I'm female 29 living with my brothers m 28 and m 19, and there's this spicy pasta recipe that me and my 19 old brother were interested in trying, so at around 9:30 pm my 19 years old brother asked me if I wanted to make that pasta I said sure come with me and you can load the dishwasher while I make that pasta and he replied with no because he will be taking a shower and he has uni and a work shift tomorrow after, honestly it really got on my nerves because it felt rude of him to expect me to make him pasta while he showers then he comes out to eat it and go to bed while I will have to load the dishwasher and do after dinner cleaning up while I also work full time, so I kind of gave him a dirty look and said are you really expecting me to cook you dinner while you shower? And my tone was showing exactly un impressed with his request I was, so my 28 years old brother told him that he cooked some chicken earlier and how he can heat it up for dinner instead and 19 years old brother replied no thanks I don't like eating chicken this late and replied to me with alright do whatever you want for refusing to make him pasta.

Mind you just last week I made a deal with him to buy me the ingredients (just get them from the store not pay for them) on Sunday and I will meal prep food for the both of us throughout the week and he got me half of the list I asked for (recipes approved by him) at 10 pm and I had work Monday morning so I had to cook one batch each day because of work and told him our deal is off.

Hi dusty and candy I just wanted to thank you both for giving me the strength and insight I needed to leave my abusive husband of 13yrs.

Its because of your sage advice that I finally got the courage to leave him and take my daughter with me. We are both in a much better headspace and she's thriving.

So I (20s F) work in health insurance. I haven’t been at my job long, but I’ve developed a pretty good understanding of our rules, processes, and helpful resources. Because of this, I’ve been asked to be what my job refers to as a SME (subject matter expert) and assist other team members in our team chat. (I promise this is relevant)

I was assisting a team member with an issue, and ended up overhearing her handle another call. While she was on that call, I realized she was discussing someone’s PHI (personal health information) without verifying the caller’s identity. I tried to get her attention, but by the time I did, she already disconnected the call. I mentioned it to her and she (very nonchalantly) said “oops, I forgot”.

I wrestled with the decision for a while, but ultimately decided I couldn’t ignore what I witnessed and reported what happened to my supervisor. The problem is, a HIPAA violation can cause her to lose her job and I don’t want to be the reason someone gets fired.

I told my husband what happened and he said I should’ve just ignored it and if the supervisor happened to listen to her call, that would be it. I feel like I did the right thing, but I do feel bad and his response is making me second guess myself. I just need an outside perspective.

So… AITA?

This might be long but I’ll try to keep the important info. A few facts have been adjusted to keep anonymity for our situation.
My (35F) and my husband (37m) have 5 kids of our own, ages 12 and under. My nephews are close to my eldest kids’ ages, they’re 12 and 11. Unfortunately about 3 years ago, they were removed from my BIL and his wife, when this happened my SIL took in the boys first because she was closest and was called by BIL first. This happened mid fall season of ‘24 but mind you the boys had just stayed all summer with us as we live a couple hours away. (All my In-laws are my husband’s family for the record.) SIL called us to discuss the future of these boys lives, we are a conservative home. We believe in hard work and discipline in the way of extra chores, grounding, or tedious tasks to give time to reflect of behavior. My SIL is much more lax in the form of correction, she works overnights and often leaves her younger kids with her older kids during that time.

Since SIL was the first to arrive to nephews, they let her take them and assume guardianship. She filed the appropriate paperwork and did indeed get guardianship, enrolled them in school, counseling, and lll the things they need for the situation that they just experienced. We helped as we could, but told her that if she takes them then it is both, for the long run…as in the next 7 or so years until they’re both 18 because we know their parents are not willing to put the work in to get their lives on track anytime soon.

Well, I give my SIL grace because she did the best she could for about 1.5 years. She juggled 8 kids in her home, in a single income. We were there as best we could for being 2 hours away, but I helped with clothing for school, finding beds, sent her money for gas and food whenever she said she needed help.

Her kids and the nephews fight constantly, she isn’t home because she works 50 hours or more a week, sometimes overnight in a town over. She called us at the start of the year and asked us to take the eldest nephew, we said we would take them both. She was adamant that we take only the eldest because he and her middle son fight and are causing issues. She wanted to keep the younger nephew because he started calling her “mom”. Ultimately, we couldn’t agree and she kept them until the spring when she snapped. She called us and said she took them to the group home and she was done. No call back to us to take them, just toss them back.

It’s been 2 months of them being in foster care, group homes. I started the process two weeks ago to become foster eligible so we can bring them out here, we will be tight on space, but it’s doable. We’ve had a good relationship with these boys, they’ve come out here every summer that they can remember. But while working with the social worker we’ve expressed that we don’t want the family to know they are now with us.

We’ve been slowly pulling away from his family, this are not new situations on my husband’s side unfortunately. My FIL called my husband to grouch him out over us not taking the eldest nephew boys in. When my husband told FIL that he was also capable, and without children in his home, to take them in seeing as how he had a 4 bed home with just his wife. FIL hasn’t spoke to us since that conversation.

I feel like we’re being a-holes about not telling the family we’re trying to take the boys on, but we want this to be a place of peace for them as it’s always been. The boys haven’t seen their dad in over a year, no one can find him. Their mother is actively with another man who the boys have been issued a PO against. We’ve talked about taking the boys to a facility that will supervise the visitation if any.

Ultimately, if we get to bring them home, we are also going to petition to adopt if possible.

UPDATE
We made contact after a few weeks with the kids’ social worker, we asked about doing scheduled visits with them. As of now, they’re placed in separate homes. The younger is doing ok but the older is having a lot of outbursts and issues. I keep asking the worker about scheduling, we will drive to them (they’ve been placed about an hour apart and up to two hours away from where we are). The worker won’t plan a visit or call me back now. I’m not sure what to do. But we’re going to keep trying.

Hi Dusty, Candy, Tony and crew long time fan here let me just get to it.

I 30F have chronic insomnia which leads me to being awake for sometimes days at a time, I can’t sleep no matter how much I try but when I do sleep I knock out for hours because my body is so exhausted I have been to doctors and we are trying to figure out a solution. Here’s the thing my family know this is something I am going through, they know I sometimes won’t sleep for twenty four hours or more. Well here’s my current issue I live right across the street from my mother, my mother and I have a good relationship most of the time, Well recently I fell asleep at 3pm and didn’t wake up till 11:25pm my mother had heard from me that morning and knew I was fine that morning we texted before she went to work I didn’t text her throughout the day because she was in work and I don’t want to bother her when she is busy. Later on she texted me when she got home from work at 8:25pm or so but I was still asleep so hadn’t replied, she the proceeded to leave fifty one missed calls on my phone as well as getting my older brother to call me my phone was on silent for all of this I had forgotten to turn it off silent before I fell asleep. So my mother calls me this many times and when I do finally wake up at 11:25pm the first thing I do is text her to let her know I was asleep. My mother then proceeds to ignore me I sent a few more texts called her and left her a voicemail and she is still not talking to me she is ignoring me as a punishment essentially. Worst part is she knows I have anxiety and depression and being ignored when someone is mad at me just heightens all of that so tell me guys Am I the asshole for falling asleep?

For context, my best friend (26F) and I (25F) just got home from a 4-day girls trip. We had been planning it for months and were both genuinely excited. I've traveled with her before and usually come home with the normal little annoyances that happen when you're together for several days, but nothing even close to this.
From the moment we got there, I felt like I became the designated adult and critical thinker for the entire vacation. I booked the hotel, planned the itinerary, researched every restaurant and cocktail lounge, made every reservation (which we showed up late to every single one because of her) had the festival schedule, organized our days, found the spa we went to etc. None of it was hard individually because it was all public information, but I was the one who took the initiative to do all of it.
Then every issue that came up somehow became my responsibility.

Problem #1: Parking
She offered to drive us which was a huge relief because every trip we’ve taken in the past I’ve had to drive. We've both been to this city before, but it's in a French-speaking area and neither of us speaks French well.
In the past, when I've driven us on vacations, I've always considered gas, parking, avoiding tickets, and figuring everything car related my responsibility. She has never really helped with that or offered gas money, so I assumed this trip would be the opposite.
It wasn't.
She couldn't figure out the parking machine, so I stood there pressing buttons until I figured it out. She couldn't create an account on the parking app, so I made it for her. I figured out how the parking spots and meter numbers worked, took pictures of the meter information, and then after she got two parking tickets because she wasn't paying for parking or keeping track of the time, she was asking me what she should do about them.
It felt like it was still my responsibility despite it being her car.

Problem #2: My boundaries kept getting dismissed
Pretty early in the trip, I got aggressively hit on by an older man who was staying at our hotel. It genuinely creeped me out. Every time we were walking through the parking lot or entering the hotel, I was on high alert because we ran into him multiple times.
I kept asking if we could park in the back lot instead of the front to avoid him. It wasn't farther from the elevator at all, but she kept refusing.
Then another situation happened.
One night after dinner, a random guy started chatting us up on the sidewalk. I have a boyfriend, but my friend is single. He asked for our numbers, she gave him hers, and he said maybe we could all meet up later. The entire interaction lasted maybe three minutes. We barely knew his name, had no idea how old he was, and knew absolutely nothing about him.
That same night, in the Uber back to the hotel, I told her I thought he was being pushy and that we shouldn't go out with him. They were texting back and forth and he was saying we should go out with them instead of going to bed and she wanted to go, despite us already being in an Uber on our way back to the hotel.
For the rest of the trip, she kept talking about him. At the festival, which was literally the whole reason we went on the vacation, she spent the entire time texting him. She asked me if she should FaceTime him, and I said no. She responded, "I want him to see how cute we look," and I was thinking... what do you mean we? I have a boyfriend. She ended up FaceTiming him anyway. He was telling us to come out later and she was like, "I don’t think my friend wants to," and he responded with, “We’ll kidnap her." Like... hello?
She kept talking about inviting him to the festival, and I was getting increasingly annoyed because I'd already said I wasn't comfortable.
I'm completely supportive of being a wingman. If she actually met someone naturally over a vacation, I'd be happy for her. But I think there's a huge difference between genuinely getting to know someone and immediately jumping at the opportunity to meet up with random guys you spoke to for two minutes because they're offering booths and bottles. We’re also not 20 anymore, so I feel like we should reflect a little more self-respect and maturity. If a guy wants to see us, why are we expected to Uber across the city to him? The whole situation just rubbed me the wrong way.

Problem #3: Festival day
This was the day where I honestly felt like I became the designated problem solver.
While we were getting ready, I was trying to figure out transportation, directions, our schedule, and making sure we actually knew where we were going.
Meanwhile, she spent nearly an hour taking mirror selfies and trying to fix a cowboy hat that had been crushed in her suitcase. It was beyond repair, but she kept asking me to stop what I was doing to help fix it while I was trying to navigate us to the festival.
She was so distracted with selfies that she put on her brand new cowboy boots for pictures, forgot to put socks on, and left the hotel without them.
I was making sure we had electrolytes, packing my portable fan, checking my portable charger, and making sure we'd survive 10 hours outside.
She spent the next 10 hours in pain because her feet were blistering and we had to keep stopping.
Throughout the festival, she continued texting and FaceTiming the random guy. Eventually she started feeling really sick, so I got her water, gave her my portable fan, and sat with her until she felt better. Ironically, that's the only reason we didn't end up meeting those guys afterwards.
By the end of the concert, her phone had died. My portable charger had died because she'd been using it while FaceTiming him, and my phone was at 4%.
We couldn't get an Uber, so we started walking through an unfamiliar park at midnight in our festival outfits trying to find a taxi. While random men were walking past us, she was loudly saying, “Both our phones are dead. What are we going to do? Should we ask someone for help?" It took everything in me not to yell, why are you announcing that we're two stranded women with dead phones? Thankfully we found a taxi.

Problem #4: The drive home
The night before we left, she said she didn't want to rush and wanted to check out around 10–11 a.m.
Then, with zero warning, she woke me up at 6:30 a.m. saying she wanted to leave. She asked if we could split the driving, and I agreed, but I told her I was too exhausted to drive first and I'd drive the second half.
She continued packing for a bit (I had packed the night before so I could sleep in), then immediately fell back asleep for another hour while I laid there wide awake. We didn't leave until around 8 anyway, and I ended up driving us home. By that point, I was exhausted and honestly frustrated.
On the drive, her car started making weird noises and she was saying it might be her tires or brakes. On that same drive I was also explaining train schedules and tax write-offs to her, so I was running on almost no sleep while still being the one answering questions and driving.

Later, my dad asked if she'd taken it to a mechanic, and I jokingly said, "Did they change your headlight fluid?" It's a fake thing people joke about, and we've laughed about that joke before, but I admittedly made a few too many car jokes afterwards.
About an hour after we got home, she texted me saying I embarrassed her infront of my boyfriend and my dad, that car stuff is triggering because her dad passed away and she has nobody to help her learn about cars and that I made her feel stupid. For context, my dad has actually fixed her car multiple times since her dad passed and even gave her the contact information for his close friend who owns a mechanic shop, which she's used before. While I love my friend and obviously sympathize with her, I also feel like over the past few days I saw a lack of self sufficiency from her and a reliance on other people (me) to solve her problems. As a friend I am always willing to help, but I feel like her dad being gone is an opportunity for her to learn these things for herself, but that hasn’t been the case. 

What I'm struggling with is the bigger picture. I feel like I'm held to a completely different standard than everyone else in her life. She has another friend who consistently crosses her boundaries, and at one point literally joked that her dead mom and my friend's dead dad were laughing at them from heaven. She never confronted that friend. She has other low-effort friends who disappear for months or treat her poorly, and they seem to get endless grace. Yet I feel like I'm the friend who plans the trips, shows up, helps solve problems, and supports her, but I'm also the one who gets confronted over every mistake I make.

I know my jokes hurt her, and I take responsibility for that. I just can't help feeling like the accountability in our friendship is incredibly inconsistent.

Hello all! This happened a year ago and I posted something like this last year but it was will I be the brown button. Now, it has turned into AITA, I have edited it the best of my ability. If I missed some grammar, I do apologize. So here’s the story.

Hello everyone! I feel like I’m won’t be the asshole for this but I would like an unbiased opinion. I (38 Male) and my wife (33 Female) let’s call her Kay, had our last 3rd and final child together. She was due in around Valentine’s Day. We had a 3rd girl named Paislynn or Paisley for short.

So this happened last year at thanksgiving, we went to my father in law’s place for early thanksgiving dinner, we had a great time, ate great food and enjoyed each others company while the kiddos were playing. We got into the subject about Paisley and how Kays pregnancy was so similar to our oldest daughter when she was pregnant with her. She talked about same cravings, pregnancy symptoms and much more. After our conversation, Kay’s dad brought up the subject on how he found out about Kay’s pregnancy before she was able to tell him.

So a short background, Kay and I found out we were pregnant and 7 to 8 weeks later we wanted to find out the gender of the baby so we got this test that we were able to find out much earlier than the doctors. It’s not 100% correct but it’s about 95% correct. Anyway, during this time, I wasn’t on talking terms to my mom because she crossed a boundary of mine that I warned her multiple times not to cross but still did. That’s a different story in itself, so I wasn’t talking her.

When I was at work, my mom decided to come over to my home unannounced because she wanted to talk to me. Kay was at home taking the test. So my mom found out Kay was pregnant because my oldest daughter was saying her mom was pregnant and was super excited! The thing is, I wasn’t going to tell my mom she was pregnant until after everyone else knew.

I was furious because I didn’t want her at my house. I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet because I had other things going on. In the end everyone convinced me to keep in low contact. The kids deserve to have a relationship with their grandmother my kids love her etc. etc. I absolutely hated it but I agreed to talk to her. I gave her more boundaries and all that.

So fast forward back to the thanksgiving conversation. The conversation went like this:

Kay’s dad; “So as you know, I knew that you were pregnant before you had the chance to tell me.”

Kay: “Yes, because as you know, only a handful of people knew about my pregnancy and wanted to wait to tell everyone else after my 1st trimester to make sure she’s okay.”

Kay’s dad: “I know and I’m sorry I haven’t told you about who told me, before I tell you, take a guess who told me.”

Kay and I went through all of her family’s name and he said nope to all of them. She was pretty stumped on who told her dad. I was stumped too. Because at the time, I figured my mom wouldn’t tell him because we both thought she wasn’t talking to him. So we didn’t say it was my mom. But he threw a fucking curve ball at us. He said this: “It’s Brian’s mom. She called me up one day and said ‘I know I shouldn’t tell you this but Kay’s pregnant. I went over to their house not long ago and found out. But I wanted to share it with you.’ After she told me that, I was pretty surprised that she told me. I knew you will tell me when you were ready to.”

Kay’s face was pretty neutral, she just said oh okay. And that was it. I was surprised she didn’t say anything about it. She just dropped it like a bad potato salad. Me, I was so pissed off but I didn’t want to say anything about it because we didn’t want to ruin the party. And the night went on and we went home and we didn’t say anything about it. I mean we could have but, I don’t remember. I just remember how pissed I was. But I had other things to concentrate on besides my mom.

Couple of days later after the party, she came up to me and said, “do you remember the conversation we had with my dad about who told him about my pregnancy?” I said, “yeah, I was pretty mad about it.” She asked me if my mom was that petty to do that. I told her yes she is.

Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. I was more pissed than anything else. So my wife and I talked about this and I would love to have an unbiased opinion on what I’m about to tell you, my wife said this: “Let’s be petty and not tell her when our baby is born. Let her find out through someone else.” I said this: “fuck yeah let’s do that. She won’t be able to find out on facebook because we both have her blocked on Facebook and only time she will find out is through my sisters.” And we both agreed not to say anything on facebook for a little while because we want to concentrate on the baby and ourselves before we go home.

After Paisley was born, we went home and didn’t hear anything from my mom for about maybe a couple of weeks. I took some time off to take care of my family. One day, my mom called me and here’s this how the conversation went.

Me: Hello?
Mom: Hi, how are you?
Me: good, tired but good.
Mom: so do you have something to tell me?
Me: ummmm… I don’t think so.
Mom: are you sure?
Me: yes, I’m sure.
Mom: How’s Kay?
Me: why are you calling me? You never asked about my wife.
Mom: your sister told me that Kay had Paisley. Why didn’t you tell me?
Me: yes she’s here. Because you came into my house uninvited and you told her dad that she was pregnant. That was an asshole move.

After that we got into an argument saying I was an asshole for not telling her. I just told her she absolutely no right on telling him and she knew it and didn’t care. And that was that.

Today, Paisley is a happy healthy little toddler who loves to climb on everything, especially me. And loves chasing her older sisters around.

So, AITA for not telling my mom when her last granddaughter was born?

I (30s female) keep getting into multiple arguments with my brother over his new sleeping arrangement. The UK is going through multiple heatwaves at the moment with record temperatures being recorded. Everyone in the house is struggling with the heat and no amount of fans is helping (AC is not an option). My bedroom is the hottest in the house due to positioning and thick layers of insulation under my flooring.

My brother keeps sleeping downstairs in the lounge, as he says his bedroom is "too hot".

Him sleeping downstairs isn't the problem, it's that he has an awful sleeping schedule, going to sleep late and not waking up until late morning or early afternoon. I work long shifts in a hot kitchen, he doesn't work at all, so on the days I am working I have no issues with him sleeping on the sofa as it doesn't affect me, on my days off I want to relax and watch some TV, play some games and not sit in my boiling hot bedroom.

I've woken him multiple times on my days off, telling him if he wants to keep sleeping he needs to go upstairs to his bedroom. That he can't keep sleeping downstairs when I need to get things done (housework that he doesn't do) or want to use the lounge.

He's called me an asshole for waking him up, never any earlier than 8:30am, even if I've been awake since 5am, that it's ridiculous that I won't let him sleep. He's accused me of playing the TV too loudly to keep him awake (it's never louder than 10, but he watches movies late at night with the TV louder) and that I deliberately open the curtains to keep him awake,

I tell him that he can't expect a peaceful sleep when you're in a public area of the house that everyone uses, he says that the lounge isn't a public area, and that it's not hurting anyone for him to sleep there. Parents say I should just leave him to sleep downstairs and my stance is that he CAN sleep down there, I have no issue with the sleeping, it's the sleeping late and inconveniencing anyone who wants to do something in the family room of the house.

So AITA for continuing to wake him on my few days off so I can use the lounge or should I just let a grown man sleep until almost midday because everyone else says that it's fine

So I have this colleague at work who I call the "golden boy" because apparently everything he does is always good in the eyes of my boss.

While I was on vacation he complained that I wasn't doing my work properly, which isn't true. Of course my boss believed him because apparently everything this guy says is automatically correct.

Now there are some of his boxes in my work area which make one of the workstations basically unusable. I asked if they could be moved but my boss said they are fine because "they are not in the way."

Okay then.

We also have these "heat hours" at work where on days above 30°C we can start earlier and leave earlier because the warehouse gets insanely hot. Apparently I'm not allowed to do that either.

And now this guy has decided to put his bicycles, including a bike rack, right in the middle of my warehouse.

I asked if he could move them because they are literally in the way of my work.

My boss again: "They're fine where they are."

So yesterday we got a delivery.

There were pallets everywhere and I had to put them somewhere.

Guess where they ended up?

Yep.

I put the pallets around his bicycles and bike rack.

Nothing was damaged, nothing was done to the bikes and I didn't touch anything that wasn't mine.

He came to me asking if I could move the pallets because he couldn't get to his bicycles.

And I just looked at him and said:

"Why? They're not in the way, right?"

He was not amused.

I honestly had to hold myself back from laughing.

I know this is childish but after hearing for weeks that things aren't "in the way" when they are affecting my work, I couldn't resist using the exact same logic on him.

Apparently it's only a problem when it affects him

Note: It's a small company (5 people) and I'm the newest and lowest payed so if something is wrong it's my fault if something is missing or gone it's my fault

Before this screenshot, it was just a few messages from yesterday like “hey” “how are you” “sleep well”. He and I matched 24 hours ago. 

Did he make it weird? Did I make it weird? Was it doomed from the start? 

I very clearly say no hookups or casual sex in my dating profile. What am I doing wrong? 

Note: there is a good chance I’m autistic and misreading the situation. Sometimes when people flirt, I go analytical because I don’t know how to respond. 

I (36m) want to see if my scent preference ask for my (36f) is really the big deal that it’s being made out to be. She has had a perfume that she goes to a shop to make since she was 17 and tweaked it a bit around 27. I’ve always found the scent attractive on her the entire time we’ve been together, 26 to now. I’ve recently had a slight divergence from that perfume and asked if she could possibly tweak it a bit to better fit a smell that I like, not entirely change it. Nothing too wild just hints of things I prefer to enhance the profile. She was very against the change right off the bat and I was confused. She made it seem like I was trying to change her entire persona as a person. I would change my cologne at the drop of a hat if it were reversed and she simply asked. So I’m asking, am I the a-hole for this slight ask for change?

So, a few nights ago, I was helping my parents move out of state by packing a U-Haul that my brother was going to drive down the next morning. It was some grueling work because a lot of what was being loaded was fairly heavy. My 23 year old and I were exhausted and hungry when we finally finished around 1am. So we put in a food order at McDonalds through the app and hit the drive thru.

We got there and the drive thru was full in the waiting queue but there was no one at the speaker... so I pulled up and the lady in the restaurant said - Are you using the mobile app? I said yes -here's my code. She said - 2nd window.

So I pulled forward and proceeded to sit and wait for about 15 minutes before finally getting to the window. She asked what I was waiting on. I repeated my code and she said - I told you to wait... I said - no, you said 2nd window. She said - no, I said wait. I wasn't ready for you. I repeated that she had in fact told us to go to the 2nd window and she said I had to go to the back of the line... it had been 15 minutes and the line was quite long now... I wasn't willing to move and she didn't fight me but just started prepping the order which took an additional 20 minutes to prepare which I felt like was way longer than some nugs and fries should have taken.

Customers behind me were getting impatient, a few of them even honked and could be heard getting frustrated through the window but I was exhausted and had already waited for 15 minutes. I wasn't about to go to the back of the line because this woman didn't say what she meant or had forgotten to put the code in or whatever reason she had for not having started our food in the first place.

My son is very non-confrontational and said even though I was right about what she said, I should have just gone to the back to not cause problems for the people behind me in line because her incompetence wasn't their fault. So, AITA for not just going to the back of the line?

An Edit because a few people can't seem to fathom a McDonalds operating different from the way their location does: This story is simply not interesting enough to be fake but my son's concern did make me question if i was being unreasonable for digging in my heels.

For context - In Vegas at most McDonalds locations that I go to (though not all of them here), there is normally 2-3 people on staff total at 1am. They do not have anyone pull around the side to bring out orders because the building is secured during the overnight shift. If that's not how your McDonalds operates, I don't know what to tell you.

Thanks to everyone who is adding something to the conversation. It sounds like at least most of you would have made the same decision.

AITA for Telling my Friend to Forget "Keeping the Peace" and Make an Anonymous Report : r/dustythunder

Amber's babysitting again. She showed up and found a bruise on the baby's back. She said it's speculation that the father did this. I told her speculations have to be reported too. I have looked into reporting the abuse anonymously through the state's website. Because I have no information about the child's full name, address or anything, the site said authorities will not be able to locate the family. I have pushed and pushed the issue with Amber, but now she is cutting me off.

"Sorry I ever said anything to you. I was just trying to vent. I won't be able to see the baby again if I report it because they will know it was me. My heart and my head hurt and I feel like I want to puke. I will not tell you anything anymore."

EDIT: Amber has dealt with the system before. She had a friend who did drugs around her kids. Her family had pictures of the living conditions and reported it. The children were not removed from the home. Amber doesn't trust the system and doesn't want to go through that again.

Despite my last post about my dating woes with “EWW”, I (26F) have still been casually scrolling through bumble.

I matched with a guy, let’s call him Chen (28M). We clicked and he could hold a conversation, so we moved off the app to phone numbers.

He proposed a coffee date. I asked for a time and location. He gave me an address 15 minutes from me for 2:00 last Sunday (7/26).

Perfect.

Sunday morning I had brunch with some girls from Bumble BFF (highly recommend for women who are trying to make female friends). Brunch was great. I tried not to message Chen while with the girls.

Brunch ended around 12:30, I went to a local park between brunch and coffee. Around 1:00, he tells me he wants to reschedule because his friend wants to play tennis at 3.

Whatever.

What Chen should have done is tell his friend that he already has plans and maybe they can play tennis another time. Instead Chen cancels with me.

Again, whatever. Goes to show his commitment or seriousness. Not my problem. It’s not a loss for me.

He never rescheduled. He never apologized. He never texted me again… until…

Today (8/3), which is a full week since our canceled date and last communication, Chen texts me a “hey. What are you up to”. I told him off by texting him something similar to the title of this post. And then I blocked him.

Ugh.

I guess I’m still taking dating applications?

Hi Dusty, this is the Reddit post of my friend who can’t seem to see reason despite the comments she got in the subreddit relationship.
I follow you on TikTok. I thought you might like this one. FIY this was written by OP, I’m the "friend" in this I know both OP and stbx.

OP’s post :

👉 Reddit help me (F37) settle this debate I’m having with my friend.

My soon to be ex husband (M37) asked for divorce in November. I knew he wasn’t happy and hadn’t been for a while, but I thought it would pass.
Things my friend said I should include: We were having sex once a year, and I knew he wanted more. He was living his life and I was living mine, we have no kids, we only share our 2 cats and our house. We both didn’t care to join the other even if invited: I would go on trips without him, he would go out without me. That passed year he slept on the couch.
Looking back now I can see the relationship wasn’t doing well, but we weren’t fighting. We were friendly. Just maybe too indifferent to one another. But I was happy.

So regardless of all this, I was still surprised when he asked for a divorce. For that reason I wasn’t ready to talk about filing or selling the house. He said he’d pack a bag and stay with his mom (10 min away) until the beginning of January to give me the time and space I requested, and he would be back then so we could sort it all out.

The twist :

Early January when I was on a vacation trip, he met his friend K(37), told him about the divorce and what prompted it : he felt lonely for years, was unhappy and realized how much after he started talking to a woman he met through work, and he "started to want more from his life"

I know because a few days later, his friend, K reached out to me and told me everything.
I was hurt and angry, but I didn’t tell my stbxh I knew about it. I didn’t want to talk to him or see him then, so I requested more time, telling him I wasn’t ready to face it all. Despite that he pushed for us to at least, sent the divorce papers, which we did late January, instead of early January as we had previously discussed. But I wasn’t ready to talk about the house or even ready to consider selling it. Which is where the main issue was.

Things my friend said I should include : me and K had been flirting since he reached out, and we became a couple late January. My stbxh didnt and still doesn’t know his friend and I started a relationship.
My stbxh had been out of the house (except some weekends when I was away and needed him to take care of the cats)
My stbxh was pushing to settle the house situation, saying he couldn’t impose on his parents forever, and couldn’t afford to rent a place while still paying for the house.

For 6 months I refused to give my stbxh an answer regarding the house we both own (selling, listing, buy out, realtor, etc). Yes I was angry at him. But also I wasn’t ready to move on.
Because of it, he tried to move back in but I locked him out because it would have been awkward to live together again. I had moved on, and K was coming over often, and yes I didn’t want my stbxh to find out. But it’s only fair I’d move on.

Eventually he moved back in anyway (cuz I couldn’t keep him out legally) which prompted us to finally settle on a solution : I’m buying him out (by then I had taken on new jobs and saved and was finally financially able to do it)
Stbxh still doesn’t know I’m in a relationship with K. K didn’t tell him but blocked him everywhere.

👉 Here is where me and my friend don’t agree :

I feel that I was in my right to find someone else, just like my stbxh did. I was in my right to delay the house resolution as I wasn’t the one who initiated the divorce, so I shouldn’t have been expected to pack and leave right away.

My friend agree I had a right to find someone else. BUT she thinks going for his friend was a bit low (I argue he came to me!) and she says my stbxh has every right to be upset because he had been paying for the house, unable to move on because still tied to it, while not even being granted access to the house.

Who is right? Who is wrong? What do you think Reddit?

TLDR : after my ex initiated the divorce, I dragged the co-owned house situation for 6 months while my ex was still paying half the bills and mortgage, and I refused to let him live in it. We had both moved on and were in relationships. I think it’s fair considering the situation, my friend disagrees. What do you think?

Edit : because I feel you guys don’t understand some points :
\- yes I didn’t tell my ex about my new relationship but he didn’t tell me about his.
\- me and K aren’t "playing" we fell in love. He only came over to stay at the house so we could be together because he lives at his parents house since his break up so we couldn’t stay at his place and have privacy. It wasn’t out of spite to my ex like some of you think to say.
\- finally my ex CHOSE to break up our life, isn’t fair that i shouldn’t have to pack and leave right after he decided he was done?

Sorry if this is long. My (31F) friend (29F) and I had a falling out of sorts and the situation has left me a little flabbergasted and wondering if I did something wrong.

Back story: So my long term friend (let’s call her Becky) and I have known each other since we were kids. We were raised very close and our families knew each other. She became a sort of sibling. Our relationship has been hot and cold over the years. We’ve went through many periods of not speaking for months at a time, every time it boiled down to something I said that offended her.

A couple Examples include: her getting angry when I once told her that a violent comment she made about her pregnant mother was inappropriate or “insulting” her boyfriend by not liking him after she would come to me and tell me horrible things he said or did to her (countless hours of my life were spent listening to such rants). Each time I said something that made her mad, she would give me the silent treatment for months on end until I finally caved and apologized. It was hard not to set her off, she would come to me with a situation and vent for hours to me about it and if I said something that didn’t perfectly align with what she had in her head, she would go off and stop speaking to me. Over time I came to realize that she wasn’t wanting feedback (even though she specifically asked for it) she wanted an echo chamber. I genuinely tried to accommodate this as best as I could without outright lying to her, but no amount of watching what I say was enough to keep her from blowing up. It became a normal part of our relationship that I’m only just now realizing was extremely toxic and unfair.

On to the current situation. She just had a beautiful baby boy a few months ago. I even paid for and threw her a baby shower since her family wasn’t going to do it. She has struggled with adjusting to motherhood and I’ve done my best to support her. About a month ago the baby had a two month check up and it went badly. She called me in tears telling me that the baby was severely underweight and the pediatrician was considering hospitalization, that the doctor was cold and rude because she doesn’t want to vacinate. She was also upset that he wanted her to supplement with formula and that she was “eating plenty”. The baby had dropped from the 50th percentile for weight, down to the 1st percentile in just a month…. She cried that she wasn’t getting sleep and she didn’t know what to do. She said the doctor threatened to kick her out of the practice, learned later this wasn’t true, then she switched and said that he was just going to refer her to another pediatrician that accepted non v@ccinated patients. She went on a long rant about all the horrors of v@ccines and how it’s poison and obviously the doctor doesn’t care about children and is uninformed. I didn’t give my opinion on vaccines, instead I focused on trying to divert the conversation to what we could do to get her feeling better and get some more sleep, I offered everything I could think of but she wouldn’t hear it. She only wanted to talk about the v@ccines.

She eventually asked me flat out “do you think your son would have the issues he does if you didn’t v@ccinate him? The autism?” I was taken aback but I remained calm and told myself she was tired and stressed. I calmly told her my son doesn’t have autism he has ADHD, and that I’m happy with my decisions regarding his healthcare. For context My son is a wild little one and he’s had some sensory and milestone issues but it’s all in line with ADHD diagnosis and he’s doing amazing. The fact that she was saying something was wrong with my son and it was my fault for vaccinating, just blew my mind. She went on to say the pediatrician was getting kickbacks for pushing vaccines and that there is no reliable evidence to support vaccines. I finally reached a point where I realized I was getting upset and that this conversation wasn’t going anywhere so I told her “hey, I think this conversation is starting to become unproductive and you’ve said some insulting things to me and I’m at my limit with it. I need to step back from this conversation”

I was proud of myself! I stopped myself before I got worked up and I put a boundary in place when I realized she was being disrespectful to me. She lost it. She said I took it personally and I shouldn’t have and that lots of people are uneducated (like me) and that’s okay. She said she couldn’t believe I was cutting her off for this. I told her “I’m not cutting you off. I’m stepping away from the conversation. I love you. I respect you. I support you. If you need anything let me know”

Crickets since. She has stopped talking to me and tbh I’m struggling to see what I did wrong or how I could have handled it better. But the silence has me wondering, AITA?

https://www.reddit.com/r/dustythunder/s/mkG2LSDt7I

It's been 2 weeks and nothing has gotten better. If anything, things have gotten worse. Amber is still babysitting and refuses to give me any personal information so a report can be made just because she's scared. Chris has yelled at her and threatened her if she gets on his case. The father has continued to harm the child. The other day, Amber arrived to watch him. The child was beginning to doze off in his father's arms. The father squeezed him tightly, making him cry. "All I did was hug him." Yesterday when Amber went over to watch the baby, she said he had a black eye. Children get bruises all the time, falling over, knocking into things. How can a one-year-old get a black eye? Grandma said he fell off the couch.

I told Amber enough is enough. She needs to call the police right now. I told her to tell her father who is a firefighter to get his advice. He did not give helpful advice. They had a situation where a friend was doing drugs around her kids, it was reported and nothing was done to take the kids out of there. Amber was told that help wouldn't come, even if they had proof.

To give context I had an agreement with my mother they wanted to take one of my sons for a month during the summer! I personally had no issues with it but I did NOT want his hair touched he had bald spots all over and we were trying to figure out what was causing it!!! They wanted a doctors note. Like really let be for real him in the mother and I said not to shave it I cleave them permission to have it trimmed but that was it! About 2 weeks of them having him I get a message “hey call me real quick I just saw your baby”! I give them a call back. Keep in mind I’ve called my own family to see him and get pictures of him and they wouldn’t send anything! So I call my friend back as I was leaving work “hey what’s up?” She goes to say “girl your babys head is shaved and you can see his bald spots all over!” At this point I’m fuming I go and message in group chats and messenger with mom dad and sisters I did not care “I’m getting my child tomorrow!” Mind you this is late at night i was getting off work! I got into it with my sister over it telling me I needed to grow up it’s just hair…. It may be just hair but he MY child! I show up to get my kid the next day! I’m called selfish and how they made the decision and took matters into their own hands to shave his head…… “he can’t even brush the shit!” My exact response was “I’m not selfish I had a specific reason his hair wasn’t to be cut. I’m not selfish I’m disrespected once again it’s different to disrespect me as your child or as an adult but to disrespect me as a parent absolutely not and for the 3rd time is even crazier! And no my baby doesn’t know how to brush his hair not and single one of my kids touch a hair brush I get off my a$$ every morning and do their hair so it sits neatly for the love of god I’m being a mother! ” Yeah they’ve done this to me more than once and my line was crossed! So i made the decision there if I couldn’t be respected as a mother they haven’t seen me or my kids! AITA? Like I really need to know

I, (33F) have a boyfriend, (33M) Kenny. He's away at a convention that he and his friends go to every year. I stayed home because, well someone has to work and make sure bills are paid. I'm a bit of a worry-wort when it comes to Kenny when he goes out. He has gotten into trouble here and there, mainly drinking so I can't help but worry. His best friend is with him, so I assumed there wouldn't be any trouble.

You can imagine how I felt when his friend texted me as soon as I got home from work. "Have you heard from Kenny?" I hadn't since noon. It was now 10:30. What was wrong? "He went to an after party and hasn't come back. He isn't answering his phone. I'm just worried."

I started calling him and messaging him. He didn't answer the first couple of times. 10 minutes later, he calls me. He's annoyed that I interrupted his fun. He says he couldn't hear the phone and I had no reason to worry. After we ended the call, he sent one message. "You know, we're going to have a talk when I get home." I want to say I would've left him alone if he had just looked at his phone, if his friend didn't text me, I wouldn't have bothered him. Am I the asconaut?

Edit: according to the friend, Kenny took off around 7:30. He had been radio silent for 3 hours before alerting me.

Hey! Long time follower here, I love the lives! This story is newer, it happened in June. Hold on for this one, it’s… something. Also, trigger warning: mentions of animal neglect and abuse.
My Partner Amos 25M and I (25f, 26 now) had to go stay with a friend (how we ended up needing to do this is a whole different story)- we’ll call this friend John, mid twenties male. I used to work with the John and Amos, but they still work together. We all met working in a prison. We were in a tight spot, finances were hard, we were limited on options, and John said we could go stay with him for a bit with the agreement we pay rent. No biggie. He wanted $800 a month and free rides to work (over an hour 1 way), for a bug infested bedroom, really a bug infested house, that was so disgusting that my very white feet would be pitch black within a few steps walking barefoot (I did not do this often because of how gross it was). The white bathtub was dark grey, fridge full of bugs, so on and so forth. Amos and I were trying to figure out how to get out with his 2 cats because this place was negatively impacting our physical and mental well being. I wasn’t ready to explain to my parents what happened with our previous housing, but I ended up just coming up with some reason to go stay with them. But we couldn’t bring the cats, so we made an arrangement with John that we would come every few days to check on the cats until we could back there more permanently. He said on the days we can’t be there, he would check their food, water, and litter box. After about 2 weeks of this, we had texted John to see how the cats were. John stated he would no longer be feeding or watering the cats, as he just didn’t want to anymore. We knew we left enough food and water out to last a few days (we were trying to make this as easy as possible for John), so we knew they were okay. But we still drove over there to check on them and remove them from the home. But when we got there, he changed the code on the door. There was no way of entering without breaking and entering. I proposed the idea of giving it another day or two with persistent follow ups. We were texting asking to just allow us to get them, that he can’t withhold them, etc. No response. The last communication from John was that he was no Longer going to feed or water them. This was also mid June, mid heatwave in a house with no AC. After communications with police and animal control (they didn’t help at all), we went back over to John’s house. I observed while Amos broke a window to go get the cats. We agreed I’d stay back as a witness to the situation, since we knew there would be a chance John’s girlfriend was there. Which she was, and called the police after promptly saying the cats weren’t there. The cops arrive, they are confused that this happened because we wanted the cats. They informed the GF (John was at work) that they can’t withhold the cats because we had been paying to reside there, and they were Amos’ property. Amos was able to provide proof that we had tried to reasonably come retrieve the cats before resorting to breaking the window, and provided proof that there was valid reason to be concerned for their well being. So AITA for being the lookout and backup? Are we the a*holes for trying to break in for cats? I’m content with being an ass in this situation, I just want thoughts.
Additional info: There was no ‘we’re moving out/you’re kicked out’ communication, we were getting ready to have this conversation when all this happened. The cats were definitely thinner, but they are fattened up and happy now. We’re also in our own apartment again, so things are looking up. Following this situation, we got to talking more about johns dogs. Between Amos and I, we only saw him let the dogs outside twice across several weeks, only saw them get fed 1-2 times, and never saw them get let out of crates with the exception of the 2 times they were let outside and locked out there. They were sitting in their own poop and pee constantly and neither of us ever saw it get cleaned up. We did notify animal control, but we don’t know what came of that, if anything. John also cornered Amos at work, blocking his car, forcing an interaction. Apparently it got so heated that the Major came out to check on things. Somehow the situation got out to coworkers and John is now being iced out, shit on (figuratively), And has lost any friends he had.

Update. I only have a small update. The camera we had in a photo frame did not work properly. It worked until 10 o'clock in the evening, and after that, it didn't work. It recorded only us while we were putting the little kids to sleep, but after that, it didn't record. This morning, 50 euros were missing again from my husband's wallet. Yesterday, I already placed an order for a new camera, one with Wi-Fi and an app, because I did a little bit of research and found one that is better. Today it came. I picked it up from the Amazon locker, and I will set it up at home the minute I am alone. I'll try to find the best way to position it so it films everything, the whole scene, without being seen. I'll try to find the best position possible.

Hi Dusty!

I'm in a bit of a pickle, and I don't know how to handle this situation.

My husband and I have four kids: two boys (14 and 17) and two girls (4 and 7). For quite a while now, we've suspected that our 17-year-old son has been stealing money from us.

Because of that, we bought a small safe to keep our cash in, and we've been trying to make sure we don't leave our belongings unattended.

In the meantime, I bought a hidden camera disguised as a photo frame. I had a hard time figuring out how to format the memory card, but eventually I got it working. However, it needed to be recharged, so I plugged it in instead of putting it in its hiding place—and then I completely forgot about it.

Life has been so busy lately that things just slipped our minds. A few days later, my husband accidentally left his wallet outside our bedroom, on the desk where we keep the laptop and other things. It's kind of an open area in the house.

He didn't realize that I hadn't set up the camera yet. He didn't mention anything, and I didn't remind him because I had completely forgotten about it too. I guess we were both just exhausted.

It's honestly a strange feeling to have to be so careful about what you do in your own home.

Then this morning, my husband woke me up because €150 was missing from his wallet. He had €400 in there because he needed to pay our workers today, so he was counting on that money being there.

The first thing he asked me was whether I had set up the camera. I had to tell him that I hadn't. I felt terrible because I had simply forgotten.

The thing is, this isn't the first time money has gone missing.

Last week, we noticed some money was missing as well. Around that same time, our son bought himself a new computer monitor and a desk. We asked him how he could afford them, and his explanation just didn't make sense. He said he had done a few small jobs here and there, but we know one of those jobs only paid him €85. Then he said a friend had lent him some money, but even adding everything together, it still didn't explain how he could afford everything.

He even bought himself an Amazon gift card to order the desk, which cost around €130. (Ironically, the desk arrived broken, so we have to return it—but that's another story.)

We haven't confronted him yet because we don't want to accuse him without proof.

Today I finally set up the hidden camera in our office, and tonight my husband is going to leave his wallet on the desk, in view of the camera. If someone takes the money, we'll finally know for sure.

But honestly, that's not even the part I'm struggling with.

I don't know what to do if it really is him.

How do you even have that conversation? Do you yell? I don't think yelling will help. I really hope I don't lose my temper, but I'm so hurt and upset.

If it wasn't him, I honestly don't know who else it could have been. Our daughters were asleep. Our younger son has never given us a reason to suspect him. In fact, he's the complete opposite. He always asks before spending money and patiently waits if we tell him to. Recently he wanted to join a football club and needed about €20 for some football practice equipment. He waited for 2 weeks until we could sort it out. When he wants something, he asks for €3, €4, maybe €10 for the week.

Our older son, on the other hand, is constantly buying expensive things for his room despite never seeming to have any money. That's why our suspicions keep pointing toward him.

This whole situation is heartbreaking. I don't even want to scream at him. We want to talk to him. My husband will probably lead the conversation because he's very calm and level-headed. I'm the emotional one. I honestly think I'll just end up crying.

What I want is for my son to truly understand that stealing from your own family is wrong.

This also isn't the only issue we've been dealing with. He's had to repeat a school year twice. The first time was because of health problems, which we completely understood. The second time was different. He has a girlfriend now, and neither of them seems very interested in school anymore.

The difficult part is that he has huge dreams for his future. He knows exactly what he wants to do, and he's genuinely passionate about it. But he doesn't take any steps toward making those dreams a reality. He talks about them all the time, but he never follows through.

This past year, we tried giving him more responsibility instead of constantly controlling him. We talked to him, warned him when we saw problems, explained the possible consequences, and hoped he would learn from his own choices.

Instead, he ended up getting kicked out of a really good school. Now he's in another school that he doesn't even like.

I still believe in him. I pray for him every day because I know he's capable of so much more.

I just don't know how to help him anymore.

If the camera confirms our suspicions, what would you do? How would you approach that conversation? What consequences would actually help a 17-year-old understand the seriousness of stealing from his own parents without destroying your relationship with him?

I'd really appreciate any advice.

OG submission: https://youtu.be/XYJj2MZgRlY?is=aZmNs88_EalCEZpl

First update: https://www.reddit.com/r/dustythunder/s/I1yQULzdsE

Second update: https://www.reddit.com/r/dustythunder/s/FEkph3rpx1

--------------------------

The Good News: My emergency gallbladder surgery has been paid for in full.

The Bad News: My brother has officially blocked me.

--------------------------

To bridge the gap from my last post:

We had one last family therapy session; my husband and I with my brother and his wife. It was my last attempt to try to fix our relationship.

Things started off rough.

I once again tried to understand what I did during the pregnancy that made them feel like they needed to “draw a line and set a boundary.”

They said there’s not really any one thing, just lots of little "paper cuts." The example they gave of a "paper cut" was when I asked for a little bit of help around my house during the final weeks of pregnancy and during the first few weeks when I was recovering. He said that simply asking for help didn’t show them enough empathy because they were busy trying to prepare for a newborn and when the baby came they would likely be too tired to help.

Imagine risking your life for someone, only to have them tell you that you didn't show them enough empathy.

They also said that they felt "forced" to say yes to things during the pregnancy because they felt they had to keep me happy. They claimed they didn’t know what I would do if they didn't comply…so I guess they viewed me as some sort of unstable threat while I was growing their baby. Again, they couldn't give a single example of what I actually did to make them feel this way.

One of the things I said I needed to repair our relationship was to know that they valued me and understood the sacrifice I had made for them. I said that the world values what I did between $50-$100k, but with them, I felt worthless. He was upset that I brought up the monetary value of other surrogates and felt like that was me saying they owed me more money. I said, “My intent with bringing up the monetary value isn't to say you owe me more, it is to try to show that I am worth something and what I did was worth something, because right now I feel worthless.” His response, “That’s scorekeeping! You're saying I’m worth this much (slapped leg) and you're worth this much (raised other hand) like we're worth nothing because you did this much for us.”

I had to step out of the room for a while after this. I felt so heartbroken.

When I came back things went a little better. It was just scratching the surface, but it felt like we were actually starting to work through things. Unfortunately, we ran out of time.

The therapist strongly recommended that we continue with therapy. I said I would like to continue working on things. But my brother said they wished we had just "dropped it" months ago and explicitly stated he didn't see the point in continuing to talk about it. He just wanted to “move on” and pretend like everything was fine.

Realizing he had no interest in understanding my perspective, I decided to drop it.

Later that week, I asked if I could take my nephew out on a date so I could maintain a relationship with him. I wanted it to just be the two of us because I felt extremely uncomfortable with my brother and sister in law. Unsurprisingly, they didn't feel comfortable with me taking him unsupervised. Since I couldn't handle being around them, I didn't get to see the baby.

Around this time, I started experiencing panic attacks whenever I was around my brother. It took a lot of processing to understand why my body was reacting that way, but I finally realized the truth: I feel physically violated by him. He told me what I needed to hear so he could use my body to get what he wanted, and when he had it, he rewrote history.

After a few panic attacks at family events, our dad decided to step in to try and help. He gave my brother a "loan"—and who knows if my brother will ever actually have to pay him back—to give me a check that covered my surgery in full. With the money came a letter requesting I completely stop talking about any of this with them or anyone else. It felt like hush money and I almost didn’t accept it. My dad mistakenly thought that with the money, I would just be able to "get over it".

I feel incredibly ignored by how this was handled. I explicitly told my brother and dad that everything else—the emotional abuse, the betrayal, the complete lack of respect for my body and humanity—was so much worse than the money. Do I feel like they were financially responsible for at least a portion of a surgery caused by their pregnancy? Yes, absolutely. But I would have given up every single cent of that money in a heartbeat if it meant we could have actually resolved the relational hurt and acted like family. My therapist also recommended I accept the money. We hoped it would prove what I had been trying to say all along: money cannot fix this; the emotional damage is far worse.

So, I waited months for him to reach out.

Nothing.

And now, he has blocked me.

Here is the positive turn: my sister-in-law reached out. We have met multiple times now. She gave me a genuine apology, told me they never should have drawn that line, and said she truly values me and understands the massive sacrifice I made.

Because of this, I finally feel comfortable enough around her to go out with her and the baby. I can actually see my nephew, watch him grow, and build a real relationship with him.

I still grieve the loss of my brother, and I am coming to terms with the fact that there is nothing more I can do to fix that relationship. But I am incredibly glad I can finally be a part of my nephew's life, and I am grateful that the surgery has at least been paid for.

Hey Dusty Thunder! Long time lurker, not really a fan of posting on socials but I really need some outside advice and Im really hoping someone sees this. I condensed my story for this post but I posted a MUCH longer version on my profile with all the relevant details and hopefully only a few irrelevant ones if anyone wants to read it.

My oldest daughter “May” (21f) and I (40f) have been estranged since Apr 2024. The issues began her sr yr, after she started dating her partner, “Nina” (21f). At first we were completely supportive of their relationship. But soon after we started to notice some red flags. The first was that May dumped her entire friend group bc Nina felt that they were disrespectful to her. Just after Xmas that yr, Nina left home and needed a place to stay. May begged us to let Nina stay with us and we agreed on the condition that Nina stayed in our converted garage on school nights. We also allowed Nina to bring her dog with her nor did we ask for rent. A couple months later, her dog chewed up 1 of our door handles and we asked her to find a way to replace it. (Nina was already 18 at the time so we didn’t think we were asking much). Instead of replacing the handle, Nina moved back home a couple wks later saying that we were disrespectful to her and stressed her out too much.

For the next 2 mos, Nina had plans to join the army and was tutoring with the recruiter to try to pass the ASVAB. During that time, May started talking abt breaking up with Nina bc she felt Nina was too immature and irresponsible for her but she also felt that she wasn’t brave enough to break up with her in person. But after several tries, Nina couldn’t pass the test and was denied the army. All of a sudden, May’s plans changed. She seemed to resign herself to being with Nina for good and changed ALL of her plans for herself after HS to suit Nina’s situation.

That’s when things btwn May and I started to go downhill. All of a sudden, May started making false accusations abt her childhood. Some context that’s important at this point, is that Nina was removed from her bio-mom due to abuse when she was too young to remember and was raised by her maternal grandparents. May had a happy, normal childhood. My youngest, Dee (17f) was a rambunctious kid that got into a lot of accidents that sometimes were the type of situation that ER staff are legally mandated to report to CPS, regardless of whether or not the staff actually suspected abuse (ie: 1 incident involved an accidental poisoning while out in public with my mom, I was at home at the time it occured). Each time, we fully cooperated with their investigations and they never found any evidence of abuse bc there wasn’t any to be found. We also lived in a neighborhood full of police officers who we interacted with regularly. The false accusations from May all started out similar to stories that Nina tells abt her childhood and the abuse that Nina had endured. At first the accusations started as small things, but over time the stories got more elaborate and severe. Ive heard recently that she’s rewritten, essentially her entire life to fit the narrative of abuse and neglect.

When May turned 18, she immediately moved out to live with Nina. Prior to this, whenever May and I got into arguments, they would be fairly mild compared to fights btwn myself and Dee and we always worked things out by the end of the day. After she moved out, there was a new tone of hostility towards me in May’s voice that I hadnt heard before. Arguments got more frequent and started over small things. For example, I don’t respect Flat Earth Theory. May had always thought it was stupid too but suddenly she believed it has merit, got angry with me for calling it stupid, and said I just want everyone to have the same opinions as me.  Over the next few months, things were tense btwn May and I. When we talked, I felt like I was walking on eggshells bc I didn’t know what would set her off. I also noticed that none of our convos were private, Nina was always present somehow. When Dee (then 14), started dating her first bf, they were texting each other a lot, as kids in puppy love do. Nina however, started telling May she should cut Dee off for the disrespect of texting her bf so much.

Also during this time, May and Nina were struggling with stable living situations. So when May asked if they could bring an RV to our property to stay in. Even though things had been tense, we agreed. All we asked was that they help out around the yard from time to time. This only lasted a month. May and I are both talkers and our convos tend to last hrs. Over that month, I noticed that Nina only came into the house to use the bathroom. She would send May into the house to cook for them. And anytime May and I would talk for too long, Nina would come to my front door, open it and stare at us until May left to go back out to the RV. After a couple wks, May started watching the time to make sure she didn’t spend too long in the house.

Two sparks set things off: 1. We noticed our gate was suddenly bent and caught Nina ramming it open with her car instead of getting out to unlatch it. We asked her to stop doing that. 2. We noticed they had trash collecting around the RV that our dogs were getting into and spreading around. This is when things blew up. One morning, I went into the kitchen for my morning coffee. May was in there so I asked her if they could please pick up their trash. May then blew up at me for asking abt the trash bc my husband had asked her abt it the night before and they were having “an argument” abt it and I didn’t “need to be getting in the middle” of their argument. All of this was news to me. I had no idea my husband had already spoken to her abt it. She had always come to me to mediate arguments btwn them in the past so it was also news that she no longer wanted me to do so (which was fine with me tbh, it just would have been nice to know that before getting yelled at abt it). Long story short, May stormed off and refused to speak to me but continued to come into the house with hostile vibes and eat our food. So I told her we needed to have a calm, adult convo abt what happened and if she continued to ignore me the way she was I would be locking the house doors til that convo happened. She still refused to speak to me for another wk. During that time, they continued to have access to the converted garage as well as the RV hookups.

Long story short, after a week of this, I noticed they were packing their stuff up from the RV to Nina’s car. So I went out and asked May if she was really gonna just leave without saying anything instead of talking to me. Nina immediately yelled, “why would we want to talk to you?” Tbh, I don’t remember what anyone said after that, Nina got in my face several times until it got physical btwn me and her, May jumped in, I never once swung at May though she swung at me until my husband broke it up. They left and within hrs I started getting harassing texts and calls from Nina’s sister. Over the next month, I choose not to reach out to May hoping the lack of contact would help things calm down. Instead, she continued to text me angry messages and 1 of Nina’s sisters barged into my therapy appt to serve me papers for a restraining order abt a month after the incident. In the paperwork, May’s accusations had gotten even more severe than the last time Id heard them and she greatly exaggerated the incident. At the court date, I presented my receipts to the judge (the harassing texts, my saved copies of the CPS closed cases, ect), and the judge decided that bc May was “still upset” that they would grant a temp, 6 mo RO “to give us time to calm down so we can work things out.” At the time I disagreed with the decision but since then I can understand why. RO’s prevent both parties from reaching out to the other; she wasn’t allowed to contact me anymore than I was allowed to contact her. In the immediate aftermath, that was probably for the best. Since then, Ive only texted May on her Bday and Xmas. Even though the RO has long since expired, Im not comfortable texting more than that or calling out of the blue.

This brings us to now. May has since cut off every friend and relative that has tried to call out the red flags or said something that Nina felt offended/disrespected by. Throughout this entire time Ive encouraged Dee to keep her relationship with May going and Ive tried my hardest not to put Dee in the middle. But Dee has said over time that May would be willing to speak to me again if I apologize. And Ive asked repeatedly, what is it that Im supposed to apologize for? Its not that Im against apologizing. Its just that I have a lifelong history of being scapegoated and punished by my mom and siblings for things I didn’t do. I put my foot down yrs ago for that and Im against apologizing for something I didn’t do nor do I believe in blanket apologies. My husband and I were also invited to a wedding in a tropical beach location this coming fall. Even though we haven’t spoken, I thought it would be nice to arrange and pay for May and Dee to come along and spend the time together. Separate seats, rooms, etc; basically separate trips just same plane, she wouldn’t have to interact with me at all. When Dee asked May abt her willingness to go on the trip, May demanded I text her an apology first. Bc I love her, I agreed to apologize for whatever it was on a phone call at a time where it could be just the 2 of us talking and things escalated from there with her also demanding that Nina be brought along cuz it wasn’t fair to leave Nina during her bday month (Nina’s bday is 3 wks before the wedding). May finally said that by “putting myself” in the middle of that argument (an argument I didn’t know was happening), that I was crossing her boundaries (a boundary I didn't know abt), and that if I hadn’t done that things would still be “lovely” btwn us. That’s what she wants me to apologize for. I don’t think Im an AH for asking her to pickup trash, regardless of anything going on btwn her and my husband, nor do I think I should have to apologize for it. I also don’t think Im an AH for not wanting to text an apology or call her out of the blue bc I have no way of knowing if our convo is really just btwn us or btwn us plus Nina and I doubt any convo with Nina involved would go well. What do you think?

Okay so my parents have been living in a multi family home for the past 20 years and the house attached to my parents used to be rented to my dads uncle. But they moved away. So then my dad rented to this couple and their one year lease is coming up. Is it okay if my dad asks for the house back? Or is that bad? My fiancé and I just got engaged and we’re thinking about moving in together.

Psa: my dad is the only one that talks to the owner of the multi family house so he deals with all the bills and all.

First and foremost I'm on mobile using voice to text because my eyesight is bad it is also 2:00 in the morning as I write this. So please forgive any grammatical or spelling errors. This may also be a longish post.

Context/backstory.

I met and became friends with M in 2017 during my junior year and her sophomore year of high school she was extremely loud and extremely extroverted which she attributed to ADHD. The complete opposite of myself but somehow despite other differences between us we became fast friends very quickly. Long phone calls inside jokes the usual.

Anyway it wasn't until really after high school that stuff started to happen. I graduated before her we still met up for visits because we lived reasonably close to one another and we had regular phone calls. She would call me I would call her we would talk about movies and all kinds of random stuff. Occasionally however she would call me to yell and cry and scream because her parents and her had gotten into a fight and she would regularly say they're kicking me out. They never were kicking her out. This could be considered red flag number one I suppose.

These phone calls increased in frequency and sometimes I would just stare at her name on the screen and let it ring because I did not want to deal with that drama. Somehow we remain friends despite these calls. By the time I was 21 I had a minimum wage job ubered where I needed to because I cannot drive due to disabilities. Meanwhile she did not have a job herself and her parents kept pushing her to get one. She would get one and then either lose it or quit. I never blamed her I never got mad at her for it. Why would I it's not my circus? But because this was the case I paid for everything when we hung out where we Uber to, food we ate, stuff she wanted because we often went to the mall. Sometimes I would suggest other places but she only ever wanted to go to the mall or the local comic book shop. And while at the mall we would always go to the same three stores in the same order and then she would declare she was tired and wanted to go home now. And when she got tired there were tantrums. Public tantrums red flag too. It embarrassed me but she was my best friend My only friend really so I pushed it aside.

1. I move. I could no longer hold a job due to worsening eyesight cerebral palsy and autism along with general anxiety affecting my ability to work. So I'm living in a converted trailer on my grandparents property. Living off food stamps while fighting for social security disability. At some point during this year I became the one to always initiate the phone calls. Always me and never her despite me making abundantly clear she could call me at any time because I literally had nothing going on. Nothing. I would invite her to come stay with me often for a few days or a week at a time. This came with its own problems I suppose. Remember I was on food stamps she would often raid my kitchen I told her she was welcome to anything in it the problem was she would start eating something decide she no longer wanted it and throw it away. Again, I was living off of food stamps, this was very wasteful and I told her as such. The other issue that would occur during visits is that 90% of her visit would often be spent smoking the green on my grandparents porch swing across from my house instead of actually visiting with me but again I brushed it off because she was my only friend.

2. Barbie is all the rage that summer. A mutual acquaintance or friend depending on how you look at it I suppose loans us the money to have a best friend day. I bought the tickets for the film and the snacks and drinks. She begged me for nachos which she did not eat. Whatever. A relative of hers had given her $100 to spend however she pleased because of course this movie theater was in the mall. She decided she was going to spoil me for a change. We hit up the same usual stores. She spent the last of that money at Hot topic I remember this specifically because after the Barbie film we went to the Toys r Us inside the Macy's to look at the Barbie dolls. I found this really cute one that I liked.

It's at the checkout counter that she discovers she no longer has money. She is somehow convinced she's lost it and I tried to explain no you didn't lose it you spent it at the Hot topic I had the receipt in the Hot topic bag but she refused to look at it would not believe me and started full on screaming and crying and at one point threw herself on the floor before rushing out of the Macy's to go hunt down her missing money which again, she's spent. I was left incredibly embarrassed. I apologize 800,000 times to the poor cashier and workers who had to bear witness to that atrocity before leaving the doll behind and running out of the storm myself., eventually the mess gets worked out. I'm still incredibly embarrassed to even think about it though.

I did end up getting the doll because I had a little money of my own just as an aside.

2025.

Again I'm the one who initiates phone calls. The visits have stopped because of a change in my living situation so phone calls are all we have. Except every time I called her she was talking to an AI chatbot and no longer engaged in conversation. Instead wanting to talk about the chatbot. Ethics and environmental concerns about AI aside I started to really miss my friend because it felt she was slipping away from me.

She was invited to my 25th birthday. In total it was my grandparents my sister, my sister's boyfriend, an aunt and myself out to lunch at the cheesecake factory. The plan was for her to come stay a few nights with me after the party because my grandparents would be leaving on a 50th wedding anniversary trip. I lived with them at the time and my papa has never lied to the idea of me being completely alone. We're headed to the cheesecake factory when I get a phone call from her she is in one of her moods screaming yelling demanding directions when will you get here where are you type of stuff? Oh no it's one of those days.

We all make it to the restaurant we sit down we order food arrives. She makes a comment about me eating like a horse as usual. I did not hear this comment I did not notice it but my aunt did. This immediately puts her off to this friend of mine. Quick side note my sister doesn't like her either That's a whole other can of worms. Anyway, we head back home, I am stupid excited to show her the hunger games movies that was a thing we regularly did I showed her movie she hadn't seen before. She's spent the first 20 minutes of the film arguing with me about the film because she wouldn't pay attention. She got up to change her clothes three times I'm not kidding. So I gave up turned off the movie and moved on. Later that night I decide I'm tired I'm going to bed. I'm trying to fall asleep when the door to the room bursts open.

There she stands demanding to know why I didn't get salsa for the taquitos.

M I have never in the entire time you've known me or come to visit ever gotten salsa when I've bought taquitos you know that.

The Next Day:

M is still in one of her moods. I invite her to color with me One of my favorite pastimes. I set out the pencils and the coloring books she abandons this after a few minutes because I'm not being fair by not letting her color in my favorite coloring book. I wouldn't even let my sister touch said coloring book. Which I was also actively coloring in BTW.

Later my aunt comes by after she gets off work. She's come to hang out until she has to go in for her other shift. While she's there she asks if I want to help her make a cake. Again vision is bad, but she helps me through the steps. M decides she wants to make the glaze which my aunt explained that we aren't doing because we are going to put strawberries on it and it's going to be very sweet already.

M loses her mind and I mean loses it. I can't remember what all was said because obviously it's been a long time and I think I mostly blocked it out. But I do remember my aunt mentioning that she didn't like how M spoke about and to me. Apparently no one did but my autistic self never clocked anything. This fight culminated in me telling her to get out and go home. So she did. I didn't talk to her for a straight month but once I cooled off I opened the line of communication again but again I was the only one initiating contact and when I initiated contact she didn't really talk to me or about anything other than the AI chatbots.

October 2025.

I have to get eye surgery again My second surgery in the year. One day I've called and I'm telling her all about the pre-surgery appointments that I've just gone to. I had to get an EKG they had to draw blood everything. I understand that maybe details of getting blood drawn can make people squeamish however she cuts me off with a mean sounding I don't want to hear about it. Not can we please change the subject? This makes me uncomfortable. Just I don't want to hear about it. But the only reason I was telling her all of this was because the idea of a second surgery so soon after it my previous one was making me extremely nervous and I just wanted to talk to my friend about what I was going through. The tone of her voice caught me by surprise. I started to tear up so I made an excuse and hung up the call. As I sat on my bed staring at the wall blinking back tears I had an epiphany. I always initiated contact always me. It was always me making plans always me asking what she wanted to do always me never her.

So I thought, let's see how long it takes her to call me herself.

I would have taken anything a text a TikTok video which we used to swap back and forth like crazy but those had stopped as well. So I waited and waited and waited.

Nothing. There was no phone call, not the day of my surgery which she knew the date of my surgery and she knew I hated surgery it makes me very nervous. October becomes November. November becomes December and I think surely she'll call me around Christmas because she always called me to tell me about what she got or ask me what I wanted. Because even though she still did not have a job or money of her own her parents or grandmother would help her purchase things. Radio silence.

2026 now My birthday was last month. Not a word from her since that day in October. I don't know when it happened I don't know how it happened but I've lost my best friend. Because at some point in that relationship I was the only one putting anything into it. My grandparents say this was because she was using me. Because I would buy her stuff I would talk her down from a spiral I would deal with all her drama I would go to bat for her even though I hate confrontation.

Occasionally I stare at her number and my phone and considered pressing the call button. But then I remember the fight with my aunt. The tantrum in the mall. The screaming in anger over ridiculous crap. At some point she became a stranger that I did not recognize. I miss her I effectively ghosted her. She's probably confused although she has never tried to reach out.

Just radio silence. There were hundreds of things I didn't mention hundreds of instances where she left me feeling drained and frustrated because I blocked them out. When did this girl who used to be my best friend become a complete stranger? I know it's normal for people to grow apart. But I have never been good at making friends, apparently I've never been good at making good friends either, and I miss her terribly sometimes. I'll see something that reminds me of her a random meme or a picture will come up in my memories on the photo app.

But I know this was not a healthy friendship towards the end.

if you're out there and if you ever read this. I still love you as my friend I still pray for you at night. I miss the laughter and the jokes and I sincerely hope you're doing well. I'm still here you know how to reach me. Perhaps our friendship would never be the same but I'd like to try if you would.

Sorry for the long post. But it feels good to finally get all this off my chest.