u/Far-Season-695

I (39M) have been married to my wife (38F) for 12 years, and we have two young kids. A couple of years ago, my wife admitted she was feeling sexually unsatisfied in our marriage. I have an extremely small penis, so I already knew where the conversation was heading. I had tried my best with oral and hands and different objects but it was clear she just wanted to experience a normal penis. I asked her to please just be honest if that was the reason. She hesitated for a while, but eventually admitted that yes, it was.

I asked her if she wanted an open relationship so she could get those needs met elsewhere. She started crying and said she never wanted to hurt me, but she admitted she had thought about it before. I told her I loved her, I didn’t want to lose our family, and that if this was what she needed, then I could accept it. My only conditions were to be safe and to spare me the details.

It’s now been two years. Our marriage is pretty good, all things considered. We still have sex, she’s affectionate with me, we go on vacations, have regular date nights, our kids are happy, and she constantly tells me how grateful she is that I was willing to make such a huge sacrifice for our family.

As for me, I don’t think many women would be interested in a balding middle aged guy with two kids and an extremely small penis so I haven’t really explored the open relationship arrangement. Some days it really hurts to think about it, knowing my wife being intimate with someone else, but most of the times I just push those thoughts aside and focus on everything else that’s good in my life.

One thing I’ve realized since my wife opened the relationship is that I really like feeling wanted and appreciated. It doesn’t have to be romantic. Just feeling like I matter to someone. I’m very close with my younger sister. She’s a single mom with two young kids after her husband passed away five years ago. I helped her however I could after he died. But over the last couple of years I’ve become extremely close with my niece and nephew. They cry when I leave, they ask when I’m coming back, and I honestly adore them.

Financially, I’m fortunate enough to do well. My wife and I have a joint account for household expenses, but we also each have our own individual accounts. I use money from my personal account to spoil my sister’s family. I take the kids on fun trips, buy them expensive birthday and Christmas presents, and recently I even bought my sister a new car because hers was constantly breaking down.

My sister is obviously super grateful about everything and she always cooks me my favorite food, pasta, lasagna, key lime pies, seafood etc. She’s always pretty emotional and a lot of times just cries and thanks me for having a bond with her kids, and being a father like presence in their lives. She also gives me thoughtful gifts, like for example on my birthday she gave me a hand embroidered quilt which she spent an entire year working on.

Last night my wife told me she thinks I’ve gone too far. She said she wishes I’d spend more of that money on experiences for our own family instead of constantly giving it to my sister and her kids.

I completely lost my temper. I told her she should have some shame bringing this up considering our open marriage arrangement, where she’s free to be intimate with other people. I told she should be extra grateful I’m even still here after everything we’ve been through, and that I never wanted to have this conversation again. I told her she seriously stepped over the line, and I was pretty pissed and left the bedroom and went to the couch.

She was obviously shocked, and then followed me to the couch, started apologizing over and over, and admitted she’d crossed a line. She said she wasn’t trying to criticize everything I’ve done for my sister, just that she missed doing more things as a family. I told her to have some shame, and that yes my sister is my family too, and there’s no reason I need to prioritize one or the other.

I asked her to have some shame and asked her where does she get the audacity asking for family time knowing she’s riding another dude’s dick while being married. I told my wife to leave me alone, and my wife broke down in tears and apologized again and left.

Now that I’ve cooled off, I apologized to my wife for losing my temper. My wife said I was right, and that she took this arrangement for granted and she had no right to bring it up.

Was I wrong for losing my temper?

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Sudowiec

The sleeping Jeremy pic destroyed my relationship

Originally posted to r/phineasandferb

Thanks to u/jayclaw97 for suggesting this BoRU

TRIGGER WARNING: >!Mental health struggles!<

Original Post Apr 3, 2025

Hello everyone. I would like to share this story as a warning and maybe to soothe myself a bit in this situation.

I (23 M) have been in a relationship with my girlfriend (23 F) for over 3 years. We had our ups and downs throughout the years but we've always managed to talk things through and communicate.

One improtant thing for the story is that I have a pretty sarcastic and "mean" sense of humour. I laugh at people and may act disrespectful but only as a joke. All my friends know about that and usually they don't get offended. Alright, there were situations where I went too far but it was rare and I always tried to make it up afterwards.

Lately I saw a few posts on this sub with the picture of Jeremy sleeping on the couch. I found it really hillarious and started using it as a reaction pic. Mostly in situations when people were ranting or writing too much text about something. You know, like a "too much yapping, too long, fell asleep" meme. Usually no one paid much attention to it but I couldn't not burst a laugh whenever I saw this pic.

Unfortunately one day I think I failed reading the room. My girlfriend was visiting her family that lives in another city so she was away for the weekend. At one point she texted me a block of text about her family situation. Her parents divorcing and her aunt getting sick or something like that, I don't remember exactly. I wasn't paying much attention to the text as I was in the middle of a game so I just sent the Jeremy sleeping pic as a joke.

Then she started sending text after text, about how I don't treat anything seriously, about me making stupid jokes about everything, that she can't count on me and stuff like this. And for some reason I thought that it would be very funny to send the pic AGAIN. And in my stupidity I did just that. Sent the Jeremy sleeping pic. Again. I know it's dumb but at that time I really thought it will be funny.

She blocked me after that. I tried texting her on other social media and calling her phone but she didn't pick up. When she came home the next day she immediately started packing up. I apologized multiple times and said it was just a stupid joke but she didn't listen. She packed her stuff, took our cat and left.

Didn't hear from her since. I think she also changed her phone number as I kept trying to call her. Our friends stopped talking to me as well. I'm afraid I'm gonna get evicted soon as she was paying most of the rent. All of that because of the picture of Jeremy sleeping.

And that's the story. If I want you to remember one thing from me is to be careful with your jokes. Take care everyone.

The pic mentioned

Update July 22, 2026 (Nearly 16 months later)

Hello everyone.

As I noticed my old post gaining views, reposts and even people on youtube talking about it I decided to write a follow-up. At first I was hesitant but some of you were curious about how’s it going for me so here it is.

Let’s start at the beginning. Shortly after writing the original post I actually got evicted. My income wasn’t enough to support the rent so I had to move back to my parents’ apartment. Can't say they were happy about the situation but at least they allowed me to sleep on the couch until I find a new place for myself.

I have to say - losing my apartment, the breakup and the fact that majority of my friends turned their back on me got me pretty depressed. I had trouble getting up for work, at some point I even took some time off. I told my parents that I wanted to focus on finding a new apartment but in reality I just couldn’t get up from the couch. I tried reaching my ex gf wherever she didn't block me, at one point I even drove to her current place but she didn't let me in and her flatmate told me to basically get lost.

Honestly I don't know where I would be now if not for one of my friends who still talks to me from time to time. They said that maybe I should meet new people, find a new partner or something. They suggested a dating app or going to a board games club at my university. At first I was hesitant but at some point I said “what the hell” and went with it.

I'll skip the app stuff cause it’s neither interesting nor important. Just a bunch of dead-end conversations with random people or bots. The board games club on the other hand was a great idea. It was so refreshing to go there once a week for a few hours and just chill with people. My mental state actually got better and I met some like-minded people.

At one point I started talking with one girl who would come on the same day as I. We had our first longer conversation after she beat my ass in MTG. Turns out we had many similar interests and hobbies so we started texting and talking outside of the club. We became good friends, even went on a “date” or two. After some time I actually started developing feelings for her but I couldn’t really tell if they were mutual.

Then there was one week that was exceptionally bad. I failed an important exam at uni because I had to do overtime at work, got into a big argument with my parents and my depression started manifesting again. I didn't go to the club meeting and I was kinda avoiding the aforementioned girl. I just didn't have energy to talk plus I felt uncomfortable with not knowing how she felt about me. And on friday evening when I was doomscrolling on the couch she sent me a long text.

She said a lot of things, mainly that she likes me but she’s not sure if we should go further with our relationship, considering my mental state and her own problems. I read it all and in my terrible mood I decided “fuck it, if it has to go, let it go with a bang” so… I sent her a Jeremy sleeping pic.

I know what you think. Yes, it was an asshole move. But I was so done with it all that I decided that I deserve at least a bit of fun in this whole situation. However, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. I expected an angry text, instant block and all the stuff but instead… she sent back a laughing emoji. She said that she’s just realized that she genuinly loves my sense of humour and that I always know how to cheer her up. She apologized for the long text, said she’s also had a rough week and we should talk about our relationship in person.

Long story short - we’ve been together for six months now. We’ve managed to find an apartment with decent enough rent and we’re looking forward to adopting a cat together. The Jeremy sleeping pic became kind of an inside joke for us, we still send it to each other every now and then. I can honestly say, I've never been happier.

So this is it. I find it funny how once the Jeremy sleeping pic destroyed my relationship but then it saved another. Maybe it’s never been about the pic itself but more about how it’s used and in what context. Who can tell? What's important is that it all ended well.

Thanks for reading everyone, take care.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

My fiance (27M) and I (25F) are getting married this October. We are both obviously very excited but I'm having trouble coming to terms with the fact that almost none of my fiance's family are going to attend. So far pretty much everyone from his family that we invited have declined except for his parents and grandparents.

His siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. All RSVP'd "no". I know he is hurt by this and I feel this intense urge to contact some of them and ask them why they are not attending but he has told me repeatedly not to do that.

My fiance is the youngest of his siblings by a few years. All of his siblings live kind of far from where we are getting married so I get travel is an inconvenience but it's not like we're having a destination wedding, we're just getting married close to where we live. I understand his siblings have kids and jobs and lives too but this is their brother's wedding!

I will admit that we are planning on having a somewhat non-traditional wedding. Neither my fiance nor I drink so we are not serving alcohol. We don't want to be paying extra hundreds or more for alcohol that we won't drink. The wedding will also be child-free because both of us have been to weddings with kids running around crazy all day and neither of us want that. Also, our wedding is being held at an organic farm so we are having an all-vegan menu for the food. I understand those things are not everyone's cup of tea but it's who we are and we want our wedding to be a reflection of who we are as a couple to really celebrate us on that day.

We've heard through my fiance's parents that his siblings are using their kids and their school schedules as an excuse as to why they can't attend. But if their kids can't attend the wedding anyway what does their school schedule even matter? It makes no sense to me. I have this sense of dread that when the ceremony starts my side of the aisle will be filled and my fiance's will have like 4 people and I'm worried he'll feel humiliated and embarrassed.

Since my fiance and I have been together we've attended 2 of his older siblings weddings. My fiance was in the wedding party for both of them. We aren't doing traditional wedding parties, just my best friend and my fiance's best friend as maid-of-honor and best-man. We traveled for both of those weddings too, although his parents did help us out with some travel expenses to make it easier on us.

I just don't understand how they can be so unsupportive when we've always made an effort to be there for them on their big days and now ours is coming up and they're all just ok skipping it. None of it sits right with me and I'm trying really hard not to take it personally or to call them out on it.

My fiance tries to play it off like everything is ok but I know it bothers him and I'm worried that it will only get worse as we get closer and that the actual wedding day will be a tipping point for him when he actually sees how many people didn't show up for him. His family is normally very close and supportive so this is really out of character for them and I just don't understand it.

I (46F) am married to my wife (45F). We have two kids. One girl (17F) and one boy (16 M) My daughter plays softball and my son does soccer. Both are athletic and have friends and are social. When they were little I brought them fishing with me on the boat. They had no interest and wouldn't even try it because it looked hard. I said whatever and didn't push. As they grew I noticed a pattern everytime they saw something hard they wouldn't even attempt to try it. The only reason they play sports is because it came easy to them. But other than that they don't do anything else. My wife and I make enough money to live comfortably and our kids are just expecting to get cars.

I spoke with my wife and told her about how I think they should work to get their cars. They have to go out on the boat and just catch one fish. Doesn't matter the size just follow our state regulations. I would even go with them to help. But all they have to do is try. My wife says its odd and my kids think it's completely unfair. I told them they just have to catch something. So reddit AITAH?

My car was in the shop for a couple of weeks, so my girlfriend let me use hers to get to work. She works from home so she didn't really need it during the day.

I work at a waste recycling facility. Instead of parking in the employee car park, I've always parked in a field at the back where I work because it's a much shorter walk. I've been doing it for almost four years and nobody has ever said anything.

Unfortunately, I borrowed my girlfriend's Mini Cooper instead of my usual car. One of the guys driving the CAT machines saw it parked in the field and assumed it was waiting to be recycled. He crushed it with a bulldozer before anyone realised it wasn't scrap. He wasn't required to crush it or move it at the time and was just having fun.

My girlfriend's insurance denied the claim because they said the car was deliberately crushed, so it wasn't covered as an accident. My employer also refused to pay because they said I wasn't parked in the designated employee parking area.

Now my girlfriend says I need to buy her a brand new Mini Cooper.

I think that's unreasonable. While it was in greay condition, her car was already four years old. I'm willing to contribute towards replacing it with something sensible, but I don't think buying a brand new Mini is justified.

Honestly, I think they're overpriced for such a small car anyway, and if I'm paying for it I'd rather help her get a reliable used car than spend loads on a new one.

She says the whole thing only happened because I borrowed her car, so I should replace it with what she actually had, not what I think is a better financial decision. She basically almost never used her car besides weekend leisure trips and I said she can use mine meanwhile.

[removed]

Hi, so I only posted my original post yesterday so I did not expect to have an update so fast. But I wasn't really able to respond to a lot of the comments because so much has happened these past 24 hours. Unfortunately this is not the update I wanted to give, but people were so kind to give me advice that I think it is only fair to inform everybody about what has happened.

To to answer a few questions I saw: Lily and her husband have been arguing the past 3 months since James found out I am his biological father. James never told me specifically how Lily's husband reacted but I have a feeling that the reaction was not good. Prior to James doing an ancestry DNA test, Lily's husband was a great father to him. James did not live with us full time but he often stayed at our house to get away from the arguing.

Okay now onto the update. After I made that post yesterday, Blake came and spoke to me about some incidents that have happened with James the past 3 months. Unfortunately James has some views that our family does not agree with, and Blake is a gay man (He is fine with me sharing this information) so he was a target of James's views. Leading to some really rude interactions the past few months. The only reason Blake told me now is because he heard from James that James did not want to invite Blake on the camping trip. Blake had tried to keep the peace these past 3 months bless him but James not wanting him to come camping.

Obviously I was angry at hearing how James had treated Blake. So I spoke to James this morning and confronted him about this topic. He didn't even deny his views, he tried to convince me that I should kick Blake out the house for this. I don't think this is the full reason he dislikes Blake but this doesn't help James's resentment.

As of right now I have told James he is not welcome back in my house whilst he still holds these views. Nor am I interested in forming a father-son bond with somebody who has these views. If and when James matures a bit he will be welcomed into our lives again but not right now.

Blake deserves to feel that his home is a safe space, James is not welcome back here. I am taking Danny and Blake on the camping trip because they do still want to go camping.

I have empathy for James's family situation but at the end of the day, I do not tolerate that hatred in my life. This was not the update I wanted to give but that is the situation. Thank you for all of your advice.

Edit: I should add that James's views also include racism, my wife is black, Blake is black, Danny is mixed race and my daughter is mixed race. I do think James is more subtle about his racism in comparison to how openly homophobic he was towards Blake. But after I had a chat with James I did realise he does also have racist views.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/possibleotherwoman

My [25F] longtime best friend [25M] keeps messaging me from his honeymoon; I don't know how to end the friendship.

TRIGGER WARNING: >!Deception, infidelity!<

Original Post  Feb 25, 2016

This is a throwaway because I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get a lot of hateful messages and I want to protect my actual reddit identity.

---

Will and I have been friends since...pretty much forever. We literally grew up together. Our mothers are best friends, and we were raised by each other's families in this sort of semi-commune type situation. His mom is like a second mom to me, and mine is the same to him; we've both always said that we lucked out to have two sets of parents and this huge extended family because of it. I see him as a brother, exactly as a brother. I feel the same way about him as I do my bio-brothers. I've never had ANY romantic feelings for him, and it's honestly disgusting when people make jokes about that, to me. I always thought it was the same for him, because that's what he told me, several times over the years.

We all went to the same, local University and lived at home and by all, I mean me, my siblings, Will and his siblings, to save some money and because honestly it's a great school. So, because we stayed so close, we all met everyone's SOs and really got to know them. I clicked with Will's college girlfriend, Sarah, who he proposed to last year and married last week. I couldn't be happier for them, and to have Sarah as a "sister" in our weird little family, which is what makes this next part even worse, because I'm not sure how to handle this.

Will messaged me on their wedding night, and told me that he had always loved me, and had hoped that I'd feel the same way too, and he only got married to Sarah as a way to make me realize my feelings for him and fight for him. He had tried to provoke a reaction, and he didn't love her, he didn't want to be with her, and now he just wanted to tell me, because he'd leave her for me, if I wanted. I didn't know what to say so I just signed out of everything for the night and cried, because everything about that just made me feel sick, and it was too much. Just...too much to process. It was like my brother was admitting incestuous feelings for me.

He's messaged me throughout his honeymoon, almost all of them begging me to run away with him, and a few of them were blaming me for "leading him on", which still makes zero sense to me. I've never flirted with him. I act the same way around him as I do any of my siblings, literally nothing is different. He said that he'd always see me, in his head as "the other woman", and because of me, he'd never be able to fully love Sarah, who he admits is, on paper, his ideal spouse.

I don't know what to do, because both of us stand to lose a lot no matter how this all goes down. I'm afraid that I'm going to lose my family because of this, and not just his side. Everyone is close, and if I'm identified as "the problem", I'm afraid that I'm going to be pushed out, but maybe that's what needs to happen. I really don't know. Reddit, how the fuck do I deal with this hugely fucked up situation? I need some outside advice, and don't have anyone in my life who doesn't know any of the people involved in this.

Edit for more information. Sorry I didn't include this to begin with, but I'm not thinking 100% clearly right now, I still feel just terrible about everything. More info: Our families live in the same house, and our parents shared parenting duties for all children. When I called out for "Daddy" in the middle of the night as a little girl, both Dads came running, for example. Our families are so intertwined, and always have been, and I feel like Will just handed me this huge bomb. I think there's going to be massive fall out from this, and that breaks my heart. We're all very close and tightly knit. I keep cycling between sad, angry and betrayed. I'm upset because I feel like he's tasking me with breaking Sarah's heart, and I hate him for that right now. I love Sarah, possibly more than he does at this point.    tl;dr: Best friend who is essentially my brother admitted feelings for me, wants me to run away with him, and I'm disgusted by it all; what do I do?

Update  Apr 17, 2016 (2 months later)

Holy crap, has it been a stressful month.

The original plan was to wait two weeks from the time I posted to deal with it with Sarah and Will, but I ended up spilling the beans to my Mom around three days after the post went up. She noticed that I wasn't my usual self and pried it out of me like Moms tend to be able to do. She was flabbergasted and honestly didn't believe me until I showed her the messages on my phone. She called my Dad and Will's parents in to an emergency family meeting and we all talked about it. I broke down crying and told them everything that I'd told you guys, and to my surprise rallied around me in support. We all ended up crying, and had a really long talk about our combined family and what this could mean for all of us.

It was agreed that something, somewhere went wrong, because while the "sibling" flag was raised in my mind, when it comes to Will, it wasn't with him. I didn't get into this in my original post, but Will and I were the youngest, we were born just a matter of days apart, and he and I are closer than we are to any of our siblings, because we always did everything together. He's my best friend, but more importantly, in my mind and my heart, he's my brother.

I expressed all of that to them, and they agreed that my feelings were what they were going for when they opted for a shared family, and we all felt like this was incest. That night we started researching local therapists who deal with situations like this and the next day, we chose one for me to go to, because honestly, it was traumatic and I had a lot of feelings that I just didn't know how to cope with. I'm still in therapy, and it's going pretty well. I'm dealing with a lot of shit and starting to feel better.

We decided to keep this between the parents and I until Will and Sarah got back from their honeymoon.

The night they got back, we had a huge family dinner, with her family there too. None of us (parents and I) were excited about it but we couldn't cancel because it had been set in stone as the only time it would work for everyone for a long-ish period of time.

I spent that night trying to keep my distance from Will, because honestly, I couldn't handle being around him. He thought this was odd and ended up cornering me outside in the garden. He asked me what was up, why was I acting so weirdly? I told him that he knows why and tried to walk away. He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me back toward him, but I resisted. I ended up breaking down and telling him that I would never and could never feel the way about him that he felt about me. I saw his look of genuine confusion and my heart and my stomach sunk. He had no idea what I was talking about. Those of you who guessed that it was Sarah all along were actually correct. His phone went "missing" during their trip and he hadn't cared because he was excited to be on his destination honeymoon. I told him everything, he threw up into the koi pond and we hugged for what felt like forever. I broke down crying again because my kneejerk reaction had been to cut him out of my life, and through sobs, I was able to get that out. He comforted me and told me that he understood, because almost anyone whose friend and brother decided to hit on them would probably feel similarly. He said that he'd never hold my hurt reaction against me, we've been friends and family for way too long.

We just sat there for a while because neither of us knew what to do, because come on, this situation was fucked.

Eventually, our Moms came out and flipped out when they saw us together and like amazing Moms sprung to my defense. We got them to calm down and explained everything, that it had been Sarah, and Will's Mom lost her cool. She went into the house and ended up apparently tearing Sarah a new one. I don't know all of what was said, because I remained outside with Will, trying to calm down from everything.

Fast forwarding a bit, Will decided to divorce Sarah. It came out that she'd always been jealous when it came to me, and absolutely hated me. Her "goal" had been to either get me to admit to feelings for Will so that he'd cut me out, or to get me to cut him out. It also came out that she had NEVER been faithful to Will and had regularly cheated on him throughout their relationship. So honestly, he dodged a bullet, albeit a bit too late.

Will's moved back in, and we are both looking at finding a place together, as roommates, and he's gotten into therapy as well to deal with everything on his end. So, in the end, my world didn't collapse and my bond with my friend and quasi-brother only deepened, but he ended up heartbroken. I'm so angry at Sarah for putting us all through that when really, she should have and could have expressed her feelings to me and we could have probably addressed things, but then again, she was still a cheater. Just...ugh. I don't even know what to think.

So I guess it's a happy update?

tl;dr: You guys were right, Sarah was fucking crazy. Will's getting divorced and he and I are going to live together for a while as we heal from all of this.

FINAL COMMENTS

Why doesn't Will file.for an annulment?

> Nope, he looked into it but it's not an option for him in our state since he didn't enter into the marriage by force or fraud and no party involved was unable to consent to marriage. Sarah has agreed to not contest as long as he pays for her filing fee, so all in all the divorce is only costing him around $600 when all is said and done. I'm chipping in to help, too. Thankfully, he had a prenuptial agreement, and it clearly lays out who gets what, so she isn't taking anything that she didn't come into the relationship with, which is awesome. I'm proud of him for protecting himself. He had bought a house a couple of years ago, but doesn't want to move into it, so he's renting it out for the time being. > > Anyway, the divorce is as good for him as a divorce can possibly be and he's made jokes about having a really good divorce story now, lol

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

So for some context my wife and i (both 29 yrs old) are both fairly religious Christians but she and her family take it more seriously than I do. Before we married we discussed that she wants a traditional marriage where she is SAHM. I would be fine with her working but I do believe a man should be a provider so this is fine with me too and that's what we've done. She said she didn't like modern men who do things like wear a baby sling or push a stroller and I was fine with that.

Our first child was born a bit over 4 yrs ago and then our second a little under 2 years later. When our kids were young I admittedly did not help with them very much. She had a lot of help from both her mom and mine, and I also was working long hours in these days. So I never changed a diaper, maybe fed them a couple of times. If I tried to step in she would generally wave me off and say I shouldn't worry about it so I didn't. Her mom actually lived with us until my youngest was about 6 months old and still visits fairly often. Her sister sometimes comes over to help too. So she definitely has her "village" so to say.

But now that the kidss are getting older and I'm working less, making more money, I honestly want to be involved more. But it's like she doesn't want me to do anything for them ever. She always brushes me off and says that's a woman's job, I shouldn't be doing that, and even that our kids shouldn't see a man picking up dirty laundry or making them snacks. I think that's weird, my parents have a traditional marriage but my dad still did stuff like that from time to time and I turned out fine. If she sees me playing with them she usually doesn't look happy and tries to distract them from it after a little while. This is getting really bothersome because those are my kids too. I would think most women would be happy their husband wants to do stuff like that.

It all kind of finally came to a final straw the other day when i had a day off work. I secretly turned off her alarm in the night so she could sleep in that morning. I woke up early, bought her some flowers and made the kids breakfast (there was some for her too when she woke up). I'm not gonna lie, we haven't had sex in awhile either and that was part of my thinking here. But I thought it would be a nice thing to do for her and a nice morning to spend with the kids and it was. I thought maybe we could all go to the park later since it was a nice day.

My wife ended up waking up around 7 AM (normally 5:30 or 6 for her) and came down to see what was going on. I could see that she was hiding her anger for the kids. She smiled and said isn't that a nice thing daddy did but the look she gave me was glaring. Then she said to my 4 year old son why don't you take your sister to watch tv. When they went to the next room she started whispering quietly at me like, what the hell were you thinking, why would you do something like that, why would you let me sleep in, do you think I'm a bad mother?

Honestly this kinda got my hackles up because I did nothing wrong here and I retorted, do you think I'm a bad father? Why do you never want me to do anything with the kids? She flat out denied it and said that is not true, she just doesn't want me overstepping in to take on women's work. It's setting a bad example and I'm acting woke (and all these other things). So I asked her what she DOES think it's okay for me to do for/with the kids and she kinda stopped for a second like she didn't really have an answer. Then she said it's a father's job to be a provider and disciplinarian.

I was like, that's it? You think I'm here to make a paycheck and yell at them if they do something bad? And she got upset and said NO it's just not my job to take over mother's roles and it makes me less of a man and her less of a woman.

At this point we were both starting to raise our voices and I looked into the next room and I was like can we please try to calm down, we don't need to scare the kids. Can you honestly explain to me why it's a problem for a father to make his kids breakfast and buy his wife flowers? But she just got more upset and said if I didn't understand then I'm not the man she married and I'm not godly.

Honestly I just gave up and went out and spent the rest of the day walking around the mall and doing some errands. I came home and the kids were in bed and she didn't speak to me and I slept in the guest bedroom. It's been a couple days now and we still haven't talked and frankly I don't even know what to say to here. The more I think about it the more upset I get. I keep trying to see it from her perspective and all I can think is maybe it wasn't right for me to change her alarm because she might have had things she wanted to do that morning but this is obviously much bigger than that.

AIO to this? Should I try to find some compromise with her or what?

Last post: https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/UbU7qMv1WE

1. One of the comments in my last post asked (as a joke) “is this all because you forgot the dipping sauce?” YES, I DID, AND MY LOLA IS SCREAMING FROM ABOVE.

Also I must clarify, I am very lucky to live in a much more diverse place now with a Filipino market less than a mile away. I bought frozen lumpia and premade baked goods (ensaymadas, mango, mango buns, and these little panda pudding cakes, alongside ube sugar sticks and skyflakes). The cooking was frying the lumpia and setting up all the plates, so I can’t claim to have made it from scratch. The cheese and meat with the skyflakes was generously donated from leftovers from the night before.

I spent all my time hand decorating the tea set. I wish I could attach a picture of the set up as I was and am still very proud of it. I will make a separate post on my page with a picture of the tea party set up (so yes, all the people commenting this must be fake because no one could really be that egregious, I fucking wish it was fake, but welcome to rural Midwest)

2. One of the comments on my post said I wasn’t looking for advice, but validation. That was partially correct. Getting told I’m the problem for an hour on the car ride home by someone I’ve known for 10 years and who organized political campaigns with me in highschool fucked me up. I felt crazy and when I got home, I made this post to try and see if I was being overly sensitive.

I appreciated all the responses because it helped me realize I wasn’t being dramatic or sensitive, I was have a valid reaction to being told I was leaving to go to the concentration camp my ancestral people were genocided in, and my “friends” laughing along and saying nothing to me.

3. For the real update:

I sent this message to the bride:

“Hi [Bride], I have thought long and hard about how to say this. I will not be attending your wedding. I could have said it’s because I’m sick (which isn’t untrue, I spent last night with a migraine so bad I couldn’t stop vomiting), but that wouldn’t be the full truth and as I considered you a near and dear friend, I owe you the truth.

The truth is I was subjected to hatred and bigotry this weekend and nobody said anything or checked on me. I pushed my body past the limit for this, spent weeks hand decorating your tea set, because I care so much for you. To see that reciprocated with laughter when I was told to go back to auschwitz devastated me. That entire weekend felt like I was in a Jewish/asian version of a Jordan Peele movie.

I poured over this decision. I even made a Reddit post because I couldn’t tell if what I was feeling was right, or if I just needed to suck it up. The comments helped me stand true to my feelings.

I have simply reached a point in my life where my boundaries are clear and the line has been crossed. I will not harm myself and my body for a group of people that laughed as I was harmed. I still truly wish you the best.

You can see the post here: [link to post].”

I did not get a response. She has since blocked me on instagram. Likely on phone too, but I haven’t texted again to check. Her just blocking me without saying anything hurt the most, especially as I was putting so much effort and pushing my body so far out of love for her. I invited her into my community organizing space earlier this year, thinking she was an ally. But at least I know now where she stands when it comes to the holocaust and everything else. I simply just need to grieve now.

4. To the wedding groupchat, I sent this:
   “I thought a lot about what/if to say but I don’t think there’s anything I can say that the comments didn’t [link to post]”

I then left the groupchat. I have been blocked by both the bride and MOH. Car friend was blocked by me on both WhatsApp and instagram, but did not block me first (at least on instagram, no idea for WhatsApp).

It all feels like I’m back at my 95% white highschool. The racism, the bullying, the blocking, all of it. I’ve grown out of that and am glad to have found many new friends in my current community who were there support me amongst all of this (if you’re reading this, appreciate you chit chat, especially my plant gremlins)

I almost didn’t make an update, but a friend told me “the Reddit gremlins must be fed” and asked why I feel I owe the wedding party the comfort of leaving it alone when they made me so uncomfortable for days because of my ethnicities. Fair enough. I learned the ASL sign “petty b*tch” before this weekend for a reason.

5. Two of the other bridesmaids that were friends of the bride and didn’t know anyone else at the party reached out to me individually to apologize for not saying anything, that they didn’t see it target me specifically, and that they respected my decision (if you’re reading this, thank you). I let them know I appreciated them reaching out and that I understood why they wouldn’t say anything in a house full of strangers in the middle of nowhere. It shouldn’t be on them to stand up for a stranger when the people in charge of the bachelorette are supposed to be my friends.

6. To be entirely honest, this friend group has been dying for months, if not longer, with only the wedding really keeping it together. At least they gave me a clean cut. I’ll be enjoying my next weekend of rest.

7. And if any of you in the wedding are reading this post, thinking I’m an asshole for making it public, maybe you’re right. But if you know it’s bad to be seen publicly, why would you say it or laugh at in private? And over 1500 people commented you were racist, so they’re also probably right too.

[edit: I forgot to mention something I had remembered about car friend. In the car, she said “I didn’t know you were Jewish.” (As if she needs to know I’m Jewish for it to be wrong). Yet the day before, when someone made a joke about the food being kosher, and whether it was Kosher or Halal for Jewish people, and I said it was Kosher, that friend told the group, “she would know cause she’s Jewish” so the group, and this friend, did in fact know I was Jewish before making and/or laughing at the big holocaust “jokes”. And I was straight up gaslit. Just needed to add this because fuck that]

tl:dr: my boyfriend is an above average man, i’m a below average women. he tells me how lucky i am to have him, and he is right. how do i feel less powerless in this situation?

together 8 months. when i first met him, and we first started dating. i didn’t feel lucky. i just felt happy. i fancied him, i felt excited i felt admiration when i looked into his eyes. i’ve never had a boyfriend before, never asked on a second date. and here is this guy i think is so so cute and so good giving me flowers and walking me home. i didn’t think about luck, i just felt so happy.

he kept saying to me how he couldn’t believe a girl like me would go out with a guy like him, what did he do to deserve this. we got heckled once on the street, a man shouted “how’d you get her” and my bf just chuckled and said “i knew i was punching but that confirms it”. he kept asking me if i really liked him, what i like about him, et etc.

he told me on our very first date, that he had another date the next day, a date he no longer wanted to go one. he also told me he had a date a couple days prior as well. our second date he told me the whole of that first date, he was thinking about me. i didn’t feel lucky, i just felt happy, and i was thinking about him all day as well. i felt warm and fuzzy (and a bit bad for the girl, but was overshadowed by my joy of just being with him)

as time went on, i learnt that he’s been with a lot of women, and that almost every female friend of his, started as a crush/fling/etc. how the last girl he was seeing he rejected, and was still obsessed with him. how a friends with benefits wanted him but he didn’t want anything serious. how his best female friend, they both wanted each other, but couldn’t be together because her parents wouldn’t agree (different cultures).

i never felt jealous, i thought it was great he had female friends, it was just eye opening learning all of this, i’d never known a man to be so surrounded by women all the time.

he’s told me how lucky i am, to have him. how he was only on dating apps for one week before he met me, how lucky that was for me, that we matched when he’d only been in the apps for a week. he didn’t know how long i’d been on them, but i had for a few months.

i never thought about luck, i never thought, wow how is he with me, at the start. but now i do. now i wonder why he chose me, when he has so many options. everyone loves this guy, i’m being completely honest, he is cartoonishly revered in his sphere, he’s the big guy on campus. i wonder why me. i asked him once, he said because we have chemistry, and that’s hard to find. but i’m sure he has that with other girls as well. i am lucky to look in the mirror and genuinely think i am beautiful, i actually do, but i know i am not pretty by society’s standards. whereas my boyfriend is handsome.

he’s had girls slide him their number, or find excuses to compliment him or talk to him. for a man, he’s a catch, for a woman, i am below mid. guys don’t want me, as i said before. the only guys that ever have have been 50 year old creeps or guys my age who are desperate and go for everyone and anyone (at the same time!). my friends are gorgeous as well, objectively, compared to them i promise i am nothing special. again my personality, i am very normal no “cool” interests or exciting hobbies (basic: reading, baking, watching musicals, hiking, science \[evolution and geomorphology obsessed\].

i just realise more and more each day how ordinary i am, below ordinary, and how great he is. he’s said before, there’s lots of women like me in the world. he’s also said there’s so many people in general (when he was showing confusion as to why i have two friends who are long distance across countries). i now feel so lucky to have him. he could have anyone. even if i tried, i couldn’t get someone.

every compliment i give him, i’m reminded that a girl has already told him that in the past. “i love your jumper the colour suits you” “you think i don’t know how to dress? i know this blue matches my eyes i’ve been told” “i love your eyebrows” “i’ve been told i’ve got eyebrows women are jealous of” etc etc. i couldn’t tell you a complement a man has given me other than “beautiful”, and from anyone other than my boyfriend.

he’s charismatic, and a leader.
EDIT: i’m quilting him when i say that, he prides himself on his charisma and his ability to lead. and has told me that i’m the opposite. and he’s not wrong.

when i asked him what he thought of me on our first date, months in. he chuckled and said he knew i liked him a lot. i was surprised and asked why. he said because i talked so much, and people only talk when they care what the other person thinks of them. i always have been a talkative person, and didn’t know it could be read that way, but what i’m saying is he’s always known how much i want him, that to me he’s a dream guy.

the last person i kissed before him was 2 years prior, and that was a guy i had a crush on who didn’t like me back :/. all i’m saying is, he is desired, i am not. so he knows i am the lucky one in this relationship. but this also makes me feel i’m always on the brink of losing him, because he knows as well as i, that in the real world, i am replaceable and he really really is not. how do i not feel powerless in this situation? AIO?

Throwaway.

So me (30M) and my wife, "Jess" (31F) have been together for 7 years and married for 2. Two weeks ago I came home to find huge chunks of our bar just sitting in the drive way. When I went into our basement I found that Jess had completely ripped out our bar and was planning on just trashing all of it. She had also ripped out the door to our utility closet and the paneling around the door.

Why did she do it, apparently she wants to get rid of any and all association of alcohol. I rarely drink, I maybe drink the equivalent of a six-pack in a year. The only bottle of alcohol I keep in the house is a bottle of brandy that my late grandfather gifted me when I turned 21 that she also emptied. I never intended to even open that bottle, it held too much sentimental value to me and she knew that hence the reason she only emptied it not trashed it. As for the door and paneling, she wanted to see what I was doing back there which was just pacing around the workbench in there.

So why is she so dead set on having a dry house, her brother recently told the family that he has a Fatty Liver. His fatty liver is not because of alcohol, like me he almost never drinks, maybe even less. The reason why my BIL has a fatty liver is because he eats junk food all the time, he's 5ft 6 and weighs 260lbs and doesn't exercise at all. But Jess doesn't seem to see the difference.

We never agreed to any of this and Jess doesn't seem to realize that she crossed major boundaries. I enjoyed that bar, call me childish but I felt like a king being behind that bar and it gave me a lot of usable space. It is also where we eat when we have company over as our dining room table only holds 2. It was my little spot that Jess got rid of because of some irrational fear.

Jess has been clingy before but this is insane, I've been sleeping in the guest room ever since. I really want to divorce her over this but right now my emotions are running very high so maybe I'm overreacting but I don't know. Has anyone gone through something like this before, can couples therapy help us?

TLDR: Wife got rid our bar without telling me because of an irrational drinking fear and sees nothing wrong with it.

Edit: A lot of people are seeing that Jess is secretly an alcoholic and likely has bi-polar. I can assure you she doesn't drink alcohol and as for her possible Bi-Polar, she's been seeing physiatrists well pretty much her whole life, so I doubt she has Bi-Polar.

I'm 38 but apparently don't look like it. It's like I hit my mid-20s and kinda just stopped visibly aging. I've learned recently that I likely have a genetic disorder that is causing this. This hasn't really effected me much until recently as I'm now divorced and interested in dating again. Younger guys I meet in person are assuming I'm a similar age. I am not. It's awkward. And I'm flattered, but I'm not gonna act on anything with someone so much younger for MANY reasons.

This brings me to the current situation. I'm going back to school which might also add to my age confusion for the uninformed. There's a pizza shop nearby where everyone goes to during breaks and this young guy is working there who has been flirting with me. He's probably between 20-24yrs old. I thought maybe he was just being nice at first, but he's been giving me free extras pretty regularly without my asking and chatting me up. Today he asked what time our class usually gets out. I can tell he's working up the courage to ask me out and I just feel like an AH.

I haven't been intentionally flirty but I haven't been discouraging him either. (I'm a selfish bastard that likes attention and free food.) Is there any way I can tell this guy I'm 38 without humiliating either of us? He's being such a sly lowkey flirt I feel like if I address it directly it'll be super awkward. Do I just act more cold with him? Find a way to slip enough info into casual conversation that he does the math himself?

ETA: realizing the real issue is less about the age problem and more that I just haven't had to navigate being single in... Forever. I don't remember what it's like to be both single and flirted with and how to say 'no thanks. " Soooo now that we've all established I am firmly a dinosaur, any general advice on how to tell a guy that I'm not interested when I've been unintentionally flirty would be appreciated. 🤦‍♀️

I (32F) am getting married this year. I’ve been with my fiancé for almost 6 years, we have a 2 year old daughter together, and I help coparent his teenage son with his ex-wife (my step son’s mom).

For years, we’ve maintained what I thought was a solid, respectful co-parenting relationship, and I genuinely valued that connection. I’ve given her a lot of grace from the beginning because the divorce was particularly difficult for her, and I wanted to come into the situation with empathy. So I was as kind and patient as I possibly could be with her even when there was tension the first couple of years, and we eventually became close and we invited each other to multiple family events, hung out at each others houses often, etc.

On Christmas morning last year, I got her a gift box and formally asked her to be a bridesmaid at my wedding, which is in October this year. (She happily said yes to be clear. I know it already sounds pretty weird inviting your fiancé’s ex-wife to be a bridesmaid, but it wasn’t unusual for us with the way our co-parenting/friendship appeared to be. She even said “I was wondering when you were going to ask me!” - it really felt like the right thing at the time.

However, over time I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with a pattern of behavior and comments that I feel are inconsistent with the kind of environment I want around my kids and my life and it’s just straight up unacceptable.

Some examples:

-She frequently shares harmful opinions with my stepson that he repeats verbatim, but when asked why he believes them, he can’t explain them in his own words. It’s just “I don’t know, that’s what mom told me.”

-She has used racial slurs and made comments about Martin Luther King Jr. Day in a racially derogatory way. (Specifically using the N word to describe it.)

-She was openly disgusted when I wanted to watch the Super Bowl halftime show this year while we were having a Super Bowl party at my house, and she insisted on watching “The REAL halftime show” (the Kid Rock one) loudly on her phone when Bad Bunny came on.

-(most recent) She has referred to LGBTQ people and Pride in a dismissive or derogatory way (knowing I’m bisexual and that my Maid of Honor was also once married to a woman) and when I went to a Pride parade last weekend, my stepson came to me afterwards and said the reason she wouldn’t allow him to come with me is because she is “raising him to be a Christian,” along with her assumptions around Pride that I don’t even want to repeat. (I’m not religious anymore, but it pisses me off to see someone hide their hate behind a religion they don’t even practice or know much about - but it’s her right as his mom I suppose).

-She’s a veryyy high conflict person when confronted with literally anything. The first big one was about 3 years ago, I finally stood up for my fiancé because she was screaming at him, in our house, about how much of a “failure” of a father he is because he was working a lot at the time. I had enough and said if she wanted to talk to him like that then she needs to leave, she then blew up and told me I was a nobody, threatened to call the police if we didn’t let her take her son with her even though it wasn’t her weekend to have him. Any time there was conflict, we all would just eventually let it go.

I’m getting really tired of being the kind of person that people can feel comfortable being hateful around. I want to be a good role model for my daughter and I wouldn’t want her to accept this level of unkindness from a supposed “friend” so why should I?

Because of this, I no longer feel comfortable having her stand with me as a bridesmaid. I do still want her to attend the wedding (or at least the reception) as my stepson’s mom; it would mean a lot to him if she’s there because he is also the Best Man.

I guess I’m also looking for advice on how to navigate this whole thing, because I have no clue how to come to her with this? Or if I even should? My fear is that even if I’m polite about it, it’s going to make her not want to attend at all. We’re also pretty close to her mom and sisters/honestly a lot of people on her side, so I’m worried about this causing a ton of drama. I feel like I unfortunately put myself in a position where I’m going to look negative either way. But I can’t get over how icky it would feel to have her standing next to me on my wedding day, when we have wildly different values, morals, and beliefs about love and respect.

AIO? I plan on getting married one time and genuinely just want to do the right thing.

TLDR; I made a decision last year based on a friendship that no longer feels real, and now I’m trying to figure out how to undo it without completely blowing up my blended family.