment because he said Tiff and I will need space as we grow. He wants me to buy the house when i am 18 like he did with his parents and he will help me pay it as long as Tiff gets to stay until she finishes college and let her make her own choice. We all agreed this is the best option and we are all really much happier now. I guess I just needed to let it out. Tiff and I are great while being parents is hard but its been good now that we feel a bit more secure. My mom and Tiffs parents still havent spoken to us because we arent married. Which does make me sad but its ok we have my dad - Tiff's grandparents bought her a car and said thats all they can do for her and not to contact them again until we are married. The car needs some work but I am going to pay for it to fix it up. It needs brakes, suspension and some regular maintenance. My dad finally told me what all happened and I didnt know but it made me open my eyes to all of this. My dad met my mom in H.S too and they were together and got caught kissing. Since my mom's family are Baptist they forced my dad to marry her. I didnt know in Missouri parents can marry their kids at 15 which is why my dad has been so protective. They were going to marry Tiff and I because she was pregnant and when my dad stepped in they couldnt do it. My mom and Tiffs dad went and got a license for us and were going to marry us in their church. I guess I wouldnt have minded marrying Tiff but I would rather do it later. But yeah thats why they arent talking to us. My dad did say if that happened he would helped us get it anulled but we have no intentions of speaking to them right now. He explained that Tiff is stuck and while I might be afraid she is even more afraid because she has no one and I need to reassure her we are here for her as a family. I guess I couldnt see it that way and its good that I talked to him. I hugged my dad and i have been hugging him every day now and its nice its made us closer. All of this information made me pretty sad and grateful at the same time and it helped Tiff and I really start talking more. Like we talked but we didnt talk and I didnt know she was scared too we are now doing days for us to be kids as my dad says. So we both hang out with our friends who still talk to us at least once a week and Tiff and I do a lot of stuff on the weekends now that she doesnt work. Like taking Jelly to the park and going for walks and we did a pumpkin patch. Jelly seems to be happier too and Tiff doesnt seem as tired anymore. anyway thanks everyone for the help, tips and encouragement. I doubt I will update again and just lurk for parenting advice. Edit - just want to say thanks for thinking I am a great dad but I dont believe it just yet. I depend a lot on my dad to help me. Tiff and I are trying we do take parenting classes that they offer us a lot of advice and we have made friends there which is nice. But I dont think we would be this prepared without my dad. Also Tiff is on WIC and we take parenting and co-parenting classes its my dads rules.   Update #2 - Comment in BoRU #1: April 7, 2023 (18 months later) Holy Crap guys! I finally logged into Reddit and had tons of messages and I found this post! I honestly just didnt expect this. I might as well make an update! Well Tiff and I are 18 now! I first made my post 2 years ago and Jelly is 2 years old as well. My dad is doing really good now, he FINALLY has a girlfriend and of course he met her at Tiff's community college she is an admissions counselor. Tiff is in CC for nursing and killing it! she will have her associates in nursing and then head over for her bachelors at some point but yeah she doing really good. I am a welder now and I make pretty good money. Tiff and I are back together we started dating again this new years when she kissed me and it just felt right. But she made it very clear we are dating so she is in the basement which we fixed up and I am in my room upstairs and she makes me text her if its ok to come over haha its just a funny thing we do. Yeah I am going to marry her. We go to family counseling 4 times a month 2 weeks virtual and 2 weeks in office because of our schedule we found that this helps us its like couples counseling but not. I am not the best communicator and this has helped me with stressful times with Tiff and Jelly. I feel like I aged the past 2 years. I definitely dont feel 18 I feel a bit older. Jelly is the most happiest kid and she literally lights up a room and I honestly just cant imagine not being in her life every second of the day. She loves Pa (thats what she calls my dad). She has him wrapped around his finger he literally spoils her all the time. I really love being a dad to her. I love taking naps with her and how she is just a daddy's girl, she literally is my shadow. It drives Tiff crazy but she is also really happy. We do go out on dates to like dinner and movies sometimes we just sit in the car and talk and laugh, mostly laugh. My dad has changed a lot and us 4 are really really close he is so much happier and I think his gf makes him happy like made him alive again. He's always doing some weird teaching moments like if Tiff is irritated and walks away he will just say. Well an irritated woman tends to shop to get her mind off things... can you afford that? LOL so yeah he is constantly with his little comments. I havent spoken to my mother at all and I have no intentions of doing so. Tiff's parents did come back and try to build a relationship with her but they always made her feel like shit so she cut contact with them. My dad still wants us to buy the house and I told him we have no plans on ever moving out! so I told him I will buy the house when either I am 30 or when Tiff and I get married and she said not until she graduates and gets a job. So no wedding bells for at least another 2 years. If you ask Tiff she says she doesnt plan on getting married until she is 28 so it might be longer haha.   Update #3 - Comment in BoRU #2: April 24, 2023 (17 days later) He explained that Tiff is stuck and while I might be afraid she is even more afraid because she has no one and I need to reassure her we are here for her as a family. Most-excellent dad. OOP: tbh this was the statement that made me wake up. At that time I just saw everything as a burden, I lived off of adrenaline and honestly the moment she said she was pregnant until I made that post everything was a blur. I was scared and just really confused about life. I was tired and I couldnt think everything was a fog. Tiff and I talked a lot about how regardless of whatever happens in our future she is my family, we are a family. Being 16 I wanted to just be with my family, my mom walked away and it was just me and my dad and a baby and now a gf. I know that sounds selfish but that is how I was thinking and really overwhelmed. With therapy and my dad it really helped me I wouldnt say get over but really find my own voice and be myself and actually use my words. I just bottled everything in and when my dad said that it really did break through to me.   My Dad's gf is pregnant, my dad doesnt know and she doesnt know he is going to propose and I am so happy and I need to get it off my chest before I explode and accidentally tell them: September 11, 2023 (five months later) My Dad (38) has been trusting me to not spill the beans that he is going to propose to his gf (33) lets call her Kay on his bday in 2 weeks! I helped pick up the ring when it was ready and have been hiding it for a month! But Kay spent the weekend with us and was acting very "moody" I dont want to make it sound bad because its not, but she usually is an early riser and very bubbly but this weekend she seemed very tired and different. I heard my dad yell down to the basement "we will be back" I yelled back ok. I went upstairs to get some snacks out of boredom and went into the guest bathroom not thinking anything about the door being closed and she was there staring at a pregnancy test. We locked eyes and I immediately shut the door. I waited for her to come out or say something but then I heard her crying and I knocked and opened the door and she looked at me and said she's pregnant and started sobbing. My 1st reaction was to yell for joy and then reality hit. I am 18 and my dad will be starting over and I have a daughter and my dad is a grandpa already. She asked me to keep it a secret and she believes she is about 9 wks pregnant she would have to check but yeah. I am finally going to be a big brother! I cant tell him and I cant tell her of the all around great news! I told her to wait until his bday because he would love it. I know my dad, he is going to be estatic probably scared but definitely excited. My dad has helped me become a pretty good father and even a good partner to my gf, hes an awesome dad and grandpa, now we both get to be Dads together. I cant wait to tell him (um did you check the baby's diaper LOL). Sorry had to get this off my chest. I cant tell my gf, my dad or my future step mom AHHHHH. Edit - Lets clear the air. She is happy to be pregnant and overwhelmed, she was sobbing because she didn't think it could happen because she was with her ex for 6 years and never got pregnant. Also, yes, I am 18 almost 19 with a 2.5 y/o daughter, and my GF and I live in basement of my dad's house. Update - I survived dinner and Kay brought up a baby and my dad laughed saying oh man that would be awesome but it's not in our cards (this is because Kay believed she couldnt have babies) and mentioned maybe adoption or more grandkids. Sidenote he will have to wait a long time for more grandkids, I learned my lesson. We discussed my Dad's bday and Kay's mom is going to make his favorite dish Enchiladas and its going to be at the house after we convinced my dad to have a small party with Kay's, parents and siblings, us and a few of his close friends. She thinks she is going to surprise him and he is thinking he won by having her family here. I feel like this is going so well and I will update everyone when it happens but I do appreciate the forum to express myself. I am not on Reddit very often as I am switching from 4 10's to 2nd shift and in training of 2nd shift stuff.   Update - September 26, 2023 (two weeks later) UPDATE - Well here is an update! The past 2 weeks has been hell to keep all this in and not accidentally tell anyone anything! But this is how it all went. It took me a while to make this update because I have been in my feels. Monday my Dad tried to sleep in like usual but my daughter was not having it so we made him breakfast in bed and they watched Disney movies and danced until 11 am. The rest of the day I spent cleaning the house and prepping for everyone, my gf Tiff went to go pick up Kay's parents at 330 and were at the house by 4. Kay showed up around 430. Just some info - Kay's parents are older and live with her at her house so they can save their money from working to retire faster and possibly spend the winters in warmer climate and summers here with Kay. Dinner was amazing and we all had a great time and Jelly was definitely stealing the spotlight trying to "help" blow out Pa's candles but he didnt mind so much. The whole time my heart was racing and I was trying to figure out how to help my Dad propose and help Kay tell him. So the way it happened - was that my Dad put the engagement ring in a gift bag to make it look like it was a gift to him and he planned on opening it last to surprise her, she planned on her gift having the ultrasound picture last to surprise him, as you see this wasnt working because they were both adamant on which gift being last. Again, I am struggling trying to middle man because he wasnt listening and I didnt want her to get upset. So we finally convinced him to open Kay's present before his. Arguing with the birthday boy was giving me dirty looks from everyone and Tiff ended up elbowing me in my ribs to cut it out. I was stressed. So my Dad opens Kay's gift and sees the ultrasound in a frame but didnt look at the name or anything just the ultrasound and he stared me down and then looked at Tiff and yelled "youre pregnant? Im having another grandbaby?" literally he yelled it so loud, everyone yelled congrats and Tiff yelled back F*ck No. The look of confusion on everyones face and Kay over there snort laughing and said "no Im pregnant". My Dad just blank faced stared at her for what felt like eternity which was really like 10 seconds and asked are you sure? She said yes and showed her name on the ultrasound and thats when my Dad just started crying and hugging her. He was so happy and his hands where shaking and he was hugging everyone saying he was going to be a Dad again. I nudged him and he quickly ran to get his gift and got on one knee and proposed. Now everyone is crying Kay said yes and honestly we probably could have cured some land drought with all the tears in the room. Kay's mom almost had a heart attack and her Dad couldnt stop hugging Kay and my Dad. Tiff was surprised I kept this for so long and didnt even tell her. I did ask for them to not stress me out like this if they planned a gender reveal and to just give it to someone else lol. the stress from all this literally made me nauseous! here is where I am in my feels and why it took a while for me to write this. When my gf was pregnant I didnt have that sense of joy and happiness and feeling like my Dad did. He is so excited and now he is engaged and you can just see and feel it all over him. He wouldnt stop touching Kay's stomach and kissing her. When Tiff told me she was pregnant I was scared and wanted to run. I love my daughter and she is so awesome but even going to the dr appts Tiff and I would cry after because how real it was and we werent happy. I wouldnt change any of it but some part of me feels robbed obviously this is our own fault but that doesnt take away the feeling. Then the other portion of reality hit, Kay has her own house her own family, my Dad has us, but I have my own family now and this will change everything. When is he going to move in with her? Do I take over the mortgage payments? I planned on building my credit to get approved but I thought I had time, but it seems like time was yesterday. What now about my family? She doesnt want to get married out of need but want, but what happens if something happens to me? Where will they go? where will my daughter live? How do I secure their future like my Dad did for me? anyway I hope this was the update everyone was looking for! I just want to thank everyone for giving me strength to hold on to this secret. When I felt like I was going to explode I would just come back and read the comments!   Update - April 19, 2024 (seven months later) So I have been receiving a lot of messages asking for an update, which is really wholesome but also feels weird to see my life on other SM platforms and now Tiff has seen them she said I need to keep this up lol. So idk its been 7 or 8 months? but Kay and my dad got married! he is living his best life ever but of course it didnt come without drama from my mom. She when she found out my dad was having another baby and getting married she completely flipped out, she started to call him to the point of harassment but it didnt bother him until she went after Kay and thats when he shut it down. I am not sure what he did but he drove over to her place and that was the last I heard about it. Rumorville is that he threatened to show the church what she was doing and saying which isnt "very christian like" and that was enough for her. Kay is due really soon she is 38wks pregnant and I will soon be a big brother to my little sister. On the other front Tiff is kicking school's ass she has been taking 5 classes a semester on a fast track for an ADN if she keeps up this pace without burning herself out she should be done by early next year. After that she is going to take a gap year before pursuing her BSN and in hopes that she can do it online and have the hospital do some type of tuition reimbursement so we dont have to pay out of pocket anymore. Jelly is doing great and will start pre-k this fall and we are nervous since she has always been home with us and taken care of by us that the idea of her being somewhere else and us not have full access to her is really scary. Work has been really great and I have made some really good friends there and I have been considering going into the welders union for the benefits and future pension. My job though doesnt want me to join the union and have offered to pay me more money to not join which to me screams red flag. My dad moved in with Kay and her parents, I have been paying half of the mortgage and the house bills, the goal is for me to buy the house from my dad in the next few years to relieve him of the burden of taking care of housing me and my family. Therapy is going great we moved our couples/family therapy to once a month because during my individual therapy my therapist asked me to be evaluated for ADHD and depression. Which come to find out I do have ADHD which makes a lot of sense especially when it comes to school and all my racing thoughts. I am now medicated and its like my brain is awake. I have less outbursts, I am not as easily overwhelmed to the point of anxiety and its really helped Tiff and I a lot. Its easier for me to articulate my emotions now and not have them just fester and create chaos in my brain. I got into Wheel of Time series and I saw somewhere that the books are better and I read the 1st book. I have to admit this is the 1st time I can honestly say I read a book. thinking about high school I never read the chapters I skimmed through them to get by. I cant express how much happier we are right now, Kay's parents have been the grandparents we always wished for and they treat us with so much love and respect and they just love Jelly so much they take her to the park and sometimes just stop by on Tiff and I to see how we are doing. We are constantly over there at Kay's place we go there twice a week for dinner and Jelly cant wait to meet the baby we are all excited. Tiff and I had some very serious conversations, while we are nowhere near ready to have another baby and or to get married we both have agreed that we would revisit the idea of marriage and expanding our family when we are 25. We dont want to rush anything more than we already have and she wants to focus on school and career. We did throw the idea of getting married for the benefits of in case something happens to me with life insurance, the house etc. but my dad was able to help us with getting a lawyer to make a will and trust. Our main goal is to take care of Jelly, save money and plan a family trip to Disney this summer. Relevant Comments ZestyLemonAsparagus: That’s so exciting! Let Tiff know that we are all grateful for her telling you to do this. You should always listen to her, she seems really smart, especially about doing a gap year and then continuing towards her BSN. And as a fellow guy who was diagnosed with ADHD after I finished school as well… congratulations on finishing that book! That’s an accomplishment I respect. OOP: Yeah I was pretty proud of that, I realized I had to re-read the sentence over and over, it was like I didnt know how to read. I read the sentence but I wasnt reading I was just saying words in my head. It took me around 2 months to read it. I kept getting frustrated and my therapist said I should read out loud until I get used to reading.   ----NEW UPDATE---- I bought my dad's house and Tiff, and I are married!: February 21, 2025 (10 months later) Hi everyone, there has numerous requests for updates and I still cant believe how many internet strangers are invested in my whirlwind of a life haha. Now before anyone asks no she is not pregnant or anything, but Tiff has been working at the ER as a registration person so it can help with clinicals and knowing people and getting a good rotation. Well after Christmas Tiff got really sick and she couldnt kick this weird cough she would get at night it got so bad we took her to the ER and they just said she had a bad upper respiratory. She was taking steroids and an inhaler, but it still got worse, finally after she passed out at work she was diagnosed with Walking Pnuemonia and had to stay in the hospital for 2 days because of how bad it was. At the hospital they asked for her next of kin and wanted to call her parents, my Dad tried showing the guardianship but since we are no longer minors we are technically not her next of kin. Thankfully she was able to speak enough to tell the hospital we were her family but it really did give us a wake up call. When she got home she still had some recovery and we started really talking about our future and where we are in life and how we really got snatched into adulthood, while we are happy together and we are in this to the wheels fall off we really need to stop playing family. She did bring up all the legal stuff she learned at school, wills, advanced directives and something proxy but it wasnt just about that as well but we have a daughter a life and while its 1000000000% sooner than expected we wanted to wait until we were 28-30 yrs old to get married it was the right step for us. My dad sold me the house we did owner finance went through the title company and lawyers. Tiff and I decided to get married at the courthouse but dont worry I still properly proposed with a camera man and I cleaned up very well even wore a button down shirt. For the courthouse, I did wear a suit and she did wear a dress, our friends and family was there as well to make it as special as possible. We are planning to re-marry in 2030 to have a nice wedding/ceremony we figure she will be done with school, maybe even be adult enough for a honeymoon regardless we have 5 years to plan lol. Since my Dad moved out to live with Kay it did change our relationship, we werent under "Dad's house" even though he wasnt in our relationship like that but not having a parent here really did change how we interact and its help us grow but we are nowhere near properly adulting. Like I totally forgot to buy toilet paper and random things that were just always there lol. Now for my Dad and Kay and my TINY big personality little sister, she is the best and her and Jelly absolutely love each other. I cant tell you how much seeing them gave us baby fever but dont worry we still shut that down real quick. While we feel a bit more financially stable and just stable overall we are just not ready to be adulting to the point where we have 2 kids lol. Dad and Kay are so in love its ridiculously gross but its really nice seeing him happy. Theres really not anything large happening other than trying to plan for some travelling going to Disney made us realize how much we are missing and Jelly did so well so we have some things on the 2025 travelling list, maybe road trips but I dont have a beard yet and I feel like Dad, Mom & Kid roadtrip requires for the dad to have a beard to be taken seriously. idk just a random thought. Relevant Comments Commenter 1: Nah, road trips are not reserved exclusively for facial hair! However, you do have to make sure Jelly can manage being confined in the car seat for any length of time... Congrats on getting married and still having a plan! You're all doing a fabulous job - honestly, adulting is hard even without parenthood. Lots of rites of passage ... like forgetting to buy toilet paper!! How's Jelly getting on now? Are you still in the same job? Just keep on keeping on. You already got this; you're smashing it. So lovely to be updated - thank you! OOP: Jelly is doing awesome! She has learned so much in such a short period of time and we met some really cool parents from her class so now we have people to hang out with. She is really sweet and just talks soooo much, its non-stop from the time she wakes up to the time she goes to sleep she is just a talker. I am at the same job welding is great but I have still been contemplating manufacturing its cleaner and long term wont destroy my body according to Tiff. I do plan on looking around, I still have a lot to learn so I think when I officially hit 5 years is the spot, the guys at work are fun they took a while to really warm up to me but now they are real quick to teach me all their tricks. Commenter 1: That's awesome! Little Chatterbox - who does she get it from? And it's great you have found other cool parents to hang out with. Tiff's right I think - it's an industry which will take a long term toll on your physical health and you've got a great family you have to stay fighting fit for! But take all the learning you can.. All the best - if it's cool with you - please do periodically let us know how you're all getting on. OOP: she definitely is far more talkative than us. She just says whatever is on her mind and have tons of questions. According to my dad I was like this when I was a kid but slowed down when I got older. Its nice to just hear her in the background, when she stops talking we know shes into something lol. Commenter 2: Congratulations to you and your little family. I’ve followed your story and it’s fabulous to hear little updates from you. So pleased things are going good. You guys are awesome (and I include your dad, Kay and the little ones!) Commenter 3: Naaaw so happy for you, Tiff and Jelly! Congrats on the wedding! Glad to hear your dad and Kay are doing well too! And the other posters are right, you can absolutely roadtrip without a beard :) I’m sure you have lots of dad trivia you can share on the drive to get into full roadtrip dad mode! This is the lovely, happy updates I come to reddit for ❤️🥰   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes + her own page Previous BoRUs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 [New Update]: My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment Mood Spoilers: super wonderful!! Editor’s Note: removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older relevant comments, check out the previous BoRUs above RECAP Original Post: November 14, 2023** I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   Update #1: November 27, 2023 (13 days later) Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   Update #2: December 12, 2023 (15 days later) So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   Inheritance: December 16, 2023 (four days later) I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   Christmas: December 25, 2023 (nine days later) I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call: December 26, 2023 (next day) Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here: December 27, 2023 (next day) My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!   Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024 (six days later) I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space.   Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024 (15 days later) My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone.   Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024 (16 days later) Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care. Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them. We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office. Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it.   Update: February 27, 2024 (three weeks later) My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits. Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her. There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet. Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game!   Update 4/1 - Final one I think: April 1, 2024 Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you all check your caramel apples for stray onions before taking a bite! I also hope your Easter weekend was a delightful one. It is with great joy that I tell you all about our most recent update! Possibly even a conclusion to this whole ordeal. The entire family (aunt, uncle, moms, dads, brother, me, husband) and pastor met at my dad's house and we all sat down to hash the situation out. As expected from what my dad said, my aunt and uncle greeted us all with apologies and hugs, which was nice. My uncle usually helps host the Easter egg hunts with the church and he brought our Easter baskets to give to us in case us kids weren't sticking around the for the weekend. I'm not sure why but seeing it made me tear up and feel stupid, because it was just a basket of candy but it meant a lot to me for some reason. The pastor led us in a prayer and talked about forgiveness and such. He then asked us all to talk one at a time about how we're feeling and what we want the end result of today to be. No one was allowed to interrupt so everyone got to talk. It was nice. The consensus for the group was that most everyone wanted things to go back to "normal". The only ones who had any variance off this was my mom and step dad. They both wanted all us kids to move back to the area. The pastor asked them why they wanted us back, and neither could give a good reason other than "because family", and the pastor asked us if we were thriving where we were. And we said we were. He asked if we were happy there. Which we were. He then asked my mom and step dad if they wanted us to give up our happiness to make them happy. And Mom broke down and said no. We all had a good cry. The pastor then asked about the funeral and lies that led up to it and followed it and how it made us all feel and what we wished we'd done differently if we had the chance. It was all very emotional, but in a good way, you know? Everyone apologized and admitted they f-ed up and did a really crappy thing. We all talked for a long, long time and the pastor was a great mediator. Eventually we all reached some sort of resolution and I think we're good now. Emotions are still high and a little raw in areas, but we stayed for Easter weekend and had a nice time. We're going to keep moving forward slowly and try to repair the relationship, but I believe we're well and truly out of the woods. As for my brother, he's still staying with us, and mom will stop trying to guilt trip him back home. He's thinking about renting a small apartment in our area but we're not pushing him to make a decision. He knows he's welcome to stay as long as he wants. I think he wants to try dating (he's had a few girlfriends but never anything serious) and is embarrassed to bring any girls around our place, lol. He's been going to a few random classes/bookclubs at the local library for something free to do and hitting it off with all the little old ladies who attend, and they keep trying to hook him up with girls his age who they know. He has been on a few lunches/coffee dates with a couple girls, but I think he's too embarrassed by the attention to give it a real try at "dating" any of them. He's happy, though, which is all I could ask for. I'm not sure if there will be any more updates, as I think it's all be resolved about as much as it can be at the moment. I wanted to thank you all for your words of advice and giving me a place to vent and scream into the void. Please be kind to one another and to yourselves. Thank you.   Small, happy update: May 7, 2024 Things as wonderful as the moment. Still doing baby steps with The Moms. We're texting and talking on the phones more, which is nice. Very civil. Dad "accidentally" bought a bunch of hand crafted bird feeders at a craft fair. By accidentally, I mean: he had a little too much fun in the beer tent, went for a stroll while step mom wasn't looking, and stumbled upon a guy's booth and bought "one of each". He wouldn't tell me how MANY "one of each" was, but he cackled like a witch when I asked. Step mom said she's forcing him to give a few to me, so I'm expecting a delivery or a Dad-visit any day now. My brother is officially "going steady" with a girl. We've met her a few times and she seems like a real sweetheart. She's our age and has a little boy (5-6 years old, I haven't asked) from a previous relationship (The dad's not in the picture from what I can gather). She's the granddaughter of one of his Book Club members, so the old ladies made good match makers in the end. The relationship is still very new and I'm routing for them. No new Stardew Valley updates. Work has been a little crazy lately and I haven't been able to play much of anything, and brother has been distracted by his new lady friend. So, husband finally started Baldur's Gate 3, and fell for Gale's "magic trick" so now those two are a thing. I expect him to be sufficiently distracted from reality for the next few weeks.   ----NEW UPDATE---- Been a while: March 3, 2025 (10 months later) I hope everyone's doing wonderful! I know it's been a while. Lots of little happy updates incoming! My brother moved out! He's like 5 minutes away, so it's not far but he's officially living on his own. He's going steady with the same girl. She's a catch! Sweet as can be! She fits in to the family so well and everyone just adores her. She's going to school to be a nurse and I know she's gonna crush it. Hubby and I get to babysit her kiddo on the regular and he's a total hoot. At first, he was overly polite and a bit shy, but one day my husband picked him up and husband was wearing his SCP hoodie. Turns out the kid is a MASSIVE SCP fan. So we've all bonded and he's really opened up around us. Assuming my brother and her are still together come August (we're hoping they continue going strong) there's talk about kiddo taking the school bus to our place after school. There's a stop at the bottom of our street and it would be no trouble for us to have him chill at our house for a few hours until mom's off work. Have him work on homework or whatever. I might have to learn whatever "new math" is, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Mom's mellowed the frick out. She's stopped her insanity and seems to have accepted the new normal. Dad says she's "turning back into the woman he once married." Which is a bit depressing, but also good, I guess? From what he says, mom has started cross stiching again. Which, my brother and I never knew she knew how. Apparently, she used to be massively into the hobby, but after my brother and I were born, she was terrified we'd get into the needles and hurt ourselves, so she put it all away and never touched it again. Step-dad says she's much more relaxed and calm lately, which I'm happy about. She's respected our boundaries and has only come to visit when we allowed it. Our relationship has improved drastically. Dad and step-mom are also doing well. Step mom and us actually bonded quite nicely during January. She needed hip surgery and since Dad's house has more steps than High Hrothgar, it was decided that she would stay with my husband and I. Her doctor scheduled the surgery at our local branch of their hospital and after she was released, she came back to our place. She ended up staying with us for most of January due to a massive ice storm that came tearing through the area. I've spent time with the woman, but never like this or for this long. It was like seeing a whole new side of her I never knew. When dad finally came to pick her up, I was actually sad to have her leave. You will all be happy to hear that we did manage to do a memorial for my grandparents. It was exactly what my soul needed. I didn't realize how much I NEEDED to have that closure until it was done. Like someone took a weighted blanket off me and I could breathe again. It was a lovely service and a few of the little old church ladies made us some finger foods to have back at the church afterwards and we all sat around eating and sharing stories about Grandma and Grandpa. Our next scheduled visit is for Easter and I can honestly say I'm looking forward to it. I feel like I have my family back again. Please be kind to each other and take care of yourselves. Thank you for letting me shout into the void. Commenter: Oh this is a fantastic update. I am so pleased that this whole saga has come through the other side in a nice way. So often these kind of things don’t have happy endings and I’m thrilled that this one does. Thank you for updating us all.   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I was over in Europe last month and popped over to Dublin for a weekend. I promise to give you guys the time of day in the future with a proper visit,, but it was somewhat squeezed in trip. Anyway, I've long subscribed to this sub because its an interesting insight into the musings of a country that is very culturally similar, and of course I became fascinated with the popular food stuffs this sub likes to meme, such as the chicken fillet roll. A coaster enthusiast mate of mine has been bugging me to do the cheap Ryanair thing and pop over to visit Taytomerald Park, and yeah they've gone and opened that Tir Na Egg-nOg precinct, and that new Finna Fail suspended coaster has been getting good reviews, so of course thar makes the place a priority.....and no joke its legitimately one of the worlds best roller coasters, and not only that, it's easy to ride it like 10 times because the staff are sending a train like every minute, so you queue like 15-20 mins max. 10/10 would visit again. But of course I gave myself a day for sightseeing/dining, unfortunately for me there was that American college football thing on that weekend, so the city was crawling with seppos walking on the wrong side of the footpath, and not only that, a lot of popular attractions were well and truly booked out, but I still managed to go in and see the book of Kells (presumably that's toooooo cultural), that portal thing, the spire, college green + The adjacent 80s looking shopping centre that's that this sub has an attachment to, halpenny bridge, yada yada wherever my feet would take me. But through a bit of planning, I was able to try a few local delicacies. ⚫Chicken Fillet Roll Went to a Centra. Ok, I couldn't recall what the overall ideal order is meant to be, I got spicy, when she asked if I wanted butter or Mayo I said both and she looked at me funny so I quickly corrected and said just butter. Yeah overall its not bad, I wouldn't so much call it spicy more that it just tastes like a large amount of pepper has been used, the crusty roll is definitely what makes it. 7/10 ⚫ Ham Jambon (not pictured) Ooooh, almost forgot about these! But the same Centra had these in the warmer. Mmm these were good. They can be very dangerous, because much like the cheeseburger, it's a quick little hit of grease and umami you can grab on the way. They would be a great way to put on weight. Nice flaky pastry, cheese was creamy, bits of ham give a little bit of flavour. 9/10 start exporting. ⚫ Supermacs Obviously I couldn't gorge myself, so I had a piece of their chicken plus their "regular burger" reasoning their basics simple item must be their staple. Yeah the chicken was fine but not really any better than KFC. The burger was bit leathery and tasted quite processeed, bun was dry, relies a bit on the burger sauce and onion flags too. Cover up those two shortcomings. 4/10 ⚫ Chips and Curry at Emerald Park (not pictured) Wait so I always under the impression it was just curry sauce on chips, but legit, is it the done thing? You can actuall have a full on chicken curry with veg, served over chips instead of rice? This is revolutionary. Works pretty well, the curry was spicy enough to put to rest any fears of blandness. 8/10 ⚫Leo Burdock fish and chips So when I was walking near Dublin Castle I could see people with what was quite obviously a branded tray of fish and chips, I figured it might have been a tourist trap or something, so I did not investigate further. Anyway, fast forward to late the following afternoon, we had a look at Howth because I wanted to see some iconic Irish cliff coastline, and my mate tells me that the place i was describing had a branch in Howth and was actually pretty good. Obviously not overly commercialise because you still have to wait for them to cook it up fresh which makes it quite nice. Yeah this was excellent, The batter was quite Three-Dimensional really nice and airy, not oily at all. Chips are a bit softer than what I'm accustomed to but still fine, probably only needed half the amount they gave me so you can't really complain about value. 8/10 ⚫Spice Bag I did end up walking through Temple Bar later in the evening, and thought I'd just grab a spice bag thing since it would only be small, and you gotta try the "so bad its good" utter bastardisation (here in Oz you can get kebab meat served over chips with garlic sauce and chili sauce called a HSP) Anyway, I should have predicted from the price, but it's not so much a spice bag rather a spice sack, waaayyyy to much to finish so i fucked off half of it by the time I had reached middle abbey st. Yeah it's decent but holy shit. The salt level is off the charts and it dries your mouth out due to the lack of sauce. Fried chicken was much better than what supermacs had given me, crunchy tender morsels of chicken that would make Conel Sanders weep with joy. The little bits of fried spring onion/shallot really set it off. The stray bits of carrot add crunch. I thought it was supposed to come with fried capsicum traditionally but mine didn't so I don't know if I was actually getting a proper one. (Tell me from the photos ?) In the same way that onion goes with sausages, spring onion and chicken work so well. 7/10 ⚫ Cadbury Milk Actual gods nectar, why can't they sell this in Aus?? 10/10 ( I bought a couple more bottles and necked them for "breakfast" at the airport in lieu of a coffee.) Overall, an enjoyable place Id like to spend more time exploring, awful summer "weather" notwithstanding. I know there's a stereotype but shit I wasn't expecting to hear so much random joking and banter everywhere you go, and that was -without- having set foot in a bar. When you go to America, there's always that sense that someone may pull a gun at any moment. When you go to Ireland, there's a sense that someone may crack a joke at any moment. submitted by /u/Gazza_s_89 to r/ireland [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/cldumas Originally posted to r/AmIOverreacting My boyfriend wants to buy a boat, and I’m 40k in debt. Thanks to u/queenlegolas + u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for suggesting this BoRU Trigger Warnings: financial exploitation Original Post: April 14, 2024 Been together almost 10 years. I own the house we live in. Due to unemployment, he stopped contributing to the bills over 5 years ago. For the past three years he’s been back to work, he paid off all his debt, and his only bills are his car insurance and our cell phone bill. I’ve asked him a dozen times to start contributing and it always turns into a fight. He tells me if I need money I should just ask for it, but I don’t believe that’s a good substitute for giving me a specific amount I can rely on every month for the bills. (I also do 95% of the grocery/household shopping). I’ve made bad decisions and buried myself in debt trying to live a lifestyle that I SHOULD be able to afford, if I wasn’t supporting him. He wants to buy a boat. I’m about to take a $9k per year pay cut at work. He knows how much debt I have. Decided I’m breaking up with him, selling the house to pay my bills, and walking away happy with probably $100k in my pocket (literally life changing money). Am I over reacting by ending a ten year committed relationship without talking to him about it one more time and giving him a chance to make it right? Edit: wow, this post blew up way beyond what I expected. Hate to say this, but if you don’t have anything different to say from the 1000+ other comments here, please don’t waste your time. There’s no way I’m going to be able to read all these. And to the people saying absolutely awful things to me, guess we all know what kind of person you are. And to the person that for nudes, I’m flattered but no. Second edit: I really appreciate the kind words and well meaning advice I’ve been getting. I’m gonna try really hard to read all of them, but there’s like 4000 right now. To answer some of the more common questions: I already rent out a room to someone. I didn’t mention it because it didn’t seem relevant. I’ve raised his rent starting next month (he’s also had a really sweet deal for a few years). I have a very good job, I work for USPS. Problem is, USPS is going broke and they’ve realized they can pay a part timer $20 an hour to do what they pay me almost $40. I don’t know how bad it’ll be yet but it’s looking like $9-11k per year cut. I’m trying to get ahead of it before it hits. The benefits are great and I don’t have a degree so there’s no real way for me to get into a higher paying job. I am considering instacart/ door dash once it does hit. Just doesn’t seem fair that I have to work two jobs while he sat on his ass for 2 years. And listen, I get it. Selling is a bad idea. A house is an investment. But I don’t really see any other way of getting out from under this debt. I don’t want the hassle of trying to rent the whole thing out to someone and pay for an apartment myself. I don’t want to have to maintain it. It’s way too big for me. And I don’t even think I want to stay in this state. Sell now, pay off debt, put money away and earn interest on it, then in a year or so once I’ve got my head straight hopefully move somewhere warmer. Third edit: one more thing. He already has a boat. A “cheap” boat, if there is such a thing. He wants a nice new boat so he doesn’t have to keep putting money into the once he’s got. Relevant Comments OOP responds on her budget for the house and paying off the debt she has. Wait until her boyfriend is out to sell the house OOP: Yeah pretty much. I could afford it if I didn’t have $1000 a month in credit card payments, and if I wasn’t about to take a nearly $1000 a month pay cut. I also have no interest in living in a place this big or maintaining my yard by myself, and it would take YEARS for a roommate to reach the same financial benefit as just selling. + It would take about 5 years for rent to pay my debt, and that’s at the amount it’s at right now, not counting all the interest charges that would happen over those 5 years. + I can’t. I ran the numbers. I can’t afford my bills and the mortgage. Even taking on a roommate would still take 5+ years to pay it off and I don’t want to live with anyone for a long time. OOP on making a safe retirement account to live comfortable after moving out and take care of what she owes OOP: I have a retirement account and i can afford rent on my salary with no credit card bills. I’m planning to increase my retirement contribution to pretty much the maximum and slowly ship away at the 100k while it also sits in a savings account earning interest. OOP on getting in therapy to deal with her issues and taking care of herself first before anyone else OOP: I (was) in therapy, my therapist is moving to a new practice that doesn’t accept my insurance so I have to find a new one. I have gently encouraged him to seek therapy for a long time, but he won’t. I’ve suggested couples therapy multiple times but he believes that’s a sign the relationship is already over, so basically I’m just giving him what he must expect at this point. + She’s out of state and her new practice only takes clients from a specific EAP that my company doesn’t participate in. I really wish staying with her was an option. + Working on it. Had some undiagnosed mental health issues which explain literally every dumb thing I’ve done. I’m actively working on myself. OOP on if she has kids with her boyfriend and it would put more debt on her OOP: He already has one (grown up) and I don’t want any thank god. OOP explains the budget she and her boyfriend spends every week OOP: I spend about twice as much on his groceries as I do for mine. (I eat one meal a day and about $12 a week on snacks) he eats lunch and dinner and probably $20+ a week snacks. He drinks $30 of Diet Coke every week. I drink a $4 pack of bottled water with mio or crystal light packets, and the occasional energy drink. I have a decent car because I got sick of used ones being unreliable. My car payment isn’t extravagant and it’s good on gas. I do take 2-3 vacations per year, 2 long weekends and a 5-ish day one. I shop around for the best deals and pay cash for everything except the hotel and flight (points). I always suggest camping but he likes to be more comfortable. Anyways lost track of what point I was making here. I fully admit I’ve made bad financial decisions, but those decisions wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if he was carrying his own weight. I guess I figured he’d step up eventually and he just… hasn’t. OOP on her boyfriend's work situation for how long OOP: No he was only unemployed for 2ish. But he hasn’t paid a consistent or helpful amount money for our household in over 5.   Update: August 15, 2024 (4 months later) My original post blew up way bigger than I ever expected. I was definitely overwhelmed by all of your responses, and I truly appreciate how many people care about a random internet stranger. I’ve considered posting an update many times since but wanted to wait until it all played out, but I’ve had people reaching out recently so I decided this was a good time. I spent a decent amount of time setting things up for myself behind the scenes. I had a safety plan for myself and my cats in case he got angry. I spent a long time putting a plan together for what I would do after selling my house. I broke up with him in early June. It was one of the most emotionally difficult things I’ve ever done. We talked for hours over multiple days about what went wrong, he didn’t get angry, just sad. I was really sad too, and I still am, but we’re both on the same page now and we agree that it’s the best thing for both of us. He moved out right away and has been slowly moving his stuff out. Took me about two months to get my house ready for sale, but once it was listed I accepted a very good offer within a week. Closing is three weeks from now. I decided to take this opportunity to completely change my life. I’m moving across the country, I already have a place and a job lined up and I’m really excited for my future. I’m making about as much as money as I expected, paying off all my debt, and investing a large amount of what’s left. I’m moving to a lower cost of living area and my expenses will be considerably less than they have been. And the job I have lined up will pay about the same as I make now, so I’ll be in really good shape. I’ve already signed a lease for a sweet apartment. Maybe I’ll look into buying again in the future, but for now I’m just looking forward to a fresh start and the opportunity to make my life exactly what I want it to be. Relevant Comments dlss_87: Did he ever say why he wanted to buy a $40,000 boat instead of helping you pay off your debt? OOP: Sort of. He just wasn’t thinking, I guess. Somehow he always thought I was fine, even though he knew how much debt I was in, and even though I begged him so many times to start contributing consistently. In his mind I must’ve been fine because I never asked him for specific amounts to cover specific bills. Puzzled_History7265: Awww I love this ending. I hope you're moving to a cool city and make lots of friends :) OOP: Very cool city where I already have a couple good friends, and I can’t wait to meet more.   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

No wooden signs that have cute sayings on them like “project managers like to do it on a spreadsheet”. Pictures of family, my kids, places I’ve been, things I like. I can literally leave my security card on the desk and walk out today and never come back. I feel like this is the case with most people our age. I see older Gen X (and the other group older than them) usually have their desks decorated to some varying degrees. Fellow desk dwellers, do you have anything personal at your cube or office? … Update: the responses are still rolling in, but with all the responses I figured I’d comment on the trends that I see. First, it sounds like the prevailing answer is that most people have something on their desk, even if it’s just one picture of their kids or one personal item of note. But also it seemed that most people only have the one or two somethings. There is a strong cohort of responses that mimic exactly what I’ve explained in the post. There were questions about if this “nothing” approach took into consideration snacks, bottle of excedrin, phone chargers and those things. I do not consider these things “personal” items for the intention of decorating your desk space. Further, they are things that can easily be left behind and never thought about again. (I keep an emergency stick of deodorant in my desk drawer). Responses to this effect seemed to be predominantly millennial, if not older millennial. Gen X chimed in quite a few times and I even saw a self-identified “Byoomer” (they don’t let you use the real word in the post). Gen X identified as “minimalist”, much like above with the 1 or 2 items. As with most of the answers there was a prevailing opinion of “I only have what I can take with me in one trip”. Going against the grain there was a small, but strong cohort of millennials that identified as “maximalist”, a word I was not accustom to before this discussion. They deck out their desks with everything that makes them happy. Their reasons are their own, but some people said their reasoning was “otherwise I wouldn’t be able to stand this job” or “because I spend so much time here, I need it to feel a certain way”. A lot do people mentioned “hot desking” as preventative to using their space for anything beyond their butt in the chair. Swapping fart particles and booger residue under their fingernails with the most recent chair warmer. Wiping off the dandruff of another’s scalp from the keyboard. Hot desking highlighted a number of most recent changes to our work environment that prevents many from customizing their office space. Work from home, obviously. The volatility of employment also seemed to be a major component. Several people mentioned bearing witness to or being a part of mass layoffs and other corporate actions that impacted jobs. Of course this question was not asked to any other subreddits purporting to represent other specific working age generations, but I’d say that the “absolute minimalist” is a decently sized cohort within the millennial generation. Whether that cohort is represented more within this age group compared to others cannot be confirmed through these responses, but based on these responses I would not be surprised to find out that they are. If only for the era-specific issues the current working age group is facing. Thanks everyone for the fun discussion. Lastly, some people seemed really triggered and offended by the question itself, which I found fascinating. Someone even said something to the effect of “what’s with your age group?! You all think everything is entirely related to your specific generation! Gah!!! Not everything can be generalized across one generation. People are all different! UGHHHH! All millennials are idiots”. And I I found that to be very amusing. submitted by /u/UniqueCartel to r/Millennials [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes + her own page Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, BoRU #3, BoRU #4, BoRU #5, BoRU #6 Editor’s Note: removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older relevant comments, check out the previous BoRUs above NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- [New Update]: My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment RECAP Original Post: November 14, 2023** I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   Update #1: November 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   Update #2: December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   Inheritance: December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   Christmas: December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call: December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here: December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!   Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024 I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space.   Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024 My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone.   Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024 Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care. Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them. We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office. Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it. RELEVANT COMMENTS fractal_frog I hope your dad can outsmart the hawks! OOP: He'll be able to, I just know it. He's used to dealing with the wildlife and having hawks about, but he just wasn't expecting one to snag a meal right from his new feeder. I told him it was "technically" still a bird feeder. Just....for bigger birds. Which he thought was funny. He said he might make a little "no hawks allowed" sign to put up next to it. MissOP: keep the updates coming. the moms are so close to folding it's just a little bit more. LMAO also, the bro mance between your husband and brother is so cute. lol Honestly, I think your husband making sure he has a side piece of Sebastian is absolutely the play. OOP: So far still no word from the moms, but I hope you're right. I would love an apology and for us to begin moving past this. But I NEED that apology. I feel selfish saying that, but I refuse to "be the bigger person" on this. I just won't. As for my brother and husband, yeah, they're basically soul mates. The two hit it off immediately when they first met, and they've been thick as thieves for years.   Update: February 27, 2024 My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits. Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her. There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet. Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game!   Update 4/1 - Final one I think - April 1, 2024 Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you all check your caramel apples for stray onions before taking a bite! I also hope your Easter weekend was a delightful one. It is with great joy that I tell you all about our most recent update! Possibly even a conclusion to this whole ordeal. The entire family (aunt, uncle, moms, dads, brother, me, husband) and pastor met at my dad's house and we all sat down to hash the situation out. As expected from what my dad said, my aunt and uncle greeted us all with apologies and hugs, which was nice. My uncle usually helps host the Easter egg hunts with the church and he brought our Easter baskets to give to us in case us kids weren't sticking around the for the weekend. I'm not sure why but seeing it made me tear up and feel stupid, because it was just a basket of candy but it meant a lot to me for some reason. The pastor led us in a prayer and talked about forgiveness and such. He then asked us all to talk one at a time about how we're feeling and what we want the end result of today to be. No one was allowed to interrupt so everyone got to talk. It was nice. The consensus for the group was that most everyone wanted things to go back to "normal". The only ones who had any variance off this was my mom and step dad. They both wanted all us kids to move back to the area. The pastor asked them why they wanted us back, and neither could give a good reason other than "because family", and the pastor asked us if we were thriving where we were. And we said we were. He asked if we were happy there. Which we were. He then asked my mom and step dad if they wanted us to give up our happiness to make them happy. And Mom broke down and said no. We all had a good cry. The pastor then asked about the funeral and lies that led up to it and followed it and how it made us all feel and what we wished we'd done differently if we had the chance. It was all very emotional, but in a good way, you know? Everyone apologized and admitted they f-ed up and did a really crappy thing. We all talked for a long, long time and the pastor was a great mediator. Eventually we all reached some sort of resolution and I think we're good now. Emotions are still high and a little raw in areas, but we stayed for Easter weekend and had a nice time. We're going to keep moving forward slowly and try to repair the relationship, but I believe we're well and truly out of the woods. As for my brother, he's still staying with us, and mom will stop trying to guilt trip him back home. He's thinking about renting a small apartment in our area but we're not pushing him to make a decision. He knows he's welcome to stay as long as he wants. I think he wants to try dating (he's had a few girlfriends but never anything serious) and is embarrassed to bring any girls around our place, lol. He's been going to a few random classes/bookclubs at the local library for something free to do and hitting it off with all the little old ladies who attend, and they keep trying to hook him up with girls his age who they know. He has been on a few lunches/coffee dates with a couple girls, but I think he's too embarrassed by the attention to give it a real try at "dating" any of them. He's happy, though, which is all I could ask for. I'm not sure if there will be any more updates, as I think it's all be resolved about as much as it can be at the moment. I wanted to thank you all for your words of advice and giving me a place to vent and scream into the void. Please be kind to one another and to yourselves. Thank you. Relevant Comments emjkr: What a nice and hopeful update, I’m really glad you stuck to your guns when everyone threw sanity out the window! But, could your mother explain how she thought this would work out in her favour? OOP: I don't think mom thought too far ahead. I believe she assumed it would all just magically work out the way she wanted it to. She said she wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen (which I think was a lie, but I wasn't going to push it). mak_zaddy: This was a great update! But ummmmmm no stardew valley update? What gives? Has Sebastian been woo’ed? How’s Leah? What’s happening? OOP: Sebastian has indeed been wooed (and whoohooed) There's kids and cows and chickens. The two are still having a wonderful time at the game. They're working on completing the community center but it's slow going as they aren't trying to speedrun and just doing things as they want. I believe they're thinking about going into the desert mines once they complete that bundle, but they're both super chicken shit about it! -my-cabbages: I don't really understand what you had to apologize for ... but I'm glad you're happy and the situation seems to be settling down OOP: There wasn't much of an apology on my end, as everyone agreed I had done nothing wrong. Mine was more of a "I'm sorry you didn't feel as though I would listen." Type apology, which I don't really believe is a proper apology because apologies like that push the blame back on another. I mostly expressed my feelings and the shock of it all, and how betrayed I felt.   ----NEW UPDATE---- Small, happy update: May 7, 2024 (1 month later) Things as wonderful as the moment. Still doing baby steps with The Moms. We're texting and talking on the phones more, which is nice. Very civil. Dad "accidentally" bought a bunch of hand crafted bird feeders at a craft fair. By accidentally, I mean: he had a little too much fun in the beer tent, went for a stroll while step mom wasn't looking, and stumbled upon a guy's booth and bought "one of each". He wouldn't tell me how MANY "one of each" was, but he cackled like a witch when I asked. Step mom said she's forcing him to give a few to me, so I'm expecting a delivery or a Dad-visit any day now. My brother is officially "going steady" with a girl. We've met her a few times and she seems like a real sweetheart. She's our age and has a little boy (5-6 years old, I haven't asked) from a previous relationship (The dad's not in the picture from what I can gather). She's the granddaughter of one of his Book Club members, so the old ladies made good match makers in the end. The relationship is still very new and I'm routing for them. No new Stardew Valley updates. Work has been a little crazy lately and I haven't been able to play much of anything, and brother has been distracted by his new lady friend. So, husband finally started Baldur's Gate 3, and fell for Gale's "magic trick" so now those two are a thing. I expect him to be sufficiently distracted from reality for the next few weeks.   Latest Update here: BoRU #8   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes and her own page Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, BoRU #3, BoRU #4, BoRU #5 EDITOR’S NOTE: removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older relevant comments, check out the previous BoRUs above FINAL UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- [Final Update]: My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment RECAP Original Post: November 14, 2023 I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them.   Update #1: November 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook.   Update #2: December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays.   Inheritance: December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much.   Christmas: December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve.   Brother’s call: December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited.   Brother's Here: December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive!   Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024 I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space.   Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024 My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone.   Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024 Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care. Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them. We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office. Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it. RELEVANT COMMENTS fractal_frog I hope your dad can outsmart the hawks! OOP: He'll be able to, I just know it. He's used to dealing with the wildlife and having hawks about, but he just wasn't expecting one to snag a meal right from his new feeder. I told him it was "technically" still a bird feeder. Just....for bigger birds. Which he thought was funny. He said he might make a little "no hawks allowed" sign to put up next to it. MissOP: keep the updates coming. the moms are so close to folding it's just a little bit more. LMAO also, the bro mance between your husband and brother is so cute. lol Honestly, I think your husband making sure he has a side piece of Sebastian is absolutely the play. OOP: So far still no word from the moms, but I hope you're right. I would love an apology and for us to begin moving past this. But I NEED that apology. I feel selfish saying that, but I refuse to "be the bigger person" on this. I just won't. As for my brother and husband, yeah, they're basically soul mates. The two hit it off immediately when they first met, and they've been thick as thieves for years.   Update: February 27, 2024 My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits. Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her. There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet. Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game!   ----NEW UPDATE---- Update 4/1 - Final one I think - April 1, 2024 Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you all check your caramel apples for stray onions before taking a bite! I also hope your Easter weekend was a delightful one. It is with great joy that I tell you all about our most recent update! Possibly even a conclusion to this whole ordeal. The entire family (aunt, uncle, moms, dads, brother, me, husband) and pastor met at my dad's house and we all sat down to hash the situation out. As expected from what my dad said, my aunt and uncle greeted us all with apologies and hugs, which was nice. My uncle usually helps host the Easter egg hunts with the church and he brought our Easter baskets to give to us in case us kids weren't sticking around the for the weekend. I'm not sure why but seeing it made me tear up and feel stupid, because it was just a basket of candy but it meant a lot to me for some reason. The pastor led us in a prayer and talked about forgiveness and such. He then asked us all to talk one at a time about how we're feeling and what we want the end result of today to be. No one was allowed to interrupt so everyone got to talk. It was nice. The consensus for the group was that most everyone wanted things to go back to "normal". The only ones who had any variance off this was my mom and step dad. They both wanted all us kids to move back to the area. The pastor asked them why they wanted us back, and neither could give a good reason other than "because family", and the pastor asked us if we were thriving where we were. And we said we were. He asked if we were happy there. Which we were. He then asked my mom and step dad if they wanted us to give up our happiness to make them happy. And Mom broke down and said no. We all had a good cry. The pastor then asked about the funeral and lies that led up to it and followed it and how it made us all feel and what we wished we'd done differently if we had the chance. It was all very emotional, but in a good way, you know? Everyone apologized and admitted they f-ed up and did a really crappy thing. We all talked for a long, long time and the pastor was a great mediator. Eventually we all reached some sort of resolution and I think we're good now. Emotions are still high and a little raw in areas, but we stayed for Easter weekend and had a nice time. We're going to keep moving forward slowly and try to repair the relationship, but I believe we're well and truly out of the woods. As for my brother, he's still staying with us, and mom will stop trying to guilt trip him back home. He's thinking about renting a small apartment in our area but we're not pushing him to make a decision. He knows he's welcome to stay as long as he wants. I think he wants to try dating (he's had a few girlfriends but never anything serious) and is embarrassed to bring any girls around our place, lol. He's been going to a few random classes/bookclubs at the local library for something free to do and hitting it off with all the little old ladies who attend, and they keep trying to hook him up with girls his age who they know. He has been on a few lunches/coffee dates with a couple girls, but I think he's too embarrassed by the attention to give it a real try at "dating" any of them. He's happy, though, which is all I could ask for. I'm not sure if there will be any more updates, as I think it's all be resolved about as much as it can be at the moment. I wanted to thank you all for your words of advice and giving me a place to vent and scream into the void. Please be kind to one another and to yourselves. Thank you. Relevant Comments emjkr: What a nice and hopeful update, I’m really glad you stuck to your guns when everyone threw sanity out the window! But, could your mother explain how she thought this would work out in her favour? OOP: I don't think mom thought too far ahead. I believe she assumed it would all just magically work out the way she wanted it to. She said she wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen (which I think was a lie, but I wasn't going to push it). mak_zaddy: This was a great update! But ummmmmm no stardew valley update? What gives? Has Sebastian been woo’ed? How’s Leah? What’s happening? OOP: Sebastian has indeed been wooed (and whoohooed) There's kids and cows and chickens. The two are still having a wonderful time at the game. They're working on completing the community center but it's slow going as they aren't trying to speedrun and just doing things as they want. I believe they're thinking about going into the desert mines once they complete that bundle, but they're both super chicken shit about it! -my-cabbages: I don't really understand what you had to apologize for ... but I'm glad you're happy and the situation seems to be settling down OOP: There wasn't much of an apology on my end, as everyone agreed I had done nothing wrong. Mine was more of a "I'm sorry you didn't feel as though I would listen." Type apology, which I don't really believe is a proper apology because apologies like that push the blame back on another. I mostly expressed my feelings and the shock of it all, and how betrayed I felt.   Latest Update here: New Update: BoRU #7   DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7 THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/mysteryman403 Breaking Bad: methaniel Originally posted to r/Aquariums r/Edmonton r/UnethicalLifeProTips r/AmItheAsshole r/confession r/relationship_advice r/Horses r/tifu r/careerguidance r/Marathon_Training r/FrenchForeignLegion r/methhorseguy r/DecidingToBeBetter r/BreakUps r/Seattle Thanks to u/czechtheboxes & u/amireallyreal for suggesting this BoRU Special thanks to the mods at r/FrenchForeignLegion for recovering the post EDITORS NOTE: r/methhorseguy is dedicated to this individual TRIGGER WARNING: drug use, theft, harassment, body shaming, age gap relationship, animal abuse My Harleyquinn Rasboras hide everytime I walk in the room now… why? They didnt for the first 2 months and now it’s like they aren’t even in my tank. Sept 28, 2021 Picture of the tank Putting this here as the same tank is spoken about 3 years later. AITAH for eating an entire chocolate cake to help my niece lose weight? - rareddit Nov 22, 2023 I will try to make this as quick as possible. Me and my girlfriend had her sister and niece over for her nieces birthday. It was a great time, and since it was a birthday we got my niece birthday cake. Here is where the dilemma comes in. My niece is quite a chunky toddler, so I didn’t think chocolate cake was the best idea (I suggested fruit cake) but we got chocolate cake anyhow. She loved the cake on her birthday but they forgot to take it with them so they ended up leaving it at our place. My girlfriend told me to only have one piece but to leave the rest for her sister. Since I don’t want her niece to be so chunky, I thought we were doing her a disfavour by giving the cake back. After two days my girlfriend was going to drop the cake off after she got home from work, but I decided I had a better idea that would help everyone. I ate the entire cake before my girlfriend could get home so that our niece wouldn’t be able to have anymore of it and gain weight. Does that sound like a dick move? Yes. Was it done unselfishly and for the good of my niece? Yes. I didn’t want to eat that entire cake because I am overweight myself but I unselfishly ate it all so my niece could lose weight. My girlfriend got really really pissed at me and told me I am a selfish pig, which is funny because I was actually being the exact opposite. I also got zero sympathy when I was basically sick the rest of the night with a huge stomach ache, she said I deserved it. Am I being the asshole? Or is my girlfriend being a complete asshole by supporting her niece getting fat? Before you answer, please try to actually think of the big picture here. I am not fat phobic and I am not selfish, I did this out of the good of my heart. EDIT: so I see some comments are saying that the birthday cake wasn’t just for my girlfriends neice, but it was also for her parents. Her mother is also quite overweight so I actually helped TWO people by eating the cake, not just one. Keep in mind the big picture before you comment VERDICT: REMOVED BEFORE VERDICT RENDERED TOP COMMENTS Sorry-Spite9634 YTA OOP How are you going to say this and not even give a reasoning why. Sorry-Spite9634 Plenty of other people already have. She’s a toddler. OOP So it’s okay to be really fat if you’re a toddler? You’re going down a dangerous road ~ DevelopmentPlus1748 How did you eat an entire chocolate cake, maybe it was good for your niece but that was definitely not good for you 😭 OOP THANK YOU!! Finally someone sees how unselfish I was in this scenario. I DIDNT EVEN ENJOY EATING THE WHOLE CAKE (I enjoyed the first piece or two but after that it was way too much chocolate.) I did this for my niece and YES, it was a sacrifice Did a very regrettable trick on a pregnant woman back when I was an addict Nov 26, 2023 Okay so before I start this story, let me just say I used to be addicted to heroin, meth, and Xanax. Now the only thing I’ll do is drink, smoke weed and occasionally do coke on weekends or when my favourite football team is playing, but I do have my life together and have a enough of a salary to live happily. Ok, on to the story at hand. I was addicted to heroin at the time and quite broke, and starting to feel withdrawals come. When heroine withdrawals start happening, you will literally do ANYTHING to get your hands on something that will make them stop. Having no job at the time nor any friends to steal off of at the time, my hands were pretty tied on how I could get some (and I refuse to do fentanyl). Here is where I got creative. I go into a Denny’s and steal a salt shaker off of one of the tables. I split the salt into bags resembling 8 balls and twist them up. Since I wasn’t a dealer, I didn’t have anybody to rip off but I did know a pregnant junkie, and she had trouble acquiring drugs consistently because apparently her regular dealers didn’t like selling to her while she was so pregnant. I get into contact with her, and tell her I have a few 8balls of coke. We meet up, and to my delight she tells me she wants to buy my entire supply so she won’t run out anytime soon, and because she has had so much trouble buying drugs lately. The part that I feel really really guilty about is that she pawned off a stroller given to her by family members in a baby shower, to get enough money for this purchase. Since I was experiencing heavy withdrawals at this point and she was offering me hundreds of dollars, I grabbed the money and ran out of there as fast as I could before she realized it was salt in those bags. I feel absolutely awful about her pawning things meant for her baby to get the fake drugs I was selling, but this was a long time ago. Another confession is that half of me also feels good about this because I wasted her money on fake drugs, Probably preventing her from getting real drugs that could harm her baby. This wasn’t done unselfishly but I went up a few hundred dollars while also preventing a baby from harm so there is a positive side to it. Like I said I think drugs are absolutely terrible for you and people should never try them in the first place. Junkies might be very nice people but when you’re addicted you turn into a monster to get what you want. Curious about getting my girlfriend a horse, and what it would entail (responsibility and costs) Jan 30, 2024 Hello everybody, I am a 33 year old male and I am looking to get my girlfriend a horse for her birthday. I have some questions that I thought you guys might be able to answer like how much would a cheap horse cost? How much space would it need at a minimum? For owners who own a single horse, what are the yearly costs generally? Any advice for a first time horse owner?? All comments are welcome!! Can I pay for a horse with credit card until I get enough money? P.S. I would help take care of my girlfriends horse while she graduates from university (so for the next 3-4 years) but after she has more free time, I would like her to take care of it. It’s going to be staying on my parents ranch until she graduates and then I am hoping to buy our own property where the horse can live. I am just a little worried about how much responsibility it is, because my girlfriend is basically 19 and hasn’t had this much responsibility before. Nothing is a sure thing but I just want to see what the other horse owners think about it. She will be the happiest girl in the world :) TOP COMMENTS Squirrel_Girl88 Considering based on your post history you do meth, I don’t think adding a huge financial burden ($1,000 a month minimum) is a great idea. Surprise pets are bad, surprise horses are worse. OOP No no I don’t anymore. I used to be an addict but I overcame that, I’m a lot more responsible Now greeneyes826 Uh....not as of 13 days ago? No judgement from me as I'm not you but you can't be a former addict and still actively using. OOP I used to be a full blown addict but Now I use occasionally , and have complete control of it so I didn’t consider myself an addict, just a habitual user ~ asyouwissssh 33 and 19? :/ OOP Turning 19 but yes ~ CheesecakePony I feel like the only answer you're going to take is "wait for harvest season, we're headed into another drought so hay prices are gonna spike and the auctions are going to be flooded with cheap horses that no one can afford to feed, just go bid until you win one in budget" but literally every word of this post is terrible lol don't buy this child a massive financial liability while she's in school my god OOP Well I’ll help out with expenses Scared-Accountant288 7 to 10k a year. More if you have emergency vet bills. OOP Damn that’s a lot honestly Scared-Accountant288 Thats average. OOP Way more than I can afford at the moment. I need a below average coating horse Hostile work environment from my co-workers and my boss. Can’t stop making jokes at my expense, about my relationship. How do I proceed? Jan 30, 2024 Hello everybody, I’m a 33 year old working at a blue collar job, with a pretty large crew. Anyways we get along fine but recently my girlfriend came to pick me up, and she’s really mature but turning 19 in less than a month so we have a decent age gap. Ever since that day, I have been getting berated with insults and jokes, some of them completely lacking humor, and just being insulting. It’s gotten to the point now where my boss is even making jokes about it, calling me a cradle robber in front of the crew. It’s funny cause most of these guys seem to be projecting their insecurities on me, and are jealous of the amazing relationship I have. Anwyays, I’m literally getting insulted CONSTANTLY, including the boss, so I was wondering how much I can sue them for? Am I able to sue them for a hostile work environment? If everyone in the workplace was making fun of a guy who was dating a morbidly obese woman, I feel like he’d have grounds to sue. Can someone please help me out with this dilemma? My girlfriend doesn’t even want to pick me up after school anymore because of how negatively these guys reacted.. I’m so sick of being judged for finding true love. I want compensation from my workplace. TOP COMMENTS OOP They’re making fun of me because they’re not in my position. I bet 98% of them would date her if they could because she’s that wonderful. They’re the gross ones, Making inappropriate comments about a 19 year old , like who raised them?!?! insicknessorinflames They're making inappropriate comments about an 18 year old. you're the one sle- 🤢sleeping w- 🤮 her and attempting to buy her a horse to guilt trip her into staying with a meth addicted predator nearly 2x her age throughout college. "Stay with me or you won't see the horse again!" you think you're real clever though huh ~ Venvut When she picks you up after school 😳 Strong-Bottle-4161 He meant college, but I too chuckled at this remark. Personal stories about Edmonton work culture? Feb 4, 2024 Hello everybody, I have been under a lot of harrassment at work lately and It’s gotten so bad I am debating moving cities. Before I move, I want to see if this is anecdotal or if work culture in Edmonton is toxic? I work blue collar and I hate to say it but a lot of my co-workers are way too mean for me to handle. I don’t know if it’s because I make them look bad at work by being so good at my job or if it is because they are jealous about my relationship but they are some of the worst people I’ve met. Would I have better luck finding a corporate job? how is the corporate business world in Edmonton? How are the science jobs? Please give some insight into what type of job you work and how the work culture is in that industry. I’m pretty much a jack of trades so I don’t care what industry you are in, all stories and opinions will be beneficial :) All answers and feedback are appreciated, I would love to stay here in Edmonton to be with my girlfriend but I would need to find a new job! Any advice is welcome. Very interested in moving to Seattle Feb 4, 2024 Hello everybody, I (33M) am very interested in moving to Seattle. I live in Edmonton right now but I have had some issues with workplace harassment and it looks like I need a change of scenery. I am blessed to have dual citizenship between America and Canada so a visa is not really a problem. My first question is cost of living? If I were to rent a one bedroom apartment in a cheap neighborhood close to a bus station, can someone give me a rough estimate of how much costs? What is the night life culture like? Are things open late? Edmonton closes down pretty early for such a large city. I enjoy partying but I also enjoy staying in, mostly depends on what my girlfriend wants to do :) How is the weather, I know it’s warmer than edmonton for sure but is it sunny? Or extremely cloudy? What’s the BEST advantage to living in seattle? I would like some local perspectives. Also, is meth legal in Seattle? My friend told me it was but I want to have this confirmed by an actual local, and is it good quality? All answers and feedback are appreciated!! Thank you It was my girlfriends birthday a few days ago and we got into a huge fight. She hasn’t texted or called me since. Feb 11, 2024 I (33M) got in a huge fight with my girlfriend (F19) on her birthday. I am scared she wont take me back. It was my girlfriends birthday a few days ago, and she wasn’t happy with what I had planned so she left to hangout with her friends. Let me repeat that. My girlfriend left her BOYFRIEND on her birthday, to go hangout with friends because she didn’t like what I had planned for her. The Edmonton Oilers were on a 16 game winning streak and my buddy had two extra tickets. Not only would have it been a fun time, it was also a cheaper option for me because I am having trouble at work, and basically don’t have a job anymore. My girlfriend gets home from classes with dinner and then I tell her Happy Birthday, and give her literal roses for her birthday. I give her the two tickets (lower bowl) as her birthday present and I tell her to eat and get dressed quick so we can get to the game early. She was livid with that idea, screamed how she doesn’t even like hockey (which is a lie because we’ve been to like 6 hockey games together) and left the house without even eating any dinner or taking her roses. I have her location so I checked where she was going and she ended up at her MALE friends dorm. I blew the hell up and sent her a really angry text, and then didn’t even wait for her and went to the game with my friends without her. If she wants to act like that, then fine, but I’m not going to let it ruin MY day. She hasn’t responded to any of my texts or calls, stopped sharing her location with me and I am getting concerned I might have sent a bit TOO angry of a text. But I was also in the right, because how spoiled do you have to be to yell at someone for getting them a present? Please give me advice on what I can say or do to her to make her forgive me, I just want my baby back. Should I apologize? P.S. IMPORTANT! I didn’t even have the chance to tell her that I’m also getting her a pet HORSE for her birthday, that’s literally all hers, but I just need more time to buy and figure out the logistics. Is she being spoiled or am I being inconsiderate? Debating joining the French legion but don’t want to start out as a private. Feb 15, 2024 Debating joining the armed forces but concerned about starting as a private. Hello everybody, Recent life events out of my control have left me without a girlfriend and a job. My friend suggested I join the army because it’s a fulfilling job, has a good pay, and has continued benefits after I’m done serving. This all sounds great, and I would do well with a military environment with strict rules and high fitness level requirements. I have two questions though. Do I really have to start at the lowest rank? Or will there be IQ tests done on new recruits that put ‘brighter’ individuals into higher ranking positions off the bat? or Can I just outright join an elite unit like the special forces or paratroopers? I would love to serve for the Canadian military and risk my life for the country, while also taking many lives that threaten what our country stands for but we are not in combat right now. I have low empathy so it wouldn’t be a problem for me. What will the pay be like for a General? or for serving as a commander in the special forces? Thank you! All advise is appreciate. P.S. do they make accommodations for night owls? I don’t love waking up early but I CAN, I would just prefer to be a unit involved more in evening and night activities. TOP COMMENTS ZZZTOW16 This sub is just a gift that keeps on giving, talking about special forces and high iq when you’re on another sub talking about smoking meth 🤣 OOP I used to smoke it 10 years ago but I’m not an addict anymore. An ‘ex-addict’ persay ~ PointNo281 They will be more than happy to accomodate night owls like yourself! just let your caporal know that you enjoy to work at night,they will be more than happy to make the wishes of a« bright »individual like your self come true! 👍 OOP Thank you for the helpful, positive response! I appreciate it. Have you served before? Can you put in a good word for me Profesional_Chair28 You know they’re joking, right? OOP Omg. That guys a complete dick ~ Inevitable_Top_1741 La troll très bien OOP English please? I don’t know any other language. I’m not from Quebec amayagab And you want to join the French Foreign Legion? I love this site TIFU by telling a kijiji buyer that my beats don’t have any anti-theft software in them, while he was ‘inspecting’ them. Feb 17, 2024 A potential Kijiji ‘buyer’ ran off with my $300 Headphone Beats… First of all, this happened a week ago, it wasn’t today, but the more I think of what happened the more I realized how bad I fucked up… Worst week of my life. Lost my job, got dumped, and then this. I have been selling stuff online to make money and I posted a pair of my noise cancelling Dre Beats headphones, cause lately I’ve been selling things on Kijiji for money for groceries and such. A potential buyer messages saying he wants them and we plan to meet up outside of a convenient store. I meet him there and it’s a group of teenagers, anywhere from 13-15, all hanging around (which I now realize they were just watching what was about to unfold). We confirm with eachother that we are there from kijiji and he asks if he can see them before he buys it. I bring them out and hand it over to him to check and he says “Oh wow these are really good quality! Do they have any special features like “find my headphones” in case someone were to steal them from me?” And I stupidly respond with “Nahh nothing like that. The only ‘features’ it really has is noise cancelling and Bluetooth" and then this kid puts on a shit eating grin and says “Good.” Then sprints off in the other direction. As he does this, the other kids were obviously in on it as they all ran away on cue, giggling the entire time. That was my weeks grocery money running off in the hands of douchey teenagers, wearing NELK hoodies. WHILE LAUGHING! Little shits. P.S. I Didn’t chase them obviously cause it’s like 3 vs 1 if I were to catch up to them. TLDR; I let a potential kijiji buyer inspect my headphones and while he was holding them, he asked if there was any anti theft software and I said no, resulting in him running off with them. My roommate abuses his fish so I clean the tank while he’s at work Feb 19, 2024 My roommate has a fish tank and he only cleans it like once a month or even 2 months.. I’ve been thinking of calling some sort of tip line to report him. Anyways I couldn’t stand it so I cleaned it myself while he was at work. 4 pictures of the tank at different angles TOP COMMENTS FROM OOP He literally changes the water like once a month or two. Are you kidding, I’m not gonna just sit here and let the fish die… I only touched it once up until this moment. I just basically emptied the water to the bottom, poured in completely clean water and scrubbed the sides. The water was so murky at first, that’s why I basically replaced all of it. Don’t worry, I’ve changed fish tanks before & lilcycle Did you use water conditioner???? Don't fucking touch his tank again. OOP Yeah I used water conditioner. I just poured it in but I know around how much to give it cause I replaced most of the water. And I cleaned the tank yet you’re telling me to not touch it again?? Are you joking or not cause w.t.f Ready-Brother-5273 You didn’t measure it??? Chlorine is amazing at killing fish, that combined with a FULL water change may have just killed his fish so great job ❤️ OOP so you’re saying I killed all his fish? Yet they’re swimming perfectly fine In front of me right now. You realize you’re gas lighting right now, right? How does someone practice Stoicism after a huge mistake? I accidentally killed all of my roommates fish by cleaning his tank Feb 21, 2024 I’ll give a quick recap cause the story doesn’t matter much, but my roommate never cleaned his fish tank and I felt really bad for the fish. When he was gone at work, I cleaned the entire tank for him and really made it look spic and span. Anyways, 2 days later and almost every fish in his aquarium has died for some reason. He’s emotionally destroyed and PISSED at me. I am feeling extreme amounts of guilt and I feel partly responsible because of the timing of all their deaths…. Even though I know it wasn’t me, it still might have had something to do with me cleaning it. Like almost every single fish died 2 days after I cleaned it… but it could still be a coincidence. Anyways how do I practice stoicism in a time like this? I feel sick to my stomach, I’m racked with empathy and guilt. I want to practice and show stoicism since I consider myself quite the stoic, but it also feels heartless? I might have just decimated my roommates aquarium by accident and I don’t show emotion? That doesn’t seem right. Is it right for me To outwardly show my sadness, so my roommate sees I care? I am usually very even keel and play all my cards close to my chest but my roomate is so devestated, he’s been crying all day and I want to show him I care, while also still practicing stoicism. Please give me guidance in this situation, my rooommate is really really upset and I want him to see that I did something nice for him, and it was just an unfortunate accident, and there’s no proof it was actually me. Like it’s been 2 days since I cleaned it, wouldn’t they have died instantly? He might have had some sort of disease in his tank already from never cleaning it. I don’t want to be seen as heartless by being stoic, I want to be there for my grieving roommate. I’m so conflicted… How to find potential roommates in Edmonton? Feb 18, 2024 Hello everyone, I am probably moving out of my place or my roommate will be leaving so I was just wondering what website I use to find potential roommates? Facebook Reddit Instagram? Just curious where I go to find a new roommate preferably within the city limits Becuase I don’t have a car. I am sure there is some sort of website out there for Edmonton roommates… P.S. I am 33, male and I am a good roommate. My maximum would be 3 others in the same house because too many guys just gets confrontational. Roommate has gaslit my landlord into now renewing my lease, leaving me homeless in 8 weeks. Feb 26, 2024 Roommate gaslit my landlord to not renew my lease, leaving me homeless in 8 weeks time. My roommate is the biggest dick on earth. I have been living in this basement suite first and he moved in AFTER me. He broke my toe with a weight left by the door(I suspect intentionally) and in addition to that, he’s been intentionally rubbing it in my face that my girlfriend dumped me. (even though we’re just in a fight. She’s never even told me that we actually broke up.) Now he’s gone too far. He lied and told the landlord that I had smoked meth inside of the house, and along with a few other things, she notified me today that she would not be renewing my contract. So I have to leave by the end of April. He’s been a dick to me for no reason and it’s only been getting worse. I’ll give him credit, he’s a little snot nosed 22 year old prick who thinks he’s smarter and better than everyone, but he drinks beer like everyday and he gets terrible grades. I have 8 weeks left and Im sadistic enough that I can play the diabolical long game (like seducing his girlfriend and then laying with her, before I leave) but I would rather get him evicted and for me to renew my lease than play mind games with the poor sap. Please give me any ideas on how I could tell the landlord the real story and maybe get him evicted instead ? It’s so crazy to me that the landlord is just taking his word for it, when he’s got no proof! But at the same time, she isn’t required to renew my lease so she is technically not breaking the law. Is he not technically committing defamation? Or slander? He‘s a psychopathic manipulator, that will use everyone around him like pawns. He used the fact that I used to be an addict over 10 years ago as a way to gaslight the landlord into thinking I smoked meth in the house. I will get my revenge if it’s the last thing I do on Gods Green Earth. P.S. If you feel bad for my roommate, DON’T. I cleaned his fish tank and he used that as a reason to tell the landlord that I apparently ‘damaged his property.’ When I have literally evidence that I did nothing but clean it. I took before and after pictures and honestly he wouldn’t want me sharing them because the fish tank looked like a disgusting cesspool until I got my hands on it. It’s all your fault. Feb 29, 2024 Im a honey bee, and you’re a newly sprouted plant. I’m the first bug to enter you, to trust your pedal-ly embrace… we fit eachother like a pea-in-pod. And then your mask falls off. You’re not just an innocent plant, you’re a fucking Venus Fly trap. You snap your jaws shut and trap me… treat me like shit.. eat me alive until I’m hanging by a thread. Then you spit me out and leave me to die at my lowest point. I’m a honey bee with two broken wings and no honey. Rock bottom. You keep growing towards the blue sky as I lie there betrayed, broken. I was the first thing on Gods green earth to treat you right and you used me as a stepping stone to grow higher. F@&! you, you heartless c@!&, you just lost the best thing that ever happened to you. I was perfect to you, and I deserve so much better. I’m a honey bee that deserves his perfect Tulip, not a disgusting, wretched Venus Fly trap. Going to be running across Canada to raise money for charity. How to best prepare? March 1, 2024 Best way to get in shape for an across country marathon? Hello everybody, I am planning on running across Canada sometime next month to raise money for trans awareness. The problem is, I’m not in great shape at the moment but I used to be a high level basketball player and also ran cross country in highschool. What’s the fastest way I can get back into shape to prepare me for this heroic feat? Should I run long distances everyday or should I try to workout legs at the gym and build muscle? What’s the most important thing to improve on when running long distances everyday? Please help me as time is of the essence everybody ♥️🙏🏻 I’ve already committed to doing it so don’t try to convince me out of it. (Ex)Girlfriend won’t give my items back that I left at her place. How can I get them back legally? March 3, 2024 My girlfriend left me a few weeks ago, and hasn’t responded to any texts or calls since then. The problem is that i have left multiple expensive items at her place and I need them back, because I am really tight financially. Yesterday I waited outside her dorms all day until I finally ran into her outside the building and demanded to get my stuff back. First of all, this wasted 10 hours of my day just because she wouldn’t respond to texts or calls. Even worse, She said absolutely not, because she originally had bought the items for me, but wants to keep them now that we’re ‘over’. She’s claiming that since she paid for them and they were left at my house, they’re hers. It’s extremely frustrating and I need the items, will the police help me get into her dorm and take my items back? Or can I sue her? It’s Not like the items are worth thousands of dollars but the few hundred I could pawn them off for would really help me right now. Usually I wouldn’t care about a few hundred dollars but losing my job weeks ago has put in a desperate position. She bought the items but gave them to me as gifts for my birthday and our 6 month anniversary. The items include an electric shaver, a nice pair of shoes, a backpack and a pipe. It’s funny because I bought her an iPad, a VERY expensive promise ring (I’m talking over a thousand dollars) and a $300 makeup bag for our 6 month anniversary but she also refuses to give that back. So wtf is wrong with this person? This is practically stealing. Is there anything I can do legally or do I have to solve this myself?? Please let me know guys I’m in a real tight bind at the moment. ULPT request: Ate a noticeable amount of my roommates tacos, what is a good strategy or lie to get out of taking responsibility for it? March 6, 2024 My roommate cooked a lot of ground beef for tacos last night, and he had a lot of leftovers. He didn’t offer me any, even though I am struggling to financially buy groceries right now. I am not surprised he didn’t offer me any because we don’t get along, but he could’ve eaten them out of my sight and in his room. Today when he was gone, I helped myself to a taco because I knew he wouldn’t notice a minuscule amount of ground beef gone. Well problem is that I couldn’t help myself, I haven’t had good food in forever, and I ate another 3 tacos. Now there is like 1/3 of the ground beef left and it’s noticeable. How can I make up an excuse for the missing ground beef, without coming clean about eating it? My last resort is going to be to break the fridge shelf, and then telling him that it broke when I was putting milk away and his taco meat fell on the ground then I threw it out while cleaning up. This is a LAST RESORT due to me not wanting to be a dick and break our fridge just to cover up my lie. What is any good lie, or excuse, or trick I can do to cover up that I ate his tacos? Admitting the truth is NOT an option so don’t suggest ‘saying the truth’. He will be home in about 5-6 hours so please for the love of god give me ideas quick. Thank you 🙏🏾 P.S. do not suggest that I go buy ground beef, cook it and replace it either. I do not have the money to be wasting money on groceries trying to cover up my lie. I would typically never do something like this but I’m extremely down on my luck and my roommate convinced the landlord not to renew my lease so he kind of deserves this, a taco never hurt anybody. I made up a terrible lie yesterday to get out of a problem. I am going to make an intentional effort to always tell the truth, or at the very least, never tell a lie March 7, 2024 Yesterday I had messed up pretty bad and instead of taking responsibility for it, I made up an awful lie to get out of it. I’ve been feeling absolutely awful about it, and I’ve been racked with guilt. Why can’t I just take ownership and accept my mistake? Why do I need to make up a lie, and compound my mistakes? YES, the lie worked and I’m out of the situation scott-free but I need to change my lifestyle, and I need to change it now. I don’t want to live in a world where people think it’s okay to lie just because it’s easier, that’s so toxic. How can I work on never telling a lie? I want to take a vow of always telling the truth, or at the very least just keeping my mouth shut if I can’t say the truth. Please give me advice on how I could hold myself accountable and always be honest? Is there any tricks or do I just ‘decide’ to do it? I was sent a link to this Reddit community and I just went through it. What I’ve read is horrifying if it reflects the state of our society. March 7, 2024 You guys are disgusting. This is like a pack of vultures, picking at a Great Blue Whale while it’s still alive and swimming. It can’t come up for air because everytime it does, it gets bombarded by the sadistic vultures. Seriously, what the FUCK. Pardon my language but idgaf right now. You guys made a subreddit to insult me behind my back? And you named it METH-HORSE-GUY? Holy sh*t you’re idiots. I inquired about purchasing a horse for another person, and somehow this is a point of laughter? Don’t even get me started on the comments about meth. People like you are the reason addicts relapse. I don’t go outside of the gym and yell “FATASS!!” At people walking into the gym. Because I’m a good person, but judging by this sub Reddit there isn’t many people like us left out there. I’d love to see how bad you guys would look if there was someone Writing down and keeping track of everything you said, and then throwing it back in your face anytime You make a little mistake. Have I been my best self lately? No, I haven’t, but I just got out of a verbally abusive relationship and I’m still trying to get my mind right. Seeing an entire sub Reddit dedicated to making you look bad through paraphrasing and photoshopping doesn’t help a persons mental health. Have I done meth before? Yes. Have I done it recently? Once or twice, due to the harrassment from people on this platform. I literally tried raising money for Trans Awareness, and I was banned and attacked from all sides. WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE. You cannot be serious right now, what sort of ‘good’ person would do that. I only ended up getting $120 from e-transfer donations before I had to cancel the event because of how many death threats I got for it. I guess transphobia is still alive and well today #VoteLiberalorGreenParty To address the alt account situation that I’ve seen multiple times. No, I do not run a mysoginistic Alt account. I find that hilarious Becuase one of my life goals is actually to support a woman become a president of The United States of America. That’s how highly I think of women. And honestly I wouldn’t mind if she was bisexual or lesbian so that the LGBTQ+ community could also get some representation in positions of leadership. There is so many barriers for minorities, the queer community, and for woman. I will devote so much time and effort into tearing those barriers down, I will put my life on the line. Yesterday I committed to never lying again and today I will add on to that commitment, by adding in that I will get clean within the week and I will apply to work for the Liberal Party in Alberta. I don’t get how you guys see me as the bad guy and you guys as the good guys? This is like a bunch of nerdy highschool girls hating on the popular attractive girl. Look in the mirror people, look in the mirror. I am doing good, what do you guys have to possibly show for it? You’re creating more and more barriers for minorities and woman and it’s sickening. Last thing I’ll address. Global Radio, Blasmass, and JVNT have followed me into every sub I’ve ever commented in, and have caused drama and reported me to the moderators. Just recently, I got a message from NatureIsFuckingLit that I was permanently banned because of Global Radio. I have the screenshots. Now they are looking into my account for a permanent ban. I hope you 3 are happy, you guys just got a person banned for fighting for trans rights, supporting the environment and promoting woman into positions of power. (That’s right, I’ve been supporting woman behind the scenes without posting about it. Because I didn’t want to be called a hero, or get any praise for it). I wish my account got banned before I saw this cause after reading all this, i have no faith in humanity. Zero. And I’ve lost motivation to fight for the underdogs. I seriously don’t get how people can be so awful. But then I remember that jesus christ was nailed to a f***** cross and left to die, by other humans. I am in no way shape or form Jesus Christ, as I devotedly follow him, but I am just commenting on the brutality of human nature. P.S. my name isn’t methaniel. I don’t know if it’s a play on words or if one of you idiots soread a false rumor (which has been done countless times). That reminds me. Whoever has said that they have ‘seen’ my comment saying I met my ex when she was 13 is blatantly lying for attention. I didn’t even meet her until she was 18, let alone woo and then seduce. Falsely accusing someone of such a heinous act makes you guys as bad as false rape accusers. If you were one of those people, grow up a little will you? Maybe get offline and try to do something productive in the real world. F*** you all, this has been the worst month of my life and this sub Reddit was the cherry on top. Or should I say the nail in the coffin. And I hope you guys realize it’s possible to photoshop comment screenshots. A lot of the stuff I am seeing is completely fabricated and you idiots fall for everything you see. OOP included 5 pictures Pic 1. Terry Fox Pic 2. A Gay Pride Flag Pic 3. Terry Fox again Pic 4. A Green Earth Pic 5. Former U.S. Sec of State and Sen Hillary Clinton THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/justathrowaway282641 Originally posted to r/TwoHotTakes and her own page Previous BoRU #1, BoRU #2, BoRU #3, BoRU #4 EDITOR’S NOTE: Removed all relevant comments from older posts to make space for new updates. To see all older comments, check out the previous BoRUs above Please note that OOP's latest new updates were not on this sub NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ---- My family forgot to invite me to my grandparents funeral, but they are convinced I was there. Trigger Warnings: death of loved ones, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, harassment RECAP Original Post: November 14, 2023 I’m 30s F and caused a major blowup in my family and now none of them are talking to me. For background, my hometown is tiny (500pop) and when I went 2 hrs away to “the city” (15,000pop) for college, I loved it. I ended up staying after graduation, got married, and am happy here for a decade. I visit my home town every few weeks or so, call/text my family near daily, and thought we were all good. My family’s pretty small. Just my brother, mom, step dad, dad, step mom, and an aunt and uncle (mom’s siblings, never married, no kids). My mother's grandparents moved to my home town when I was in high school and were just down the street from us. My family has always been pretty drama free (aside from my parent’s divorce when I was a kid) and we’ve been happy. The step-parents were blended in perfectly and we share holidays and celebrations together. We’re all super close and just the perfect little group. Ever since I moved away, the topic of “when am I moving back?” is constant, and I’ve always laughed it off. My home town has nothing. You have to drive 30 minutes for milk and bread. 60-90 minute one-way commutes to work. And floods shut down the main road every Easter. I love the town, but I love here more. I have parks, stores, community events, a library! The “city” is great. My family grumbles that I need to move back, but I refuse. I've been trying to encourage them to come here, especially since it's not an hour drive to the nearest medical facility. Now to the meat and potatoes: both my grandparents passed over COVID times. They were both old and their health had been failing for a while so it was only a matter of time. Thankfully they didn’t catch it, but it made visiting them impossible and we survived mostly through FaceTime. They both passed in their sleep months apart. Both were cremated and kept securely under the kitchen sink for safe keeping while the pandemic blew over. That was 2021. Well, I just found out my family held a funeral for them and scattered the ashes in my uncle’s maple grove over the summer. No one said a word to me about it. I’ve visited numerous times before and after and not one word. I only found out because my great uncle from California posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that he is entering hospice and was so thankful his health stayed strong enough for him to see his little sister (my grandma) to her final resting place. I was confused and called my mom. She was all “Yeah, the funeral we had in July, remember?” Ya’ll, I visited them for the 4th of July. They did the funeral the 8th. Not a word about it to me. They had planned this for months. Long enough to arrange for my infirm great uncle to be brought over from the other side of the country. Apparently, they talked about it “all the time”. Everyone is convinced I was at the funeral. They SWEAR I was there. I can prove I wasn’t because Google’s got my location history. My hubby is baffled because he was supposedly there, too, but he had to work every weekend in June and July. Time clock doesn’t lie. My family straight up forgot about me. I’m hurt. I’m sad. And they’re pissed at me “for lying”. They think I’m causing drama over nothing. Nothing I say can convince them I wasn’t there. My family is united in this. And they’ve all put me “on read” until I admit I’m wrong. They think I’ve gone nuts. Either there’s a doppelganger of me attending events, or my family doesn’t want to admit they screwed up. I’m not backing down. Thanksgiving is coming up, and my family’s been vague posting on Facebook about “forgetful kids” and mental health. It’s so freaking weird and I don’t know if I’m in bizzaro world or what’s going on. My mom’s best friend reached out and said I should just admit I was wrong and apologize, that I’m causing my mom so much unnecessary stress. I asked her if she’s checked everyone’s home for CO2. She hung up on me. (We checked our CO2, and our testers are running just fine.) I have reached out to a few people in my home town to check in on my folks, and they all say they're fine. I even spoke with the local volunteer fire fighter group to see if they could check for gas leaks. Not sure if they were able to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve shown them the proof I wasn’t there, but they know I’m tech savvy and just assume I’ve Photoshopped it. Hubby says we need a break, and we’re going to be staying home this holiday season. Edit: I don't know the update rules, so I'll post updates to my profile should anyone want them. Update #1: November 27, 2023 Not sure how to do updates on posts, so figured I'd post anything on my profile. Folks have private messaged me and this will be easier I think? It's 11/27 and Thanksgiving just happened. Hubby and I stayed home. We got a small turkey and made our own little thanksgiving. It was nice. We ate around noon, then watched a movie, and later sat outside with a bottle of wine to watch the sun set behind the trees and neighbor houses. We usually take the day before off, drive to my folks, stay the night, and help with the Thanksgiving Day cooking. So it wasn't until Wednesday night that my mom broke the silence. Mom called and asked when I was showing up, and I told her we were staying home this year, but for them to have a happy Thanksgiving, and to give the rest of the family my love. She was quiet for a long time after I said that, and I think she eventually mumbled an "okay", or something, and hung up. It wasn't an angry hang up. Just a hang up. On Thanksgiving day, I sent a group "Happy Thanksgiving!" gif to our family group chat. I received a few "happy Thanksgiving"'s back. No one's said anything else. There's been no posts on Facebook. Update #2: December 12, 2023 So, I think I mentioned in one of my comments that my dad and I usually talk on the phone every Sunday morning. We're both early risers so we'd chat over our morning coffees and watch the sunrise. Him and I haven't really spoken since this all went down and it's been tough. I'm used to talking to him, you know? Well, I was sitting outside in my usual spot, watching the sun rise and freezing my butt off, and he called me. I'm not entirely sure how to describe the emotions I felt. It was a mix of panic, hope, terror, happiness, and dread. I ended up answering because I just had to know what he wanted. It was an awkward conversation. He didn't address the current "drama", but instead tiptoed around the situation with all the grace of an cow on stilts. For instance, a simple "How are you doing?" Type question was answered with a "Not good." And the whole conversation would stall out for a bit because he knew why I wasn't doing well. So we ended up talking about the weather, the various winter birds we'd seen in our feeders, and the Christmas decorations around town. Things like that. Eventually he asked if we were coming out for Christmas, and sounded sad when I told him we weren't. He asked if him and step mom could come visit us instead, and I told him it wasn't a good idea this year. That hubby and I were going to spend a quiet holiday together. I let him know he should be receiving some gifts at his PO Box any day now, so to please pick them up from the post office and put them under the family tree for everyone. He said he'd ship ours to us as well. And that was pretty much it. No crazy drama to report. The only posts on Facebook have been the usual Christmas excitement ones, countdowns, photos of Santa, silly gift ideas, photos of company Christmas parties. On a personal note: Hubby and I are doing alright. Our health is good, our spirits high, and we're as solid as ever. We each got Christmas bonus' at our jobs, so we're excited about that. They're not large, but we're happy to have them. We have also done advent calendars for the first time ever. I got him a Lego one, and he got me a hot chocolate one. We're going to do the calendars again next year. Maybe make a tradition out of it. Everyone please have a safe and happy holidays. Inheritance: December 16, 2023 I've received a lot - A LOT - of messages and private DMs urging me to check into inheritance and such. I'm really touched a lot of Internet strangers are worried about me and I wanted to ensure everyone that inheritance is most likely not an issue here. I'd almost be relieved if it was, because then it would at least make some sense. Money does weird things to people, you know? No one in my family is wealthy by any means. After my grandparents' passed, their small estate was used to pay for their end of life expenses and remaining assets split up. Everyone directly related got an equal split (so excluded my dad and the step parents). I don't remember the exact amount I received, but it was around $5k if I recall. My brother gave me his share, too, so I could finish paying off my college debt while the interest freeze was active. The great uncle from California has kids and grand kids, and great grandkids of his own, and also isn't wealthy. I think one of his kids makes good money doing something in finance, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't imagine he left us anything, as we hardly knew him. My mom, aunt, and uncle only met him a few times in their lives, and my brother and I even less. Grandma and him were close, but I don't think he liked my grandpa much. Christmas: December 25, 2023 I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I've received a lot of support through my posts and I'm really grateful. Writing these updates have had a therapeutic effect. Yesterday was Sunday, but I didn't answer my dad when he called. I just really didn't feel up to a pointless chat, so let it go to voicemail. He tried to reach me a few times throughout the day, but I didn't answer. Our bestie last minute invited us over to his house for Christmas day lunch (today), so husband and I were busy all Christmas Eve making cookies, peanut brittle, and homemade suckers/hard candies for his kids. Mom tried to reach out as well, but I also ignored her calls. We had a BLAST at lunch! Our friend's kids are a lot of fun to be around. They got some techy presents from their grandparents (Quest vr headset and steam decks, lucky little rascals) Friend and his wife aren't good with tech, while hubby and I are, so we helped get them set up while our friend played a good host to his folks and inlaws. The grandparents didn't realize that a Steam deck required a Steam account, so we got the kids all their own accounts set up, added them to our steam friends lists, and gifted them some games. We also bought them a few VR games for their headset, and they were off to the races with Beat Saber in no time. As for my folks: My brother texted and asked if we could talk sometime tomorrow. I think me ignoring mom and dad has caused some kind of upset. Which they deserve. Brother’s call: December 26, 2023 Spoke with my brother over the phone this morning. For starters, he apologized for everything. Him and I are good (for now). For a bit of background, my brother and I are only 2 years apart. There weren't a lot of kids around growing up, so the two of us were often stuck doing stuff together. So we have a lot of shared interests and passions. He's been pretty silent on this whole matter, but still "part of the group", if you know what I mean. I think the thought of losing him out of my life was probably the most painful, because he's always been there. He was my rock until I met my husband. He's definitely a Mama's boy, though, so anything mom wanted, he made sure she got. I'm happy to have him back. Without further ado, here's the story from the horse's mouth: Mom apparently had a cancer scare late last year (which no one told me about, go figure), and dad had a stint put in his heart back in January (which I did know about). This "sense of mortality" has apparently lit a fire under Mom's ass to get me back home. But since I wasn't reacting to her passive aggressive hinting, she and step mom decided to go full crazy. My great uncle's health was bad, and he'd been asking about funeral arrangements for his sister (my grandma) for a while, so the moms decided to plan it. And use the event as a giant middle finger to me. They kept all the planning pretty hush-hush between the two of them, so no one on our side of the family actually knew about the funeral until like 2 weeks before. The moms said they'd invited hubby and I. No one thought anything about it. No one thought to mention, confirm, or check with me. The plan was to scatter the ashes, say a few words, and maybe head to town for lunch. It was a small affair. The mom's didn't even tell the family that our great uncle was coming for it. Like I said, it was a small thing. Barely a footnote. No one thought it was odd because we're pretty chill people. 4th of July happens. Hubby and I are out. No one thought to mention it, as we were all busy celebrating and having a great time. Any time the topic of "this weekend" would start, the conversation would be quickly shifted by one of the moms. We went back home. 8th of July happens. Great uncle rolls into town with a few of his kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and it's a surprise to everyone (but the moms). Everyone drives to the maple grove and the moms have brought a ton of food and stuff. It's a full blown party. No one on my side noticed I wasn't there, because there were so many extra faces outside the usual group. They did the spreading of the ashes, they said their words, they ate, they had a great time. It wasn't until our great uncle left, and all his side left with him, that they realized I wasn't there. And hadn't been there. And this is where the crazy went up a notch. My brother says the moms were happy no one noticed I wasn't there. And that this was proof to everyone that I needed to move back because I was so easily forgotten about. Because none of them thought to reach out, right? They basically did a ton of guilt tripping manipulation bullshit and it made everyone upset at me for not showing up. Somehow it was my fault for being excluded. So suddenly everyone was on their side with "sticking it to me". But then a few months went by, and tempers cooled, and then I guess the horror of it set in. Followed by the shame, but by then they were "in too deep". How do you undo something like this? And since I hadn't brought it up, I guess they figured they would all just stay quiet about it and hope I never asked about a funeral. That's when I discovered the situation from my great uncle's Facebook and called my mom, who panicked and went with the stupidest solution. Claiming I was there. Don't I remember? I ended up talking with a few friends from high school, mentioning the situation, and word got back to those in town. So suddenly town gossip and little old church ladies got involved. Was I, or wasn't I at the funeral? Did my family forget to invite me to the funeral of the only grandparents I'd ever know? Or am I just causing a ruckus? My brother said they all just went with mom's answer. Of course they wouldn't forget me. Of course I was there. Of course they're good people. And it just snowballed. The family expected me to eventually fold. I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, so me sticking to my guns was unexpected. And then I missed Thanksgiving. And now Christmas. With no sign of backing down. And I guess the realization that I could just stop being part of their lives is setting in and my parents are panicking. He's tried just getting them to apologize and explain, but stubbornness prevails. They want to rug sweep, but I'm not letting them. My brother is upset with everything that's happened. He's realized just how crappy it all has been and he wants nothing to do with it anymore. But since he lives with my mom, he can't "get away from it". He has asked if he can come stay with us for a little bit. I spoke with hubby, and he's in agreement with me that my brother can come crash in our spare bedroom for as long as he wants. Brother works remotely, so it's no trouble for him to pick up and go. I believe he's making the trip today or tomorrow. Not entirely sure, but I expect crap to hit the fan when he arrives. On a side note, hubby's stoked that my brother and I made up. The two usually game together, but haven't due to "the situation". He's downstairs right now setting up his man cave in preparation for my brother's arrival. I'm happy to see him so excited. Brother's Here: December 27, 2023 My brother rolled in late last night. He'd obviously been crying and when I opened the door, he just held me and sobbed. I'd never seen him like that before and soon both of us were just standing in the doorway crying into one another. He kept apologizing. Over and over again. Said he wasn't sure why he went with it. Just kept saying sorry. Hubby got him all set up in the spare bedroom while brother and I talked. My brother's a wreck. He's always been a big guy, but he's lost a lot of weight and his clothes just hang off him. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was on drugs. We talked for a little bit before bed and he re-explained everything for my husband. I'd told hubby the story, but it was just so weird that hearing it again helped. This morning my brother was up at dawn making some coffee and getting his work day going. Hubby's off all week (lucky) so hubby made us working folk some pancakes and bacon. So far everything's peaceful. We've decided not to answer any calls from our family. They've been made aware that he arrived safely, and that we are going to spend the New Years together, and that we're not answering any calls until January 1st. They may text if they wish. I'm sure they're losing their minds. Serves them right. Everyone, have a safe and happy new years! Don't drink and drive! Happy 2024!: January 2, 2024 I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holidays, and may the new year be full of joy and happiness! Not too much of an update. Things here have been quiet. My brother's settled in nicely and he's a great housemate. Our place isn't very big, but we have full basement and a nice outside patio/porch area so it doesn't feel crowded at all with the extra addition. He's a quiet and clean guy. No hassle at all. He got some fresh clothes from the Walmart, a haircut, and trimmed his beard, so he's more "presentable" now. He's a lady killer when he gets cleaned up. He's made nice with the (very nosy, but kind) retired couple next door and is adapting to "city living" nicely. Folks back home have been mostly well behaved. There's been a few texts back and forth, as we're not answering calls. Mom mainly wants to know when brother's coming back, but he's keen on staying here for a while. Mom said I can't "keep him" and I told her he's a grown ass man and can do what he wants. Brother says he has her blocked after she ORDERED him to return home. Brother has tentatively asked if he could stay long term, should he decide to, or at least longer than a usual visitor would stay. Which we're fine with. He has a good paying job and could afford an apartment, but he's never lived on his own and I would guess he has some anxiety about it. Should that be the case, he'll start paying us some rent and we'd probably adjust to give him the basement as his own space. Had to change the locks: January 17, 2024 My brother is officially staying with us for the long haul. Hubby and him spent all Sunday organizing the basement and shifting things around so he now has his own area to be comfortable in. He's pretty handy and has also started fixing little things around our house. Our windows and doors have never closed and locked/unlocked smoother. He even fixed one of the closets we never use because we can never get the darn door open. Sadly, he also had to change the locks on our house and get us all new keys. This is because while hubby and I were out this Saturday, the moms showed up. They'd been calling and texting us all week, but we weren't really answering them, so I guess the two decided to drive over and hash it out in person. They have emergency keys to my place, and just let themselves in. Brother told them to leave, they argued, and my nosy (but kind) neighbors called the police when they noticed the commotion. So, we get a call from neighbor's wife, return home to some cops in our yard, all the neighbors out "vacuuming their trees", and my nosy (but kind) neighbors standing on my porch with my brother behind them, doing their best Gandalf "You shall not pass" impression. Had to talk with the cops, explain that we were having a family dispute and word vomited. I don't really remember what all I said, and was shaking a lot. Our local cops are really great. Fantastic guys and gals in blue, and took it all in stride. It's really cold here, so one had me join him in his cruiser with the heat on, and gave me a bottle of water to calm down while we talked. They asked if we wanted the moms trespassed but I wasn't sure if that counted as a criminal charge so just asked the cops if they could just make them leave, which the cops did with no fuss. I think the moms were shocked we were taking this so seriously. They didn't fight or scream at us. Just left quietly. My dad promised me he'd make sure his wife left us alone. "Or else". He said he'd also have a stern talk with my mom. Him and I talked Sunday morning, and he seemed absolutely at the end of his rope. Husband jokingly told my dad he could move in, too. To which he declined. Not sure where to go from here, but we're getting some ring cameras installed once they arrive. And everyone but my dad is blocked. Hopefully they all just leave us alone. ----NEW UPDATE---- Nothing New To Report: February 2, 2024 Had a lot of DMs for updates, but don't have much anything to report on. The moms are behaving themselves. All's quiet on the western front. Felt weird ignoring or copy/pasting "no updates" to everyone, so here's what we've been doing, should anyone care. Dad got a new bird/squirrel feeder from Amazon (looks like a little picnic table for a child's dolly but has a mesh top for the bird seed. I think it's supposed to be for chickens?) It's totes adorbs. To his horror, it also works as a Cooper hawk feeder, so now he's "fortifying his defenses" and putting up some trellises around it. He'll have to wait till warmer weather before planting anything to grow on them. We had some ring cameras installed and put in a motion-activated camera that double functions as a light bulb. It goes in the light fixture outside the front door and is pretty cool. Video quality isn't all that great, but it's a nice addition I guess. It does overlook the bird feeders, so I've been watching it on my lunch breaks on the days I have to go into the office. Hubby and brother are feuding. They started a coop farm in Stardew Valley a few days ago and they both want to romance Leah. My husband confided in me that he's also been romancing Sebastian as a backup. I'm not sure why he's keeping this a secret, but he's pretty smug about it. RELEVANT COMMENTS fractal_frog I hope your dad can outsmart the hawks! OOP: He'll be able to, I just know it. He's used to dealing with the wildlife and having hawks about, but he just wasn't expecting one to snag a meal right from his new feeder. I told him it was "technically" still a bird feeder. Just....for bigger birds. Which he thought was funny. He said he might make a little "no hawks allowed" sign to put up next to it. MissOP: keep the updates coming. the moms are so close to folding it's just a little bit more. LMAO also, the bro mance between your husband and brother is so cute. lol Honestly, I think your husband making sure he has a side piece of Sebastian is absolutely the play. OOP: So far still no word from the moms, but I hope you're right. I would love an apology and for us to begin moving past this. But I NEED that apology. I feel selfish saying that, but I refuse to "be the bigger person" on this. I just won't. As for my brother and husband, yeah, they're basically soul mates. The two hit it off immediately when they first met, and they've been thick as thieves for years.   Update: February 27, 2024 My dad came out for a visit over the weekend. We had a good time and the weather was lovely for some grilling and beers. It was really nice to see him again and he seemed healthy and in good spirits. Here's his report from back home: Step mom (dad's wife) has started to realize she's screwed up. I credit her change of mindset to the fact that my dad sat her down and laid it out for her: she leaves his kids alone, or she's getting divorce papers. That apparently shut her up right quick, because they had a prenup done when they married and I'm not sure the details of it, but it wouldn't end favorably for her. She hasn't worked in years, so I imagine she'd be eligible for alimony? But I'm not versed in any of that legal mumbojumbo. Dad didn't seem too worried about it, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Step dad was pissed the police were involved in the last "mom visit" (despite no one getting arrested or anything) and was in a "the kids are out of control and need to be reigned back in" mindset. When my dad pointed out that "the kids" in question were all in their mid-30s, it took some of the steam out of stepdad's sails. According to my dad, even my mom looked a little surprised when he said that. So, part of me is wondering if a good chunk of this whole thing is my mom not truly realizing that her kids were grown, and no longer children she could make demands of. Both of the moms have left us alone. I expected my mom to continue to kick up a fuss, but I think the cops spooked her. There was a wonderful suggestion by a comment or to get their pastor involved, which I passed along to my dad. Dad has since spoken to their pastor about everything. He's a young guy, relatively new to their church, and joked that his first month on the job he had to do 3 funerals in a row and his new "flock" were just dying to get away from him, so he's got a sense of humor which is nice. The new pastor agreed to sit down with everyone and help the family hash it all out in a true "Come to Jesus" type moment next month, so that maybe we could celebrate Easter together as our first holiday as a family. Dad said the pastor was aware our family was having some troubles, but unsure of exactly what was going on, and since he was new, the pastor didn't want to pry. He has also agreed to do a small service down at my uncle's maple grove later in the summer, as it usually floods and is a muddy mess all spring. According to my dad, my aunt and uncle are so over all the drama and just ready to move on, so I expect hugs and apologies from them when we next meet. Stardew Valley Update: My brother was victorious in the grand fight for Leah. It was a hard battle. Well fought. When my husband exposed his plans to woo Sebastian all this time, it was quite the betrayal. Dramatics aside, their farm is really cute and I'm so happy they're enjoying the game! RELEVANT COMMENT Ok-Meeting-8588: That sounds nice, and I hope this does get resolved peacefully. Just make sure the pastor doesn’t try to use the whole “mistakes were made on both ends so everyone needs to apologize because everyone equally messed up.” You did nothing wrong and you don’t owe anyone any apologies. OOP: Oh, I definitely plan on it. Dad's confirmed that we did nothing wrong, that we were done dirty, and I think he passed that on to the pastor. Though, I am expecting some "turn the other cheek" talk, which is to be expected.   Latest Update here: Final BoRU   THIS IS A REPOST SUB – I AM NOT OOP submitted by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

Fun Fact To Cover Spoilers: Jupiter also has rings. However, they are very difficult to see and are made of dust instead of ice and rock like Saturn's rings are. Jupiter also has dozens of moons in its orbit. Content Warning: Underage Drug Use, Injury, Antisemitism, Attempted Theft Mood Spoilers: Amusing, Frustrating, No Actual Conclusion I am not the OOP, that would be u/legomanian89 who posted these on r/StoriesAboutKevin - My boss' stepson is a Kevin to end all Kevins. (Originally Posted November 3rd, 2018) So just over a year ago I switched jobs and went to work for a guy (Bob) who is running a new/used aquarium shop. The shop was built onto his house, so as a result I've become pretty close with his family, including his 15-year-old stepson, who is the most Kevin person I've ever met. For the first couple months, I thought he was just a bit quirky and clumsy, but as I've come to know him more, I've discovered that he is a Kevin of the highest order. Now, I've known some dumb teenagers in my time. Hell, I used to be one. But this kid is just on another level. Just in the year that I've known him: He licked a lit match because he thought fire would taste like a Flamin' Hot Cheeto. He cannot climb a flight of stairs without tripping up them. This is a multiple-times-a-day occurrence. He once dropped a bowl of cereal and milk, and rather than clean the mess with a towel, he soaked up the spill with his sock. A sock that was still on his foot. He then put on his shoes, went out to catch the bus, and went to school with a soaking wet milk-sock. He went to the school nurse that day because he was convinced that his foot was bleeding and soaking through his sock. He wants to be the first pro-Trump rapper, and is currently pissed off at Kanye for stealing his idea. He's failing gym class. I have no idea how one fails gym class. He has broken more than 20 aquariums in the last year. When we buy used tanks, they need washed and leak-tested before we resell them. Kevin sometimes does this to help out, but can't understand that when you wrap the hose around an aquarium, you can't just yank it free. For reference, I've been in the aquarium hobby for 12 years and I've broken 2. He's not allowed to clean tanks any more. Bob was selling an older fairly-good-condition Cadillac that had been sitting in his driveway for a while. The day before the buyer came to pick it up, Kevin was mowing the yard and scraped the handle of the mower along the entire length of one side of the car. He likes to use "Jew" as an insult. When I called him out on it, I discovered that he thought that Jewish people didn't actually exist. He thought that they were an imaginary race of people that everyone pretended to hate. He played lacrosse on his school's team this summer, and got benched all season because he told the coach that he didn't need to run laps or go to practice. This is probably why he's failing gym class. He left in the morning like normal to go catch the bus. 3 hours later, he came back saying that he missed the bus, and he needed to be driven to school. The problem? It was Labor Day. There was no school. He stood at the bus stop for 3 hours on a day when there was no school. He eats absolutely everything in sight. If you leave food unattended for more than 10 seconds, it's gone. Bob went to Taco Bell and got food for the four of us. Kevin was left alone with it and ate his, mine, Bob's, and half of his mom's food before he realized that it probably wasn't all for him. When he found out that I'm a chilehead, he bragged for a week about how he loved super spicy food too. He then tried a glob of my Exhorresco (after I warned him repeatedly not to) and spent the next two hours crying and blaming me. We've been gradually remodeling the house when we're not working in the store. Kevin's bedroom was the first room we finished. He managed to put a hole in the wall on the first day he moved in. One day, completely out of the blue, he asked me "I know girls don't have a penis, but is there just like a hole beneath their belly button where a penis would be?". Bob told Kevin to wash the truck one day earlier this year. Kevin thought he'd be helpful and wash out the fuel tank as well. With water. His school lets him rent a tablet for schoolwork. He got it taken away within a week because he was using it for porn. I assume he wanted to find out if girls had a hole where a penis should be. His parents signed him up for tutoring to help with his grades. Turns out, all the tutoring in the world won't help your grades if you never turn in your homework. He was under the impression that homework was optional. Also, he routinely falls asleep in class. He thought that fish were just very active plants. Yes, really. He managed to tip over and dump the contents of the trash can he was taking it out to the roadside to be picked up. Rather than pick up the mess, he just kicked it around and spread it out across the yard, in hopes that it would be less noticeable if the mess was less concentrated. I know there's more I'm forgetting and I'll edit this post as I remember them, or as Kevin gives me more material. I'll just leave you with this tidbit: Kevin starts driving in 3 months. May the gods have mercy on us all. Edit #1: To everyone wondering if Kevin has some kind of undiagnosed mental health issues, I suppose it's possible, but it seems more like just a severe lack of common sense than anything else. I've never met his biological dad, but from what I've learned from his mom, he's one of those people who is habitually unemployed, yet spends all day bitching about how immigrants and minorities are a drain on society. I'm hoping Kevin will eventually grow out of his Kevin-ness and not follow in his dad's footsteps. OOP Then Provided Further Updates On The Original Post Edit #2 November 10, 2018: A couple more! One just happened this week, the other apparently happened a couple months ago and Bob just told me about it. Kevin decided he was going to practice his "blacksmithing" by removing the leaf catcher bag from the lawnmower and bending the shit out of the metal frame. He then realized after the fact that he was probably going to get in trouble for ruining the leaf catcher, so he decided to burn the bag and throw the frame in the trash. Bob found out, of course, and Kevin has spent the last week complaining about how tedious it is to manually rake the leaves out of the yard. Kevin discovered that you can take things apart with a screwdriver, and decided to disassemble the blender with his newfound knowledge. He took the entire thing apart and had no idea how to put it back together again, so he left the pieces all over the counter. When his parents asked him why he did it, he first denied that it was him, and then claimed that the blender just randomly fell apart for no reason. Edit #3 April 12, 2019: Since this is getting a bit of attention today, here's an update on how Kevin's 2019 has been so far. Kevin has not started driving yet, and he likely won't for at least another year. Bob bought him an old Jeep that needed repairs before it was driveable, and Kevin managed to knock one of the side mirrors off with his bicycle. I have no idea how. Kevin has decided to start writing a fantasy novel, and in a moment of weakness, I volunteered to be his beta reader. He then told me that it's going to be an "erotic orc fiction with swords". He was making a grilled cheese sandwich and decided to experiment and put peanut butter on it. He burned the peanut butter, set off the smoke alarm, ate half of it, gagged, threw it in the trash, then dug it out of the trash and ate the rest. He isn't allowed to have a cell phone because he is still failing a number of classes and he is too easily distracted by technology. So he's been going to Wal-Mart and buying the cheapest phone they have and hiding it from his parents. The problem is that he hides it in his pocket and doesn't know how to silence ringtones. He's had at least three phones taken away from him. He got a blunt from one of his friends at school, smoked it, and then told his parents that the smell was his new cologne. - My boss' stepson is a Kevin to end all Kevins: Part II. (Originally Posted August 6th, 2019) I’m back with more stories of the now-16-years-old uber-Kevin. For those that aren’t familiar, here’s the link to the original post. If you haven't seen this post yet, do yourself a favor and read it first before continuing here. You'll thank yourself for it later. I’ve been at this job for close to two years now, and not a week goes by where I don’t hear stories from Bob (my boss, Kevin’s step-dad) or Ann (Kevin’s mom). To be honest, I don’t know why they share these things with me because it’s really none of my business, but I’m not about to stop them because it’s truly fascinating what Kevin manages to accomplish. I still get the occasional message about him from various redditors here, so I’ll address the three most popular points first. He’s still not driving, nor will he be anytime soon. His parents decided that putting him behind the wheel of a two-ton machine could end with them accused of war crimes, so they told him that he wasn’t allowed to take a driving test until he gets his grades up. We’re safe for the foreseeable future. He apparently lost interest in the “erotic orc fiction with swords” that he was writing. He’s writing a new book now that involves a shape-changing weapon and the apocalyptic wrath of God. That’s all I know, and I’m not volunteering to beta-read this one. His parents have had him tested for autism and various other things, and so far it’s all come back negative other than mild ADHD. He’s on a medication for it. Whether he actually takes those meds is up for debate. I’m sticking with my initial analysis of borderline-malicious laziness and a stunning lack of common sense. Given that he’s not driving anytime soon, he’s been using his bicycle as his primary means of transportation, and that’s going about as well as you’d expect. He was riding his bike through town and went into a store, came back out and saw that his bike had been stolen. His mom had to come pick him up, but by the time she arrived, he realized that he had just forgotten what his bike looked like and it hadn’t been stolen after all. A week later, his bike was actually stolen. He has a bike lock, he just didn’t think it was necessary. His biological dad bought him a new bike to replace the stolen one. He’s blown out the rear wheel three times, broken the seat twice, the chain twice, and completely smashed the rear wheel rim, just since the middle of May. Since his second bike is now in shambles, he asked Bob and Ann if he could borrow their bikes. Bob said hell no, Ann said sure. Kevin managed to snap the rear axle and somehow broke the rear cassette. I gotta say, I’m almost envious of Kevin as his life is never dull. All I can do is enjoy his Kevin-ness by proxy, and thank my lucky stars that he’s not my kid. He “borrowed” the magnets from half a dozen coral frag racks we sell, and promptly forgot where he left them. They’re useless without the magnets. We had to order more. He found one of Bob’s power drills and drilled a bunch of holes in a support beam for the porch. He dumped an entire 12oz can of fish food into one of the tanks. This was at the end of the day and we didn’t notice until the next morning. The entire shop smelled like roadkill. He’s not allowed in the store any more. He got a job as a dishwasher at a nearby restaurant and was told to not come back after a week because he had broken so many dishes. He shot himself in the leg with a pellet rifle because he wanted to know what it felt like to get shot, because “that’s what thugs do”. (He was fine) He broke a plastic lawn chair, and decided to burn it to destroy the evidence. He got found out when the fire pit began belching acrid black smoke everywhere. He went to a week-long youth group retreat a few hours away and forgot to pack any clean clothes. Ann had to drive all the way there with clothes for him. According to Ann, she had packed clothes for him, but he left them all behind because he didn’t think he needed them. He tried to shotgun a can of soda. He managed to spray himself in the face. He tried again the next day with the same results. Bob bought a 150 gallon pre-formed above-ground pond to keep goldfish in during the warmer months. Kevin sat on the side and broke it. Kevin was bragging to his classmates that he had stolen drugs from his biological dad during a visit and would share them after school that day. A teacher overheard, he got in all sorts of trouble and had the drugs confiscated. They were fish oil capsules. In the last post, I mentioned how he had been buying cheap cell phones and unsuccessfully hiding them, despite being grounded from technology for failing all of his classes. His parents finally broke down and bought him a very basic flip phone that he could use for calling purposes only. He sold it at a pawn shop. He absolutely refuses to brush his teeth. His parents bought him an electric toothbrush, thinking that he might like it better than a manual one. He lost it. He got banned from the local comic book shop for spilling Mountain Dew everywhere. He decided he was going to cook a pork chop on the stove. He forgot about it and nearly caught the house on fire. Bob had cooked the pork chops the night before, and apparently Kevin thought that once the meat gets cold, it somehow reverts to being raw and needs cooked again. Lately, he’s been reading all kinds of survival books. He claims he wants to spend a year roughing it in the Canadian wilderness. I’m fairly certain he couldn’t even find Canada on a map. He’s absolutely convinced that standing in front of a microwave while it’s running will sterilize you. He goes as far as to retreat to the next room while he’s nuking his food. His parents bought a truck a few states away, and they decided to take a long weekend to go pick it up, leaving myself and Matt (a coworker) to handle the store in that time. No problem, right? Except that they left Kevin at home as well, with a rather long list of explicitly articulated Do’s and Do Not’s that he was expected to follow. They would have had better luck convincing a whale to spontaneously evolve into an elephant. He tried to use this parental reprieve to do everything he wanted without consequences. He tried to get into the store’s cash drawer. I had the key with me at all times, and even told me that Bob was okay with him taking cash out of the drawer once in a while (he isn’t, obviously). He had a fire roaring in the grill, a shop-vac blowing air into the coals, and was trying to melt a metal rod in the heat while using winter gloves to insulate himself. He claimed he was blacksmithing (again). I promptly shut it down before he caught the house or himself on fire. I went to the store’s garage to look for something. Kevin was there, and loudly announced “I’m not doing anything”. I hadn’t asked. I still have no idea what he was up to. Kevin announced to Matt and I that he was having friends over that night to smoke weed, take pills, and whatnot. I said not a chance. I called Bob. He said abso-fucking-lutely not. I told Kevin, and he said “his parents didn’t have to know”. He tried to bribe me with a few grams of weed. I turned him down. Matt stayed the night at the house, more to keep an eye on Kevin than anything else. Kevin invited his friends over anyway, they filled the house with weed smoke and threatened Matt when he confronted them. Matt called me, then called Bob. Bob called the next-door neighbor who came over and stormed into Kevin’s room, scaring the shit out of Kevin and his buddies. He then tried to bribe Matt with a few grams of weed as well. Matt also turned him down. Kevin and his buddies then tried to hide in the garage after the neighbor left. Matt found them when one of them knocked over a small aquarium and broke it, and they ran out through the back door. Bob and Ann skipped half of the plans they had and came home early. Needless to say, Kevin is in a world of trouble. Edit: Improved formatting a bit. Edit 2, Aug 21 2019: A quick update on his shenanigans over the last couple weeks He got a job at Dairy Queen and got fired after a week "for not maintaining a professional demeanor". That's retail-speak for "he can't keep his mouth shut around the customers". His bike got stolen. Again. He failed to lock it up while at work. Again. He's now on bike #3 this year, and he's already damaged the rear rim twice and bent a part of the frame. I still have no idea how one person can be so hard on a bike. He sliced a finger open because he tried to touch the non-serrated side of a band saw blade. While it was running. His reasoning was that he didn't think it would hurt because that side of the blade isn't sharp. Edit 3, November 20, 2019: Kevin is still Kevining it up. Here are the highlights since the last update. He's working at Taco Bell, and got written up because he was purposely making orders wrong. He was leaving off the tomatoes because he doesn't like tomatoes, and didn't think anyone else liked them either. He lost his cellphone. According to Bob, this is the 13th, yes 13th, phone Kevin has lost this year. He got busted for trying to buy cigarettes at a convenience store (he's 2 years too young to buy them legally). The manager of the store knows Bob and Ann, so he called them to let them know. Kevin got in trouble. He's tried to buy cigarettes from the same store two more times since then, with similar results. Autumn hit us like Brannigan's Law, and all the leaves fell at once. Kevin was supposed to mow them into the lawn, but he put it off for a week, and an early snowstorm dumped 16" on us. It soon melted, the leaves remained and were now soaked, and Kevin was told that he had to rake them now, rather than mow them. He tried to mow them anyway and clogged the mower, then tried to hide the mower, and told Bob he couldn't find the rake. Speaking of mowers, earlier in the year when he was supposed to mow the yard, he decided he'd rather not. Bob and I watched him open a bottle of water, pour it into the mower's gas tank, then try to start it up. After a minute of trying and failing to start the thing, he came in and told Bob that "oh darn, the mower won't start, guess I can't mow today after all". Bob wasn't amused. Edit 4, February 5, 2020: Last update here before this post gets archived. Kevin is currently taking driver's ed, one of those do-it-at-home internet classes. He's required to have so many hours of class time, and he's discovered that if he starts the lesson and lets it play while he does anything else, it counts as class time. Shockingly, he's failed the tests at the end thrice now. Ann planned to take him to get his permit this week, and after he got a whopping 12% on his final test, she decided that it may not have been the best idea. He announced to me that he's been learning all about our government and once he turned 18, he wanted to run for an office. May the gods have mercy on our souls. - Marked as ongoing for hope that OOP gives more updates on how this Kevin is doing. submitted by /u/boru_posts to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/throwra-maximus Wife (37f) did not disclose things that I (37m) disagreed when she was modeling Originally posted to r/relationship_advice TRIGGER WARNING: toxic masculinity, misogyny Original Post May 3, 2023 TLDR: Wife was seen naked a lot by a bunch of creeps during her non-nude modeling career. I (37m) met my wife (37f) in high-school. Started dating around 23 and married her at 25. We both modeled during college, I did it very sporadically but she ended up dropping from college to model full time. I was friends with many of the models and was good friends with one of the agency's owners/manager. One of the girls that regularly modeled alongside my wife also was dating a close friend of mine. My wife stopped modeling when she got close to the end of our first pregnancy (one year after getting married). When our first child was about one she had regained her figure so she modeled for about another year, eventually deciding she would rather be a sahm. So the reason for this story is that about 1 month ago, I went to a drs office (large office with many doctors with one large communal waiting room) and there was the girl that modeled with my wife that was my friend's girlfriend. We talked for a while and reminisced about the modeling years. I asked her why she quit the agency (she quit around the time my wife got pregnant) and she proceeded to tell me how the agency signed up with a new brand of clothing and how the casting process and pre-show wardrobe rehearsals devolved into a private striptease/peep show for the brand executives. The last one she did, they handed her a bag with nothing but stockings and garter belts and told the girls (6 originally but 2 noped right out) to strip down to their heals because the execs didn't want anything else on the models while they made the decisions that would distract from their products. There were 4 older guys and one woman. Then the girl looked at me and saw the horror on my face and apologized and asked if my wife had never told me any of this? I said NO! I had asked her not to do any nude shoots or shows (I know they get asked frequently if they are willing) and she always assured me she never did. The friend said "well, we were naked a lot during shows and casting. She must have her reasons not to tell you" at this point she was called in and we said goodbye. I'm so angry and upset to think that my wife was ogled naked by a bunch of creeps and she never told me. I don't know if any of this is true, or how to bring it up to her. Any insight or advice would be appreciated *** Edit for clarification: I'm not angry at my wife. I don't even know exactly what she had to deal with. I am upset that she didn't tell me about it. I understand that in the industry, you have to be nude often for practical reasons. I don't think I own my wife or that her body is my property. I had a no nude shows/shoots understanding that she would be naked at some point in order to change but I am very uncomfortable with the scenario that the friend described: being told to strip down to shoes and wait for instructions and then only wear the garters and stockings that they provided over a period of hpurs. I love her and other than this specific situation, I have absolutely nothing other than good things to say about her. *** Update May 4, 2023 PLEASE NOTE I was unable to recover the missing content due to changes with Reddit's API, but I saved it at the time of the original update posting. So here is the one and only update I'm going to make, I did not expect that post to blow up as it did. So I talked to my wife last night about this whole situation. First, I got us a nice bottle of Chianti and poured us a glass. This is how the conversation unfolded: Me - Babe, there is something I'd like to talk to you about. Wife - Umm, ok. Any thing wrong? Me - No, I met friend-model-girl at the drs office when I went there the other day. Wife - why didn't you tell me you saw her then? (It's been more than 3 weeks) Me - well, I've been trying to figure out how to process and talk to you about what she told me. Wife - ok, go on. Me - we talked about these days and eventually she told me about why she quit the agency and her last casting. Wife - Oh yeah, I remember that casting. Weird ass casting. Two girls walked out. Me - ok, could you tell me what happened that day? Wife - I showed up to what was posted as a "sexy underwear " casting by the brand I had worked for before. There were 6 of us at first. We were shown to a conference room with almost no furniture. A pr woman for the brand showed up and gave each one of us a large bag with little packages inside. I examined them and noticed they were all sets of stockings and garters. She then asked us to please undress to only our heals. She then left the room. At this point, two of the girls followed her out and didn't come back. The rest of us did as asked and stood for a few minutes. Then, four guys walked in the room, two older and two younger. One of the older ones asked us if we were ok and if we needed anything or if we were cold they could make the room warmer. Then, for the next couple of hours, they had us try on each of the stockings and garter sets. It felt weird and uncomfortable at the beginning but whenever I caught one of them staring at my crotch, I'd just turn a bit or hold the bag in front of me if I wasn't actively showing the apparel. Once we had tried all the sets, they just thanked us for our time and left. Me - ok, I had no idea this kind of thing happened to you. Did it happen again or before this time? I'm so sorry. Wife - No, this was the only time they pulled this crap on me. They could have given us underwear. For the show and shoots, they had an array of thongs that we could pick that best matched our skin tone. They were just a bunch of creeps. I told the agency about it and that I would not be doing any more lingerie castings for them. That's why the two girls walked out, they had been in this situation before so they followed the pr woman to ask for underwear and the execs insisted that they wanted to see the apparel and nothing else. So they got showed outside and asked to leave. I didn't find this out until much later. Me - I'm sorry this happened, I wish I had known. Why didn't you tell me? Wife - You were out of town for like four days, so by the time you got back it seemed irrelevant and I started having morning sickness really bad so I forgot about it. Me - Did they ever try to make you do anything you didn't want to do? I was freaking out inside when she told me about this because I always assumed that you didn't have to be fully naked for them. And of course that you were not being coerced into something uncomfortable. Wife - I'm ok, no one tried anything I didn't tell you about whenever it happened. At this point, we both relaxed a bit, and I showed her the Reddit post I made. She said I was an idiot for trying to get anything worthwhile from Reddit. She was more upset at a lot of the responses than at the events she told me about. She said next time you have something to work through to just bring it to her. So dear redditors, thank you for participating in this. Some of you were toxic and ver biased. I get it that you don't know me or the dynamics of our relationship, but still, there was a lot of unnecessary vitriol. Some of you were nice and seemed genuinely concerned about my wife's well being or mine. Some of you, I wouldn't be surprised if you just sit in your basement throwing your own shit at the walls. All in all, my relationship is great, I love my wife and we will hopefully continue to sleep naked together every night for the rest of our days. Good bye. THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP submitted by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

This is a new update to a story previously shared here. Originally posted by u/imgonnajustthrowthis in r/TrueOffMyChest on Nov 23rd 2022. Newest updates on Dec 22 '22, Jan 5 '23, Jan 27, Feb 6, and Feb 22. Scroll to the 🔴🔴🔴 to skip to the new updates. Acronyms: HLM = High libido male, LLF = Low libido female, DB = dead bedroom. Original Nov 23rd 2022 My (30m) Wife (28f) thinks I have a low sex drive. Truth is... So my wife is indeed a beautiful lady. I’m not interested in cheating or going behind her back. She just thinks we don’t have a lot of sex because I have a low sex drive. Truth is, we don’t have a lot of sex because we have it the way she wants it, and little to never how I want it. I’m all for using vibrators and whatever else to get her off as many times as possible. I’m a HUGE fan of oral and can eat front and back for days but she scarcely returns the favor. She once said “if you shower before bed Ill do it.” So for a week straight I made sure I was showered and clean because let’s be real who wants to go down on a smelly person, totally reasonable request. So I would do my oral on her and indicate I’d like to be on the receiving end… to no avail.. I have a high sex drive but she has become a selfish lover and coming from a man, it’s pretty comical to say this. I have no words at this point and I’m pretty close to just giving up sex all together. EDIT 1 Yes I have talked to my wife PLENTY of times about this issue. A lot of you guys said the same thing which hey, emotional maturity is fucking impossible to find but yes. I am wide open with my concerns in more than just the sexual aspect in our Marriage. 2nd Post Nov 25th 2022 My (30m) wife (28f) thinks I have a low sex drive… truth is… UPDATE First things first. Thank you all so much for the love and support and advice. I didn’t expect that post to get so much traction. Apparently it even made its way to TikTok.. Now if you read the last post, and maybe a few others of mine. The TLDR is my wife is a lazy and selfish lover.. and at this point, person. I have been in therapy myself and I’ve tried couples counseling as well. I have brought my concerns to her in a healthy calm manner, and safe to say, I’ve tried pretty much everything. As most of us know, yesterday was thanksgiving… Here’s an update. I’m made my signature dish because it was demanded by my in laws that I make it. We go over for food and such. After we eat I took a little snooze on the couch. My wife woke me up and said “hey, I need you to watch the kids. Im gonna have some wine.” I mean alright no problem. So while she’s drinking and playing games with her family, I got put on kid duty for all the kids (I’m also the fun uncle so like I didn’t really care.) I did care as my wife got progressively more and more intoxicated. When we left I literally had to throw her over my shoulder while carrying both kiddos to the car. We got home, I made her drink water, got the kids around and put them to sleep and helped my wife sober up a bit. We watched some tv and surprisingly, she cuddled into me and thanked me for taking care of her and the kids and she didn’t mean to have so much wine. Alright, I’m always pleased with self awareness. Literally just that little bit washed away any irritation I had. I carried her to bed and laid her down. Got her some water and ibuprofen (and a bucket just in case) got her set up in bed. About two hours later I heard my son crying so I went to get him. He had some nightmares so I got him settled down, put him back to bed. Few hours later my daughter woke up because she peed through her pull up. I got her back to sleep. When I got back into bed my wife was awake. I asked what was wrong? Her response was “I was drunk… and you didn’t even try to do anything to me?” No because even if we are married I’m not going to take advantage of you. That’s pathetic… I laid back down and she said “if you want we can have sex before you go back to bed?” Mind you this was 430, and I was fucking beat and my mental fortitude was gone and this is, In my personal opinion, not the correct way to respond, said “If you want to have sex, you’re gonna have to give me head first. I’m not hard and I’m not doing anything to get it going.” She goes “well I guess Nevermind.” Couple hours later the alarm went off, I got up. Got the kids around and my coffee. She comes out a few hours later dressed and says “why didn’t you wake me up? You were up like 4 times with the kids. I was gonna let you sleep.” Nah it’s okay. You didn’t even budge at my alarm this morning so I figured you still needed to sleep. Why are you dressed? She said the girls want to go Black Friday shopping and was wondering if I wanted to go. Nah. I’ll hang out with the kids and watch movies. They are gonna have a rough day. And that brings me to now. Having a cuddly movie day with my kids who are tired. She’s out shopping. And I need another cup of coffee. TLDR my wife lazily tried to bang me and was turned down. Now I have coffee. EDIT; I posted the third update but it was marked as spam. Currently trying to get that resolved for you guys. Secondly. I posted in the DB Reddit to try and get some tips to help boost her libido, and someone said she may just be using my love of giving oral as masturbation… turns out, dude was spot on. After we had a really good talk Saturday, I’m actually really hurt by her never saying anything. I genuinely at a loss for words. 3rd Post Nov 28th 2022 30HLM seeking advice about a 28LLF Hey all. I (30HLM) am looking to reignite my bedroom with my wife (28LLF.) some quick background. I am a giver. I love giving oral so I do go down on her frequently (and I am being serious here, it’s almost daily.) I like to give her one or two before we move on. The issue is, our sex life slowly declined until about mid June.. since then we have had sex a hand full of times, but I still go down on her almost daily. I have no problems getting her to the peak, if you catch my drift, but as soon as she gets one. She just kinda rolls over and doesn’t want to continue. Now, I don’t watch porn (recovered addict and sticking to it) and I don’t masturbate. Any advice to help get her to bring her libido back up to my level? Edit; have, in the short time I’ve posted this, discovered she has been using my love of giving oral as a means of masturbation and also thought that since I loved it so much that it got me off too. 🙃 4th Post Nov 30th 2022 My (30m) Wife (28f) thinks I have a low sex drive. The Trilogy (repost) Repost since the original was marked as spam. Has since been resolved. So a lot has happened since Thanksgiving/ Black Friday. After we put the kids down on Saturday, I sat my wife down and told her for the first time she’s going to listen to what I have to say and she will not interrupt or say anything back. I explained everything.. how I’m feeling so awful because of her lack of interest. Because of her laziness and how it’s not okay to just simply not exist because I come home from work. I explained it’s not okay anymore to be a selfish lover because I am too good of a man/husband to feel unworthy of love. The rest of the night she didn’t really say much. The following morning, I woke up suddenly to my kids playing in the living room. I instinctively ran out to see what they were into and how big of a mess there was. To my surprise my wife was playing with them. She said she was sorry that she woke me up. She didn’t realize how her lack of attention and interest was hurting me so much. So far so good. Monday rolls around. I posted in the dead bedroom Reddit to maybe get some advice from some LL people on how to get my wife more interested in having sex. Someone suggested maybe she was being a pain in the ass and using my love of giving daily oral as a form of masturbation. I didn’t even think of this possibility until they said something. So I asked bluntly if that’s what she was doing. She responded with yes. That’s what she was doing but figured since I loved it so much that it was okay. That me going down on her multiple times was all I wanted. Nope. I didn’t say much after that and kinda just stared off into space thinking about how I was nothing better than a sex toy to her. I woke up early this morning feeling just horny as all hell so I decided I was going to wake her up with my tongue and give it one last Hail Mary attempt. I got into position and… nope.. she’s too tired. At this point. Seriously. I am really stunned. Help me. Edit - So a lot of you guys have said to stop giving. So last night and this morning I kept to myself. When she rolled out of bed, she was pretty much pissed immediately. She kicked a pile of small boxes that I had neatly put together to take outside for garbage day. She was tossing things that were in her way. Had a short temper towards our kids (this did not fly and you best believe papa bear came out.) and was saying nasty things as I was heading at the door because I didn’t make her her coffee this morning. Edit 2/ update- She cancelled our marital counseling session without telling me so we didn’t go last night. She felt it was a waste of time when there’s “nothing wrong” with our marriage. Took that time to deep clean my kitchen out of anger after my kids went down because I genuinely did not have it in me to even look at her. I have refused to give her any sexual attention and I can see the frustration on her face about it. I’m still holding strong but it really sucks when that was literally the only attention that our marriage had anymore. Pretty much a single dad at this point. 5th Post Dec 4th 2022. 30m DB with 28f. I think I have a fix. So this is a half way update/what I plan to do in a final attempt to fix this. Right now, we have had a DB for years. Whenever we did have sex it was pretty much on her (LLF) terms. Me being HL, for the past 6 months, I have been going down in her almost daily to try and get her libido to match mine. It has not been working so the past few days I have stopped giving. It’s been about 5 days since I done it and my wife is acting short tempered and cranky but has not initiated anything. Last night we got into a big disagreement about some stuff and divorce was put on the table not just because of our DB but because of a plethora of other issues. I have also decided that I am going to up my fitness. I’ve been doing boxing to enjoy the full body work out but now, I am going to do my best to become a certified DILF. I know working out typically can increase libido so I may need some more support from all you wonderful people. If I can get super fit and she still doesn’t find me attractive enough to actually initiate.. then I have no clue what else to do. 🔴🔴🔴 Dec 22 '22 My (30m) wife (28f) thinks I have a low sex drive… truth is.. Update 4. I am writing this, sitting in my shower with tears of confusion streaming down my face. After a pretty big fight, I have told my wife to go sleep at her parents house for the next few days. At this point, I’m emotionally, physically, and spiritually drained. This is an update, so let me back it up a few days to fill you all in. Saturday December 17th. Discussed with my in laws the previous day to take the kids over to spend the day with them to have a day to ourselves with my wife. Woke up early. Got them dressed, fed and out the door. Dropped them off at their grand parents. Came back, wife was still sleeping. I immediately went to work by picking up the living room, vacuumed, made sure everything was nice and tidy. Went into the kitchen, put away the dishes that were washed the night prior, swept, mopped, wiped down counters where I missed the night before. She came out around 9 am, asked where the kids were, explained and was immediately met with annoyance. Asked why I would just pawn our kids off. They aren’t her parent’s responsibility (we literally never ask her parents for anything which is why they were actually excited to spend the day with them) etc. I made her a coffee, and kept cleaning. Scrubbed the bathroom floor to ceiling every nook and cranny, swept mopped. Cleaned laundry room top to bottom, put away all of our clothes, cleaned both kids rooms… you get the idea. She took a nap at 12. Woke up at 4:30 ish. I had laid out a nice little date outfit for her so we could go out and have a little date. She told me she didn’t feel like going anywhere. Fair enough! Let me cook for you, it’s more intimate that way anyway. Made one of her favorites. Was flirting with her the entire time I was cooking. Opened a bottle of wine, I came into the living room wearing a nice suit… to see the outfit I picked out for her still on the counter… okay. We ate, cuddled up watching a tv show for a little bit and I tried to get a little more intimate and she said she was too tired. Sunday, December 18th. Spent the whole day picking at each and every decision I made. Second guessing everything to the point of me getting a hair line close to blowing a gasket. Monday, Tuesday- typical me waking up with kids, feeding them, working, cooking. Cleaning. Nothing really to report. Today. December 21. I left a roast out for her to put in the slow cooker. I had to leave for work early so I didn’t have the time. Texted her the instructions. If anyone knows, an all day slow cooker roast is literally the most comfort of comfort meals. At least for me it is. I texted her around 3 expressing how excited I was to come home for this roast. “Uhm… I didn’t put it in.” Okay. That REALLY sucks but I’ll do it tomorrow. I asked her to just pull out chicken so it can thaw out. She didn’t even do that. The moment I walked through the door. She went and sat in the shower. While she was in the shower, and I was cooking. My daughter got into her makeup. While cleaning her up I told her she was beautiful enough as is and I didn’t think she needed this! And from the next room my wife yelled at me to not make her feel bad or put her down. So I asked her, how would you like for me to handle this if it happens again. The absolute venom in her response genuinely upset me because it’s an innocent question. This led to us arguing the entire time to ourselves, me trying to hold off until the kids went down. Her yelling in my face. After we got the kids down, I went to her car, started it, came back in and let her yell for a few more minutes and then told her to get the fuck out of my house. That she is done speaking to me like I’m trash. That I deserve better. That I deserve to be loved. That I am a better husband that she ever deserved on her best day. She fought with me on leaving but I got her some clothes, put them in my duffle bag, gave it to her. Phone charger and everything she needed. When she told me she was taking the kids with her, my cool and calm demeanor instantly snapped. I’m not a physically imposing person. I’m not a rude or mean person. I stepped right to her face and without touching her, told her if she thinks she can take my kids from me, she can try. She left. Her dad, whom is a man I have great respect for, came over. Asked for my side. I explained, and he put his hand on my shoulder. Didn’t say a word. Just stood up. Walked to the door turned to me. Tears in his eyes as well, said “I didn’t raise her like that.” So here I am. Mad. Sad. Hurt. Broken. Thank you all for reading and giving me your support. A lot of you said nice things. Some of you called me a doormat. I’m proud to say I stood up for myself and my children. I have already sat down with lawyers to discuss an exit strategy and I’m scared to death I’ll lose my kids. Hopefully next update is a positive one. Jan 5 '23 My (30m) wife (28f) thinks I have a low sex drive.. truth is… Update 5 First and foremost wow. All of you, across all platforms are amazing. Thank you to everyone with kind words, support and even the people who message me literally just to see if I’m okay. I’m giving you all my biggest virtual dad hugs. With that being said. The first part of this, is probably going to piss you off but please bare with me. The night after I asked my wife to leave for a few days. Her dad came back over. We had a really good talk about what’s going on with my wife. He (like many of you) came to the conclusion she was depressed. Told her that she needed to get off her butt and get help or she was going to lose her family. Literally nothing I haven’t said to her already 100 times over. It was nearing bed time for my kids and he knew that so he asked if he could take my kids with him that night so they could do Christmas Eve in the morning with them. Mind you this was Christmas Eve Eve so I allowed it. Got their clothes together and sent them on their way. My house was deadly quiet and that was upsetting in its own right. I decided to have a few drinks and asked myself if this is what my life would be if I left her for good. An empty house. No laughter of my kids. Knowing they aren’t sleeping but a few feet from me in a different room. It felt wrong. The following morning I went over to her parents for Christmas Eve. Played the good dad and husband. Got toys gifts for everyone. Spent the whole day doing my best to put on that brave face. When it came time to go, I asked my wife to come home with me. I didn’t want my kids waking up Christmas morning without their mom. I put the kids down. Finished wrapped gifts and went to bed a little early. I got the wife a new copy of Pokémon Scarlet, new headphones (kids broke hers) a new kindle since she wanted a water proof one, and foot warmer since her feet are always cold when she sits at her desk. I got, from her, a new desk mat. Which honestly was spot on I needed it. The next couple of days went well with the except of everything in my house breaking that was related to the toilet and shower. Work week went fine. Just did my normal cooking and cleaning. Then New Year’s Eve rolled around. Put the kids down. I sat with her on the couch told her we need to talk. To figure something out because we both know we are at the edge of a cliff and I’m ready to jump. I tell her to just talk to me. Tell me anything. Tell me she’s depressed. Tell me there’s something wrong. Hell I will even take you telling me you’re having an affair because hey at least you’re talking to me. What she said next kinda rocked me. She said she loves me ate the father of her kids but she doesn’t love love me anymore and she’s been trying to figure out how to say it for months. She used me as a tool to get her orgasm, she took out all her frustration out on me, used me as a punching bag and it pissed her off knowing that no matter what she did, that I never stopped being warm. Never stopped being kind. Never stopped being thoughtful. Never for a day decided to stoop to her level. She thought that I was no longer interested in her physically since I stopped initiating the intimacy. I corrected her. She objectified my love of giving. She told me no too many times. She treated me like I was some idiot who at no point knew what I was doing when it came to every day tasks. No one wants to have sex with someone who is constantly making them feel unworthy. We came to the conclusion that we both are here for the kids. It’s unhealthy and not fair to either of us. It’s not fair to the kids. I’ve been watching single dad videos and looking at other subreddits, forums… basically everything and I’m terrified of the next steps. We both agreed that if divorce came the pass that we would be as amicable as possible for our kids. We don’t want any resentment or unkind feelings to get in the way of what’s best for them. I am already in therapy. I’m encouraging her to get some as well. I need to sleep but I haven’t slept right since. Even as Im writing this I’m in bed feeling pretty numb. I’ll respond to comments on here when I have the energy. I’ve been getting a lot of TikTok people so I made an account so I can read comments and respond there as well. Again. Thank you all for your support and advice. You have no idea how much it means. Edit. Noticed a couple of typos. kids went over on Christmas Eve Eve. We did Christmas Eve at her parents house. Christmas at my house. I apologize for the confusion there. Jan 27 I feel like I’m losing my mind lately. With everything going on with going through the motions of divorce, trying to get debt paid off, some medical issues going on with myself and my son, work… I’m just feeling like I’m constantly at the tipping point of my sanity. The only people I can normally vent to are mutual friends and I don’t want anything to get back to my wife. I’m afraid of the custody battle ahead of me with my kids. I’m frustrated all the time. I have a lack of motivation to keep up with my daily chores. I’m just spread really thin at this point and I have no idea what to do. Im trying to keep my head up and keep a brave face of the kids, but really I just feel like I’m drowning. Feb 6 I am at my wits end with this. For anyone who has been following my story, let’s all collectively heavy sigh. I’ve have had a migraine for almost week due to a pinched nerve in my back. It has been causing me a lot of discomfort. I got my kids cold over the weekend so let’s add in the sinus pressure of a cold and you got a recipe for a grumpy and strained person. I’m not the type of person to ask for help with chores or a break from my kiddos. However yesterday, during their nap time I decided to take one as well. The wife came and laid in bed with me and when the kids woke up about an hour and change later, I asked my wife if she would get them so I could rest a little more. A simple and eloquent “No.” came out. Okay then I got up got the kids, watched a movie and relaxed. Started up dinner, (approx 2 hours after I woke up) she came out and sits on the couch and I hear her scrolling through tik tok. I finish up dinner and she comes in the kitchen and goes “you know we have leftovers. Let’s just do that.” Since I made penne pasta, I just threw it in a glass pan and said sure we can have this tomorrow so I don’t have to cook. Fast forward to us putting Down the kids. After we did that, I asked If she would be willing to do the dishes for me. She laughed and said “no fucking way.” Okay well I’m not doing them either. This morning she sent me two pictures. One of the trash can which was full and the other of the full sink with the message “this is unacceptable.” Admittedly. I forgot to grab the trash this morning I did tell her I’d take it out but I genuinely forgot. I explained I’d take it out when I got home and do the dishes. Her response was “instead of being lazy and not doing anything. Next time just ask for help if you’re not feeling well.” When I read that message I audibly laughed. I texted back simply “I asked for help twice. Twice I was told no. I’ll handle it when I get home.” To which she sent a flurry of “oh I’m the worst partner. I’m just the shittiest. I’m a bad wife…. Etc.” I get if you don’t want to pull your weight but… now we out here gaslighting. I am reminded daily why I am on the exit pa th with this woman, but every single day I am more and more worried about what is gonna happen with me and my kids. I’m fighting for them obviously but to say it’s an uphill battle is a goddamn understatement. Feb 22 My (30m) wife (28f) thinks I have a low sex drive.. truth is… Final Update Hey all! I appreciate everyone of you for following along with me on this… journey.. I come bearing good news. To catch everyone up since the last update, it’s been your standard wife just vibing while I clean, cook, take care of the house, and everything else. For the past few weeks I’ve been working on myself. Working out, eating better, drinking more water, just really focusing on me when the kids aren’t around. Last night it really came to a head, however. I’ve been having a depressive spell the past few days and really just have no motivation for anything extra. She looked at me and asked me “Why do you look so down these past couple of days.” It could have been the sleep deprivation, or depression, honestly I don’t know but I responded with “It’s really hard to be happy when you’re around.” We sat for a little bit in silence and I just told her that I’m tired of constantly being belittled, yelled at, treated like I’m never good enough while she sits on her perch and a broken record and barks orders. I told her I know we don’t want the kids in daycare but we need to figure something out because I’m done. I don’t want to be in this marriage anymore. I don’t want to be her husband anymore. I don’t know what I’m gonna do next. I don’t know what the future holds. What I do know is I’m going to be going through with the divorce. I deserve happiness. I deserve to be loved. I’m terrified of the upcoming battle for my kids. I’m excited to renter the dating pool… kinda.. not exactly. But again.. all of you, thank you for your kind messages and support. I’ll be sure to check in from time to time. I think this is still ongoing, even though OOP is declaring this the final update. Let me know if you disagree Reminder, DO NOT comment on the original posts or contact the original poster. I am not the original poster. This is a repost. submitted by /u/KittenDealinMama to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]

So there was that awesome Reddit thread with a bunch of ADHD'ers sharing real tips that have changed their life. I thought it was a great change from most advice on the internet which is written by non-ADHD'ers (and it's painfully obvious that it is). I read through the 700+ comments and paraphrased, merged and categorised all the tips. ​ The 131 tips are split into the following categories: General Cleaning Memory Time Blindness Distractions Getting Things Done Emotional Dysregulation Sleep Relationships Work School Executive Function Nutrition/Medication General Pack things the day before so you don’t forget ~ (u/digi-cow) Don’t drink alcohol. Causes brain fog and it can negatively interact with medications. Alcohol can even cause ADHD-like symptoms in non-ADHD people ~ (u/HiTechTek, u/beatadhd) Do Cardio before you need to do stuff that requires sitting. It helps you focus. ~ (u/robertaloblaw, u/beatadhd) Use text-to-speech generators to help you read webpages/books ~ (u/elliptical_orbit) Keep things at eye level (Especially notes/todo lists) ~ (u/asmugone) Be stupidly early to places just in case you forget something ~ (u/asmugone) Stretch once in awhile. ~ (u/theweirdo_nextdoor) Take a deep breath. ~ (u/theweirdo_nextdoor) Take a cold shower in the morning or turn it cold just for 30-60 seconds at the end of your shower. Wakes you up, gets your blood flowing and gets you out of the shower. ~ (u/Juan_Creamsicle, u/beatadhd) Get a therapist if you can. ~ (u/fineandnormal) If you aren’t diagnosed: Actually get a diagnosis and a therapeutic programme that works for you. Don’t spend more time wondering - you’ll still feel like an imposter afterwards, don’t worry… ~ (u/Little_Blue_Shed) Most important for me has been telling myself all I need to do is floss. Usually you'll end up chaining the rest of your night routine tasks like brushing onto that. ~ (u/amazona_auropalliata) Buy a whiteboard to sketch out things when your mind starts going into overdrive. ~ (u/bkmilli) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Enjoy the journey more than the destination, don’t be in a hurry to finish something you are doing, but always at least do something small everyday. Life is not a race, rather, it is an accumulation of smaller improvements to oneself. ~ (u/ksettle) People are in such a rush these days… You can’t expect to become a superhuman overnight. Focus on sustainability first and enjoy the journey. Cleaning Have a designated spot for every single item (Put it in the same place every time) ~ (u/BrownShoeJenny) Have a “misc” basket in each room. If you’re truly unable to put something away, put it in the basket. Have a designated period of time, once a week, when your sole priority is to put everything away, all at once. ~ (u/lexid22) Whenever you lose something that you “put away,” start keeping it in the first place you looked for it. ~ (u/FullDisclosureDaemon) In order to not get overwhelmed when cleaning, remember there are only 5 things you need to tackle: Trash, Laundry, Dishes, Putting things back that have a place, Put things in a pile that don’t have a place. ~ (u/mmc09) If you’re moving from one room to another, take the item with you that needs to go to the other room. It’s already on your way and it’s one less thing cluttering your room. ~ (u/SweetTeaBags) If you can afford it: Get a cleaning person; It takes them 3 hours to do what you can do in 3 weeks. While they are there, use them as an accountability buddy and sort out your misc tasks like paying bills. ~ (u/swarleyknope) Embrace chaos. Let your brain get distracted when you’re cleaning. Cleaning dishes and stop spare trash? It’s fine go clean that and then get back to the dishes ~ (u/DobbythehouseElff) Have a dedicated playlist for cleaning. High tempo songs help keep you moving. ~ (u/DobbythehouseElff) Do chores before you go to bed. No matter what your routine is, you have to go to bed at some point. You can “habit-chain” cleaning into going to bed. ~ (u/bkmilli) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Listen to podcasts/audiobooks when doing chores. My excitement to listen to a new episode of my favorite podcast motivates me to do boring stuff like dishes or laundry. (I personally listen to podcasts) ~ (u/dani-tp) Cleaning became so easy once I started using a “side” to stimulate my brain. I’m mostly watching TV shows when I clean right now (this also works for cooking!) . Memory Having a tablet like an iPad Pro is helpful for keeping colorful notes. Avoids issues losing notebooks ~ (u/zombiessalad) Park in the same place every time when you go to a common place. You won’t forget where you park that way ~ (u/gibbousboi) Keep a spare house key in your car and one outside your house. ~ (u/GoodGuyVik) Keep important items in visible and convenient locations. e.g: Take pills when you eat? Keep your bottle beside your table where you eat. ~ (u/girlabout2fallasleep) Get a Tile. Bluetooth GPS trackers that are a game changer for ADHD people that lose keys/wallets. ~ (u/fizzzzzpop) Tape your most often made recipes to the inside of your kitchen cabinet doors. ~ (Unknown) Three point check when you close the front door: Phone, wallet, keys ~ (u/cowboyhugbees) Use voice assistants. “Remind me to do X tomorrow at Y time” ~ (u/theviciousfish) Use the mind palace memory exercise to help solve retention issues. ~ (u/asmugone) Keep forgetting your lunch? Put your keys on it. That way you can’t leave without your lunch ~ (u/Therealdickbut, u/Maktube, u/mismanager) If you need to remember to bring something with you the next day, place it right in front of the exit door so you HAVE to touch it before you leave the house. If it’s something in the fridge, put a sticky note on the exit door’s handle. ~ (u/lexid22) Buy multiple items that you use often. Setup multiple chargers at work/home (so you have a spare if you lose one). e.g. buy 10 different lip balms so you can always find it when you need it. ~ (u/redbananass) Have convenient, labeled spaces for things. It’s hard to forget your phone when you ALWAYS put it beside your charger. (Use a cheap labelmaker!) ~ (u/TotallyLegitEstoc, u/nathanb131) Get a tracking tool like Tile and put it on things you lose regularly. (Keys/Wallet) ~ (u/3GrilledJalapenos) Have rules for placement of the important things in your life. (it’s too hard to do it for everything) ~ (u/nathanb131) Create a second brain for yourself - in whatever way is most appealing to you. (I personally use Notion) ~ (u/significanttoday) If you want to remember something, put an object out-of-place whilst thinking about what you want to remember. ~ (u/VectorGambiteer) Count your steps as you walk into a new room. It’ll help you remember why you entered that room. It gives you something to focus on but it’s not too much that you’ll get distracted. (This is similar to many forms of counting meditations too) ~ (u/bethknowsbest) Use a bowl to throw your keys, badges, and wallet into when you get home. That way you can’t leave without ALL the stuff you need. ~ (u/pockunit) ALWAYS have a bag with the essentials. On mine a have my keys, charger, papers and even tooth brush. If I’m going out, I do not waste time searching for everything. Just search for a bag. ~ (u/sdjrp) Make a calendar entry for every scheduled thing religiously unless it’s routine like a 9-5 job. Make the calendar entry immediately while making the appointment. Do this for parties, birthdays, dates, finals, med refills, trash night, etc. ~ (u/percyjeandavenger) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Use Spaced Repetition to study for your exams, remember things about people in your life, and literally everything you can possibly make a flashcard for. ~ (u/beatadhd) Is it narcisstic to put my own tip as a favourite? Well who cares, it works! Spaced repetition is fantastic and honestly feels like cheating*. There are a lot of free tools out there which work great. I’m currently using my own private tool* 😉 Time Blindness Set your phone clock 10-15 mins fast on purpose ~ (u/Anonredditthoughts) Put appointments in your calendar 10-20 minutes earlier than the actual appointment ~ (u/Alyscupcakes) A schedule is only as good as the alarms and info you put in ~ (u/asmugone) Set timers for activites you hyperfocus on. BUT set the timer for X minutes less than the task takes. (Give yourself time to wrap up whatever you’re working on) Additional Protip: Use this on a watch rather than your phone to avoid getting distracted. A basic watch/smart watch will save your life. ~ (u/dinamyte519) Download an app on your phone that chimes and buzzes every half an hour during your awake time. Keeps you aware of how much time has passed. ~ (u/Frosty172) Track your time. Every morning, write out a todo list by hand and track the time taken for each task. (Write down the time whenever you take a break or switch tasks) - I personally use Toggl to track my time ~ (u/ImprovedMeyerLemon) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Get an electric toothbrush with a timer. ADHD people have time blindness and it’ll make sure you brush for at least two minutes. ~ (u/insaxon) Yes. Two minutes can feel like two hours for me. Or I’ll brush for 20 seconds and think five minutes has passed. I can’t trust my brain, so I started using an electric toothbrush with a timer Distractions Disable all your notifications on your phone except for essential apps (Texting, Voicemail, Calendar) ~ (u/kee_kee) Use website blockers for distracting websites (I use Cold Turkey, Freedom and News Feed removers for social media + Youtube) ~ (u/elliptical_orbit) Get a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones + non-distracting music/audio ~ (u/elliptical_orbit, u/michaeltheobnoxious) If you can’t stop yourself from answering that text/email/IM right away but don’t actually have time to deal with it, tell the person you’ll respond when you get a minute. ~ (u/theweirdo_nextdoor) Your brain focuses better after some exercise. Cardio works best ~ (u/unofficialuser112) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Use a noise-cancelling headset and listen to music/white noise/brown noise. Enables hyperfocus and blocks out distractions (“I don’t regret getting diagnosed late, but I do regret getting noise cancelling headphones that late in life.”) ~ (u/rn7889) Stop scrolling right now and go buy the noise-cancelling headset. A noise-cancelling headset + some noise like music/brown noise is essential if you have ADHD. Feel free to thank me later once your life changes. If the headset isn't in your budget: Brown noise + earphones will get you 80% of the way there. Getting Things Done If you have an Android: Put a widget from your todo list app on your home screen so it’s the first thing you see ~ (u/kee_kee) Break tasks down into as many smaller tasks as you need for it to feel manageable. ~ (u/theweirdo_nextdoor) Learn to plan around transitions. It’s easier to start things if you chain them with another task that is ending. ~ (u/lexid22) Use the pomodoro technique for everything. It’s great having a break to look forward to. ~ (u/ontapeina_sthrnaccnt) Remember that something is better than nothing. If you only get 26% of a task done then it’s further than if you never started. It’s better to do little bits of every task rather than procrastinating. ~ (u/xxxistentialist) Attach numbers to events. e.g: Going to bed (3) - Brush, Floss, Mouthwash. ~ (u/Frosty172) Lie to yourself. I’ll tell myself that I’m just going to unload one dish from the dishwasher. Once I’ve started, I’ll at least unload a few, and maybe clean the whole kitchen. ~ (u/coffeeclichehere) Decide what you’re going to do each day beforehand, preferably while your meds are at their workingest. Make sure it’s only 1 thing. ~ (u/optimisticaspie) Understand that FUTURE YOU IS STILL YOU. If you think you’ll do something later, understand that future you is still you. Future you isn’t more likely to muster up the desire to do the work. f you don’t have the motivation to do it in the next 24 hours then future you probably won’t either. ~ (u/Moon_In_Scorpio) When you need to transition between tasks, pretend that you are talking to a friend who is having issues with something. Give yourself a nudge and remind yourself it’s time to switch tasks/get started. (Detach yourself from the task) ~ (u/Gerryislandgirl) When you take breaks, make sure your break isn’t too interesting. That way you won’t get absorbed in your break. Just clean during your break or something like that. ~ (u/Treppenwitz_shitz) Gamify things and set a limited amount of time to accomplish something. e.g: Brew your coffee and get as many chores done as you can before the coffee is finished brewing. ~ (u/strngrsstpngstngrs) Write TODO lists as a brain dump. And then order them in importance or the order you want to do them in. That way you don’t pause while writing down tasks. ~ (u/strngrsstpngstngrs) Don’t be afraid to stimulate yourself if you need it. Listen to a podcast or music to get yourself to do something. ~ (u/fineandnormal) Reward yourself when you get things done. Positive Reinforcement is good and you’ll feel like getting more things done. ~ (u/prince-ali-but-short) Change your environment and work from a place where there are fewer distractions. e.g: Cafe/library. You’ll get more stuff done ~ (u/humbled_lightbringer) Set a time to do work, and a time to relax; that way you don’t feel guilty about relaxing during the time you set aside for yourself. ~ (u/talking_face) Change your alarm sounds/timer sounds frequently, but use alarms and timers as much as possible. ~ (u/Little_Blue_Shed) Treat timers and alarms like non-negotiable laws. When the timer goes off, doesn’t matter what you were doing seconds ago, it’s time to go. Half showered, wet hair, one eye done, whatever it is, you’re out the door. ~ (Unknown) 🌟 My Favourite: Body doubling - if you need to do some work that requires focus without much fun, have someone in the room with you. They could be working too, or not. Just having them there makes everything just a little more interesting and a little more accountable. ~ (u/Creebjeez) I feel like a lot of people are missing some sort of accountability system in their lives. I don’t do body doubling but I use Beeminder to keep me accountable. Emotional Dysregulation Brain dump in a notebook by your bed every night. ~ (u/ALyscupcakes) Don’t feel bad about sucking at school/work. You’ll get better as you learn more strategies for coping with ADHD. Things get better ~ (u/astrozork321) Use writing/journaling as cognitive therapy to defuse emotional history ~ (u/Tman1307) Remind yourself that the world won’t end if a few things fall behind. ~ (u/theweirdo_nextdoor) Write a reverse todo-list. Write down the things you have accomplished for the day. That way you won’t feel overwhelmed and it’ll make you feel better. ~ (u/SuspiciousEchidna) You’re allowed to let things go. Forget irrelevant things and forgive yourself. Ignore the awkward thing you did last week. Life will move on. ~ (u/bitetheboxer, u/optimisticaspie) Forgive yourself for your limits. ~ (u/3GrilledJalapenos) Meditation. Active breaks for people that struggle to take breaks. Use a meditation app when you’re starting. Like Headspace ~ (u/Juan_Creamsicle) Start working on letting go of shame. It depresses your motivation and only makes things worse. You wouldn’t shame someone in a wheelchair for not getting things done, your difficulty is in your brain instead of your legs but it’s no less real. ~ (u/percyjeandavenger) Cognitive Behavioural Therapy + meditation ~ (u/beatadhd) 🌟 My Favourite: You’re allowed to let things go. Forget irrelevant things and forgive yourself. Ignore the awkward thing you did last week. Life will move on. ~ (u/bitetheboxer, u/optimisticaspie) Stop hating yourself. Don’t look at the future. Don’t look at the past. Look at the present. I used to always hate myself for being so unproductive. I realised how pointless that was and I started to focus on improving myself in the present. Sleep Put your phone on the other side of the room and make your alarm super loud. Gets you out off bed and will make you turn it off so you don’t wake other people up. ~ (u/Valendr0s) If you’re having trouble getting out of bed then set a timer on your phone for 5 minutes and chuck it across the room. It’ll force you to get up and turn it off. ~ (u/PMDicksInTinyClothes) Buy 2 bright lamps and 2 timers. Set them up to turn on automatically 5-15min before you want your alarm to go off in the morning. The lights help your body know its daytime ~ (u/lexid22) Change your thermostat so the temperature goes down an hour before bedtime and gets warmer 30 minutes before you wake up. The cooler temperatures get your body to sleep and the warmer temperatures help you wake up ~ (u/lexid22) Use a reminder app for starting your bedtime routine, not just your bedtime. (And have a bedtime routine) ~ (u/3GrilledJalapenos) Try setup meetings/commitments early in the morning. They'll force you to get out of bed ~ (u/beatadhd) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Set two alarms when you get up in the morning. One to get out of bed and one for your medication. e.g: 5:30 AM wake up and take medication and then fall back to bed. By your 6AM alarm you’ll have waken up and your meds will have kicked in ~ (u/BizzarduousTask) What a great lifehack. I’ve been doing this the past few days (except I don’t wake up at 6AM) - it works pretty well. Also I throw my phone on the other side of the room so it forces me to get out of bed. Relationships It’s okay to be in a room with people and just let people breathe. You don’t need to fill the silence. ~ (u/asmugone) When having a conversation or learning something, repeat every word the person says in your head. It’ll help you not drift off as much. It also makes it so you’ll interrupt people less. ~ (u/TheNocturne) Try to avoid the word 'but' when faced with a conflict. Instead try be constructive towards arguments/discussions with the word 'and'. ~ (u/beatadhd) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: For maintaining eye contact: Imagine a red dot on someone’s nose for intense focus. Bridge of the nose for paying attention. ~ (u/asmugone) Haven’t tried this one but I used to have trouble with eye contact a few years ago so this stood out to me. I’m pretty good with eye contact now, but I’ll be trying it over the next few weeks anyway. Work If you hate your job. Make a job switch. It’ll help you make positive changes in your life. ~ (u/Mooberry_) Find a job that works WITH your system. If you can’t wake up and be functional in the morning then stop trying. Find a job that doesn’t need you to wake up in the morning. Stop beating yourself up over things your brains isn’t designed for ~ (u/obxunseeker) Be self-employed and start a business. “No matter where I worked or what I did, I was constantly watching the clock, hating every single second of it. On Saturday I worked 27 straight hours to finish a job on time and it was still less painful than working an 8 hour shift as an employee. Those 27 hours disappeared and left me feeling gratified because I made someone’s house beautiful and I got to see how happy I made her the first time she saw her new home.” ~ (u/jake7697) When promising a timescale to a client, double or triple the amount of time that you initially think it will take. That way worst case scenario, you will finish it on deadline and meet expectations or best case, finish before and exceed expectations. ~ (u/Somewhereonabike) The moment you know you aren’t going to make a deadline, let the client know and again give them an overestimate of time for new deadline. People are always understanding and appreciative for this quick communication. ~ (u/Somewhereonabike) Reply to emails and messages when you read them. 99% of the time, days and weeks will go by if you tell yourself that you’ll reply later on… ~ (u/Somewhereonabike) Be honest about your limitations and own your shit. Most people have no idea how much adhd affects so many things and therefore can’t understand our inability to do basic things at times. Especially if you come across as smart and creative, they can misplace our struggles for laziness and lack of care. If you fuck up own it, explain why and apologise. It doesn’t have to be long winded but it is important to state how you aim to rectify the situation and again. ~ (u/Somewhereonabike) Stop comparing your output and motivation to others and embrace a slower, more considered, creative one. You are not other people. You are you. Trying to jam your freeform, 12 sided shape into the round hole is painful and won’t work. You don’t need a hole, you need self acceptance. ~ (u/Somewhereonabike) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Learn to say no to taking on things that you know may cause you stress and excess pressure just because it’s money. It is not worth it, just put the boundaries that will save your mental health in the first place and you won’t have to deal with the fallout later. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. ~ (u/Somewhereonabike) God yes… ADHD people have a dangerous habit of overcommitting to stuff. Personally I think I just forget that I’m already working on X, Y and Z. Sustainability is important - don’t overcommit. School Use Active Recall + Spaced Repetition to study for all your exams. I've seen countless people go from C's to straight A's after adopting them ~ (u/beatadhd) If you're finding it difficult to start assignments early then ONLY read + annotate the assignment brief early and go take a break after that. Your subconscious should process the information and it'll be easier to start later on. ~ (u/beatadhd) It’s better to turn in an assignment that is 75% done. It’ll drag your grades down less than if you never turned it in ~ (u/bitetheboxer) Print out lectures and powerpoints in advance (ask the teacher for them). That way you won’t need to listen and write at the same time. You can annotate the printed versions instead. ~ (u/strngrsstpngstngrs) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Visit your school's inclusivity and disability team. They will hopefully have policies for helping people with ADHD ~ (u/beatadhd) This is something I never took advantage of while at University, but I probably should have. A few assignment extensions when my meds stopped working would have saved me from countless all nighters… Executive Function Setup a morning routine + a reset routine. A reset routine is something you do when you're feeling super unfocused. Mine consists of meditation, exercise, journaling, playing music and making some tea. ~ (u/beatadhd) If it takes less than ten minutes to do the task, just do it immediately. ~ (u/Zzazu) Have a uniform for work, social and casual scenarios. Don’t mix your work clothes with your casual clothes. ~ (u/3GrilledJalapenos) If you start to feel frustrated for no reason, eat something and keep yourself hydrated. (Self-care flowchart) ~ (u/enjakuro) it’s better to half-ass most things than it is to not do them at all. ~ (u/coffeclichehere) Set alarms using music rather than the default alarm sounds. It’ll help you get going. (And music releases norepinephrine in your brain!) ~ (u/redditraptor6) Make yourself kits for common repeated household tasks. e.g: Cleaning Kit, Package mailing kit… Reduces the friction needed to get started on a task ~ (u/sonjavalentine) Refine your routine and rituals to reduce the overall time it takes to get them ready. Reduce the friction needed to start your morning routine. e.g: Prepare a filled pot of coffee the night before. ~ (u/lazyoracle) Set just a few non-negotiable standards and laws for yourself. Pick those that improve your life the most. e.g: No phone in bed at night or in the morning. Not even a quick email check. And read your goals every morning. ~ (u/AllsFarrin) When you’re trying to get started on a task: Write down the steps you’ve already done and the steps you plan to do next. Helps a lot with spaghetti thoughts ~ (u/qui_gone_Gym) Drink a big glass of water when you know you are going to have to start doing a thing in a bit. When you inevitably have to go pee, start after you wash your hands. You are already up and your brain already had to switch gears. Use it as momentum. ~ (u/percyjeandavenger) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: On tough days. Use the 1-thing theory. Just try and accomplish just one-thing for that day. e.g. Clean the kitchen. ~ (u/soggysocks63, u/GoodGuyVik) A bit less life-hacky compared to the others but I’ve found that getting started is a lot easier when you only have a single priority. ​ Nutrition/Medication If you are Vitamin D deficient then take Vitamin D supplements (see a doctor first). It’ll help your mood and energy levels. ~ (u/ImprovedMeyerLemon) Eat lots of protein and stay hydrated. ~ (u/chlordane_zero) Figure out if you're deficient in anything and try fix those things. This includes getting a food allergy test, figuring out deficiencies and eating a healthy diet. ~ (u/beatadhd) ​ 🌟 My Favourite: Use a 7-day pill organiser with AM/PM slots and put your medication and supplements there. ~ (u/ImprovedMeyerLemon) I know a lot of people have issues with remembering if they took their medication. This is an easy, simple and cheap fix. submitted by /u/beatadhd to r/ADHD [link] [comments]