I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/shitty-mom-throwaway

Originally posted to r/AITAH

AITA for not telling my parents that the event they were missing was my wedding?

Editor’s Note: added paragraph breaks for readability

Trigger Warnings: >!golden child syndrome, favoritism, property damage, neglect!<

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Original Post: June 30, 2024

Buckle up guys, this will be kinda long.

So I (27F) have a younger brother, Mike (21M). He is the definition of a man child and a mama’s boy, always complaining, always expecting others to bow to him. Just, overall, an asshole. Ever since he was born, my parents fussed over him for everything. He’s not special needs, or had a traumatic birth or anything of the sort. He was just… born. And my parents completely discarded me. My mom (50F) especially. She went from a loving mother to one of those boy moms that people make fun of on the internet. My father (50M) still showed me love and support, but he’s always been too much of a coward to stand up to my mother and let me win at least once.

The only one who stood for me was my grandpa (76M), who always called my parents out on their bullshit, and never liked my brother. I remind him of his late wife, my grandma, and we have a very special bond, but he lives on the other side of the country and I could never see him often.

Mike knows our mom prefers him, and loves to shove it in my face. Because of this and his behavior, we’ve always been at odds. He’s spoiled, a brat and an awful human. I can’t remember how many times I ended up in trouble for things I did better than him or for things he framed me with. His only talent are his football skills. He won a scholarship to a nice college out of state. My parents didn’t spend a dime on my education because apparently my fund had been used to cover expenses after a fire, just for me to discover years later that said money were given to Mike to buy a car and a house.

It’s at public university that I met Lucas. He was the first person I was really drawn to there. Of course I met new people who are now my dearest friends, and thanks to them and Lucas, who was my best friend for years before we got together, I managed to move out of my parents’ house. Now both Lucas and I are well known in our fields and have very good salaries.

Now, to the main issue. Lucas proposed to me a year ago. We’re very private people, so we didn’t post it on social media or anything, and when I told my parents they dismissed it with a “that’s nice” (I’m starting to think they downright didn’t listen to me at all). We decided that we wanted a nice but simple ceremony and reception with our friends and relatives.

Lucas convinced me to invite my parents and brother, but they never responded to the invite. And whenever I went to visit and began to talk about my wedding (without mentioning it was a wedding), my mom would always speak over me and about my brother’s accomplishments and wild adventures. At one point I got fed up with it, and interrupted my mom to tell her that there was an event I was planning to organize, whose date was unmovable. She told me that they couldn’t attend, because my brother was playing the last game of the season that very same day, and wanted them to be there.

Of course, this favoritism didn’t surprise me: they missed my ballets, shows and both my high school and university graduation for things about him. At this point, i wanted to be petty. I told both my parents that it wasn’t a problem to miss this event, purposely omitted the fact that this event was my wedding, and didn’t insist further.

Flash forward to a few weeks ago, I got married. It was perfect. My family, Lucas’ family and our friends were all there, and we had a blast. My grandpa was happy to give me away, and it was just perfect. My relatives asked me multiple times why my parents weren’t there with us. I was honest and simply said they had my brother’s game to attend, and couldn’t come. They gave me a few looks, and my grandpa was visibly angry for a while, but otherwise nothing strange happened.

After the reception, Lucas and I left for our honeymoon, and were phone free for the whole duration of the trip. But once we got back, we discovered that a shit storm was welcoming us home. I turned my phone on, and was unable to even unlock it before a storm of notifications popped up. Most of them were from my mother and brother. Mike called me all sorts of nasty names and insulted me because, apparently, one of my paternal aunts posted the photos of the wedding on Facebook, and captioned it with a very obvious dig at my parents (especially my mom) for missing the wedding.

The post apparently went viral in my parents’ community, and they’ve been publicly shamed for their mistreatment of me. It also turns out that my grandpa personally visited my parents to go on a tirade to shame my father, his son, to the point of tears. And this seemed to be my father’s breaking point, because he was so distraught for missing his only daughter’s wedding and for his father’s disapproval, that he finally rebelled against my mom and is threatening divorce unless she makes it up to me. I think that’s the reason why my mom has been spamming my phone with messages, at first insulting and threatening and then downright pitiful, full of begging and pity parties.

Now I’m at home with my husband, deciding how to approach the situation. Most of my relatives, even those I didn’t invite to the wedding, reached out to apologize for what I went through and to claim they had no idea this was happening at home (can’t blame any of my relatives, they all live with my grandpa on the other side of the country or in another state), but my mom’s sisters and friends are belittling me for not telling my mom about the wedding, because now she’s inconsolable at the thought of having missed my wedding. Personally I think she just claims that to save face, but I’m not sure.

The latest messages from my father and mother seem extremely saddened and hurt for missing my wedding. Now my family is divided on three fronts: the majority who is sticking by my side, my maternal aunts shaming me for hurting my mom’s feelings, and my maternal grandparents who are adamant that I forgive my mom in light of her “atonement”. My best friends are telling me not to listen to them.

So, Reddit, AITA?

TLDR since some of you guys want the juice without reading the post: my parents have preferred my younger brother over me my entire life, and prioritized his events over mine. I got engaged and told everyone, but was dismissed. I sent a wedding invitation to my parents and double checked, but they didn’t respond. When I told them the date, they told me my brother had a game they had to attend. I didn’t repeat that it was my wedding during the exchange and told them that they weren’t missing anything. I had my wedding and now my parents are receiving backlash from my relatives and community after my aunt posted a dig at my mother.

Edit: Thank you so much for the feedback and love! It’s overwhelming! I’m going to address the popular questions here:

1. I did inform my parents about my wedding. I sent traditional on paper invites to all my guests, and was notified that all invites had reached their addressees. I did not receive any answer from my parents and Mike, a few very distant relatives, and some people on Lucas’ side. I did reach out to all of them through message to double check, and those who hadn’t replied told me they couldn’t come. I asked my parents and brother via text, but they didn’t respond. I was left on read. Knowing them and given all the things I had to plan, I didn’t bother insisting.

2. I didn’t repeat the date of my wedding because I had already been told there was my brother’s game. Plus, every time I insisted on highlighting my celebrations to get an answer, I was always told that it wasn’t that important and to not be pissy and a bother. Because some things were simply more important than me. At this point I think it’s fair for me to not insist anymore. It’s not worth the effort.

3. I didn’t keep my wedding a secret. I avoided telling my parents that it was my wedding to see if they would be interested in the slightest, but surprise surprise, they weren’t. Despite this, I did openly talk about my wedding with my aunts and uncles. My mother was in the room with us a few times when I discussed venues or dress shops with my aunt (the FB post one), but some times mom was on the phone, and other times she was just chatting with other people. She never paid attention. When I talked about it during reunions, she smiled and said “that’s great, dear”, and then would change the subject. Radio silence on dad and Mike.

4. I kept in contact with them because, well, all the times I tried to go NC in the past years I’ve been harassed. I tried after my hs, bachelors and masters’ graduations, to which they never bothered to show up for reasons involving my brother. Every time I was shamed for daring to turn my back on family by my parents, my brother, my maternal aunts and my maternal grandparents. I think the turning point here is that, all those times, Lucas wasn’t by my side (we started dating a little after my last attempt at going NC) and, how that I have him here, I feel more confident in my stance. But before that, I want this confident. As I already stated, all my paternal side lives on the other side of the country and wasn’t aware of how they treated me. I did try to expose my parents once, at 14. My aunts, uncles and grandpa reprimanded them, they faked being sorry, and then once home I got the beating and gaslighting of my life for “lying”. After that, l kept in contact regularly with my paternal side, but omitting my parents’ abuse out of fear, which tbh still haunts me to this day. Only grandpa knew, but he was always threatened to be alienated from me if he tried anything.

5. My parents and I are not from the same city. I live in a city an hour drive from my parents’ small town, and they don’t know my new address because once, my brother tried to break in my apartment to steal some cash and my mother backed him up, claiming that siblings share their goods. Now I moved, and I’ll be sure not to tell them where I live.

6. My parents didn’t buy my brother a car and a house before he even started high school. They bought him a car for his 16th birthday, and a house near his college when he began freshman year. They didn’t spend the money of my fund right away, they just lied to me to use it later for my brother, keeping it stored for later in the meantime.

Edit 2: update is posted

AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA!!

Relevant Comments

HereToKillEuronymous: Do you think it would have been different if they knew it was a wedding and not just an event?

> OOP: Well, I am pretty certain my parents would’ve been a handful at my wedding anyway. They did ruin a cousin’s wedding by making it all about how my brother had just given his first university exam, and he got drunk and trashed part of the cake. So… I’m wondering what made me want to add them to the guest list in the first place, but then again in my family going NC or even LC is considered shameful. The cousin whose wedding Mike trashed cut my family off, and they’ve been dragged for “turning their back on family over a minor accident”

OOP on her father missing her wedding and why it was a big deal for him

> OOP: Giving daughters away is a big deal in my father’s side of the family. He only has me, and has made it a bit deal since birth despite how he treated me. Appearances, that’s what matters. > > Make of this whatever you wish to make it.

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Update: July 9, 2024

First of all, I want to thank all those who were interested in my story, and those who wished me and my husband a happy life. I am beyond grateful for your reassuring messages, and your love and feedback. The response was overwhelming and beyond what I ever thought it could be. I love you all so so much🫶🏻

To those who believed my story was fake, i want to say that I’m happy your family life is better than mine, to the point of thinking of my reality as a fantasy, but I’d appreciate it if you stopped harassing me in DM, claiming that I’m writing a fake story for attention. If I’ve missed a few details in the OG post, it’s because I was overwhelmed and crying my eyes out because of my family’s harassment. You are not forced to read my story, or think it’s true, but I think keeping the smallest amount of decency would be nice.

Oh, and before diving in the update let me clarify a few things:

1. Yes, the invitation specifically stated it was a wedding. No excuses.

2. My maternal side of the family didn’t come to the wedding. I’m sorry, I didn’t make that clear in the OG post. Most of them were busy, and the others just gave me excuses to send a gift but not come. That’s it. Don’t ask me why they didn’t discuss my wedding with my mom, it’s not like I live in their brain.

3. My mother’s “atonement” is the fact that she apologized via text. 💀

Now onto the update, things have been a little crazy this past week. I got off of Reddit for a couple of days, to gather my thoughts. Then, I had a lengthy conversation with Lucas about how to proceed. He’s been my rock, and I don’t think I could ever love him more than I already do. My parents were always a taboo topic, but he hit me with a brutal reality check that I absolutely needed. We reached the conclusion that the fact I kept in contact all this time, stuck around and couldn’t go NC, isn’t healthy. I’ve realized that, the reason I never fully went NC, was that deep down I just wanted their approval, even now, for once. Pathetic, I know. But it’s like a drug, being with my parents. They can be loving, funny, caring and warm, until they’re not. The little love they give makes you crave for more, and you want their approval so badly you destroy yourself. But that’s enough. I promised myself that things are going to change. I’ve thought about it, and decided to start therapy, and to go NC with all those who made an issue about this situation, for good this time.

After the days dedicated on reflecting on how I feel, I ended up messaging my father to tell him that, if he wanted to talk, I would meet him, mom and Mike in a neutral location the following day. He immediately replied and agreed, and we met at the park. My father’s sisters and brother accompanied us for damage control. My father looked distraught and as if he had been crying for a while. My mom looked the same, but I think it was more out of anger and embarrassment. My brother looked annoyed.

I told the three of them about how their behavior and preference in regards of my brother always hurt me, and that their abusive behavior made me realize that I didn’t want contact with any of them again after that meeting. My mother tried to cut me off multiple times, but my aunt (the one who posted on FB) shut her up every single time.

When I asked them why would they treat me this way, they didn’t know what to say. My father kept crying and apologizing without giving me an answer, and my uncle reprimanded him for it. My mother seemed as if she was asking herself that for the first time, but well, in the end she just said that she simply disliked me. Plain and simple. And my brother? He just liked the attention and making me miserable as some kind of sport.

I went on with my questions. When I asked why they never responded to my invite, they claimed to have never received one. I showed them the texts, but they denied receiving them. And well, it turns out that they hadn’t, in fact, received my wedding invitation. When it arrived to their house, they weren’t there. The only one in the house was my brother, who had come visiting for the weekend. He saw the invite and, as many of you guessed, ripped it up and trashed it. And then, when I texted my parents, he deleted the messages (wasn’t hard to do, according to him they kept my chat archived and didn’t get the notification😑). So, my parents never actually got a formal invitation. I was just distraught. I asked Mike why would he do that, and he just shrugged, and claimed that it wasn’t as important as the stuff they had in program anyway. I had to stop Lucas from punching him in the face.

Strangely enough, my parents were upset, and started reprimanding him. He actually began to throw a tantrum and cry crocodile tears, and I must admit that I was kind of satisfied. But then my mom claimed that all was resolved, there was no need to fuss over a “misunderstanding”, and it was time for me to clear their name. That set me off, and I interrupted her, telling her that they weren’t forgiven at all, that just because Mike trashed the invite, it didn’t mean it automatically canceled all their neglect out.

Plus, all that time it was still very obvious that I was having a wedding, and they should’ve asked about it. You want to know my mother’s response? She said something along the lines of “I did hear you talking about a wedding of yours, but I just thought you were being delusional, and seeking my attention with exaggerated scenarios”. She was convinced Lucas didn’t actually like me, nor would ever marry me. When I tell you I was about to trash her face, do you believe me?

Another thing came up. It turns out that my brother didn’t have a football game to go to at all. My parents used the fact that my husband, friends and I know little to nothing about football (we prefer soccer), and the fact I stopped asking about it when Mike would mock me during his time in high school, to make up a story to avoid my event.

At the time I wrote the OG post, I couldn’t confirm or deny the presence of a game because my brother has private social media and Lucas and I are blocked, and I foolishly trusted my parents’ word. But no. You want to know where they went with that man child? They went to Disneyland, because Mike wanted to go. They used the football story to cover for my brother‘s hundredth tantrum-holiday, and apparently they did it multiple times in the past months.

At that point I was just completely burnt out and overwhelmed by this amount of information. The fact that I had been fooled this badly, that I was so gullible, genuinely made my blood boil, and I snapped. I stood up, and told my father he was a sad, weak man, unable to stand up for his kids unless his wife approved of it. I told my brother he was a little dipshit, a poor excuse of a man that will not accomplish anything in his life and that he’ll always live like the leech he is, babied to the point of uselessness.

And to my mom, I just… I told her that she was the worst narcissist, pathetic, little woman on the earth, that she didn’t even deserve to be addressed and judged, for her irrelevance. That not even God could help her out because she is just too rotten. Harsh, I know.

My mother shot up from her seat to scream at me halfway through my rant to her, but I was just too mad. I shouted at her to shut the fuck up and sit down, and listen for once. She got so mad, it felt like steam was coming out of her ears. I don’t remember much after that, just that I kept talking. And talking. It felt as if all my anger and hurt just flooded out.

At one point I’m pretty sure the whole park was silent. I spat at my parents and Mike that I was disowning them all, and that if they’re smart, they’ll think before reaching out again. I took my purse and left with Lucas, Anna and Francis, leaving my parents and brother at my aunts and uncle’s mercy. I think at some point the reality of what I had just learned and said finally hit me, because I ended up having a panic attack on the way home. Lucas was driving, so Anna helped me through it until we stopped in a parking lot to calm me down. I am beyond grateful for their help. Once home, I just fell on the bed and went to sleep.

I really wanted to go with you guys’ advice, and post the whole thread on FB, but given my work and career I couldn’t expose myself like that. One thing is sharing my story from an anonymous throwaway on Reddit, the other is on FB, with my name and face plastered everywhere. I couldn’t go down that path. Instead, I did something better: I made a folder with all of my mother’s insults, messages and awful comments, and sent it to the woman in charge of my mom’s church. It’s a tight knit community my mom worked her ass off to enter in, but that is also extremely judgmental, and being shunned by them is a death sentence. And well, that’s exactly what happened. Just like clockwork, the scandal spread like wild fire, going out of the church and reaching the rest of the small town. You can imagine what this means for my mother and father.

Because of my little spill, I did find other messages from my maternal side of the family, belittling me even more for upsetting their sister or daughter and insulting her. I just didn’t care anymore at that point, so I followed you guys’ advice, and told them that from now on, they will no longer be part of my life, and that they can talk shit all they want, I just won’t care. Instead, they should be grateful I don’t send their nasty texts to their employers and spouses. I blocked every single one of them, grandparents included, on everything.

I did find a lengthy message from my father. He apologized for not being strong enough to face my mother, agreed that what I said was true, and couldn’t believe that he had lost so much of my life because of her. He told me he is going to divorce her no matter what my decision will be, because he is tired of being controlled. He would like a relationship with me to make up for all the years that passed. I did reply to him, to tell him that as of now I really don’t want to see him or forgive him. He has replied that he’ll try his best to win me back, and that he loves me. I replied back that, as of now, I find that hard to believe, and then blocked him too. Frankly, his slimy way of trying to have an out from this situation by throwing my mother under the bus is pathetic. At least, she was hateful and owned up to it. He is only able to blame others for his choices. I don’t want to surround myself with people like that.

My mother and brother are blocked similarly to my maternal side. Mike wrote other messages to taunt and insult me, and I just blocked him. My mom threw herself a pity party for being shunned by her community and for her marriage going into shambles, and I just replied “good riddance” before blocking her too. As for my grandpa, he has decided to stay with us for a while, to stick by my side. He really is the best, and has read some of your comments (he isn’t going to admit that he’s flattered by them).

Since then a few days have passed, and all has been quiet. Lucas is spoiling me rotten, and I’m starting therapy soon. I know this isn’t the drama filled, revenge full update you hoped for, but well, this is it. I’ll let you know if anything changes or evolves.

Thank you so much for the love and support you showed me. I think I’m going to log out now. As for now, goodbye!

TLDR: I’ve decided to start therapy. I confronted my parents and brother about their behavior and ended up disowning them. I sent my mother’s nasty messages to the leader of her church and now she and her husband are shunned by their community.

Relevant Comments

TWAndrewz: Maybe once your father is actually divorced and gone NC with her and your brother, there's a basis for some rekindling of your relationship. But wow.

> OOP: Perhaps, but as of now I don’t want to think about it. He’s been a supportive dad, but he’s never once defended me in his life. His love was “unconditional” until my mother decided it was, in fact, conditional. And sometimes, it really felt like his love was just something on and off. I don’t want to stick around to see when the magic spell will wear off

Editor’s Note: Thank you to u/KittenDealinMama for the correction. Anna and Francis are OOP’s father's siblings, not her best friends

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DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

This is going to be a long story about something that happened to me in the summer of 2023.

Jen (mid 30s TF), Ginny(early 30s TF) and I (late 40s TF), all from Colorado, were going to be sharing a room at GenCon with my friend Steve (M early 50s) who lives in Wisconsin but I met in Colorado and I've been gaming with since 1996 or 97 in a weekly gaming group that includes my brother. I had come out as fully trans in 2020, this is important-ish to the story. We had a hotel room with a King size bed and a pull out mattress in the couch. The idea being that the women would get the bed and Steve would use the pullout mattress. I was at Steve's 2nd wedding and figured it would be a little awkward for him but it was worth it to split the room cost 4 ways.

Wednesday night Steve picked us up from the airport as he drove to Indianapolis for the Con. Then we went to dinner before we collected our badges from Will Call. At dinner I paid for Jen and myself since Jen paid for something else for me earlier that day, and Steve offered to pay for himself and Ginny "to make it easier for the waitress to split the bill" . I know Steve is married so I thought nothing of it.

Thursday Jen and I left in the morning to check out the dealer's hall and see what kinds of games we could demo. The hotel was about .7 miles from the convention center and the convention center itself is huge talking up about 2 square blocks of space between the state capitol and the football stadium. So we got a lot of walking in. We expected Ginny to join us, but she fell back asleep and slept for another 6 hours then woke up not knowing how to get to the convention. We went back to the hotel around 4 with the expectation that we would rest and collect Ginny and go back to the con. But our 30 minute nap turned into an almost 2 hour nap. Ginny had been drinking since she woke up because we went to Kroger and she got an 18 pack of beer. Well Steve invited her to go with him to a local brewery to try the official beer of Gencon which was a Honey Mead, so they left us sleeping with the idea that they would catch up with us for dinner later.

Jen and I woke up, and decided we didn't want to walk anywhere so we ordered pizza, grabbed a game I had bought and went down to the hotel lobby to play the game on a table big enough, where we met 2 other Gencon people who played with us while we waited for our pizza.

Since we were playing we didn't notice Steve and Ginny coming back from the brewery. After our game was over and our pizza was getting cold we went back to the room. When I opened the door the last thing I expected to see was Steve quickly climbing off of Ginny who was no longer wearing pants.

Ginny took a call from her brother in the bathroom while I had a talk with Steve, who felt he owed me an explanation. He said that him and his wife are technically separated and only live together because of finances. Which at the time I believed because I hadn't been reading reddit stories about cheaters using that excuse back then. I also had thought that Steve was very vanilla, but he had just never talked about his sex life before. He told me he had boyfriends when he was younger until his parents found out. Which is something I didn't need to know as to me Ginny is an attractive young woman and finding her hot wouldn't require him to be bi.

Steve said that they were going to spend the weekend together and then see where it went after that and that he really liked her and wanted her since he first saw her.

I was dumbfounded but they seemed happy, even if Steve was using couple words a little quick like calling her "my dear", "sweetheart" and such, which made me a little uncomfortable.

Friday Ginny and Steve asked for us to leave without them so they could have the room to themselves. We met up with them at the con in the early afternoon. It wasn't until Ginny got me alone when Steve went to go do something that she asked me "What the hell did I agree to last night?"

Ginny said that she was way drunker than Steve led me to believe because while she only had 3 drinks at the brewery, she had already been drinking beers in the hotel for a couple of hours prior to them leaving. And she was drunk enough to mirror his interest in her and agree to see where things might go when she was really just seeing that a guy liked her, and that him being my friend made her trust him because she trusts my judgement. But she wasn't looking for a relationship at all and that he was coming on way too strong.

That night we all went to a Bar-cade together but when Ginny's local friend Django showed up, who is taller, broader, younger and more charming than Steve, he got jealous and Ginny took the opportunity to tell Steve that it wasn't going to work out. Steve had a couple of drinks, and I tried to talk to him about it but he left and I don't know where he went.

Saturday, Steve was acting really closed off, I couldn't talk to him without him wanting to ask about Ginny. If he wasn't a friend I would have called him a creepy stalker type. But I thought I knew him. Steve left before we did for the Con as he had some events he was signed up for. We girls end up going to the Con for a bit then head back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Steve is there and he's acting like someone just stole his puppy. He gets Ginny to talk to him alone in the hall (which set off all sorts of red flags with Jen and Ginny, as it felt like he was trying to separate her from support, I was in the shower at this point) she tells him all sorts of things about why she's not interested in a relationship and tries to get him to back off, but Steve isn't accepting that there's not a chance. But he leaves in a huff and the 3 of us go and have a nice dinner at a spinning restaurant at the top of a nearby hotel.

We come back to the hotel after dinner to get ready for the Dr Who themed event at a club that Ginny knows about through Django. While Ginny was going to Kroger for some smokes and ice cream, Steve comes back with Jen and I in various states of undress and tells us "I don't care, I'm not attracted to either of you. I'm just attracted to Ginny. He asks where she is and then leaves before she gets back. She avoided him in the lobby and then we go to the club for a few hours and when we get back he's asleep or pretending to be asleep.

Sunday we get up and again Steve leaves before us. Ginny, Jen and I go to the con together and we hit up the dealer's room, have lunch at the stadium and then back to the dealer's hall until it closes at 4pm. Then we wander a little more before we decide to go back to the hotel and play some games I had bought. Steve is in his bed watching movies so we just grab some leftovers from the fridge and head downstairs to play games in the game room this time instead of the lobby. We play games for a few hours and then Jen and Ginny go outside to smoke while I go back to the hotel room. Steve seems like he finally accepts that Ginny just isn't that into him but he talks to me and tells me that he wanted to do Gencon with me because he wanted to reconnect with me as he feels I've changed since my transition (something my brother called hilariously tautological) and he doesn't know me. Then blamed me for not reconnecting with him by choosing to spend time with Jen instead of him. Keep in mind we had never spent a lot of time doing things together at previous GenCons I've gone to with him before my transition. And he never invited me to do anything this time. But somehow he's trying to make it my fault that his attempt to reconnect with me failed so now he's going to quit our almost 30 year gaming group.

I'm floored as I expected to get back to normal and try to forget about the Steve I saw at the Con this weekend because that's not the Steve I've known for years. But now he's telling me that he can't game with me without wanting to ask about how Ginny is doing and that another member of our group hates him(he didn't) and he hates Jen and he doesn't like that she joined our group. And again trying to make it sound like this con was his last ditch attempt to reconnect with me and that somehow it's my fault he tried to fuck my friend and then got all creepy when it didn't work out.

I was crying and yelling at him and he just lay there all stoic and stuck to his version of events that it was my fault. I'm crying that I've lost a long time friend over something so stupid and go for a walk where Jen and Ginny find me. They try to console me but I don't take the end of relationships well. Ginny distracts me when she finds out she booked the wrong flight home and needed to change her ticket and Jen disappears saying she has to take care of something.

Jen went and confronted Steve, telling him that he's being creepy, that he's made one of her friends cry and the other extremally uncomfortable and then demanded that he either let her buy him out of his last night in the hotel or give us back our money so that we can find another hotel room because she said we were not sleeping in the same room as him that night.

I don't know all the details of what she said but she saw me crying, and already didn't like how Steve tried to take advantage of a very drunk Ginny and then be all manipulative in trying to get her to agree to things she wasn't comfortable with. So Jen was filled with righteous fury (yes she is a fiery redhead) when she confronted him. She's taller than him and she said she used her boy voice on him. He changed the room name to my name and then grabbed his bags and left. I don't know if he got another room or if he just got in his car and drove home to Wisconsin, but he didn't come back and I haven't spoken with him since.

After he left and we returned to the room Jen was showering and Ginny was worried that Steve kept his key and that he could still get in. So I showed her the swing lock that could be used from inside to keep the door from opening more than a couple of inches and demonstrated how the door stops when you try to open it with the lock in place. Unfortunately, the door noises and thumping of me pulling the door against the lock made Jen think Steve had come back and she ran out of the shower to fight him. No she didn't get dressed first, she was ready to throw hands in the buff.

Ginny spent a lot of time on Sunday apologizing to me that she let it go as far as it did. But neither of us could have predicted that Steve would act that way. If you had asked me before this trip what the dangers of Steve sharing a room with us might be, I would have said he might make an offensive comment, not out of hate but of ignorance. But I never, ever would have expected him to crush on Ginny so hard that he lost his fucking mind.

Monday we flew home and I found that Steve had already removed himself from all Discord groups we shared. maybe he removed his whole Discord account, I have no idea. So he self exiled himself from our gaming group.

What I didn't think of until later is Steve has a stepdaughter from his first marriage that would be about Gwen's age. And the funny thing is I ran into her at a Pride festival in Colorado Springs a couple of years later, and I was able to go over the story with her. She wasn't surprised, she didn't get along with Steve ever since he cheated on her mom with the woman who would become his 2nd wife. Which I never knew about, even though we were gaming friends when all that went down. She said she still knew people on Steve's side of the family, so his attempt at infidelity would be known by the people who matter.

I got over the sadness after a week or so, I was mourning the friendship I thought I had, but learned that Steve wasn't the friend I thought he was or even the person I thought I knew for half my life. I gave him the benefit of so many doubts that weekend. I don't blame Ginny for anything that happened. It was Steve being creepy and then socially awkward and possessive of her in a way that made me increasingly uncomfortable around him. My brother reached out to him for his side of the story. And while he wouldn't tell me what Steve said, he did say that Steve sounded unhinged and it's a good thing he lives half the country away from Ginny and that he didn't know where she lived. He also said that Steve said a bunch of stuff about me that he knew wasn't true because my brother trusts my word over someone who is clearly losing it.

I learned a lot that weekend about the people I went with. I learned that Steve is creepy around women, something I didn't notice before I realized who I was. I learned that Jen is very protective of her friends and you make them cry at your own peril. And I learned that Ginny has horrible taste in hookups.

Next GenCon I attend will be a ladies only hotel room.

Consequences: after being creepy toward a woman young enough to be his daughter, Steve lost an entire friend group, and gets word of his cheating out to his family and current wife.

Edit: Forgot to mention that these names are pseudonyms. As per the subreddit's rules. And I had accidentally had a few instances where I forgot to use the pseudonym.

My family rented a beach house for a week, and everyone agreed ahead of time how much they would pay. I paid $900 for my share because I was supposed to have one of the private bedrooms.
When I arrived, my sister told me they had decided to give my room to her friend who joined the trip at the last minute. Apparently, because I’m single, they thought I “wouldn’t mind” sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room.
Her friend was only paying $200 for the entire week.
I told them that if I was sleeping on the couch, I wasn’t paying $900. My parents said I was making the vacation about money and that everyone should just be flexible.
So I packed my stuff, booked a hotel nearby, and told them I wouldn’t be paying anything toward the house.
Now they’re furious because everyone else has to pay more to cover my portion, and my sister says I ruined the family vacation over “a bedroom.”
AITA?

This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

OOP: u/Illustrious_Elk_2356

Published on: r/Marriage

Story is: NO FURTHER UPDATES (OOP deleted the account)

Story timeline

• Main Post: August 03, 2026

• Update: August 06, 2026

• Final Update: Comments: August 08, 2026

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Main Post

^(August 03, 2026)

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I found out about my wife's affair through her lover's wife

I'll try to keep this as short as possible.

My wife and I are both in our early 40s. We have been together since university and have been married for almost 15 years. We have two teenage children. We both have well paying jobs, we take family vacations regularly, we have an active intimate life and as far as I knew, we didn't have any major problems. From the outside, we looked like a very happy family.

On Friday, a woman slightly younger than me came to my workplace. I had never seen her before. She introduced herself, told me her name, who her husband was and then said that her husband had been having an affair with my wife. She then showed me everything.

Photos, messages, call logs...everything. She told me she had started suspecting an affair back in early June after her husband received suspicious late night messages that had no visible chat history. She began digging and eventually discovered thousands of calls and messages exchanged between him and my wife over the past year.

She confided in her father, who immediately contacted several people, including a lawyer and after a month they managed to uncover everything including who is her husband's mistress...

We live about five hours apart, but our spouses work for the same multinational company. Over the past 14 months, they have been having sex during business trips. It happened on four separate trips that lasted around five days each, plus two shorter two day trips. You do the math.

She was incredibly calm. Honestly, almost cold. She told me she had wanted to contact me much earlier but wasn't sure I would believe her, so she wanted to present all the evidence in person when she was in my city. She also openly admitted that a big reason for telling me was revenge against my wife.

She plans to file for divorce today or tomorrow. According to her, everything is already prepared and she can no longer pretend everything is fine because she can't even stand to touch her husband anymore. Apparently, her husband noticed she had been acting differently lately and started panicking that she maybe found out something. He warned my wife, who also started panicking.

To be honest, until then I hadn't noticed anything unusual. My wife seemed completely normal. But now I do notice she is constantly around me, asking me questions, paying close attention whenever I talk with someone and on Friday she kept asking why I was home so late. From everything I read, it is obvious neither of them ever intended to leave their marriages. They both repeatedly said how happy they were with their lives.

The messages contain everything imaginable: comparing their spouses in bed, my wife mocking the other wife, planning vacations together, giving each other parenting advice... Honestly, it made me feel sick.

The other betrayed spouse told me she will notify the company they both work for once her lawyer gives her permission. She also intends to tell their children the complete truth after her husband is served with divorce papers. She wished me luck and said I could contact her anytime if I needed anything. We have stayed in touch and the last thing she told me was that she would file today or tomorrow at the latest. My wife's phone is completely clean and I used it in front of her and she seemed normal.

I'm completely knocked down. I'm trying to act like everything is normal and pretend I'm just stressed because of work, but it is incredibly difficult. I honestly don't know what to do. My heart tells me one thing, my head tells me another. As twisted as it sounds, it is somehow easier knowing this affair seems to have been driven by pure sex rather than love.

At the moment, I do plan to divorce, but there are so many practical issues. We have two houses, cars, investments, teenage children... I need time to come up with a plan of my own. The other wife doesn't want to wait because she simply can't bear being around her husband anymore. Where we live, infidelity has absolutely no impact on divorce proceedings. That means I'm almost certainly going to lose a significant portion of my assets if everything is split 50/50.

My wife cares deeply about her reputation and is highly respected in our community and her parents would be so much disgusted by her if they know the truth. Part of me thinks I might be able to negotiate a fair settlement by agreeing not to expose the affair publicly, especially since I have been the primary breadwinner throughout our entire relationship.

On the other hand, I'm carrying so much anger and resentment right now that I want to tell the whole world what she did. And despite everything... I still love her.

Has anyone been through something similar? What would you recommend my next steps should be?

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COMMENTS

Why didn't you confront your wife immediately?

> That is the plan. I'm not going to confront my wife until I have at least spoken to a lawyer, which I hope to do within the next 24 hours. My biggest problem is that I barely have any time to process what has happened, let alone get everything in order. > > I asked the other wife to give me just a few more days, but she told me her female lawyer is strongly advising her to file for divorce immediately, start the legal process as soon as possible and tell their children who are about the same age as ours the truth so she can maintain as much control over the divorce as possible and achieve the best outcome. > > On top of that, she simply can't stand being around her husband anymore. I understand her, and I'm grateful that she told me the truth because I honestly don't think I would have ever discovered any of this on my own. I just wish she had told me a few days earlier.

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Were you able to find another lawyer after the other wife's lawyer couldn't represent you?

> I spoke directly with her lawyer. There is a potential conflict of interest, so she won't be able to represent me, even though the idea seemed great in theory. However, she gave me the contact information for one of her female colleagues and recommended that I reach out to her instead. We have already been in touch and we have a meeting scheduled for later today.

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What do you know about the other wife's plans and why is she moving so quickly? Did the other wife give you all the evidence she found?

> As the other wife told me, she expects that both of them will lose their jobs after she talked with her lawyer. > > I asked her whether that was really a smart decision considering child support and alimony, but she told me that she doesn't care about that. Her plan is to sell whatever assets she is awarded, move back to her hometown with the children and that she already has support from her father there who will help her fully. > > Her only goal right now is for her husband to face maximum consequences for what he did and for her to get away from him as quickly as possible. > > Yes, I have everything.

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Are you certain the evidence really shows your wife was having the affair?

> I'm not sure what you mean by saying that I don't have evidence and that she might be setting me up. I have pictures of the two of them together, call and message records from my wife's phone number, and messages that match the timing of those calls and conversations. > > I also have a large number of WhatsApp messages and calls, again from my wife's number. In those messages, she mentions me, our life together, and our children. It is clearly her. There is no one else it could be. > > As soon as the other wife realized what was happening, she did everything she could to uncover the full truth. She knows the hotel room where he stayed on the last trip, which restaurants they went to, she has pictures of them together and much more. She spent a month preparing all of this, and the only thing left is for her to tell him that she knows everything.

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Was there really nothing suspicious on your wife's phone?

> Yes, it is completely clean. I honestly haven't checked her screen time, but her messages and call history are clean. There is nothing suspicious there. > > I have always had access to her phone. She has had the same passcode the entire time and she has never acted uncomfortable or protective about me using it not before and not now. To be honest, I rarely ever used her phone anyway. Usually it was just to call someone if my own phone wasn't nearby so maybe that is why she is super chill.

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How were your wife's affair messages and communications hidden?

> Everything the other wife showed me indicates that they communicated through regular text messages and WhatsApp. That is my wife's phone number, so it doesn't appear that she was using another phone. However, one thing I found strange is that in the WhatsApp screenshots of their conversations, the profile picture isn't visible. > > I checked my wife's WhatsApp settings because I thought maybe she had changed the privacy settings so that everyone except her lover could see her profile picture, but that wasn't the case. So that part is a little unclear to me. > > It is possible that she blocked him at the moment when the other wife was collecting additional evidence, but the phone number is the same. They don't follow each other on Instagram, and she hasn't shown me anything suggesting they communicated there. I honestly haven't checked email. > > I checked her contacts, and everything looks normal. His number isn't saved in her phone. I don't know whether she deleted and blocked him now that she is panicking. What I do know is that, according to the other wife, the last time they were in contact was early last week.

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Are you considering reconciliation?

> I strongly believe reconciliation is not going to happen. I have spent a lot of time thinking about everything this weekend. I have barely slept, maybe only a few hours, and it'l is extremely hard for me to process that she was capable of doing this. > > The fact that she showed absolutely no signs that she was cheating makes it even worse for me. It makes me feel like she is a psychopath. > > And reading those messages where she compared me and him in bed, where she joked about how at home she was the caring housewife and mother but on business trips she was his dirty girl... has honestly disgusted me in a way I don't know if I can ever get past. This is how I feel right now, but we'll see how I feel in a few weeks.

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What happened after the other wife filed for divorce?

> She filed for divorce today. Where we live, the divorce petition isn't served immediately. It usually takes one to two weeks to reach the other spouse by mail. However, she told me she is going to make him leave the house as soon as she files so that is today. > > Right now, both of our spouses are at work in their cities, so I have no idea what is going to happen once they get home. I'm expecting some kind of update from her later before I come home which will be few hours after my wife comes. She also told me that she won't mention anything about me or my wife when she confronts him.

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Why doesn't the other wife seem concerned about her husband's loss of income?

> She doesn't work and is currently at home with the children, while her husband earns a lot and is at least two positions above my wife professionally. > > Her lawyer gave her permission to inform his company because, even if he loses his job, once he finds new employment he will still be required to pay child support. > > From what I have been able to understand through my conversations with her, her father is very serious person, so her financial future is not really a concern. At this point, she simply wants him to face consequences for what he did. That is her main focus, and she doesn't seem to care about anything else.

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Update - after 3 days

^(August 06, 2026)

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Should the children be told about my wife's affair?

If anyone is interested in what happened, you can read my previous post for the full story.

In short, my wife's affair partner's wife filed for divorce. He threw every excuse imaginable at her in an attempt to save the marriage. He said he got carried away and couldn't stop, that it was only sex, that he loves his wife, that my wife was attractive but his own wife is even more attractive, that he would do anything to fix things, that he would never speak to my wife again, that there would be no more business trips and so on.

None of it mattered to her. She made him leave the house. At first he refused, but when she threatened to tell everyone at work what he had done, he finally left. She kept me updated throughout. When I got home, I immediately noticed my wife was acting very differently extremely nervous and on the verge of tears. On Tuesday evening she confessed everything.

By that point, I had already met with my lawyer and yesterday second time although I haven't told my wife that. My lawyer asked me to hold off without telling anything to my wife for a few more days while she prepares everything. She believes I have a strong claim to roughly an additional 20% of the equity in our house because part of the purchase price came from money my parents gave me. She also mentioned several issues involving investments and stock holdings that need to be reviewed and could go in my favour before we move forward.

The one issue where we disagree is the children. My lawyer believes I should tell them the truth. My children are 15 and 13 years old. They are very close to both me and my wife. They are happy, healthy kids. My goal isn't to protect my wife's reputation. My concern is protecting my children from additional emotional pain. However, my lawyer believes I'm making a mistake.

Her argument is that we have always appeared to have a happy marriage and a stable family, so a sudden divorce with no explanation would be incredibly confusing and painful for the children. The other wife intends to report the affair to the company where both my wife and her affair partner work. Both her lawyer and my lawyer believe there is a good chance they will both lose their jobs, especially since the affair partner held a position about two levels above my wife.

My lawyer believes that if I proceed with the divorce and my wife loses her job, my children will inevitably connect the dots. She thinks they will eventually realize what happened anyway and resent me for hiding the truth from them. She also raised the issue of the financial settlement. She believes my wife may be more willing to agree to a more favorable division of assets could help repair her relationship with the children.

Likewise, if I ultimately decide not to divorce, my lawyer believes I could negotiate a very strong postnuptial agreement because my wife would be desperate to rebuild trust with both me and the children. She also believes that if I don't tell the children the truth, they might end up blaming me for the divorce and that my wife could portray herself as the victim.

At first, I wasn't convinced by my lawyer's reasoning. She is relatively young and doesn't have children herself, so I struggled to understand her perspective. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if she might be right. The other wife told her children everything. They are around the same age as mine and they haven't spoken to their father for the past few days but according to her they are fine.

My children don't know anything yet. I'm trying my best to stay composed, but they have clearly noticed that something is wrong especially with their mother, who is now sleeping in a different room. I would really appreciate any advice. Does what my lawyer is suggesting make sense or would you handle this differently?

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COMMENTS

What had the children already noticed about what was happening? Why won’t your wife tell the children what happened?

>They have definitely noticed that something is wrong. My son asked me what was going on, why my wife was sleeping in a different room, what was wrong with her and why she had been crying. > >I just told him that we had an argument. So it is obvious that they know something is happening. > >There is no chance she will tell them on her own. As soon as she confessed, she immediately begged me not to tell the children because she believes they would hate her for the rest of their lives. She then started doing what I mentioned before...offering everything possible for another chance. > >No. She doesn't want to tell them anything. In her mind, I will just eventually move past this, give her another chance and she will do whatever it takes for us to be happy again. Honestly, I feel like she is completely disconnected from reality right now.

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What exactly did your wife say when she confessed?

>She confessed. She talked for about 15 minutes. I listened to her. She said she knew I was aware of what happened. She said she could feel it and that her affair partner had also told her that he had been kicked out of the house and that I probably knew everything. > >Honestly, I do believe her when she says she sensed it because I couldn't completely hide my emotions or act totally normal sincr Friday. > >After she finished saying what she needed to say, she asked me to tell her something. The only thing I said was that I needed her to leave me alone and change beds. Since then, we haven't really had any communication, except that she sends me messages during the day and, like I mentioned, once the children go to sleep she comes to my door asking if we can talk.

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What is she saying when she asks for another chance?

>About the second chance. She is trying to explain to me that she was living two different lives. One that was a fantasy without children and another one that she says she loves 100 times more, with me and the kids. > >She says that she knows she wasn't normal, that she needs psychological help and that she will do whatever it takes to get another chance. But honestly, I don't want to listen to any of that crap right now.

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What would genuine remorse look like to you?

>It depends on what you consider remorseful. For me, being remorseful is not crying and sending me long messages about how much she loves me or offering me every possible thing she can do. > >For me, remorse would be her taking action on her own. For example, telling the children what she did. Seeking professional help. Admitting it to her parents, who would be devastated and angry with her. Offering me certain additional assets in the event of a divorce. Paying for a polygraph herself to at least try to ease my mind that this wasn't something that happened before. > >It would mean her voluntarily telling the children that she is willing to do paternity testing if that would help me have peace of mind. Taking an STD test. Immediately resigning from her job and finding another one. Telling her sister and her sister's husband what she did. I need actions from her so that I can truly say she is remorseful. > >Her tears and begging me to listen to her are not going to help. Her saying she will do everything I mentioned also doesn't help right now. > >I need her to actually do something on her own so I can say she is remorseful. For the last 48 hours, she has just been staying in the room and crying and asking me to talk.

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What did you find in the messages between your wife and her affair partner?

>I honestly don't know what to say. I read all the messages that the other wife gave me and to me it almost seemed like they were both under the influence of something. The conversations were so disconnected and all over the place. They also weren't talking every single day. There were weeks without any message. Most of their communication happened before business trips, mainly discussing sex. And the most disturbing part of all is that they were giving each other advice about our children and our spouses.

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Was there anything actually wrong with your marriage or sex life?

>I agree with you. No, we never watched pornography. But it is obvious that she was looking for something else. Something she felt she got from her affair partner that she didn't get from me. But that is what makes this so confusing. > >Like I said, we had an active sex life. She never rejected me and I never rejected her. Of course, there were times when we were both tired, but neither of us ever turned the other down for three or four days in a row. > >She never complained or told me that anything was missing. If anything, after we had sex we would usually talk, laugh and enjoy being together. That is why all of this has been so incredibly hard to process. I feel like the biggest fool in the world and like the most pathetic man in the world.

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Are you actually planning to divorce, or are you considering staying?

>I’ll be honest, I’m leaning toward divorce at around 90%. That is one of the reasons I’m considering telling the children. I want to understand their reaction and how they feel about everything. > >My biggest wish right now is that they are able to finish school normally and then go on to university and pursue the path they want. At this moment, the last thing I want is to touch my wife. That is how I feel right now, but I don’t know how I’ll feel in 10 days, two months, or later down the road. > >My lawyer told me she has handled many cases where mostly husbands initially wanted a divorce but changed their minds, especially because of the children. She said that if I decide to stay, I should consider creating a postnuptial agreement that would strongly protect my interests. > >Then, once the children leave for university, if I still haven’t been able to forgive my wife and move forward, I could choose to divorce and start a new chapter of my life with someone else.

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Why have you stayed in contact with the other wife?

>Why would I stop talking to the wife? She has told her father, her brothers and of course her children, but she doesn't like talking to them about this because they all keep telling her that things will get better and she hates hearing that and they are calling her all the time and she wants peace. > >I haven't really told anyone. So, at the moment, she is my only source of support. She gave me all the evidence, opened my eyes to what was happening and she is the only person who truly understands what I'm going through because we are both living through the same nightmare. And she likes to talk with me as well. I don't understand what is the problem seriously. > >I'm sorry, but this is literally insane. If I have to explain to my wife that she needs to cut off all contact with her affair partner just to have a 1% chance of us staying together, then I would be the biggest doormat imaginable. > >It doesn't grant them any licence to continue talking. If she wants to be with him, she is free to go. No one is stopping her. She has complete freedom to make that choice. His wife has already filed for divorce and doesn't want anything to do with him anymore, so he will be a single man soon enough. > >And how does me talking to his wife somehow give them permission to keep talking to each other? That makes no sense. If it weren't for her, I probably never would have found out about the affair. > >No, I'm going to stay in contact with her for as long as I want. I'll support her just as she has supported me and I'll be grateful to her for the rest of my life for opening my eyes to what was happening. > >If she decides she doesn't want to talk anymore, that is completely fine. I won't bother her. But right now, she does want to talk to me and she is genuinely interested in knowing everything that is happening on my end. Whether that bothers my wife or not honestly doesn't concern me at all.

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What finally made you decide to tell the children?

>I have decided that I'm going to tell my children. Last night, before going to bed, I had a brief conversation with the other wife and she told me how everything went with her children. According to her, they are extremely angry with their father, but they are still laughing, spending time with their friends and otherwise functioning normally. > >I don't believe she is lying to me because, up to this point, she has been completely honest with me and that is the reason I even found myself in this situation. I don't know why everyone assumes that if I tell my children, I'm going to tell them every explicit detail. I'm not. I'm simply going to tell them that their mother had an affair and that I have hired a lawyer. > >My lawyer advised me to have the conversation with the children without my wife present so that she can't influence them emotionally with tears or interrupt the discussion. She told me that I should answer every question they have myself, not let my wife answer for me and if necessary, show them some evidence such as the messages my wife sent me apologizing and asking for another chance. > >Only after that does my lawyer recommend that the children speak with their mother and ideally I should not be present during that conversation. This is her advice based on her experience handling divorce and family law cases. > >I don't know exactly when I'll have the conversation, but it will sometime over the weekend or maybe even today.

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What ultimately convinced you that hiding the affair from the children would be worse?

> Yes, that is exactly what she told me as well. She said she has handled many divorce cases and that one of the biggest mistakes parents make is assuming that their children shouldn't know anything. > >According to her, the biggest mistake is often made by husbands who believe they have to carry the burden alone, keep the affair a secret and protect the children by hiding the truth. > >She told me that, in many cases, the children eventually become angry with their fathers for never telling them the truth. Instead of protecting the relationship, it often results in the children ending up with strained relationships with both parents. > >No matter what, somehow I end up being blamed. For what? To protect her? Or to protect them?They are not stupid. Over the last few hours, I have had conversations through texts with my son because he's looking for answers. And now I'm supposed to lie to his face. > >From the way he talks to me, it already seems like he thinks I have done something wrong. Four or five days ago, I saw this very differently. But not anymore. I've made up my mind. I will listen to my lawyer and I'm going to tell them. They don't need to know every detail, but they will know that their mother had an affair.

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Final Update - after 5 days (after 2 days from last post)

^(August 08, 2026)

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Final Update: Should the children be told about my wife's affair?

I’ll post an update here so people don’t need to keep commenting and giving me advice about whether I should tell the children or not. Yesterday afternoon, I told them. Just the three of us. Obviously, they were shocked. They had a lot of questions and demanded that I not lie to them. They wanted to know absolutely everything. Where, when, who, the affair partner’s name, his wife’s name, what they look like, the messages, etc. I didn’t tell them everything, but I did tell them the basic details like where it happened, when it happened and why, according to my wife.

I thought my son would be extremely angry and my daughter would be very emotional, but the opposite actually happened. My son was very calm and told me that he had already suspected something like this, so he was mentally prepared. He just thought that I had done something wrong. Hearing that obviously made me even more relieved that I had told them. My daughter, on the other hand, was absolutely furious with my wife and for the first time I heard her use some very harsh language.

They asked me about the divorce and I told them that, for now, that is my plan. They took that very hard, but we are taking it day by day. I brought them home and then left so they could talk to their mother privately. Everything I'm about to say is based solely on what the children told me because I neither saw nor heard any of it myself, but according to them, they yelled at her for a long time.

My son contacted her parents and told them what had happened. He said he had already called them in the previous few days asking what was going on and they apparently didn't know. What I find very strange is that they never called me afterward to ask what was happening.

Anyway, her parents immediately told her to come stay with them and the children told her to leave the house. I spoke with her parents. They are absolutely devastated. They can't believe what happened and are worried about how this will affect her, but also the children.

They asked me about the divorce. I told them that was the plan and I immediately realized that I probably shouldn't have said that because they will obviously pass that information on to her. But I wasn't exactly in the best mental state at the time. I haven't seen her. She left before I got home. From what I can tell, she only took a small amount of clothing and that is it.

She hasn't contacted me at all since last night. No calls, no messages. She did call our daughter, but our daughter refused to answer. That is basically it. Honestly, I feel much better and I'm glad I told them.

The idea that my children might blame me for her affair and for the possible divorce was something I could never accept. A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It is also much easier now that I don't have to pretend in front of the children that everything is fine. Obviously, they are taking this very hard. They are extremely angry with their mother and are saying things like they'll never speak to her again, which is understandable at this point.

Some people have been messaging me saying that she betrayed only me and not the children, but I don't agree with that. How did she not betray them when she betrayed their father and their family? That way of thinking makes no sense to me. Thankfully, there is no school right now, so they have time to process everything and spend their time however they want.

It is very important to them that nobody finds out about this because they are embarrassed and worried about what their friends might say. I promised them that nobody would know except my lawyer and that I wouldn't even tell my best friend. My lawyer is happy with how I handled things. She said she'll need until Tuesday to gather information and investigate everything regarding the assets and then we'll have a meeting at her office.

The other wife has also been informed. She is extremely happy. She isn't even hiding how pleased she is that my wife's world has fallen apart. She is planning to contact the company next week and inform them about the affair involving her husband and my wife.

I'm a little confused about why she is waiting and how exactly she plans to do it, although she told me she knows her husband's supervisor. I'm also not sure what her plan is if that person tells her that nobody is going to be fired. She keeps saying that she has everything under control and knows exactly what she is doing, but she doesn't tell me the details.

Maybe she doesn't trust me enough to share everything. I don't know. Either way, she is moving forward with huge steps while I'm still in complete shock. That is it for now. You don't need to give me any more advice. I have read practically every comment and thank you all for the support.

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COMMENTS

FSmertz > As my earlier comment predicted, your daughter will hate your STBX wife for a long time, a very long time. If she watched even a small amount of Disney stuff and other fairy tales that inculcate "living happily forever" values for romantic relationships--especially for girls, then she feels betrayed in her heart. > > Speak with a highly recommended therapist experienced with family infidelity impacts, and see if therapy for the three of you or individual therapy, or both, is recommended. Also ask about timing. > > I'm surprised that the OBS's attorney is letting her contact the company directly. Perhaps the attorney will be Plan B. A letter from an attorney to the employer highlighting facts and questioning use of company resources for adultery will not be ignored--especially if it's a publicly held corporation. It's far cleaner and cheaper for the employer to fire these two. > > I'd be very neutral with your communications with your STBX wife. Logistics and financial responsibilities and all that maintenance talk. > > Do you think she will get together with her AP out of emotional desperation in the coming week? > > OOP >> Honestly, I don't believe she will stay in contact with the AP. That is my opinion, but then again, I also thought we had a great marriage and look what I found out. I spoke with her parents this afternoon and they told me that she is completely devastated. When our daughter refused to answer her call, she apparently turned her phone off. I don't know whether she has turned it back on since, but she hasn't called me or the children and honestly, none of us wants to hear from her right now anyway. >> >> As for the other wife, I don't know exactly what her plan is. What she told me is that she knows her husband's supervisor. I asked her how close they are and she said she knows him very well. He is one of the key people at that branch. >> >> I asked her what would happen if he decided not to do anything and she told me not to worry because she has another plan and will accomplish what she has set out to do. Her lawyer has given her full support, but I don't know whether she is actually involved in any of this. I don't have those details and the other wife isn't telling me anything about it. >> >> That is why the whole thing seems a little strange to me, especially because she has apparently been waiting all week to tell anyone, despite supposedly knowing her husband's supervisor personally. In any case, she has repeated to me that getting her husband fired is the only thing she wants, along with my wife being fired as well. She says she doesn't care about the consequences because money isn't an issue for her since she comes from a wealthy family and has full support from her father. >> >> Her only goal is revenge and to move back to her hometown with the children as quickly as possible. Apparently, her husband's loss of employment is a key part of what needs to happen for the court to approve the relocation of her and the children.

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This is a repost sub. I’m not the Original OP (OOP)

Please remember to follow the subreddit rules, especially the ones about brigading.

Let’s aim for a respectful and friendly discussion for everyone involved.

I am NOT OP. Original post by u/suedwifeacct in r/relationship_advice

This was previously posted here over a year ago.

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My (36m) wife (33f) was sued, I'm feeling resentment towards her and I don't know how to move past it. - 09/04/19

FWIW This is not a post asking for any legal or financial advice, we already have a lawyer and have help financially. No offense to reddit, but I’d rather not get any legal advice from a forum, but I’m okay getting relationship advice it seems.

As the title states my wife was recently sued, she lost and we had to pay. The money is a significant amount for us, we didn’t have much in savings or our emergency fund to begin with, and both of those accounts are now empty.

My currently problem is trying to move past the resentment and anger I’m feeling towards my wife. Until now I’ve always felt like we were a partnership in our marriage. But, since I’m the breadwinner I can’t help but to feel like I’m spending "my" money on something that isn’t my fault. I’ve had no problem paying the mortgage, and taking care of various financial burdens that come with being a married homeowner. However, I have been the only one to put money aside in our savings and other accounts to prepare for an emergency - like a totaled car, someone loses their job, medical bills, or an act of god… not a stupid lawsuit where I know my wife is guilty. She has a part time job and doesn’t make much money, but pays for smaller things when she can (like groceries and some random bills), but she does take care of a lot of cooking, cleaning and caring for our pets.

What did my wife do? (Note: I had no idea this was going on while it was happening).

She used linkedin to find her former ex best friend, she ended up creating a realistic looking fake linkedin profile with a vague occupation of ‘recruiter’. My wife ended up sending this ex-best friend, "Laura" a few messages pretending to be a recruiter in her line of work. Laura finally responded thinking that this recruiter was real, my wife wanted her phone number but Laura gave her a personal email address instead. My wife created a second fake linkedin profile and started to send messages to people with similar titles as Laura at her company. These messages said derogatory things about Laura, a mixture of truthful things but embarrassing and just fabricated bullshit to make Laura look bad. Her manager got one of these messages that claimed that Laura was a heavy drug user. Laura's manager talked to her about these messages and he felt like the messages were bizarre and seemed like someone was trying to troll or harass Laura. Well, Laura team had her back and helped her saved these messages. Not only that, but Laura requested that she be drug tested anyway, to provide further evidence that she was clean. My wife didn’t know this at this point, but Laura was pregnant. Several of her coworkers, including her manager testified on Laura behalf.

Using the personal email address she got from the fake recruiter profile, she was able to find a few social media platforms Laura was on and was able to figure out her husbands name. She did some more internet sleuthing and found Laura's husband on facebook. Laura's husband didn’t have much on his facebook profile, but you could see his business email address on it. My wife sent him an email claiming that Laura was cheating on him. The husband confronted Laura about this email and Laura encouraged him to keep responding to this person, and save the messages, as well as to start asking specific questions about this supposed affair. My wife thought she was being clever and ended up telling the husband that Laura was cheating on him during the work week, she even gave him specific dates. What she didn’t realize was Laura had something turned on in google maps where it keeps years worth of historical gps data. Some of the dates my wife gave him also happened to be days where they both worked from home together. She also ended up giving him dates during a time they were on vacation together. Laura had her husband keep responding as much as possible to my wife and to backup all correspondence.

My wife was able to find out when and where the baby shower was going to be. One of Laura friends had created a public registry for her and had the invitation online. My wife decided to show up unannounced (the baby shower took place in a semi-public place, they had rented out an area connected to the public business.) She did not make herself known immediately. Instead she looked for patrons that were entering and exiting the rented out room. She was able to get the attention of a few guests that had never met her and tried to gossip about Laura - my wife was telling people that Laura didn’t actually know who the father was, among other things. This was at an event where her husband was at as well. The word got back around to Laura and she spotted my wife and apparently immediately put together all the pieces of what happened.

I’m leaving a fair amount of information out - My wife was able to find phone numbers, social media accounts and email for other people in Laura circle and sent them messages about Laura on multiple occasions. All the messages were trying to paint Laura in an extremely derogatory light. All the events I’ve mentioned so far took place over a year or so. My wife didn’t think to mask her IP address, so it was pretty easy to find out that all of these made up messages came from the same IP address, ours. Many of Laura's friends and family testified on her behalf, Laura had everyone saved as much digital evidence as possible - and it was a lot.

Laura and her husband hired a lawyer and decided to sue to my wife. They had ample evidence against her. All the saved messages, close friends and even her manager spoke on her behalf, she showed that she went to see a therapist once all the harassment started because she was depressed and anxious, she showed that she and her husband went to counseling after the accusations of her cheating. She even went above and beyond and had more drug tests done to show she was clean and my wife’s accusations were 100% false, and even had a paternity test done to show that my wife was again wrong and chose to lie.

I honestly felt awful for Laura, there were lots of tears on her end. You could tell how much emotional stress she had gone through. She said that being pregnant during the majority of this was absolutely horrific and was worried the stress and anxiety would somehow hurt her baby. She was pained that her one and only baby shower was ruined by my wife and that was something that could never be truly repaid or made up for. And that my wife’s harassment continued even after Laura gave birth and was trying to manage a newborn child.

My wife has never done anything this crazy before. I knew she could be a little petty and jealous of others, especially people she use to be friends with in the past, but it was only talk - no action. We’ve had a very happy marriage otherwise, we rarely fight, have a lot in common, we have a lot of fun together. But, she really fucked up this time. I don’t know how to move forward. I know someone is going to suggest therapy, but I really want to start building up an emergency fund again. We’re pretty screwed financially for awhile.

tl;dr Wife was sued by her former best friend, I emptied out all of our savings and sold a few things to pay for everything. I need help managing my resentment towards my wife and to move past this. Funds are low and we can't afford therapy right now. What can we do to move forward?

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[Update] My (36m) wife (33f) was sued, I'm feeling resentment towards her and I don't know how to move past it. - 12/04/19

By the time I was able to respond to my first post, it became locked. I read everyone's replies and thank you to those who responded with good advice. I got a lot of DM's and I wasn't able to respond to everyone, but I did read your messages. However, I did not appreciate the many comments that simply insulted my wife, I know she fucked up and I'm still very angry at her, but I want to believe she can heal and become a better a person.

Also, some of the DM's I got were extremely weird & hateful towards women in general, like stuff you see on the incel tears sub - y'all need more help than me and my wife.

There were some common questions I wanted to address to provide additional clarification.

• How did she avoid jail?

I only mentioned the civil case since I felt it was the most appropriate to write about because I was originally angry about our financial situation. There was also a criminal case. Our lawyer thought she would originally have to go to jail for 3 months. However, we were able to get her punishment to be community service instead. She has A LOT of community service hours to fill within a year, she will also be getting visits from a PO. Laura and her husband did file restraining orders against her, I honestly can't blame them for that. It helped my wife that she had a clean record and has family that works in law enforcement. I want her to finish those community service hours first before we talk about her working more hours to help pay me back.

• Why did she do this to Laura?

That is a good question. I asked her this multiple times over the past several months to try to understand what this woman did to my wife. She would tell me that Laura deserved everything horrible thing that my wife did to her, that Laura was a shitty person, a narcissist, a liar, and just overall a scumbag. But she never really gave specific examples. I've been pressing her for more info, and when she told me some specifics it made me feel sick to my stomach, not because of what Laura did but because how far my wife decided to go due to some petty things that happened in their friendship. Their friendship ended about 8-9 (they had been friends since early in high school) years ago and it was over a man they had both briefly dated. My wife dated "Matt" for a few months, she broke up with him because she thought that Matt had feelings for Laura. Laura said she didn't want to date Matt because he had dated my wife. My wife decided to "test" her friend Laura's loyalty, and told Laura she had her blessing to date Matt. Laura and Matt ended up dating for a few months, my wife stuck around while they were dating and once they broke up my wife told Laura that she had failed a loyalty test. They fought, and ultimately it was Laura who decided to end the friendship. (Note: In case it's not clear, Laura's current husband is NOT Matt.)

Secondly, I was able to get some information from her about what inspired her to do this since their friendship had ended so long ago. My wife said she happened to see (by chance, not by stalking) Laura at a restaurant about ~1.5-2 years ago, and it looked like Laura had lost a lot of weight and was fit. My wife and I are both fairly overweight, and apparently Laura use to be overweight too. My wife admitted that she felt angry that Laura had lost a lot of weight while she had never been able to. My wife was also insulting Laura and said that she doesn't make a pretty thin person and that her new muscular body was too masculine. She also insulted Laura's husband's looks and physique as well. I saw both Laura and her husband in person on multiple occasions - they both look like normal, attractive people who obviously work out. (I could also tell my wife was irritated when she saw Laura at the courthouse the first time, and you could barely tell that Laura had even had baby.) My wife admitted that she just wanted to do some snooping to try to find that Laura wasn't doing well in life, she found the opposite and was jealous of Laura's success. She first found out both of their job titles (they both work at tech companies with some sort of engineering title) and their estimated salaries by using something called Glassdoor, and if that's accurate, then both Laura and her husband make really good money. She also saw a photo on facebook of Laura and her husband standing in front of what appeared to be their very beautiful and large home. She said she was angry because she knew that Laura wasn't deserving of any of this. She proceeded to insult Laura about how she's not that smart, not pretty, not responsible, she claimed that all Laura did through college was do drugs, drink, have sex with anything that had a penis, skip class and failed a lot, my wife said that she's the type who would cheat on her husband, that she's manipulative and is always up to something, etc.

Both Laura and her husband seemed very sad and exhausted throughout the whole ordeal. I never picked up on anything sinister from Laura at all, I felt absolutely awful for her. I felt extreme shame and embarrassment whenever I was in the same room with Laura and her husband. I don't think I was ever able to make direct eye contact with either of them.

So..yeah. I was expecting Laura to have done something truly evil or sinister in the past and that just wasn't the case.

• Does she feel remorseful?

I want to say yes, she does. She has been really depressed since this all finalized. However, I can't help but think she's sad only because she got caught. She hasn't directly said anything that would lead me to believe she is truly remorseful.

She's still angry at Laura for escalating to the point of a criminal and civil case, she feels that Laura overreacted. My wife believes every horrible thing she said about Laura. She's convinced that Laura is some kind of alcoholic/drug addict who cheats on her husband, and is the type to lie and cheat her way to the top of her career. And somehow Laura is able to hide this from everyone in her life. My wife felt like she was trying to "expose" Laura for the monster that she is. She feels that Laura pressing charges and suing her is additional proof that Laura is vindictive.

My hope is that she has time to think while she is doing her community service hours over the next year. I think she feels bad that I had to empty out our accounts and sell some things to come up with the money. I talked to her about working more hours once she has finished community service, and she agreed.

• Are you going to get divorced?

The thought has crossed my mind, but we've been together for so long and I still love her despite this disgusting thing she has done. I can't see my life without her. But, I know (and I'm having a hard time admitting this to myself) that if she doesn't improve or learn a lesson from this mess then I can't be with her anymore. A lot of people mentioned that if she can do this type of thing to an ex-friend, then she can do the same to an ex-husband. This has me worried some, I'd like to believe she wouldn't go nuclear on me if we did file for divorce. I'll be taking precautions in case I have to defend myself in the future.

• Why is she only working part-time?

She is a licensed masseuse and works at a really nice salon/spa. Her hourly wage is pretty high, but she hasn't been able to get the hours she wants at the spa she works at. She could probably get a more full time position at a different spa but with a slightly lower hourly wage, which would still bring in more income than what she is doing now. She really likes the place she is at and doesn't want to leave, but I may pressure her to full time work elsewhere to help pay me back and refill our emergency fund once she is done with community service. At the moment she is onboard with helping me put money back into our savings accounts.

• What about therapy?

I know we need this, both as a couple and as individuals to deal with this mess. I talked to her about this and she doesn't seem totally sold on the idea of therapy. I've expressed that I think it would help both us, and she seems indifferent at this point. I've talked to her parents, who are really angry/disappointed in her, they basically begged me not to leave her over this. I told her parents that I think therapy would help both of us, but I can't afford it now. They offered to pay for couples therapy, but that is as much as they would be able to afford, so it's a start. I know my wife will need individual therapy, and if that means I stop going to couples therapy so she can get the 1 on 1 help she needs, so be it.

I'm not ready to call my wife a psychopath as many of the commenters did the last post. I think she got carried away, and thought she was trying to expose someone she truly believed was a bad person. I'm heavily leaning towards that she has had some sort of mental breakdown and focused all of her energy on this one woman and her life. I'm not going to give up on my wife yet. It's very possible that she has some underlying mental illness that could very well be treated with therapy or meds.

• How much money was she sued for?

I don't want to give specific numbers, but it will take about 4-5 years to get back to where we were prior to this happening. If my wife takes on a full time after she is done with community service and hands over the majority of her paycheck, it may take less than 4 years.

• Are kids involved?

No, we don't have kids and are not planning on having any.

• What next?

That's what I need help with. I've sat down with my wife a few times since the post and I can feel some resistance coming from her about starting couple therapy. I think she's irritated at her parents for offering to pay for therapy for us. She has stated that she would rather us solve our problems together without interference from someone she doesn't know. She's afraid she isn't going to like any therapist we find, and that the therapist will attack her throughout our sessions. I've tried explaining to her that the therapist isn't there to blame anyone, that they would try to help us and that it would be a safe space for her to talk and vent about whatever she needs. I've brought up the idea of therapy every night since the post, and each time she has had an excuse along the lines of - it won't help, the therapist will gang up on her, she isn't going to like the therapist/the therapist won't like her, or that we can solve our own problems at home.

tl;dr : I answered a bunch of questions I wasn't able to get to before my first post was locked. But, I really need help pushing my wife to get therapy, she is resistant and isn't convinced it will help us.

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Reminder - I am not the original poster.

I am still not the Original Poster. That is still u/throwra-marzipan. She posted in r/relationship_advice.

Thanks to u/Creepy_Addict and u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for letting me know about the update!

Original BORU here. New Updates marked with *****

Trigger Warning: >!mental illness; addiction; psych hold; verbal harassment;!<

Mood Spoiler: >!sad!<

Original Post: August 24, 2023

I’ve been best friends with “Becca” since 2010, we were college roommates and then after we graduated we still lived together up until I moved in with my boyfriend “Nate” in 2019. One thing about Becca is that she’s always had a drinking problem for as long as I’ve known her and she’s done stuff while drunk that has sometimes caused problems in our friendship. She does try to stay sober but every few years something will happen to make her start drinking again, which is what happened earlier this summer.

So last Saturday Becca called me because she was drunk somewhere and needed a ride home. I couldn’t go pick her up because I had the flu and I was on cold medicine, so Nate went to get her instead.

A couple of days after that I started noticing that Nate was being weird with his phone. Normally he leaves it out on the coffee table if we’re watching tv or whatever, but he started putting it face-down so I couldn’t see what notifications he was getting. My first thought was that he was trying to plan a surprise and because of the timing I thought that maybe Becca was helping him.

Yesterday I saw Becca I told her that Nate was being sneaky all of a sudden and asked her if he said anything about maybe proposing soon. She asked me if I looked through his phone and I said no. Becca started crying and told me that she and Nate hooked up in his car the night that he came to pick her up, her excuse was that she was really drunk and didn’t fully know what she was doing. She said she’d been texting him since telling him that he needed to tell me what happened or else she was going to.

I asked Becca to show me the texts but they were all in the app Signal which deletes messages after a day, so all I could see was that she and Nate had a chat thread but nothing that they said. I told her to text Nate in front of me so I could see what he said and she did but we got no read receipt and so no response at all so it didn’t prove anything. I asked Becca if she was sure she wasn’t so drunk that she maybe imagined it or thought a dream was real, and she absolutely lost her shit on me and said that she knows that she’s horrible when she drinks but that she’s not fucking delusional and she doesn’t make shit up. She said that I could believe her or not and it’s my choice but she was telling me the truth. I said I needed to go home and talk to Nate.

So when I got home I confronted Nate with what Becca had said, and he acted shocked and denied that anything like that had happened at all and said he didn’t know why she’d think so or say so. He said that he had just given Becca a ride home and the only thing that happened was that they talked about how he and I had been together for a long time and how we should get married already. He admitted they were talking on Signal the next couple of days but he said that it was about exactly what I thought, that he was asking her about engagement rings and what kind of proposal I would want.

Nate replied to Becca’s message from before asking her if she made up a story about them hooking up to not ruin the surprise about his proposal, and she texted him back that there was no proposal and to stop playing dumb. So then Nate called her pretending like I wasn’t in the room and told her that she needed to stop whatever she was trying to do because we were on the verge of breaking up and he’d rather just have the surprise be ruined, but Becca just kept telling Nate to stop lying until he got angry and hung up on her.

I really didn’t know what to think and I still don’t. Right now Nate is really upset and not really talking to me much, he says that it’s bad enough that Becca acted insane and ruined his plan to propose but it’s even worse that I believed her lies even a little and would think that he would ever cheat on me. Becca texted me saying she was sorry but otherwise I haven’t talked to her either.

I don’t want to think that Nate would cheat on me or that he’d take advantage of Becca if she was that drunk, but I feel like I can’t be 100% sure because I’ve known Becca for 13 years and I also just can’t believe that she’d lie to me about something this important. And I know that she does have a drinking problem so I can believe that she’d sleep with my boyfriend if she was drunk out of her head, she’s done some pretty awful things in the past when she’s been drunk. I don’t want to wrongly accuse Nate of something he didn’t do but I don’t want to be an idiot.

Relevant Comments:

Signal doesn't automatically delete messages unless you turn that feature on. Would he have?

>It's not the automatic default, but if Nate created the chat with Becca and set it for messages to disappear after 24 hours then all of her messages with him will do that without input from her.

Someone asks what OOP wants help with. Sleuthing ideas, who is more believable, revenge, etc:

>I think what I initially wanted was just a sounding board for who sounded more believable. But someone gave me the tip that you actually can recover messages from Signal so when I have a chance later tonight I'm going to try to do that to see if I can get some actual proof of what happened.
>
>But so far I haven't talked to anyone else about this though, I really just don't want to spread around what did/didn't happen to the rest of my friends or family without actually knowing for sure.

What else has Becca done to you while drunk?

>So in the past when she's been drunk, Becca's blacked out and started fights with me or other people. She'll say really out-of-line insulting things, she's kicked people out of our apartment because she didn't remember inviting them in, she's accused me of stealing clothes from her because I was wearing an outfit that looked like something that she also owned, that kind of thing. She's never hooked up with anyone that I was dating but she's definitely hooked up with guys that she knew I was interested in.

Who has the greater motivation to lie here: Nate or Becca?

>Becca did have a big problem with Nate when we first got together, and she was really really upset when I moved out of our apartment to move in with him. I could see her still being angry about it or still not liking him but just not saying anything.
>
>From what Nate said they weren't making the plans on Saturday, but Becca brought up that it's been 7 years and asked why we're not married yet, and then the day after he asked her about rings.

What is her reason for not liking him?

>So at the time she was in one of her longest stretches of being sober and she said that I was abandoning her for some guy when she needed my support the most. And then when I moved out, she tried to make it out like she wouldn't be able to stay sober without me living with her, and Nate basically had to step in and point out that she couldn't stay sober anyway so to stop guilting me.

It's possible she "blames" you for her current drinking and Nate saying he wants to propose triggered her anger for some reason:

>Everything you say here makes sense to me. Becca has said stuff like this in the past, not specifically about Nate but sometimes when she starts drinking again she acts like it's unfair that I'm not getting dragged down with her or doing more to help her, and I think on some level she might still think it's his fault that I moved out and don't keep as close an eye on her as I did back when we lived together. I don't know if she'd really go as far as to lie about something like this just for that reason, I really hope she wouldn't, but I could completely believe that she feels like this.

Update Post: August 26, 2023 (2 days later)

So on Thursday night after I got everyone’s advice, I told Nate that I had found out a way to recover deleted messages from Signal. He immediately took out his phone and opened the app and asked me to show him how to do it, so I already thought that must mean he was telling me the truth because he didn’t panic or hesitate at all. Which was good because when I tried to download Signal on my old phone it turned out that it’s too old to support the current version of the app, so it wouldn’t work.

Nate then asked me if we were going to have to go out and buy a new phone for me to believe that he was telling me the truth, and he said that he was willing to do it if that’s what it would take. I told Nate it wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, I just wanted to have some proof because I just couldn’t understand why Becca would lie about it. Nate said that she would lie about it because she’s a fucking crazy drunk bitch and there’s literally no way for a non-crazy person to understand why she would do anything, and once the messages prove that he didn’t ever want me talking to her again. Then he said to get up because if we were going to go to the Verizon store we had to get there before it closed.

By then I completely believed Nate anyway, so I told him we didn’t have to go anywhere or get a new phone and that I believed him and I knew he didn’t cheat on me and that he would never do that. Nate said that he would hope I know that and that he didn’t understand why I didn’t take his word for it in the first place. I started trying to explain why I didn’t want to just immediately dismiss what Becca had said happened, but Nate said that he really couldn’t listen to that right now. I said that was fair and agreed that I would cut Becca off, but that first I wanted to try to get her to admit that nothing happened. Nate said fine, but to call her with my phone on speaker because he thought he also deserved to hear her admit that she was lying.

So I called Becca and I said the same thing to her that I said to Nate, that I figured out how to recover deleted messages on Signal. She asked me why I would need to do that, so that was when I knew for sure that she was definitely making it up and not just confused somehow. I said it was because I wanted to have proof of what she and Nate talked about. Becca asked me if I saw their messages, so I lied and said yes. After that Becca just went silent until finally I asked her if she was going to say anything. Then she asked me if that meant that we were engaged now.

So then I really just lost it on her and screamed at her asking her if she was fucking serious and what the fuck was wrong with her and how could that possibly be all that she had to say. Becca started screaming back telling me to fucking calm down and about how obviously I never believed her anyway because it’s not like we broke up over it. I was crying by that point and because of that I couldn’t really say anything else, so then Nate told Becca to go fuck herself and to never ever contact either one of us ever again and hung up on her.

A minute later Becca sent me a completely unhinged text that I’m quoting here verbatim (apart from changed names):

“Courtney. You are supposed to be my friend for life. You are supposed to be there for me. You are supposed to be my person. But then you meet Nate and now you only care about Nate. EVERYTHING IS ABOUT NATE. Tell me why NATE comes to pick me up when I call YOU?? I called YOU not your precious fucking NATE. I only want you to see how FUCKED UP this is but do you?? NO. Of course you DON’T. Of course you choose NATE over me like you ALWAYS do and like you ALWAYS will. You PRETEND to care about me but I can see you DON’T care. It is PATHETIC Courtney. You are a PATHETIC woman who would choose a man over a friend. But since you can’t say it yourself I will. Since you have to have your sweet perfect little baby NATE do it for you I will. Goodbye Courtney. Is that what you want?? Goodbye FOREVER. I HOPE YOU FUCKING GOT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT!”

There were the three dots after that showing she was still typing more, but I blocked her before she sent it. I don’t care about anything else that she has to say, I’m sure it’s all just going to be more bullshit about why this is my fault or justifications about why what she did wasn’t that bad and I should forgive her.

I know Nate is probably right and there’s no non-crazy logic behind why Becca would stoop to doing something like this, but obviously I’ve still been thinking about it and my best guess is that whoever said that Becca still blames me and Nate, apparently mostly Nate, for her being a drunk mess who can’t get her life together is right. It seems like she somehow thought that if she said she hooked up with Nate, I’d break up with him but still want to be friends with her and then everything would magically be fixed.

As far as stuff with Nate, I asked him if he thought he could ever forgive me for doubting him and he said that since I came to my senses and I cut Becca off he guesses we can try to put it behind us. I don’t think he’s still going to propose anytime soon, after this I probably wouldn’t if I was him. And from what Nate said he didn’t actually do any planning yet other than asking Becca about rings and if I’d think a public proposal was tacky or not, all he was doing so far was trying to get ideas without me knowing he was talking to her about it. So just based on that I think probably it’s not going to happen for a while if it still does at all.

Also thanks to everyone for the advice and support, I know I didn’t respond to many comments but I really did appreciate everyone who cared enough to want to help.

Relevant Comments:

Commenter: I'm curious if Becca ever said anything to you when she hooked up with guys you liked? Do you think she was blocking you in purpose to keep you for herself? Did she try anything with Nate before you were exclusive? Or was she just drunk and looking for hook ups?

>OOP: I don't think she ever put enough thought into those hookups to be malicious like that, she was just inconsiderate and would go after whoever.

Commenter: Did you ever confront her or just let it go? More than one time seems like a pattern.

>OOP: We definitely got into arguments about it at the time, but it was mostly just kind of college bullshit and not really an actual confrontation about why she kept doing it, I guess.

One last thought from OOP:

I'm sure she won't just go away, I'm already expecting her to try to get our other friends to get in the middle of everything as soon as she figures out she's actually blocked and I'm not just ignoring her. I hope she won't try to do anything else but I guess at this point I really can't know with her.

I'm hoping things are okay with Nate, I think in a while they will be.

*****New Update Post: August 1, 2024 (11.5 months later)*****

I haven't logged into this account for about a year, but I got a few messages asking for an update so here it is. I’ll keep it as short as I can. Unfortunately I have nothing good to report.

It turned out that whatever was going on with Becca that caused her to make false accusations about Nate was the beginning of some kind of a psychotic break. After I blocked her she made a whole bunch of fake accounts and started sending me completely unhinged shit about how I ruined her life and threatening to get revenge on me and Nate, this went on for literally months with her sending me dozens of messages a day. I found out from other friends that she was making multiple posts on Facebook every day that were semi-coherent rants about how much she hated me and how I was evil and ruined her life intentionally.

I tried to talk to the police two different times to get a restraining order because I was afraid that Becca was going to show up at our apartment and attack me or Nate, I literally even got a front door camera because I was so scared that she was going to hurt us. The police said that because Becca wasn’t threatening actual violence she was just a nuisance and they couldn’t do anything, they acted like I was an idiot because it isn’t illegal to talk shit on Facebook and they basically told me to just keep blocking her whenever she made a new account and eventually she’d get bored and move on.

Then finally there was an incident where someone broke the windshield of Nate’s car while he was parked at his work. I guess it could’ve just been a random act of vandalism because his wasn’t the only car that got windows broken, but at the time I was 100% sure it was Becca so I went to the police again. Eventually an officer went to talk to Becca, and she said she didn’t touch Nate’s car and again I have no proof that she did. But after the police talked to her, Becca got put into a psych ward for a week because apparently her apartment was filthy and she was drunk out of her mind 24/7 and a danger to herself.

I have not heard anything from Becca after she left the psych ward, I don’t know if she was diagnosed with something or if she’s medicated now or what. I found out that she moved in with her dad who thank god lives in a different state. I look at her social media every so often to make sure she’s not posting about me again and that she’s nowhere around me.

I haven’t mentioned Nate much in this update because we’re no longer together. He broke up with me after the windshield incident because he couldn’t handle being constantly harassed by Becca and to be honest I don’t think he ever forgave me for not taking his side immediately when everything started. It really hurt but I can’t blame him. I tried to talk to him about fixing things between us after Becca was gone but he just wasn’t interested.

tl;dr: Becca went crazy for real, Nate dumped me.

Originally posted by u/Jaded_Foundation_910 in r/EntitledPeople.

My cousin's jealousy blew up in her face

Throwaway/spare account. I like the inbox on my main to be nice and peaceful.

My (28M) cousin "Mary" (22F) grew to be an extremely jealous person in her teens. We've all hoped she would grow out of it, but she hasn't. She refuses to address it.

When I proposed to my husband, "Sean", a couple years ago, Mary threw a fit. She wanted to be the first to get married between the two of us. She "deserved" it. She didn't even have a boyfriend.

Because Sean and I chose to have a small personal wedding, we were able to use money set aside for us to buy a home and pay off half the mortgage. Cue another tantrum from Mary despite the fact that there is money set aside for her too, including from our grandparents and aunt "Miranda" who chose not to have children.

I think you can get the picture here. If I have something Mary doesn't, she wants it. If I accomplish something before her, "it's not fair!" It doesn't matter if she's younger than me by 6 years and I would naturally reach some goals before her. There's just no logic in her tantrums.

This brings us to Miranda's annual New Year's party. There's always food, drinks, and games. It's a fun night where we can get wasted safely with family and friends if we want to, especially since there are no kids in the family at the moment.

When I was returning from the bathroom, I saw Sean looking extremely uncomfortable and trying to fend off Mary who was sitting much too close to him on the couch. I managed to overhear her telling him that women are much better than men and insisting he try with her because he "didn't know what he was missing." Now, Sean is 100% gay, so this was just pathetic for her, but I was seeing red over the fact that she was attempting to ruin our marriage to satisfy her jealousy. I said, "If women are so great then date a woman instead of trying to get my gay husband to sleep with you." The entire room heard this. I didn't control my volume. Party ruined.

The family has spared us from most of the chaos that followed, but today we found out that the money that was set aside for her is no longer for her. The tuition to pay for the remaining classes for her bachelor's degree has been refunded to our grandparents since spring classes haven't started yet. All the money from her parents is going to her younger brother, and all the money from our grandparents and Miranda is going to be distributed between him and myself. She's getting nothing. She's also been given 3 months to find a new place to live because her parents don't want her living under their roof.

She was given a massive leg up just like I was, and she screwed herself out of it. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost. Okay, I don't.

Originally posted by u/last_climate_2159 in r/TrueOffMyChest on Dec 16 '22, updated Jan 3, '23

Original post

My soon to be former MIL is why I'm divorcing my husband

throw away since husband uses reddit

I'm planning to divorce my husband, I'm not here to have people try and change my mind, I will follow through no matter what everyone says.

I (23F) and my husband (27m) have been together just shy of four years and married for nearly two. And I'm done, I have done everything, I agreed to slowly down college classes so that I could stay home more while he worked and had to take even less once I got pregnant with my 1yo. I'm a SAHM and he's the breadwinner.

I do all the cooking, cleaning, childrearing while taking my classes all of which are online so I can watch my daughter. I agreed to this because I thought on his days off he'd help me, he'd take care of my daughter and let me rest or go out with friends and that hasn't happened at all.

He comes home and goes to his "man cave" to game for hours at a time. When I do see him he always complains about something or other, usually chores I missed or to tell me dinner's taking too long.

And my MIL, who I've tried to get along with for the sake of my husband and daughter is simply a bitch. She's a self proclaimed "boy mom" and told me when she met me that I'd never be good enough for her son. She raised him to be lazy, he doesn't know how to cook the most basic of meals, clean and god forbid I ask him to watch my daughter. He hates "babysitting."

Weaponized incompetence is a behavior I've become familiar with to say the least.

Whenever we have a fight he runs to mommy and she'll call me to scream at me and tell me I ruined his life. His dad is no better, he gave my husband a cushy job in his company he doesn't deserve that definitely pays him too much since I know he probably just bums around the office all day yelling at people.

I have a bag packed, money saved and will be going to my brother's and my SIL who's a lawyer has agreed to help me divorce the useless pile of shit that I married. I'm ashamed to admit when I called him and SIL about them helping me they told me they'd been waiting for me to open my eyes and realize I needed to leave.

I wish that I could stay and raise my daughter with my soon to be ex but I've finally realized he'll never change, or grow and that my MIL is enabling his behavior and will never accept me as her daughter in law.

*In the comments:

>Why do you keep saying "my daughter " and not our?

OP: Because he doesn't contribute to raising her at all. She's my daughter and nothing but a nuance to him that he has to deal with making noise while he games

About letting MIL babysit:

She never babysits or visits we live "too far" (30 minutes away by car).

I'll be miserable staying with my husband, without him I have my brother, SIL, parents and extended family to help me and I can go back to college full time and get my degree.

I would leave him without a support system or penny to my name because no matter what happens my life will be significantly better without him in it

Comment says doing everything at home without help was "equal" to the husband working all day:

OP: I don't think they're that "equal" considering he can come home from his work, I can't stop being a parent or take a day off when he won't help me with anything around the house

He was so sweet at first I ignored things like how rude my MIL was the first time we met, he made excuses for her, saying she was always like that and not to take it to heart, she'd change once she warmed up to me. He told me he wanted to start a family and that he couldn't see marrying anyone else. I feel so stupid I fell for all of that now I know it was all lies

He lived with his parents still and his mom did everything for him. I stupidly thought he'd change and become responsible after we got married and moved in to our house. I figured it'd take time for him to learn how to cook and clean, he never tried but I thought eventually he would if I was patient. It took four years to realize that wouldn't change but better 4 then 40.

Update

Hello everyone, I thought you all would appreciate an update.

Since my post I've realized that while my MIL is a massive problem, she is far from the root cause, my husband himself being lazy and refusing to help me with anything is the issue. He has never supported me and I should have realized far sooner I was being taken advantage of. I didn't but at least I've only wasted four years of my life instead of forty trying to make something work that never will. I hope my MIL will like having her son all to herself again, she can do all his laundry and clean for him.

As of Christmas me and my daughter are staying with my brother and SIL.

On Christmas my MIL was supposed to come over so that we could spend time as a family. Since making my first post I'd began to take all my necessities, hide them away and then have my brother take them in his truck to his house so that I could leave quickly and efficiently.

I knew I couldn't take another Christmas with my husband and MIL. All MIL does is criticize my cooking and parenting while my soon to be ex husband and my FIL do nothing. So I "left" to make a last minute run to the grocery store with my daughter. Really I'd gone to get our coats, left the divorce papers on his desk in his gaming room and left in my brother's car who'd come to pick me up. I turned off my phone and we had a laid back night eating Chinese food and watching Christmas movies.

SIL is helping me with the divorce and custody negotiations, both of which she's optimistic that I'll get the majority of my demands. Since leaving MIL, ex husband and FIL have all called me to scream at me and I've recorded everything and I will be using every text, phone call and voicemail to ensure I get full custody.

Thank you to everyone who wished us well, I hope you all had a happy new year

I work with adult Rhesus Macacs; they can be anywhere from 1 to 3 foot tall and 8 to 30 lbs they have strong canine teeth that can get to about 2 inches long and sharp fingernails that in addition to commonly having feces, food, and, *a certain white substance from the males* under them, can transmit blood born diseases to humans that can kill you in a few months if you do not get proper treatment. They have the temperament of your average over-tired 3 year old and can go from sweetly asking for butt scratches to actively trying to kill you in the blink of an eye with no warning. They are smart little shits too with many of them requiring extra devices to ensure they don't mess with their cages in a way that denies them access to water.

I've been working with this species for 5 years. These work I do requires 2 people to get done safely and my strategy has always been to ask my partner a lot of questions. "Do you want to go in one cage at a time or do one whole side? Unlock or re-lock? Spray or feed? Are you ready? "

A lot of this is me making suggestions in the form of questions because I am a woman in a male dominated field and I've learned that fragile men don't like feeling like they are being ordered around by a woman.

So on Monday we had to consolidate from 4 cages down to 2 cages which ment that a few monkeys would have to be caught with a special pole that we can attach to their collar. I read through the request and was comparing it to the current schematic when 2 of my coworkers came into the hall. Let's call them Frank and Grumpy.

Frank loves to give out sage advice and I love to listen. I usually take his advice with a fistful of salt because he tends to be very negative but he's well meaning so I don't mind.

Frank asks me if I know what is going on with the monkey move. I said not exactly and he explained it because he had been the one to set up the cages. I asked him if he had the new room plan. He said no. I asked Grumpy because we were supposed to be doing the cage change together and a lot of the times the supervisor will give one person on the monkey team the new room plan. He said no. I asked if he knew who might have it (because there are 2 people who might) Frank said it was probably supervisor 1.

I asked Grumpy if he got the fruit we use to reward the monkeys for jumping into their clean cages and he said no. I said I'll go get that and a few other things we need to get started and try to find the new room plan.

So I find supervisor 1 tell him what I need and he gets it while I'm getting other things. I get back and Grumpy is already living up to his name. Clearly frustrated with how much time this mission has taken. I take a minute to read the instructions for moving monkeys and ask Grumpy if he is ready to get started.

We moved the first cage into the room and Grumpy unlocks two monkeys from one cage and moves the locks to the new cage while I get the poles. I ask if he wants to pole both monkeys over, or let the one that was going from a bottom cage to another bottom cage jump over with the tunnel.

Grumpy left the room.

I had no idea why, where he was going, or how long he would be gone. I stood in the room watching these two monkeys that could now at any point get out of their cages. Now I have a conundrum, do I prioritize my physical safety and put locks back on these cages and risk this man who was already being pissy in my direction coming back and being even more pissy that I've re-locked these monkeys? Grumpy comes back, looks at me, leaves again, comes back again. Finally decides to get started. He's still pissy in my direction the rest of the cage change. Even elbowing me in the face (luckily I was wareing a helmet) at one point.

So I go to my supervisor and tell him about what happened.

After break Grumpy comes back to the room to move the empty cages to the dirty side cage wash. He says to me "alright <my name> let me tell you how things are. We've been working together for 4 years and for for years every time we do a monkey cage change you act like you don't know what you're doing. So if that's the kind of energy you want to put into this, that the kind of energy I'm gonna put out."

At first I just said "okay" like I didn't care and just wanted to get shit done. But Grumpy kept harping on the same issue again and again. So I said, "look, every time I work with you, you make me feel like I'm doing something wrong, so I ask questions to try to make sure we're on the same page." He says BS I do it to get him to do extra work. To which I say no I don't. At that point he raises he voice and says "I left you alone for 10 minutes and the only thing that you did was give the monkeys jump fruit!"

At this point I got mad enough to match his energy entirely and yelled back. "You left me with two unlocked monkeys!"

I guess that what was good for the goose was not, in fact good for the gander, because Grumpy ran over and grabbed one of the union shop stuards (a guy he was friends with)

Grumpy explained his side to shop stuard and I explained mine. While the shop stuard basically told me that he read Grumpy the riot act and tell him he couldn't expect everyone to be able to do cage changes with zero communication, he also kinda sideways intimated that I should have gone to the shop stuards instead of a supervisor.

My response was that I don't care how this guy treats me, I've been in this industry dealing with insecure men for 19 years and I'm still here. As long as I can still get my job done correctly and safely it doesn't bother me if some ding dong decides to be pissy in my direction. But the minute Grumpy knowingly left the room with two monkeys unlocked, putting my life in danger, that crossed the line and that's not a shop stuard problem, that's a supervisor problem.

This is where the uh oh consequences comes in

A month or so later Grumpy decided to peace out of working with a different person in our department without communicating with them. This led to something that the company saw as "falsification of documentation. " this is a fireable offense and both people involved were let go.

However, our union is 💫 amazing 💫 and gotten Grumpy and the other coworker their jobs back after a few weeks. But he was on what's known as a "last chance." Which means that he can be fired for literally any reason and he would not be eligible to be hired back for the next two years.

Luckily for me Grumpy went to work in a different animal building so I didn't have to deal with working with him.

Now there's a new buzz about Grumpy and friends, this tea is hot and crazy. According to the gossip. Grumpy was working with monkeys, taking them out of their cage, placing them into a restraining device, assisting the vet associate with the treatment and putting the monkey back.  Grumpy and his partner had a particularly difficult monkey that freaked out while they were trying to put her back. As she was having her kiniption, the door to her cage slammed down on her nose. Grumpy addressed the monkey and said, "that's what you get for being a dumb fucking broad."

The early 20's young woman who was preforming the treatments heard this and spoke to a supervisor about it. The supervisor spoke with Grumpy about his behavior and he decided to go find the young woman and absolutely freak out on her. Yelling, cursing, and according to some accounts, throwing things.

Everyone was talking about this series of events. Many saying that Grumpy is certainly fired now, and they saw him get escorted off of the work site.

BUT it turns out that Grumpy did not get fired! He was transferred to a different department and was told that he was no longer welcome to work in the Animal Care department.

I know it's not the most satisfying of consequences but I figured the wild ride was worth the read.

I am not the original poster.

The original poster u/abcanonxyzanon. Posted 3 years ago in r/legaladvice

TW: Sexual harassment

Made a terrible mistake and I may lose everything. Coworker suing me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/a1krwx/ma_made_a_terrible_mistake_and_i_may_lose/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Using anon account to protect myself. I am in the Medical field and I got close to another coworker who is not in the same field but also a Medical professional (below me).

We went out for drinks as a group and I thought we hit it off. Went home with her and we had sex. She immediately regretted it and left. Her Excuse was ' you dont shit where you eat'

Saw her at work, we spoke a little bit and she said "that can never happen again and we should stop contacting each other" Later I found out she had a boyfriend.

This made me very angry. Did something stupid and said along the lines if you wont sleep with again or cut off contact am telling your guy. (It was a joke) I have to say I was texting her more than she was replying.

I sent her photos of my self and she said I crossed the line. But read it a sort of joking way. Sent other pics and there was no reply for days.

I went to her floor and she was not there. So I tried calling and texting multiple times with no answer. I finally get a message from her saying she is going to HR and will be speaking to a lawyer. Accusing me of threats and harassment. Thought she was joking but I got a call from someone saying they are her lawyer.

I have worked so hard to get where I am. I am an international employee on a working Visa and have been to this country for a few years. I am scared and trying to figure out what to do. Please help me, how can I better approach this?

*sorry English is not my first language and am nervously typing this.

Update to my last post about Hospital coworker suing me for sexual harassment

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/a3tz6k/boston_ma_update_to_my_last_post_about_hospital/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone I may have offended by my post last week. I read every comment(was too shocked and embarrassed by my ignorance to reply) I get it. I was very wrong. Although I don't think I deserved the death threats in my messages.

When I got a letter from her attorney I wrote back apologizing for the disrespect and my rude messages. What I thought was a joke, was not funny. My friends although supportive, called me out on my harassment. I am a Medical professional and should have known better. I won't blame it on my culture( I am from Indian/Pakistan). I am in a foreign country and I know I have to abide by the rules. I was unfortunately suspended(will keep details private to protect myself) but not fired. Moving forward, I have spoken to the women in my family, and i am considering therapy to help better myself. I am willing to show that am working on myself and very sorry for the hurt I caused.

*Biggest mistake was not getting my own lawyer like everyone suggested.

Thanks again and happy holidays to you all.