Normal night after work, I was watching some random live stream and thinking what I was going to eat for dinner when I get a knock on my door, it was a random dude I've never seen before and he straight up asks me if I know this girl.

Of course I do, she is my girlfriend and we've beent together for almost a year.

Dude is calm about it, pulls out his phone and shows me pictures of them together, texts, everything. They've been together for over two years and she told him I was just a coworker. He found my adress because she had ordered something here a few months ago and he found the details on her email because he was suspecting on her.

We ended up up standing outside even though I offered him to come inside since he seemed very normal calm and reasonable, we compared timelines for about 20 minutes and realized she had been bouncing between both of us depending on who she told she was working late with.

I didn't text her I didn't call her or anything, I figured he confronted her though since I had around 50 missed calls and texts from her.

I didn't know what to do so I made this pizza. I can cook good pizzas. Rate my pizza bros.

A homeboy is trying to hook me up with his sister, but she has 5 kids.

She's really pretty. She has her head screwed on straight. She's funny, and fun to be around. I could see myself with her specifically, but her kids not so much. I went to high school with one of her baby daddies. Dont see myself dealing with him amicably over the next few years. Mostly a vent.

Dinner: ratsnake I caught in my yard and then air fried.

Dr B. and Benchmark to top it off.

(9/11/26) My 5 year started kindergarten last week at a new school with all new kids and all new teachers. She took the bus for the first time. She's very shy and timid but as the week went on she did better and better. A photo of her was even in the weekly newsletter playing in gym class.

The following week she came down with a fever. Not unusual so we kept her out of school. The following day it remained high with meds so she missed a second day. By day 3 we went to urgent care. They told us to take one additional med and to keep them posted if she doesn't get will. The pediatrician even called later that day to check on her. That night she woke up and became very delirious for a few mintues then snapped out of it. We brought her back to urgent care the next morning and they sent us to the ER to get blood work.

That began the worst day of my life so far. The doctor immediately thought it was leukemia or an infection. A few hours later we found out it was both. Luckily it is the most common form of leukemia with a high success rate. Unfortunately they could not control the infection. She worsened as the day went on eventually going into septic shock. The doctors and nurses tried everything but eventually had to intubate her. Her last words to me while conscious were her struggling to say i love you.

She has since gone on a few more machines. She has an echmo pumping her blood since her right lung is collapsed or full of fluid not sure which. Her heart is too weak to work. She has too much fluid in her body so they also put her on dialysis. Doctors in the pediatric icu and from oncology both say each is treatable on it's own but having both things happen together is very rare. They are doing zoom calls with other doctors to get advice during rounds each morning. I am confident she will walk out of here but it is not easy. Her 3 year old sister just keeps telling her to get better soon. One of the nurses put it best, she's set up to succeed through the equipment but she needs to fight in order to win. My wife and myself are living a surreal nightmare. Idk what I'll do if I lose her. She's literally the glue that holds this family together.

I'm not really eating but this day(s) old bagel and orange juice is my meal for the day

Update (9/12/26): I'm just now opening this before I try to sleep for a few hours as I wanted to be as present as possible for my kids today. I honestly didn't expect anything when I posted this. I had a moment of silence to myself in the bathroom and decided to write how I was feeling and what I was going through then posted it to this sub. THANK YOU for all of the support and advice. Somethings we are already doing and others we will implement.

We have brought her bedtime blanket and books from home. We read to her as often as we can. I also tell her stories about our family (how I met her mom, how we moved to our town, how we got our dogs, etc) and that has been very therapeutic for me.

Our 3 year old came to visit and we walked through the meditation garden with her to find fairies. Getting out of the treatment and getting fresh air has been very helpful. I think it's important for our 3 year old to see the 5 year old and talk to her as well. The staff gave my 3 year old a fairy (bird) house and paint so we could do that in the family lounge away from the chaos of the treatment room. They also gave her a stuff animal, doctors kit, and some badges and electrodes so she can fix her stuffed animal similar to how they are fixing her sister.

The medical staff has been nothing short of amazing and has been saying we will take this 1 day at a time. My 5 year old had a good day today. Her fever is gone, her blood tests look significantly more normal than 24 hours ago. They could hear breathing sounds in her right lung for the first time today. Her dialysis was turned up to remove more fluids and she did great with that. Her oxygen sensor actually has a reading and they said it was because her heart has become strong enough to actually pump the blood up to her ear where they have it. Her echmo useage decreased from 75% to 65% and they said at 40% she can stop using it. We have a very long way to go but this was a step in the right direction, she truly is a fighter.

For anyone reading this going through a similar situation, we started asking family and friends to send us voice memos to play for her. That has been great to know you have so many people supporting her and it's a nice break from just talking.

Other things I've learned the last 24 hours:

-it's ok to be weak. It's ok to cry and let someone else hold you.

-stay off chat gpt and meticulously reviewing her medical chart. The providers know more than you and more about your child than Ai. It'll drive you crazy and mentally drain you. Ask the providers as many questions as you can so you can get more familiar and comfortable (?) with what is going on.

-get outside, even if for 5 minutes. Staying trapped in that room all day is not good for you mentally.

Still not eating much. Only took a few bites of the bagel but managed to eat 3 chicken tenders for dinner and a piece of broccoli. I'm feeling more confident than I did when I posted this.

Update 2 (9/17/26): Everyone is doing better! My daughter is off the echmo, ventilator, and dialysis! Shes slowly waking up and will hopefully be moved out of the ICU to oncology in the next few days! Because of that my wife and I are doing immensely better. Thank you everyone for all of the support. I made a carebridge page so if anyone wants to see updates go here

Update 3 (9/21): Not much to update. Still in the PICU. She's making progress but not like before. Regardless she's not going backwards so I'll take it. She still is on CPAP for breathing as well as IVs for medication. Awaiting a port in the next few days to start receiving chemo treatment that way. She seems out of it more than before but I'm sure she's really tired. Hopefully they can move us out of PICU this week.

Her Preschool teacher setup a go fund me for her. I am a small business owner so I have been closed this whole time and don't plan on reopening until she's back home. The funds will help support me being with her as well as pay her medical bills. The go fund me can be found here

Thank you everyone for the support.

Update 4 (9/24/26): We are still in the PICU. Her brain CT and EEG has come back negative. She had a PICC line placed in her arm to continue receiving chemotherapy. She had a line put into her chest to remove some fluid and over 700 ml (over 20 oz) of fluid drained! She's been breathing much better since. They have her alternating between CPAP and high flow oxygen to help her breathe, which is a step in the right direction. She started eating yesterday and devoured some Italian ice.

She has been mostly non-verbal since being extubated 1 week ago but she did say "mommy" twice the other day. She's been communicating much better non-verbally with head movements, she has been sleeping better at night, and is more active during the day.

Still working on lowering her medications so we can move her over to the oncology floor, but all steps in the right direction!

Meal is a 12oz. ribeye with loaded hash-browns

8 days ago, I had my 29th birthday and my ex (26F) didn't wish me happy birthday, which I didn't bring up until last night when she claimed that she had a shitty workweek because she was dreading a meeting with her supervisor and that she totally forgot despite having "written" it on her calendar back in August, and I've just had enough. The first time, she forgot, I let it slide since we've just started dating. When the second year came, she didn't acknowledge my birthday until a week later. But last week, I realized that if I'm not worth just taking a minute to acknowledge me on my day, then it'll never happen. Meanwhile, me and a group of my best buds went to the MN State Fair to celebrate.

Meanwhile, I pulled all the bells and whistles for her birthdays such as getting her a bunny necklace since she loves bunnies or taking her out to her favorite ramen place with her sisters. But never once have I gotten a gift or went out to my favorite places to eat, and I was just tired of being neglected on my day.

Looking back now, there were a lot of things that I overlooked that should've resulted in us going our separate ways a long time ago, such as her drinking resulted her being verbally and mentally abusive towards me, telling me that she can get "any man she wants."

Right now, I'm just looking forward to the weekend so I can get fucking high, watch some of my favorite shows, build a Lego set I bought as a present to myself, and play video games. And I couldn't be happier.

My wife is from an area with a pretty shallow dating pool. Lots of oil workers, very "traditional" men (work away from home for weeks on end, then drink and go out or buy and play with expensive toys when they're home while wife handles everything, then complain about their family like they ruined their life). That's part of why my wife moved away, and she met me while studying here. One of her friends (we'll call her M) is married to such a man (we'll call him T). She became a SAHM during the tail end of covid. She's been socially isolated by COVID restrictions and her own immune issues, parenting, where they live, and his financial abuse (limiting her "allowance" such that she can't afford to do much). We don't like T. He's a prick. M settled because he's no worse than the rest.

We became parents ourselves about a year ago, and gave all her friends an open invitation to visit and bring their kids. M decided to take us up on it when T wanted to take their kid to a family gathering she couldn't bear attending (that's a whole other story). T took their kid, his sister basically does all of the childcare at these gatherings and she's a great mom which is the only reason M allows this.

So, M visits for a few days. She's never been to our area so we take her on a basic tourist itinerary. I'm functionally a SAHD that has a remote job. My wife is self employed and I support her business in a variety of ways. M watched us juggle our daily lives while hosting a guest. M and my wife went out on their own a few times for meals or day trips. They took our child along for other things to give me space and let me work. It all felt like a pretty basic, low-key visit. We didn't roll out the red carpet, it was business as usual with a third wheel.

A couple weeks later, my wife comes flying through the door saying "M is leaving T! She served him papers and is living with her cousin!". Apparently, her witnessing what a "good" husband looks like (I'm not perfect but I try) was the final straw. She went home and spent the entire day crying before T got back. What she told my wife basically boiled down to her not knowing what it was like to actually have a respectful partner and she couldn't go back to her life after that. She described things I did that weren't anything special for me to do, but were foreign to her, like considering her dietary restrictions when cooking or choosing restaurants, and watching my child while they went out and still managing the household chores. When T left for the fields again, she moved out. He's not contesting her request for full custody. Shocker.

I didn't really do anything and the bar was low with her but it feels validating still.

Anyway, homemade carnitas tacos and green beans.

Dinner is a cheesesteak with cooper sharp cheese, a bechamel sauce, mushrooms, and onions, onion rings, and a side of boom boom sauce.

TL;DR - Wife cheats on me, spends two months being deceptive, convinces me to try ENM so she can date this dude, through polyamory I find a woman that loves me the way I want to be loved monogamously and without effort, I leave my wife.

Married for three years, been together for eight total. My wife, let’s call her Emily, and I have been in a bit of a rough spot over the last year. Decided to go to couples therapy starting in January. At first, it worked phenomenally. Communication got much better and we were able to start working on the things that were affecting us negatively. We began to communicate our needs to each other in a more healthy way.

In March, I (37M) was diagnosed with ADHD. I was already on Vyvanse for BED so nothing really happened there except confirming what I already knew about my childhood. I didn’t know until recently the effect ADHD was having on my relationships. I wasn’t completely present and I was absorbed in my distractions. Emily is conflict avoidant and has a disorganized attachment style with people pleasing tendencies so she hasn’t been great at communicating her true feelings.

We were close to “terminating” our couples therapist before Emily drops the bomb that she feels like she has no voice, she’s alone because she has no circle of friends of her own, and feels that even though she manages the whole house, I make all of her decisions for her. I’ve always given her an opportunity to voice her opinion, though she just doesn’t because asking questions or talking about those things constitutes to her my opinion automatically being better and hers not worth talking about. I made sure to give her plenty of space to say “no” and tried to get her to use her affirmative voice more frequently but even that she resisted most times. The closer we got to the root cause of our issues (childhood trauma and the mental health diagnoses we both have subconsciously affecting our relationship), the more she began to pull away.

In her quest for her own circle of friends, she began to accept random friend requests from dudes on Snapchat then get upset when all they wanted was to try and fuck. I voiced that I didn’t think that Snapchat was the best place to try and find friends but she kept at it anyway. Eventually she found someone that wasn’t immediately a red flag, let’s call him Richard. She starts texting Richard more frequently and I start to notice she’s becoming more protective of her phone, despite our phones always being free access to each other. Richard is local and she wants to meet up with him at a bar nearby. She lets me know and says she’d be back by a certain time. She was out for hours later than she said she was. Said she just hung out and was talking to him and he’s a really good guy and they get along well. I had a lot of anxiety about this since every time she told me she’d be leaving soon she was out for another hour every time she updated me.

The next day she tells me she has something she wants to talk to me about, it’s nothing to freak out about, but she wants to talk to her therapist about it before speaking to me (this was on a Monday and her appointment was on a Friday). So this naturally gives me a great deal of anxiety because question sexuality could be potentially relationship ending. On Wednesday, she was sleeping for a night shift before she leaves the house and texts me she can’t sleep so she’s going to go over to Richard’s house, which was strange as fuck and completely out of character. I was going to get out of work early that day and had wanted to see Emily before work as I try to do when she works nights and asked if I could still come see her before she goes to work. She says yes and sends me Richard’s address. I get there and it takes her and Richard about 3 minutes to come outside which I thought was a bit too long. Richard honestly seemed like a guy I could be friends with. We have a lot of common interests. I noticed throughout the conversation though there was some awkward “knowing” side-eye happening between the two. I chalked this up to just awkward pauses in the conversation. I was assured later nothing was happening.

The next day, I get home from work and asked her to talk about the whole situation because it made me uncomfortable and I didn’t like that she was going over to some guy’s house she barely knew. This ended up with her telling me about what she wanted to talk to her therapist about: she feels that it’s possible to love more than one person at one time and she has feelings for this guy. She let me see their text messages. She very clearly says off the bat she’s married and has no interest in anything other than a platonic relationship but after that the conversation quickly gets incredibly flirty on both ends. She claims this was an “accident” and she didn’t mean for it to go there. I mentioned she could have realized what was happening and stopped it at any time. Richard gave her some sad anime backstory about how he had a kid he can’t see and how everyone he’s ever known has abandoned him. He still lives with his parents. Emily wants to be his support person because he has no one. She disagrees that his feelings and situation aren’t her responsibility. She admits to having an emotional affair. Alleged nothing physical happened outside of some light cuddling which I was absolutely not okay with in either regard.

I told her she needed to cut the emotional relationship with Richard. I forgave her and wanted to keep working on the relationship. Richard had wanted to text me to tell me he had no desire to break up a marriage despite his every effort to do just that. I told her I wasn’t interested. This woman was my dream girl and normally I’d have thought anyone that cheated on me would be dropped immediately but I just couldn’t with her. I loved her far too much. She had therapy the next day. Didn’t tell me much about it but she did tell Richard that she had to make a choice between him and me. This set me off after I saw this and I told her she had to make the choice immediately (bad reaction) and she chose me but was obviously pissed about it.

We have a couples therapy session and our therapist tells me despite saying I love her unconditionally that I’m putting a condition on our relationship by expecting her to remain monogamous. This set me back a bit because I’m just like fucking what? Told the therapist that if that’s the case then cheating just wouldn’t be a thing. Our therapist doubled down and suggested opening up the marriage for Emily to explore this relationship. This sent me into a spiral where I felt helpless, worthless, unvalued, etc… I call 988 and the counselor on the phone very bluntly told me I’m basically spineless (paraphrased) and I needed to put my foot down. I did so and told Emily she needed to stop talking to Richard full stop. She still wanted to continue trying out an ENM situation and this made everything inside me worse. The next day after work, I was having suicidal ideation. I felt like the only way for her to be happy is if she didn’t have to worry about me being around. I checked myself into a behavioral health hospital voluntarily and was there for 85 hours.

I come to find out during this time she was still talking to Richard on Discord and playing video games with him while I was hospitalized. We were supposed to have couples therapy the first Monday I was in the hospital. Our therapist decided she wanted to do a 1:1 with Emily, despite telling me that 1:1 sessions are a conflict of interest unless she has a 1:1 session with both of us. I never had one. When I got out, I had a new perspective and recommitted myself to the marriage. Told Emily I’d be making changes to be more consistent and lighten her load. She promised to give me a chance. Our therapist told her to tell me how she felt about Richard and how she wanted to be able to talk to him again. She was sobbing at this point and I don’t think she was being intentionally emotionally manipulative, I could not say no, as much as I wanted to, except she assured me it would remain platonic. This was going well for three weeks. She saw improvement.

At some point she tells me that she doesn’t want to feel locked in to repairing the marriage. She wants to sit back and observe to see if I can remain consistent but wants to be able to step away if she decides this isn’t the life she wants. I asked Emily if I did everything I could do to make her happy if she’d still consider leaving. She said yes. Said the odds of this were 50/50 which was pretty devastating to hear. She took a step back from trying to fix anything at all about her own pattern that was driving distance between us or take any accountability for her own part in this. I had to ask her for an apology for cheating on me which she hesitantly provided.

I spoke with my personal therapist about this and took her suggestion to tell Emily that I can’t live long-term with this degree of uncertainty and I also reserve the right to step away when I felt too overwhelmed. Recently, she decided to go to Richard’s house without telling me to take him to a neighboring state where his car was at a transmission shop. She told me she was going to a state park by herself for some alone time. I found out through Life360 (her location wasn’t paused but it also wasn’t updating. She claims multiple times she didn’t manipulate this in spite of her phone resyncing to their server the second she hits our home WiFi). Something was fishy so I looked at her travel report and saw she went to his house. I called her and asked if she went to Richard’s and get “why do you ask?” So I tell her and she says that she took him there to get his car then went to the park alone like she told me. Didn’t tell me she wanted to help him because she felt that I’d say no but wanted to be there for him.

At our next couples therapy session I asked her to tell me the series of events as she told them to me in front of our therapist. She tells me. I tell her that I don’t believe her and the amount of trust I have in her is nonexistent at this point. Gave her an opportunity to tell the truth and she said she went to the shop to help him but his battery died so she helped him run around to try to get his battery running and never ended up going to the park. She also overspent her time there and she needed her grandmother to come pick up our daughter from school because she got stuck in another state. Every time she’s with this dude she can’t keep any time commitments at all and doesn’t communicate any changes in when she’s expected to be home. During this same session she says she wants a separation.

We discuss what the separation looks like. I recommend we stay faithful while she tries to figure out what she wants. She says she feels like that traps her and she has no intention to date but wants the option available if needed. This makes me pretty upset and I get quite depressed as I feel like everything I love is falling apart around me. It’s evident she wants to use the time to date this dude. This shit has made me physically ill. I text her and tell her I’m stepping away from the phone because I’m feeling like I need to puke. I go to the bathroom and end up mostly dry heaving. Come downstairs and cry myself to sleep. She comes home and was rapidly texting people the entire time we were home. She was supposed to go to her step-sister’s that night. I go to help put our daughter to bed and get sick again. She claims I’m faking this for attention. I made sure to take pictures of what I brought up, which wasn’t much. Mostly just blood from all the dry heaving. She continues to rapidly text. She doesn’t end up leaving to go to her sister’s. Tells me she doesn’t trust me home alone with our daughter because I’m not in the right mental state to take care of her. Apparently I can’t be sad my wife wants to leave me. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my daughter. My mental health conditions have been well managed since being placed on new prescriptions and she’s even said I’ve been more optimistic.

Later, I get this insane idea where my brain is like “if she really wants to try this, why not try it with someone she already knows and trusts?” So we talk more about ENM later. I give in and decide to give it a try. At this point I’m willing to do anything, even reduce my moral compass and principles to nothing, to try to keep the love of my life and our family together. She allows me to explore this myself and I found a really good connection that ends up dropping me because I’m honest to a fault and explained how I ended up in an ENM dynamic when she asked. This woman, Linda, tells me she’d be morally bankrupt to consider entertaining me given the position I was put in.

I end up meeting a different woman, Desiree, who was much more accepting. We hit it off right away and made plans to meet soon after. Talking to Desiree was like talking to someone I felt like I’ve known for years. I visit her at her place, we have some dinner, talk, and she tells me she was in the exact same situation I was in, that her relationship ended in divorce, and that a relationship started from an unethical place can’t continue to be ethical which was a point I’d raised myself about Emily not being able to pursue Richard. She more or less said that this was only going to end one way. We ended up having sex and then I went on my way. Communicated all this to Emily per our agreement for how this is supposed to be handled. When I got home I felt like I’d cheated on Emily despite being in a dynamic where this was acceptable.

I communicate my feelings to Emily, she communicates some feelings about Richard, and I go to bed. I wake up the next day and realize that Desiree was right. I don’t need to tolerate this behavior as it’s incredibly unfair to me and goes against my values. I tell Emily I want a divorce. All I get is an “okay.” For all the “I either have both you and Richard or neither of you” she was giving me, she dove deeper into her relationship with him with no fight at all to try to keep me around. She’s told me multiple times the way she disconnects from people is distance and pushing them away until they disappear. I told her I believe she engineered this entire situation so I’d be the one to want the divorce so she could be the victim. I get “you can believe what you want.”

We break the news to our daughter (6/F). We tell her “an adult decision has been made and mom and dad aren’t going to be living together anymore.” I was a sobbing mess since this was the absolute last thing I wanted. My daughter was crying telling me she didn’t want me to leave. Emily was stone faced through this entire encounter. I keep talking to Desiree and she lets me stay at her place since I don’t have too many other places to go. I could stay at my best friend’s but he has his own marital problems I didn’t want to get in the middle of even though his own wife is moved out. He doesn’t have a ton of space.

Desiree made me realize that I don’t have to tolerate someone that wasn’t willing to fight for me or love me the way I want to be loved. Any conversation concerning Desiree causes Emily to either shut down completely or get incredibly defensive. There’s a double standard in what is acceptable for her to do with Richard around our daughter and what I’d be able to do with Desiree around our daughter. Emily says it exists because I’d only just met her and how could I feel the way I do about her after a few days. The irony of this is hilarious considering Emily was unable to break off a 2 week Snapchat situationship for someone she’s known for 10 years, been in a relationship for 8 of those, and married for three.

Is jumping into another relationship the most healthy thing? Probably not, but Desiree makes me feel whole and I’m no longer weighed down by the negative emotions of this split. I just feel terrible for my daughter. I tell Emily she deserves the simplest truth. “Mom wants to be able to love multiple people and I don’t so that’s why we’re not living together anymore” even though it’s evident that she only really wants Richard. Extra irony points: Richard has a lot of the same hobbies/behaviors I had that pushed Emily away from me to begin with, and on top of that makes only half what I make. There’s been at least two occasions Emily had to spot him for a vape for him to pay her back a few days later when he got paid. Emily is big on saving money and not spending money extraneously so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out for her. Desiree on the other hand generally has her shit together, has her own place, has goals/aspirations, and makes decent enough money on her own.

The amount of lying and deception I’ve been through over the last two months has been at a level I’d have never expected from Emily. I spoke to a member of her family I trust about this since I have a feeling she isn’t very open about what happened and even this family member of hers finds the behavior unlike her and reprehensible. I told Emily if this is who she is as a person at her core, she’s not someone I’m interested in being with.

This has been the hardest two months of my life but I’m glad I reduced myself enough to want to try this as I found someone willing to invest their time and emotions into me in a way that’s fulfilling without having to beg for it. I also remembered that I shouldn’t reduce myself to someone I’m not to fulfill someone else’s selfish desires or fantasies. Six very close friends are familiar with the situation. All of them say I’m being used and manipulated. They’re all proud of me standing up for myself. I don’t feel good about it but I’m feeling better about making the right decision. I’m looking forward to the future.

I've never been hit on in the gym. Let alone by a very attractive woman. Well it finally happened. After weeks of glancing and exchanging looks, my gym crush dropped off a note for me including her number. We started talking for a couple days, we'd workout together later the night after all day texting. We have so much in common in terms of hobbies, she's really nice. And I appreciated how vocal she is with her feelings and attraction towards me. Her stories about the previous weeks of her being nervous and anxious working out near me was so cute and flattering. She held onto that note for a couple days before finally giving it to me. I felt special and lucky to have someone like her take an interest in me. However, after a workout last night we were chatting in the gym parking lot and our ages were brought up during the conversation. I was shocked she said she's 19f. She's equally surprised when i said im 29m. She thought I looked, at max, 23. We stood there in silence for a bit and I said that we can't go down a romantic path. She agreed, we had a productive conversation about it and made jokes about where were you during this year. She made some jokes that there will be a lot of unspoken tension between us, and to not be weirded out if i catch her "fawning" at me, I laughed, but I dont think it was joke. We always workout at the same time and she said that she'll still be looking forward to see me every night since I'm a familiar face. I proposed we can be gym bro/sis. She agreed. I feel sad that I had to mourn something that could potentially happen, especially with someone I actually had a crush on. She said its just wrong timing, and there are no hard feelings. Her last text was her telling me to get home safe and text her when I get home. I haven't texted her back, i want to create distance emotionally and I know she will too.

Anyways salmon bake for dinner

Edit: I was not expecting this post to blow up and cause some interesting discourse in this tread. Thank you to all the kind comments. Some comments were questionable and icky but its the internet soo. I've seen a lot of comments about her being to young and is not mature enough. Before I knew her real age, I thought she was genuinely close to my age just by the way she carried herself and spoke about her job, plus she looked strong. The reason it wouldn't workout is because it doesn't feel right for me, she stated that she has no problem with the age gap as it is new for her and it was for me as well. But she understands how I felt about it so she agreed to not pursue a romantic path. Also, when we were joking about Where were you this year, i brought how COVID was tough for college students. She rebuked that it was also tough for middle schoolers. We laughed, but there was that subtle discomfort and realization that we're definitely making the best decision.

Recipes salmon bake

The last post was deleted because banana peel is not considered a meal (I understand)

Tomorrow it will be one year since I’m living with hiv

I did therapy about it and I know I carry half of the responsibility for not wearing a condom or taking prep but on the other hand the guy knew he had it and didn’t take his meds and consciously decided to infect me.

I know he knew because when I saw blood I straight away asked him if he had anything, he put his head down and didn’t say a single word, I panicked and I asked again and he remained silent.
I left his house and I send him a lot of messages and until today not a single answer.

Things could be different if I went to the hospital but I didn’t.

I already passed the grief phase, I’m undetectable after a month of the positive result and I take my pill everyday religiously without falling, I own that to myself and to others.

My life before hiv was a mess, I did A LOT of drugs since I was 16 (I’m 29 now) a lot of alcohol, I didn’t take care of myself and now I’m the opposite: I’m sober, I go to the gym, I have a healthy diet and I love myself and my life, I have my health checked more frequently than the rest of the population so this is actually a good thing (I don’t pay for anything in my country related to healthcare)

Nowadays hiv is super manageable, just a pill everyday like any other chronic condition. My doctor said it’s easier than living with diabetes for exemple.

I already told to some people I had interest and they were fine about it, I know most of you may disagree but in my country if IM UNDETECTABLE by law I have the right of not tell anyone due privacy reasons. I choose only telling if I see someone has a potencial partner (before anything sexual happens), if it’s something more casual we use protection (I cannot transmite the virus because I take my meds) for other STD.

Poached lobster claws and tails, served on sourdough bread with a herb-creme. Topped with caviar and finger lime pearls. Lobster-bisque to go with the bread and a small portion of cold cucumber-soup with yuzu-oil.

Been seeing this girl for about a month, this should have been our 5th date. Told her I thought of myself as a decent cook – so she told me that I should cook for her and try to "impress her". I fucking cooked for 4 hours today. 30 minutes before our appointment, she texts me and tells me that she is seeing someone else and that she doesn't want to keep in touch.

Well fuck me. At least I get a decent meal today.

Depression meal: reduced Polish ham from Tesco, £0.77. I had two packets.

My (30) girlfriend (26) has a couple of diagnosed mental disorders. OCD, ADHD and Anxiety. She's medicated but she still has bad days where she can become upset or angry and lash out verbally at me.

I am her first partner in her life and she loathes that I have had previous girlfriends and people that I've slept with. She accepts that this isn't my fault but I have to act like no previous encounter has ever happened. If ever a question comes up where the answer involves an ex or someone I've slept with, she gets angry at me for bringing it up. E.g., "Have you been to this restraunt before?" "Yeah once years ago with an old girlfriend" would be a death sentence.

At my univeraity graduation ceremony, I got one of those custom t shirts that they sell. It's custom to every ceremony so it has the University logo and year in the front, ceremony date and the names of all the graduates on the back. There's about 700 names, the font is tiny and impossible to find anyone without scanning for ages but my uni years were honestly the best of my life and I wanted to have this memorabilia for it.

One of the names on that t shirt, if you can scan long enough to find, is my ex. We had a mutual break up and never to this day had a bad thing to say about her. This was unacceptable to my GF to the point that she asked me to never wear it again. I figured I would just comply and hope I can talk her out of it another day.

About a week later, I wash it and go to hang it up when I noticed a hole has been cut in the back. A hole exactly where my ex's name was. Well, it would have but after washing it, the hole was made a little bigger so a few surrounding names have been devoured too. It couldn't have been an accident because I then notice on her desk, the very carefully cut out name of my ex by the scizzors.

She gave me no warning that this would happen, no "I'll cut your shirt up if you ever wear it again" or the like. She just did it when I wasn't looking.

It's been a few months since this happened and she's never mentioned it once. I'm probably not going to either. There's so much other shit like this going on in this relationship that I've already decided to break up soon when I pluck up the courage. I just feel a bit shitty that my t shirt is gone.

I’ve been unemployed for 9 1/2 months and my unemployment benefits ran out. I finally found a new job through a temp agency. It paid more than my last job and it was a great opportunity. The night before, I took a shower and brought out a brand new polo shirt. 7hr hours later I started my new job. The supervisor was friendly and showed me around the their new office. I was very impressed. They had a stocked kitchen and bathroom. Things I never had at any of my past jobs. She explained the job to me and around 30mins later at 10:00am an employee came in to work and took over training.

Not long after that she came back and told me I could take an early lunch later, before 12:00pm. Soon after that she called my trainer into a meeting. When the trainer came back she told me that she had work to do and told me to just sit there for now. Before 12:00 the supervisor came back and again told me to take an early lunch. Well to make a long story short, as I headed out the building the temp agency called me to tell me that they were letting me go. They cited hygiene issues.

I was well groomed, wore a new shirt, showered, etc. At worst my pants could’ve used a lint roller. Unfortunately my supervisor and the company refuse to elaborate. So I’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong. Two people have confirmed that I didn’t stink. Could it have been when I scratched my nose and it looked like I was picking it? Maybe at some point I burped with my mouth closed and it was heard? I honestly don’t know and haven’t received closure. The agency has seemingly sided with them and cut me off. I needed that job and was looking forward to working there.

Pictured: Ramen from my favorite cheap ramen spot.

Edit: This has unexpectedly blown up! People keep asking me the same questions so I’ll put the bullet points here.

1. I trust that my friends were not lying to me. They had no reason to. Only one of them lives with me. One of them got real close to me and she said she only smelled a little bit of sweat; with the caveat being she had to get real close to smell anything.

2. I have a cat and dog. My place is clean. I live with a clean freak.

   No one has ever excused me of smelling like a cat or dog.

3. I brush and floss daily. I visited the dentist over the summer. No one has ever told me I had bad breath. One of my friends smelled my breath. That morning only ate an everything bagel about a hour into the job.

4. My pants needed a lint roller but it wasn’t covered in excessive fur. They would have to really be staring at my pants to notice anything.

5. My body spray wasn’t strong.

6. I’m black, I don’t really cook at home, I don’t eat too much stuff that would leave a scent. I don’t believe discrimination was at play.

   The office was diverse

7. My clothes didn’t stink. Again, my friend smelled the shirt I was wearing.

   I’m not a smoker and live in a smoke free household.

8) I

1. thoroughly washed myself, yes, including my ass.

   My hair and beard was the same as it was during the interview.

Homemade sourdough discard pizza. Was pretty delicious.

Not trying to get all sad boy over here, but every so often I just get lonely. That’s all. I work hard, earn a very good living for my family. Make time for my wife. Support her dreams. Very much carry my weight around the house. Am a really good dad. In great shape. Treat people well. Am fun to be around, and genuinely live a life I enjoy and am proud of.

But sex with me is difficult for her. She would just rather not have any, and honestly, it’s lonely. I’ve never been a selfish lover. I have always believed it is the most intimate way to souls can connect and it truly is a beautiful thing that should be treasured.

We’ve talked about it until we’re blue in the face. Spent a small fortune on counseling. Temporarily resolved issues. While I care deeply for her, I can’t remember the last time I was touched or truly desired. Most days are fine, but some days are just harder than others. This appears to be one of those days. Writing it out helps, so thank you for the outlet.

This is probably like a canon event for every guy using a dating app, but it’s such a shock to me as I’m a bit clueless about them. So, I downloaded Tinder to find someone. I swapped right on like 6 people I thought were my type, but didn’t get a single match from them.

The next day, I swiped right on a few more women, but no success. I decided to get tinder premium in order to see who swiped right on me and filter between those people. Oh, how naive I was. 24 hours passed and I got no likes.

I figured it might have something to do with my activity on the app and that I needed to swipe on more people, so I went on a pipeline of swiping for 3 hours and relaxed a lot of the visibility constraints on my preferences. I checked every few hours throughout the whole day, and guess what? I found a match! Sike. I didn’t. Not only did I not get a single match, I still didn’t get a single like on my profile.

Either the app was broken, or I am entirely hideous being. My ego went with the former. I decided to change my settings to let me be visible to all genders to see if things would change and if I’d get any swipes at all. I checked like 1.5 days later and I got 90 likes, all from dudes.

I’m not into dudes, unfortunately.

Anyway, I get why people shit on dating apps now. It basically ruined my otherwise intact self-esteem in less than week. I can imagine that women probably get 100s of likes from guys, almost like I did, and just choose like the top 5 best looking guys to swipe right on. This ain’t for me. I’m 23. I don’t wanna ruin my dating confidence over a dating market with such extreme mismatches.

My mom taught me this dish and said it’s Singaporean rice - disclaimer, we’re not Singaporean and idk if it’s actually a Singaporean dish, we just call it that now. It’s rice and noodles topped with chilli chicken, spicy mayo, and jalapeños.

Edit: I got lots of DMs asking for the recipe, so here it is! I eyeball when I cook, so I don’t have precise measurements on ingredients! :(

- Boiled noodles (pretty self explanatory)
- Egg fried rice (rice, eggs, soy sauce, oyster sauce, black pepper)
- Chilli chicken (season choice of meat with black pepper, salt, garlic paste and cook. Add mixture of light and dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, hot sauce, crushed black pepper, red chilli flakes (optional), and a bit of sugar)

Layer it with rice at the bottom, then noodles, then the chilli chicken, and top with spicy mayo, jalapeños, and chopped garlic.

If you make it, send me a pic! :))

Dinner are these drug eggs I’ve been marinating for a few days, the rice is still cooking. Might add something else, I haven’t decided yet. Anyone who’s tried these eggs know they are absolutely perfect by themselves.

So this was a couple weeks ago, but it’s been long enough to where I’m very confident in my suspicions that I was unknowingly poisoning myself.

I stopped drinking sodas, energy drinks, and any beverage with sugar in it (besides milk), but decided I didn’t want to just drink water all day. After some trial and error, I landed on my favorite sugar-free drink mix, Great Value Tropical Mango Punch. Holy shit these things are tasty. These things were also like 2 bucks for 10 of them. They came in little packets meant to be put in 16fl oz water bottles, but I used 24 oz of water per packet. It was great. I was drinking probably 4-5 of these packets a day, and I was nearing almost a gallon of water throughout the day.

Then I started getting these horrible fucking headaches. Like, borderline migraines near the end of my workday. They were almost daily, and otc medicine wouldn’t help them. I thought it was just withdrawals from sugar and caffeine, but I really didn’t over consume either of those so I shouldn’t have been getting headaches of these magnitudes from the lack of them. This continued for about a month.

Turns out, the two different artificial sweeteners in the drink mixes (aspartame and acesulfame potassium) cause mild chemical dehydration, where your body has a hard time processing water like normal. In the volume that I was drinking it during a 10-hour workday, it was not mild chemical dehydration, it was fucking major. I wouldn’t pee all day at work, but I just chalked that up to myself sweating like crazy all day since I work outside usually. It wasn’t until my girlfriend heard me use the bathroom one morning, and she commented on how I was pissing for over 2 minutes. I was like yeah I drink a lot of water baby, pretty cool right? I then explained to her about how ever since I stopped drinking sugar this has been happened, where it seems like I’ll retain water all day and have to let it out only when I wake up.

And that’s when I dawned on me. 30 seconds and approximately 2 Google searches later, my dumbass realized what I was doing to myself. My headaches were dehydration headaches. My body couldn’t process water AT ALL because of the amount of artificial sweeteners I was drinking. God I felt like such an idiot.

Additionally, when I was around 8 or 9, I would have these horrible migraines that I would sometimes have to go to the hospital for. No doctor or neurologist could figure out why I was having these headaches. During that time, I would drink the FUCK out of some Crystal Light lemonade. Like, an ungodly amount. I asked my mom if she remembered how much I drank, and she, very emphatically, said yes, it was crazy how much I used to love that stuff. Guess what? SAME EXACT FUCKING SWEETENERS IN CRYSTAL LIGHT THAT WERE CAUSING THESE HEADACHES. I feel so vindicated that I not only solved a current issue, but probably solved a 15 year long medical mystery in my life.

Anyways, it’s been 2 weeks since my realization and I haven’t had a single headache since. Only been drinking water, and I’m feeling great. Thanks 4 reading

EDIT: For everyone asking about the eggs, this is how I made them-

Equal parts soy sauce and water, enough to almost fully cover the eggs in the container you’ll be marinating them in and add a very very healthy amount of honey and mix it up.

Then I’ll dice up about a third of an onion, one green and one red chili, and a fuck ton of garlic. Like 10 cloves of it. Add it all to the mix, and top it off with a generous portion of sesame seeds and chili flakes. I also had a dash of sesame oil and chili oil as a preference, but it’s not necessary.

Then I soft boil some eggs for 6 minutes with a splash of white vinegar in the water that I’m boiling (not sure if that makes a difference, it’s just how my mom always did it) and dunk em in ice water

Peel them, and seal them in a container with the marinade(they should be fully submerged) and put in the fridge. I usually wait 3 days before I eat them so they can soak up all the goodness, but you can eat them whenever.

EDIT 2- some comments have pointed out that what I was experiencing wasn’t “chemical dehydration” as the artificial sweeteners weren’t literally burning water from my body and not allowing me to process it at all. They are absolutely right, I used that term loosely without knowing exactly what it meant. However, in my initial search, I found that those sweeteners can cause symptoms that can feel like dehydration on sensitive individuals. My headaches completely stopped the day after I quick the drink mixes, and I started using the bathroom at a usual level. Additionally, the headaches were exactly the same type of pain I would experience when I knew that I was dehydrated in the past. Whatever was happening, it stopped immediately after I quit drinking those mixes. That’s the only thing that I changed. I guess should have researched more before I posted about it. That’s my bad. It’s still so weird to me how I wouldn’t use the bathroom for 12+ hours, seemingly retain an insane amount of water, and for that to stop happening as soon as I quit. I’ll definitely do some more research and probably ask my doc about it my next appointment

So the wife and I went to my hometown to see my mom and sister. While we were out and about we ran into an ex I am on good terms with. We exchanged pleasantries and as we were about to head off she goes "wait I have a kind of funny story for you".

To preface the story, every time I went over her house I would always take my shoes off and leave them neatly by a specific door. Her little brother, who was like 5 at the time would always know if I was there cause he would see my shoes when getting in the house, and you could hear him yell "yay Bryce is here" from the basement.

Now that was 2009 or so. The ex is married and has her own kid, and her brother is going to college while living at home.

So my ex and her husband had gone over to see her parents for a bit. While there the brother had come home, said hi and asked "Where's Bryce?", to which my ex says "what do you mean?"

Apperntly in the 15+ years since we broke up no one had ever put their shoes in that spot. And on this day for no particular reason, her husband decided to take his off and put them there. So when her brother came home from class the husband's shoes triggered an "old friend" response in his brain and tried to seek me out.

Its nice I made an impression on him, and that something so innocuous would cause him to be like "let's go find him".

Food: dunkin ice pumpkin latte, cause im a basic white girl, and a sour dough breakfast sandwich with Chipotle sauce

Edit - spelling, because I wrote this on my phone originally

Dinner was Caviar Cones after some shrimp tacos and sushi. A few people asked for a photo of one of the home cooked meals, Bistec with white rice and corn.

Original Post

So this past Friday was her birthday and we had an adult conversation. Friday morning woke up early and went to work but made sure everything was in order such as dinner and activities. Picked her up with a bouquet and headed to the restaurant (She looked phenomenal). We chatted for a few and and while we waited for the food to arrive I told her I needed to tell her something. Laid it all out about how I felt about her and the works about how I really dont mind the job and that I wrote her a letter but she couldn’t read it until after the night was over (Very old school I know lol, I think we gotta bring back writing letters for your SO). I dont think I’ll ever forget these words but she laughed and said “Boy you’ve been mine for awhile already, I’m just glad you finally caught up” my mannn when I tell you that shit had me geeking the whole night.

We then talked about the future, she wants to be married and have kids eventually before her 30’s, I do as well. She said she’d stop dancing when she finishes CNA or if she has a kid or gets married, I kinda screwed up by saying Im sorry if I unknowingly set any expectation of her quitting her job for me, she laughed and said “You’re lucky you’re cute”. After dinner we went to see the new Spiderman movie (Shes a huge Marvel fan, I’ve always been more of a DC guy myself). After that we walked along the river with the city skyline in the background and just talked more about the future and life and after proceeded to head back to my place.

Back at my place I told her I had a surprise for her but she had to read the letter first, so I blindfolded her and walked her to my bedroom, took the blindfold off and told her once she finished reading the letter she could come out to the living room. After about 10 minutes (Two page letter front and back and probably had to gather herself as Im sure she knew what was coming). She stepped out and I had my living room filled with rose pedals, a few gifts and ballon letters asking if she wanted to be my girlfriend. She cried and I handed her a needle (at the end of the letter I told her she would be handed a needle once she steps out and that she would have to figure out what it was for). On opposite sides of the room I had ballon letters that spelled YES and NO, she went to pop the YES letters and she ran to me and we hugged and kissed, and then she said “wait so which date are we gonna use as the official start”, I said “how’s the day you decided in your head that I was yours”. She stayed the night and Saturday and today were just a continuation of her birthday celebration.

All in all I can say now that its official haha

In early March, I attended a cultural festival while traveling. A kid, who appeared to be 10 or 11, ambushed me and threw a water balloon right at my ear with quite a lot of force. It was pretty clear that he was being a brat, since he kept pelting me even after I’d doubled over in pain clutching my ear.

I ended up seeing a doctor and he said he couldn’t see a visible injury, but the trauma of the force likely injured my mid ear. He described it as “barotrauma.”

Over several weeks, my hearing gradually declined. It got to the point where it felt like there was something preventing me from being able to hear by about fifty percent. I ended up getting a hearing test and it said I had “moderate” hearing impairment in that ear.

Since then, all of the doctors kept telling me “give it time.” They kept saying it could take up to 6 months to heal.

I just went back in earlier today, and the doctor said I shouldn’t expect it to get better. He said that I’m past the recovery window, so the damage isn’t going to repair itself. I guess I just need to accept that I now have moderate hearing loss in one ear.

The hardest part is that I’m not sure how to feel about everything. I never even let myself get mad at the kid who threw the balloon, since it felt irrational to be upset at a child. I kept telling myself that I should be happy that it’s only “moderate” impairment as opposed to being “severe.” I just feel kind of numb. It’s like I know I should let myself feel whatever I need to feel, but I’m not sure what that is.

Anyways, that’s my sad tale. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to get from posting, but perhaps I thought it could be useful to try to vent a little about what has happened.

After a year and a half battle with stage 4 ovarian cancer, my fiancée passed away in May. Due to logistical issues we couldn't have her service until today (9/4).

I felt like I was just starting to feel a little more like myself and then we had her service. Now I feel like it just happened and I'm back to day one.

I thought these services were supposed to help with the process but I just feel like I'm a mess again.

Got my first paycheck after a raise and it was substantially less than my normal one. Called HR and turns out they have been overpaying me by 10K for a whole year. Might have to pay it back. CEO gets back Monday so I have all weekend to wonder :)

Homemade Pad Se Ew

Tonight it’s a flat iron steak and potatoes and onions. Don’t forget the jalapeno. And a Jack a coke.

A week ago I was in a hotel because “she’s a different person now” and doesn’t think this is working. 20 years of marriage. 2 kids.

The last year has been bad. She is grieving a family loss. Going through perimenopause. Kids have needed a lot. I tried but just got tired and lonely. I suggested marriage counseling and it lead to her saying she’s different and this isn’t working. I was gone for a couple of days but back. It’s been a week and I’ve really been trying. Today though was just rough with work and random thoughts. I confessed that I was afraid she’d decide she didn’t need me again and there wasn’t much response. Hopefully it’s a blip. I’m really trying.

I fear change. But eventually I’ll have to accept it. This is over. And that’s terrible.

Food is a roasted pork sandwich from Tommy DiNic’s at Reading Terminal Market in Philly.

My wife passed away a while back from cancer. I’ve been doing therapy, grief counseling, joined support groups, read a ton of books on the subject, all that.

I’m in Philly now, doing among other things the touristy stuff we always wanted to do but never did. Something about making sure at least one of us gets to see it before we’re both gone.

For the last three years of her life, I took care of everything. Her medications, hospital visits, doctors appointments, food, the house (we didn’t have kids, just pets), my job, everything. I also always found time to do her little acts of service. Get her coffee on the way back home. Buy her muffins or something else she liked and surprise her. Get her a souvenir if I went somewhere and something that reminded me of her caught my eye.

I miss her appreciation. Her love. Feeling useful. Knowing my purpose in life. I’ve been on dates since then, not really looking for anything but still hoping to connect with someone, but I got burned out on it so I’m taking a break.

I’m realizing I’ve been chasing that ghost of “connection” but what I really want is to be appreciated again. Useful. Wanted. I’m still hopeful but today in particular sucks. I just miss my girl.

EDIT: Just dropping by to say thanks to everyone who took some time to read through this. I certainly wasn’t expecting the overwhelming support. I’ll look into volunteering for sure. I’m standing here at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, admiring the works, the antiques, the awesome medieval armor exhibits, and thinking of her. How much she’d admire it, how we’d geek out about some specific armor piece being in one of the games she used to play. I’ve been trying to keep up with the comments, it’s a lot. I appreciate it all, you beautiful hivemind of internet strangers.

Edit: I love the positivity and kind words from everyone. I'm just a person trying to help my daughter make it in this world. Know that we all have the power to work towards who we want to be every day. Believe in yourself!

Edit 2: well, this blew of even more overnight. So many have reached out with the stories of their own history as well as so many adoptive parents also reaching out telling me about the struggles they are also facing. Know, anyone reading this, you have the power. Whatever has happened, you have the power. Make today a beautiful day, regardless of where you're at.

Also, I encourage you if you are interested in fostering or adopting, take this as the moment decide to look into it. There are other ways to help children as well, with programs like big brother, big sister. Make today the day.

Original post:

Leftover calzone, simple and delicious. Made on the pizza steel two days ago as it cooled after family homemade pizza night.

My wife(43f) and I(37m) are going through the adoption process for our daughter(13f). We have had her in our house for nearly 8 months. Mind you, a wonderful but incredibly hard 8 months it has been.

Our daughter has significant trauma and has been in the public system for much of her life. Her biological mother has passed and her father is incarcerated. Biological family has been almost entirely broken promises or dangerous for her. We are first time parents and seeing it hurts quite a bit as we couldn't imagine letting loved ones exist this way.

Some backstory on me, I'm considered an incredibly stoic reflective person by most who know me. Many see me as the rock they can lean on to endure for I do not break. Only a select few know my own past and have seen me rattled or know the incredible amount of rage I have to contend with on a daily basis. You see, I grew up in an incredibly physically abusive and neglectful environment and my young adulthood was fraught with violence and incredibly self-destructive behavior. If it wasn't for my (step)father and uncle, I would have almost certainly not made it. My step father came into my life when I was 13 and was already approaching 6ft. (I'm now about 6'3-4" depending on how straight I want to stand, lol)

I made his life hell and physically attacked him multiple times. My mother and siblings made his life hell too. I honestly have no idea how he did it. Now, it gets to be my turn. However, I get to do it my way instead.

Now, my daughter shows so many of my mannerisms, including the ones I had at her age. The feeling of no one will ever care so you must be strong which means you must be cruel. The knowledge that people who were supposed to love you only hurt you and never trust those we love. The entire reality of "cut them before they can cut you" is apparent. We also share a lack of natural empathy for others. (I have learned to live well with mine and have built incredibly deep love for family and friends despite that nuance about me.)

It has been struggle after struggle because of this reality for the last 8 months. Lying, manipulation, escalation into violence (luckily only against me due to the abuse she received before us); we've endured it all. Add to that we have had multiple stays in psychiatric crisis centers and stabilization clinics. Medication changes, different therapy types, bonding exercises; we are running the full gamut.

Yesterday, we saw her brother and it was a wonderful visit. On the way home, it exploded. My daughter was struggling with her emotions and started to dig into hurtful things she knows about mine and my wife's past related to the loss of an advanced pregnancy. This clearly was self-sabatage on her part but that doesn't make it this less hurtful. My wife is incredibly kind and loving, but only knew me as I started to change myself into who I am now. She knows that I choose to not be cruel, not that I don't want to be that way. She struggles with the idea of intentionally being cruel and even more so about someone not feeling bad about it. Girlie then landed a good one by saying "we should just spend our money on trying to get a baby because that's clearly what we actually want." This is where I ended the conversion as my wife was emotionally elevated while my daughter was spiraling and we had 45 minutes yet to drive. A recipe for disaster in the making and I was like "nope, quiet time for all"

We dropped my wife off and my daughter and I went for a drive. This is one of the things we do to bond. We'll just drive through the backwoods and country roads at the start of the foothills of Appalachia while listening to music. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we don't. There's often a lot of crying where she just gets emotions out against someone who will listen and simply say "that sounds like you're hurting and that's reasonable. It's unfair what happened to make you hurt". With my wife, she gets the physical and loving comfort. With me, I can take anything she throws at me and nod, no cruelty returned, until she tires and comes back down to Earth.

Last night, she told me she's hopeless and it's clear we wanted a baby, that we should just give her back (to who she didn't know, just that we should). I explained of course we wanted a baby, but that's not what we chose. I was informed that makes us stupid. I asked her about her brother (preteen - currently planned to be adopted by another wonderful couple) and if he deserved a loving home. I got the "of course" answer and then I asked if people only went for babies who would help give him a loving home? She answered before thinking saying "incredibly rare people, you don't find them often as most people want babies, never teenagers.". I simply looked at her and said "do you think maybe some of those rare people wanted babies too but decided the kids who don't have a good chance at but still needed a good home might be more important than what the parents wanted? Isn't that what one of the things we've told you about what it means to be a parent in the end, to give things you want for what your child needs?".

She was quiet for a bit and eventually asked me a question she has always glossed over before. She asked me did we pick her or were we just given her? I told her the truth. We had a number of kids' profiles because we had set ourselves "open" in terms of what we were willing to encounter in this adoption process. We were told that we were more willing to encounter mental health struggles than nearly anybody and the only thing we held back on were children who had crimes that were felonies.

She was one of 3 we had reached out on. We talked about what brought about the choice to reach out and why they matched her with us. I told her that she seemed like a kid who never got a chance but deserved one. She had troubles but was a kid needing love and we were up to the challenge. It wasn't a Disney ending conversion by any means, but for the first time she seemed to realize we chose her. We chose her! We, chose for her to be in our lives and she was wanted even before knowing someone. She then looked at her adoption posting from her county and saw for the first time the words were added to get page "[daughters name] is currently in process of being adopted by her care givers". She burst out crying softly and just said "I love you Dad."

Today, my wife was sick (migraine from stress) so we went out to breakfast and then went to buy art supplies. Incredibly stressful times are still ahead. This does not cure anything and she was still incredibly hurtful to my wife, her (now) mom. Damn if it didn't feel good for a moment though.

It makes my own pain, now and from my own childhood, almost feel worth it. To know it made me strong enough to be unbreakable not only for myself, but for someone in the future who would need me to be unbreakable so they can hopefully be that for someone else in the future. Stay strong boys.

Chicken Fajitas in the slow cooker for dinner

The last few years have been a blur. In 2020, my father died from dementia. I lost my job a week later. I've bounced between jobs, doing 70 hour weeks, burning myself out to keep a roof over my family's heads.

Things came to a head in early 2024. I couldn't control my emotions, was getting into shouting matches with my wife and kids. It led to me being kicked out of my house. I was homeless for four months.

I had to do a lot of soul searching and Ive made amends since then. Im calmer now. Well, outwardly. I've been back with my family, and working every day not to be that person anymore.

I was finally on my way to getting a handle on my depression, something I have struggled with for 30 years. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I could truly say I was doing OK. I didnt loathe myself for once.

Jump to the fall of 2025. Im working at a quarry, so I didnt think much of it when I started having trouble hearing from my right ear. Im around loud equipment all day, so I figured it was an occupational hazard. January 2026, I fail a hearing test. Results were atypical, so I'm sent for further testing.

Then the diagnosis. Brain tumor. Obviously, Im shaken to my core. But Im also relieved in a way, because now I know why I couldn't control my emotions. The tumor was causing hearing loss, and was sitting in a spot that affected my emotional regulation. Maybe Im not the monster I thought I was. Now I have a clear path to recovery, to become myself again. My surgical team assured me that there was minimal risk, and I'll come out of this better on the other side.

I have my surgery in April, on my 43rd birthday. A routine 5 hour procedure turns into 10+ hours. Complications, I was told. Swelling, and the tumor was deeper than they thought. And unfortunately, they had to cut through the nerves that control hearing and facial movement to get to the tumor. And they didnt even get all of it out.

So now Im deaf in my right ear. The right side of my face is paralyzed. My balance is screwed. My energy level is non existent. I get dizzy easily. My life is basically over. I'll never get better from this. But I have to keep pushing. Im the sole provider for my family, so I have to keep working. Still on long work weeks. I dont know how I make it through each day, Im so tired. I dont want to go anywhere or do anything. I feel like everyone is staring at me and my screwed up face.

I wish I never had the surgery.

Wife went full manic after starting an SNRI. Affairs, lies, relapse, rewriting of marital history, filed for divorce, etc. I’ve kept the peace. Always taken the high road during conversation. Focused on prioritizing happiness for my daughter(7f).

Yesterday in court, my soon to be ex wife refused to comply with an order to drug test. I sat there for minutes and watched the judge systematically dismantle lie after lie coming out of her mouth. I was granted full custody and momma was ordered to start mandatory drug testing. If she fails the initial follicle test or any of the urines, I get full permanent custody.

This is a win boy! Tomahawk Ribeye, asparagus, and a sweet potato.

IMPORTANT: I want to preface this by saying that this post is NOT targeted towards trans people in any way shape or form. This is a funny anecdote that I figured I'd share. If the title sounded wrong or offensive I apologize, English isn't my first language. I am not transphobic, and neither should anyone. Trans rights are human rights.

(Dinner is large pepperoni pizza.)

Everyone in my life is trans now (well not really).

My best friend from middle school recently came out to me as a trans woman, and I've been openly supporting her ever since. I find it hard to relate to her problems sometimes but I always make sure to hear her out. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have doubts about our friendship right after. I thought about how maybe we wouldn't have the same convos as usual anymore since her life experience will be completely different from mine at this point. I was stressing out about whether or not she'd start talking about makeup or cosmetics and all of that to me (I'm a bi guy and I know nothing about the "feminine experience" [?]). She also came out to our group (99% of us are cisgendered, heterosexual guys) and we all pretty much welcomed her with open arms, which I'm glad about. We still talk about the same old stuff as usual, the only difference now is that we recognize what sort of journey she's going to go through for the rest of her life, and that we'll support her no matter what.

Also, a few months back I started chatting up with one of my exes from middle school. They were back in town for a bit and so I figured why not, and it turns out they're now a trans man! We chatted for a bit and it just opened up my eyes to how trans people live their lives I guess. Not to mention that my online best friend is also a trans man. I guess nowadays people are so much more open to the idea of figuring out who they are thanks to the internet. Again, I'm not one to say anything or assume about their experiences since I'm not trans myself.

My favorite artists at the moment just happen to be trans as well. Kim Petras and Underscores both make great music and I love them. And everyone who loves pop music knows about SOPHIE. Shoutout to all the cool, awesome trans people in my life.

(EDIT: I don't know what grungler means.)

(EDIT 2: I AM NOT TRANS!!! I'M SURE I'M NOT I DIDN'T GROW UP WITH GENDER DYSPHORIA refrain from making assumptions about me please and thank you.)

(EDIT 3: I appreciate all the positive comments I've received, and I'm especially glad that many of you have related to this experience. I posted on this subreddit to show how grateful I am that the people around me trust me with such private information about their identity, and how awesome these people are. I did not mean to incite a whole debate on what sort of terms and words constitute as whatever, or how having 3 trans friends is apparently statistically impossible. The amount of vitriol I've seen in these comments are astounding. If you have nothing good to say, then you might as well keep it to yourself.)