r/WouldIBeTheAhole

Hello! I 23 F Emily have a friend 25 F Trisha who is dating her current ldr bf 25 M Oscar who have been together for 2 years. The beginning of their relationship was drama since Trisha was with her ex at the time and then got together with Oscar but they were talking while she was with her ex. Now the ending is drama since she’s now talking with another guy as well AT THE SAME TIME!!!

I was friends with Oscar before her but I did get closer with her later. They broke up recently but got back together during a special event since he wanted to try again and she felt bad. This is where it gets interesting, Oscar wants to try and fix things which she has agreed to. Little does he know she has been talking to another guy and has recently agreed to be his gf on the day she and Oscar broke up. AND she plans on breaking up with Oscar within the next month or two which he doesn’t know.

For context, he did know about the other guy and was worried about him but trusted that she had it handled and wouldn’t take things further than just being friends. Also, her parents hate Oscar but love the new guy. I care about both people and both come to me to vent about each other. They are both just two different people and both are great and have been trying to work on their relationship. I just don’t agree with them being together since it’s been getting so toxic on both sides. WIBTAH if I told him about the other guy or is it not my place?

I'm 20M and currently live with my mom( shes 39 or 40) . I'm trying to figure out if I'm being unreasonable because I feel like I don't even have a good sense of what's fair anymore.

For some background, my mom has been unemployed for a while and currently owes me roughly $10,000 from money I've lent her over the years. She's been putting most of her effort into starting an AI-based dog cleanup business, and she gets frustrated with me for not supporting it more.

She also just went on a vacation, which is her second vacation while being unemployed. I wouldn't normally care about someone taking a vacation, but it's hard for me not to be frustrated when I'm still regularly helping her financially.

A few days ago, I paid her $800 again for my rent rent. She just told me she couldn't afford the vet bill for our cat because she had just paid rent and bought groceries. I understand that those expenses are real, but obviously the trip she took is a big part too. I paid the 600$ vet bill directly.

The cat is basically both of ours. We've had him since I was around 16. My living situation with my mom has also been complicated. At different points I've lived with my mom, been kicked out and lived with my grandma, lived in the basement with my mom and my ex, and now I'm living with just my mom again.

While she was on her recent trip, I was working for three weeks straight without a day off and taking care of the animals. I didn't keep up with cleaning the litter box as well as I should have, and now the cat is sick. I don't know if those things are related, but I feel guilty about it.

I'm also currently going through a breakup and have been extremely depressed. My current medication doesn't feel like it's enough anymore, and I'm having a hard time keeping up with normal things. I'm still working, but I'm exhausted.

On top of that, I recently paid my uncle $400 to work on my car and still owe him more, and the car is still having problems. It's been giving me issues since I got into a fender bender that damaged it.

My mom also has a 2022 car that she's had for years. She got it during another period when she didn't have a job. Around that time, the car I was paying for ended up being repossessed because she didn't keep up with the agreement we'd made about the payments, despite money I'd previously lent her.

So with all of that context, here's the actual question:

Would I be an asshole for asking my mom to help me with some basic things around the house, like doing my laundry or cleaning my area?

I know I'm an adult and have responsibilities. I'm not saying that because I've given her money, she automatically owes me chores. I just feel completely overwhelmed right now. I've financially helped her for years, recently paid $800 toward rent and the vet bill, took care of the animals while she was on vacation, and have been working constantly while she's unemployed.

I don't want her to take care of me or become my maid. I just want to be able to say, "I'm really struggling right now. Could you help me with my laundry or clean my area?" without being unreasonable.

I also realize that I may be letting my resentment about the money affect how I see this situation.

AITA for asking my mom for some basic help around the house right now?

Edit: ive gotten some comments already, but i worry maybe there's context missing that would change things. Maybe its all my fault and I get a lot more than I think or im better off. I'll answer any questions about context i can if anyone has any, I appreciate it.

A research associate and I are travelling for a conference in less than 48 hours. Costs have been crazy— our hotel was like 1400, my plane ticket like 500, and I'm incredibly grateful that my parents have agreed to bankroll this trip. Splitwise, our hotel would have been around 700 each.

We're both 19, so finding an 18+ hotel in a busy college city was a hassle. It took me 5-6 hours several weeks ago, when a lot of the hotels were already booked out for the conference. It was torture. I finally found one, and it was listed on Expedia for about 1700-1800, I asked her if she was okay with it, she said yes. I later find it on Hopper for about 1400, I texted her, "I'M THE GOAT, 1400," and she, having agreed to 1700 and 1800, agreed happily. After the hotel has been booked, she texts me that night that she can't pay 700 and that she is going to stay with a family friend. After I had already confirmed the hotel. Heart drops. My parents are already freaked out about me travelling alone. I proposed going 60/40 in installments (without a payment plan) with her instead of 50/50 to accommodate her, and also because I want a companion so my parents will let me keep my solo travel plans, which she agreed to immediately. She paid me back in full for her share in the last three weeks.

This morning (48 hours before our check-in!), she texted me that she has "bad news brochacho," and then told me that she is going to stay with that family friend for sure. This came with the expectation to pay her back, which I said I cannot promise, as my parents are under the impression that we are going splitwise on this and don't even know we went 60/40. We agreed to go 50/50 when I bought it, I then let her pay 500 and some change, and I covered the rest.

She then told me that because it is short notice, she is cool with just getting (either 40 or) 60% of her initial, already reduced share back, which puts my personal costs at way over a thousand. I also paid for the registration of the project.

To top it off, she suggested that my girlfriend split the cost because her college is around and she will be visiting, which is just audacious and out of line in my opinion.

I told her I would talk to my parents and keep her posted, but the room is non-refundable at this point, and she broke our agreement twice. All my friends said to give her nothing back, but I need objectivity.

AITA for not wanting to let her sniff the copper of a damn penny?

My mother made a promise on my behalf without my knowledge to my aunt, that she’d take me and the family (like 12 people) to flights to Pennsylvania and book a Airbnb for the week of my birthday and that was my gift. She told me this after saying a guitar pedal was too expensive and if I wanted anything like that for my birthday I’d have to save up. My dad was pretty mad and talked her out of it, because that was insane. But he told me that he had to spend these “flight points” he had been saving up because they all expire it NEEDS to be on MY BIRTHDAY, I just wanna stay home. He told me I get to pick and when I tried picking Vegas or California he made 20 excuses on why they were bad picks and kept insisting that we must go to Utah (something he’s been obsessing over, not me) when I said no he called me ungrateful and said most people my age don’t go anywhere and the Utah mountains were just going to be so beautiful and I’d change my mind after a week of hiking (I hate hiking he knows this). I just wanted to stay home and eat a cheesecake, and when I try to explain this I’m just guilt tripped and called an ungrateful brat, am I? My Birthday gift isn’t even something I asked for and it’s not even my gift it’s my dad’s to himself, right?

a little context, over the last 4 years my grandad has asked me to house sit for him while he goes on holiday and look after his senior cats, It always lands for around 1-2 weeks and have had no issues with it other than it usually being last minute (at least 3 days warning) and the bed being extremely uncomfortable waking me up in the night. Today he asked my dad If I was housesitting for him this week as he and his girlfriend had organised a last minute holiday. he never asked me directly but assumed I would just do it, and he leaves tomorrow. The problem is that I took this week off work as a holiday for myself as its my birthday soon, which he did forget, and I wanted to relax at home and go on days out. it would mean I would be on my own on my birthday, travelling to my house throughout the week, and if I’m really honest I want to be in my own bed in the comfort of my own home. however because my grandad lives in an isolated area it runs the risk of getting broken into which is one of the reasons why I stay there, and his cat is on her own which she probably wouldn’t mind but I hate the idea of her being up there on her own for such a long time. I’m really torn because I don’t want to be up there this week but Id feel awful if anything happened whilst he was away.

I live in apartment complex that requires a sticker on your windshield in order to park in the back lot. Lately I've been getting off of my shifts and cannot find parking at all in that back lot. As I'm driving through, I am routinely seeing 10-20 cars that lack proper stickers. I have already talked to the front office about this, but they said that with moving happening so recently (a month ago) and folks having visitors (office doesn't have any temporary visitor passes) they won't actually enforce the stickering. And "since it's such a big lot they've never had this issue before".

I don't want to tow anyone, especially because I know it can be expensive, but there is a front lot that doesn't require stickering, it's just a bit further away. I know I could go park there (and I have) but I do pay to live here and since I usually get off of work late (12pm-3am) I would prefer not to walk alone in the dark.

I'm just wondering if next time I'm off late and there's no parking in the back lot would I be an asshole to call the towing company to start removing the cars without the proper sticker?

Thanks

Okay, I genuinely never thought I'd have to ask Reddit this, but here we are.

My boyfriend and I live together. Recently, he shit in the bathtub.

Yes. The bathtub.

The toilet is literally two steps away.

The toilet wasn't broken, clogged, or inaccessible. He says he had diarrhea, but when I asked why he used the bathtub instead of the toilet, his explanation was that “it helps get the shit out easier.”

I wish I were joking.

He did clean the bathtub afterward, so I'm not saying he left it there for me to clean up. But I am still absolutely disgusted that he intentionally chose to shit in the bathtub when the toilet was right there.

I understand that diarrhea can come on suddenly and that accidents happen. If he genuinely couldn't make it to the toilet, I wouldn't be nearly as upset.

But that's not what happened.

He apparently made a conscious decision that the bathtub was a better place to poop because... apparently the bathtub has some sort of special shit-extraction technology that I was unaware of.

I told him that this is absolutely disgusting and that I shouldn't have to explain to a grown adult that the bathtub is for bathing and the toilet is for shitting.

He thinks I'm being dramatic.

So I told him

“If you ever shit in my bathtub again, I'm breaking up with you.”

He thinks that's ridiculous and says I'm overreacting because he cleaned it afterward.

But I feel like this isn't really about the bathtub anymore. It's about the fact that I'm having to establish a boundary that I never imagined I'd have to establish with another adult:

Please don't shit in the bathtub.

I don't want to take a bath knowing that my boyfriend recently decided to use the exact same tub as his personal emergency toilet.

And the part that's really getting me is that the toilet was TWO STEPS AWAY.

Two.

Steps.

Away.

I'm genuinely trying to understand the logic here.

Was the bathtub giving him better leverage?

Did I miss a memo about bathtubs being the superior diarrhea experience?

I don't know.

So, Reddit, AITA for telling my boyfriend that if he shits in my bathtub again, I'm ending the relationship?

Because at this point, “please use the toilet” feels like a pretty reasonable relationship expectation.

I recently went to my friend’s birthday party like 2-ish weeks ago. Before the party, me and 2 of my other friends who were invited agreed on carpooling to the party. We met up at (we’ll call her) John’s house. We all drive to her house, so we had 3 choices to pick who wants to drive. It’s important to note that me and John also got invited to another birthday party that took place like an hour after the first one. The other friend that also met up with us to carpool (we’ll call her) Mark knew that me and John had another party after (remember this). So when Mark volunteered to use her car to take all of us to the first party, we made it so clear that all of us would have to leave like 30 mins earlier if me and John can make it to the second party on time. Mark said “okay. That’s fine.” So we were under the influence that she understood that we have to leave early. Major fast forward, we hit that 30-45 min mark, signaling that we need to leave very very soon. I remind mark “you’re taking us home right?” Mark responds “oh I thought you guys were ubering home”. Mind you John nor I NEVER said or implied that we were ubering home. Mark was basically implying that she wants to stay at the party ave we kept reminding her like “oh yea we ALL agreed that you were taking us home and all of sudden you just forgot or ignored that part (not verbatim)”. So it was a little back and forth. Mind you, we already ate, took photos, sang happy birthday, you know the main things you do at a birthday. The last thing we were doing was painting until the party was over. Not to sound selfish but if we were still doing the main things at the birthday, then I can understand where Mark was coming from as she wanted to stay, but all we were doing was painting fucking canvases. So me and John are just like “I guess we’ll just uber then”, so I order the uber. And me and John had some stuff in Marks car, so we had to go grab it. It was a very awkward encounter as Mark kept saying “oh I’m sorry like I feel so bad” and in my head I’m thinking like if you’re so sorry then take us fucking home like you said you’d do earlier.

Fast forward to present day: I haven’t been able to drop it. Like the more I think about the whole situation the more irritated and like confused I get. I’ve been speaking less to her and having minimal interactions, and she’s noticing it. Should I just be upfront and tell her why I’m still mad, or should I let my emotions level out and just try to forgive and forget?? Did she really want to stay at the party, did she not want to take us home for whatever reason, or was she being shady…

For context, I’ve known this friend for two years now and she’s just recently gone with her boyfriend maybe 10 months ago. So recently, my boyfriend broke up with me and I went to her wondering what to do needing comfort. And never did she tell me her boyfriend was sitting right next to her. I was being very vulnerable and open and I was not ready to let anyone else know that we had broken up because I was not emotionally ready. Me and her boyfriend have a playful sort of banter going back-and-forth sometimes but sometimes he goes too far and I try and tell him that makes me comfortable. Could you not do that and he just ignores it. So recently he’s been kept saying “well that’s why your boyfriend broke up with you”. And we hung out a couple days ago with her, her boyfriend and a couple of her friends and the whole entire time her boyfriend kept commenting on the ways. I looked how I did my makeup what I was wearing what I posted on social media. It made me very uncomfortable and I tried to tell him I did not like that, but he would not listen. So recently, I texted her “Look I’m not comfortable with what your boyfriend said to me at the dance. He took it way too far. I also didn’t like it that he saw that me and (ex boyfriend) broke up when I went too you looking for comfort. I get ya’ll are together but I wasn’t ready for other people to know I just needed someone to talk to. I get me and your boyfriend have a playful banter going on. But sometimes he goes to far and when i try and say I’m not comfortable with that he just ignores it. And the comments he made about me at the dance were not ok. I’ve work hard to be comfortable with what I post and who I am and him making thoses comments where not okay. I’ve tried to ask him to stop but he won’t. And to be honest sometimes it feels when I’m tryin to talk to you about personal stuff he ends up knowing about it and I don’t even know that he’s gonna know.” And she replied “(ex boyfriend)called (her boyfriend)so don’t blame me” so I said “I was never blaming you I was tellin you what I felt. I feel like I can’t talk with you without (her boyfriend) knowing what I told you.” Then I also said “Im not sorry with what I said. I said it to explain to you that I felt uncomfortable and the fact that you won’t acknowledge it isn’t right. I felt like you just went straight to victim mode. I just want you to understand what I’m tryin to tell you.” am I the a hole?

Hey Reddit. This is going to be a long one, so hold on to your fucking hats.

I (38F) have been with my boyfriend (40M) for a little over six years. We have a 3-year-old son together, and I have three older children from previous relationships.

I’m seriously considering ending our relationship, and there isn’t one single incident I can point to and say, “That’s why.”

It’s six years.

Six years of love, children, moves, financial problems, lost jobs, lost vehicles, lost housing, cheating, arguments, good memories, terrible memories, starting over, forgiving each other, hurting each other, and somehow continuing to wake up next to each other.

And before anybody gets to the bottom of this and asks me why the fuck I stayed this long: fair question.

That’s actually part of why I’m writing this.

Because this isn’t a story about one affair, one argument, one shitty birthday, or a man who doesn’t buy me flowers. It’s six years of me repeatedly choosing a relationship through things that individually probably could’ve ended it, and now I’m wondering whether I confused my willingness to keep choosing us with evidence that he was doing the same.

So… buckle up.

Early in our relationship, I went through a severe depression. During that period, we also made the incredibly difficult decision not to continue a pregnancy because of my mental health and our circumstances at the time.

During that same period, he cheated on me.

We didn’t properly work through it. We basically swept it under the rug and kept moving.

And I stayed.

Eventually we made a major move together with two of my children from previous relationships.

Things became rocky again after another woman entered our lives. I’m deliberately skipping an entire side quest because this post is already going to require snacks, but after that relationship went south, he cheated on me with her.

And it didn’t stop there.

He continued cheating and continued communicating with other women.

What made that especially damaging wasn’t only what it did to me. My children were living with us and knew what was happening. His actions damaged his relationship with them too, and years later, that relationship has never truly been repaired.

And I stayed.

Eventually I became pregnant with our son.

During my pregnancy, he lost his job.

I worked throughout my pregnancy while he remained unemployed.

When I delivered our son, I actually left the hospital against medical advice because I was terrified of losing my job. I had a newborn baby, I was the only person working, and I felt like I didn’t have the luxury of prioritizing my own recovery when our household depended on my paycheck.

And when we needed transportation home from the hospital with our newborn, he suggested asking the same woman he’d cheated on me with—and was still involved with—for a ride.

Yes.

You read that correctly.

Somehow, I still stayed.

Eventually, with me carrying the financial load, we lost our apartment.

My mother lived several states away and agreed to let me and my children move into her home. Getting my boyfriend included in that arrangement was absolutely not automatic. There were very legitimate reasons my family wasn’t exactly rolling out a red carpet for him.

I essentially had to advocate and beg for him to be allowed to come with us.

I did it because despite everything that had happened, I was still choosing the relationship and trying to keep our family together.

So we moved.

And because I don’t want to write one of those Reddit posts where OP somehow remembers every shitty thing their partner has ever done while conveniently developing amnesia about their own behavior, I have contributed to the dysfunction in this relationship too.

I have gone through his phone.

I’ve had difficulty trusting him.

I’ve been defensive.

I’ve handled arguments badly.

I’ve said things in anger that I could have communicated differently.

He has repeatedly told me that I don’t listen to him, and there have absolutely been times when he felt unheard by me.

There are things he can point to and truthfully say, “You did this, and it hurt me.”

I don’t get to invalidate those things simply because he’s also hurt me.

One of his longstanding complaints is that I damaged our trust early in the relationship by going through his phone when, according to him, he hadn’t yet given me a reason to believe he was doing anything wrong.

He’s allowed to feel violated by that.

Going through someone’s phone without permission isn’t healthy, and I own that.

What I’ve struggled with is what happened afterward.

Because instead of it becoming, “Why don’t you trust me? What’s going on with you? What are you afraid of? What do you need from me, and what do I need from you so this doesn’t become our relationship?” it became defensiveness, blame and another wound that we carried forward.

And eventually he did cheat.

Then he continued talking to other women.

Then he cheated again.

So now, years later, we have this bizarre chicken-and-egg argument where he can point backward and say, “You never trusted me,” and I can point forward and say, “And eventually you repeatedly gave me reasons not to.”

Neither makes the other okay.

Me violating his privacy wasn’t healthy.

Him cheating wasn’t an inevitable consequence of me violating his privacy.

And honestly, that might be our relationship in miniature: two people hurting each other, carrying the hurt forward, and continuing the relationship without ever properly repairing what was underneath it.

We’ve also had a ridiculous amount of financial instability over six years.

We’ve lost multiple vehicles for different reasons—financial constraints, an accident, and other circumstances. We’ve lost housing. We’ve moved states. We’ve lived with family. We’ve both made financial decisions that, in hindsight, could’ve been better.

I’m not laying every financial problem we’ve ever experienced at his feet. That wouldn’t be truthful.

But what matters to me is the pattern of what happened during those crises.

When he lost his job while I was pregnant, I kept working.

When I gave birth and believed my job was in jeopardy, I left the hospital against medical advice because I believed keeping that income was necessary for our family.

When we lost our apartment and my mother offered my children and me somewhere to live several states away, I fought for him to come too, despite everything that had already happened.

After we moved, I found work.

I kept that job for two years.

I was promoted twice.

I moved into management.

I worked nights, weekends, holidays and overtime. I did what I needed to do to keep money coming in.

Eventually, though, I realized I was paying for that stability with something I couldn’t get back: time with my children.

My daughters are seniors in high school now. This is their last year before adulthood, and I realized I had spent so much time working nights, weekends and overtime that I was missing pieces of their lives I would never get another opportunity to experience.

So I made the decision to leave that job and look for work that would allow me to actually be present for my family.

And to his credit—and I genuinely mean that—he supported my decision.

I need that included because this man isn’t a cartoon villain.

He’s bought me gifts. He’s done kind things for me. He’s supported me at times when I needed support. We’ve laughed until we couldn’t breathe. We’ve created memories I genuinely treasure. We have a child we both adore.

There are reasons I fell in love with him.

There are reasons I stayed.

There are reasons I’m still struggling with whether to leave.

But currently we’re under financial strain again. I’m between jobs after making that decision, and he currently isn’t working either.

That financial pressure has dragged years of unresolved resentment back to the surface.

And one of the things he comes back to when we talk about our relationship is:

“But I never left you.”

He’ll say that he could’ve left when I was driving him crazy.

He’s also told me that during the first period when he cheated, he actually was done with me. He was looking for another woman because he intended to leave our relationship.

But he didn’t.

And lately I keep finding myself thinking:

Then why the fuck didn’t you?

And I don’t mean that sarcastically.

If you were done with me five years ago and ultimately decided you weren’t going to leave, when did staying become choosing me?

Because I’m realizing those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Recently I came across a Facebook discussion based around the phrase, “If he wanted to, he would.”

Normally I roll my eyes at overly simplistic relationship advice because human beings are more complicated than a fucking slogan.

But I started reading comments from women describing the things their husbands and partners do that make them feel loved.

And none of it was extravagant.

One woman’s husband writes her a love letter every week.

Someone else’s partner regularly brings home flowers or something sweet.

One woman talked about how her partner cared for her when she was gravely ill.

Another said her boyfriend told her he intended to marry her and, a few months later, bought her an inexpensive promise ring. He specifically told her that wasn’t the ring she’d eventually end up with; he just wanted her to have something tangible showing that he was serious about what he’d told her.

And reading those comments didn’t make me think:

“Why doesn’t my boyfriend spend more money on me?”

It made me think:

“Holy shit. I just want someone to be intentional about loving me.”

That’s it.

I don’t need expensive jewelry.

I don’t need vacations.

I don’t need somebody spending thousands of dollars proving they love me.

Write me a fucking note.

Bring me my favorite candy because you happened to see it and thought of me.

Plan something for us occasionally without making me coordinate it.

Remember something I told you.

Follow through on something you said you were going to do.

Notice when I’m drowning and take something off my plate.

Be curious about what’s happening inside my head instead of only becoming defensive about how my behavior affects you.

If I do something completely out of character and you genuinely believe you’ve done nothing to cause it, don’t just ask, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Maybe sometimes ask, “What’s going on with you?”

I want to feel considered.

I want somebody who occasionally thinks, “That’s my person. What can I do today to make sure she knows that?”

And suddenly his “I never left you” argument started hurting differently.

Because neither did I.

I stayed after being cheated on during one of the darkest periods of my life.

I stayed when it happened again.

I stayed when my children were hurt by his actions.

I stayed while pregnant and financially supporting our household.

I left the fucking hospital against medical advice after giving birth because I believed keeping my job was necessary to keep our family afloat.

I fought for him to remain part of our household when my family had very legitimate reasons to tell me no.

I stayed through unemployment, financial instability, losing housing, losing vehicles, moving across states and starting over.

I don’t want a medal for any of that.

Because staying doesn’t automatically make me a good partner either.

But if merely remaining is evidence of commitment, then I’ve been here too.

And that’s where I’m stuck.

Yes.

You stayed.

So did I.

What did we do while we were here?

Because staying while continuing to cheat isn’t repairing.

Staying while continuing to talk to other women isn’t rebuilding trust.

And staying while I continued behaviors that hurt him wouldn’t magically make my behavior okay either.

Physical presence isn’t the same thing as active participation in a relationship.

Maybe our relationship hasn’t survived six years because we’ve spent six years continually choosing each other.

Maybe it survived because neither one of us ever actually ended it.

And those are very different things.

One of his best friends has suggested couples therapy.

I’m not inherently against therapy. What makes me hesitate is that the problem we have isn’t simply that we talk and can’t find the right communication technique.

When I bring up old wounds that still affect me, I often hear some variation of:

“Why can’t you just get over it?”

“You’re never going to forgive me.”

“Are we going to be doing this for the rest of our lives?”

“I don’t want to keep talking about this.”

And that’s exactly the problem.

I don’t keep bringing things up because I enjoy being miserable or because I want to punish him forever.

I keep coming back to them because I don’t think they were ever repaired.

I don’t want to pay someone to referee the same argument while one of us is waiting for the therapist to declare a winner.

If we went, I’d need us both to be willing to hear uncomfortable things, take accountability without immediately counterattacking, and actually change behavior outside the therapist’s office.

Maybe that’s possible.

I genuinely don’t know anymore.

We have six years of history. We have a young child. There has been real love here. There have been good times. There have been things worth remembering.

And I have absolutely contributed to the damage in this relationship.

But I’m tired.

I don’t want “Well, I’m still here” to be the standard for the rest of my life.

I don’t want somebody who simply doesn’t leave me.

I want somebody who intentionally chooses me.

Someone who’s curious about me.

Someone who considers me.

Someone who repairs things with me.

Someone who plans with me.

Someone who follows through.

Someone who can hear “You hurt me” without automatically translating it into “You’re a terrible person.”

And I’m beginning to wonder whether I’d rather be single than continue confusing the absence of a breakup with the presence of a relationship.

So Reddit, after all of that:

Would I be the asshole for ending a six-year relationship with the father of my youngest child—not because one final catastrophic thing happened, but because after everything we’ve survived, I’ve finally realized that “I stayed” isn’t enough anymore?

Or is this something you think is actually repairable if both people are willing to do the work?

Because at this point, I genuinely want perspectives from people who don’t know either of us.

What do you see when you look at this relationship from the outside?