u/oldmangeralt

I'll keep the story short: I just started fostering my 15yo nephew. He came from a rough family, and due to the circumstances, currently has a very badly broken arm. I know it hurts, and I know he needs help constantly, but he absolutely refuses to ask me for help or tell me what's bugging him.

I found out he's going to my partner with most of his issues, which is fine. But whenever my partner isn't around (he works 24/48hr shifts 2 or 3 times a week, so it's often), he just stays in and broods by himself.

We were always really close before he started living with me. He came to me for advice or just to hang out with me and his cousin. I don't know how to get him to open up to me. Please give me some male input! How would you like to be approached regarding something like that?

In case it's important for context; he has a broken radius and 3 metacarpals at the moment. Everything is very limited for him right now, so it's very important for me that he knows he can ask me for help when my man isn't around.

Hi all! I'd be grateful for any advice on this 💖

My partner is a cat person, he has an 8 year old cat, and has had him since he was 3 weeks old (he was a rescue). He loves that cat so much!

I'm more of a dog enthusiast (I love all animals, I adore my partner's cat, just fyi). We kind of have that agreement: I take care of my dogs and he doesn't intervene, he takes care of his cat and I don't intervene. However, my partner often has 24/48hr shifts, and I end up having to feed all the animals.

The cat goes absolutely bonkers over food. He'll jump up at furniture, push his full body into my hands as I put the food into his bowl, meow loudly and have those cat zoomies all over the kitchen.

He doesn't act like that with my partner though. He's perfectly calm whenever he feeds him.

I'm looking for advice on how we could stop this behavior. Also, does anyone have any idea why he does that?

Please, be honest. I know this is the smallest little thing, and I have so many other things to worry about, but for some reason I'm stuck on this and I can't accept defeat.

I'm 9 weeks apparently, we just had the first scan yesterday. My partner is dead set on having our child's name starting with a letter that's not the same as ours. I don't know why, but he says he wants them to be their own person and that he just has that little quirk he's unable to let go of.

I have a son, he's 6, his name is Simon, and since I can remember I wanted to name my kids Simon and Sophie. I really hate all the other names, and even when I like them, I still feel like I'm not gonna like them on the baby.

Of course if the baby is a boy, this is not gonna be a problem at all, we have a name chosen that we agreed upon. It's just the girl name I'm struggling with.

So, dear parents, would you be upset if your pregnant partner told you they'll be choosing the name, because they're the one physically having the baby? Am I being unreasonable? I don't want to start a fight over something stupid like that.

I don't know if it's a girl (yet), but I want the name to have a nice ring with my oldest's.

My 6yo's name is Simon, so for a boy we'll do Noah. We initially wanted to name the girl Sophie (so it would be Simon and Sophie, which I adore), but my partner doesn't like how they both start with the same letter.

Sophie is literally the only name I like so far, and I always wanted to have a Simon and a Sophie. I'm looking for alternatives for a girl name that would not start with an S. 🙏🏻

It's pissing me off, and I've had yet another person point it out today at my son's pediatric appt. I'm a huge nerd, I play all kinds of games but I was always really into fantasy games (hence my username, but I'm 28F). My son was born in 2020, and in late 2022/early 2023 I, at my ripe age of 24 got really into COD:MW2. My kid was 2 at that time.

Our last name starts with R. I swear to god, the amount of times I've been asked if I named my son after a fictional video game operator after they found out I like COD is unreal. I like the name, let me and my baby boy live, thanks so much.

Anyway, they also keep saying it's a basic ahh name for a 40 year old man, so that's great. I don't agree at all.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. Why can't people leave me be for my name choice.

Edit: COD is a game (Call of Duty), his name is a basic one - Simon. I probably should've specified that earlier, sorry!

So, they requested to do it with me after seeing me scroll through Reddit the other day. They're 19 and 15, they've been living with me for 5 full days now, but we've been close their whole life. We lived in the same house from 2011 to 2020, before it all went downhill shortly after I moved out.

The boys are my brother's sons. He's not a safe parent, so I took them in. I also have 4 dogs and a 6 year old in the house (my biological son). And I'm 28F.

Some frequently asked questions since I've been posting about our situation in the past:

Where's their mother? She's not in the picture, and she hasn't been for 15 years. Left when the youngest was 2 months old.

Why did you take them in? Their father suffers from severe PTSD and he's unsafe to take care of them or to generally have people living with him at the moment. It got so out of hand to the point of the older one getting really badly hurt.

Are they in therapy? Yes, we all are.

Anyway, ask away, we'll have fun answering your questions. If you want to have a question answered by either of them, let me know and I'll have them type their answer out for ya!

So, they requested to do it with me after seeing me scroll through Reddit the other day. They're 19 and 15, they've been living with me for 5 full days now, but we've been close their whole life. We lived in the same house from 2011 to 2020, before it all went downhill shortly after I moved out.

The boys are my brother's sons. He's not a safe parent, so I took them in. I also have 4 dogs and a 6 year old in the house (my biological son). And I'm 28F.

Some frequently asked questions since I've been posting about our situation in the past:

Where's their mother? She's not in the picture, and she hasn't been for 15 years. Left when the youngest was 2 months old.

Why did you take them in? Their father suffers from severe PTSD and he's unsafe to take care of them or to generally have people living with him at the moment. It got so out of hand to the point of the older one getting really badly hurt.

Are they in therapy? Yes, we all are.

Anyway, ask away, we'll have fun answering your questions later tonight.

Edit: you are more than welcome to ask the boys specific questions, I'll post their responses. They are looking forward to it and the 19yo said he'll answer anything, so per his request, I'm posting this edit now, lol.

Hi again! I need some reassurance and shared experiences with other parents about children having their "biggest dreams" set on the most unhinged goals possible.

I have two teenagers and a 6yo in the house. The oldest one has a broken arm at the moment and is in a cast. My 6yo son is adamant on getting a cast too, and he's whining and begging me to let him get one as well. I know he's jealous, and I don't think he understands that the older one is actually in a lot of pain due to having his arm injured.

I tried explaining to him that having a broken arm like [oldest teen] is very uncomfortable and will make him sad, because it hurts, but he's still in love with the idea.

Should I be doing more to get this out of his head, or is it normal 6 year old behavior? Just wondering about the experiences of other parents and your kids' weird hopes and dreams.

I'll keep it short and save you the horror story, but a few days ago I took in my two nephews from an unsafe home environment. They're both teenagers, and I'm 28, so there's not even that much of an age difference between us.

The older one has a badly broken arm. The injury happened a week ago, and he's in a cast at the moment – 3 of his metacarpals are broken, and then he has a distal radius fracture on his wrist, all on one arm.

I really want to help him out and make him comfortable as he heals, but I've never been this injured in my life, neither has my partner. My nephew doesn't really share much about how he feels, he doesn't move his fingers still which we've been told can happen. He's just overall grumpy and unhappy, even if he pretends to be fine.

I really need advice on how to support him through it, and what are the little things we can do to help him without it feeling like we're crowding him.

I'm also a parent, I have a 6 yo son and I'm used to being the mom who coos over scrapes and bruises, and just hugs it out. I'm a softie when it comes to sickness/injury, so it's hard for me to have an injured teenager.

Just to give some context, I very recently took in two of my nephews from an unsafe home. The older one currently has a broken arm. 3rd, 4th and 5th metacarpal + a distal radius fracture near his wrist, all the same arm (his dominant one).

I've never had a broken bone, neither had my partner, so we're looking for advice on how to help him without hovering too much, or what we should expect in terms of healing (from a human perspective, we already talked to doctors). Just anything, really.

Also, how painful is it? Asking people who might have had similar injuries. He doesn't really move his fingers all that much on that arm, and I'm wondering if that's normal. It's been a week since the injury.

This is kind of an update to my post from two days ago.

To sum it all up, in the span of two weeks, my brother turned out to be a massive a-hole. I ended up taking his sons in, after he injured one of them in a fight over essentially nothing, so it's been a whole lot of emotions lately.

I just got back from vacation. I have a 6yo son to take care of, as well as two teenage nephews staying with me permanently, one having a broken arm at the moment due to all the stuff that happened with his father.

I have to get their rooms set up, I have my own business to run, and I want to love on all of them equally so that they feel safe. Thankfully I have a partner to support me through all of this.

And guess who got a weird, light period a couple days ago and took a test that came out positive? Yup, that's me. Fuck this month, honestly, May 2026 sucks. I have twins in my family, so knowing my luck I'll pop out 2 babies in 9 months.

So yeah, I'm spiraling and I haven't slept a wink tonight. Great times.

Just a heads up – trigger warning: abuse, mentions of addiction.

I need to share this in full detail with someone, now that I have a clear mind and everything is going well again. The last two weeks have been brutal to me, and I truly need to get this out of my system.

I (28F) have an older brother (M36) who has the total of 4 children: two sons with his first girlfriend – M19 and M15, and a set of twins with his current (soon to be ex) wife – M7 and F7. I have one son (M6), and I live with my partner (son's stepdad, not his bio-dad).

Around the end of April, me and my son went on vacation overseas – I had a contract to finish, and I figured it would be a great to take my son along since it was in my parents' home country, and they were able to bond with him too. Just before we left, my nephew (the 19yo, which I'll refer to as N for the sake of this story) brought up the fact that he'd like for me to pay him for babysitting my son whenever he'd stay at their house over the weekends. A bit annoyed with what I was being told, I confronted my brother before I left for vacation and asked why he'd have someone else watch my son after I left him specifically in his care. It was also because I simply wanted to ask if it would be okay for me to compensate N, since he is his father after all.

My brother immediately got mad, told me not to pay him any money under any circumstances. Later, barely a few hours after I landed in Europe, which was probably around 4 days after the conversation I had with my brother, I got multiple very serious messages from N, alongside some other texts from my brother. They were both essentially saying the same thing: my brother suspected his son wanted to buy drugs with the money he asked me for.

N has had problems with drug use in the past. He's been to rehab twice, and I paid for a bunch of it myself (I know I have no obligation to, I still did and would do it again). Throughout the next day, N stopped texting me fully, and instead I got borderline frantic messages from my brother, sending me pictures of N's ruined room and saying he'd found syringes laying around his in his drawers.

At that time, for me, it seemed like he relapsed, so I have to admit, I was on my brother's side for a while. One thing I didn't know was that the syringes didn't even have needles on them, and we're definitely not the ones used to inject substances into veins. N was taken to get drug tests done, he got two separate ones, as well as hair follicle drug screen – both negative. Even then, my brother was still going nuts, saying he's kicking him out, and that I can take him in if I want to. I didn't think that much of it, thinking it was just anger and parental concern (that sounds almost funny now after everything that happened).

After all that, I honestly thought it would be over. A couple days went by, no one texted me, I didn't get calls in the middle of the night – all good, right? Nah. At the beginning of my first week there, I get a message from my brother's wife, saying that she's leaving with their kids (twins), and that she's will be getting a divorce. She was nice enough about it, and told me to contact the younger brother (15M, let's call him J).

I called N first, to check if everything was alright. He didn't pick up, didn't answer texts, so eventually I decided to call J. The kid was panicked, crying and hyperventilating on the phone, so we settled on having him text me, if he could. I hang up, and the next thing I see is a picture of a hospital hallway from J, then a poorly written message explaining how "dad and N got into a fight and now we're here and I don't know what to do".

What I later found out that happened was:
My brother got home from work, angry for some unknown reason. He got in J's face all of a sudden, and N stepped in to get him to stop. My brother wasn't having it, and they started pushing each other around, which later resulted in a full blown fight. N later called his friend to give him a ride to the hospital, and took J with him, since J didn't want to stay in the house with his dad.

At the time J sent me these pictures, N was getting x-rays. He injured his arm pretty bad in the fight, and ended up having to stay overnight for observation due to a suspected concussion. J had to go back home that night, N came back the next day after being discharged (and I still think he should've stayed longer).

My brother does have PTSD, I can't blame him for that, it's job related and we were in the same field for a while. You can probably tell what I mean with this, and you would be correct. It's no reason to hurt his children, and that is where he crossed the line.

The next week was mostly me making amends, being on constant calls with my partner and the boys, trying to figure out how we're gonna do this. I ended up being the one to foster them (or J to be exact, since he's still a minor). They're both going to be living with me now. I'm their only family, it's only me and my brother here in the US, and the boys' biological mother is gone.

I love them both so much, I'd say it's pretty close to how much I love my son. That kind of unconditional love you feel for your own child, just tempered by the fact that you know they're not yours (and I mean that in the most respectful way – I can't be their mother, and I won't try to be their mother).

I picked them both up yesterday, fresh out of the airport after coming back. It was awful. N looks really bad, not gravely injured or anything that will leave permanent damage, but he's not feeling great. J is terrified and upset, but getting there.

It's been one day of them living with me. They're calmer now, and I learned that it was not the first time my brother did that. It hurts so much knowing that the man I looked up to all my life is a POS. And it's even worse when I think about how I should've seen it, and how I should've noticed it sooner.

We're going shopping for their rooms tomorrow, and having dinner at their favorite place after that, so hopefully it'll be a better day. My son is really excited about having them both around, and my partner has been amazing, even before we got them home. He single-handedly set up the space for J in the guest room, and made the basement functional for N. We're also all going to J's football practice this weekend.

Also, therapy for all. We've got appointments set up already, myself included, because I'm really blaming myself for it all. They're thankful, and I hate that for some reason. They shouldn't thank me.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk. It's 8:21 as of me typing this, and I haven't been this tired before 9 ever since I had a newborn baby.

Just a heads up. I want to get this all out of my system anonymously, since it's been something I've been posting about ever since this whole shitshow started. I would appreciate if someone read through this and offered words of encouragement because it's really hard, man. Also, all the names are fake. I just can't get my mind to function properly and get through this without assigning names.

My (F28) oldest brother (M36) has 4 kids, two of my oldest nephews with his first girlfriend (they're M19 and M15), and twins with his soon to be ex-wife (twins are both 7, F&M). This whole situation started when his oldest son (let's call him Noah) asked me to pay him money for babysitting my own son (M6) whenever he stayed over at their house. At the time, I thought my brother should be confronted, so I asked him if Noah was actually taking all that time to watch my son. I was a bit annoyed, because my brother was supposed to be the one watching him.

After my brother learned about Noah's request, shit hit the fan, so to say. He immediately went to accuse him of wanting to beg me for money, so he could buy drugs (he was a troubled teen, and had issues with drug abuse in the past, which we helped him overcome over the years). Brother immediately went through Noah's room, started throwing stuff around, destroyed his personal belongings, and generally went crazy over a suspicion. It really stirred the whole thing when my brother found an unused syringe in Noah's drawer (I later found out it didn't even have a needle, it was that kind of syringe you'd use to administer meds to a baby/pet, you know which one I mean).

So, the first two days of my vacation are spent getting angry texts from both my brother and Noah, telling me how he's kicking his son out, taking him to get drug tests done, and how I'm welcome to take him in after I come back.

Drug tests were negative, both times they had them done. Then nothing for 5 days, and just as I was starting to forget about the whole thing, last week I get a message from my brother's wife, saying she's leaving with their kids (the twins), and that I should take Noah and Jay (let's call the 15yo that).

So I get worried again. I text Noah, nothing. I call, nothing. So then I call Jay, he picks up sounding panicked, and just tells me he texts me. Minutes later I get a bunch of pictures of a hospital hallway and a very poorly written text message saying Noah got hurt and that my brother is going crazy.

From what I've been able to gather, my brother came back from work pissed (he's military), got in Jay's face, Noah stepped in and they started fighting, and Noah hurt his arm/wrist in the fight. Brother's wife had enough, left and told him she wants a divorce.

Noah called a friend to drive him to the hospital and Jay came along because he didn't want to stay with his dad. He ended up staying the night due to suspected concussion, and after being discharged went back home.

Now, what's happening is: I'm taking them both in. My partner has been getting their rooms ready while me and my son were away. I don't know what I'll do about the brother situation, and frankly, I don't care. He can rot in that house for all I care.

I'm writing this as I sit and wait to board the plane with my 6yo. After coming back I'm getting Noah and Jay immediately, and we're going to my place. I'll probably have my partner pick my son up first, though, so I can have him safe in case my brother goes crazy again.

I don't know what happened to him, and it hurts me how I've known these people my whole life and never noticed the pain they experienced at home. It hurts that my son was in that house when I was working, even though he's never complained or said anything concerning.

I get that my brother has a stressful job, but I did that job too. I left a few years after having my son, and sure, there were days that were hard and dark for me, but I'd never hurt anyone, let alone my children.

I'm pissed, hurt, stressed out, and I don't even know if this post is coherent enough to understand, but if you've read through it - thank you.

Hi! I'm in desperate need of some advice and reassurance, because so much is about to change in my life.

Tomorrow I (28F) will be taking in my two nephews (19M and 15M). They're my brother's kids, but due to their circumstances (which I will not be getting into in this post, as it is not a sub for legal advice or heavy topics like that). The thing is: my brother is not fit to take care of them anymore, my oldest nephew has some behavioral and mental problems, and I have the means to take them all in and offer a stable environment so they can heal and be happy.

I'm looking for advice or a heads up regarding the younger nephew, specifically, since I know he's at the age when he hates everything and everyone. He's a pretty sporty kid, plays football (US) and rides bikes. Puberty is hitting him hard as well, so I'm expecting the worst.

What should I expect and how should I act when it comes to parenting these two? Any horror stories you have can be shared now, so I don't have to experience them the hard way.

Worth noting that I also have a 6 yo son of my own, so I'm not a complete newbie when it comes to parenting boys.

Hi! I'm in desperate need of some advice and reassurance, because so much is about to change in my life.

Tomorrow I (28F) will be taking in my two nephews (19M and 15M). They're my brother's kids, but due to their circumstances (which I will not be getting into in this post, as it is not a sub for legal advice or heavy topics like that). The thing is: my brother is not fit to take care of them anymore, my oldest nephew has some behavioral and mental problems, and I have the means to take them all in and offer a stable environment so they can heal and be happy.

I'm looking for advice or a heads up regarding the younger nephew, specifically, since I know he's at the age when he hates everything and everyone. He's a pretty sporty kid, plays football (US) and rides bikes. Puberty is hitting him hard as well, so I'm expecting the worst.

What should I expect and how should I act when it comes to parenting these two? Any horror stories you have can be shared now, so I don't have to experience them the hard way.

Worth noting that I also have a 6 yo son of my own, so I'm not a complete newbie when it comes to parenting boys.

Edit: for more context and better understanding, here's my vent post about the whole situation if anyone wants to read about it. It's just here for context and those of you who are curious, no need to read it.

My partner does mountain biking, and 4 months ago he put all of you strong boners in your place with his peak skeletal performance.

Tire slipped, he went over the handlebars, down the slope and stopped on a tree. Not a single broken bone.
He dislocated his shoulder, but we all believe it was just the weight of his strong skeletal structure that made it give in.

100% factory-condition skeleton and, frankly, the love of my life.

Hi! I really need your advice, and I will preface by saying that I will not be breaking up with him because of the issue we're having. I would like to resolve it, if possible.

So my (F28) boyfriend (M30) is not the same kind of kinky I am. He's into some stuff that could be considered kinky, but not to the extreme (or at least not for me). We're definitely both switches, though he's the dominating one most of the time, which is fine with me as long as we both enjoy ourselves. I'm the kind of person who's up for anything my partner wants, as long as it's not illegal or involving scat, and those are my only no-no's, literally.

I've tried countless of my bf's kinks with him, enjoyed some of them, others not so much but would do them again for like a birthday or something.

My main issue here is that I have one thing I really want to try and that I'm into. It's always been a bit embarrassing for me to explain it, but I'd like my partner injured (it can obviously be fake, but I like how it looks on men). He's not completely opposed to the idea, but whenever we try it turns into him being the dominant one.

I'd like to play out my fantasies with him being submissive. He says he is being submissive, but he's obviously not.

Do you have any ideas on how to get him more into it? Or how can we reenact in a way that doesn't make him feel like he needs to be on top?

I live in the States so I probably should be asking that question, and should know, but my son has been using 'cuz' at the end of every single sentence for a week now. You'd probably think he's a teenager, but no, he's 6.

I always thought it meant "because", or at least that's how I've been using it, but it makes no sense to use it at the end of your sentence.

He'll go up to my parents and be like "nana, can I get a cookie cuz?" or ask me "mommy, when's dinner cuz?".

Is it even appropriate? What does it mean?