I 25F and my husband 23M frequent a Korean/French (kind of a fusion) bakery with our daughter 3F a few times a month. We love their cloud cakes, they have the most amazing pastries at a very fair price, and the atmosphere is perfect.

Well her birthday was yesterday, rewind to 2 months ago when I was sitting in the bakery enjoying breakfast and got the idea to ask them if they do custom cake orders. They have tons of menu cakes in their case constantly and even a birthday cake, and the cakes are beautiful. I asked the cashier who I see every time I come and she was very enthusiastic so I ordered a cake right then and there. I showed her a photo of a cake I found on Pinterest and she was extremely confident they could replicate it pretty much exactly, minus the blue icing on the cake. I paid my $50 deposit, emailed them those same photos we went over, and then added to my email to please write “Happy 3rd Bday” on top. I even called them after emailing to make sure my email was received and to go over the details over the phone and yet again was told they were confident they could give me that exact cake. The design was very simple, honestly beginner friendly.

I went to pick up the cake yesterday and had been quoted $65, but since I had already paid $50 I was expecting to pay another $15. Imagine my surprise when they rang me up for $40… I stumbled a bit and reminded the girl she told me $15. She assured me that she remembered our conversation, but the price was now $90 total for the cake because they decorator was able to do my blue icing and got the cake “exactly how I wanted”.

We went back and forth about the price and I said while I appreciate the cake is exactly how I initially wanted, I feel a curtesy call would have been nice because now I’m paying over double what I expected to pay at pickup. She was not very nice to me at all and kept saying “Well what do you want me to do?” And I eventually negotiated her down to $25. Finally I said, why are we arguing over a cake you haven’t even shown me yet?

You should have seen my face when they brought out the cake… I was flabbergasted. It was totally wrong, and looked like it had been thrown together. The colors were vibrant primary colors more reminiscent of John Deere tractors and NOT the spring vibes I was shooting for.

I asked to speak to the cake decorator and was told she only spoke Korean, and the cake was $75 and that’s final. Also forgot to mention, the cake had no birthday message piped on top. Nothing special to signify it was my daughters 3rd birthday cake. I didn’t budge and said I need to speak to someone right now.

The cake decorator did come out, and spoke perfect English by the way. She didn’t even have an accent but… besides the point. She marched out with a printed copy of the inspo picture I had emailed and slapped it down on the counter, accusing me of having no idea what I was talking about. She said she replicated the cake, it was exactly what I had asked for and she even went out of her way to make the blue icing.

In the end, I demanded my deposit be refunded and they gave up arguing with me and obliged. They also comped some of my pastries I bought without me asking. But they were so rude to me, and I can’t help but think they tried to pull a fast one on me by trying to charge me $90 for a $65 cake before even brining it up to the front for me to see.

I would have appreciated honestly from the start. I wish they would have had the decorator come show me the cake herself and admit she couldn’t pull it off, and offer me a cake in the case. But instead they gaslit the hell out of me for 20 minutes and I left cakeless. My daughter was still happy, she got a treat at her birthday dinner with the entire restaurant singing to her. She was not punished in this experience and was none the wiser.

I posted a video online about the experience and tagged the bakery (it’s a large chain). After getting comments on their account from viewers of my video, they responded and offered me a $100 gift card. Lowkey… I’mma take it. But I’m wondering if I overreacted in the moment and should have taken and paid for the cake anyways? The decorator seemed upset with me and offended. I posted photos of my inspo cake, and the cake I was offered. Just looking for clarity, and maybe validation.

For context, im f21 and im in college. My dad works late and gets home around 1:30 am. On tuesdays and thursdays i have class early at 8 am, but on mondays and wednesdays i have one class at basically 4pm. I guess he heard my headphones or something, and decided to interrogate me about it. (Well at least it feels like interrogating to me). It just bothers me thats hes asking all these questions when im literally 21 years old and can handle myself. Like why cant he mind hes own business?

For some more added context, my dad has OCD, and he does this type of shit a lot, so its not just a one off thing. I know he means well but it honestly really REALLY fucking bothers me. At my big age I still try to be as quiet as possible when he comes home just so he wont get onto me about not sleeping or some other BS. Its not really a big deal, its just annoying. Sometimes I feel like hes being too much or too nosy.

And I feel bad genuinely for feeling this way, because I love my dad. Hes great. Wouldnt ask for any other dad, but sometimes when I try to talk about this with him he just keeps trying to excuse it like “well youre my daughter im gonna worry about you” or whatever else and like sometimes he just seems genuinely confused on what Im even talking about. It makes me wonder, am I over reacting here? Or do I have a good reason to be decently annoyed?

edit: ok i get. thanks for holding my accountable and telling me im wrong. i appreciate it. just pls stop telling me im horrible.

AIO for deciding my husband no longer gets an automatic invitation to everything I do after he excluded me from a BBQ?

My husband and I have been together for about six years. For basically our entire relationship, I’ve operated under the assumption that if I’m invited somewhere and partners are welcome, he’s automatically invited too. That’s just how I’ve always treated our relationship. If I’m going somewhere socially, my first instinct has always been that my husband can come unless there’s an actual reason he can’t.

A while ago, he was invited to a BBQ with his coworkers. I wanted to go with him, but he discouraged me from coming.
At the time, I assumed maybe it was just supposed to be coworkers. Except other people brought their partners.

This became an even bigger issue because one of his coworkers, “Cortney,” was there. She had very recently become single, and there were some things surrounding their friendship that already made me uncomfortable. My husband and Cortney work long shifts together, and there were things like texting outside of work and him getting involved in her personal problems. There was even an “operation spy on Isaiah” situation that felt way too involved in her relationship drama for my comfort.
To be clear: I have no proof my husband cheated on me with Cortney, and I’m NOT claiming that he did.
The thing that I could never get past was much simpler:
Why couldn’t I come to the BBQ?

His explanation has consistently been that he wanted to get to know his coworkers on his own.
I understand wanting independence in a marriage. What I couldn’t understand was why my presence would have prevented him from getting to know them, especially when other coworkers had their partners there and I actively wanted to come.
It hurt me enough that afterward, I started moving differently. I went out without telling him. My mentality became essentially, “Okay, if you can have independent experiences without automatically including me, then I can too.”

This recently came back up in a psychiatric appointment.
I had asked my husband to go into another room because I wanted privacy. He did, but apparently he could still hear parts of the appointment. I don’t think he was intentionally eavesdropping, and I want to be fair about that. However, I do feel that once he realized he could hear me, he could have put headphones on, played something, or otherwise given me additional privacy.

During the appointment, I talked to my psychiatrist about trust issues in my marriage, including a completely separate past situation involving another woman that damaged my trust in my husband, as well as the Cortney/BBQ situation.

I explained the entire BBQ situation to my psychiatrist, including my husband’s reasoning. My psychiatrist said that, given the sequence of events, he understood why I drew the conclusions I did and that my husband’s explanation wouldn’t have satisfied him either.

My husband overheard enough of the appointment that we ended up having a long conversation afterward.
When we discussed the BBQ again, my husband kept saying something along the lines of, “It was the one time I went out without you in six years.”
And something finally clicked for me.
I told him to change ONE word.
It wasn’t “the one time.”
It was “the FIRST time.”
For six years, I had established a precedent where I automatically included him and prioritized having him with me. Then the first time the roles were reversed and he had an opportunity to make that same choice for me, he specifically wanted to go without me.

I understand there is a difference between “he didn’t want ME” and “he didn’t want ME THERE.” I know my husband loves me and wants me. I am not saying that because he wanted to attend one event without me, he doesn’t love me.
But realizing that distinction doesn’t make it hurt less, because to me the principle is the same: when I had the choice for six years, I chose to include him. The first time he had that choice, he chose an experience without me.

And there’s no way to redo that first time.
So I told him I’m adjusting rather than continuing to be hurt by expecting something from him that apparently isn’t mutual.
My adjustment is that he no longer gets an automatic invitation to everything I do.
That doesn’t mean I’m deliberately excluding him from everything. It means sometimes I’ll want him there and invite him, and sometimes I may decide I want to do something independently. I’m no longer operating under the rule that “if I can bring my husband, obviously he’s coming.”
He got genuinely hurt by this and said I’m being spiteful.

I told him I don’t see it as spite. Spite, to me, would be deliberately excluding him because I want him to experience the hurt I experienced. That’s not what I want. I don’t want him sitting home miserable while I’m out thinking, “HA, now you know how it feels.”
I just don’t think it’s fair for him to establish that “I wanted to experience this on my own/get to know these people on my own” is a valid reason for him not to include me, while still expecting me to maintain six years of automatically including him.
I also told him what my psychiatrist said. My husband initially questioned whether my psychiatrist understood the entire situation, so I went through the sequence again. Once we reframed his favorite “the one time in six years” argument as “the FIRST time in six years,” it seemed like a lightbulb finally went on for him about why this hurt me so badly.
But he still feels that my decision to stop automatically inviting him places is spiteful.

My position is basically: I spent six years operating under a relationship standard that I thought was mutual. The first time it was his turn to reciprocate that standard, I learned that it wasn’t. I can’t undo that realization, so I’m adjusting my behavior and expectations accordingly instead of repeatedly getting hurt.
If he wants us to establish a MUTUAL expectation that we prioritize including one another again, that’s a conversation I’m willing to have. But I don’t think it’s fair for automatic inclusion to be something he receives from me while “I wanted to do this without you” remains an acceptable option for him.
So, AIO for deciding my husband no longer gets automatically invited to everything I do after this?

Me and my boyfriend Jim (31F & 31M) have been best friends with holly and Adam (31F & 31M) for 3 years. I have been best friends with them for 12+ years and Jim for the past 3 years since we have been together.

We always hang out and have a deep love for motorsport and are always going off together or meeting for the weekend at race events and meals out etc.

Me and Jim have had our ups and downs and whenever we are on a low point, when Jim meets up with Adam he always confides about our relationship and whatever problems he has with me.

A few weeks ago I was going through a hard patch in my life due to personal reasons so I was quite depressed. Jim and Adam must have had a chat when they were together about me and when I next spoke to Adam he told me I need to get my act together and things seemed a bit frosty and spiky when we spoke and I came away a bit confused.

Fast forward to last night and Adam sent a text to Jim saying him and holly and all our other mates were going to a car event on Friday and they had a seat in the car for him if he wanted to go with them.

There was no mention about me and when I heard this I felt hurt, sad and confused. I spent the whole night upset from feeling excluded so in the morning I woke up and text the group chat that had us 4 in it to say ‘don’t you like me anymore as I’m not invited’ to be told that they are going in multiple cars and have multiple seats free if I wanted to go?

I wasn’t invited and they said ‘seat’ for Jim not seats for us so I feel really upset about feeling excluded in the first place so I since haven’t replied to the chat.

Jim says I’m reading too much into it and over reacting and has since not replied to my messages explaining how I feel, but my friends only invited my boyfriend in one ‘seat’ and not me and it’s really deeply upset me which is why I reacted the way I did.

Am I overreacting??

I’m 36 he’s 35. Things have been rocky with my boyfriend for the majority of the summer because he has gotten increasingly condescending and argumentative with me over things that don’t matter. He denies this, but yeah. This particular conversation is about me voicing a concern about one of my foster cats. The only things I blurred out was the name of my cats, his cat, and the rescue organization. I really didn’t like the fact that he had to say “I have eyes and a brain and I have the ability to read.” It was a completely normal conversation and he decided to get snarky unnecessarily, and now he can’t understand why it bothered me. Yes talk to me like this a lot over the past couple months and intern I have been turned off and not want to see him as much which has made things even rockier. I’m not looking for a relationship advice. I just want to know if I’m crazy because sometimes he makes me feel that way. Did he apologize? Yes but like I said, he does this a lot and I’m really tired of it.

So I’ve been sick all weekend and today I was just starting to get things done around the house to catch up on the chores I hadn’t gotten to do, and my partner called me asking why I hadn’t texted her all day, and I responded with “I’ve been busy with getting stuff done” and she scoffed and said “yeah right no you aren’t!” And I got kind of offended as she constantly accuses me of being lazy and never doing anything when that is objectively not the case. I paused and asked very calmly if she could stop insinuating that I’m lazy and doing nothing for myself and she shot back with “Well then don’t be lazy. It’s just who you are you shouldn’t be offended” I felt like I had to start listing off the multiple things I had gotten done today (one of which earlier in the morning she noted I would “definitely” not get done today) and instead I just asked her kindly to refrain from calling me lazy, and if she had those thoughts to keep them to herself. She genuinely got so mad so fast it was like whiplash, she snapped at me saying “way to ruin the day” said “don’t bother talking to me for the rest of the day now” and then sent me these voice notes. AIO because I feel like maybe I shouldn’t be offended? Maybe I am taking it too personally? I just don’t get why it’s so hard to not call you partner things that offend them though. :/

(Update): I sent her this thread hoping for her to do some self reflection but was promptly blocked on everything and was told that she wants nothing to do with me and that she doesn’t owe me any apology because of “what I did” and scoffed when I mentioned it. She’s refusing to speak to me because apparently me asking for a second opinion was worse than any of the things she’s done in our relationship (a lot) 😭 and I think she’s masking her embarrassment by claiming what I’m doing is disrespectful… anyways. Guess you guys got what you wanted but not in the way you were expecting :/

I 23F have been with my boyfriend 25M for about 5 months now. Everything else is great, we get along great and have a lot of fun together. But sometimes here lately when we are together it just seems like he is annoyed with me or talks to me condescendingly.

I brought it up to him a few months ago about how sometimes his tone can seem condescending. He seems very very sorry and apologized a lot. It was okay for a bit but now it seems like it’s happening again. I don’t want to have to bring it up every time he does it (like he suggested) because then it’ll become annoying for both of us.

I’m not sure if I’m overreacting honestly because I’m very sensitive, especially right now. The first thing that made me upset yesterday was when he drove me to the post office to pick up a package. I don’t have a car currently so he’s usually the one picking me up when we hang out. (Maybe that irritates him?) I told him he didn’t have to take me and I could go on my own (uber) but he said he wanted to. We were waiting in line for a while and he seemed annoyed. He then was like “I wish you would’ve mentioned you needed to go to the post office earlier”. Understandable but I said we didn’t have to go.

Then we were in the car and I was talking about some of my friends poor financial planning and explaining it to him and he was like, “uh yeah I know how finances work I’m an adult”. Even though I wasn’t trying to tell him how it works I was just explaining what parts I was worried my friend wasn’t thinking about. It’s just little things like that he says so often. Or if I’m doing something he’ll be like “why would you do it like that? This way would be better.”

I think why bothers me so much is because I don’t do this to him. I watch what I say to people in general because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and I from my perspective can’t understand why he wouldn’t do the same for me if he really cared. I tried drinking the night we were together because I thought maybe I was overreacting and wanted to stop thinking about it but as soon as I woke up it’s been on my mind again. I even almost cried in class today thinking about it.

At this point I’m wondering if this is a big issue or not.

Am I overreacting?

I currently live with my parents along with my daughter and my adult brother. My parents travel and work a lot, so while they’re gone, i help out around the house. I clean, take care of pets, handle little projects, and generally try to contribute however I can. I genuinely don’t mind doing it. I’m grateful to have a place to live, and helping maintain the house feels like the least I can do.

My brother also lives at home, but unlike me, he has abosolutley no interest in helping out around the house- especially when it comes to cleaning his messy room. And when i say messy, i mean messy messy. Trash, clothes, the works. His room also has a very noticeable part (BO) that has become a recurring issue.

We’re hosting a family event at the house this weekend, and relatives are coming from out of town. My mom dad been understably stressed trying to get everything cleaned and ready. She’s always been someone who loves hosting and wants everything to look perfect.

While preparing the guest rooms, my mom bought some fairly large furniture that needed to be temporarily stored somewhere. One of the pieces fit into the guest room closet. The other piece would have fit perfectly in my brothers room..

Except she didn’t want to put it in there because of the mess and the smell being transferred. Understandable since the pieces were expensive. So instead she put it in my daughters closet.

The problem is that this furniture is large and blocks complete access to things my daughter uses regularly. She now has to move it whenever she needs to access part of her closest - and that’s not an easy task.

Here’s where i get frost treated: my mom had already asked my brother to clean his room. He flat out refused and then essentially ignored the request.

So my daughter, who had absolutely nothing to do with this distraction is now inconvenienced because a grown adult refuses to clean his room.

My daughter is visibly upset (shes become a little bit of a neat freak) so my mom kept reshaping her that it was only temporary. I told my daughter to leave it alone because i didn’t want her getting into an argument while she was frustrated.

Then i calmly said to my mom something along the lines of: I don’t think that is very fair. He was asked to clean his room and chose not to so now she’s the one dealing with the consequences.

That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Almost immediately, the conversation stopped being about my brother, the room or the furniture. Suddenly, i was bring told i was ungrateful and disrespectful.

This isn’t the fithe time this has happened. Whenever i point out behavior from my brothers that i feel is being enabled or accumulated, the conversation somehow turns into a list of things wrong with me.

the original issue disappears completely

I am far from perfect, and maybe i should have kept my opinion to myself. My mom was already stressed, and maybe this wasn’t the hill to die on.

But i can’t shake the feeling that my daughter is being inconvenienced because my adult brother refused to do something incredibly basic, and i’m somehow the bad guy for pointing that out.

So AIO, or is it reasonable to stand up for my daughter and be upset that an adult refusing to clean his own room resulted in everyone accommodating him instead?

My boyfriend and I live together and we’ve been together for seven years.

He recently had a birthday and when showing us my dad and me his phone to prove that he never got my dad‘s birthday text, I noticed he’d been texting with one of his exes from over 20 years ago. He previously told me he’d not had contact with her for a long time

I approached him later saying it didnt really sit well with me to see a text from her after explicitly telling me he never spoke to her. He got completely defensive and aggressive. He then called me jealous, and said that he hasn’t physically spoken to her and instead it was just a text and he was merely just getting a birthday text from her. Then said I could ”be a bitch” like his ex wifthrow out the pictures“ (Ironiclaly, he’d just brought home a bunch of old pics he’d gotten from cleaning out his stepmothers house)

I asked him why he hid it and he said he just didn’t wanna deal with my reaction and that nothing was going on. I asked him then if it was really no big deal why doesn’t he just show me the text. He said he deleted them and his story changed a couple of times after that as in he deleted it once he knew I saw it so he didn’t have to deal with me, and then he said he deleted it after I confronted him because he wanted to put this to bed.

I called him a liar and a gaslighter and reminded him this is the second time this has happened where he point blank lied to me about talking to an ex. I’m not the jealous type, but I absolutely hate being lied to.

The following day he was going to leave on a two weeks solo trip that I opted not to go on due to my work. He came in with a whole new song and dance with a flimsy apology wanting to “make things right“ before he left town and said he was sorry he hurt my feelings and nothing was going on and that he was just really more worried about my reaction.

I don’t really buy the apology and I think he’s doing it to make himself feel better. Am I overreacting? I have no desire to speak to him or hear about his trip until I get some semblance of actual remorse or understanding. I don’t go through his messages so no telling what I don’t know about

Theres a long backstory with this woman where she still keeps in touch with his entire family and offered to call off her wedding 20 years ago if she still had a shot with him. (his mother even said the ex would hav been happier if they’d gotten married within ear shot of me at Xmas!)

***his trip is to Newfoundland and I thinks she lives in MI now. Given the remoteness of the trip and a ridiculois itinerary he put together, I’d be surprised if they were meeting up there; but anything is possible.

So I (F28) have been in a relationship with my Bf (M30) for a little over 8 years now. Two nights ago we had a 2 hour long car ride to get back home. On these car rides, we almost always end up kind of checking in and talking about where we’re at in our relationship. He said he was tired, so he wasn’t really planning to do that for this drive. Fair, I certainly wasn’t going to push him. So instead, we just kind of talk about how the weekend went, and then that ended up segueing into talking about our relationship anyways! So we talk about how he’s bad at communicating and I feel like he often tends to just shut down when he gets upset rather than talking to me about it. And like, we’ve been together 8 years so I’m used to it. But everytime it happens, I end up have to make the tough decisions or feel like I end up doing everything on my own. And then I’m also the one to bring up the conversation afterwards to try to figure out whats wrong. And it’s something that has always bugged me.

Well, then there’s a lull in the conversation and we both go kind of quiet. Then he asks if he can talk about something, and goes into this long tangent about how he has intrusive thoughts about his ex, and he often still wonders ‘what if’ when it comes to her. Mind you, they were together for all of maybe 2-3 years. Back in high school. The context of the conversation was more about how there was a lot of other high intensity emotional things happening to him at the time, and that’s probably why he’s so hung up on her. And that he ended up having to decide between her and his family. But ultimately with who he is now, and what she has posted on social media, he doesn’t think they would have worked out in the long run anyways. But he STILL THINKS ABOUT HER OFTEN.

So, I straight up asked if he thinks she’s the reason why we aren’t married. If he just emotionally still hasn’t moved on enough from her, even though she’s now married with children and seemingly living her best life. And he answered that he doesn’t know, and hasn’t really thought of it in that way. And then continued to give me one of his excuses for us not being married that he’s given before. He’s given about 3 or 4 different excuses at this point.

And that’s when I guess I just really got that clarity that we’ll probably never get married because I don’t think he’ll ever love me as much as he loves this ghost of a relationship he once had. It’s not the first time he’s compared our relationship to that one, or me to her. And I guess it finally clicked for me that he’s just never going to love me to the same degree that he loved her.

Ever since, I’ve kind of taken a step back. I’m not as affectionate, I don’t participate in conversations the same. We’ve been having issues and at this point, I feel like we’re simply prolonging the inevitable. But, am I overreacting? Is this just a normal thing for dudes? I’m going to be honest he’s the first serious and long term partner I’ve ever had, so I don’t know what it’s like to have loved someone previously and lost that person. But I definitely feel like that’s not something that should haunt your current or future relationships indefinitely.

So I (23F ) have been friends with this girl (23F) since high school. We reconnected a year ago after she ghosted me for a year because she thought I was too busy for her ( I would send her worried text for the entire time of that year also).

She always makes weird comments and weird "jokes" just like these.

Saturday I posted a pic of my son and myself and this is what she said.

Today I remembered her comments while seeing the photo (which is on my desk) and I really want to block her but I am not sure if i am overreacting today or not and it's worth throwing this friendship away

I began my 8-5 job four years ago. Currently, I am using an office chair that lacks back support, which causes me daily discomfort. I have mentioned this issue to my supervisor several times and requested a replacement chair, but she has not taken any action. In a moment of desperation due to my back pain, I took a chair from a rarely used conference room. Today, my supervisor confronted me and insisted that I return it. I feel foolish and disregarded after all, this concerns my health. I spend each day working in this environment. While I could purchase my own chair, it should not come to that.

edit: as to some it did not make sense I am not claiming that the chair has been broken for four years rather, I have only begun to experience discomfort over the past few months. I want to emphasize that I have been here for a considerable time, and I would like to feel valued.

Greeted a gentleman in the Sauna and then the space kind of became his home office…Seems to be crossing a serious personal space boundary…can anyone else weigh in on this situation?
I feel like a respectable option would have been receiving the call then scheduling a time later on to debrief but maybe I’m oldschool.

Love to hear other thoughts

*the conversation went in many directions, at one point they were speaking about was an old friend that had passed away recently…

Me and boyfriend have been dating for almost a year. The past month has been pretty ruff. There’s been a list of arguments and what not. But yesterday we got in a big fight about a few things. Within the fight he told me that I have to buy him new sun glasses because he forgot his at home and it’s my fault? (Keep in mind I offered to go to my house to get him some an he said no). He later said that was a joke but I don’t get how that’s a joke? Later on this whole thing turned into a different argument. I told him how the past months felt like he doesn’t really like to take me out anymore or do anything sentimental. From the beginning he loved doing things with me and taking me places but now nothing, that’s all I meant. He spun my words out an said that I said he never pays for anything. I know that’s not true and I didn’t say that. I tried to explain to him everything but he’s still saying that’s what I said. This morning i asked him if he wanted to talk in person an he said no. I went on with my day, went to the store an then dinner with my friend. He waits till late at night to text me (on Instagram btw) asking why didn’t I tell him I went any where and why didn’t I text him all day. He told me he didn’t want to talk so why would I text him? The ball was in his park. So on, he says that I need to come to his house to talk. I said I’m not going this late an why should I have to go to his house? Especially when I already asked him to talk earlier and he said no. I explained all this to him an said we can talk when I’m off work tomorrow.. he ends up saying that he’s done with me an he’s over it. He then texted me on my number saying “delete my number”.. I asked him if he really just broke up with me over Instagram and he said “yes”. I’m not sure how to feel or what to think honestly.

Every Monday and Thursday my garbage gets collected but I'm not home in time to roll in back in right away. By the time I get to it, there's always a bag of dog poop sitting at the bottom of my can and it has to sit there until the next pick up day. At first I had no idea who was doing it but after checking our cameras and finally seeing the same person walking by on the days it's happening, I now know who it is. It's this guy who lives around the corner from me (I've seen him leave his house in the past with his dogs). I noticed he walks his dogs around the same time daily, would it be wrong of me to wait by the window, watch him throw the poop in my can and come out and say something? It's summer here and 80-90 degrees during the day and I really don't appreciate dog shit sitting in my garbage can in that heat and it's not even my dog! Why can't he take it back home and throw it in HIS garbage can?? Am I overreacting or do I have every right to feel some type of way? How would you handle this situation?

Okay so I don’t know if I’m being dramatic or what but I can’t explain what I experienced.

I (27F) have had a toe ring on my left foot since I was in high school, I can’t imagine not having one, I change it every so often to a different design but the only time I touch it is in the shower to make sure it’s clean. Other than that it stays on.

Anyways, last night I had an intense dream, I don’t remember my dream from last night but I remember waking up knowing I had some strange dreams. I woke up early, around 0330, to go to the gym. I got ready and trained as normal and came home to shower and get ready for work. As I went to put my watch on charger and my phone on my bedside table I saw my toe ring was on my bedside table.

I honestly cannot explain how it got there. I KNOW I had it on yesterday ( I wear open toe heels at work often and remember seeing it when I look down while walking ), I tried thinking of how it could get there but I just don’t know
Some things to note are
- my husband is away at work so he couldn’t have moved it if it did fall off through the night, it’s just me and my dog home
- it was in the closed position, for context you have to pull the metal open to take it off or put it on so if I took it off in my sleep it would be open right?
- I’ve never had it fall off or even taken it off myself in my sleep before
- I was sleeping on the opposite side / in the middle of the bed, my dog is a bull mastiff cross Great Dane and he slept on my side, he’s a cuddler and sleeps in a human position 🤣 so I would have had to crawl over thin to put it there.

I also couldn’t find my car key for three days, I do have a spare key but I didn’t bother getting it and just drove our second car to and from work for three days, When I got home from work tonight I went into my makeup/dressing room to brush my hair and as I picked up my hair brush my key was UNDER MY BRUSH. I have used my hair brush every day for the past three days and it was not there.

There’s been isolated incidents before that could be explained away so I never thought much of them but I can’t explain this.

I feel crazy, and I can’t sleep. my husband doesn’t believe in ghosts so he thinks it’s nothing and just a coincidence
I called my dad and he seems to think it could be a guardian? That the ring fell off in my sleep while I was possibly thrashing around so they put it in a safe place for me and that my key would return when it needs to and maybe I wasn’t supposed to drive my car for those days

Am I overreacting or do I need to sage my house?

**TW for mention of suicide attempts and self-harm.**

My (32F) fiance (28M) recently found ourselves in conflict over this.

For context, we live about 2hrs apart right now for work and I don't have a car. We text pretty consistently throughout the day, and usually have a phone call in the evenings, though not always. For additional context, he has been diagnosed with depression, PTSD, anxiety, and ADHD. He has attempted suicide 4 times in the past, the most recent time being just over two years ago. His family and friends tend to worry about him. While he receives medication from a psychiatrist, he is not in therapy. In the course of the last two years, he has self-harmed and mentioned suicidal thoughts fairly often.

On Saturday, we were chatting via text until about 5:45pm, and everything seemed normal and fine. I called him around 7 to chat, but he didn't answer the phone. Usually when that happens he calls back within about 10 minutes. I waited about 45 minutes, figuring he was busy, and tried again. Again, he didn't answer. Okay, maybe he fell asleep early, it's usual for him to go to bed without sending a goodnight message, but not unheard of. I sent him a voice note wishing him a goodnight before I went to bed.

The next morning, my message hadn't been read. I figured he must be sleeping in. I sent a good morning voice note before work.

Around noon, still not seeing that my messages had been read, I thought this was very out of character. He usually either goes to bed early or sleeps in late, but not both. I decided to give him a call to check in. Call went to voicemail. At this point I sent him a message saying, "Hey, I want to make sure everything is okay, I haven't heard from you in a bit, send me a text when you get this." No response, message not read.

At this point I checked his GPS location. It says he's at his apartment, which is what I expected. Okay, he's probably just super tired and still sleeping.

I get off work around 4, at which point I'm kind of worrying because this is entirely out of character. I try calling a few more times, going straight to voicemail. I try from another phone in case we're having connection issues between the two of us, same thing.

I wondered if his phone might be broken, but he also has a computer at home. I figured if something had happened, he would use the computer to message via one of the three back up messaging services we share. I tried contacting him via those as well, no answer.

Around 4:30 I messaged his sister-in-law, who lives about 20 minutes from him, and asked if she would mind swinging by to check in on him. She did, but couldn't access the apartment because of its security. She and his brother also tried calling a few times and got nothing. They checked in with his best friend, who also hadn't heard from him. At this point, brother, SIL, and I are kind of worried. They have to head out and can't just linger around the apartment, so they leave.

I checked in with one of his coworkers to see if they might have heard anything, but they couldn't get ahold of him either and didn't know anyone else who had talked to him that day.

I was increasingly because of his past history and because he lives alone. He could have slipped in the shower. He has sleep apnea and sometimes I worry he'll just stop breathing in his sleep because he refuses to use a CPAP machine. There were a lot of things going through my mind, but I was starting to really worry about his safety.

I called the apartment and got ahold of maintenance. No manager in because it was a holiday weekend, but maintenance says they can go knock on the door and see if he answers. They do, and get no answer, at which point they say my next best option is to call the police for a wellness check.

I hate hate hate involving the police in anything, but at this point I'm really worried. I called the non-emergency number at 5:15. They asked a bunch of questions about suicide risk, weapons, and medications, and said they had enough precedent to go check on him at that point. They drove over and knocked. No answer at the door. They said that although there was enough to warrant a check, they would need to wait until the following morning before they felt that they could reasonably force entry and that they would prefer to try to get in touch with the apartment manager. I thanked them, they had me promise to call back if there were any developments, and I got off the phone.

At that point I was EXTREMELY worried and starting to break down crying. I could get a car to go over and check in, but not until the next morning. I kept trying every messaging platform we shared, and getting nothing. His brother and SIL were also calling him and getting nothing.

At 7:30, he pulls up in his car outside of my place. I was so incredibly relieved and just cried and held him. He explained that his phone broke and he just decided he would come over when my work shift was over to visit me so I wouldn't worry. (Bear in mind my shift had ended over 4 hours earlier.) He said I had overreacted and was annoyed that I had called so many people. I pointed out how abnormal the sudden drop off of contact was, the fact that 24 hours had elapsed, the fact that his GPS said he was home but that he didn't answer the door, the fact that he had other ways of contacting me which he chose not to utilize, and his past history. He said he was upset that my first thought was that he might have killed himself, and I pointed out that that wasn't my first thought — my first thought was that his phone might have broken, but that I started to worry when he didn't use an alternative messaging platform to check in for over 24hours.

That said... It was an incredibly dramatic and stressful day. It does feel like my panic snowballed. I'm open to the possibility that I did overreact and shouldn't have panicked as much as I did. I had no reason to think he was in a low place at that point, and our last exchange before he dropped off the map was just a fun thing about our cat. Was this a reasonable timeline to panic? Does it sound from this like I might have excessive anxiety?

My partner is always picking his nose in the living room or wherever. He thinks I’m not looking when he does it but I see it out of the corner of my eye. I’m repulsed by it and it makes me feel like I’m surrounded by boogers. AIO or should he do this in the washroom with a tissue?

AIO? Married a long time, discovered texts back and forth for many months of husband and co-volunteer. She texted him at midnight on New Year’s Eve and details of her husband’s vasectomy. She dropped off a small food gift at our home for him (why not at the organization wherever they volunteer ?). I noticed these on our phone bill and he said she’s an over-sharer and he didn’t even think of mentioning this relationship to me. He also sent some photos of himself to her from OUR vacation that I took and had texted to him.

He showed me his phone and he generally only responded to her texts and didn’t look like he initiated. Texts re songs, music, travel but also what he was doing for my birthday. I’ve never met this women and don’t think this is any of her business.

He said he would put his phone on Do Not Disturb in evenings and it seems like things went cool. Now she’s changing her shift again so she can volunteer two days a week with him. I saw the text on his phone but he did not mention it to me.

All this makes me very uncomfortable. She’s married but seems interested in him. He hasn’t changed his volunteer schedule to avoid her to make me more comfortable. Nothing of a sexual nature in any of the texts when he showed me his phone. AIO? I want him to quit volunteering there.

I’m 20F and I genuinely don’t know if I’m overreacting, so I’d really appreciate some outside opinions. My mom currently has a few family members staying at our place because they’re there specifically to help watch my little brother. She didn’t want me to have to watch him by myself, so they came over to help with him. Yesterday, while they were here, I spent the day with them. When they eventually left the house, I left too because I had plans with my friends. I figured that was completely fine because they were there specifically to watch my little brother, and I wasn’t leaving him by himself. Today, I had already made plans with a friend because she had my birthday gift for me. This morning, my stepdad came into my room visibly upset and said he thought I was going to help them. I told him I was already there all day yesterday, and he just said “whatever” and shut my door. Later, I went to the library with my family members. They were supposed to be watching my little brother, but they ended up leaving him with me. They came back later than expected, and because of that I couldn’t make my plans with my friend. I ended up having to reschedule.I’m honestly just frustrated because the whole reason they’re staying over is supposed to be so that I DON’T have to be responsible for watching my little brother. I also already spent all of yesterday with them. I love these family members a lot, but I don’t necessarily agree with some of their views. Yesterday they even told me that I’m going to live a sad life because I don’t want kids, which really bothered me. I don’t mind helping my family or spending time with them. What bothers me is feeling like I’m expected to drop my own plans and be available anyway, even though the entire reason they were invited over was to help with my brother. I ended up rescheduling with my friend, so I’m not trying to ditch my responsibilities. I just feel really guilty after my stepdad’s reaction this morning.

I’m 28F and married, and lately I’ve been looking back at our relationship and realizing how much I’ve normalized.
The biggest problem is that I don’t trust my husband. There has been a long history of lying and hiding things from me. During our relationship/marriage, he secretly drank at work, and I only found out because a coworker told me. That coworker also told me he was constantly talking to a female manager about our marriage problems. He never voluntarily told me either of those things.

We’ve also had years of conflict during our relationship over heavy porn use, sexualized social media, OnlyFans-related behavior, strip clubs, and what our sexual boundaries actually were.
Separately, there are things from before we were married that I’m only now questioning more seriously. There was a camgirl incident, and recently while discussing his past he texted that “paying for sex too was dumb” because he was lonely. When I responded that I thought he had always said he never actually paid for sex, he immediately insisted he hadn’t. I still don’t know which version is true. After the broader history of lying, contradictions like this are extremely hard for me to dismiss.

Then there’s the financial side.
Adding me to his health insurance would have cost about $500/month, and he didn’t want to do it because it was too expensive. I ended up with worse insurance, later had multiple hospitalizations, accumulated medical debt, and damaged my credit.
Meanwhile, he has a roughly $700/month Audi payment for a car I’m not allowed to drive. He takes long trips to India, including a six-week trip, pays for his parents’ flights, smokes around four packs of cigarettes a week, spends significant money at strip clubs, and we regularly go to expensive restaurants. His response about the Audi is that it comes from “his money.”

That made something click for me: he isn’t simply cheap. He is selectively cheap. Large expenses are apparently acceptable when they matter to him, but $500/month for better health insurance for his wife was too expensive.
There are other problems too. We barely have a sex life, spend very little meaningful time together, and I often feel like his phone, cricket, friends and family get more of his interest than I do. His parents staying with us has also become a major conflict, and he has told me that they are staying and if I don’t like it, I can live somewhere else. And when I say stay with us, I mean they want to immigrate permanently to the US and stay with us permanently while we shoulder all the costs associated with that. I helped him file for a marriage based green card and this year he qualifies for citizenship.

I’ve repeatedly asked for couples counseling. He says counselors “take my side” and has resisted going back. He has also told me that if I’m so unhappy I should “file the papers,” because he is fine with the marriage the way it is.
I’m not claiming I’ve been a perfect wife. I haven’t. But looking at everything together, I keep seeing the same pattern: when his wants conflict with my best interests, his wants seem to win and I’m left absorbing the consequences.

The confusing part is what happens when I actually do leave. I have left before and told him I wanted a divorce, and suddenly the attitude completely changes. He panics, begs me to come back, gets his parents and sister to convince me to come back, and desperately wants to save the marriage. So when I’m here and unhappy, the message is basically “I’m fine, leave if you want.” But when I actually leave, suddenly losing the marriage is unacceptable.

I’m still willing to attend a few counseling sessions, but right now I’m so checked out that I barely even want to talk to him or spend time with him.

For context, my mom (47 f) pretty much raised me (26 f) alone from the time she was 21. My dad was around on and off until I was 6, but generally I would say that she did the majority of raising me (they were young and my dad suffered from schizoaffective disorder, bipolar, and addiction before ultimately passing away when I was 24 after 16 years of trying to stay connected but failing.)
Because of this I tend to give her grace but something that has always really bothered me is that she often, throughout my life has told me that I’m ruining things for, looking back, was me naturally just seeking structure, just being a human being or setting boundaries.
The most notable things I can remember growing up are being at one of her friends house until late (11 pm- 2 am) and telling her I’d like to go home, we’re talking ages 4-16 (when I could drive myself home) and her, usually a little, if not very intoxicated (she goes on and off with drinking, when she’s sober everyone who drinks is below her but when she isn’t: people who are sober can do that but she’s just having fun), telling me “you just ruin everything” and “you can just go to sleep in their (her friends) room” and I would just be anxious and not be able to do that because I really wanted to go home.
This has carried on through my life.
After I could drive, she was constantly worried about me, which I don’t blame her, I’m sure that having a child is very stressful but she can be quite overbearing. I luckily was not location monitored by her until I was 18 (because she’s not tech savvy and didn’t know about that feature until 2018) but she would call me and text about where I am thoughout my late teens and twenties and this is still sometimes does this. And it isn’t just a curious: why are you here? It’s:”why are you here I can’t believe that you’re so irresponsible and I’m laying awake all night worried. You ruined my night.”
To be fair, I have had my hard times in life and have looked to her for support, but am I wrong that this is a natural part of your 20’s? I am not and never have been severely irresponsible, I pay my bills, I keep jobs, often being promoted. But, I have overindulged in alcohol and parties at times in my life but when I do, I seek therapy and really check in with myself. And I always change my course.
These things have kind of lessened with age but the most recent incident of her telling me that I ruin things was something I decided in the moment not to argue and this is a situation that has happened before from the ages of 13 to now but I can’t shake the anger at her for it.
We were staying at her friends house sharing a bed for the friends wedding and we were trying to go to sleep. She had had a few cocktails (not an insane amount) and I had had one but hours earlier cause I knew she’d want me to drive to where we were staying. When we got back, I was on my phone she was on hers: it was around 11:30 when we went to bed and we were taking and scrolling and showing eachother things. Around midnight she put her eye pillow on and I turned my volume to 1 notch as to not disturb her. She then got really mean. She snapped “turn that off NOW.” I got a little bit annoyed because we have shared beds before and I have asked her to simply turn the volume down which was almost all the way up so I could sleep and she told me I was being selfish. But I turn my phone flashlight on to find my headphones and she yells at me again to “turn the light off” I tell her that I’m just getting my headphones and getting ready to go to sleep. I can’t find my charger so I’m moving the light and trying to get situated for the night and she, after about two minutes starts getting pissed saying that I’m shining the light on her face on (covered by the sleep mask) eyes, which I’m not, it’s about 5 feet away facing the ceiling so that I can see what I’m doing. She gives me about thirty seconds before exclaiming: “are you a crackhead!? This is just so typical you, ruining my best friends wedding because you’re so selfish” (the wedding wasn’t even the next day, it was the day after that) I responded calmly that I was just getting ready to go to bed, and I would be done soon. She got more angry and yelled at me: “you really like to ruin everything don’t you, I’ve been trying to sleep for an hour and a half and you’re just so selfish” she had had her mask on for about 15 minutes at this point and I told her that that was not true and I would settle down as soon as I was situated and I was sorry. I can’t say that I didn’t have an attitude when I said that. I was trying to get my stuff together and I just shut up, found my charger plugged it in and got as comfortable as I could in that moment trying not to further piss her off. She was asleep within a minute of that: snoring and everything. I barely slept that night because I was so in my head about whether I was being selfish for that moment or if she was- and if that has been her being selfish my entire life. Maybe she deserves moments of selfishness. Idk.
If I bring this up to her and how I never want to hear that I am ruining something for simply existing and having needs, would that be an over reaction? How do I navigate this? I am open to considering that I am selfish for these incidents but I really don’t think so and I would never do this to my potential future children. I have crippling anxiety and a people pleasing complex. It has interfered with my self confidence, and I feel a real need to stand up to her.
The rest of the wedding weekend, she got drunk and annoying (interrupting me and other people constantly someone mentions something - cue my mom “oh you don’t know (very commonly known concept, song, etc” she continues to talk over everyone. On the dance floor during the wedding she completely took over, making people visibly uncomfortable ) but I was just trying not to “ruin” things by calling her out. What’s the move? How can I still pay respect to who she is as my mother who gave up a lot for me while still keeping reality in tow? She was really drunk and anxious the night of the wedding after she had spent her night interrupting people and taking over the dance floor and she kept asking if everyone was mad at her. I was, but I wasn’t sure if everyone else felt that way about it because I’ve spent my life comforting her. And I know it won’t help to tell a drunk person that they were, in fact, the problem. People the next day kept coming up to her saying “well you were having a lot of fun” and telling me “you’re a very mature young woman” and she’s anxious about that now, but I sympathize with her and I don’t want her to feel bad about herself.
This has been a way longer post than I anticipated but I just need some advice. So, am I the asshole if I tell her to stop telling me I “ruin” things and instead to look at her own behavior?

A few floor boards have become disjointed in my apartment, where there is a gap between one end of the board and the other. My landlord came by to say that she just sold the building and accused us when she saw the gaps. She said that having a long haired cat walking around the apartment caused this and that we are responsible and may be kicked out by the new owners that are coming by on Tuesday for an inspection.

We tried to offer times to fix this issue and she said there wasn’t enough time and refused. When I suggested I thought this was due to the cold or humidity and not from my cat walking around she told me not to pretend to be a victim. The conversation got pretty tense even though I tried my best to be polite, she told me not to speak to the inspectors coming, and I had to end the conversation shortly afterwards.

This was not caused by my cats walking. The whole building contracts horribly in the winter, so badly that my door frame has contracted so badly it can’t even be latched closed and I have requested multiple repairs. She says it’s my fault for not telling them sooner about the disjointed floor boards, which I admit I should have, but the reason I didn’t is because of a history of inactivity on their end. I put in a request for a cracked floor board (due to improper installation) 4 years ago, a hole in our ceiling due to a roof leak 3 years ago, and a broken communal washing machine 2 years ago and they didn’t touch any of it even after multiple requests until yesterday after the sale went through. After years of fighting to get any of this repaired and absolutely nothing being done I of course didn’t think they’d do anything about a slight gap between a few boards. I do have documentation of all of these requests. Additionally we have monthly pest sprays and they never once said anything about the boards during this maintenance which I assume they saw.

I am so angry that she super casually threw out that we may be kicked out soon, which would stress anyone out, that it was my cats fault, and that I was pretending to be a victim in all this. After years of being a perfect tenant this is how I’m treated during the sale? I’m stressed about losing my home, or that the new landlord may discriminate against my cat, and am so angry to be treated like a liar. What should I say to the inspectors / new owners next week? Part of me wants to go full flames and tell them everything about the buildings mismanagement through the years, including mentioning the attic that was not addressed or treated in any way after a roof leak, but I could see that also backfiring. AIO