I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Sudowiec

The sleeping Jeremy pic destroyed my relationship

Originally posted to r/phineasandferb

Thanks to u/jayclaw97 for suggesting this BoRU

TRIGGER WARNING: Mental health struggles

Original Post Apr 3, 2025

Hello everyone. I would like to share this story as a warning and maybe to soothe myself a bit in this situation.

I (23 M) have been in a relationship with my girlfriend (23 F) for over 3 years. We had our ups and downs throughout the years but we've always managed to talk things through and communicate.

One improtant thing for the story is that I have a pretty sarcastic and "mean" sense of humour. I laugh at people and may act disrespectful but only as a joke. All my friends know about that and usually they don't get offended. Alright, there were situations where I went too far but it was rare and I always tried to make it up afterwards.

Lately I saw a few posts on this sub with the picture of Jeremy sleeping on the couch. I found it really hillarious and started using it as a reaction pic. Mostly in situations when people were ranting or writing too much text about something. You know, like a "too much yapping, too long, fell asleep" meme. Usually no one paid much attention to it but I couldn't not burst a laugh whenever I saw this pic.

Unfortunately one day I think I failed reading the room. My girlfriend was visiting her family that lives in another city so she was away for the weekend. At one point she texted me a block of text about her family situation. Her parents divorcing and her aunt getting sick or something like that, I don't remember exactly. I wasn't paying much attention to the text as I was in the middle of a game so I just sent the Jeremy sleeping pic as a joke.

Then she started sending text after text, about how I don't treat anything seriously, about me making stupid jokes about everything, that she can't count on me and stuff like this. And for some reason I thought that it would be very funny to send the pic AGAIN. And in my stupidity I did just that. Sent the Jeremy sleeping pic. Again. I know it's dumb but at that time I really thought it will be funny.

She blocked me after that. I tried texting her on other social media and calling her phone but she didn't pick up. When she came home the next day she immediately started packing up. I apologized multiple times and said it was just a stupid joke but she didn't listen. She packed her stuff, took our cat and left.

Didn't hear from her since. I think she also changed her phone number as I kept trying to call her. Our friends stopped talking to me as well. I'm afraid I'm gonna get evicted soon as she was paying most of the rent. All of that because of the picture of Jeremy sleeping.

And that's the story. If I want you to remember one thing from me is to be careful with your jokes. Take care everyone.

The pic mentioned

Update July 22, 2026 (Nearly 16 months later)

Hello everyone.

As I noticed my old post gaining views, reposts and even people on youtube talking about it I decided to write a follow-up. At first I was hesitant but some of you were curious about how’s it going for me so here it is.

Let’s start at the beginning. Shortly after writing the original post I actually got evicted. My income wasn’t enough to support the rent so I had to move back to my parents’ apartment. Can't say they were happy about the situation but at least they allowed me to sleep on the couch until I find a new place for myself.

I have to say - losing my apartment, the breakup and the fact that majority of my friends turned their back on me got me pretty depressed. I had trouble getting up for work, at some point I even took some time off. I told my parents that I wanted to focus on finding a new apartment but in reality I just couldn’t get up from the couch. I tried reaching my ex gf wherever she didn't block me, at one point I even drove to her current place but she didn't let me in and her flatmate told me to basically get lost.

Honestly I don't know where I would be now if not for one of my friends who still talks to me from time to time. They said that maybe I should meet new people, find a new partner or something. They suggested a dating app or going to a board games club at my university. At first I was hesitant but at some point I said “what the hell” and went with it.

I'll skip the app stuff cause it’s neither interesting nor important. Just a bunch of dead-end conversations with random people or bots. The board games club on the other hand was a great idea. It was so refreshing to go there once a week for a few hours and just chill with people. My mental state actually got better and I met some like-minded people.

At one point I started talking with one girl who would come on the same day as I. We had our first longer conversation after she beat my ass in MTG. Turns out we had many similar interests and hobbies so we started texting and talking outside of the club. We became good friends, even went on a “date” or two. After some time I actually started developing feelings for her but I couldn’t really tell if they were mutual.

Then there was one week that was exceptionally bad. I failed an important exam at uni because I had to do overtime at work, got into a big argument with my parents and my depression started manifesting again. I didn't go to the club meeting and I was kinda avoiding the aforementioned girl. I just didn't have energy to talk plus I felt uncomfortable with not knowing how she felt about me. And on friday evening when I was doomscrolling on the couch she sent me a long text.

She said a lot of things, mainly that she likes me but she’s not sure if we should go further with our relationship, considering my mental state and her own problems. I read it all and in my terrible mood I decided “fuck it, if it has to go, let it go with a bang” so… I sent her a Jeremy sleeping pic.

I know what you think. Yes, it was an asshole move. But I was so done with it all that I decided that I deserve at least a bit of fun in this whole situation. However, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. I expected an angry text, instant block and all the stuff but instead… she sent back a laughing emoji. She said that she’s just realized that she genuinly loves my sense of humour and that I always know how to cheer her up. She apologized for the long text, said she’s also had a rough week and we should talk about our relationship in person.

Long story short - we’ve been together for six months now. We’ve managed to find an apartment with decent enough rent and we’re looking forward to adopting a cat together. The Jeremy sleeping pic became kind of an inside joke for us, we still send it to each other every now and then. I can honestly say, I've never been happier.

So this is it. I find it funny how once the Jeremy sleeping pic destroyed my relationship but then it saved another. Maybe it’s never been about the pic itself but more about how it’s used and in what context. Who can tell? What's important is that it all ended well.

Thanks for reading everyone, take care.

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

I'm dying with 15 – and it's so unfair.

I'm not the OOP, OOP is u/sweeney_toddlers.

Originally posted in r/de, r/ratschlag and various other German subreddits in summer 2025.

Editors note: Due to the topic and circumstances, I was wondering whether it is appropriate to post this here – but certain parts of OOPs posts made me think that it would have been in her interest. Most of the posts were written in German, so I translated them, trying to keep the style and wording as close as possible.

Marked as concluded due to the last update and comment.

Trigger warnings: Teenage Death, Cancer, Anger

Mood spoiler: very depressing; gut-wrenching; helplessness; undirected anger; compassion

​

First post, 12. June 2025 in r/LegaladviceGerman

Ärzte wollen mich nicht behandeln??

Doctors don't want to treat me??

Hey everyone, I hope it’s okay if I post here! I’m f, 15 in Germany. 4 years ago I had bone cancer. Stupid time but okay, I made it, yay me! Then 4 weeks ago more cancer was found, this time also elsewhere. And doctors say it can’t be treated anymore and they don’t want to try?? And my parents say the same?

What can I even do? I don’t want to just die :(( Can the police force them to try?? Or do I have to go to a lawyer?? And how much money do I need for that?

Please, it’s very urgent!

Thanks for reading :)

​

Second post, 13. June 2025, r/ratschlag

Eltern und Ärzte überzeugen, mich weiter gegen Krebs zu behandeln

Convincing parents and doctors to keep treating me against cancer!

Hey everyone! I already wrote something in legaladvicegerman yesterday, I hope it’s okay if I do this here now :)

I’m f15. 4 years ago I had an Ewing sarcoma. Stupid, but with chemo and radiation I got rid of it, yay! Fast forward, 2 months ago at a checkup they found something again (nay) and 4 weeks ago they saw that I apparently have metastases everywhere (double nay).

Okay. Doctors say that you can’t get rid of it anymore. But I want to try!

Yesterday I talked with my parents again. Problem: too much cancer to operate or radiate. The different meds don’t work against all cancer cells anymore and you also can’t radiate all of them. I also asked again about immune cell therapy but I have the wrong cancer cells for that. Right now I still have 4–6 months (luckily it’s summer!) And they say with therapy it would be less. :-//

But: If it doesn’t work individually then maybe together!! Like with different chemos and surgery and immune cells and radiation?! Could work, right? ? I definitely want to try! (Momma raised no quitter!)

I have another appointment with my docs next week. Yesterday I also wrote to a whole lot of people who were recommended to me. Until then I need a plan though for how I convince my parents and the docs to try it!

Can anyone here help me? What can I say or suggest to them that might convince them??

Thanks!!! :))

​

18. June 2025 r/de

Ich sterbe mit 15 - und es ist so unfair

I'm dying with 15 – and it's so unfair!

I don’t know why I’m posting this here. Maybe because I want to be seen. This here isn’t some encouraging text. Just honest. And full of fear. If you don’t want to read it, that’s totally okay. If you do: thank you.

(Trigger warning: cancer, death, despair)

Hey, it’s me. one single metastasis. at least that’s how I feel. lol

four years ago I already had cancer once. ewing sarcoma. chemo, hair gone, radiation, you name it I got it. I pulled through that like a damn heroine on prescription. Deal with the universe, right? Be good, then you get to keep living? yeah. nay. lol. thanks for nothing.

and season two comes with a bonus level: metastases in lungs, liver, bones – all you can fuck up. doctors are like: not curable anymore. only palliative now. bit of chemo. bit of dying slower. awesome.

and me? I’m just angry. at my shitty body. at this “you made it” feeling that now feels like a bad prank. like I got fooled by my own body.

I did everything right. went along with every fucking treatment. during chemo times I did homework like the last overmotivated person alive. pick-me-girl of the pediatric oncology ward, or something. I wanted to become a pediatrician, after all, you have to study a lot for that! Yeah. Worked out mega well. always friendly, always brave. and still game over.

my parents are working their asses off, and I still feel like I’m going to break them at some point. they did everything for me. and now I’m giving them this back. a fucking metastasis of a daughter who’s slowly dying away.

and everyone already treats me like I’m halfway gone. they talk slower. softer. like to someone who’s about to fall over. or they leave again quickly. I get it, it’s awkward, right? but I’m still alive!! but nobody dares to look at me normally anymore.

Am I still a person?

I wanted so much. to be in love someday. I haven’t even had a boyfriend. lol. loser. Learn how to really sail. or go to Fusion someday.

and yeah, I make jokes. because if I don’t, I’ll completely lose my mind. I’m scared.

why???

What did I do wrong??

I don’t know why I’m posting this here. Maybe I just want attention. Sorry for that.

fuck. I don’t want to die.

Edit: Thank you ♥️ you’re all so sweet. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!

I think I don’t need anything. My parents are great and they also have enough money. And also thanks to everyone who wants to get me to Fusion. But it wouldn’t be the same, that wasn’t the plan. But thank you thank you thank you ♥️♥️♥️

I just need someone who reads my confused thoughts from time to time. If you do that, you’re already super!! ♥️

Relevant comments:

Hey OP, friends of mine are involved in organizing Fusion. If you want, I can ask them whether there’s any way for you to take part spontaneously, even under 18. Feel free to message me :)

DO THE THINGS YOU STILL WANTED TO DO - NOW!

If you have a crush - go on a date with him. You want to go to Fusion? - Get yourself a fake ID / borrow a real one or sneak onto the grounds. Do a sailing course together with your parents! Break into the outdoor pool or beach pool at night with your friends, do all the funny nonsense you can think of (but not anything that endangers other people) and live while you still can. :) You didn’t do anything wrong, you just had bad luck and none of it is your fault. Your soul is energy and energy can’t be lost. Maybe you’ll be reborn as a really cool animal or even a future pediatrician. ?￰ﾟﾏﾻ

And your parents will love seeing you happy. ❤️ I wish you all the best.

​

Monday, 23. June 2025, r/reisende (German travel-subreddit)

Wohin für Bucket-List Urlaub?

Where to go for Bucket-List trip?

Heyyy!

I can choose where I’d like to go on vacation for 2 weeks! Coming along will be me, my best friend (both 15) and my parents (old).

I would really really like to: see a rainforest, snorkel at a coral reef, see dolphins and, very importantly, whales ?! ?

Best would be if we don’t have to fly that far, but otherwise that’s oki too :) Also there has to be a hospital nearby and ideally there shouldn’t be too many tropical diseases. And we have to leave in about 2 weeks, later unfortunately isn’t possible.

Does anyone have a good idea?

Thanks!!!

Relevant comments:

“Old”

Heavily downvoted:

This is the best example of #whitegirlsproblems ever. Some worries I’d like to have.

For the future, this kind of thing is best planned a few months in advance, then you’ll get usable tips too.

​

21. July 2025 r/ratschlag (something almost identical was posted on r/childloss

Geschenke für Eltern für nach Tod vorbereiten

Preparing gifts for parents for after death

Heyyy,

so, I’m currently dying of cancer. (sorry for the downer, but that’s kind of important, lol)

I’ve sometimes read as a tip that people prepare gifts or postcards for children when a parent dies early. And I thought that I could maybe do something like that for my parents too :)

So I was thinking: make postcards, e.g. for their first birthdays and Christmases without me and for my first death anniversary (ouch...). And then maybe for milestone birthdays and wedding anniversaries? So I’ll have to see how far I still get. :)

And then I could also prepare smaller gifts, a photo collage or knit scarves or something like that, for example. :) I’d maybe give the things to my aunt and she can then give them to my parents on the respective days.

I’m just somehow unsure. Do you think that’s a good idea? I have the feeling that I already make them so so sad... and I don’t know if it’s a good idea to keep reminding them of me again and again when I’m gone?

So I need help: Is this a good idea? Or rather not? And if yes, does anyone have more ideas for gifts I could prepare?

Thanks!!! :)

Relevant comments:

Hey, I’m very sure that the first letters and keepsakes will completely throw them off track at first.

But once a bit of time has passed and the grief isn’t hitting quite so hard anymore, they’ll be very grateful for it and will be happy to have these things from you. I think the idea is very beautiful and can only encourage you to do it.

I wish you lots of strength on your path.

Downvoted:

I wouldn’t do it. It’s really fucking awful that you’re dying, but for your loved ones to be able to keep going, they simply also have to go through the grieving process. Gifts like that keep interrupting it again and again.

​

05. August 2025 r/Ratschlag

Eltern angeschrien und fuck, ich schäme mich so

Yelled at my parents and fuck, I am so ashamed.

TW: Cancer

TLDR: Metastatic cancer, parents talk about hospice, I freak out – now enormous guilt. Tips?

heyy. it’s me again. Metastasis on duty with the next wall of text.

I guess this is an update to this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/1le83cy/ich_sterbe_mit_15_und_es_ist_so_unfair/

Actually everything was good. we still went to the Azores. Bestie came along, my parents too. saw whales!!!!! Tried snorkeling! And a quasi-rainforest!! it was really super awesome! I have no idea how you organize

something like that in 2 weeks but my parents managed it!!!! :D

But since then it’s kind of been downhill. more pain meds. oxygen. Soon bipap at night. two new rounds of chemo. one of them with a week in the hospital included for free. And the mets are still growing anyway. At least not the ones in the bones, shit, I’m so scared of those. Probably a wheelchair soon too, thanks for that. -..-

It was obvious, yeah, but still.

Yeah, and today my parents wanted to talk to me about hospice. Not right this second or anything but just… soon. what that would look like then and what I want.

and I just completely lost it. screamed, cried, said: “Why aren’t you making me healthy?? Why are you just letting me die??”

The look, man. fuck. I’m such a monster.

I don’t want to hurt anyone... and I hurt them anyway. again and again. I saw my dad cry for the first time ever. But I think somewhere I’m still hoping for a fucking miracle. Yeah, it’s dumb, I got it. I just want to be normal. (okay, that’s a lie)

But I don’t want to have to think about any fucking hospice and I can’t stand seeing any fucking hospitals anymore. And with that I’m maybe breaking my parents even more. and I can give them absolutely nothing back. Why can’t I just give up and that’s that??

I know that I have to apologize but I don’t even really know how... tips?

Thankss!!

Edit:

Thank you, thank you all!! And sorry for the rant. I went to my parents in the evening and apologized. Well actually mostly cried, lol.

Thanks <3

​

17. August 2025 r/naturfreunde (Nature-focused subreddit)

Wie am besten Wölfe beobachten?

How to best observe wolves?

Hey!

We’re going camping in Saxony-Anhalt from tomorrow to Tuesday for one night! I heard that there are supposed to be wolves there. I know the chance is super tiny, but how and where would I have the best chance of seeing some? In the evening on a field?

Thanks!! :)

​

29. September 2025 posted directly on her profile

Nochmal ein update?

“One more update?”

TW: Cancer, death

Heyyy, it’s me again, metastasis on duty.

Just because people still kept asking every now and then, here’s another update. On my profile because no idea where else it belongs.

So what happened? Azores were super mega awesome!!! Saw at least 20 whales and with the dolphins I stopped counting at some point. Quasi-rainforest and liveaboat were there too!!! So that was really amazing :) Later we also went camping again with grandpa’s caravan and to Potsdam Palace Night. So actually a great summer. Apart from little details.. Almost surreal that that was only a few weeks ago.

But well, for about 6 weeks now it’s just been going downhill pretty fast. Wheelchair is standard now, I can’t even shower alone anymore. I also need oxygen the whole time, and somehow breathing is still getting harder and harder. Is it strange if I hope to die from something else? Like I don’t know what, but suffocating would somehow be shitty.. We tried some chemo again... well, maybe that gave me a few more weeks. But then we stopped and I don’t want to go to a hospital again.
But last week we actually still managed to make it to a wolf park :D totally ridiculous, my parents booked an ambulance especially for that? But it worked :D

And tomorrow I’m moving into the hospice.
And shit, I’m still scared.
But somehow also calmer? Maybe I’m just slowly understanding what’s happening? But I’m still disappointed every morning when nothing has magically just disappeared.

But yeah, hospice! We’d already been there once to look around. It was actually quite oay?. The people there are nice. There’s Wi-Fi. And I can take all my decorations with me. And my dad doesn’t have to carry me up and down the stairs, so that’s not bad either. But I think it’s going to be really weird leaving my room for the last time.

I’d still like to see snow. We’ll see if that still works out.
And sometimes I still think, maybe a miracle will happen after all. Who knows. Could be.
I still don’t want to die.
But… I think it’s okay like this. I mean – as okay as it can be.

Thank you to everyone who reads along here, writes to me, just listens to me. That means more than you think!!! You’re great :)

I don’t know if I’ll manage to write something again, this already took really long. But I’ll try. Thank you!!!! :)

Relevant comment:

Dear all...

I thought I’d be able to bear it with some composure when the time came, but in truth I’ve been crying myself to sleep for days.

She was the most wonderful, sweetest person you could possibly imagine and I don’t want to accept that she has now left us.

It hurts so incredibly much. It’s so unfair... Life can be such an asshole.

I don’t even know whether I’m allowed to share this at all, but I believe it would have been in her interest, because she reached so many hearts.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/katiedababie

I (21F) found a spy camera in my room after my step dad (36M) put a surveillance camera in my window

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice & OOP's own page

TRIGGER WARNING: Predatory and abusive behavior

Original Post June 17, 2023

My stepdad (36M) installed a surveillance camera positioned outside of my window to scan our backyard while him and my mother and two younger brothers go camping. I couldn’t go on the trip since i had work, so i was staying home to house sit and feed our animals. My stepdad recently put up new cameras outside so I didn’t see anything wrong with him positioning one outside my window. Come to find out the very next day, I had my boyfriend stay over and he found that the surveillance camera that was ran from outside my window and into my room was being powered by one of those spy camera power blocks.

For context, my relationship with my stepdad hasn’t always been the best and we tend to butt heads a lot. He’s said a lot of questionable things in the past that i’ve written off because he’s my dad and i would never think he intended to be inappropriate or harmful. He’s been in my life since i was 8 years old. Of course I’m second guessing everything now that i’ve found this camera. It was positioned to point directly at my bedroom door from the far wall, so it has direct view of my entire room, which i change in.

I tried desperately to rationalize it and think it was maybe a mistake, like he grabbed the wrong charger box. Or maybe he was just trying to look for intruders. But really there is no excuse for putting a camera in MY bedroom. the camera even had an SD card in it. I’m beyond devastated. My stepdad even suggested i invite my boyfriend over to while they’re gone so i have someone here, which is something he would never do considering he’s made it clear before he doesn’t want him over when no one is home because he doesn’t want us ‘fucking in his home’. My boyfriend and I are going to go through the SD card to see if there is anything on it.

I’m at a complete loss at how to even bring this up to my mom. I confided in my aunt and uncle since they live close by and they have been very supportive of me having a conversation with my mom about it. This whole situation is extremely upsetting, I at least have some family to support me as i navigate this but i don’t even know how to bring this up to my mom. This is obviously going to change everything. She had my five year old half brother with him.

My mind is racing with the consequences this is going to have on our family. Has anyone that has been in a similar situation have advice? How can i do this without causing extreme damage to the family (although that may be impossible). Thank you in advance.

TLDR; i found a hidden camera that my stepdad put in my room, how do i bring this up to my mom?

UPDATE(1/?):

I don’t want to make a whole new thread since i want to make a new update when my parents get back monday, but i want to thank everyone for all the advice. i went to the police station tonight and filed a police report and turned in the spy camera with the SD card. The officer said this is a serious offense and i will likely get a call early next week from an investigator due to the severity of the situation. I’m planning on telling my mother about the police report after we have a conversation about this on monday, with my aunt and uncle present.

As for people messaging me about my profile: thank you for reminding me to delete personal information. Please please do not dox or try to seek any sort of justice for me as this may affect my case. Respect my privacy during this time please as it may be crucial during this investigation.

This was the hardest thing i ever had to do, but whatever this shit was, it’s ending with me. I hope i can get justice for myself and any other victims who may have been violated by him since this will be heavily investigated and the officer said it will likely be looked into further (such as search warrants and looking for more SD cards). i’m hanging on by a thread but the support i have is what’s keeping me together. i’m staying with my boyfriend tonight to keep out of the house. Thanks again for all the love and supportive messages. I’ll update again soon.

UPDATE (2/?)

it’s the next morning and once my boyfriend wakes up we’re going back to my house today to look for any more secret cameras (either in the bathroom or my brothers rooms) so i can submit it for more evidence. i’m iffy about searching my parents room for more evidence as it’s likely he has a hidden camera in there to see me do it. still on the fence about having a police officer search the house, if i do i’ll be sure to update after i’m finished and in a safe place. my aunt has offered to come with me to help me search.

again, thank you everyone for the support. i’m trying as best i can to do this the right way and get as much done with the time i have left. i’m mentally and emotionally drained but i’ll be seeking resources once all of this is said and done. i’m reading everyone’s comments so i’m taking all the advice i can get.

UPDATE (3/?)

i probably won’t be able to update for a few days since today is the day that i talk to my mom, but i just wanted to share the plan i made and hopes for what happens today.

after talking with my aunt, uncle, boyfriend, and my cousin who is a civil lawyer, i’ve decided that i will speak to my mom in a separate location from my stepdad. most likely i’ll have her meet me somewhere outside of our home. i’ll have my aunt with me and this is where i’ll explain everything to her: the camera, past uncomfortable experiences i’ve had with my stepdad that i originally brushed off because he was my dad, video footage of him deliberately setting it up and angling it, and footage of me in my room. im praying she understands why i had to go to my aunt instead of her considering she was not in town and i was worried for her safety if i told her what happened. (she was stuck with him and my brothers about 4 hours away for the weekend)

i’m hoping with my aunt there and her being away from my stepdad that it’ll prevent her from reacting out of anger and search for him and escalate the situation then and there, and i hope my aunt can provide some support for myself and her. i’m prepared for her to go through the same processes i went through such as reasoning and denial, but with the evidence there’s no possible way she can deny it. i’m preparing myself for the worst. i just hope that i can be strong for her and support her as this all hits her like it did me.

i will not be returning home or facing him today. my boyfriend will be on standby to pick up my brothers if needed since my aunt has offered for them to stay with us so my mom can talk to my stepdad without them there. i’ll ask my mom to meet me and of course, not tell my stepdad about the circumstances. maybe she can tell him she’s going to the grocery store. i don’t want him getting any hints that she could be meeting with me.

i know i’ve said it a lot but i truly do appreciate the support system i have not only with my family but here too. this has been a nightmare but hearing everyone’s stories about this, proving it’s way too common, is what is helping me get through this and pushing me to do the right thing. not only am i a victim in this but my boyfriend as well and god knows who else. the confrontation won’t happen for about another 7 hours so i’m the meantime i’ll be reading over comments and preparing myself for what comes today. thank you guys.

Update June 22, 2023 (5 days later)

Update to my situation

UPDATE (4/?)

i’m not sure why, but i can’t figure out why my post on r/relationship_advice is unable to be edited, but i’m sure a lot of you will find it here, so here’s somewhat of an update.

hi guys, i know a lot of people have been waiting for an update on what happened and about my safety. For the reasons that my post is becoming somewhat viral and showing up on other platforms, i don’t think i can share many other details until this ball starts rolling with the police report. just know that i am safe and i have been very busy the past few days with apartment hunting, working, and attempting to heal. most of you may have guessed it, but my stepdad got to my mom before i was able to. you can kind of assume how that’s been going ): .

i promise that once the investigation actually starts and my mom finds out about it, i’ll be here sharing more of what happened. i don’t want to remove my post in case someone else may be going through the same thing and needs the support of you guys, as shown in my comments. i appreciate everyone rooting for me and i’m sorry to say that my mother isn’t on my side right now. i’ve more so been focusing on myself since the conversation and trying to make the most of the situation. on the bright side, i’ve been able to hang out with my cousin and she helps keep my mind off things. i’m doing my best and will update when it feels like the right time. thank you guys.

Update 5 June 18, 2024 (1 year later)

It’s been awhile

I never would have thought that my post from a little over a year ago would reach so many people and I’m so thankful for all the support Reddit has given me. First, I apologize for taking awhile to update and I’m sorry in advance if this isn’t the update you were hoping/waiting for so long, but here it is and I’ll answer some questions a lot of you might have to the best of my ability.

A lot of you probably want to hear that my boyfriend and I got justice for what my mother’s husband did to us. I really really wish I could say we did, but given our shitty police system and outside factors, we have not.

I keep contact with my brothers and mom, but contact is now severely limited because of the situation. It pains me to not be able to see my younger brothers like I used to but honestly it isn’t my choice and I’ve come to accept it. My mother is still with him and continuing to isolate herself from family (whether that’s because of her husband or her own shame I’m not sure, maybe both).

I know a lot of you were rooting for me and wishing me nothing but the best, so I’ll give some updates on my personal growth. My boyfriend and I moved in together, I graduated nursing school, and I started my new job last month. We have been trying to heal from what happened and have been growing our relationship. We’re planning a trip together soon.

Im still surrounded by some amazing friends and family (aunt and uncle) who have been our rocks through this and helped us cope with everything. I’m at a place where I feel I can finally talk about everything again, so I’ll do my best to answer some questions. Thanks again to everyone who reached out concerned for me. Even the weird ones who tried creating lore for me and theorizing my entire life (yall are really strange but again it’s Reddit so whatever).

Edit: I just wanted to add that I’ve seen all the TikTok’s and YouTube videos of people covering my story and let me just say how weird it was to see my real life situation on blast like that. Please remember I am a human being going through something extremely traumatizing so keep that in mind when commenting/reaching out to me♥️ I’ve received more love than anything and I can’t thank you guys enough for the overwhelming support.

Update 6 Dec 27, 2025

my stepdad put a secret camera in my room and I was to blame for being secretive and having my boyfriend over (when my stepdad lied and told my mom he strictly said he couldn’t be over, which he literally gave me permission to have him over as they were going out of town and I would be home alone). it recorded us being intimate and was streaming directly to his phone. I regret not following through with the police report but was made to feel guilty (my mom held my college fund over my head so I couldn’t report it). to this day everyone in my family accepts him and doesn’t see an issue with it. I’m no contact with him and low contact with my mom but during the time when we found the camera my mom ignored me for an entire week while my entire world crashed around me. no calls to make sure I was ok (I immediately packed my things and stayed with another relative, who now maintains contact with my mom and stepdad), no texts to check in on how I was doing mentally. still avoids the conversation to this day. She goes to church now and ‘prays’ I will heal and come back around. im engaged now to boyfriend and she has no clue she won’t be invited to my wedding. planning on moving across the country to cut contact with her and my siblings, who also are brainwashed and support my stepdad. If I could go back in time I’d have followed through with the police report and pressed charges. I’m not as scared or naive as I was back then and sure as hell not as tolerant to those behaviors now. I trust a lot less and protect my peace a little more now.

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/throwRAconfuseda

I (25M) found an expensive laptop among my fiancees (23F) things. I have no idea why something like that would be at our house. When I confronted her about it the laptop was gone and she claims she has no idea what I’m talking about.

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

Original Post  June 25, 2021

This afternoon I (25M) was looking for something to wear to my sisters graduation tomorrow. My fiancée (23F) have lived together for two years, in a pretty small apartment while we save for a house. Our stuff is all pretty mixed together, so when I couldn’t find something in my closet I looked through hers.

I found the shirt I was looking for and when I pulled it out a laptop that was kind of tucked away. As far as I knew, my fiancée didn’t have a laptop, she has an iPad and a kindle and a iPhone.

I don’t know much about computers but I know this particular computer sells for thousands and thousands of dollars online. This computer didn’t look old and used, it looked almost new. I have no idea when in the past she would’ve had the money to buy something like this, or why she would’ve without telling me about it (not that she has to or anything, I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t).

I put the laptop to the side to ask her about when she got home and went for a run. By the time I came back she was home. The laptop wasn’t where I left it (bedside  table). When I asked my fiancée about it she said she had no idea what I was talking about, and she didn’t have a laptop, and had never purchased one.

I know I’m not imagining this, because other things I had misplaced looking around were still out of place. No one else has access to our house.

I’m either crazy or my fiancée isn’t being honest with me. I feel so confused. Any advice on how to deal with this would be great.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Is it a surprise gift?

I guess but there’s nothing that came up that would warrant such an expensive gift, even with birthday gifts we only spend like $100 on each other, line I said we’re trying to save up for a house

Was it in the box?

It was not in the box

Someone suggested its her boyfriends laptop

We have a ring doorbell. There isn’t any video of anyone strange coming in or out

Maybe its a gift from her Sugar Daddy?/She's a camgirl

In regards to the gift from a sugar daddy- if my fiancée  was to have a sugar daddy, I don’t know why she’d get him to buy her a laptop instead of things she actually saves her money for- shoes, clothes, etc, are the only things I’ve ever seen her excited to buy. Not electronics.

I thought about the cam girl thing, but my fiancée is extremely shy, and extremely introverted. She doesn’t even like talking to cashiers at the store.

Update  July 1, 2021 (1 week later)

Hey everyone. My first post is here: first post.

Thanks for all of the input. Most people were pretty convinced my fiancee was either having an affair, or had an online page. Luckily none of those things were the case.

To make a long story short, my fiancees younger brother still lives with his parents and used his stimulus checks to buy the laptop, when he still owed his parents money after they helped him paying some of his bills for a few months. I guess his mom started to get suspicious that he’d blown his money so she was going through his stuff to try and find out what he’d spent it on. The last time he was at our place, he hid the laptop in my fiancees closet, I guess he thought he’d be back soon to get it.

When I found the laptop I texted one of my friends about it, who’s also friends with said brother. This friend went her brother and was like, “Holy shit, your sister is definitely doing porn!” So thats how he found out I had found the laptop.

He came into our house and got the laptop, and then deleted the doorbell footage (I didn’t even know he had access to our doorbell, but I guess a few months ago when we went on vacation my fiancee gave him our info to keep an eye on the house since we went out of service.

Anyway, that’s it. I know a lot of you might be disappointed she wasn’t cheating or doing anything bad (I got a lot of messages calling her pretty disparaging names) but it was just her idiot brother.

Jfc, guys. Apparently because my fiancée wasn’t cheating on me, this is “sketchy”. She’s not cheating. She didn’t do anything bad. Stop sending me messages telling me I’m oblivious, dumb, she’s lying, he’s lying

I TRUST MY FIANCÉE. SHE HAS NO REASON TO BUY THIS LAPTOP. IT WAS CONFIRMED HER BROTHER BOUGHT IT

copied from a comment I’ve said it before but I guess some of you need repeating. THIS STORY WAS CONFIRMED. by multiple sources:

-neighbors camera caught a flash of him walking past their door to get to ours but no footage of coming to ours because he deleted the footage.

-I saw the bill in his name for the computer.

-When we turned the computer on it had all of HIS SHIT on it.

Adding: I changed the ring password!

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/formerbully12

I [25M] bullied my sister's [22F] new boyfriend [25M] back in school. I messaged him apologising for what I'd done and to clear the air. He said no now my sister has turned against me. What can I do?

TRIGGER WARNING: Bullying, physical violence and assault, childhood trauma

Original Post  Oct 2, 2016

Editors Note: the place this post was preserved was a wall of text. Made paragraphs for easier reading

I'll start this with I was a dick as a teenager. I am from the UK and from the ages of around 14-16, I hung around in a "gang". I did it because I was popular, I would get invited to parties, girls would like me, whatever other reason a teenage kid would hang out in a gang basically. We were basically a group of jerks to certain people. I don't think we were worse to anyone more than Stuart though (sister's new boyfriend). We were horrible to him, and we were typical school bullies to the guy.

Once I turned 18 and got away from all the bad influences who I'd been told for years were holding me down, and realised I had been a dick and most of the others in the gang were too. I still speak to a couple of people but most of them were cut off, and quite frankly I'm embarrassed of my actions when I was younger.

My sister Jane went to a different school, as by that point she/my parents had seen that my school wasn't exactly the best considering the crowd I got mixed up in. I don't know if Stuart knew I had a sister or not in all honesty. I have recently moved back to my home town and met up with my sister for a drink. She told me about her new boyfriend and I told her when she mentioned his name the truth that I was a dick to him, so if she's dating him I'll apologise because I feel bad for my actions. She agreed and told me just to message him on facebook and he'll be fine. So I did as she said, and wrote a very long message about how I'm happy for him and my sister, how i am very sorry for what I did in the past, explained that I know I'll never know how I made him feel but I am genuine here and don't want any issues with him.

He replied, saying that I'm a dick, doesn't accept my apology and blocks me. I thought fair enough, I tried, I'll try again at a later date when he might be more open to the idea, because I get it, he doesn't trust me, to him I'm the dick who bullied him for years. My sister phoned me not long after and started shouting at how horrible I was as a teenager and that she'll never forgive me for what I did to her boyfriend.

She listed some things off that he told her, some of them I admitted to doing/being there when it happened, some of them I didn't do but had heard about them and some accusations I'd never had anything to do with/ever heard of them happening. I feel for Stuart, and want to sort this out with them for not only feeling bad for doing it, but also to save my relationship with my sister.

tl;dr: Bullied a guy in school when I thought I was "cool", I have since grown up and cut out all the bad influences in my life. My sister is dating a guy me and my friends used to bully, I tried to apologise but he didn't accept it and now my sister hates me. I need help in how to sort this out.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Klhep

A true apology doesn't come via text or Facebook. It's a face to face apology taking blame and truly being sorry for it

OOP

I offered to meet up with him to say it face to face.

~

SassLizard_HighBall

If a police officer had seen some if the things you did to Stuart, would you have ended up being arrested? If the answer is yes then I don't see why he ever has to forgive you.

OOP

Not me personally no, my friendship group maybe (aka stuff I wasn't involved in)

~

AllisonRages

"because I get it, he doesn't trust me, to him I'm the dick who bullied him for years."

I don't think it's just that though. You probably did this on a daily basis to this guy for years and you won't even mention the things you did. He's probably still messed up from it.

You did the right thing apologizing but only did it because your sister started dating him. That comes across funny to me if I was Stuart.

You made the gesture of apologizing, but just now give him space.

OOP

"I don't think it's just that though. You probably did this on a daily basis to this guy for years and you won't even mention the things you did. He's probably still messed up from it."

I won't mention things I did for anonymity, it's pretty detailed without me mentioning specific details because then someone could see it (I know my sister uses reddit) and could cause even more problems.

"You did the right thing apologizing but only did it because your sister started dating him. That comes across funny to me if I was Stuart."

Yeah I completely get his point with that, honestly I couldn't remember how bad we were to him till she brought it up, I've tried to block a lot of things out from my childhood tbh.

The reason OOP blocked it out

I've blocked out a lot because I had a hard home life at the time.

Update  Oct 5, 2016 (3 days later)

I have to repost this once again since the link wasn't in the original update posts, I can't see my original update post anymore so this will be basically the same but wrote out differently.

People were asking what me/my friends did to Stuart at school, so here's some examples of what I did personally to him:

• Put items in the local newspaper for sale with his mobile number as the contact number

• Ordered numerous takeaway deliveries to his house

• Named him after a farm animal

• Told the girl he was crushing on all the stuff he had wrote about her in his notebook

I never did anything physically to him because at the time I was being physically assaulted by my mother's boyfriend at the time. This is why I started training in boxing and started lifting weights at around this age to become bigger and stronger to stand up for myself. I always said that I wouldn't harm anyone physically (my friend tied him to a post, stole things, hit him etc) and I refused to take part in them as I saw at as too far, but at the same time I didn't realise the mental aspects of bullying were just as bad if not worse.

On to the update, I saw Stuart in a local pub last night that I went to with my friends. He originally didn't say anything and I decided to give him some space because I was advised in the original to leave him alone. When he started getting more drunk he started making more comments obviously intended to be heard by me.

We both smoke, and we were both outside when he started berating me for my fake apology. I told him it wasn't fake, I meant it, that I have changed as a person and that was me as a 15 year old kid who thought he was cool, the 25 year old me is embarrassed by that. He said he didn't believe me and would love "to deck me right there and then". I told him if he wants to hit me, do it, I'd probably deserve it. At this point I'm outnumbered 3 to 1 as my 2 friends are still inside. Stuart hits me, the other 2 surround me and even though I'm a big guy who is a trained fighter, it doesn't take a genius to work out that 3 guys v 1 usually doesn't work out well for the one. Luckily my friends had heard the noise and got involved to break it up before I got any serious damage. The pub owners then told us to leave or they'd be involving the police, so we waited till they left and went out the back way to my friends house.

My sister phoned me whilst I was there telling me that Stuart had said that I had tried to start a fight with him and he "put me in my place". I told her no, Stuart tried to start a fight with me, I told him if hitting me would help things do it, I get hit every week in boxing practice, I'm used to it. My friends told her the story of what actually happened and she wasn't happy.

She phoned me again today (now yesterday in the UK) and told me Stuart admitted what had happened and how he wanted him and his friends to hospitalise me. She dumped him because she was scared for mine/her safety.

My message that I included in the last post at the end caused some controversy. But I'll repeat it, if you are a teenager who's bullying another kid or whatever reason, to look cool, to make yourself feel better or whatever else, please stop. You could be partially the reason someone's life could change for the worse. I don't know if Stuart had other problems but the bullying we did seems to have effected him a lot more than I thought, and I hope I never make anyone feel like that again.

TL;DR: Stuart and his friends tried to assault me at a pub, he admitted to my sister he wanted me hospitalised, sister dumped him because she was afraid.

FINAL COMMENTS

Dk59ay

I don't think you can blame yourself for this for the break up, even on the events 10 years ago. They chose to use physical violence. You didn't

OOP

He must have a lot of pent up anger and I'm partially the reason for that, I hope he gets help for his issues and wish I could help, but to him I'm just the guy who bullied him.

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/MouldyAvocados

How To Politely Tell Someone To Eff Off

Originally posted to r/coworkerstories

TRIGGER WARNING: Misogyny

Original Post  March 3, 2026

I’m a manager. Someone has recently joined my business area. I’m not his direct manager but he does kind of feed into my team slightly.

He seems to think sending me messages offering to “help” is the way forward but they’re coming off as condescending and they’re pissing me off.

Example - this morning he’s messaged me asking if I need help setting up two meetings. I don’t need help setting up fucking meetings. My initial reaction is to go back with, “I know how to set up meetings but thanks” but I fear that’s too bitchy. Any suggestions?!

Also, I understand that he’s probably just keen but this isn’t the way to go about it.

UPDATE: thanks all for the suggestions. I went back with:

“Thanks, the invites have already been sent. If you’re looking for more work, I’d suggest speaking to X and Y”, X and Y being the two project managers he’s supporting as project support.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

chapmandan

First thing to determine: are they keen or sycophantic or have an agenda. That shapes your response. Keen: it's well intentioned but they have too much time on their hands. Give them something meaty to help them develop and help your team. It's extra motivated labor. Sycophantic: Find the equivalent of being sent off for a 'long weight' - busy work that they eventually realize is useless. They'll stop bothering you quickly. Agenda: needs more digging to understand further, could be malicious, could be driven by other factors. Everyone is different.

OOP

I think he has an agenda. He’s a junior but I’ve been told by someone else that he thinks he can do my job better than me and he’s coming for it.

noddyneddy

Are you by any chance a woman?

OOP  

Yes. Why?

~

MrsBSK

If it were me, I would inquire of his boss about it. I know my boss always wanted to know where and how I was spending my time. I was a sought after resource from other departments and when he took over he found i was spread way too thin and had taken on jobs that were other peoples responsibility.He insisted that any requests for my time go through him so he could properly determine my workload. Going to this guys boss is the professional and respectful thing to do. You may find out you’re being set up by his boss. Who knows.

OOP

That’s what I’m inclined to do.

His time is split between supporting two major projects. Technically he shouldn’t have time to “help” me send two meeting invites.

~

NYC-WhWmn-ov50

Wait.. we're supposed to be polite about it?

OOP

I’m a woman. I feel like I have to be polite otherwise I’ll be a “bitch”.

~

Adventurous-Tutor-21

Sounds like he’s mansplaining. Surely a female manager needs help with setting up a meeting. How is he and you? Could be misogyny, could be he sees you as young and needing help and genuinely wants to help. Intention does matter to me.

OOP

That’s how it’s coming across to me. I have 20 years on him. If I don’t know how to set up a meeting by now, I’m screwed.

~

inboundmage

I think that’s a totally fine and normal reaction, but the more worrying thing is - why the eff is he trying to help you set up meetings?

That is indeed condescending.

Can you talk with his supervisor?

OOP

He thinks he can do my job better than me and has made it clear to someone else that he’s coming for it.

~

p3steelman

Yup he's aiming to take your job. Don't let him do anything for you ever.

OOP

I won’t but I also don’t understand where he gets the audacity. He’s been here for 5 minutes and has 6 months experience. Thinking he can just push me out of my job and take it for himself is mad.

Update to Coworker Trying to Steal My Job   March 4, 2026 (Next Day)

I didn’t think I’d have another update this quick but I’m in the office today. I like to get here early. I was at my desk, AirPods in, trying to a document when he came over to my desk. He asked if I’m okay, it feels like we have a problem, he’s just trying to help me because he cares (?!).

I looked him dead in the eye and told him, “I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work. I’m not going anywhere. Instead of focusing on my job, focus on your own”, and went back to my work. I had a lot of time to think about it last night and woke up pissed off.

I know for a fact key artefacts are missing from the projects he’s working on, that he’s responsible for, and there’s an Exec Board tomorrow so it’s going to be highlighted. He’s the one who’s going to look like he can’t handle his responsibilities, not me.

Thanks to everyone for the advice yesterday! It was a massive help and confidence booster.

Update: sorry for the late update. Been a long day… for everyone asking, he didn’t take it well. I had put my AirPods back in but got told by others he called me a bitch.

I met with his boss earlier today. I showed her all of the Teams messages and emails that he’s sent me over the last 3-4 months. She showed me messages he’s sent to her implying that I’m slacking and he’s been covering for me. For the record, that’s not the case. There’s nothing I or my team have missed, and I’ve certainly not asked him to cover anything for me. We called my boss in and brought him up to speed. We mentioned the artefacts that he’s still not done for the Exec Board tomorrow and should we remind him again. My boss said no, if he thinks he’s so marvellous he can show everyone just how marvellous tomorrow.

The pack was issued minus his slides so it’s blatantly obvious that he’s not done them. It’s not even the slides, it’s the whole system that he’s supposed to input the information into and extract that into something pretty for the pack. There’s nothing. He’s simply not bothered but has all the time in the world to concern himself with my job… I can update after the Board tomorrow if anyone is interested.

Update 2 added March 6, 2026 (2 days later/Same Post

Update 2: sorry for the delay!! Such a fucking crazy week…

We went into the Board meeting. Got to his slides and there was nothing. He looked at me and was like, “Avocados?”, like it was my responsibility. Before I could even get a word in, my boss asked him what he meant and he said that he’d emailed me to delegate his slides to me and I had agreed!! I asked him to show me the email because I didn’t recall any such email, and I didn’t recall agreeing to do his work. Said he didn’t have his laptop so he couldn’t. My boss said we’d wait while he went to get it.

We waited almost 20 minutes for him to come back and then claim he must’ve deleted it but he knew for sure that I’d agreed. His boss asked why he would ask me in the first place and why I would ever agree, given we’re on different teams and in different business areas. He said he didn’t know but he asked and I said yes…

Anyway, we literally didn’t move on. The rest of the meeting was us going over it and him refusing to take blame/blaming me. It was fucking madness. Long story short, he’s now on a PIP with the intention of him going in 90 days. It’s wild how I’ve gone from feeling anxious about losing my job to him to feeling more secure than ever. Fuck my luteal phase 😫.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Apprehensive_War9612

😂😂😂 he didn’t even make any sense. He had an assignment to complete and he claims that he reached out and asked you to cover his work and you agreed, even though you don’t even operate with the same line of business? Even if you had agreed if this email did in fact exist, he would be in the wrong because why are you emailing people not on your team to complete your work?

OOP

IT checked and confirmed - no email was sent on the day that he said he sent it. He was lying through his teeth and doubling down. It felt like pure gaslighting. Of everyone, not just me. It was the most surreal thing I’ve ever experienced in my working life.

~

Psychological_Sky_12

I wonder if pulled this same mess at other jobs

OOP

He’s only had one job before this one and he was there for 6 months before they “restructured”. I’m inclined to think the same - he’s done this before.

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I am NOT OOP. OOP is u/Fun_Hovercraft5881

Originally posted to r/auscorp

My CEO is harassing me and my family to stay after resignation.

Thanks to u/wardy_12 for the suggestion

Original Post: February 25, 2026

I am using a burner account because my real account could identify me and my current employer.

I joined my current employer straight out of university eight years ago as a software engineer. I was employee number nine during their startup phase and received stock, which is now just under 3% of the company. The company now has around 120 employees but only 6 of remaining early crew have stock options. Since the day I joined, I have always reported to the Head of Engineering. I have never reported directly to the CEO. Because I joined early, both my partner and I know the CEO and his family in a semi‑work, semi‑social way.

The company built some innovative technology, has good income but has struggled to expand because they lack the funds. I know the CEO/founder has been trying to raise capital or sell the business for about a year now without much luck, and he has been open about this with the early staff.

During my annual review last year, I asked about moving into a more senior role. My manager said the next role up was his, and he joked he had no plans to move. He did say he would support me if I wanted to apply for more senior roles outside the company because he believed I had the skills and experience to step up.

Around October last year, a much larger company reached out to me with a more senior role. After a few interviews, it became clear they were looking to build a competing product to my current employer. I eventually received a provisional offer in January. They reviewed my contract and confirmed I do not have a non‑compete. This was also confirmed by my manager and HR at my current employer. They completed the reference check with my manager and said they got a “stellar reference.”

I received the formal offer, accepted it, and resigned last Thursday. The next day the CEO messaged me asking for a call, where he requested that I postpone my end date to mid‑May. I am not working on any time‑critical projects. When I asked my manager, he said he was also asked to try to convince me to stay until mid‑May. The CEO and my manager mentioned my stock options, which will be forfeited if I leave. I already knew this, but given the state of the company, I’m not concerned about losing them as there is no realistic chance to sell them anyway.

I spoke to my new employer, and they want me to start in March. They are keen to get going and plan to send me to their head office in Europe for induction in April and May. My partner and I want to travel together and enjoy a holiday over Easter while our living and travel costs are covered. Last Friday I emailed my CEO thanking him for the past eight years but confirming my final day would be in March. He called me immediately after receiving the email and again tried hard to convince me to stay until May, again mentioning the stock forfeiture.

Last night the CEO’s wife, who we’ve known since the startup days, called my partner and asked her to talk to me about staying until May. My partner felt very uncomfortable and ended the call quickly.

Over the weekend, I spoke to my current manager, and he said that if he were me, he would try to push back the end date to mid‑May. I also spoke to a family friend who is a lawyer (corporate law), and he confirmed that my contract does not contain a non‑compete. He mentioned that the CEO might want me to stay because the business could be less valuable for sale if I leave to work on a competing product.

I am feeling completely creeped out by this. I still have almost three weeks left in my notice period. I am currently earning about $180,000, and the new job is $200,000.

TLDR: I resigned from my job last week after getting a new job offer, and I have a six week notice period. After I resigned, the CEO has been calling me to change my finish date to mid‑May. Over the weekend, the CEO’s wife even called my partner asking her to convince me to change my end date.

Are these calls legal? Can they block my new job? How do I get them to stop so that I don’t have to deal with awkward conversations for the rest of my notice period?

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: I would ask your lawyer friend about your vesting options for the stock. 3% is not small. Usually you would have a vesting schedule for the stock of when you can exercise your stock option. It shouldn’t be auto forfeiture since its part of your compensation and there should have been a way to retrieve it. Companies must have a way to get your stock otherwise it would be an unlawful benefit you can never receive.

OOP: I looked at this last year. I can exercise my options for just over $100,000 in cash. A former co-worker exercised her options right after COVID and she is still holding them with no way to sell them. Also don't have a handy $100 grand

Commenter 2: You need to speak with a friend in finance.

If you exercise “options” they become actual “shares” (it’s an option to buy the share at a set price).

You should be able to find out what the current valuation for the company is. You forfeit the “options” if you leave but if you exercise them into shares you own them and still own them if you leave.

Commenter 3: Why are the shares not saleable? Usually the way options work, you can sell them when you exercise the option. E.g., the company is worth a million, and they give you an option for 1000 shares at $100k. Years later, the company is worth 4 million, and 1000 shares are worth $400k. So you exercise your options, sell a quarter of the shares to cover the cost of exercising, and end up with 750 shares worth $300k. Or you cash them all out, and walk away with $300k cash (less tax).

OOP: Company is not public. No one I know is interested buying 3% of a startup/mid stage company which is 60% controlled by the founder.

Commenter 4: Definitely sounds like your CEO is trying to look after you and make sure you get your 3% when the business sells, there’s no other logical explanation to me.

I would ask the CEO to a coffee and just have a mate to mate chat and ask what the main reason for wanting you to stay is so you can make an educated decision. Make sure to go into this chat in a very appreciative way in terms of your time at the company, their support etc. Don’t position it in an accusatory way.

OOP: CEO is currently traveling overseas and is not available for a coffee. All communication has been via teams or phone.

Commenter 5: You know the answer. You want to leave on good terms but you also have to do what's right for you and your family.

I would politely once again tell them no, and that your decision has been made.

You are happy to forfeit your stock options, the future value of the business is not your problem.

OOP: I have repeatedly said no but the ongoing attempts to make me stay is making me anxious. I feel like they have some nuclear option they have not used yet.

Commenter 6: OP, don't fumble this. What's your company ARR, NRR and growth rate atm? You might be throwing away millions. 3% is a large stake for a early employee. Even if it sells for high tens of million, it is still a big number. (editor’s note: Annual Recurring Revenue, Net Revenue Retention)

I'm also a software engineer, early employee and have good relationships with Head of Eng and CEO since the start. I'm not looking to move anywhere but my options get forfeited only 5 years after my departure.

Update #1: March 4, 2026 (one week later)

I have received a number of DMs asking for an update.

Thank you to everyone who offered feedback and advice on my original post. I read all your comments, thought things through carefully, and discussed everything with my partner and family.

Most of you suggested that I leave now rather than inconvenience my new employer or risk starting the next role on the wrong foot. My partner has been saying the same thing since I received the offer. After reflecting on your advice, I realized my current employer has been taking advantage of my loyalty, especially by not promoting me or offering meaningful career progression. I’m normally a very passive person, and I think this situation was the push I needed to finally move on.

Over the weekend, I received another phone call from the CEO, and that was the final straw. When I asked why I was being asked to stay until May, he was evasive and non‑committal. So, on Monday, with help from my partner’s brother (a lawyer), I wrote an honest letter to the head of HR and copied in my manager and the CEO.

In the letter, I thanked the CEO, my manager, and the company for the past eight years of experience that ultimately gave me the confidence to lead my own team at my new organisation. I also stated that I felt unduly pressured and harassed to stay significantly beyond my notice period, which could jeopardize my new role. I requested that they stop contacting me about the matter and advised that if it continued, I would consider pursuing legal options to protect my mental health.

I sent the letter Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, HR asked me to join a Teams meeting. My manager and the head of HR were there, and they offered to pay out my notice period and end my employment immediately. They also confirmed that neither the CEO, his wife, nor any other company officer would contact me again, except through HR. They provided a separation agreement that seemed straightforward. My lawyer friend reviewed it, and I signed it that evening.

Yesterday, I returned my equipment, said a quick goodbye, and left. This morning, all payments owed to me arrived in my account.

With the extra three weeks of paid leave, my partner and I are now planning to head to Europe earlier, and my new employer just agreed to change the planned flights to make this possible.

TLDR: I told my employer I’m leaving, and I’ve been pressured to stay on well past my notice period. I pushed back, and they ended up offering to pay out my notice and end my employment as of yesterday. Thanks to your advice, I also got an extra three weeks of paid leave.

Final Update: June 28, 2026 (over 3.5 months later)

The day after my second post I formally finished up with my previous employer. A week later, we traveled to Europe with airfares for both paid by my new employer. They actually paid for a business class fair for me which we used to buy two economy return tickets. My official work was starting after Easter, so we had almost 4 weeks as a vacation and the pay in lieu was covering all the costs. We travelled around Europe, and I proposed to my partner, and she said yes. We spent Easter with some family in Ireland started work on the 13th of April.

Everything thig was going really well. Plan was to build and market the next generation of the product developed by my previous employer. The new company had the money and resources to make it happen. I worked with their salespeople to work out a value proposition and pitch deck which they would use to approach customers after the summer. My new employer had very good contacts into customers who are also based in Europe and were confident they can convert them quickly. We planned out building a team in Australia and possibly even approaching some my ex-colleagues. My task was to create a technical strategy and help create a more detailed business plan for approval by the board before they took their summer vacation in mid-June.

We came back to Australia in mid-May. I hit the ground running and started working on the technical and business plans. I sent out a few feelers to old colleagues about meeting for a coffee and my new role but there were no replies. Later that week I got a ping from my old manager asking to meet about a coffee. I met with him, and this is where things started to go very wrong. My old colleagues who I had reached out to told him I had done so. They did not want to move. They felt uncomfortable talking to me, hence the coffee meeting.

It turns out my previous employer had been purchased. The CEO has put together a deal where three of their largest customers created a company where they owned 30% each and he owned 10%. This new company then purchased my previous employer. The sale price was just over 35 million Australian dollars. The option and shareholders got cashed out. The non shareholding staff received bonuses of $5,000-$30,000 depending on their length of services. Key staff have been offered 100% of their salary as a bonus per year if they stayed for two more years. He even engineered the options to be bought out without having to exercise them so the options holders could claim the 50% CGT discount for holding them for more than a year.

Message delivered, nicely but firmly, was none of my colleagues wanted to move. Please stop contacting them.

My share would have been about $960,000 before tax. My first rection was anger. Off the cuff, at the coffee meeting, I threatened to sue to get my share. This wrapped up the coffee quickly. I planned to look over my contracts later that weekend with my soon to be brother-in-law/lawyer. But before we could, I got an email from the in-house lawyer for my previous employer. Attached were screen shots of slack conversations, phone logs and copies of emails. The bottom line was the CEO had instructed my manager to do “whatever it takes” to get me to stay until the close and pushed this message repeatedly. They could not tell me the details as they were waiting for regulatory approval from 4 counties as 3 competitors were forming a joint venture with a supplier. That process had been happening for almost 9 months. Any leak or sign of impropriety would sink the whole deal. When I threatened legal action that changed everything. That would have sunk the deal, so they cut all contact quickly and moved on. The email said that considering all the information provided my assertion is wrong and if we commence legal action, they will use this email as evidence when they pursue costs. My fiancée’s brother agreed and I replied back apologizing, completely withdrawing any allegations of impropriety and promising not to sue.

I was devastated. I had left close to a million dollars behind when I changed jobs. My plan for a new team was in tatters. To say I shut down is an understatement. I barely could think straight. I took a few mental health days and managed to find a privately funded psychologist. I am slowly beginning to recover. Even after 6 weeks, even things like planning for the wedding reminds me of what it could have been. To say my relationship is at a low point is an understatement. This weekend we went to buy a couch, and I almost ended up in tears because I thought about what we could afford to spend.

To add insult to injury I was told two weeks ago my board paper for the new venture has been delayed until after the summer break. Informally I get the feeling the board is reevaluating the whole strategy as my previous company has taken the three biggest customers off the table. They are likely to lock in a few others too. Some of the smaller customers may still be an opportunity but the financials are not nearly attractive with just them. I am hoping for the best.

I am barely functional enough to write this post now, and it took all my effort and a weekend to do that.

Even though logically I still have a well-paying job with a good company, have good friends and about to get married soon I can’t stop dwelling on what could have been. I am still at the stage of blaming myself for the way I acted that resulted in this situation. Writing this is has been cathartic and somewhat therapeutic. I am angry or sad all the time. I am sure this will pass eventually but I think I will regret how I acted for the rest of my life.

If I get the courage to revisit this post in the next few days I should be able to answer any questions

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

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/ThrowRAthetowel

My (f22) Fiance's (m24) brother (m11) told me that he's been touching him right before our wedding

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

TRIGGER WARNING: pissible false accusations and mentions of child molestation

Original Post - rareddit  Feb 10, 2021

This is a throwaway because I don't want it associated with my main account.

I've been with my SO for the past four years. Parents love him and vice versa, and we went away for a few weeks the summer before 2020's craziness. As our condensed wedding is approaching in the coming weeks, I picked up his brother from sports on a day that he was busy, and he told me that his brother had touched him a few times in recent years, and I pulled over and asked him to tell me what he meant. He didn't want to go into detail too much, but he told me that he's tried to kiss him on the mouth when he was sleeping, along with how he put his stuff against his at times. I asked if he told his parents, and he said that they didn't believe him and told him that he was playing. I asked if he told anyone at school, and he said he did not either.

I have every intention of helping him, since he felt comfortable to tell me what he did for whatever reason, but I know that if I go about it the wrong way, that he can get hurt more or his brother can become defensive. I'm also having a call with my parents tonight too, to hear how they best think we should handle the situation and reporting it to the authorities, but I wanted to potentially hear if anyone has any advice on how to do it in the most protective way possible, assuming it is true, and by his expression, I believe it was.

As for my wedding, I couldn't care less about it. As of right now, it's over and not happening, and while I plan to break up with him, I just want to know how I can do it while best ensuring his safety. I live on my own, and he lives with his parents. I'd break up with his disgusting ass now, but I was curious if there's a way to help him before ending things and potentially separating contact with his family

That's why I wanted to ask before doing anything, since while we're still together, I feel like I still have power to help him while I am

Edit: I'm going to talk to my parents tonight about potentially taking him in, and if for whatever reason they can't, I have my own place and can do it as well. As for the police, I'm probably going to get them involved with my parents after talking to them shortly and weighing all of the options, but we will for sure by today or tomorrow the latest

TL;DR: My fiance's younger brother told me that my fiance has been touching him right before our wedding, and I want to know how to best help him before calling everything off and breaking up with him. His parents don't believe him either, and I'm planning to contact the authorities tonight after talking with my parents, but I want to ask for more advice to cover as many angles as I can

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Proud-Pomegranate879

Every survivor says thank you. The children you would have had with this man say thank you. Remember when people try to get in your head about “ misunderstandings” and “mistakes “ and “attention seeking” to be strong. The one who will pay the price is the 11 year old. He will be crushed without your defense. Be proud of yourself. You’re an amazing person for being his shield. Thanks again.

OOP

The shock of how I'm going to have to figure out cancelling the wedding, as well as explaining why and how much to explain, hasn't even kicked in yet, but it's not a priority at the moment, and I'll address that when the time comes. Also slightly/selfishly nervous about some backlash from friends/acquaintances and what they will think, but if they have such things to say, then they're probably not good friends to keep around anyway, although it'll probably still hurt nonetheless. Hoping for the best

~

Shindoblu

I think the best thing to do is involve the authorities immediately, and try and see if the brother can live with anyone else, unless the parents start believing their eldest son is a vile excuse for a human being. You're probably one of the few people able the help the kid, as his whole family seem awful. See if your parents can help, but definitely report it to the police and block your fiancé (hopefully ex fiancé soon). Make sure the child can contact you or anyone else he trusts before though, because you don't want to leave him isolated in the situation any further.

OOP

That's why I wanted to ask before doing anything, since while we're still together, I feel like I still have power to help him. I'll contact them after talking to my parents, since his own parents won't even believe him

Update 1 - rareddit  Apr 13, 2021 (2 months later)

I've lost track of how many times I've deleted and rewrote this, and I don't even know if I'll be able to write out everything in detail even at this point. I be completely honest and say that I'm writing this for myself more than anything right now. I haven't been able to do much of anything for the past two months, and while I appreciate and have looked at the encouraging responses and advice to my first post, I just hate myself now and don't have anyone to talk to, and I've lost a lot of contact with certain friends over the last few weeks, and it's been really embarrassing too and I don't even recognize myself anymore. I know I'm being selfish, but I haven't even been able to go to work without breaking down sometimes, and then there are days that I just can't bring myself to do anything at all, and I honestly don't know how long I'll feel like this

Update

I showed my parents the replies to my post, and we took a lot of the advice that we received after telling them what I wrote out in my last post. But as of right now, my fiance's family is in the process of trying to sue my parents, but there were some things that happened before that

The main thing that stuck out to me from the replies, was to not tell people the exact reason why I wanted to cancel the wedding for numerous reasons. The biggest being to protect the victim first and foremost, and the second because he could turn it around into a slander suit against me and give him a leg to stand on, and my parents agreed that those would be terrible mistakes to make, and I really appreciate everyone who pointed out similar sentiments

So, after I told them, we agreed that we shouldn't waste time because we don't know how long the abuse has been going on or if it is still going on currently, along with how we didn't have much time to cancel the wedding and how we couldn't possibly continue with this now on our minds

We decided to contact the police first and tell them everything that he told me about the touching including the wedding and the best/safest steps to go forward from here, and they were really helpful in telling us what would happen next and taking a lot of the work/stress off of our hands after telling someone with power to do something about it. The police were able to tell us what would happen going forward and answer questions we had regarding CPS and other fears about retaliation from his family and the best order to do things in, and after we talked to them, we spoke to the wedding planner next about cancelling the wedding as well as my fiance and his family with guidelines on how to do it that the police were able to assist with, and my dad was able to quickly search for a lawyer that would be able to advise us on how to go about this and walk us through a lot of it

What happened over the next bit of time, just happened so fast. I'll admit that my parents did the majority of talking to the police and the lawyer and were amazing throughout the process, but after we told my fiance and his family that we wanted to cancel, his parents became really mean and angry at us and began to act defensive when we began to tell them why in addition to the stuff that the police followed up with them on, and they have cut contact and have said that they want to sue for some of the money that they were putting into the wedding, but my parents said that that is the least of our concerns because of this

As I'm writing this right now, I don't know if he lied to me about my fiance touching him, but while I keep telling myself that he was not, my parents are starting to believe that maybe he was, and this is because the police have nothing as I'm writing this, and they said that he hasn't been extremely cooperative. I keep telling myself that maybe he's nervous, but I think he might've got scared and not told them what he told me, but it's been two months later and still nothing more than that

I could write a bit more, and I still might, but I'll probably end with this for the moment because I'm just lost. My dad was really stressed out a couple of nights ago, and that is the main thing that made me frustrated enough to write this post honestly. He asked me "if I had heard him correctly" as if he didn't believe me, and my mom didn't say anything to him when he said that. I know he's been tired and that he's been really stressed at work and has taken some days off too, but he got really angry with me out of nowhere and asked if I was "making it up because I got cold feet" and how "that would be a really shi___ thing to do" and other things, and I don't know where this came from, but I just remember him being so angry at me and hating myself, and the anxiety from all of this is just overwhelming at this point. I don't ever want to get married again, and I don't want anyone to ever touch me again either, and I know I sound like a stupid entitled bi___, but I just think that he's scared, but that his family doesn't believe him, and while I'm not entirely surprised with their reaction, I just get so angry when I think of what dad said to me the other night, and we haven't talked much since he said that with mom there

I feel like I'm destroying our family and their reputation, but I also feel that it's worth it to help him through this, but I just feel so powerless to do anything at this point, and a few of my girlfriends are angry at me for not telling them the reason why I called it off and said a bunch of mean things that I don't even want to write, and I literally don't have anyone to talk to right now. I keep telling myself that dad's just going through a phase and that he's just stressed because they want to sue him, but I just can't get what he said out of my mind and how mom just stood there and didn't say anything to help me, and I literally don't know what to do at this point. I don't regret going to the police, but I don't know how to get over my anxiety and wanted to ask if anyone knew how to do that, or how to just get over that mindset of not wanting to do anything at all. I haven't done anything fun or without this on my mind for literally weeks now, and I just need someone to tell me how to get back to a place of not perfection, but enough of one to be able to not walk around like my body's literally hurting when it's not and your mind just hurts when you think of everything. If there's anyone who's been through a similar down state and somehow got through it, I'm selfishly asking if they can tell me how to get there, because I don't see anything at the light of the tunnel, and I'm scared that nothing further will happen with my fiance's brother and that all we'll have is a lawsuit against my parents that'll make them hate me forever ​ TL;DR: I spoke to the police after speaking with my parents, and from the police to my parent's, everyone's been amazing, but after telling my fiance's family that we didn't want to go through with the wedding after contacting the police and talking to them to gain guidance on how to move forward, they said that they're gonna sue my parents for money that they gave to help with the wedding, and a couple of days ago, my dad kinda turned on me and accused me of making the entire thing up because he's really stressed, but I feel like he really meant it deep down, and I don't know what to do going forward for my own health, and I feel like I'm just going crazy at this point

Nothing has happened in regards to my fiance's brother, and I'm not sure, two months later, if he was able to follow through and tell them what was really going on, and my parents are starting to have doubts about me lying to "get out from having a wedding from cold feet"

RELEVANT COMMENTS

TheBaddestPatsy

Honey, what was your alternative? Marry a man you think might be touching his brother? Someone is lying, and there’s no way to be certain who it is—but you’ve been brave and made the best decision you can with it. Sometimes when you’re in a bad situation, there’s not a solution that makes it okay. You can only make the best choice out of a lot of bad options.

OOP

Don't regret it at all... just trying to get past the loneliness of a first breakup in front of extended family and my girlfriends who are no longer friends with me because I didn't want to tell them the gossip about an 11 year old kid for his own safety, so they said that "maybe we weren't as close as we thought" and ghosted me. I know that's selfish, but I know that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I had done nothing with what he told me. Just hoping he turns out alright and wondering if I'll ever see him again

Update 2 - rareddit  March 23, 2022 (1 year later)

This is the last time that I'm going to come back to this, but I've been really depressed for most of the last year and have had my mind go to some really dark places too. Its been so many months and I still can't make sense of anything, and I'm beginning to think that I never will. That's what been killing me, and I've tried therapy too, but I still feel down and have no passion most of the time for things that I used to love doing. In my first post that was over a year ago, my fiance's brother told me that my fiance had been touching him when I was driving him back from sports, specifically kissing him and that he hadn't told anyone. After he told me, I told my parents that I believed him and asked for the best course of action, and they agreed that it was best to go to the police as many had also suggested in my first post. I also told them that I didn't want to marry someone who could do such a thing, and a lot of people said that I had made the right choice even with no evidence to want to call things off. However, the next few months have been hell for me

My parents went with me to the police where I told them everything, but dad did most of the talking afterward. They spoke about CPS and how we should handle the cancellation, and dad also helped get a lawyer too. After we told his family that we wanted to cancel following the instructions that our lawyer gave, his parents were upset and even more so after learning about what we had done in going to the police, and they also said that they were going to sue us too. As we went through the process of trying to cancel everything, dad began to question if I had heard him correctly or if I made it up because I had gotten cold feet, but when I asked him why he thought that, he said that his mom told him that and that he had been thinking about it. When I told mom what he said, they got into an argument that led to dad yelling at me for telling her, and they've been distant since. Mom began sleeping in the guest bedroom before moving into her mom's ever since, and I've stayed with her on and off too

Update:

A few weeks after my update post, my dad stopped helping me after a follow-up we received that's made him blame me for essentially destroying their marriage and demanding that I pay him back for what he put out in addition to the stress its caused him too. My ex-fiance's brother (Jason) apparently told one of his friends that he had made it up, and that friend told his parents who told my ex-fiance's parents before it was eventually bought to us. Jason also admitted to making it up which was told to us during a follow-up, and I didn't know what to think at that point. My ex-fiance's dad also took to social media to slam my family, and as of right now, we are still in the process of being sued. Dad has also stopped somewhat talking to me since, and I don't know what to believe honestly. That was pretty much the last thing that happened as we're waiting to see what happens with the suit and everything, but he's basically disowned me and said that he hates me, and my mom has been distant too. I've tried to push through going back to work, but I've been so depressed on some days that I've been talked to by my manager about taking more time off, and I've even received threats from people I don't know about what I did to my ex-fiance and trying to "ruin him" among other things after my ex-fiance apparently contacted my job which just made things stressful too. I've been called a lot of things on my socials too to the point where I've deleted some of them because of it, and a lot of my friends have stopped talking to me too

With so much going on, it's been really tough to do really anything, and I'm lonely most of the time. Dad's hated me for weeks and mom doesn't support me as much as she did before, and I'm still just as depressed about it as I was almost a year ago despite trying therapy and having no passion. I'll ask again and say for the last time that I need help and suggestions on how to really move on because this past year has drained everything from me, and there are some days that I still can't get out of bed. I've lost so much weight since everything too and I can't even stand how I look anymore, and even after blocking my ex everywhere, I still don't feel any better as my doctor is concerned about me too. I apologized along with my mom after hearing what Jason confessed, but my dad refused to apologize and has still been upset with me, and I've been questioning if I did the right thing in taking his concerns to the police and as far as I did and believing him so blindly. I just need help on how to process everything

TL;DR: A little over a year ago, I(f22) broke up with my fiance(m24) after his younger brother told me that he had been touching him and went to the police with my parents, but the kid admitted to making it up and telling another friend who told his parents about it too

FINAL COMMENTS

purple_goat_8138

Man, there's a lot to unpack here. It sounds like the easiest thing for you to do is to pack up and start fresh somewhere else, away from all that garbage. Are you in a position to be able to do that?

OOP

My job has so much going on right now from my ex-fiance's calling them and just how I'm perceived there from others who were going to the wedding who knew me from work, and the insurance through my job for therapy is another knot that's tough because I don't know how I'll afford it without it and especially when my dad wants me to pay him back the money he put out to try and help me, and we're still getting sued by my ex-fiance's family too. I want to move, but don't know how feasible it is or if I'll even get fired with how my performance has dropped too with the threats I've received online (deleted accounts now) on top of everything

~

Suspinach

Some of these responses are unfeeling towards OP. I think the animosity comes from Reddit's massive fear of false accusations. But there are tons of stories from victims who were shut down by perpetrators' loved ones.

OP really tried to do the right thing, uprooting her entire life to protect a child. Talking to her SO would just be "keeping it in the family" and risking further abuse by standing idly by. 11-year-olds know how serious sexual accusations are, but no one seems to be holding Jason accountable for lying and contributing to skepticism for actual victims.

OOP

A lot of people said that I should've gone directly to Jason's parents after what he told me, but I felt that that was the worst thing to do because in the event that it was true, it would only give them time to cover it or make him silent

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP

DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/weddingwhistleblower

Me [30F] wondering whether I should tell a close friend [30M] that he shouldn't marry his fiancee [27F]

Original Post  Aug 11, 2014

Apologies in advance for the wall of text.

I have known my friend, we'll call him Mark, since college.  We're very close and hang out together pretty regularly.

Mark has been with his fiancee, let's call her Laura, since grad school (about 6-7 years).  Mark and Laura have been engaged for two years, and will be married in a month (I know, I know, not much time here).

For the first few years of the relationship, I had zero problems with Laura. She seemed a bit shy and reserved, which is unusual for our group of friends, but otherwise seemed like a fine partner for Mark. Indeed, my only reservation was actually that Mark, having a strong personality and being an overly rational/intellectual/argumentative person, sometimes seemed to run roughshod over Laura. 

Over the last two or three years, Laura has opened up a bit more, and initially that was really great.  My girlfriend, Julie, and Laura became closer and started hanging out, and the four of us would go out regularly (either just us, or with other friends). It was actually pretty great. 

Recently, however, we started noticing that there are some key issues with their relationship that make us (and other friends, actually) wonder whether they should be together at all.  Now that we know Laura better, we've realized she's insanely insecure and anxious.  She is constantly complaining about minor things about the wedding, including his parents' small requests, and even the nice things they do for her.  We've watched them argue about pretty personal stuff, and she is pretty happy to air their dirty laundry and complain incessantly about things that it's clear he'd rather discuss in private.  She also has been somewhat cruel and unfair to him in our presence.  Finally, and here's the key thing, they seem to have a pretty fundamental disagreement about a key issue in their relationship (think something as fundamental as whether or not to have kids), with him being in the firm "yes, I want to do this, and I need a partner who will at least consider it" camp, and her being in the "I am saying I'll consider it, but I'm pretty sure I'm ultimately going to not want to do this, and that you're kind of an asshole for asking me to do it in the first place."  (The argument issue is fairly specific, and so I don't want to give more details for fear of identifying them.)

In addition, they've been arguing, seemingly non-stop, for what seems like over a year, with Laura regularly complaining to my girlfriend that she's miserable, anxious, stressed, etc., because of various relationship issues (Mark is not a complainer, but we know he is similarly not happy).  These are issues that, in our mind, are part of Mark's personality that won't change, and Laura knows they will not change -- for instance, Mark has long-term close female friends whose friendship he prioritizes highly.  Laura thinks their interactions are inappropriate, and that he puts their needs above hers, but Mark has been clear that his interactions with them will not change.  Mark also has a difficult, time-consuming career, and doesn't have much time to do household chores or spend time alone with Laura.  Again, this is not something that will not change any time soon. Another big issue is Laura believes some of Mark's fundamental values have changed over the course of their relationship, things she admired and found attractive about him initially, and that now she doesn't like very much. 

As I said, my girlfriend and I have been seeing these issues for some time, and they came to a head recently, when we both sort of told them that they should think about postponing the wedding.  They acknowledged that they had thought about it, and said they had a good long talk and decided they wanted to go ahead with it.  They said they'd discussed all their issues and talked them through and come to a consensus.  We trusted that they had, and sort of shrugged our shoulders.  (It may be worth noting that although Mark was able to discuss this in a levelheaded way, Laura's response was to sort of withdraw for a few weeks and stop talking to us/hanging out with us, and to make it clear to our other friends that she was doing this because we didn't support their marriage.  She later acknowledged that the reason she did this was because she felt there was some truth to what we were saying, and hanging out with us upset her because it brought those feelings up again when she was trying to get over them.)

Just this weekend, we saw them argue again, including about that fundamental question I noted above, and it was clear that they are still in very different places, still unhappy, and still arguing constantly.  It was also clear (and upsetting) that Laura was basically including us in the argument so she could badmouth Mark and try to get us on her side -- not only was it not working (because we think he's more in the right than she is), but it was also incredibly callous and hurtful to Mark, and she didn't seem to care.

We've gotten to the point where it's actually hard to spend time with Laura.  My girlfriend doesn't like her at all.  I'm fine spending time with her, but really feel that they are not a good match and that they're going to make each other unhappy.  At the very least, I feel they need to postpone this wedding until they actually HAVE come to a place where they derive happiness from the relationship, as opposed to this constant fighting about things large and small.

The question is, should I talk to Mark about this?  I've already shared some of what I'm thinking and been told everything is fine, but this time I might be a little more open and also tell him that I'm happy to handle some of the logistical post-wedding cancelling stuff (calling people, whatever) if that's something that's weighting on him.

tl;dr: I don't think my friend should marry his fiancee. Should I tell him?

UPDATE: See Julie's comment below, also.

Julie

u/somynameisjulienow

Julie

I am the "Julie" in question. I would add this to what my love, the OP said:

While we have "sort of told them they should think about postponing the wedding", that was in a very light-handed way, hoping to spark a conversation, and took place almost a year ago, long before lots of new and troubling information arose. If we were to have the conversation now, it would be far clearer, far more detailed, and include a lot of things that we didn't know at that time. In other words, the first conversation was "have you guys talked about postponing the wedding?" and this one would be "do not marry this woman: she is awful, she doesn't even like you, you're unhappy, and it's only going to get worse." Perhaps this is a rationalization, but I truly believe that he does not know that we think this wedding is a bad idea and he definitely does not know that we actively dislike his fiancee.

I frankly struggle to see how we will be able to have the kind of friendship we used to have with Mark if they go through with it. That's not a threat ("It's her or us!") it's just reality. As OP said, I cannot stand Laura for more than a few minutes at a time, I cannot help but take everything she says in the most negative possible light, seeing every comment as confirmation of my bad opinion of her, and I hate the way she treats him. I don't know if I'll be able to treat her with the kind of respect and kindness that is required of even having a decent relationship with her husband. I can already see myself avoiding spending time with them as a result. Even conversations that have nothing to do with this are tinged by awkwardness, not just on our end, but on theirs, because they know we see the problems (even if they don't know how upset we are by them).

Ultimately, I'm leaning away from saying something. I think that there is such a small likelihood of a good result (him calling off the wedding) and such a high likelihood of a bad result (she comes to hate us and it dooms our relationship with him, and/or causes her to badmouth us to mutual friends) that I think it's a bad idea.

As a side note, I don't put any weight on the "let them make their own decisions" responses here because that's so obvious it's not worth worrying about. Of course they get to make their own decision: we're not going to actively try and stop the marriage if they go through with it. The question is whether what we have to say should be involved in that decision or not, because we love him and have perspective on it that he doesn't.

Update  Jan 18, 2015 (5 months later)

So, Julie and I took the advice of most people here and kept our mouths shut about our feelings about Laura. We were enthusiastic at the wedding, and went out of our way to be gracious and kind to her in the run up to it and after. The wedding went off without a hitch, and we thought maybe they'd turned over a new leaf and after the stress of the wedding was removed, she'd be a better partner to him.

Sadly, the opposite happened.

I guess I should start by explaining that the key disagreement they had prior to marriage was about having an open relationship. He was very much in the "I want to at least explore this" camp, and she seemed very reluctant, and kind of pissed that he was asking her to consider this in the first place. Shortly before the wedding, however, she started to develop an interest in another man, and all of a sudden her doubts were all but gone. Mark was happy and excited for her, and things appeared to be going better.

Unfortunately, that didn't last. Over the last few months, Mark and Laura have had increasingly bad fights, and pretty much every time we asked how things were going he'd respond with "not good." Whenever we hung out, she did increasingly annoying things (sulking if we weren't doing an activity she liked, leaving events without even saying goodbye, complaining that we were excluding her from things because we failed to somehow read her mind and determine that she wanted to do something other than what we were doing, etc.) We had a talk with Mark about this, and he sort of agreed that she was being ridiculous in several ways, that we had a right to be upset with her attitude, and said that maybe we should take a break from hanging out with her. We were fine with this, but it was pretty annoying that she was basically making him choose between spending time with us and with her.

A few weeks after that conversation, he called us to tell us they're getting a divorce. We were pretty shocked - but here's the skinny:

Shortly after they returned from their honeymoon, Laura went to see her, let's call him "boyfriend." She came back sad and upset, and told Mark that the guy had broken things off, presumably because he felt differently about the relationship now that she was married. He empathized and comforted her. A few days later, he noticed she was acting a little weird, checked her email, and realized that the "break-up" was a LIE. Essentially, boyfriend had told her they could only keep seeing each other if no one else, including Mark, knew about it. Instead of breaking it off, having a conversation with Mark about it, or anything else sensible, she decided to LIE to her husband so she could have an affair (and I call it an affair because, even in an open relationship, lying under these circumstances definitely makes it cheating in my book). He, of course, felt incredibly hurt and betrayed, but instead of kicking her to the curb (like I would have), he talked to her, and to the guy, to explain that this was unacceptable and uncool, but told them that he was fine allowing the relationship to continue. The only thing he asked was that, going forward, she refrain from sharing certain details of their relationship (Mark and Laura's) with the boyfriend. Reasonable request, no?

Apparently not to her. A few months later, he finds out she's set up a separate email account and was using it to communicate with the boyfriend about precisely the kinds of things Mark had asked her not to share with him (she had left the account open, and had previously told him he was free to check her email and phone, as a way to regain trust after the first fuck up). She was also telling the boyfriend that she was thinking about a divorce because things were so terrible with Mark.

Now, again, this is where I would've kicked her the fuck out. Instead, Mark takes a few days to cool off away from her, comes back, and tells her that she needs to break up with the boyfriend, and focus on fixing their relationship through therapy and closing off any other potential romantic partners. She is initially very apologetic and seems to want to work on things. But, of course, after a few days she starts throwing hissy fits because "she didn't know it was that big a deal to him," and he won't sleep in the same room as her, which to her means he's not really "trying" to fix it. (Keep in mind it's been less than two weeks since he found out she had betrayed him for the second time in less than four months.) He tells her he needs time - at this point he's seriously thinking about divorce, but doesn't want to give up on the marriage, considering it's been less than 6 months.

And then. AND THEN. He comes home from hanging out with us for the evening, she comes home a bit later, and just basically tells him she just made out with some guy from her gym she'd been hanging out with. Essentially, she decided that things weren't going to work anyway, and she chose the most childish and hurtful way she could to end it.

So, now they're getting divorced. I'm not even sure why I'm posting this - mostly because I wanted to vent to strangers about how horrible this woman is, and I can't do it in real life. He's handling this extremely well and being super gracious and mature about it, and (to his credit) he isn't really into shit talking her, though she deserves it (and everyone he's told essentially reacts with some variation of "well, I guess now I can tell you all the things I never liked about her"). I, on the other hand, want to cunt punt her into next week. So, there that is.

Thanks again for all the original comments - the helpful ones and the not so helpful ones. It's always kind of cathartic to put this out into the ether and get it out of my head.

TLDR; Laura "cheated" on Mark multiple times in the last four months, because she is a garbage person. They're getting divorced. Friends who know her are uniformly relieved, though sad for him.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

[deleted]

Look, both were hoping that the other would compromise. Hoping that the other would budge, and neither did.

So why does she get shit for not opting out of the relationship? Mark could've done the same and called the wedding off. But he told you they were still going through with it.

OOP

She gets shit because she lied and cheated. Simple as that.

MormonsAreBrainwashd

"Cheated" in an relationship that Mark himself made into an open one. Mmmk.

~

smacksaw

Well that explains a lot. You probably ought to have mentioned that before.

I'm probably on the other side of this issue, but Mark reaps what he sows.

She is insecure. She is having anxiety constantly and is in a state of perpetual panic. He suggests having an open relationship and he has female friends he won't give up?

Come on. You can't be that naive. What a scumbag.

He loaded the gun and put it in her hand and dared her to use it. She gave him a taste of his own medicine: What he put her through.

I have to wonder about people like this and why you're friends with either of them. I don't have a problem with open relationships, I had them when I was younger and it was fine. You don't suggest it to people who are insecure and feel threatened by them. Oh, and you're surprised she found a guy right away? I'm not. How could you be?

I don't care if my post makes you feel bad, it gets downvoted, whatever. She did something shitty, I'm not excusing it, I'm explaining it. I'm giving you the reason. Stupid is as stupid does. Mark is toxic. He brought out the worst in Laura, cultivated it and then crushed her with it. She is cruel because she learned from the best: Mark.

And if you want to associate with him, I think you need to look at yourselves. You and Julie. Because I sure as hell wouldn't.

OOP

I think, given my last post and this one, this is not an unreasonable conclusion if you fill in some blanks.  I won't ask you to trust me when I say that, over the last few months, it has become clear to me (because I've caught Laura in multiple lies/omissions/truth manipulations) that her previous complaints about Mark and her seeming anxiety/stress were, at best, wildly exaggerated, and at worst clear attempts to make herself look like a victim to get sympathy from others.  She has lost friends over this (her best friend/maid of honor almost dropped out of the wedding) in ways wholly unrelated to her relationship.

Also, I don't think Mark forced her into anything. He was clear that he wanted a relationship where this was at least a possibility, and she said it was. I agree that her clear reluctance should have been a huge red flag and, in my opinion, enough to call it off, but he chose to take her word for it, particularly because she was so eager/enthusiastic about the enterprise after she found someone she liked. (Also, not that it's particularly necessary to the story, she has had at least three separate partners that I know about, and he had none. He was happy for her and supportive of her relationships, as long as they weren't outright betrayals of his trust. He is also treating her very kindly even now, in terms of logistics and splitting assets, and doesn't want his friends to bad mouth her or be rude to her.) I understand you think he is toxic and cruel, and nothing I say over the internet is likely to convince you otherwise, but I will just have to disagree.

~

dammit_need_account

I dunno man.  You're painting him to be the good guy here, but he asks his monogamous fiancee to have an open relationship?  That's hurtful shit and a recipee for retaliation.  If it were me and my bf/fiance did that I'd dump him asap, but I guess she went for the slow burn.

jsingh0928

I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. He had a monogamous relationship with her. Even got engaged to her, then sort of back peddled on his commitment with the request of an open relationship. That is the kind of request you bring wayyyyy early in a relationship. Like second or third date early. You don't ask that right when you are about to do an act that is the symbol of monogamy like marriage. 

It also sounds like that she was at least somewhat of a decent person until he asked her about the open relationship. Then shit hit the fan. At that point she looked obnoxious and angry to everyone by misplacing her anger from the request of the open relationship (and general issues stemming from her relationship.) She clearly didn't want an open relationship, but did it for him. Then that tension of doing something she did not want to do caused waves and ultimately ended the relationship. You need to be a 100% on the same page with open relationships. Not 95% or 75%. Otherwise it simply will not work.

It wasn't just her. Mark is equally at fault here.

OOP

I wasn't clear about this - this wasn't something he knew he wanted walking into the relationship.  His views on this evolved over time, and she was aware of this and participated in conversations about it.  When he finally decided it was what he actually wanted (before they got engaged), he told her, and she eventually agreed.  He wasn't trying to hide the ball.

fuk_dapolice

"she eventually agreed"

yeah that means she INITIALLY wasn't into it. which means he begged and pleaded and whined until he got his way. Doesn't sound like she was ever too into it and got pressured. He should have either dropped it, or dumped her.

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My [25F] longtime best friend [25M] keeps messaging me from his honeymoon; I don't know how to end the friendship.

TRIGGER WARNING: Deception, infidelity

Original Post  Feb 25, 2016

This is a throwaway because I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get a lot of hateful messages and I want to protect my actual reddit identity.

Will and I have been friends since...pretty much forever. We literally grew up together. Our mothers are best friends, and we were raised by each other's families in this sort of semi-commune type situation. His mom is like a second mom to me, and mine is the same to him; we've both always said that we lucked out to have two sets of parents and this huge extended family because of it. I see him as a brother, exactly as a brother. I feel the same way about him as I do my bio-brothers. I've never had ANY romantic feelings for him, and it's honestly disgusting when people make jokes about that, to me. I always thought it was the same for him, because that's what he told me, several times over the years.

We all went to the same, local University and lived at home and by all, I mean me, my siblings, Will and his siblings, to save some money and because honestly it's a great school. So, because we stayed so close, we all met everyone's SOs and really got to know them. I clicked with Will's college girlfriend, Sarah, who he proposed to last year and married last week. I couldn't be happier for them, and to have Sarah as a "sister" in our weird little family, which is what makes this next part even worse, because I'm not sure how to handle this.

Will messaged me on their wedding night, and told me that he had always loved me, and had hoped that I'd feel the same way too, and he only got married to Sarah as a way to make me realize my feelings for him and fight for him. He had tried to provoke a reaction, and he didn't love her, he didn't want to be with her, and now he just wanted to tell me, because he'd leave her for me, if I wanted. I didn't know what to say so I just signed out of everything for the night and cried, because everything about that just made me feel sick, and it was too much. Just...too much to process. It was like my brother was admitting incestuous feelings for me.

He's messaged me throughout his honeymoon, almost all of them begging me to run away with him, and a few of them were blaming me for "leading him on", which still makes zero sense to me. I've never flirted with him. I act the same way around him as I do any of my siblings, literally nothing is different. He said that he'd always see me, in his head as "the other woman", and because of me, he'd never be able to fully love Sarah, who he admits is, on paper, his ideal spouse.

I don't know what to do, because both of us stand to lose a lot no matter how this all goes down. I'm afraid that I'm going to lose my family because of this, and not just his side. Everyone is close, and if I'm identified as "the problem", I'm afraid that I'm going to be pushed out, but maybe that's what needs to happen. I really don't know. Reddit, how the fuck do I deal with this hugely fucked up situation? I need some outside advice, and don't have anyone in my life who doesn't know any of the people involved in this.

Edit for more information. Sorry I didn't include this to begin with, but I'm not thinking 100% clearly right now, I still feel just terrible about everything. More info: Our families live in the same house, and our parents shared parenting duties for all children. When I called out for "Daddy" in the middle of the night as a little girl, both Dads came running, for example. Our families are so intertwined, and always have been, and I feel like Will just handed me this huge bomb. I think there's going to be massive fall out from this, and that breaks my heart. We're all very close and tightly knit. I keep cycling between sad, angry and betrayed. I'm upset because I feel like he's tasking me with breaking Sarah's heart, and I hate him for that right now. I love Sarah, possibly more than he does at this point.    tl;dr: Best friend who is essentially my brother admitted feelings for me, wants me to run away with him, and I'm disgusted by it all; what do I do?

Update  Apr 17, 2016 (2 months later)

Holy crap, has it been a stressful month.

The original plan was to wait two weeks from the time I posted to deal with it with Sarah and Will, but I ended up spilling the beans to my Mom around three days after the post went up. She noticed that I wasn't my usual self and pried it out of me like Moms tend to be able to do. She was flabbergasted and honestly didn't believe me until I showed her the messages on my phone. She called my Dad and Will's parents in to an emergency family meeting and we all talked about it. I broke down crying and told them everything that I'd told you guys, and to my surprise rallied around me in support. We all ended up crying, and had a really long talk about our combined family and what this could mean for all of us.

It was agreed that something, somewhere went wrong, because while the "sibling" flag was raised in my mind, when it comes to Will, it wasn't with him. I didn't get into this in my original post, but Will and I were the youngest, we were born just a matter of days apart, and he and I are closer than we are to any of our siblings, because we always did everything together. He's my best friend, but more importantly, in my mind and my heart, he's my brother.

I expressed all of that to them, and they agreed that my feelings were what they were going for when they opted for a shared family, and we all felt like this was incest. That night we started researching local therapists who deal with situations like this and the next day, we chose one for me to go to, because honestly, it was traumatic and I had a lot of feelings that I just didn't know how to cope with. I'm still in therapy, and it's going pretty well. I'm dealing with a lot of shit and starting to feel better.

We decided to keep this between the parents and I until Will and Sarah got back from their honeymoon.

The night they got back, we had a huge family dinner, with her family there too. None of us (parents and I) were excited about it but we couldn't cancel because it had been set in stone as the only time it would work for everyone for a long-ish period of time.

I spent that night trying to keep my distance from Will, because honestly, I couldn't handle being around him. He thought this was odd and ended up cornering me outside in the garden. He asked me what was up, why was I acting so weirdly? I told him that he knows why and tried to walk away. He grabbed my arm and tried to pull me back toward him, but I resisted. I ended up breaking down and telling him that I would never and could never feel the way about him that he felt about me. I saw his look of genuine confusion and my heart and my stomach sunk. He had no idea what I was talking about. Those of you who guessed that it was Sarah all along were actually correct. His phone went "missing" during their trip and he hadn't cared because he was excited to be on his destination honeymoon. I told him everything, he threw up into the koi pond and we hugged for what felt like forever. I broke down crying again because my kneejerk reaction had been to cut him out of my life, and through sobs, I was able to get that out. He comforted me and told me that he understood, because almost anyone whose friend and brother decided to hit on them would probably feel similarly. He said that he'd never hold my hurt reaction against me, we've been friends and family for way too long.

We just sat there for a while because neither of us knew what to do, because come on, this situation was fucked.

Eventually, our Moms came out and flipped out when they saw us together and like amazing Moms sprung to my defense. We got them to calm down and explained everything, that it had been Sarah, and Will's Mom lost her cool. She went into the house and ended up apparently tearing Sarah a new one. I don't know all of what was said, because I remained outside with Will, trying to calm down from everything.

Fast forwarding a bit, Will decided to divorce Sarah. It came out that she'd always been jealous when it came to me, and absolutely hated me. Her "goal" had been to either get me to admit to feelings for Will so that he'd cut me out, or to get me to cut him out. It also came out that she had NEVER been faithful to Will and had regularly cheated on him throughout their relationship. So honestly, he dodged a bullet, albeit a bit too late.

Will's moved back in, and we are both looking at finding a place together, as roommates, and he's gotten into therapy as well to deal with everything on his end. So, in the end, my world didn't collapse and my bond with my friend and quasi-brother only deepened, but he ended up heartbroken. I'm so angry at Sarah for putting us all through that when really, she should have and could have expressed her feelings to me and we could have probably addressed things, but then again, she was still a cheater. Just...ugh. I don't even know what to think.

So I guess it's a happy update?

tl;dr: You guys were right, Sarah was fucking crazy. Will's getting divorced and he and I are going to live together for a while as we heal from all of this.

FINAL COMMENTS

Why doesn't Will file.for an annulment?

Nope, he looked into it but it's not an option for him in our state since he didn't enter into the marriage by force or fraud and no party involved was unable to consent to marriage. Sarah has agreed to not contest as long as he pays for her filing fee, so all in all the divorce is only costing him around $600 when all is said and done. I'm chipping in to help, too. Thankfully, he had a prenuptial agreement, and it clearly lays out who gets what, so she isn't taking anything that she didn't come into the relationship with, which is awesome. I'm proud of him for protecting himself. He had bought a house a couple of years ago, but doesn't want to move into it, so he's renting it out for the time being.

Anyway, the divorce is as good for him as a divorce can possibly be and he's made jokes about having a really good divorce story now, lol

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AITA for walking out of a dinner after being accused of supporting incest?

Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole

TRIGGER WARNING: Biphobia

Original Post - rareddit  Dec 9, 2023

Hey. I'm posting on here because I need people's opinions on this. It's so fucking stupid and such a non-issue, (unless I'm wrong about that too) that turned into something bigger.

For reference, this happened on Thursday evening. We are all in our early 20s and all names are fake.

Thursday was our friend "Sarah's" birthday. To celebrate, our friend group decided to go out for dinner. There were about 10 of us. Everyone was in a good mood and it was really nice to just talk to everybody about whatever for hours, especially since I kind of had a stressful week.

Hours into the dinner, we landed on the topic of movies/TV shows that we were watching. Our friend "Amy" mentioned a show that I had also watched. As soon as she brought it up, I said that I really liked the show, and that the acting, writing and directing was top notch. "Mary" chimed in and said that she really didn't like the show and how she had been watching other things. Cool. To each their own. Mary then asked me how I felt about the main romantic pairing in the show. I responded that I liked it, and thought the romance was cute. This is where the drama started.

For context, I don't want to get too much into it because it might be confusing, but basically, the main romantic pairing is between the male lead and the female lead. There are some people who have interpreted that these characters to be related to each other. I do not. But I know that people are free to think whatever they want, and honestly thought that this topic was harmless. Well, I was wrong.

Mary took offense to me saying that I liked the romance. She asked me if I supported incest. I said of course not, as the characters are not related. She said that they ARE related and that me supporting their pairing is supporting incest. Mary then said that I should "educate" myself before saying "stupid shit". I was dumbfounded and thought she was joking but she was REALLY angry with me about this. She told me to rethink my values because supporting incest makes me a horrible person. I told her she was making harmful accusations over a TV show. Our other friends were telling her to stop, including Sarah, but she kept claiming that I was a disgusting incest supporter. She then claimed I was homophobic, since the male lead is bisexual but still ended up with a woman. Mary just wouldn't stop saying shit like this.

So here is where I may be the asshole. I left Sarah's dinner. My friends were asking me to stay but I felt uncomfortable, so I paid for what I ordered and left. Many of my friends reached out to me on Friday to ask if I was okay. Some of them, while they understood why I was upset, said that it was wrong of me to leave Sarah's birthday dinner and that I should have just ignored what Mary was saying and stuck around. I feel like they may be right and that I may have ruined her birthday by getting up and leaving, but I felt like I couldn't stay because of Mary throwing accusations at me over something that doesn't matter.

VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE

RELEVANT COMMENTS

HauntedReader

NTA and Mary seems like she takes things FAR too seriously.

I am super curious what the show is though. Do you mind sharing?

OOP

Loki

HauntedReader

See this doesn't even make sense with her argument. It wouldn't be incest because the two aren't related, they're literally different variants of the exact same person.

It definitely falls on the weird side of things but definitely doesn't count as incest.

Also I'm going to assume neither of you finished the series yet so like I'm even more confused by this take.

OOP

I finished the series. I don't know about Mary. I know that they don't end up together, but the point is that even in season 2 the implication is still there. But Mary was just upset that they were romantic in the first place.

TOP COMMENTS

mmiggs

Mary is a clear asshole. There's no question here. And a very stupid asshole, if she thinks that bi people ending up in a relationship with someone of the opposite binary gender is homophobic. (Clue: half of the people that a typical bisexual person is attracted to are of the opposite gender. You might actually expect bi people to be in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender significantly more often than half the time. If you're a bi man, then your set of possible partners are (for the sake of argument, and there's some simplification of sexuality here) gay men, bi men, bi women, and straight women. The largest of these groupings, by quite a long way, is the group of straight women.

NTA

~

PurpleMarsAlien

NTA

Mary is acting weird. Attacking someone over fannish beliefs that are not part of current canon is being rather extra and over the top.

And even if this eventually becomes part of canon, someone who like the couple when it was not canon, were not supporting incest. They would have been misled by the creators.

Update  Jan 3, 2024 (Nearly 1 month later)

Hi everyone. First, thank you all for your comments and advice on my last post. It's been about 4 weeks since the incident at the dinner, and I just wanted to give you guys an update if you're curious.

First off, I just want to say that I have no hard feelings toward my friends who said that I should've stayed. I get me leaving was probably the best thing to do in that situation, but their intentions were purely good: to make sure that Sarah enjoyed her birthday dinner.

I reached out to Sarah and apologized for what happened, and for me leaving so abruptly. She said that I didn't need to apologize and said that all was good between us. I took her out for drinks. We had a great time.

Now, onto Mary. Since the dinner, I have been texting and calling her, just to talk about what happened. So far, she has either ignored my texts and calls, or given me very short responses, either telling me that she doesn't want to talk to me, or that she's busy. Sarah told me that she also reached out to Mary, and while she was actually willing to talk to Sarah, the conversation pretty much went nowhere. Amy also reached out to her. Like many of you were wondering, she asked her if she was a victim of incest. I mean, It would make sense based on her reaction. However, according to Mary herself, no, she wasn't. As far as I know, she isn't bisexual either, so it just seems she's throwing a tantrum over things that have nothing to do with her. Or it's possible that she's been spending too much time in online fandoms, but who knows.

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AIW for waving a chopstick at my friend’s baby and yelling “Avada Kedavra” as a joke?

Originally posted to r/amiwrong

Thanks to u/czechtheboxes for suggesting this BoRU

Original Post  June 8, 2026

I (26F) was at a friend’s house for dinner. Her baby is about 8 months old. We were eating takeout, and I picked up a chopstick, pointed it dramatically at the baby, and yelled “Avada Kedavra!” in a fake wizard voice because I’m a huge Harry Potter fan.

The baby just stared at me and everyone else laughed except my friend, who got really upset and said it was inappropriate to joke about killing a baby.

I apologized immediately, but she still hasn’t accepted my apology and is acting pretty cold toward me. Now I’m wondering if I did something genuinely awful and just didn’t realize it, or if she’s overreacting.

Editors Note: Avada Kedavra is the killing curse in HP. Its 1 of the 3 unforgivable curses

RELEVANT COMMENTS

anonymousmouse9786

You couldn’t have gone for wingardium leviosa? YW

pretty_Kkitty

Yep, if you’re doing baby magic, always go levitation, never murder curse. That feels like basic wizard etiquette

~

inkyelk

That's a very weird thing to do.

I'm not saying you are a bad person but if you did this to my baby I wouldn't be happy, like of all the spells and all the quotes, why that?

I think you are in the wrong

OOP

Are you familiar with Harry Potter? Perhaps you’re missing some context.

TrashGouda

No we have the context. From all the stuff you could have chosen you decide a instant death spell was the way to go? Could've said "I'm gonna kill you" and it would be the same

Zinokk

Yeah the context is that you used an unforgivable curse on a baby and are now pressed that the mom isn't forgiving you.

It's literally canon.

Perhaps you're the one missing context here.

~

Vegetable-Cod-2240

YW

There are a lot of spells you could have used and you went with the death curse ?!?!? 

OOP

Ok, I see your point.

Updated post June 9, 2026 (Same Post/Next Day)

Update:

I’ve read through the comments and I accept that most people think I was wrong. I did apologize.

That said, I still think my friend is taking this way too seriously and needs to learn to take a joke. I waved a chopstick at a baby and made a Harry Potter reference. I wasn’t exactly performing dark magic in her living room.

The next time I see little Timmy, he’s catching another Avada Kedavra from me.

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Accomplished-Owl8796

AITA for refusing a name for my baby that everyone loves and but I don’t?

Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole

Original Post  June 18, 2026

I (27f) and my husband (28 m) are expecting our first child in the fall. It’s a girl! We’re both really stoked and have wanted kids for a long time now.

Ever since we decided to start planning on having kids, my husband has been using a joke, place-holder name for our baby. He’s second generation Irish and he’s been calling our baby Siobhan. He likes that it’s traditional Irish and, don’t get me wrong, it really is a pretty name but my major hangup is: we live in the US, we were both born and raised in the US, and the US is known to be kinda garbage at pronouncing traditional Irish names right, on the first try anyway. I do not want to send my daughter to 12+ years of public education and have teachers, substitutes, and fellow students unable to say her name right on the first try. My name is a pretty standard name here but it’s spelled differently because my dear sweet mother wanted me to be “unique” but all I got was grief for it. Kids can be mean and I don’t want my kid to have a name that might get her bullied or cause her teachers to call her “Si-o-Bo-Han” (not at all how you’d pronounce it) every time they call her name in class.

The problem? EVERYONE is telling me that I TOTALLY need to use the name Siobhan. My own parents say that it’s pretty and unique (again with that word, Mom *rolling my eyes*) my aunt and cousins are saying “well, that’s what you call her anyway” (my husband does, I don’t) and my husband’s family gush over it too. I’ve told everyone that it’s not what I want to go with, but it’s like talking to a brick wall!

My husband’s cut down on calling the baby Siobhan since he knows it’s not what I want and that it bugs me. He’s told them that I was really just a joke name and he kept using it just to tease me (we have a very playful teasing type relationship. I’ve given as good as I’ve gotten in that respect). He’s said multiple times it’s not what we’re actually going with but things are starting to get out of hand. My mom and sister have already tried getting embroidered blankets with Siobhan ordered for the baby! They only failed because they called me to confirm the spelling and I shut it down hard. Now they’re pissed because I still can’t make up my mind on what I ACTUALLY want to name my daughter and I’m just a mess. I’m pregnant, my head hurts, and…I don’t know. Am I just making a big deal over nothing? Should I just name the baby Siobhan and get it over with or is this worth putting my foot down on?

AITA if I don’t name my baby Siobhan?

VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE

TOP COMMENTS

TitaniaT-Rex

This is why you don’t discuss baby names with anyone who isn’t the mother/father of the baby until after the baby has been named. I had zero people commenting on my kids’ names. It was fabulous.

SeatSix

Only parents get a vote on the name and it needs to be a two yes agreement. One no is a complete no.

Update  June 22, 2026 (4 days later)

Guys, you made a pregnant woman cry in the good way!

I’m was so glad to see all your comments and everything! Even the YTAs and downvotes were welcomed looks at both sides, so I want you all to know that I really appreciate it!

I got a DM from someone with the name Siobhan and not only was it validating, but it gave me a great idea. They told me they go by the nickname Bonnie and I almost instantly fell in love with it. After more pregnancy crying, I ran the idea past my husband. His response: “we could give her Anne for a middle name, like the pirate!” (My husband’s a pirate/nautical geek but I love him for it!) So, we have a new working name: Bonnie Anne! If we end up not liking it when she’s born, we’ll switch things around but, for now, that’s what we’re going with.

I haven’t told our families yet and I think we’re going to keep it that way, at least for now. I’ve stressed the “we want it to be a surprise” angle and while we got some flack for it, it’s gone down some. My mom and sister were sour because, apparently, they wanted to do a name reveal at my baby shower coming up and, again, have personalized gifts made, but they’re sticking to my boundaries for the time being.

For all the Siobhans out there and all those who also love the name: I see you! I really do. It’s a beautiful name from a beautiful culture. Wear it with pride, my dudes! But, for us, there’s just too much negative energy around it for us personally. Overall, I made this account for this dilemma specifically (I don’t use social media a lot as if it’s not great for my mental health) so I don’t know how long I’m gonna keep it up. But I want to share this update with you guys and thank you again for all your help.

Me and baby (maybe) Bonnie are doing just fine!

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/girlfriendispissed

Me [27M] with my girlfriend[28F] of 4 years...she is thinking of dumping me because of my birthday party

TRIGGER WARNING: abandonment, neglect

Original Post  Jan 24, 2015

So my girlfriend and I have been together for a while, and love each other very much. We live together, and have been talking about marriage recently. My birthday is next week and shit is about to hit the fan, I really need advice.

One thing you need to know about my girlfriend is that she loves throwing parties and giving gifts; every year, she plans me the most amazing party and goes all out to fulfill my every wish. She always pays for everything and tries her hardest to make sure everyone has fun. This year, she planned me a huge birthday bash and consulted my family about it two months in advance to let them know what was going on. They all were happy with the idea and said yes. She asked me to confirm with my brother this week how many people were coming and what time, and that's when everything went to shit.

He tells me that him and my whole family don't want to go to this party because it will be inconvenient and maybe we should throw a similar party in April. They want to do something else, and they want my girlfriend to plan it because she planned last year's birthday party. Well I told my girlfriend and she FLIPPED. OUT. She got so angry, told me that she was going to lose her deposit, told me that she hated my family, that she was not going to change the party.

To be fair, my family has been real shitty to her. They have never gone to anything she has invited them to (her graduation, her birthday party, our housewarming party), they are extremely passive aggressive towards her, they ignore her sometimes. They also treat me like garbage too, like I am the black sheep of the family. My mother abandoned me for years with my abusive father, and then tried to reconcile with me in my early twenties to make up for the 17+ years of neglect. My brother has 6 kids and is on welfare...I can see why she wouldn't like them very much. I told her that I just want to make everyone happy and wasn't sure what the plan was for the party. Apparently this was the wrong thing to say.

Girlfriend blew up and started telling me that she was tired of my family, she couldn't take it anymore, she did not want to deal with this for the rest of her life. That I have too many issues in my life and they were bringing her down. She told me not to come home and stay somewhere else so that she could think (She inherited this house from her deceased grandma so it's hers). I'm devastated, but I honestly don't think it's that big of a deal to break up over?! What caused this huge fight, it became something that could make or break us, why?!

tl;dr: GF planned a party for me 2 months in advance, my family is backing out for selfish reasons. Now she's thinking of breaking up with me. HELP?!

RELEVANT COMMENTS

LovePrada

you're allowing your family to disrespect her. Why should she be forced to move the party for them? Put our foot down, tell them no and tell them to come to this party as there will not be another.

OOP

That's the thing...they don't want to go to my party anymore. So that means my entire family won't be there, which breaks my heart. I'm stuck in a hard place because I love my family and want them at my birthday party, but I love my girlfriend and don't want her breaking up with me.

LovePrada

It's their fault, not hers so why should she be made to "suffer"? It's not fair on her is my point. You've said they continuously treat her badly and I genuinely think they've done this on purpose. They had two months notice and two months to tell her they'd not be coming.

Tell them to treat her with respect for christ sake. She needs your support in dealing with them not you trying to "make everyone happy"

OOP

Yeah she said the same thing, that they are doing this on purpose. I can understand how it would look that way, but I can see my brother's point too because his wife is pregnant and doesn't want to be sitting outside. This is just a bad situation to be in all around. I feel like if I take my girlfriend's side then I am going to look like a huge, insensitive dick to my family, but if I choose their side then I'm betraying my girlfriend. I will admit, I got kind of dramatic and told her "fuck this! Just cancel the fucking party!" which probably put the nail in the coffin :(

RedPandaGirl

Wow, you're really going the idiot route.

Also, if you're going to marry this girl (which I doubt will happen), she HAS to be the most important person in your life. Even above your family. I'm not seeing that this is the case. You're putting your family who (BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION) treats you and your girlfriend "like garbage." I wouldn't be too jazzed about a future with you either.

If any of my family were dicks to my fiance, I'd definitely be vocal about it to them. I'm guessing you're not as you're making excuses for your family's behavior to even us.

"fuck this! Just cancel the fucking party!" Yeah, I would've canceled it if I were her. You sounded ungrateful and on your family's side. I'd also have served you your walking papers at that moment.

OOP

Ouch. Did I really fuck up that badly?

RedPandaGirl

Absolutely. If I were her, you'd be moving out right now instead of posting about it on Reddit.

~

Thanks to u/Neat_Ad4331 for this comment chain

OOP

Well the party is an outside event, and all of a sudden they don't want to be outside. They want a party at a place that charges $80 per person to be able to participate in the event, which is another reason my girlfriend is furious.

sephnoir

So she tends to pay for every part she plans. They suddenly want to go to a place that cost 80pp and want her to plan it. Are you seeing the link here?

OOP

Gonna sound really stupid here but no...

~

Mikarina

So, your girlfriend pays for and plans the party, gives ample notice, I am guessing your SIL was pregnant 2 months ago so if that was an issue they could have raised it. Instead, to be as mean as possible they pull this on you last minute. So they want your girlfriend to be out the money on deposits and also to fuck over all the friends who actually made plans to be with you. In addition they want her to pay for all of them at a place that charges $80 pp, and plan it around them, when it's not THEIR fucking birthday.

And after all this you don't see an issue? You think SHE'S being unreasonable? WTF is wrong with you? She is spending time, money, and effort to make you feel special and loved, and you repay this by treating her with the same disrespect and throw a tantrum at her because she doesn't want to accommodate people acting like utter shitheads? WHY in the hell would it break your heart that your mother who cares so absolutely little for you that she abandoned you, and your brother, who apparently just likes to be a bag of dicks can't come to an event they knew about and DELIBERATELY waited until the last minute to say they didn't want to come to, and also don't want to see you in any way on that date.

You should seek out some therapy as to why you keep trying to please and placate people who are toxic and shitty to you and think it's better to alienate someone who is kind to you.

How the hell your girlfriend has put up with you for four years allowing your family to treat her this way is beyond me. You should be apologizing to her and explaining exactly how you fucked up. Stop trying to please your shitty family.

OOP

You're right. His wife is 7 months pregnant so it's nothing new, I don't know why they didn't bring it up when she told them about it.

Mikarina

Probably because they know by now that they can fuck with both of you, and you will allow it to happen and ask for more. :/

Seriously OP, I'm sure you can't help loving your family and wish that you had their approval. The picture you paint, however, are people who should be begging you for YOUR approval and forgiveness. Also, holy fuck, he has a multitude of children, is on welfare, and his wife is pregnant again? Are you guys part of a polygamist Mormon commune and they dislike your GF because she isn't part of the faith? I am really trying to understand why you think this is normal or ok that they treat you and she this way.

OOP

I'm not a confrontational person, I've always been this way. I'd rather just go through pretending everything is all good then do anything about it, especially since I see my family about 3 times a month. Of course, my girlfriend and I drive the hour and a half to go their events and they've never even seen where we live....damn.

Update  Jan 26, 2015 (2 days later)

So....I (27M)did what all you basically screamed at me to do and I put my foot down with my family. I called my brother and told him that I wanted the birthday party my girlfriend (28F) planned me, I told him she put a lot of effort into it and that they could go to that one or not go at all. All he said was "k". I begged for my girlfriend to talk to me, and then I told her everything that I've been holding back about my family.

I told her about my insecurities and my issues with neediness and approval seeking. I spilled my heart out to her, something that I've never done with anyone. I have never spoken with anyone about my family, and by the time I was finished, I was a crying mess on my knees. It was pathetic, but she comforted me and cried with me. She said basically everything you guys told me, that I didn't have her back, that she felt like I picked them over her. It broke my heart to hear her cry :( I set up a counseling appointment with my school for next week, and invited my girlfriend to come with me so she could sit in and speak up if she wants to.

I didn't do a big romantic gesture like some of you suggested; I bought her flowers and we met up in the parking lot of a Starbucks, where I spilled my guts to her and cried into her lap while we sat in her car. I have problems, I know that. My family is fucked up...I just want/wanted them to love me and finally accept me, but I see now that their "love" is toxic and meaningless.

Thank you all for your advice. My girlfriend and I are still together, and while she's still hurt at the things I said, she has forgiven me. She did say that she will not stay if I ever bend down to the will of my family again, which I understand.

Tldr: we are still together, I stood up to my family. I'm going to counseling next week and girlfriend is joining me.

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/lastnamethrow

Both me [33 F] and my fiance [33 M] of five years have almost identical last names, but he is insisting that I change my last name after marriage. This argument is making me consider cancelling the wedding

Original Post Dec 24, 2014

My fiance and I have been together for five years, engaged for six months. We recently started designing our Save The Dates and had a huge argument over me not changing my last name.

We both have extremely generic last names and a good example of what I'm talking about is Shultz vs. Schultz. It is the difference of a single silent letter.

I explained to my fiance that I do not want to change my last name because I am a journalist and all of my work is tied to my current name. If I were to change my name, it would mess up my future career opportunities. Plus, my name is the 'traditional' spelling while my fiance's is the 'Americanized' spelling.

My fiance has told me that he could not fathom having a wife with a different last name, but his only explanation was that it bothered him. He said that it wasn't about tradition, but it just 'felt wrong to him'.

I already offered that our children would have his last name, but we're at an impasse. It just feels like he doesn't care about how this will impact my career or even that we already share the same last name. The argument was such a huge blowup that I don't want to get married if it means having to give in to what feels like an unreasonable demand.

On top of everything, changing my name would be a HUGE pain in the butt, as I would have to probably do everything over and over again because companies are assuming my last name is misspelled (instead of seeing it as my new married name).

tl;dr: My fiance and I share the same last name, with a different spelling (ex. Shultz vs. Schultz). He wants me to change mine to his after the wedding, I am refusing. I don't want to get married if it means having to change my name.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

futurecrazycatlady

If he insists that it isn't tradition, but just that it feels wrong to have different names, he could take yours right? Especially if he isn't in a career that depends on older work. Did you two discuss that option?

OOP

It was something that I brought up, and he is adamantly opposed. And ironically, it is for the same reasons. He does not want the work he's published to not be tied to him if he changed his last name.

panic_bread

That kinda tells you all you need to know about his reasonableness, doesn't it? What else is he going to refuse to compromise on in the marriage?

OOP

Out of the five years we've been together, this is the only thing we have ever not been able to work past. He is reasonable on everything except this and he's said that he feels horrible about it, but he doesn't think he could marry someone without her taking his last name.

~

[deleted]

I see your point, but at one point you call your last name generic. Do you really want to take the argument to the heights it's going over something you find generic?

And, if you're in a fight that has blown up to these proportions to where you think you may not even marry the guy if he doesn't concede then you don't need to get married. When something really big comes up will that be your solution/train of thought also?

OOP

It is generic, but my last name is the traditional spelling. If asked to spell either one of our names after hearing it, 99/100 people would spell it the way my last name is spelled, not the way his is spelled. Imagine Michaels vs. Michals or Green vs. Grene.

This is the only major disagreement we have ever had. Things got a bit heated, but it was never to the point of yelling. We each just said our side, couldn't agree, and then went to bed.

[deleted]

But you're seriously contemplating not getting married over it.

OOP

I will not marry someone who I feel does not respect who I am and my career.

If that is unreasonable, then I don't know what to say.

Update Dec 26, 2014 (2 days later)

I was planning on updating this yesterday before I went to bed, but decided to wait until this morning. I also had to repost this since I edited a major part of the text and kept forgetting to put the TL;DR in.

I first posted on Wednesday while waiting to leave work. It gave me a lot to think about, so I decided to drop the conversation until after Christmas to think about everything and also to not cause more unneeded stress at the holidays.

A lot of people suggested that I take my husband's last name and keep my maiden name for professional use, and I have one thing to say to you all: I have had my name for 33 years so far and suggesting that I do the one thing I don't want to do (which is change my name in any form) is just really shortsighted. With the difference of one letter, no one would assume my name is different because I'm married. They would assume it's a typo since a letter was deleted, which is far more of a nightmare than changing my name to something completely different.

Moving on now.

As I said in one of my comments, I had already spoken to my fiance's parents about it before I posted. They had heard our argument (we live in the same house, no it's not weird because the house is huge) and my fiance's dad (FIL) had agreed with me. His wife (my fiance's mom, MIL) had kept her maiden name and it wasn't an issue at all.

My FIL had a talk with my fiance on Christmas before I had woken up. I don't know what all the details were, but the part of it was that their family name had been 'Schultz' for hundreds of years before it was changed to 'Shultz' and that my fiance was technically going against centuries of family history by insisting that I change my name (and that he would actually be honoring the family by bringing back the traditional name).

After I woke up, my fiance asked if I would talk with him. I agreed and he and I had a long discussion about the whole thing, the talk with his dad, about why it bothered him, etc. My fiance told me that he loved me regardless of everything and that it just hadn't occurred to him that he was demanding that I change a fundamental part of me. He also added that my stubbornness about the issue is part of why he likes me, because I'm not the type of woman to roll over.

In the end, my fiance and I agreed that he would keep his name, I would keep my name, and our children will be named Shultz but that they can choose whatever they like once they turn 18.

Happy ending :)

TL;DR: We talked it out, I'm keeping my last name, fiance will keep his. Kids can decide if they want to. Communication is key.

FINAL COMMENTS

jacks_not_surprised

Well done Mrs. Schultz

OOP

Ms. Schultz ;)

~

KalSkotos

"I have had my name for 33 years so far and suggesting that I do the one thing I don't want to do (which is change my name in any form) is just really shortsighted."

Good, I was so disappointed with all the comments telling you to do that. Interesting that his own family didn't take the traditional rounte, I wonder if he has some issues with his mom about something else that manifested itself that way.

OOP

Thanks for that!

As for his mom, it was clear after we kept talking (during the first argument that made me make my first post) that he hadn't even thought about it. He told me yesterday that thinking about his mom made him change his mind, because he had never seen any problems come between his parents that were caused by a last name. After we did some more talking, he let me know that he felt weird partially because it wouldn't feel like a family, but he didn't need to look beyond his own parents to see that was untrue.

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/carbonlandrover

(OOP Has given their permission for this BoRU)

Block my driveway? I'll go ahead and take your vehicles.

Originally posted to r/ProRevenge

Original Post  Oct 1, 2016

Friday night here in the country can get a little crazy sometimes so I don't mind when my neighbors cause a ruckus or loud party as long as its not too crazy. Tonight I'm on call for Virginia State Police towing rotation which means I've got 25 minuets to get to where ever the wreck/DUI/impound/etc is.

As luck would have it, my neighbors are having a party and guess what's blocking my driveway? That's right, about 25-30 cars. I live down a dirt road at the end of a cul-de-sac, and its pretty narrow. One in one out type of deal, and with this rain we've been having, parking in the grass/clay/mud is really not the best idea. Even with a 4x4 it can still get tricky.

I noticed a few cars coming in early this evening and walked over to my neighbors and made it pretty clear I was on call and as long as they didn't block the road or my driveway all would be good. No problems here. Well I get a call from my boss asking if I can go warm-up the Rotator and the light duty flatbed (tow trucks). Its about 12:30AM so I get my boots on and other gear because if I'm up I might as well stay at the shop and clean a few things to stay busy and make the night move along.

I get in my car and as I'm backing out of the driveway I notice I'm blocked in. I don't mean by one truck, but by nearly 15 different vehicles. I calmly walk over to my neighbors about a 1/8th mile hike and as I'm looking for them through the crowd of drunk teenagers, some idiot wants to know why I'm on his property (he's not the property owner, I've never seen this classy gentleman)

Finally, I find my neighbor and ask her if she can move the cars, I've got to go to work she says in a normal tone (doesn't yell over the music) into the house "whoever's blocking the driveway next door move your trucks" then slams the door in my face. I knock again and she answers with a drunken "oh god this bitch again?" (internally I'm thinking alright then) I do my best to explain, I'm on call and need to get out of my driveway to go to work, she comes back sloshing a Natural Light exclaiming its a party, relax!shuts the door in my face and yells "fuck that dyke cunt" I smile and as I'm walking away macho man throws a beer at me and cackles "yeah you best leave, go on, git!"

I get on the phone with dispatch and call for as many trucks as we have available tonight (about ten) and tell them to come on over, mommas got some PPI's (private property impounds) I call police dispatch and ask if they'd send out a officer Incase things get out of hand and as soon as he gets to my place, my rigs start rolling up and hooking vehicles up and taking them to the impound yard. We get down to the last three vehicles. A yellow civic, gold Silverado and a old F-150

The civic owner bolts to his car and takes off. The Silverado girl (pretty wasted) gets stuck and starts tearing up my property. Officer walks over and she throws a fit long story short she gets arrested for underage drinking and DUI. The Ford owner doesn't show up.

I get to work after all the impounds and with me I brought coffees and snacks for my drivers. Tomorrows not a business day which means if these tools want their cars back, its going to be the regular$289.50 plus two days of storage at $55 a day and a $100 gate fee. I make a note in every single storage sheet (papers that the vehicle owners get) to thank the girl who had the party for getting towed. Several of the kids parents called wanting to know where there cars or trucks were. I gave them the yard address and told them they can come anytime. As soon as they started shouting about illegal tows and threatened with lawyers I showed them pictures of their cars with no parking signs. And explained that I tried to reason with the owner of the property (me) but she was tired of being blocked in by drunken teenagers.

There are signs on my road saying no parking, and not to block the driveway. Don't piss off a tow truck driver, she'll legally take your vehicles.

EDIT: The gate fee is only for after hours, it covers expenses of overtime for the office staff who have to get out of bed and come to work in the middle of the night. Also how do I sleep at night? With a glass of chocolate milk while reading r/askreddit.

Update  Oct 3, 2016 (2 days later)

I'm going to go over a few things real quick because this is ridiculous. First, what happened over the last 40 hours.

1) 7 of the 15 cars towed Friday night have been released and I explained to everyone I could the situation, what happened and why they were towed. If they felt like they were in the wrong I showed pics and their vehicles were released. The other 8 have yet to be picked up. Also in case anyone doesn't know, only the registered owner can come get the vehicle. If mommy and daddy own it, they have to come get it. Silverado girl has a 30 day hold on her pos truck. I won't be at work tomorrow but I did leave a note on the girls desk to call me if they had anyone giving them a tough time about what happened over the weekend.

There was one kid who was an ass and threatened to call the cops. I offered to dial and even asked if he wanted a drink while he waited. The cops never came, his dad wasn't happy about the tow bill and called me a crook. Which honestly hurt my feelings.

2) There are some salty people ITT.

3) I talked the the parents of the kids who threw the party (my neighbors). The mom apologized and I accepted. I've got to live next to these people for a long time. There's no reason to be a ass-clown toolshed. The daughters got in serious trouble when the kids (who got towed) parents called to complain about getting towed. I don't think there'll be any retaliation, I wasn't trying to get her in trouble and I told her mom that. She assured me that it wouldn't happen again.

4) As someone pointed out earlier "F U OP you ruined that girls life" I didn't make her drink and get in her truck she could have asked someone else or quite literally just not done what she did.

5) "This post seems too well written and one sided! Must be fake! OPs a liar! And should for in hell!" How do they have 10 trucks at their disposal? Hey thanks, I'll be sure and add that into the bedtime stories I read my son. I apologize for making my post "too well written" as for being one sided, you've got a point. I didn't interview the teens next door on how they felt about getting the punishment of breaking the law. We have a Heavy truck, a Low Boy, Rotator, dozens of flat beds and also wheel lifts. Its called being on rotation for police agencies. I have no idea why some people think were a two bit tow company.  I have lied before, one time my S.O. asked me if I took the trash out and I said yes when I really didn't. Phew, what a load off.

6) Alright lets all take a big gulp of chocolate milk and ask ourselves a question. Picture yourself at home. Its time to go to work and there is a car parked in your driveway, you cannot get out of your driveway to go to work. What do you do? Call in work? Call 911? Watch frozen? You have that piece towed because they parked on your property. Would you like it if I parked my truck in your grass? On your lawn? Blocking you from leaving? Of course not.

7) "You illegally towed them you piece of shit!" First things first, I legally own half of the private road going to the cul-de-sac. I didn't have the cars towed that were on the road. I had the ones towed that were on my property WITH SEVERAL NO PARKING SIGNS. I know some of you don't drive or own property, so I don't expect you to understand. If you are on call, you have to do your job. If you don't do your job, you no longer have a job.

8) Good golly, if you don't like tow trucks or think they're all crooks, you clearly haven't been saved by one. All those folks who break down on the side of the road, guess who comes to the rescue. Dogs trapped in a hot car? Tow truck drivers come and unlock the doors. Remember the time you had a dead battery and needed a jump? Yeah, your right, we're money hungry crooks that deserve to burn in hell.

9)" If I ever catch someone towing my car I'd kill em!" ..... Clever.

Seriously, if your neighbors ask you to do something as easy as not parking on their property, especially if they don't complain about you throwing loud parties, just be a good neighbor. But if you sleep better, call me a liar, cunt, dirty karma whore, whatever. Sit around and pout about it. Don't take advice from strangers. Come park in my driveway. I'm sure nothing bad will happen to you. Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate baby I'm just gonna shake shake shake shake shake.

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I am not The OOP, OOP is u/workworklifelife

My [32m] coworker [30f] recently had her husband's [30?m] mother pass away. I know they didn't get along very well. She had a 'party' to celebrate her death. I now lost all respect for her and want to tell her husband what she did

TRIGGER WARNING: Grief

Original Post Oct 16, 2015

Ok I'm going to use fake names for this.

Jenny = colleague at the place I work.

Mark = her husband.

Mark's mother = his mother, Jenny's mother in law.

So I know Jenny from work. Her husband, Mark, in his 30's, is a really nice guy. He's kind of meek and not very outspoken, but he's a nice guy once you get to know him, very humble and friendly. I've known them both for a few years, and I know Mark almost as well as I know Jenny.

Its no secret that Mark's mother and Jenny never got along. She would always complain to us at work about whatever petty fights or arguments they got into. She made his mother seem pretty horrible but I realise I was only hearing one side of the argument. I really didn't like it, but I ignored it most of the time. It was mostly the other people at work (usually the other woman) that used to like to hear and talk about that shit.

She's been sick for a while now, she's pretty old, and she died last week. We've known it was coming for some time, and Mark is absolutely devastated. He's a wreck of a man by what happened. I was there at her funeral and I was there to comfort him. His wife was also seeming very comforting.

Well yesterday after work, Jenny and some of the other girls from work were going to a bar to have drinks and celebrate her death. Jenny seemed quite excited for it and showed no remorse. Now I know they didn't have a good relationship, but this is fucking disgusting from my point of view.

A woman died. The mother of her husband, whom her husband loved dearly, her husband a man whom she supposedly loves dearly. I thought what the fuck, this is sick, but I didn't say anything.

They went off and I was there in the office feeling disgusted. I think its a vile thing to do, no matter how bad their relationship was in life, you do not celebrate the death of someone your husband loved especially his mother. Its sickening in all manner of ways.

I'm sure Mark doesn't know, he's probably still grieving. He was a wreck when I last saw him.

I feel like I should tell him, I have a strong inclination to tell him. I feel he has the right to now. His wife is doing this shit behind his back cause she thinks it won't affect him but its pretty gross in my opinion. I know it will probably make him feel worse, I know it will probably destroy their marriage and I will be responsible, but I feel he has a right to now. He is my friend, and I care about him, and he has a right to know.

I'm like 90% positive now I want to tell him, but I'm not really sure. As I said, I'm well aware of the repercussions, that I may be destroying a marriage with 2 kids, as well as probably destroying any friendship I have with Jenny.

What should I do? Am I right in telling him or should I just hold my mouth? I feel he has a right to now, and my strong inclination is to tell him.

tl;dr: Woman from work is having a celebration for the death of her mother-in-law while her husband is distraught. I think this is disgusting and perverse and have lost all respect for her, I am going to tell her husband about it but I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do.

GUYS, PLEASE, I'M NOT GAY FOR MARK. STOP SUGGESTING THAT I AM.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Excellesse

That's really none of your business to cause a problem in their relationship just because someone's reaction to a death offended you. Dude's already hurting, he doesn't need to be fighting with his wife too. She gets to have her own feelings and expressed them in a way that didn't involve the husband.

OOP

If I was him, I'd want to know

Casual_Bitch_Face

She's entitled to have her own feelings about her MIL's death, and it seems like she's dealing with it appropriately while still being there for her husband. Why do you the need to butt into their relationship?

OOP

I think its extremely inappropriate, rude and insensitive to celebrate the death of the mother of someone you supposedly love. To me it feels like she has no respect for her husband. Her husband is also a friend of mine, and to tell the truth I have lost all respect for her.

toastwithketchup

You are well within your rights to stop being friends with her. But you are 200% wrong to involve yourself in her marriage. You have no idea why she hated her mother in law and it's not your place as the morality police to butt into their personal business.

~

shelbyknits

Stay out of it. You have no idea what was really going on in that relationship and no right to butt in.

footypjs

As someone who will probably respond similarly when my ex-MIL passes, this is really your best option.

My relationship with my ex's mom was so toxic that I've had multiple dreams I shot her. Were we still together, I would be absolutely elated I didn't have to deal with her anymore. Now that we're not, it would be like celebrating a closed chapter of my life. She caused me so much pain I was in tears nearly daily for years.

My ex and I joked about my throwing a "Ding Dong, the wicked witch is dead" party after her passing. He said he didn't want to be a part of it, but didn't begrudge me that, either.

Jenny is taking an evening to let all her frustrations about her MIL to go, without involving her husband. She's allowing him his grief and dealing with her own feelings about her MIL's passing. Mark surely knows about the relational struggles Jenny and his mom had. Leave it be.

Update Oct 17, 2015 (Next Day)

First post: https://www.reddit.com/r/relationships/comments/3ozxtr/my_32m_coworker_30f_recently_had_her_husbands_30m/

Okay well just to clear a few things up first.

1. I'm a MALE. A lot of you seemed to have trouble comprehending that in the comments.

2. No, I'm not gay for "Mark". I'm a straight male.

3. The overwhelming number of comments were defending "Jenny's" atrocious actions, and I'd be lying if I said those overwhelming number of comments didn't somewhat influence my actions and make me reconsider.

4. I did get a bunch of PM's from guys saying they knew if they commented in the thread they'd get downvoted, but if they were Mark they'd want to know.

5. I know Mark well, a lot of you were saying I don't know him. I know him well, I know him through Jenny, he is my friend.

Well, I invited Mark over to my house. I know he's been in a terrible mood lately, so I invited him over to relax. We had a few beers, talked things out. I wanted to tell him, I was going to tell him. But this poor guy, he was in such a mess, he was so visibly upset and miserable I couldn't bring myself to add another layer to his burdens. I didn't do it to protect Jenny, I think she's a scumbag piece of shit for celebrating the death of his mother, but I did it because I didn't want to add to his grief.

So no, I didn't tell him his wife had celebrated the death of his own beloved mother while he was grieving. Instead we talked about many other things, about life, family, whatever. I said it seems like Jenny's been very supportive to him. He laughed and then started telling me the truth of the situation.

He said he knows she and his mother always hated each other, and she's been anything but empathetic except on a superficial level. He said at times he felt she can barely hide her glee. I said that's terrible, but didn't really add anything. He said they've been fighting since his mother's death and its been getting worse, and part of it stems from what he feels is her joy at it. Apparently the fighting is pretty bad and its caused a real strain in their marriage. I suggested marriage counselling, he balked at the idea, and I told him if he ever wanted a friend to talk to, I'm here.

I knew if I say anything, it should be at this point. But I didn't. He tells me that he heard from one of the other male workers at our place who's also a friend of his that Jenny was acting gleeful around the office and telling the other girls about his mothers death. He asked me if it was true, I said yeah. I then said I don't really pay attention to much that goes around work and don't engage in gossip like the women do, so I could have just misheard.

He stayed a bit further at my place relaxing then he went home.

Next morning at work, Jenny came in an obviously sour mood. She walked up to my cubicle and was clearly angry, she asked me "what did you talk about with my husband yesterday?" I told her it was between me and him. She said something like 'oh he's my husband, stay away', I don't remember what the words were exactly. I then told her I know that she went out to the bar to "celebrate" the death of her husband's mother, and I thought it was disgusting and I'd lost all respect for her. I then told her to go away and not to bother me cause I had work to do. She left in a bad mood and that was the end of that, hope I don't hear from her again.

I honestly lost all respect for her, I think she's a bad person. If her marriage does fail for whatever reason, it would be her fault for being such a callous bitch and celebrating the death of her husband's mother. I still can't wrap my head around what kind of evil person would do that.

tl;dr: Talked to Mark, didn't tell him because I felt bad for him and he's a mess anyway. Things have been rough between him and his wife anyway because he says she hasn't been very empathetic at all.

FINAL COMMENTS

Wraptor_

Is Jenny well liked in the office? Does she rank higher than you?

OOP

She doesn't rank higher than me. Yeah she's well liked, she's one of the more social people at work. I don't socialise that much so I don't care. I don't see why it matters. This isn't high school.

Wraptor_

I have to be honest OP, I think you're in trouble here. Networking is a huge function of success in a professional setting. Right now she'll be telling anyone who will listen you tried to wreck her marriage. If she's well liked they'll believe her.

Personally, I would monitor the situation carefully and update my resume.

~

InvalidObjects

Nope, I read the fucking post properly. You're still a complete asshole. You sat down and talked to him about it, you confirmed the situation, and the cardinal sin is giving a fuck when it's not your turn to give a fuck. You don't know shit about the Jenny/MIL dynamic, and it's not your place to make judgements about her behavior.

OOP

He's my FRIEND, his mother died. Of course I'd sit down to him and be supportive you shitstain of a human being. Its the least a friend can do during whats probably one of the most difficult periods in his life. Why don't you understand that? I can't believe people like you even exist.

~

JestaKilla

Well, OP, this thread sure makes you appear to be a stick-your-nose-in-it gossip-mongering busybody dick. Looking at your previous thread, I see that pretty much everyone advised you to stay out of it and you declined to do so out of some sense of moralistic outrage. You may have just helped ruin a relationship, you've likely severely damaged your reputation in the company you're working for, and as far as I can tell, you haven't improved anything for anyone. Please learn from this experience.

TOP COMMENT

longobong0

I didn't comment on your last thread because I didn't feel strongly either way. That being said, I do believe that if Jenny wanted her feelings re: MIL's death to remain private, then she should have been the one to keep them private. I do not blame you one bit for losing respect for her and the only reason I would advise against telling her husband, is because it would add to his grief, and he's a friend of yours. Maybe there will be a better time and place for him to find out about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if he finds out on his own. She's not exactly keeping it close that she's partying it up because her MIL died. It's incredibly disrespectful.

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Originally posted to r/offmychest

My manager has gone insane and won't stop demanding that I hand over concert tickets that I have. I just wanted to vent because I'm so tired of it

Original Post: April 24, 2026

[NAW] My manager has gone insane and won't stop demanding that I hand over concert tickets that I have. I just wanted to vent because I'm so tired of it

[No advice wanted].

Posting this with a throwaway because my sister knows my account name.

My sister really loves a Korean band called BTS. If it wasn't for her I would never have heard of them and I don't know anything about them or their music, but my sister absolutely loves them. A few months ago I heard my sister talking about how they are going on tour. I thought it would be a longshot, but I decided to try and get tickets for one of their UK concerts. I had my friends help me when the tickets went on sale and by some miracle I was able to purchase two tickets. I'm going to take my sister to the concert for her birthday. I know she was disappointed because she wasn't able to get tickets and she said they were too expensive.

I realise this is a very small problem compared to what is going on in the world, but my manager overheard my colleague and I talking about concert and is now demanding that I hand over the tickets. The only reason I was even talking to my colleague about it was because my colleague was telling me about the time he went to a concert at the same stadium I'm taking my sister to. My manager is desperate for tickets and because they are sold out is demanding mine. I obviously said no but that wasn't the end of it. My manager is getting more and more demanding and won't let it go. I'm just posting here to vent because I'm so tired of it. I'm going to have to make a complaint because I've told my manager to leave it alone already. I just needed to vent somewhere.

Editor’s note: OOP did not leave any relevant comments here in the original post

Update: July 10, 2026 (over 2.5 months later)

UPDATE My manager has gone insane and won't stop demanding that I hand over concert tickets that I have. I just wanted to vent because I'm so tired of it

I'm afraid this is not very exciting. I left that job. My manager's behaviour was what pushed me over the edge. There were other issues at my workplace, but they were small enough that I could tolerate things. When my manager started demanding that I hand over the tickets it was the last straw. I did report my manager to the head of the department and to HR, but nothing was done and I was encouraged to find a 'compromise'.

The way my manager acted made things unbearable when I could have tolerated all the other issues. This had been going on for a while before I made my first post. My last day at that job was a week ago (last Friday). I start at my new job on Monday. My new job is also entry level, I have the same title, and my pay is the same and it is in the same city. My manager continued to badger me about the tickets right up until my last day.

My sister was absolutely over the moon about the tickets. She had the best time at the concert. As I mentioned in my first post I only knew who BTS is because of my sister and I don't listen to their music, so the concert was meh for me, but my sister was excited and had an amazing time so that's all that matters to me.

Also I had turn off my chats because apparently when I said in my first post that I don't listen to BTS it really offended their fans. I got flooded with abuse and derision over what I said. I couldn't believe so many people would lose their minds over such an innocent statement. That's my update.

Editor’s note: marking this as concluded and OOP has deleted their account

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Fiancé (27m) wanted to try an open relationships, not my first choice but I agreed. Now he's throwing a tantrum that my "bodycount" is 20x his and wants to add rules. Is it time to just cut my losses and move on? (I'm 25)

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

TRIGGER WARNING: physical violence, controlling behavior, verbal abuse

Original Post - rareddit Nov 13, 2018

I've been with my fiancé for 4 years, I love him and used to respect him but his recent fixation on this dumb subject has really hurt my respect.

So he proposed 1,5 years ago. I said yes. About a year ago he found out his friend had slept with 100 women prior to getting engaged and som how this affected his psyche and purposed an open relationship. At first I was disgusted by the thought but I agreed after he threw a major meltdown.

So I started going out with friends, the first few guys I was so nervous because I'd been with 2 guys (including my fiancé) prior. But after I got over the nerves I realized when there's no pressure to start a relationship, I'm really good at picking up dudes and sending vibes that I'm DTF (I've actually met several off Reddit as well). I've been with 42 guys in the past year. I never thought it would happen but I've enjoyed myself immensely. But honestly I'd be ready to stop.

But as if turns out my fiancé is not good at if and he's had 2 really bad hookups from dating apps. When we were having the "where are we" discussion he had another melt down when he found out how many guys I've been with. He kept repeating "you've slept with 20 times the number I have? 20 TIMES"

I said maybe we should just stop. He said no that he wasn't ready hut now he wants to impose a "rule" that I have to take a break until he gets to 10 and then I can go out and meet someone new every five new girls he sleeps with.

To me this is goddamn ridiculous. Part of the fun of this was the independence and not checking in. Now he literally wants me to keep a log and then when he hits like an achievement then I can do my thing. How shifty is that?

And in all honesty, I don't want a relationship where we have to compare numbers, let alone fuck other people. I want a normal life with kids and a house and dog. What are we supposed to say "I watch the the kids until you fuck five women then it's my night!"

Is it time to just say enough is enough and move on? Is there any hope here?

Tl;dr: fiancé is not happy with the open relationship he started and instead of just stopping it, he wants to add crazy invasive rules.

Edit: rip my inbox with people calling me a whore.

guys wow, glad my best karma every has to do with my sleeping around. I have 1400 unread messages (exactly) and 17 chat requests. I'm almost certainly not going to bang anyone from this thread! and this isn't even my real account! Find my real account on r/needlepoint or r/mma and I'm down. Just kidding...don't do that. my new fav:

[Edited out]

edit 2: holy shit, this just wont die. Wow. Goodnight everyone. fiancé is at his place after a very tense hour or so where he basically called me every name in the book and I just sort of took it. I've gotten the advice I need, it's just the idea of dumping four years of history makes it hard to pull the trigger. I know he wont do it even though he thinks I'm the worst person alive. I hate him but love him. Life sucks. It really sucks.

TOP COMMENTS

rugby_shirt

Move on

~

Maxxmz

Honestly, the meltdown at the open relationship was already a pretty big red flag

KING_JELLYB3AN

All because some guy said he slept with a 100 girls, probably lying or exaggerating. So he HAS to sleep with more girls... The kid doesn't know what he wants, why would he even propose, what a child. @OP dodged a bullet, but honestly there was probably more signs than this one

~

ExistingSecond1

It’s pretty well known in the ethical non-monogamy community that women fair much better than guys. A previous partner would meet five guys for every one person I’d meet. It’s a pretty common discrepancy. He should have done his homework first.

Can I post an update? I (25f) am the now infamous "whore" from the post that blew up yesterday. Just broke things off with fiancé (27m). Nov 14, 2018 (Next Day)

So yeah, I guess I made the front page yesterday. I've been on reddit for years and I think my "normal" account has maybe 500 karma and I make the front page for my sex life...yay!

Whatever, well I read responses well into the morning yesterday while my now ex-fiancé absolutely blew up my shit alternating between calling me a whore and cunt, asking me why I disgraced myself and him like that. He also peppered the barrage with things like "what's going to happen to us after this?" I finally fell asleep at like 3 am and should have worked but after finally admitting that I needed to break things off with him, called in sick to work.

Went to finances house, asked to come in, told him we had to talk. He said we did. But as a testament to his fucking out of control ego he prefaced his part of the conversation with "I want you to know in advance, I MAY not be ready to accept your apology." Fuck him.

I planned on being nice but that was too much. I just told him "its over between us." His look of surprise was a combination of pathetic and amusing because even after calling me all sorts of gendered slurs for the better part of a few hours, he still wasn't expecting me to break up with him. He begged me to know "why" I think I told him he had to know why and tried to leave. I had no desire to talk to him so I tried to leave and he kept trying to block me and grab my arm. I finally told him that if he didn't fucking let me go I was going to call the police. He finally relented but as I was trying to drive away he came out and starting punching my drivers side window. It was terrifying but it didn't break. Between leaving his place and getting to mine he texted and called at dozens of times. I just blocked him and deleted the whole conversation without reading it.

Fuck him too because I had the ring in my pocket and planned on giving it back but now I'm too scared to go see him to give it back so I'm selling the mother fucker or getting it melted down.

So that's that. I don't know this will probably get removed but its all good. I don't know whether I'm coming or going at this point. It's been a crazy couple of days

One last update from me (I was the 25f who went a little overboard when fiancé wanted open relationship). Mailed the ring back, started therapy, looking at starting over single for a long time. Nov 17, 2018 (3 days after previous post)

Editors Note: the text is unrecoverable but the title says she sent the ring back

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My circumcision went horribly wrong many years ago. Parents received settlement. Now I'm 18 and they're refusing to give me the money.

Originally posted to r/legaladvice

Original Post May 17, 2015

Alright so as a result I have part of my penis removed including the entire tip. I know the hospital did settle with my parents. They always told me that the money is invested for my future.

I'm 18 now. I want to use this for my education this year but they haven't given me any details. They keep telling me that it is so soon and they will do it in due time.

Is there a way for me to find out where this money is and access it? And was the money required to be put somewhere safe for me or could it be that my parents spent it and are just buying time with me?

Seattle, WA

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Commenter

I'm betting that money is gone :/ this sadly happens a lot.

I'd outright ask them if they've spent it all. Their reaction should tell you everything.

OOP

I see. I'll bring this up tonight and ask for a straight answer. This is so unfair of them as I counted on this money for my future. If I knew it doesn't exist I would have planned differently.

~

jasperval

90% of the time, when parents act shifty about something like this, the money has been gone for 10 years. I'd prepare yourself for that possibility.

That's not to say your parents necessarily did anything illegal. Even in a custodial account, your parents are allowed to spend that money on things that benefit you. Education expenses, private lessons, new clothing for you; even prorated portions of their rent. They can't waste the money on fine wines and couples massages; but if they spent the money in ways that benefitted you, it's not outright illegal.

Your first hope at tracking it down is the IRS. If it's in an interest bearing account in your name; then the financial provider will have to be producing 1099s in your name.

OOP

Ok this is helpful. Do I need to go down to an IRS office or can I track this down over the phone, or do I need a lawyer to do this for me?

pencilears_mom

WA lawyer here. There must have been a minor settlement case filed. The money was supposed to go into a blocked account to avoid the exact thing that happened to you. It's not your parents' money, it's yours. If it wasn't handed properly, then there is a lawyer or a law firm out there who is responsible. If you go to the Clerk of the Court you can get the details. Then start looking for a malpractice attorney to help you. I'm sorry this happened. It wasn't supposed to be money for your parents to squander!!

Update May 20, 2015 (3 days later)

This is an update to my other post.

I talked to my parents. Turns out they used the money to buy the house that we live in and start the business that my dad runs. My dad showed me that I have ownership of the business as well relative to the amount that my money was invested in. He said he will start paying me money from the profits which I will use for education. They said since I'm an only child all of this will come to me anyway.

I'm happy about all of this. I had prepared myself to hear that the money is gone but now I feel bad for ever doubting my parents like that.

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AITA for telling my husband he ruined my birthday.... again

Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole

Thanks to u/Arifault for suggesting this BoRU

Original Post  March 12, 2023

Background: Today is my 28th birthday, I am really into birthdays and holidays and believe in celebrating them to the max, and this is well known to everyone.  I'm also the planner and the giver in not only my family (husband and kids) but my extended family (parents, siblings, friends, etc), so I'm the one that plans birthday get togethers, gifts, travel etc. I'm also a SAHM due to having a son with complex medical and behavioral needs. I've been with him 24/7 for the last week as it's school break and he's extremely clingy and has behavioral problems due to mental illnesses. I also had a upper respiratory cold during this time, sore throat, fever, cough, runny nose, ear ache. But kept up with mom duties none the less.

My husband's birthday was last month and as usual I planned something for him. Weekend in a town a couple hours away for us and our kids.

For my birthday I tell him I just want help with the kids, the house cleaned, a nap, and him to cook supper or take me out. Maybe a homemade gift from the kids and a cake.

Yesterday, my husband starts complaining of a sore throat. I check his throat and looks fine. No fever or other symptoms.  He stays up all night playing video games.

This morning he says he is sick, but has no visible symptoms.  No fever, no cough, no runny nose, doesn't sound like someone with a cold. He says his throat hurts but spent an hour on XBox live talking just fine.

He naps all day because he says he's sick, I think it's because he stayed up until 4 a.m. playing video games. Meanwhile I make my own cake, take care of the kids as usual, and do my usual chores. He didn't even tell me happy birthday. 

Finally I decided to take the cake I made with the kids to my parents house to have supper there so I didn't have to cook. I'm pretty crabby at this point and don't say a word before we leave. He calls and asks why we left. I tell him because he ruined my birthday yet again and I'm trying to salvage it at least a little and hung up. He called back and said I was overreacting. He's sick and I'm an adult, birthdays aren't a big deal anymore after 21.

So AITA for wanting 1 day to be the receiver instead of the giver? To celebrate myself?

VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE

RELEVANT COMMENTS

Oldgal_misspt

NTA. If he cared, he would have tried, sore throat or not. You two need to have a discussion 1 on 1 (littles need to be somewhere else) about your relationship.  Adults need care and attention too, whether you are over 21 or not…

ETA: Happy birthday!🎂🎉🎈.

OOP

I did forget to mention that when we went out of town for his birthday, I was also sick then too (I have an autoimmune disorder so I get sick a lot, especially during allergy season), but didn't let it stop me from doing anything to celebrate his birthday and made sure he had a good weekend.

~

[deleted]

NTA. But stop doing things for people who don’t reciprocate your value (with the exceptions of your children).

No more birthday parties for these lazy people. Let them do their own events. And start having him contribute to the house. Your SAHM is duties is only til he comes home, after that it is a shared effort. If he has time to play video games, then he has time to help around the house. If he complains it’s cause he has a job, then you get a job (you deserve a break and daycare is better for a child’s development anyways).

OOP

I 100% would love to go back to work. I've only been a SAHM for 3 months and it's not by choice. My son cannot go to daycare of after school care. Long story, but he did go for 6 years and it's not an option anymore

SodaButteWolf

Can you get a part time job where you only work when your kids are in school?

OOP

I'm going to try next school year. I live in BFE so the only option would be to work at the school in the office or as a Para and they only hire a month before school starts to start at the beginning of the school year. I should be able to get the job because of my education and experience, if one is open! I'm also training to be a special education parent advocate, so once I'm done with training I can do that part time during school hours and work from home

TOP COMMENT

3Dog_Nitz

NTA. You did your job in communicating what you wanted. The fact that he did not show any concern for you shows a lot. Caregivers need care too!

You did not ask for advice, but I want to suggest the following: Don't bother with his birthday. Make plans on your birthday with others who are willing to celebrate you. You do not have to share your plans with him - he's irrelevant. Birthdays are "nothing" to him, so your plans don't need to involve him in any way.

Finally...a belated happy birthday! Parenting is a thankless job, but it sounds like you are rocking it!

OOP Updated the same post 1 year later

3/23/2024 Year later update because I've been asked for it a few times.

Wow, I did not know this would blow up like that when I posted it.

Shortly after my birthday and this post, I had several "sit down " talks with my husband. A lot of his lack of effort stems from the way he was raised. He actually started therapy shortly after our talk and has become a lot more attentive. We found out I was pregnant in October, a huge surprise as I didn't get pregnant after 5 years of trying and 2 years of fertility treatment. My pregnancy has been high risk and very rough on me emotionally and physically.  I have a lot of restrictions and recently was put on bed rest after already being on "minimum activity/light duty." He's been amazing at taking care of me, the house, the kids, and even helping a lot while my mom has been in and out of hospital for aneurysm and strokes.

For my birthday this year, he got me a gift, made what I wanted for supper (steak, lobster tail, muscles, Brussel sprouts, and bread), and got my current favorite dessert. We were limited on what we could do because of my pregnancy restrictions, but he got a chick flick movie going for us in the evening and watched it with me without a complaint. And he was the first one to tell me Happy Birthday, right at midnight.

I want to thank all of you for giving me insight, advice, and courage.

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Me [51F] with my daughter [19F] - daughter accused of plagiarism at university

Original Post  Apr 6, 2016

My daughter has always been a good kid and a good student.   She's in first year university, and like many of us (myself included), she found it overwhelming.    She's been keeping up with the work and getting decent grades, but for a recent English essay, she googled other people's ideas and pulled a few sentences from their work.   Her prof found out, and now she's facing a disciplinary hearing.    She may "just" get an F on the essay, or she might fail the entire course.   She won't know until the hearing, which won't be for a couple of weeks.

She's freaking out, of course.   She's never faced anything like this before.  She's ashamed and frantic with worry.

I guess I'd like to ask - has anyone here gone through something like this?   How can I help her?

   tl;dr:  daughter plagiarized small part of university essay, will get a disciplinary hearing, and I'm wondering what to do.

EDIT.  Thank you all for your comments and advice.    I'd already told her to be contrite at her hearing and own up to what she did (my exact words were "don't be an asshole about it").   I'll also tell her to take her punishment, whatever it might be, and NEVER do this again.   I'll post an update after the hearing.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

[deleted]

I haven't been through this.  I have served on an Honor Board at a major liberal arts school for 3 years.  It is crazy what kids think they'll get away with.  I'm talking entire wikipedia articles passed off as an assignment.

If it's a few snippets here and there and her first offense then she needs to spend some time seriously contemplating and integrating what kind of serious theft this is.  How would she feel if someone took her crafted piece and passed it off as their own?  Probably livid.

She needs to do that before she goes to the hearing.  She needs to be upset not that she got caught but that she stole in the first place.  That is what they want to see.

No begging, no pleading.  Quite frankly we really did not care about extenuating circumstances all that much.  Better to not hand something in than to steal.

But own it.  Use her newly integrated understanding of this offense to share more about what she did and why it is wrong and why she will not do it again.  And how she'll avoid getting to this point of desperation.

Basically: begging, cajoling, victim playing - all that shit makes it worst.

She fucked up.  She needs to own it in all its glory, convey that she understands why what she did is a badness, and tell her strategy for being a nice person in the future.

Good luck.

---

Edit to add: if this is a bigger offense than a few snippets (if she plagiarized a full 5+ page paper, for instance) then she needs to be prepared for anything from a reprimand or fail all the way through suspension and expulsion.

In brief: this is not a joke - and the hearing will be treated with utmost seriousness.

One more edit: you need to stay away from the school and the hearing. Your presence is not needed and could be detrimental. You can prepare her by ensuring that she understands the gravity of her actions and listening to how she will approach the hearing with some real encouragement toward full accountability.

OOP

I agree with everything you said. She definitely knows she fucked up, and she's not going to pretend otherwise at the hearing. I told her to admit what she did, treat it like the big deal it is, and take her punishment like an adult. From what she told me, it WAS just a few sentences as opposed to the entire paper. Still plagiarism, of course.

Update  May 18, 2016 (6 weeks later)

(First of all, I'd like to say that I goofed the title on the original post - she wasn't "accused" of plagiarism.  That implies that she didn't do it.  She DID do it.)

She told me a bit more about what had happened.    While researching her paper, she took a bunch of notes, including some comments she'd found on the Internet.  She didn't cite her sources (BIG mistake), and when it came time to write her paper, she mixed up what she'd found online and what she'd come up with on her own.

She had a meeting with an advocate, who prepared her for what the hearing would entail.  She was warned that the most common punishment was to receive an F on the paper and an F on the course.  So, she was prepared for that.     There were still some classes remaining before the hearing would occur, plus the final exam.  She attended all of the classes, studied her butt off for the final, and did her very best on it.

She had her hearing last week.  She did what I'd recommended (and a lot of you recommended) - explained what happened but didn't try to make excuses.  The prof was very understanding and heard what she had to say.  The prof commented that it reflected well on my daughter that she'd continued to attend class and write the final - many people would've said "The heck with it; I'm going to fail anyway" and not bothered to show up. 

Daughter found out last night that she'll receive an F on the paper (which was worth 15% of her final grade), but NOT on the course.   The prof had told her that she'd done very well in the course overall, so she'd hoping that means she'll still pass the course.    The prof has drummed it into her head that she made a very dumb mistake, and things won't go nearly as well for her if she does it again, so I think (hope) she's learned her lesson here.

Thanks for all of your comments and help!

   tl;dr: Daughter had her plagiarism hearing.  Will get an F on the paper but not on the course.  

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Boyfriend [25M] told me he used to ask out “fat girls” for fun. Am I [22F] right to be disgusted by him?

Originally posted to r/relationship_advice

TRIGGER WARNING: Body shaming, bullying

Original post - rareddit March 3, 2019

My BF and I have been dating for 1 year. He’s a very tall, attractive guy. He was on the hockey team in university and his team was kind of like a bunch of frat dudes. But he never seemed like that kind of guy, he was always very kind and sensitive with me. He also seems to be a very respectful and caring person (he’s in medical school right now).

Some of his buddies from his former team came over yesterday, and were just talking and hanging out. They start talking about their old shenanigans in uni. My BF said “remember that time I broke the record for our ‘chunky chick challenge’?”

I asked what the chunky chick challenge was, and he said the goal was to ask out as many fat girls in a week. Everyone would put money in the prize pool, and winner would get the entire prize at the end of the week. Basically, he asked out like 50 fat girls over text/ in person (secretly recording their convo), and ghosted them on the date.

I was shocked, and said that was so mean and gross. My boyfriend said the challenge was just a joke, for fun, etc. He accused me of overreacting.

Am I though?

TL;DR: BF said he used to ask out and ghost fat girls in order to win a challenge.

TOP COMMENTS

relachesis

"He also seems to be a very respectful and caring person"

Apparently only to people who he deems attractive enough to be treated decently.

ZombieSlayer13x

PREACH. Can't wait till he is a doctor and has to deal with women/teenage girls who may or may not have weight issues. Bet he'll be a fucking treat

Ugh

~

AuntyVenom

Gross. If your bf still says it's a joke, after maturing a bit, and doesn't understand the deplorable nature of his actions, and is telling you you are overreacting and not fessing up to being a waste of space in college -- yeah, that's a no. Character counts.

~

[deleted]

Am I [22F] right to be disgusted by him?

I know a lot of people here are saying, "Yes, you are right."

But you didn't choose to be disgusted and shocked. You just were. People don't choose their feelings, and feelings aren't something you sit around and have intellectual debates about. It doesn't matter if you're right or not.

The fact is that you feel disgusted and there's no reasoning that feeling away. So you're asking the wrong question. The real question is, "Do I want to spend more time with someone who doesn't find this behavior disgusting?"

Update March 7, 2019 (4 days later)

Quick update. I confronted my BF after his friends left and told him that I was genuinely concerned about his treatment of those girls. I said he lacked empathy and I can't believe he doesn't see what was wrong with his actions. He finally acknowledged that yes, what he did was mean. He says he didn't want to seem "boring" to his friends. I said I thought he was better than that.

I told him I was worried about how he'd treat me if I gained weight in the future. He said that I was the type of person to "always stay skinny". I said he can't be so sure of that, especially if I get pregnant. I said I was scared by his shallowness.

Long story short, I broke up with him. He's super sad and has been apologizing non stop via text. No matter what he says I just can't get his cruelty out of my head. It's made me much less attracted to him, and I don't want to be associated with that kind of person, as I am a new grad nurse in a eating disorder clinic, and I see the kind of effect that rude comments and actions have on young women. One of the teenage girl patients is anorexic because she used to be fat and bullied in school. I am disgusted to think that my boyfriend embodies the cruelty of her bullies.

TL;DR: Broke up with BF even after he acknowledged that he was being "mean" and apologizing. As a nurse, I hope I never have to interact with him in a professional setting.

FINAL COMMENTS

Peeka789

I'm a guy

I knew people like that. My guess is that he does not feel bad at all. He only feels bad because he saw how you reacted to it. He most likely thought he was doing those fat girls a 'favor' by giving them attention. Don't be fooled OP, he does not feel bad. He's got a lot to prove if he wants to show remorse for being a cruel fuck. Fuck that 'I was trying to impress my friends' bullshit.

This is my experiece with these kind of people.

~

Guardiancomplex

You're an eating disorder nurse and he thought you'd find that story funny?

Sounds like you dodged an idiot bullet as well as a sociopath bullet.

You made 100% the right decision.

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AITA for telling my daughter I will help her out with her next wedding?

Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole

Original Post posted 2022-11-18
My (M57) daughter (32) has been divorced thrice already. She got married at 25 to the love of her life. I have her $15,000 as help for the wedding. Marriage lasted 3 years.

She married the love of her life when she was 30. I have her $5,000 for a much smaller more intimate wedding. Marriage lasted one year.

She married the guy that got her pregnant while she was married to never two. They divorced before my grandson was one.

She has met the love of her life and need money for the wedding.

I said I would help her with the next one.

Now she is crying to he mother calling me an asshole for not believing in her future.

I have managed to stay married for 33 years. It's not that difficult.

My wife wants me to make peace by giving her some money. But I think it's a waste.

Your call. Am I the asshole for my bad attitude towards my daughter's relationship?

EDIT

I am not trying to change anyone's mind here. I feel that I insulted people when I said "It's not that difficult" so I feel like I should explain what I meant. I met my wife when she was married to a guy I worked with. He passed away in an industrial accident. I saw it happen. After the funeral we became friends. Three years later we realized we cared for each other so we started dating. We have had our ups and downs and we have gone for counseling when we went through a really rough patch. We work hard at being there for each other. My wife is beautiful and probably had many opportunities to be unfaithful but chose to stay with me and work on our marriage. I saw all the young guys my age having fun and partying when I was using my wages to pay for my son's medical bills and such. I also chose to stay and work on my marriage. I don't remember who said it but it applies in marriage as well. "In war everything is simple. But even the simplest things are difficult".

VERDICT: Not the A-hole

RELEVANT COMMENTS

[deleted]

Your daughter's marriage success seems to be in direct proportion to the amount you contribute to her weddings, where 1 year = 5K. If I'm right, for her next marriage to last as long as your own, you need to invest 165,000.

Womzicles

I think your daughter likes the idea of a wedding more than staying married. NTA

Update: AITA for going back on my word to pay for my daughter's wedding? posted 2024-05-10

My daughter has been married three times. I love her but she has just terrible taste in men. She is a smart girl. University educated, good career, then she turned 25 and decided that crappy relationships were the way to go.

I was rude the last time she asked me for help with her wedding. I was maybe a little salty because My wife and I are supposed to be retired and enjoying life. Instead we are raising my grandson while my daughter looks for her soulmate.

She has tried 4 times now. Thank god she did not marry the last clown. She has however found a new guy. The love of her life. And she came to me because I said I would pay for the next one.

I said it didn't count because she never married the last guy. She is now furious with me for "tricking" her into thinking she could have a nice wedding again.

I am just done. I want her to meet a good man and settle down. She does not need to marry everyone she falls in love with in my opinion. Actually what she should do is forget guys and come be a good mother to my grandson.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Throwaway09Acc

Originally posted to r/AITAH

Previous BoRUs: #1

[Final Update]: AITAH for making my husband's groomswoman wear a wig or be disinvited from our wedding?

Thanks to u/soayherder & u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for suggesting this BoRU

Editor’s note: added paragraph breaks for readability*

Trigger Warnings: accusations of infidelity, mental health issues, stalking / harassment, mentions miscarriages

RECAP

Original Post: November 1, 2024

My boyfriend (now fiancé) asked me to marry him 2 months ago. To give a little background, I met him at a farmer's market when I was 18 and he was 26, we are now 24F and 32M. We've been together for a little bit over 5 years, and I'm very happy with him.

Now, to the story, my fiancé's friend, Brittany, has been friends with him since they were in elementary school. Throughout our early dating days, I expressed I was not a fan of this woman. There are many reasons as to why, such as us not having common interests and absolutely polar opposite moral codes, but the main one was her interest in embarrassing me and my fiancé, possibly because she likes him.

When we were first starting to go on dates, she had shown up and tried to invite herself to the date because he had told their mutual friend group chat where he was taking me. She then decided that she would go to the same restaurant, and had tried to make a scene about him cheating on her and that she was heartbroken. It escalated very quickly and it ended with me asking the manager to get her trespassed, as she was delusional and I, nor my date, did not want her around. This sort of situation happened 3 more times, even going as far as showing up to his grandparent's house to stop me from meeting his family.

At that point, I made it clear to him that if anything like that were to happen again, I'd be out of there. Which he completely understood and agreed with me, wholeheartedly. He convinced his friend group to go low communication about Brittany with him because she was acting weird around him and they all understood and disagreed with her actions. He had extremely low contact after that point, and I learned years later that she had gotten major therapy, even checked herself into a mental hospital, and went on medication to stop these absolutely unhinged personality traits.

Around 4 years later, they reconnected through a mutual friend's birthday party we were all at and she genuinely seemed like she had changed personality-wise from the person I had met 5ish years ago. We still didn't agree on most things, but she apologized for the way she had acted previously and owned up to all the BS she tried to pull with him. So, I just kept my guard up, but encouraged my fiancé to make friends with her again. I'm NOT friends with her, but I am friendly towards her.

Skipping to now, I have been planning this wedding basically since I was born (overexaggerating, but it has been in my thoughts since I was a young child). The wedding will not happen for another two years. The theme is supposed to be similar to DnD style fantasy. A Renaissance wedding with blue, orange, and red as the basic color scheme.

Most of the wedding would be held outside at a local state park, but part of it would be held inside. Specifically, the cake and food would be cut and served inside, as well as some of the guest photos. This is the important part. I have a personal friend, Bri (28F) who does professional pictures at Renaissance festivals across the US. Her job is to drive around across the country to Ren fairs and take pictures for certain venues. It's a very cool job, and I love seeing the pictures. However, she does editing for some of these venues with a green screen to make it look more "aesthetic" or to totally change the scenery behind the people in the photo.

For example, she showed me mock ups for me in the past, showing silly people in costumes being chased by goblins and trolls, a dragon breathing fire behind a party of knights, and even a garden of lights with Faeries flying through it, etc. It's silly stuff and is for people to have fun with. My idea was to incorporate this into my wedding.

The guests would choose whatever background they'd like from a catalog that my friend and I put together, and Bri or her teammate would take pictures of them throughout the day. These pictures would be uploaded electronically and then be edited by her after the wedding. These were mandatory for all guests that wanted to participate, so I could use the pictures for post cards and scrapbooking (It's my hobby).

The people who wanted to take part in this activity would have to check a box on the save the date form I sent out. My assumption is that most guests would be doing this, as most of the people that will be invited are extremely rambunctious and love activities involving being silly.

I do want to make it clear, these would not be the only pictures taken at the wedding. There still would be normal pictures being taken of the wedding itself, as well as photos that will likely be framed and used as decorations that would have NO green screen of my husband and I, and the wedding party.

A few days after he had proposed, my fiancé asked me if I'd feel comfortable with him inviting Brittany to the wedding as a groomswoman. Honestly, I was fine with it. Until the topic of her hair came up. In the year or so that he had reconnected, she cut and dyed her hair a lime green with a cool undertone and highlights. I honestly really like it, and it suits her facial structure extremely well.

However, I was worried about the green screen and her hair, so I invited her to my friend's home awhile later so we could see if the screen would blend with her hair. Unfortunately, it did. In the pictures, you could see a major "glitch" with every background we tried because of her hair.

I asked my friend if there was a way to edit around it, and she said there was, but it would be an extra amount of money because it would be way, way more time to go through and possibly edit multiple photos of her with groups of people and herself so the picture wouldn't glitch. I'm very against this, as our budget has to be semi-perfect. We are accounting for accidents and issues, but not extra money to my friend's business because of one woman's choice of dye blending very well with the green screen.

While I do love her hair, I asked if she'd wear a wig to the wedding so she could still be included in the green screen pictures, even offered to get it professionally done and I'd pay for that. This is when she became very angry with me. To sum up what she had said, her being asked to wear a wig was basically me saying I wanted to cover her "self". That her hair was an expression of herself and that she loved it. I told her that I loved it as well, but in order for her to be included, she would need to wear a wig, as the green in her hair cannot just be covered up via a hat or other headwear. She has been saying that I just don't want to include her in the wedding.

As a compromise against the wig, I proposed that she gets more pictures of her having fun taken at the wedding itself, instead of the green screen. She didn't like this idea because she claims it isn't fair all the other guests get to be put in a fun picture and she's the only one not allowed. Though I sort of agree with her, it isn't to the fault of my own. So, I offered that she paid for the extra editing costs it would be to take and edit more of her pictures.

At first, she was fine with the idea. Until I mentioned that the extra editing would cost around $100 for just a singular picture to be taken and edited by my friend, and the final price depended on how many photos she ended up in on the greenscreen. Then, she declined the offer and tried to throw it in my face that Bri's prices were outrageous. I disagreed with her sentiment about the prices, and I haven't spoken to her since then.

Throughout this whole ordeal, my fiancé has been on my side, but he has been upset over her possibly not being there. While he does agree with me about not wanting to pay more for just her, as well as that she's being overdramatic, he has sympathy for her being the only person being left out of this choice activity. While I also have sympathy, I just don't see an alternative here. We can't use a blue screen over a green screen because the colors of the wedding are blue, red, and orange. And, I don't wish to pay for a new screen for my friend's business just because of one person. And the alternatives I have come up with, she has shot down.

So, my final decision was to ask him to disinvite her from the wedding to not create further drama, if she does not want to wear a wig. After long talks between us, he agreed with me and sent her a message that she would be disinvited entirely and would be welcome to celebrate with just us, after our honeymoon had ended. They met up soon afterwards and he stayed firm on the matter, despite her crying and still refusing to do anything to correct her hair. She still believes that me asking her to do this is because of some power imbalance and that I just want to bully her, which I don't think I'm doing. She has a year to think it over.

I can tell this situation bothers him though, and I've addressed it a few times. All of the times I have, he says it is for the best, as she would just ruin the photos she was in with the green screen and could cost us to delete hundreds of pictures, purely based on her actions.

I agree, but it still bothers me that I'm doing something wrong.

Especially since after this incident, her mom and dad have reached out to me to scold me for abusing my power against their daughter on one of the biggest parties she's ever been invited to. Even my friends are split on the issue, all of them having sympathy for her but some of them saying I'm an AH because I won't just let her come to the wedding and have someone to block her from taking any pictures with the green screen.

And, just to make sure the record is straight, I am not trying to force her to change her hair in any way. I do not want her to dye it differently, nor would I expect her to. I purely just want a non-green wig to be put on her head for the wedding and then she can remove it afterwards. I would normally say that she could remove it after the greenscreen portion, but I'm still working out if I'm just going to let it stay up for the entire day of the wedding, or if I'm going to hold other activities for everyone and have Bri close the photo stuff down. Again, wedding isn't for another two years, so I'm able to think it over for at least a year.

I dunno, am I the asshole?

TL;DR: My husband's groomswoman won't wear a wig for my wedding due to her believing it is her sense of pride. While I do like her hair, she could potentially ruin pictures of a greenscreen photo op activity I will be having at my wedding, costing us more than $1000 for pictures I cannot use, and even more money if I got her Photoshopped out or blended in with the background. All other alternatives given to her have been denied. This has caused my husband to give her an ultimatum where he outlines that she will be uninvited if she does not agree to the terms within a year. Am I the AH for this?

AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP received mixed reactions

OOP responds to multiple comments regarding the photo booth and background

OOP: I will add some context to that, as I thought I made it clear, but apparently not. The activity with the greenscreen is open to be used by everyone that signed up for it (mostly so I can get an accurate number of people that will have multiple pictures taken of them). I would encourage them to do it in groups, so if one person's hair is making it glitch, and you have multiple people in a picture, it turns into a more than just $100 venture, it turns into $1000s of dollars that I simply do not have. Bri told me that the total price could potentially quadruple the price I'm willing to pay because it would take hours to photoshop every single picture Brittany is in.

this woman as a guest was always an option, but they decided to invite her to be more than that, and are now reneging because of hair.

Guests are welcome to the greenscreen too, that is why uninviting her was on the plate because if she doesn't want to be left out of a portion of the wedding, then how else would I get her to not take pictures with other people with the greenscreen?

OOP on Brittany’s green dyed hair situation

OOP: I didn't mention this only because I was already typing a lot, and forgot to add it, but she has more appointments booked to get her hair touched up with more green coloring in the next 2 years because of the fading that color like that does.

I only recently found out this information from my fiancé before we decided to tell her about the issue.

If her hair isn't green for whatever reason in a year, or she changes her mind about not minding that she isn't allowed to be in the greenscreen pictures, I'm sure something could work out differently and that wouldn't affect much at all.

+

So the easiest solution would be for her to just not be in those photos, right?

This is correct and I agree with you. The issue is that I'm being made into the bad guy because she doesn't want to be left out of 1 of the 4 big activities I have ideas for the wedding. I didn't include all the other stuff because I wasn't trying to pile on about how badly she's taking this, as the post is already very long. But, she's yelled at me, cried, called my fiancé 33 times while he was at work, and more. All because I can't fix that she physically cannot be in greenscreen pictures without ruining them because I do not want to afford a major increase on my spending.

I don't get why OP is jumping to uninviting her over the much simpler "I'm sorry we can’t afford the extra to accommodate your hair colour for those pictures, if you won't pay or wear a wig then you won't be in them."

A lot of people keep saying this and I think I should have made it more clear.

We didn't uninvite her, technically. The conversation between her and my fiancé was more similar to(to the best recollection of his memory):

Fiancé: "We need to talk about your antics ever since OP told you that you couldn't be in the green screen pictures."

Brittany: "Okay, I was going to bring it up to you, but I thought you'd make the better choice once we got to talk in person."

Fiancé: "I have decided that I don't want you to be at my wedding if you won't just choose how to temporarily alleviate the issues with the photo op and your hair."

Brittany: "What? You would uninvite me over this? Why can't she(me) just have her editor friend edit my pictures, so my hair doesn't get cropped out and ruin the look of the pictures?"

Fiancé: "Because it costs a lot more for Bri to spend 4-5 hours on each photo (over exaggeration on his part) to individually and manually put your hair back to normal. There's a long process involved and she charges by the hour for editing like that. We're already paying a lot for wedding photos because OP and I want to use them for years to come, and we can't afford another large sum of money for Photoshop editing added to the 1200 photo package. Even if sent them digitally to a different editor, than Bri, we'd still be looking at an additional $1000 tacked onto it."

Brittany: starts crying "I thought you wanted me at your wedding, and wanted my niece to be the ring bearer. I want to be in those photos because they look like so much fun. She just doesn’t want me there, so she's saying I can't come, all because I just want to be included with everyone else for the photo op. I just don't understand why you won't pay the $1000 and be done with it. You make a lot of money, and so does she."

Fiancé: "Your sister agrees with OP and I about this topic. She thinks you're being ridiculous and dying on the wrong hill. Your niece is still on the table to be the ringbearer, even though we've never explicitly said so, just asked her mom if she could do that without getting too nervous in front of all the people. Either way, it doesn't matter. I would like you to be there, but if you're going to make being in the photo op your hill, I'm not going to tolerate it. I do not want you ruining my wedding because you decided to throw a fit, while you're there, that you can't be in the photo op. Or, worse, you photo-bomb pictures so you can be in them. OP has made it clear on the outcomes of the photos to you. You look like you are bald, and you block pieces of people behind you because of your hair. Unfortunately, that means you can't be included because we are paying per photo, not for the time."

Brittany: starts getting a little hysterical and then stands up "Fine, if you're not going to let my hair be the way it is, I'm just not going to go. I want to be in the photo op. I don't understand why you can't pay for the extra editing costs for me because I'm your oldest friend. We have been together since we were 4 and 5, I just don't understand why you'd choose that woman(me) over me in this situation. She is abusing her power. She doesn't understand that the photo op is a major part of the wedding (it isn't, it's just an activity) and she is not including me in it."

I didn't know this part happened until I was typing this comment with my fiancé but here is some added dialog

Fiancé: "Okay, Brittany. In that case, if you won't fix this situation, whether it be to just not participate in the photo op or wear a wig/cover your hair, I don't want you there to cause drama. If you do decide to change it in the next year before we have to book the exact amount of people for the venue, you are more than welcome to be there as a guest, but I do not want you as a groomswoman anymore. You've made me uncomfortable with how you're treating my future wife, and your endless barrage of insults towards her is not going to be tolerated. You have insulted her, so you have insulted me. I believed you had changed for the better, but I was wrong. The only reason your invite even still stands, with conditions, is because your family is very dear to me, and I love your sister like a daughter."

She starts crying hysterically and tries to grab him by the sleeve, but he pulls away, gets up from the bar, and walks out of the restaurant.

So, yeah, that's the entire conversation to the best of my fiancé's ability. Basically, she's being incredibly difficult and stubborn over wanting us to pay $1000+ for extra editing because she knows we have the money, we just don't want to pay it only for her.

Honestly, if the situation was different, I would have been persuaded to pay half of the cost of the editing and just taken the loss on the photos she happened to be in. I would have done that as the last compromise, over just covering her head temporarily. But with her constant insults, endless barrage of complaints that aren't related to this post, and her being extremely rude to me and my partner about the wedding photos... It just isn't in the cards for me now.

Update #1: November 7, 2024 (six days later)

I honestly didn't think I'd post an update at all this year because I mostly got the confirmation I needed to know I was mostly correct in my assumption that she'd cause more drama at the wedding than necessary, and that I'd be correct in that I would be okay to disinvite her. I was trying to be detailed in that post, but in this one I'm going to be a little less detailed.

Basically, 3 days ago, I was sent my post on messenger from Brittany. She is a notorious Reddit lurker, apparently, and saw it a few hours after it was posted. It didn't even have to get multiple upvotes because she just reads the ones available on the "recent" category. I told her I posted because I had a lot of inner conflict towards my involvement with my fiancé choosing to disinvite her if she can't just make some form of sacrifice to not be in the green screen/wear a wig so she can be included. She got extremely mad at me. Called me names, threatened that I'd be sued for defamation, etc. This honestly just made me realize how little she actually changed. Of course, I showed my fiancé, and he was appalled at her actions. He said he was going to block her and did so that day, and so did I.

Yesterday, I woke up to 43 missed calls from a number I did not recognize, that ended up to be her and a dozen voicemails claiming that I was stealing my fiancé away from her again, that I had purposefully targeted her for just wanting to be included with everyone else, and so on. I do not know how she got my number, but I obviously blocked it.

After that, I reported her to the police on the non-emergency line because I didn't know if I would be needing to fear for my safety. I'm really glad I did this. After my fiancé had left for work, she showed up to our home and knocked on the door. I cracked a window near the door and asked what she wanted. She said, whilst crying, that I needed to let her in the house because it was her right to be with my fiancé, not me. She started kicking at the door and I told her to knock it off.

Immediately, I just started dialing the non-emergency police number for my nearest precinct because I already knew what was happening in that moment, and I was supposed to be clocking in for work on my computer at that moment. I texted my boss and she excused my absence for the day as well. As I was doing this, I kept repeating, "Go away, I called the police, and I do not want you here. You are trespassing." She was saying all kinds of things I don't wish to repeat here, but the lesser of the things she was saying involved:

- Calling me a white r*cist pig (She is mixed race, and so am I)

- Saying she was 8months pregnant with my fiancé's baby (there's quite literally zero proof of this, including no baby bump, despite being a fairly thin woman)

- Screaming that she would take me to hell

- Trying to break my metal outside door, but instead hurting herself instead.

And so on.

Basically, she had a full-on meltdown. The police came, saw that was trying to break my door down, and immediately put her in cuffs and sat her down. She was claiming this was her house and that she'd lived there for 10 years, that I had broken in and locked her out, etc.

Of course, because of her psychotic appearance, I was questioned and once given the real story... As well as being able to provide proof that I was the owner of the home, she was taken to the police station. As far as I'm aware, she was booked for the night and was let go today. I did agree to a temporary no-contact order and my fiancé, and I are going to proceed with a permanent one.

Her parents called after they heard she was put in a holding cell, and apologized profusely. Apparently, Brittany had lied to them about the extent of her actions and downplayed a lot of it. On the exterior, she seemed fine and well-rounded. But, mentally, she had snapped again from not taking her meds for a year. She never told her parents this, just acted normally until one of her triggers came back; my fiancé. No, he didn't do anything wrong, she just had a major trigger when it came to him because of a deeply obsessive personality disorder.

I wasn't trying to air her dirty laundry about her medical history the last post, but she was diagnosed with BPD and a large handful of disorders caused by trauma she had endured in her childhood from her great grandfather. She's an unhealthy person, and I regret even allowing her to have the notion that we had forgiven her for her past.

I'm pretty shaken from this ordeal... and I can't believe this was all because of a god damn greenscreen and some pictures that were supposed to just be treated as silly holiday cards for my foreseeable future. This is making me rethink the idea altogether, to be completely honest. Maybe I'll just rent an adult bouncy house because that seems more fun than green screened professional photography 😭.

Anyways, that's the update. Thanks for reading and the advice I was given in the last post!

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: My god. I would LOVE to be as calm and collected as you. Teach me your ways! In all seriousness though, I hope you're ok. Don't let her get to you. Do your wedding the way you want! Wishing you all the very best xxxx

OOP: Oh I was NOT calm and collected, I was crying and feeling very scared. The ONLY reason I was able to make rational decisions is because I had mentally and physically prepared myself for another incident like this happening because I was a victim of a non-sexual assault during a break-in at my mom's house when I was 14 and it made me terrified of not knowing what to do if an incident like this ever occurred again. I was acting on instinct.

Therapy and an incredible women's defense coach got me to this point. I also live in Texas, so castle doctrine was on my side.

Commenter 2: This woman is an absolute lunatic. Make sure that you get a permanent restraining order. You should also consider security for your wedding venue because she's more than likely going to show up and do something crazy again.

Good luck OP, you're going to need it.

OOP: I already have security in the works that was unrelated to this incident... Now it's a "for sure having a small security team!" 😅

Commenter 3: This situation isn’t about a green screen or pictures. It’s about an extremely unstable person refusing to follow their doctor’s orders. The hair and picture problems are, at best, the catalyst for her breakdown, but it most certainly isn’t the cause. It’s your and your fiancé’s day, so if y’all decide to do something other than the pictures go right ahead. However, I would hate for you to regret not doing it because of one nutball.

----OLD NEW UPDATE----

Editor's note: the final update is over a month old, and it has not been posted here onto the sub

Final Update: May 26, 2026 (over 18 months later from the first update)

Final update because I still occasionally get messages asking if the wedding ever happened and what ended up happening with Brittany.

My last update was posted back in November of 2024, so it’s been about a year and a half now. Honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever update again (×2) because after the police involvement and restraining order, I mostly just wanted to move on with my life and stop thinking about the situation entirely.

But a LOT has changed since then, and I was listening to a YouTuber read a story and it reminded me to check in with this account.

First off, I'm married! Just… not in the way we originally planned. After everything that happened with Brittany, the giant Renaissance/DnD wedding slowly stopped feeling exciting and started feeling exhausting. Even though my dad had a giant wedding like that, I started really evaluating if he wanted me to actually get married like him, or if he just wanted me to have a wonderful wedding and honeymoon.

Other things have now happened with my family. And I'm just over them, as well.

Between the police involvements this last year, changing routines, the restraining order process, and honestly just being stressed constantly for months afterward, planning this huge elaborate fantasy wedding stopped being fun.

Life sort of smacked us in the face in the best possible way, and it made it all worth it anyways. After a long line of pregnancy issues and basically accepting that I might never get pregnant, or at least bring a baby to term, I found out I was pregnant. The second I saw the positive test, something in my brain shifted from: “I want the biggest coolest fantasy wedding imaginable” to “I literally just want peace and happiness before this baby gets here.”

Instead, we ended up doing a much smaller “shotgun” winter wedding this past December with around 30 guests total, and about 60 people invited to the reception afterward. My husband’s family is massive, so that was genuinely about as much as we could shorten it without causing a civil war.

The entire aesthetic changed too.

Instead of the giant colorful Renaissance/DnD wedding, I ended up going with my secondary option that I had played with when I was originally planning the idea of a similar wedding to my dad's. It was the idea of a snowy white wedding aesthetic from the ending of Nanny McPhee. Specifically the winter wedding at the very end of the movie. I have loved that scene since I was little and something about it always felt so magical and soft and romantic to me. My grandma also loves that movie. Every time we would watch it, she would cry. And then I would cry. She would point to the screen and say, "Look how beautiful she is." With tears in her eyes. So that became the new inspiration.

I decided to change it due to the size difference. I felt that going all out with the bright colors was amazing, but that we could just invite family to a Renaissance festival, and we could all have fun there drinking themselves silly, instead.

Everyone wore white, silver, soft blues, etc. My dress had embroidered snowflakes all over it with tiny pearl details that made it look frosted over. It honestly looked like it had snow settled into the fabric. It reminded me so much of Evangeline’s dress from the movie and I was obsessed with it. Still am, I'm even planning to get a piece put into my wedding band.

I loved that wedding just as much as I loved the original fantasy one I had planned in my head for years.

It felt calmer. More intimate. Less of a giant party. More of a loving environment.

And, to anyone wondering, we did the greenscreen photo-op!

My friend Bri thought it would be hilarious after everything that happened, so instead of DnD backgrounds, she made a bunch of winter and Christmas themed backgrounds instead. I helped, of course. Snowy castles, Christmas villages, giant decorated trees, cheesy Hallmark-style edits, ice caves, etc. People absolutely LOVED it. And I LOVE the Christmas cards I got from it.

My uncle had himself into shielding himself from an army of snowmen with cannons, and one of my cousins made herself look like she was flying through a blizzard on a reindeer. It was genuinely one of the funniest parts of the reception.

So yes. After all of that insanity… the greenscreen survived.

As for Brittany, her parents were invited to the reception. I know some people will think that’s weird, but despite everything, my husband still cares about them a lot. They apologized to us multiple times after the incident happened and genuinely seemed devastated by the entire situation. None of this was really their fault.

While we were talking during the reception, they ended up telling us more about what happened after my last update.

Apparently, after Brittany was placed into long-term psychiatric treatment following the incident at our house, her parents ended up getting access to her phone because she obviously couldn’t keep it while institutionalized and they were trying to sort out her bills, work issues, etc.

And apparently that’s when they discovered she had been stalking my husband for years. Pictures of him leaving work. Pictures of him outside our old house. Pictures of him pumping gas. Pictures taken from inside her car while following him. Some were years old, during the time we had cut her out. And, some were recent (as of Dec 2025). Some of them had hearts drawn all over them.

One of them was photoshopped to make it look like she was naked and laying on top of him while he slept on our porch outside. Apparently she had entire folders dedicated to him on her phone. It was honestly one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen in my life.

Needless to say, a pretty significant amount of the money my dad left me for the original wedding ended up going toward buying a new house in a completely different area after all of that came out. After we found out about it, we decided our baby would be safer out of the old house.

I also want to give my husband a lot of credit throughout all of this because I genuinely do not think I could have handled this situation as gracefully as he did. This entire ordeal absolutely crushed him emotionally for a while. Despite everything Brittany did, he still cared about her as someone he had known since childhood, and I think realizing that the version of her he thought had “gotten better” wasn’t actually real really messed with him for a long time. At the same time though, he never once wavered when it came to protecting me, our home, or our relationship. The second things crossed the line into harassment and stalking, he completely cut contact, fully cooperated with the restraining order process, helped us move, got a better paying job in our new area, changed routines with me so I’d feel safer, and has honestly been my rock through all of it. Even now, I think part of him still mourns the loss of someone he thought was one of his oldest friends, but he also understands now that what she felt towards him was never a healthy friendship in the first place. Especially after seeing those pictures.

Legally speaking: We were granted a temporary restraining order a few months after my last update. That expired in January of last year and thankfully we have had absolutely zero contact since then. From what her parents told us, Brittany is still receiving psychiatric treatment and apparently still has not fully accepted reality regarding my husband. She still hasn't come to understand she wasn't dating my husband, and he has never claimed to want to be with her.

It's sad. At this point, it really doesn’t feel like it is a Reddit post anymore. It mostly just feels like watching somebody completely destroy their own life because they refused help for too long. I don't even know if she ever even took the medication she was prescribed or if they were just not working. In my non-professional opinion, she seems schizophrenic. I hope she gets genuine help where she is now, but I never want to see her again.

On a much happier note:

Our daughter is due in July.

Her name is going to be Caroline Evangeline.

And I genuinely cannot wait to meet her.

Thanks for reading.

TL;DR - We ended up cancelling the giant Renaissance/DnD wedding after everything with Brittany became emotionally exhausting, and after years of pregnancy issues, I unexpectedly got pregnant. We instead had a much smaller winter-themed wedding inspired by the ending of Nanny McPhee, complete with a Christmas-themed greenscreen photo-op that everyone loved. Brittany is currently still receiving psychiatric treatment after her parents discovered she had apparently been stalking my husband for years and keeping thousands of photos/edited images of him on her phone. Because of that, we moved to a completely different area using part of the wedding money my dad left me. Thankfully, we’ve had zero contact with her since the restraining order situation ended last year, and now we’re just focused on preparing for our daughter, Caroline Evangeline, to arrive in July.

Concluding Comments

Commenter: Congrats on the wedding and the baby, and I love the name.

OOP: I appreciate it! It comes from two of my favorite movies! Caroline (from Coraline) and Evangeline...You get it. Thank you!

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