u/RedoftheEvilDead

My wife has a contentious relationship with my parents, particularly my father. There is enough blame to go around but if you had to total it up there is more responsibility on him than her.

We have discussed this frequently and for the last few years I have encouraged her to just not talk to him or be around him if there is no path to a reconciliation between them. She prefers to push the issue on how do we fix him and that typically leads to a fight and tension for several days.

My parents are getting older, mid to late 70s, and my mom is showing signs of alzheimers or dementia. We are the only support network in the area. Abandoning them completely is not an option for a host of social, cultural, economic, religious, and personal reasons so no matter what level ofncontact he has with them I will be there for them in some capacity or another.

That said my father is preparing to have a fairly major surgery and he isn't in the best shape. The chance of his dying isn't high but it ain't zero either. As many faults as he has as a human being, and who doesn't, he is still my dad and he is still my mom's husband of nearly 60 years. I am concerned for him and for my mother.

Over the last few days my wife has been upset with him again because of a poor interaction between him and our daughter. This has led to rebroaching the topic of what is wrong with him and I finally shut it down saying I am not having this conversation, again, right now. I have enough emotional weight with his surgery, potential death, and the implications that has on my mother in her deteriorating state.

This has earned me a very cold shoulder and much glaring silence.

AIO by saying we aren't going to press the "instant fight" button as I deal with a very near term acute health issue for him?

I just noticed the weight of that single sentence in the epilogue of Gate of the Feral Gods. "After this we're supposed to go to the jungle to find that dead crawler's twin."

That means Ifechi's twin survived the collapse. She didn't go down into the dungeon. She was free, completely free. Well... as free as an earthling could be after the collapse. And still they altered her and destroyed her

I don't know why, but that makes it so much sadder.

My brother told me that the frog tub (that I had bought with my own money) had something that looked like piss on the kitchen counter. My mum was cleaning the kitchen. I went downstairs and saw the frog tub in the fucking washing up basin with pee remnants left in it. I said “did u pee in my tub?”

And at first she tried to lie

Then she got mad about it. I binned it and walked away. I’m furious about it, but it’s 11pm and she would make herself the victim and argue for the rest of the night. I chose to leave. She then stormed off and was complaining to my brother that her insomnia will be bad tonight because I made her angry for pulling her up, and she won’t be able to sleep. I could hear her while I was upstairs complaining about me.

I can’t fucking stand it here.

She was going to put the tub in the dishwasher and act as if she didn’t do anything. I wonder how many times she’s done that before.

Edit: She did it to check the colour of her pee.

Edit 2: She’s left my house and is bitching to my gran about me. She is pissed at me (no pun intended) for some reason?

If you don't know, there are 2 eids in a year. The first one is right after Ramadan. This one is fine, it's boring and forces you to interact with your fake ass relatives but overall it's tolerable especially when compared to Eid ul Adha (which is today). Now I will list a bunch of reasons why I think this is hands down the worst day of the year every year. The fact it's a holiday is laughable. But an important thing is that, I'm strictly writing from a Pakistani perspective, I'm sure it is different in other Muslim countries.

Ok most of the Pakistani redditors are from upper/elite class, with their clean paved streets and efficiently mandated cleaning services, they might brigade this by saying that none of what I'm to say is true. Majority of Pakistani cities and towns consist of tight unpaved streets with horrible draining systems, no cleaning services etc. So every year you can imagine how horrible the state of these streets would be when cows and goats are brought and tied outside the houses. The entire streets smell like shit for at least 3 days before Eid and gets worse and worse. The bulls/cows being tied outside in the narrow paths basically results in yearly animal attacks related injuries but most Pakistanis like that. They like when that shit happens and you begin seeing annual memes and fails during this time. "Haha a 5 year old got kicked by an untamed bull haha". Then there's the actual day of Eid which is when all these animals are slaughtered and most people would do it in the streets. Let me explain what my street RIGHT NOW looks like. There are huge puddles of blood right outside my house, swarms of flies already coming, the animals feces are smeared everywhere, the intestines and pieces of flesh and bone and different organs thrown randomly everywhere. It is so hard to step outside and breathe. And it actually gets worse because that's how it's gonna remain for days to come. There will be a smell of rot, maggots and filth for a whole week. All of that is the objective truth, this is what happens every year. Now from my perspective, I have a few more things to add. If you're still living with your muslim family (which I do) then you have to participate in this ritual every year. You have to put an animal down, cut open it's throat and watch the blood gush out, then you have to clean the blood, on the floor, on the walls, on your clothes and on your face. Your own house would smell like slaughterhouse. I feel like I want to tear apart my skin, it's so disgusting as a germaphobe. And you can't even express how much you dislike it because obviously it is blasphemous to do so. I fucking hate everybody who love this barbaric day. Maybe if it was state mandated and everything was done away from the cities/streets I would've been fine but the fact that I have to see it, participate and then live with it makes this day singlehandedly the worst fucking thing ever.

I am an only child. When I was around seven, my mom apparently decided that she didn’t like me much. By the time I was eight or nine, she had invented an imaginary sibling to compare me to. Their name was Justice, as it was a gender-neutral name she said she had saved if she ever did have another child.

Any time I did anything even slightly wrong, I was compared to Justice. If I didn’t eat my peas? “Justice would have eaten their peas!” If I talked back? “Justice wouldn’t speak to their mother that way.” If I begged for something at the store? “Justice wouldn’t be acting this way.” It was constant.

I finally got fed up, and would shout at her: “There is no Justice!” Of course, she and my dad thought this was hilarious, and they stuck it in their “cute childhood anecdote” files to bring up forevermore.

Christmas 2024 was my first Christmas with my now-husband. He had met my dad, but not my mom. Within minutes of us arriving they started telling “cute childhood anecdotes” and brought up Justice. My husband stared at them in utter shock and said quietly said, “You know that’s not normal, right?” The tension and shock was palpable - they literally malfunctioned.

That was the first time anyone in my 30+ years of life had stood up to them like that, or even acknowledged their bad behavior in a negative way. My husband’s love and healthy family opened my eyes to so much that I had never considered abusive or toxic before, and he helped me escape that system. Sometimes I think back on what I used to tolerate and almost have to laugh, because it’s just so absurd.

EDIT: A lot of y’all are asking what happened when he told them that. I wish something exciting or interesting, but they just kind of blew it off and laughed. They never brought it up again.

About 6 months later, the day after my husband’s dad died from terminal cancer, my dad was so cruel to me over something entirely unnecessary that I went full no-contact. They’re still harassing me to this day. I’m currently 16 weeks pregnant and have had to contact law enforcement regarding their stalking. 😅

I'm in my boundary era. Honestly boundaries are always something I struggled with as I was raised by a mother who was deathly allergic to them. But lately I've come up with a few that are very important to me.

1. just because you don't like something about me or something I do, doesn’t mean I'm obligated to change that aspect/action of me to please you (short of something mean, offensive, or triggering of course).

2. Just because I get your input on something does not mean I am obligated to do what you suggest. And no, not doing what you've decided I should do is NOT mean I don't respect you or your opinions. If anything, the fact that you're upset at me making my own decision means you don't respect me or my opinions.

3. Dont give me the silent treatment. If you have a problem say something. And you certainly have no right to be upset with me for doing something you refused to say upsets you. But also if soemthing I do does upset you, see rule 1.

4. You're not my parent or my boss. I will not be lectured, grilled, or given that stupid 20 questions thing that all men love to do (Can you explain to me why you did this? Can tell me what you were thinking? Why do you consider that appropriate behavior? No, I'm not grilling you, I'm just trying to understand your mindset. What am I not allowed to ask questions now?) If I wrong you I WILL apologize. But again see rule 1. Just because you've decide that you don't like something about me does NOT mean I've wronged you.

5. I can make my own decisions. I'm grown. If I tell you I'm making a decision about MYSELF that does not in any way affect YOU then you have no say on it (short of crimes or hurting people of course). And no one, but me has any say over my body, PERIOD. Also, see rule 2.

These feel like 5 very easy and simple boundaries and yet I feel like I get CONSTANT pushback on these, ESPECIALLY by men. Even the nice ones try yo say, "they're just looking out for me." Even the ones that get therapy say that I'm invalidating their feelings by not changing some aspect of myself to please them.

I feel like men seem to think a boundary is restriction they set on someone else and that someone else not following their restrictions means they do not respect their boundaries and that the correct response for that is aggression, either overt or passive. NO! A boundary is how I allow MYSELF to be treated. And violation of my boundaries will result in me first telling you what my boundaries are. Then telling you that you've violated my boundaries. Then, if the violations continue, distancing myself from you or removing you from my life altogether because I refuse to be treated that way. NO AGGRESSION NEEDED!

And yes, I'm aware there are plenty of women out there like that (looking at you Alex!) But, let's be real, when it comes to not respecting a woman's autonomy there is definitely one gender that takes the lead.