Human Stories & AMA

had the most caring, loving, understanding man possible and i genuinely loved him so much and i could say with conformity that he loved me more till i found this.

A few days ago he sent me a screenshot of his post history on reddit (related to something else- how he was so stressed for his exam and made continuous posts for study material and stuff)

Obviously it had his username in it. So curiosity got the best of me and I took a peek (it's going where you think but 5 times worse).

His activity was hidden but I got an NSFW warning when I opened his account. Made me uneasy REAL QUICK but i thought it might be vague stuff that often gets flared as nsfw. Fine.

But I just couldn't set it aside, why would he post NSFW stuff at all? (His account is newer than our relationship)

I went on some websites to find out what he's been posting on reddit and found out he'd been commenting on r*pe kink subreddits saying he wanted to ...yeah you know what. It not only broke my heart it disgusted me. He's the SWEETEST guy. How is this even happening?

The worst part is this particular subreddit is banned so I can't even access the actual posts. Just his comments.

I thought the website was tripping, so I used another and then another...nope. same username, same OP, same comments word to word, same date. One website even opened the comment thread for me.

He's asleep right now. He has no idea I have this. I have zero clue what i should even do.

Edit: I'm getting a lot of comments on where I think this is cheating, i had set my boundaries very clearly even before we got into a relationship that I am not comfortable with him watching porn, engaging with others online or entertaining somebody. And he went ahead and did all the three.

Genuinely how is sexually engaging with someone else is not cheating? Porn has ruined you all.

We have 2 toddlers (4 year old and 3 year old boys). My wife works during the weekends every other week. And when she does, she expects me to drop and pick her up. She normally drives during the week, but wants me to drop her off as it’s my day off. Which means that we have to wake up our kids around 7 ish, as I can’t drop her off without taking them. And these kids are full of energy and it’s like 30 mins each way. I could be taking the kids to the park, do household chores, cook dinner, so much more instead of driving to and fro from her work.
Today we had a big fight as she asked me to drop her off to the work and I said no. She’s like “I begged for you to come as it makes me happy but you didn’t.”

For additional context, she’s always asked me to drop and pick her up when she’s got work during weekends, even before work. And I just feel like it’s such a waste given that she can get to the work herself and I can do some other stuff during this time.

AITAH for not agreeing to drop even though she asked.

A guy that I matched on a dating app came over today. I made cinnamon rolls, we ate, then we cuddled.

Which was weird because I did not let any guy cuddle me with a sweet intention in a year. And I did not realize that I missed it really bad. We kissed, almost had sex ( he had no condoms, so we had to stop).

We had dinner, we kissed a lot, cuddled naked, felt very nice, we were all over each other. I did not realize how much I missed this feeling.

And I hate missing this feeling, because all the time it came with costs.

I don’t know If I will see him again. I want to see him again, but I am scared to say and ask.

I am so tired of being alone.

Sometimes when I look at my pet, I get this strange feeling that it’s only cute on the outside, but in reality, it’s a living being with a mind of its own, an individual life with its own consciousness. Its appearance just happens to fit human standards of cuteness.
And once I start thinking about it that way, I suddenly feel this strange separation between its physical appearance and the consciousness that exists within it. It’s a really surreal feeling.
To be honest, when I see a poorly trained dog, I sometimes feel like it’s just a wild animal wearing a cute disguise. What I’m describing is basically that same feeling, but taken to its logical extreme.

Can anyone relate to this?

Had a hospital appointment today My ticket number was 766. When 764 popped up and no one was there, I stepped up to the window.

A woman in her late 40s walked up asking where Window 7 was. I pointed to the window I was standing at. She barely listened, glanced at windows 8 and 9, came back, and said loudly while looking right at me: "This generation can't even read."

I asked who she was talking to, and she instantly said, "You!"

Instead of spiraling or letting her drag me down, I stayed calm, told her clearly I wasn't going to spend time responding to her, and walked away. As I left, she shouted, "Go visit a doctor!"

Normally, growing up in an abusive environment where speaking up meant danger, an encounter like this would have made me shrink or ruined my whole day. But I took a few seconds to process, kept my dignity, and refused to absorb her bad energy.

Right after, I went outside to buy a snack and saw a young girl crying with her mother. I bought a pack of tissues, handed them to her, and said, "I saw you crying, so I bought you this. Keep it." She laughed through her tears, thanked me, and I walked away feeling a deep, unbelievable inner peace.

If life throws stones, throw roses back. It was the first time in my life I felt 100% sure of my own voice. Just wanted to share a small win.

A week ago I made a very very poor decision and tried to take my life. It was a huge regret. I immediately went to the hospital and was put in a pavillion, I’m so happy to say I am alive and doing so much better!!! The therapy really helped and I got my meds situation for proper outside care. Everyone in there was so so nice and kind and we laughed a ton, I’m so blessed to be alive

I hope this is a good place to post this question? Maybe a weird question about casual conversation?

(We are both young women if this matters)

Someone expressed an opinion to me in a friendly way, which she was very clearly looking to me hoping that I agreed with. When making the statement (not a question), she tapped her nose and looked at me, kind of like she was waiting for me to do something?

I’ve never seen this motion outside of maybe a game?
I don’t know what it meant.
Also I don’t know if I implied agreement or disagreement by just moving on. We had very limited time to chat, and I wanted to get back to work.

Fwiw I do privately agree with the opinion she was sharing, but did not know what I was supposed to respond to the motion with. Did not responding with some motion imply disagreement?

Is this an American gesture?
What are you supposed to do in response/what is meant by that? THANKS

I’m a healthy 32 year old girl who works a job with a smile on her face and lives with my boyfriend. However I think I really am not okay. I get into these ruts where I can’t stop day drinking before my shift (career server at a very nice restaurant) but I’m always just the person that everyone thinks is the happiest and most helpful person. I’m well revered and respected and I love my status at work. I train new servers and am often told I am the best worker they have. Sometimes though I wake with a sense of dread and anxiety I can’t place. I will stave it off with a couple of drinks and maybe a shot before going in. I know, go to AA… get help… yeah. I know what I should be doing. But it’s like I can’t. I can’t explain it besides cowardice. I don’t know. Just felt like writing it out. Thanks for listening

Tell me something you love about. Something exciting happening in that world. How did you get into it?

Personally, I love playing guitar and music as a whole .

I ran into a fraternity bro I haven’t seen in about 5 years. He’s younger than me by about 3 or 4 years. He was with his wife and child and a cart full of groceries. I on the other hand, alone, 37 (but not single) had arms full with two twelve packs of beer.
Today, since then I’ve been questioning my success, decisions and priorities.
How do you deal with comparing yourself to others you’ve known for a long time and feel like you should be on the same timeline?

laying in bed wide awake the other night, i kept hearing this soft low hum under everything. at first i figured it was just the building settling or something outside, but the longer i listened the more it seemed to fill the whole room. once i tuned in it was impossible to ignore. i tried putting on a fan, but that just layered another sound on top. eventually i gave up and just let it sit there. weird how something that used to pass for quiet can feel so present once you actually pay attention to it.

I’m a guy hoping to make more platonic women friends, and I always like hearing what people are into. Lately I’ve been enjoying walks, gaming, and finding new things to do in my downtime.

What’s been keeping you entertained lately? If we have something in common and the conversation clicks, I’d be happy to continue chatting in DMs.

My son recently turned one, and a few weeks ago I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I decided to distance myself from my parents, especially my mother, and stop allowing them to interfere in my marriage and how my wife and I raise our child.

I'm almost 35 years old, and I feel ridiculous admitting how difficult this has been.

For some context, I grew up in Brazil during the 90s. My parents became evangelical Christians when I was about a year old, right around the time the whole Satanic Panic thing was spreading through churches here.

And my parents went ALL IN.

They were already pretty strict. Lots of yelling, physical punishment, controlling pretty much everything my brother and I did. But religion took it to another level.

I remember having my toys burned, trading cards destroyed, sticker albums thrown away, videogames scratched up. All because some American pastor had convinced them that Disney movies, games, cartoons and basically anything that wasn't Christian had demons hiding in it.

I couldn't even listen to regular music without being warned that I was inviting demons into the house.

As a kid, I was genuinely terrified. I had nightmares, woke up thinking I could see shadows watching me, and constantly worried about going to hell.

I developed terrible anxiety, which followed me into adulthood. I struggled with it throughout university and still deal with some of it today.

But the weirdest part is that I also became extremely attached to my mother.

Whenever anything went wrong, I needed to tell her. It didn't matter what it was. I felt like she HAD to know, because somehow she would fix it.

It's hard to explain. The same person who made me terrified of so many things was also the person I ran to whenever I was scared.

And that continued for decades.

Now, before I go any further, I really need to explain something. My parents weren't just awful people who treated me badly my whole life.

They've also been incredibly generous to me.

We weren't rich when I was little. Quite the opposite. I remember my mom crying because we couldn't afford meat.

Things got better financially when I went to university. They sold a property, made some good money, and our lives changed quite a bit.

When I bought my first car, my father paid about 70% of it. Whenever I needed help with money, they were there.

When my wife and I got married during COVID, I was unemployed, and they helped us financially every month. Even after I found a job, they insisted on continuing because they said they wanted to help.

And I was always grateful for that.

But over time I started feeling like the money came with strings attached.

Almost like, "We're helping you financially, so we get to have an opinion about everything you do."

And I let it happen for years.

Then my son was born.

My wife had a very difficult delivery. She needed an assisted vaginal birth, was badly injured, and was in a lot of pain afterward.

Our son was having trouble breastfeeding, wasn't gaining enough weight and had jaundice. We ended up spending five days in a pretty awful public hospital.

We shared a room with several other mothers and newborns. There was barely any privacy, nobody was sleeping, and my wife was in a terrible state, physically and emotionally.

At one point she was moved to a different room where I couldn't stay overnight.

The next morning she texted me saying she couldn't take it anymore, that she was feeling awful and needed help.

So my mother and I went to the hospital.

I was filling out some paperwork when my mother went into my wife's room first.

Apparently she walked in and immediately started yelling at her.

She told my wife to stop being dramatic, stop making a fuss, and give her the baby so she could take care of him. She basically took the baby from her and told her to go to the emergency room if she was in so much pain.

My wife told me all of this while crying.

I was furious, but I didn't really confront my mother the way I should have.

I said something to her, but I didn't push it. I was exhausted, worried about my wife and son, and frankly, I was still scared of confronting my own mother.

I hate admitting that.

A day later we finally went home, and my mother stayed with us to help out.

We really needed the help. My wife was still bleeding and recovering, and I was taking care of her while we both tried to figure out how to take care of a newborn.

We also run a small business together, so we couldn't just completely stop working. We had clients to answer, things to sort out. We took turns watching our son while the other person handled work.

About a week after we got home, my mother started yelling at my wife again.

I wasn't there when it happened.

She told her she wasn't taking proper care of the baby, complained that the house was dirty and smelled like poop, and criticized her for working.

She even brought up some story about a neighbor from 30 years ago who supposedly went crazy after giving birth, and warned my wife that she might end up the same way.

My wife came to me crying again.

This time I lost it.

I confronted my mother and told her she was completely out of line. That we had asked for HELP, not someone to criticize my wife while she was recovering from childbirth.

My mother immediately started crying.

She went on about how apparently we just wanted a maid, a silent servant, a slave who wasn't allowed to have an opinion.

And I said something pretty shitty in response.

I sarcastically told her, "Great, that's exactly what we need. Someone who helps and keeps quiet."

I'm not proud of saying that. I was just so angry and tired of seeing my wife being treated that way.

My mother spent the following day sulking, barely talking to anyone.

My wife eventually told me she couldn't take it anymore and that we needed to figure things out on our own.

I agreed.

That evening, when my father came over, I told my mother, half jokingly, "Mom, you're fired."

I thanked her for helping, but explained that we needed some space and wanted to find our own routine as parents.

She took it terribly.

My father later told me she cried the entire drive home.

After that, things were never really the same.

Whenever my parents visited, my mother would constantly try to take over everything involving our son.

Changing diapers, holding him, deciding what needed to be done.

But something else started bothering both of us.

Whenever she picked him up, she seemed to look for an excuse to leave the room with him. She always wanted to be alone with him.

And if we followed, she seemed annoyed.

I don't know how to explain why this bothered me so much, but it did.

Fast forward several months.

My mother went on a trip abroad, and since my father is getting older and has back problems, my wife and I decided to stay at their house for a while.

Things were fine at first, although there was an incident where I accidentally saw a WhatsApp message my father had sent my mother, saying that my wife and I didn't know how to do anything and couldn't properly take care of our own son.

I wasn't snooping. My wife had hurt her ankle, and I was using his computer to schedule a medical appointment. WhatsApp was already open on the screen.

We argued about it, but eventually he apologized, and we agreed to put it behind us.

When my mother returned, we continued staying with them.

We were actually considering living there temporarily because my wife and I are planning to move abroad, and my parents have a large property with plenty of space.

It sounded like a good idea financially.

It was not a good idea.

Within about ten days, my mother was controlling everything again.

If we said we wanted to do something one way, she would do it another way.

It didn't matter what it was. She always had to be the one making the decisions.

My wife was getting increasingly frustrated, and I was trying to keep the peace while also supporting her.

Eventually, my mother once again tried to take over something involving our son. I told her no, and she got angry and started sulking.

I decided we needed to have a serious conversation.

I told her that living together wasn't working, that we would be moving back home, and that she needed to understand something very simple.

He's OUR son.

Not hers.

I told her that I understood she wanted to help, but that her constant interference was actually making our lives harder.

And then I brought up what happened at the hospital.

I told her that the way she treated my wife, just days after she had given birth, was completely unacceptable.

She looked me straight in the eyes and said:

"If I hadn't been at that hospital that day, your son wouldn't even be alive."

I can't even describe how angry that made me.

My wife had suffered so much. We had spent five days desperately trying to get our baby to gain weight, barely sleeping, doing everything we could.

And my mother genuinely believed she was the reason our son was alive?

I demanded that she take it back.

I told her that saying something like that completely dismissed everything my wife and I had gone through.

That was pretty much it for me.

My wife and I went home, and after talking about everything, we decided we were done depending on my parents.

No more financial help. No more allowing them to interfere in our marriage. No more treating their opinions as if they mattered more than our own decisions about our child.

We've also decided to severely limit their contact with our son for the time being.

And now comes the part that's been eating me alive.

My mother is devastated.

She cries whenever I see her.

During the few visits we've allowed, she'll hold my son and say things like, "You're my dream come true," "You're everything I've ever wanted," and "I love you so much it hurts."

She kisses him constantly and still tries to find excuses to be alone with him.

I know those might sound like perfectly normal things for a grandmother to say. Maybe they are.

But something about it, especially after everything that's happened, makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I don't want to accuse her of anything. I don't even know exactly why it bothers me as much as it does. I just know that it does.

And the worst part is that I still love my parents.

They've done so much for me.

They helped me financially when I needed it. They supported me through university. They've helped other people too. They're not monsters.

I genuinely believe that, in their own minds, they're just trying to help us.

But I also feel like their version of love has always involved some degree of control.

And for the first time in my life, I'm refusing to play along.

I'm nearly 35, married, with a child of my own, and I'm only now realizing how much of my adult life I've spent worrying about upsetting my mother.

It's such a strange feeling.

On one hand, I feel relieved. Almost free.

On the other, I see my parents getting older, crying because they don't get to see their grandson as much anymore, and I feel like the worst son in the world.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm overreacting. If this is just a generational thing. If I should have been more patient or found some other way to deal with it.

I keep remembering everything they've done for me, and then I remember my wife crying in that hospital room.

I don't know.

I just know I don't want my son growing up feeling the same fear, guilt and obligation that I grew up with.

And I don't want my wife to ever feel like she comes second to my mother.

I guess that's why I'm writing this. I don't really know what to do with all these conflicting feelings.

I always thought that finally standing up to my mother would feel like some huge victory.

Instead, it feels like I'm grieving a relationship with someone who's still alive.

I genuinely enjoy spending time alone. I can spend an entire day in my apartment watching movies, making food, listening to music and just doing my own thing without getting bored. But then sometimes, usually at night, I get this weird feeling that I'm wasting my twenties. I see people going out, meeting new people, travelling and having all these experiences, and I start wondering if I'm missing out on something important. The funny thing is that when I actually get invited somewhere, half the time I just want to stay home 😭 Does anyone else feel like this? How do you find a balance between enjoying your own company and not isolating yourself too much?

It's been about approximately half a year since my brothers and I lost our mom to the vile dragon that is cancer. For several long months she battled it hoping she can come back home to us. But unfortunately we don't get to that. Since then it's been a slow, tiring process recovering from such a fact. But then my dad, who's been more than affected by her passing, decided to fuck it all up in a single decision.

I had been in contact with my dad's boss for a while now. Occasionally he says hi and checks up on me so I thought it was another one of those times. He did his usual thing asking how I was but then he asked me if I my dad had been bringing women over. Turns out he was! Specifically a s3x worker and paying her for upwards of 2,000 across multiple nights. Poorly hiding it from us to the point he just had her cooking stuff in the kitchen.

He promised us multiple times to me and my brother's faces that she wasn't going to be replaced. She had specifically saved quite a lot of money for us in the event of her leaving us. And for all we know my dad could've been pulling money out of that for that woman. My mom would've been disgusted.

I had to step in with my dad's boss along with my grandma to get him to stop this shit. And you wanna know what he does? Even after promising nothing like this is gonna happen and that he's going to rehab? He had the nerve to have someone else over last night, no shame. Not at all. I am so fucking tired. And he wonders why I'm going into therapy! Precisely because of his nonsense!

Incase no one has asked you recently or just havent felt comfortable enough to give a real answer. How are you really feeling today/recently? It can be as small or as big maybe youll find more people feeling the same way. (Be respectful and mindful of eachother) im feeling overwhelmed and stressed but positive i have a good feeling about my direction in life for the next few months.

I literally don't sleep until I'm ready to pass out at like 12 am or 1 am

I'm always hesitant to use music to help fall asleep because I NEED to be able to hear everything like someone breaking in or my kid crying.

I'm gonna be on my third serving of caffeine here today if I don't get some help.

Not just helping out with directions or carry something heavy down/up the stairs. Really something that a stranger went to greater lenght to help and support you.

For me, I grew up in montreal and winter storms can fully burry your carunder the snow. Anyone who has lived those knows how tedious it is to chovel and get your car out. It was at least -25C outside and i got helped out from a guy passing in his car who saw me struggle with my car. He parked nearby, brought a large shovel and some woodplanks to help the car get some grip and not to ski on the snow.

Took at least 20min to get it out.

I was randomly scrolling through Instagram and I saw a lot of cooking rules about burgers so yesterday I went to Walmart got ground beef 80/20 cuz they were out of the lean one hamburger buns and American cheese slices. I really wasn't thinking too much of it from the reels they mostly took the ground beef made them in the round balls and smashed them I just kind of did that in a stainless steel pan. Seasoned both sides while cooking with salt and pepper put a slice of cheese on it toasted the buns and it was legit one of the best I ever ate I can't believe it was that simple. I thought when I smashed the Patty was just going to turn into ground beef and I was going to eat a sloppy joe but it was super easy. It was super juicy and flavorful and the crust was impeccable. I'm not the best at cooking but if you have a lot of cooking experiences it really that easy to make a burger?

Where they address most of the comments and answer them and be in them a lot.

Or?

Would you rather have the comments left to those commenting and the poster stay out?

Or?

You don't care either way.