r/offmychest

I (27M) was the person who posted here to vent and shout into the void, because my then fiancé (30M) used an AI jury to determine which of us was right after a (recurring) argument and refused to discuss the subject of said argument further because the jury determined that he was right and I was wrong.

It is not very exciting or dramatic but suffice it to say my relationship with my now ex-fiancé is over and we will not be getting married. Our wedding was supposed to take place on the last Saturday of November but I have cancelled everything and tried to get back whatever money I could.

My ex-fiancé seemed to be genuinely shocked when I told him I no longer wanted to marry him. I don't think he's that good of an actor so I don't know why he would be shocked considering how much we argued before he used the AI jury. After that, he refused to talk to me about it no matter how much I tried and I was truly at my wits send end.

The argument was about chores and housework. I'm a solicitor and more often than not my work means I can't do my job remotely. My ex-fiancé works in human resources and his job is exclusively remote. But I ended up doing all the cleaning and other chores. I was not looking to make him do everything or for us to keep score over who does what. I just wanted him to help. I was responsible for most of our expenses because my salary is much more than his, so I felt financial pressure and the pressure to keep our flat clean and in order. It got to be too much and since he wouldn't discuss it with me and kept on harping about the AI saying he was right I ended things. I can't even describe how much less stressed out and tired I am now. Honestly my only regret is not leaving sooner.

Thank you to all who sent me supportive messages and left me supportive comments on my other post. They were appreciated.

On the night of my wedding, my (now) ex-wife and I returned to my parents’ house to change and prepare to head to the airport and our honeymoon. My Ex left the dress in the guest room, and while we were on our honeymoon, my sister boxed it up and placed it in the closet, where it stayed for years.

 Our marriage lasted about five years, and my ex never claimed the dress. My Mom asked me to remove the dress from the house because it had bad memories for her. I needed extra cash, and the dress was expensive, so I decided to sell it on eBay. I pulled my old wedding album out of the attic, scanned a few photos, and placed a black box over my Ex’s eyes so that it would be difficult to identify her.

 I sold the dress to a nursing student in South Carolina, who was so happy to get a designer dress for cheap that she sent me a thank-you note. About two months after I sold the dress, my Ex emailed me to say she was remarrying and wanted to come by to pick up her wedding dress. I lied and told her that we had a roof leak and that the dress had been ruined and thrown away.

 

Off the bat, said child is technically related to me. He is my estranged brother's son, though I have never met him until three weeks ago. My brother and I weren't speaking at the time of the pregnancy and a few years after, so I don't know a lot. All I know I heard from my mother, but even she is fuzzy on the details as my brother has been exceptionally cagey about it. It was, however, clear my brother wasn't planning to take responsibilty. As he happens to be a gaping asshole with a major drinking problem, I honestly thought him not being involved was for the best and dropped it.

Apparently my brother reconnected with his baby mama and kid a couple of years ago while going through the AA process for the umpteenth time. It sounds like the lovebirds had a very brief, very messy fling that ended terribly. One good thing did come of it, though- my brother agreed to start financially contributing and occasionally seeing Kid. I only have my brother's side of the story in which he is always the victim, but I strongly suspect he only honored his word for a few months until he started drinking again. He doesn't know much about Kid. Which makes the fact my brother was listed as an emergency contact with Kid's school a little baffling.

Cut to three weeks ago. Kid's school calls my brother and said Kid, now a pre-teen, didn't want to go home because no one was there and he was scared. The school couldn't contact Kid's mom, so they called my brother, who agreed to come right over.

So proud of him for finally caring. Not.

He somehow convinces the idiots in the front office to hand Kid over and immediately runs his car into a concrete barrier in the parking lot. The school resource officer immediately arrested him for DUI and child endangerment, since Kid was in the backseat.

As my brother has no friends and the only other family member who can drive has completely cut off contact, he called me to pick Kid up or else CPS was going to take him.

Now there is an adolescent boy I never met in my apartment. The toilet seat is up, my Switch has been plundered, and he is taking suspiciously long showers at least twice a day.

Y'all, I love this kid. He has some problems, but the last few weeks have been amazing. But, holy shit, this is such a terrible idea. I, myself, am a hot fucking mess and barely holding it together. I have Bipolar Disorder and, while I would adore to have children, I have promised to never do so. Frankly, I just don't think I'm stable enough to care for someone else. It's all fine and dandy until I have a psychotic episode out of nowhere.

Not to mention the cost of another person. I also see more than a few medical bills in Kid's future as I strongly suspect he has a few developmental issues thay are going to need specialized care.

Still... Would it be that bad to keep him? Kid has a case worker who seemes to think he would do very poorly in a foster home and I have no illusions as to his adoptability.  I am far from an ideal option, but Kid has been largely happy here and I would at least love him. He has been very clear he wants to stay with me, but I don't think he, or even his caseworker, fully grasp how utterly incompetent I can be.

Whenever im doing homework i get fucking ecstatic and it turns me on and i want to touch myself . I fucking love doing homework . Homework makes me THE happiest person ever and i fcuking love studying . BUT !! Lately im REALLY fucking happy in general like i could die from happiness i feel like im a fucking god with how amazing i am how smart beautiful and loveable . Im so shaky typing this cos im too happy . Sometimes im SO happy i cant even do homework but if i do end up doing homework i end up being EVEN happier and even horny and touch myself

Im a 21 year old man. Just over a year ago my mother died. I have a sister (23) and a half sister and brother (8 and 6). Soon after the father of my younger sister and bro ended his own life whilst they were in the house. If I speak, I will get in trouble here.

My older sister is in the Middle East living life so I had to deal with social workers etc. I will admit the social workers were really helpful and supported keeping them with family. But it was a minefield to sort through.

The foster payment is very reasonable here so I was still able to go to uni etc and get a minder when necessary.

But it just gets a lot. I get home from uni/work and they immediately need my attention. There is sports, psychologist appointments, weekly groceries, cooking, cleaning, "let me tell you every mundane part of my day", arbitrator, flus, nightmares etc etc etc.

And I know this is just what it is to be a guardian/parent but I miss the carefree life. I miss being just their brother.

And I sound like the biggest AH for complaining and often I love being there for them. Sometimes I love hearing about their day. I love when my brother goes so many nights without a nightmare. I love watching them play football. I love playing football with them. I always hate cleaning lol.

But there is no off switch and it is overwhelming.

I’ve always been on the slimmer side and insecure. I know people say that skinny people doesn’t get treated as bad as the fat people does but it still stings when people make fun of us. I got called undesirable by my friend’s boyfriend and I never liked him. One of my colleague told me I look like I’m doing weed because of how flat my butt is. They mention that I look like a kid because of how thin I am and that they would never date someone like me.
I was already feeling so insecure and it was so windy outside, we were having our lunch together. One of the colleague (the same guy who commented on my butt) told me that I shouldn’t go out because I might get blown away by the wind and everyone laughed. I was also on my PMS, so I snapped and called him a pig, told him that his stomach made him look like a pregnant woman and that he should focus on losing that first. The room got quiet, he got really mad and told me that he was just joking and that he just prefers thick ladies like I give a fuck about being desirable to him. Some of them came over after it to tell me that I overreacted and that he was just joking. One of my close colleague told me that being called skinny is actually a compliment for some people and that I went too far by calling him a pig. I know they have been talking about me because when I enter a room it suddenly gets so quiet. They didn’t even invite me to the lunch either today like bruuu FUCK YOU ALL if you see this MY DEAR COLLEAGUES.

I 22f have been married 2 years to my husband 29m
He has never been a super affectionate person but he tells me he loves me, I want more so I told him yesterday. This is what he sent me today at work

I love you for a thousand reasons, but the deepest is that my heart feels at home in you. You are the dream I never want to wake up from, the prayer I never knew how to ask for, and the blessing I will never stop being grateful for.
If life gave me everything but you, I would still feel poor. But if I had you and nothing else, I would still feel like the luckiest man alive.
You are the woman I want beside me in every chapter of my life, the last face I want to see at night, and the first person I want to hold in the morning.
And when my time on this earth is over, I hope my very last thought is of you, because loving you has been the most beautiful thing my heart has ever done.
You are not just my forever, sweetheart. You are the reason forever will never feel long enough.

I got so emotional reading it at work, I never knew this much, I going to jump on him tonight no sleep tonight😜

I (31f) used to have a full bush, dark, curly, and thick. I loved it I always liked the look of it on me and kept it trimmed. Ever since I hit 27 or so it changes. It's straight and sparse. Like my vagina is balding. I hate it, but I hate shaving more because of the bumps.

Weirdly enough it has made me self-conscious about it. I'm sure most people don't care about how it looks, but I miss it. It's like those old ladies in horror movies that have like 3 strands of hair. I miss my glorious hair.

It’s 2 am and I’m in Rome, on probably one of the last trips I will go on with my aging parents and I’m not handling it well.
I watch them struggle with things they could do just a few years ago and I know my time with them is coming to an end sooner than later. Probably another 5-10 years with my dad who is pushing 80. My mom is 8 years younger but I see her changing as well.
They are my best friends and my biggest supporters— I don’t know how to exist in a world without them. Who will I got to for parenting advice, an encouraging word or the comfort that comes from them telling me “everything will be okay”

I remember thinking as a kid that it’s okay because I have so much time… and now here we are. Damnit that went fast.

I just love them so much, they truly are the best and I couldn’t be more lucky to have had them as my parents

Time is a thief. Call your parents, go on trips with them, tell them how much you love them because life is fleeting

to preface, i used to have a pretty bad eating disorder a few years ago and during the worst of it, i was eating next to nothing and then binging massive amounts and purging via vomit.

anyways, it was the middle of the night and i was eating everything in the kitchen as per usual, scrounging around in cupboards and scavenging the bullshit in the very back that no one eats.

it’s dark, i’m using the flashlight on my phone set on the ground as i’m crouched on the floor, one arm deep, grabbing blindly at what i found were dried mango slices. i had seen them during other kitchen raids, so i knew that they wouldn’t be missed. i shove my fingers into the plastic packaging and fish out a couple mango slices, aimlessly munching on them as i go back to searching.

for some reason, i lean towards my phone and the upwards light illuminates the silhouette of the piece of mango i’m holding in my mouth. with a delayed horror, i realize that the mango is actually squirming a little bit. i immediately spit it out and upon inspection with my flashlight, i see around a dozen of these tiny white worms eating inside the mango slice.

the worst part is that i definitely didn’t care as much as i should. it kinda just struck me as a pang of disgust and then an “eh, back to business”. i mechanically made my way to the toilet and ended that session of midnight depravity a little early. after i came back to my senses i felt more disturbed about it, and a little shocked how much i genuinely didn’t give a fuck in the moment. oh well. it did take me a couple weeks to forget about it though.

anyways i just wanted to get that off my chest since that period of my life was so weird and gross with an emphasis on gross. if you’re reading this and going through something similar, recovery is possible and worth it lol

it's been a frightful day, full of tears and emotional conversations with my 12 yo and eldest who is being refused when she asks to call me, and whose time with me is cut down arbitrarily if I've made her dad mad or shown up to changeover late too many times, and is told she is being "brainwashed" because I'm not telling her that the reduction in time is because of me.

i'm so tired of being put in a position by her dad to lie to or gaslight my child, or else he yells and berates and insults her into submitting to his point of view. she's confused. she doesn't understand why she can't talk to her older sister - dad's firstborne, who has never (as far as I know) met.

of course, when the mother of my kid's half-sister reached out to me, I immediately set up a play-date. the one and only time they actually met and spoke. all she wants is to feel like she belongs in a family.

i'm watching her cry and need reassurance through a video screen, and visibly controlling her face and reactions because they are approaching and saying it's time to get off the phone.

this man is a convicted meth trafficker, raped me, used me as a guinea pig to try out imported psychedelics on, cheated on me continuously and then after a year and a half threatened to kill me explicitly while I held our 1yo daughter, successfully lied about these events with his parents' money and credibility, bankrupted me into signing consent orders my lawyers assured me was the best course of action, and now has turned every interaction with my eldest something out of sophie's fucking choice.

she missed her little sister's band performance because he decided she got 4 hours less time today, due to the fact that I had been in total 2 hours late to changeovers in the last month, and she passes on messages that he'll just leave if I'm not there within 15 minutes of changeover time.

for the record, changeover is caboolture. i live in inner brisbane. transit is anywhere between 40 to 80 minutes around 8:30.

i need to work on my routines - i'm not excusing getting there late, and i'm working on it. what kind of father thinks that this is a solution? she's the one getting the most hurt here

she and her little sister and brother are collateral damage and i'm trying so hard to protect them... and today has been really rough.

Bought an old dresser from a woman who said she was clearing out her mom’s house after she died.

When I took the drawers out to carry it upstairs, there was an envelope taped underneath one of them with $2,400 cash inside.

I still had her number. I could have texted her immediately.

Instead I put the envelope in my desk and told myself I’d think about it.

That was three weeks ago.

I haven’t spent any of it. It’s literally just sitting there while I keep finding reasons not to message her.

Every time I open that drawer I feel like a piece of shit.

Hi! I’m 20 years old and in my junior year of college. I don’t know what it’s wrong with me, but I am constantly having panic attacks over the fact that I am going to die one day and just cease to exist.
Especially now that I have a boyfriend that I wanna spend the rest of my life with. I literally can’t imagine life without him and a lot of the time that I’m hanging out with him is ruined because I’m sitting there thinking about ways that he could potentially die and I’d literally never see him again.
It may be connected to me losing my grandparents in my freshman year of high school.

I am also really scared of losing my parents. Death it’s just such a weird concept to me. The fact that we just cease to exist. Like I literally don’t know how I would live my life without my family and my boyfriend in it.

But I am so scared of just ceasing to exist.

I am also not religious. So I don’t believe in they’re being a heaven. But that scares me even more to think that I just literally will not have a conscious anymore and that I just literally will not exist and that it could literally happen anytime and I could just die and have wasted my life.
I just start spiraling all the time and it’s really upsetting me because I just wanna be normal and not be thinking about dying every two minutes. Hey seriously do not know what to do anymore.

I don’t know if anybody has any advice or anything comforting to say, but I’m just laying in bed right now thinking about it.

I [35F] would’ve laughed if anyone accused my husband [43M] of cheating on me. He wouldn’t have even needed to defend himself because the idea would be so ridiculous to me. In fact, I was bragging about how much I trust him a few days before I found out. We have two young children btw.

For the past year I’ve been struggling with a serious illness. He has been (so I thought) such a wonderful caretaker. I felt tremendous guilt for not being the woman he married once I got sick. I’m always exhausted and I felt like such a nuisance. I had to go into therapy to deal with the guilt that he insisted didn’t exist. He “loves caring for me”.

Whenever he asked about a social event, I insisted he go. I thought he deserved time for himself. I was worried about caretakers burnout. Welp, he used that time to have an affair with an engaged coworker. It escalated quickly, from dick pics to exchanging deep love letters (written while I was in the hospital or sleeping), all within 7 weeks, four of which I was in the hospital. Well, he says 7 weeks. Who knows.

For the past week he has been spiraling, going between crying to excessive drinking for days on end. He insisted it was because he had to layoff someone for the first time and couldn’t handle the guilt. The reaction seemed so disproportionate to how destroyed he was over it. Well, that’s because it wasn’t about empathy for a coworker. It was because his AP told him that she won’t be leaving her fiancé for him.

He was acting so destructive that at one point last week I reached out to his family for help. Everyone supported him and showed up to make him feel better. Ha. What an asshole. Making everyone rally around him because his affair partner wasn’t leaving her fiancé. I even begged my family for help with childcare so he could go to a concert that he planned to go to with her. I needed family because I cannot safely care for them myself due to my illness.

I only found out because he lied about talking to his mother after leaving for an hour. That was very unlike him. When I asked him, he went from “we spoke” to “we spoke briefly” to “fine we didn’t talk but I needed to leave to clear my head”. The fact that he wouldn’t admit anything unless I faced him with proof worried me. I then noticed him being extra protective of his phone. When he was at the store last night, I went to look at his search history to see what was going on. Before I could hit search, I saw sexy messages just open on his computer. THROUGH TEAMS MESSAGES. He was so confident that I would never suspect him that he didn’t even bother to minimize the chat.

Now I can’t trust a single word he says. He promises he’s told me everything until I offer up more evidence I found, then he will admit that happened too. He says it was an emotional affair and that it was just a fantasy, but I would be naive to think they’ve never been physical after reading those messages. He won’t admit it. My heart is too broken to look for any more evidence. It’s all just noise.

I now realize all the times he lied to spend time with her, getting home at 3am. He would sext her while I was sleeping in bed next to him. He even took our kids along to meet up with her.

He says it’s over, but he works with this woman everyday. They’ve been exchanging sexy love notes over teams while I’m downstairs watching the kids.
His AP’s fiancé works at the same company as them. I am bewildered by how bold this all was.

I don’t think I’ll warn the AP’s fiancé. My husband could be fired and he’s the breadwinner. We struggle financially already. So I’m just…. Here. Having to live life next to him, feeling like I don’t know him at all. Every kiss and sweet word feels so insincere that it makes my skin crawl. The only way I see this working is couples therapy, and that will be a long process. I have so much more hurt in my future.

He was begging for forgiveness. Making promises. Telling me he loved me and would never leave me. I couldn’t look at him. I’m sleeping at my sister’s tonight. He needs to be with our 4yo daughter anyways to comfort her from hearing mom and dad fight. We never do. We never used to.

He wants me to talk, but what do I even say? I don’t believe a word he says and I don’t feel like catching him in his own lies. It’s enough. My heart is broken. My spirit is broken. I’m just a shell trying to stay alive for my kids.

Maybe this makes me just as bad as him, but I spit on my husbands clothes while he’s not home to get back at him for being emotionally abusive to me. Sometimes I also dip his toothbrush in our toilet. Another time, we had a huge fight and he slammed his hands so hard onto the computer keyboard the pieces went flying and then he stormed out of the house. I purposefully broke his space bar piece in half and put it back so he would think he did it. He’s controlling manipulative and emotionally abusive to me and I can’t escape bc I’m a foreigner in his native country and we have kids. If I try to leave he’ll fight me for custody and most likely win. So I do these things bc I can’t talk back to him or have a rational conversation where he accepts that he was at fault for anything. It’s my secret way of arguing back to him.

My ex and I have two young children. We were together for many years and are now separated. We currently have an informal 50/50 parenting arrangement and a private child-support arrangement, but nothing has been formalized through the court.
The kids attend school in my district, and I still live in the home/district they’ve been established in. Their mother moved outside the school district.
On paper we’re supposed to be week-on/week-off, but in practice I’m doing a lot more of the day-to-day parenting, including during her weeks.
I regularly handle school pickups, homework, extracurricular activities, therapy/appointments, medical issues, and sometimes school drop-offs. During her parenting time, I often have the kids for several hours after school and return them later.

Her work schedule is also starting to cause her to miss some overnights, and when that happens I take the kids. She generally has not been asking to make those nights up.
I’ve started using a co-parenting app to track actual handoffs, overnights, school pickups/drop-offs, homework, appointments, activities, and schedule changes. I also document the things she does, because I want the record to be accurate and balanced rather than one-sided.
There are also some concerns about the apartment complex where she lives, including several serious incidents in or immediately around the complex, as well as recurring maintenance issues.

I spoke with a family-law attorney. She told me that because the kids are established in my school district and their mother moved outside it, I would likely be considered the primary residential/custodial parent for school purposes if things were ever formalized. She also said that if the current parenting pattern continues, the actual overnight split may eventually look very different from 50/50.

She told me to keep documenting everything, accept additional parenting time when it’s offered, and see how the next month or so actually plays out before making any decisions.

I’m not trying to take the kids away from their mother. I actually feel guilty when she misses time with them, and I want them to have a strong relationship with her.
The child-support side also makes me uncomfortable. Because I currently earn more, we’ve handled support privately. My attorney explained that if I became the primary residential parent, support could potentially be recalculated and she might even owe support depending on the final parenting-time arrangement and incomes. I don’t want money to become another source of conflict.
Holidays are another concern. I’m in a much better financial position, so I’m able to spend considerably more on Christmas. I worry that the kids will notice a big difference between what each parent can provide, and I also worry that their mother will feel guilty or upset that she can’t spend as much. I want Christmas to feel balanced and like both parents contributed, not like one parent “won” Christmas.

For people who’ve been through something similar: when did you realize your 50/50 arrangement wasn’t actually 50/50 anymore?

Did you formalize the schedule based on what was really happening? How did you handle child support and holidays without making the other parent feel pushed out or embarrassed?

My wife and I have been together for 11 years and married for seven. We have two young children, and I was a stay-at-home dad (this was our plan before trying for a kid) for about six years.

My wife had an affair with a coworker that, from what I've learned, went back about a year. She told me she fell in love with him. He was also married with a small child, trying for a second.

I also discovered sexually explicit messages between her and another man (who also has a child and his wife was due to give birth this past summer) going back at least seven months. They talked explicitly about sex and meeting up on at least 10 occasions. My wife says they never actually met. I don't know whether that's true. Based on what I read and everything else I've learned, I'm having an incredibly difficult time trusting anything anymore.

I'm devastated. I'm hurt. I'm angry. I'm confused. I have a million unanswered questions.

And yet I still love her.

We had some communication problems. I interrupted her. I could become defensive. I pointed out hypocrisy. There were times when she didn't feel heard by me. Looking back, there are things I genuinely wish I had done differently, and I'm working on those things in individual therapy. Shes painting a picture at this point that this was a daily occurrence when in reality we could go months between an argument (not sure if I'd even call them that). These would usually immediately get resolved and intimacy would return to normal usually the next day. She now says the frequency decreased because she would "cater situations to me."

But I loved this woman. I supported her career. I spent six years raising our children as a stay-at-home dad. I took care of our home and our kids. I loved being her husband and being a father with her.

We also weren't living like two completely disconnected roommates. We had regular intimacy through June of this year. I knew our marriage had communication issues at times but I didn't believe it was about to disappear or anything remotely close to that.

Now my wife describes me as having been emotionally abusive.

That's incredibly painful to hear. I'm trying to take seriously that she experienced parts of our marriage differently than I did. At the same time, I don't recognize myself in the picture of our marriage I'm hearing now. I'm not in any way, shape, or form an iota of an abuser. I'm loving, thoughtful, and supportive.

I can acknowledge interrupting her, being defensive, communicating poorly, and yes sometimes using swear words or making an asshole comment, without pretending those things erase everything else our marriage was. I know this because everyday through June of this year she told me she loved me. She told me she appreciated me. We had an incredible sex life. We curled up on the couch every evening after the kids were down, held hands, gave massages, watched our TV shows...

And I struggle with the timing. I don't know how much represents pain and resentment she carried for "years", how much I genuinely failed to understand about her experience, or whether any of it has become intertwined with how she makes sense of the affair and leaving our marriage.

I genuinely don't know.

After I discovered the affair, we actually seemed to reconnect for a while. We became intimate again. We read together at night. We went to couples therapy. She told our therapist that opening up to me felt bonding and good. She said she felt somewhat hopeful and excited about where this could go and that there were moments when she felt close to me.

For a brief period, I thought maybe we had a chance.

Then everything changed. She said she was done. She wanted emotional and physical space. Couples therapy ended. Eventually she told me not to text her unless it was about our children.

She's filing for divorce and I can't even talk to her about our marriage, our life. It's just abruptly done.

Now I live in the same house as the woman I've loved for 11 years and she barely wants to speak to me.

And it fucking hurts.

Logically, I know what people are probably going to tell me: let her go. Stop chasing someone who doesn't want to be with you. Accept that the marriage is over. Protect yourself and concentrate on your children.

I understand that intellectually.

Emotionally, I can't seem to get there.

This isn't someone I dated for six months. She's the person I built my adult life around. She's the mother of my children. There are 11 years of memories everywhere I look—our wedding, vacations, bringing our children home, birthdays, holidays, and literally thousands of ordinary days together.

And somehow I'm supposed to process that while I thought I was living that life, the woman I loved was falling in love with somebody else.

I'm hurt beyond anything I've experienced before.

I'm hurt by the affair. I'm hurt by the other messages. I'm hurt that I don't know what was true and what wasn't. I'm hurt that she apparently carried so much resentment toward me without me understanding how deep it had become.

And despite everything, part of me still wants my wife back.

My brain tells me I have to let her go while another part of me keeps screaming: this is my wife, this is my family, I have to save it.

Then there are our children. I've been home raising them for years. The thought of going from seeing them every morning and every night to having days when they're somewhere else absolutely destroys me.

I don't want my kids growing up between two houses. I don't want any of this.

But I also know I can't force somebody to love me or stay married to me.

I'm not looking for people to tell me my wife is evil. I understand now that she was deceitful, selfish, manipulative, and an incredible liar who didn't give a shit about her family or her affair partner(s) families. She's a complicated human being who I still love despite being incredibly hurt by what she did.

And I'm not pretending I was a perfect husband. I wasn't.

I wish she was honest with me. I wish she thought about her actions and what it would do to our family, our kids, her affair partners family and his kids. I'll never understand.

About 1.5 years ago, in March 2025, I pinched/squeezed my penis a little too hard and developed a rare painful condition known as hard flaccid syndrome (HFS). It causes ED, low libido, and altered sensations like pain or numbness. It's virtually unknown to urologists, there's no cure for most of the cases, and it's usually permanent. This is a real condition, not some crazy imagined stuff, there are some real scientific papers published about it in the recent decades, it's just very very rare, and not in the course of urologists or any kind of docs, really.

The ED can be managed with the usual stuff they give for that, but my main problem is that normal physical contact generates pain. Supposedly it's nerve pain, which is very hard to cure and manage. I am living with pain; it comes and goes. It's unlikely I can have intercourse in the normal way.

So how do I begin...

At age 25, I finally had the feeling that I had things figured out. I'd come to realize what I really wanted from life, and it was falling in love, starting a serious relationship, and to eventually live a simple, happy married life.

I processed things in my past. I became conscious of the bad patterns I've learnt and I left behind living selfishly for myself. I had a sort of spiritual awakening and had discovered things like responsibility, and that love is the answer; that the only thing worth living for is loving someone.

I had (still have) a great job which I enjoy doing, with 50 paid holidays a year.

I was so optimistic and enthusiastic about my future.

So all of this was shattered when I was 29.

I am 31 years old, reasonably healthy, not terribly unattractive, and everyone around me is hopefully optimistic and expectant about my future, especially about my romantic life.

I can't tell them, because how do you just say: "yeah, well, my dick don't work".

The anxiety, the shame, the shattered self-esteem.

The vanished goals, the once-bright future now pitch-dark.

The helplessness. The pain.

The feeling of waking up every morning, thinking of this first thing, 'this can't be real, I'm on the wrong timeline, I want to return'- this was stronger in the beginning.

I am living day-to-day with this thing in my mind, and in my body.

Sometimes I feel like I have come to peace with the thought of living alone for the rest of this life; I imagine an idyllic, sort of hermit-like existence.

On other days, I am in despair - what the hell will I do for another 4-5 decades?

I don't have much hope either for curing or even managing this to a point of normal functionality... (imagine going to a physician and telling them that you have a rare condition which they never even heard about. Yeah, good luck with that...)

There are some practitioners (I'm talking a handful, in the world) who claim to deal with this somehow, but there's still no real cure. They probably claim it for the money.

Neither have I much hope that I can have a happy relationship with this.

Maybe I could find disabled women who would be willing, but staying with someone forced by circumstances is much worse than even loneliness.

I know there's more to sex, I have hands, I have a tongue... still don't know how could I tell this to someone. Anyone, really.

You know, people do dumb things, sometimes really crazy shit with themselves and still come out OK in the end. They realize they were stupid, change their ways, and become a better person with a good life. I'm talking about serious injuries because of recklessness, drug abuse, crime, self-harming, some men even literally break their penises and they heal just fine, I'm not joking. I made a small mistake and my life is ruined now, it's just not fair.

I mean, I'm sure some people would be like: 'well, sex and love are not everything, you can travel, read and study things you're interested in, find hobbies like music, art, play sports etc.' and yes, these things are still available. People are living somehow with things like paralysis and other conditions that make them physically incapable of almost anything. Still, I just can't accept this.

I'd easily, happily trade a leg, an eye, an arm, any organ we have two of really, for this to go away.

Honestly, I would accept any response to this as reasonable.

I mean things like alcoholism, drug use, violence, just going insane, screaming on the streets at night, even ending it all, anything - I would say to that: 'Understandable sir. Have a nice day!'

Yes. I'm trying to have a nice day.

A coworker has been taking parts of my reports and passing them off as his own for months.

I stopped confronting him because he always had some excuse and our manager never cared enough to look into it.

So recently I started leaving one obvious but harmless mistake in the drafts he has access to. Wrong month, duplicated number, outdated client name, something like that.

Before I submit mine, I fix it.

Three times now he’s copied the mistake into his own work and had to explain it when someone caught it.

He still hasn’t figured out why this suddenly keeps happening to him.

I know I should probably deal with this like an adult, but watching him confidently submit something he stole from me and then get questioned about it has been extremely satisfying.

What an interesting life! I spent the last year and a half working hard on losing weight and learning to heal my relationship with food. I’ve lost about 50 pounds give or take. Lately, I’ve gotten into the Halloween candy and seem to have NO DISCIPLINE WHATSOEVER. It’s fine to have a few pieces, but 5? What is going on?

Yesterday at work, I almost threw up to the smell of rubbing alcohol. (To put into perspective for you, I’m a mechanic. There are some nasty smelling things I’ve worked with, but that’s awful weird to get sick over some alcohol).

I noticed my period is late and I’ve been hungrier in general lately. I go get a pregnancy test today and immediately it’s positive. I started to cry. I feel like I have so much to do in 9 months and I wanted to wake my husband up and tell him, but I want to see my physician first and I’d like to have pictures for him and to know that the baby is healthy.

His birthday is next month and I think the pictures would be a cute gift along with some sort of reveal to him. I’ve got to think on this a bit more. The whole thing is just so funny to me because he got me some seasonal cute things for me as a little present along with ovulation test strips since we’ve been trying to have a baby. I didn’t even get the chance to use them 😂

Anyways I’m excited and it’s a big surprise and I wanted to tell someone.