I CAN’T stand my mother-in-law… and it’s hurting my relationship! -r/okstorytime | Reddit Stories | EP2651

Hey, it's Keon. And this is Carly, your favorite okay story time host, and we've got some great stories coming up. But before that, we have a quick two-minute break from the sponsors that keep the show alive. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. No gloss, no filter. Just stories, spoken without fear. A person who is not generous cannot be an artist. The world will be at peace, only when it is ruled by poets and philosophers. Listen to my weekly podcast, the Puja Bha Chow on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come for the honesty, stay for the fire. Participating restaurants only. Excludes delivery. Full season sees at koc.co.uk. I can't stand my mother-in-law, and it's hurting my relationship. Well, that sounds about right. And this comes directly from the O-slash-okay-story-time subreddit. No freaking way. Yeah, freaking way. I, 25, female, have been dating Jake, 23, male, for over two years. He is a full-time psychology student and works part-time on weekends. His home situation is really messy. By the way, this comes from user realistic tension 867. And if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r-slash-okay-story-time subreddit where this story was submitted. I'm Dakota. I'm Angie. And we're here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers to live questions. We only know what we know. So if you know things that we don't know, which you probably do know, let us know in the comments below. He has two sisters. One is 19 and the other is four. And they all have different fathers. Woo! Hey-o! Not judging. I was. That's cool. But this will be relevant later. They all live with Michael, his stepdad, in Michael's house. His mom, Sarah, currently doesn't work. She does small things to get some extra cash, but it's not enough to cover even the basics for Jake and his 19-year-old sister, while the youngest gets at least the basics from the stepdad. Jake has been parentified since he was a little boy and it honestly breaks my heart to hear him recall some very hurtful and completely avoidable situations, where he had to be the adult while having a mother. At the time, they were living with his grandparents. Here's some examples. Sarah used to work in a certain beauty care center where Jake and his sister used to go after school. His mom used to make him, quote, make the man go away when being flirted with by guys she didn't fancy. Whoa! How would this child even do that? I think he was... Okay, so it continues. Being only a teen, which I guess is better than being 10, but still, like, what? I'm not responsible for making the men go away, mother. Yeah. I am a child. He had to challenge grown men to leave his mom alone like she was a helpless damsel in distress, and it made him very uncomfortable. When Sarah got pregnant with the youngest sibling, the grandparents decided they had had enough and told her she should live with the future baby's father and make an honest living, partly based on religious beliefs. However, she made it seem like they were heartlessly booting a pregnant woman and two teens onto the streets for no reason. Then they went to live with the stepdad, and Jake didn't even have a room inside the house, which I think is not legal. Yeah, if there are kids. If there are minors, they got to have a room in the house, or that's neglect, I think. Gotta at least be able to, like, share a room. Right? Right? Right! Wouldn't you say that? Right? He was sleeping in a room in his stepfather's house, which was right behind the main house, with a guy he didn't know well. In my opinion, as the daughter of a single mom myself, and someone who has friends and family who are children of single parents, she became comfortable having her kids taken care of by the grandparents. Even though she was not a working woman, she did not achieve major things that would make their lives stable and comfortable like owning a car, learning how to drive in a big city, having her own place, or at least renting somewhere where she didn't depend on a partner or the grandparents. For context, Jake got a full scholarship and still has to work to afford everything else. Eating out, clothes, medications, public transport, and university supplies. On top of that, he sometimes contributes to household expenses like hot water, dog food, transportation for his sister, and even pocket money for her. At some point, he was even paying for Sarah's therapy. Wow. You paying for your own mom's therapy? I mean, I guess that's a solid investment. You'd be like, thank God, I mean, at least it'll stop, right? Right. That is true. But that is tough, man. Oh, yeah, yeah. Moving to the present. Sarah got really sick, almost C***er level sick. The family has been very caring and has made sure she gets treatment, but because of their financial situation, getting her surgery has been extremely difficult while navigating the healthcare system. My relationship with my mother-in-law is very strange. We get along, but we've never shared a meaningful moment. The few times I've been at her house, I didn't feel welcome. She greets me when I arrive, but Michael will be sitting on his phone. And I have to go say hello to him myself. It's like, dude, it's your house. I was invited here, be a host or something. Sarah never says anything about it. Jake has had several conversations with Michael because he doesn't take proper care of Roxanne, his little sister. For example, Roxanne has fallen and cried her eyes out while Michael just sat on the couch scrolling on his phone, acting like he was deaf or something. Is he? Have we thought about this? Michael can't actually hear anything. New development. Uh-oh. He's just been playing it cool. Everyone knows the classic play it cool act like you're not deaf when you deaf move. Classic move. Anyway, like what is going on? Those conversations went very badly with Michael feeling deeply offended and then making Sarah angry at Jake. Meanwhile, Sarah keeps complaining to Jake that Michael can't be bothered to do laundry dishes or give her enough money for groceries and they broke up once, making them half moving again to the grandparents' house, only to get back together and then had move in gradually again. Jake had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the living room because they didn't have proper sleeping arrangements at the grandparents. You know, mattress in the living room is better than nothing. True. It sucks though, but you know. And it's really only tenable for like a day or two. Not long term situation, you know? Right. Lately, I've been encouraging Jake to ask his biofather for child support and I found out Jake doesn't even know his father's name. Sarah refuses to give him any details other than saying that her man was married and ran away to another country when he found out about the pregnancy. To me, that excuse sounds a little too perfect and I think she's hiding important information about Jake's biological father. Maybe for pity or whatever. Neither of the other siblings have a proper child support arrangement. I keep telling Jake to get more information and try to look for his biological father. Not just for money, but so my dear boyfriend could breathe a little or maybe afford a master's degree in the future. I also to learn about his cultural heritage, genetics and family history. I insisted and Jake talked to Sarah, but she downplayed the conversation and said they'd talk about it later. So I contacted my mother-in-law directly telling her I was contacting a lawyer to start the process and get the bio dad declared as his dad through DNA. A long and not always successful process to prove paternity and would need some details like name, address or whatever info she had in a very respectful way. Trying to not overstep but acting in Jake's best interest. Her response made my jaw drop. In a very long series of messages, she told me she was going to handle it herself. Like yeah, because you've done such a great job over the past 23 years. This was almost two months ago and still nothing. No info, no names, no children. So it's like, oh, my children don't have enough money to do anything and then she proceeds to do absolutely nothing about it. I don't think we can let Sarah be taking point on any of this. I think we need to start looking. We need to start scrounging around for stuff ourselves. I feel like there's a way to do it for sure. Yeah, I think you can reach out to, I mean, there's other companies, Jake can do his own tests. I don't know if you can get anything out like the hospital if there's a birth certificate or what. Because even if the dad ran off, he should still probably be on the birth certificate unless just straight up never knew who he was. Yeah, but yeah, all of those are possible. Now, every time Sarah comes up in conversation, whether about her health or the latest drama with Michael, I get a stomach ache, feel dizzy and feel completely fed up. Everything involving her is bad, chaotic and damaging to Jake's mental health. The last straw for me was what happened a few months ago on Jake's birthday. I offered to take care of the celebration and contribute decorations, food, cake, everything I could help with. However, Sarah rejected the idea and said she could handle it and that there was no problem. Even so, I brought some food like little cupcakes that honestly saved the meal a bit. And I also surprised Jake by bringing his best friend. The celebration took place at Michael's house. Michael didn't even bother to say happy birthday to Jake at any point during the entire day. Then why are we hosting it at his place? Yeah, what? He's our enemy. My mother-in-law didn't say anything about it. I insisted all day long and even the day before on at least checking on the cake, but Sarah kept telling me that everything was fine and that she would take care of it. On the day of the celebration about an hour before I left my house, I reminded her again about the cake. And once again, she said she had it covered. I said, okay. Later, I realized that after I arrived with Jake's best friend, mother-in-law went out to buy the cake while we were already there celebrating. It made me feel like there had been very little preparation, very little affection and very little intention to make Jake's day important, especially considering how much he sacrifices for his entire family. It didn't feel like a proper celebration. And at the end of the day, Jake told me he felt a bit disappointed and that he had expected a little more. His grandparents didn't attend. Currently, Jake and I are long distance for a couple of months because of my degree and I've been feeling less anxious since we talk less and I don't hear anything about his mom. The thing is, I love Jake deeply and I care for him. I take care of him and I enjoy our time together. But his relationship with his mom and family dynamics are literally making me sick. I swear my eyes are going to roll back into my skull from how hard I roll them every time he talks about the latest drama involving my mother-in-law. Honestly, I think you can put up a barrier of like, you know what? I think your mom, my mother-in-law, I would like us to not talk about her anymore. Yeah. I think you can talk to her with maybe a therapist, maybe y'all should get some counseling, maybe you could talk to your best bro about it. But I no longer want to speak about your mother-in-law and your problems because it impacts me and I just don't like it and there's no solution. Yeah, I think so too. Just be super honest, just like that. There's a little bit more story. I recently realized that I've unconsciously stopped planning my future with Jake. I feel disgust thinking that mother-in-law would be a constant drama in my boyfriend's life even though he could go no contact in the future. He has mentioned before. He's still tight with his sister and feels responsible for them. I used to imagine a future together. Now I'm not so sure. I sometimes just want to yell at my mother-in-law to grow up, be better, stand up for her children, give them stability and a role model to follow, etc. I came here for support, opinions and advice. Yeah, I think you just set that boundary and move on with your lives, you know? Yeah, I completely agree. And that's the end of this story. We're going on to the next one. My mother-in-law went from the best to a total nightmare after I gave birth. It's because she wants the baby. My husband and I have been together for four years and married for two. His parents had been the sweetest, supportive during renovating our home, wedding planning and even during my pregnancy. You would see them one to two times every week for dinner, day trips out and even just pop by for cups of tea and cake. By the way, this comes from Ideal Informal 1932. And if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash okay story time separate. And I'm Angie. I'm Dakota. And we're here for giving good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers. We just know we would do in these situations. So let us know what you would do in the comments. Opie says, everyone around me was really jealous that I had the perfect parents-in-law. I'd get on really well with the mother-in-law too. We'd go shopping together, make cakes, go to car boots, confide in each other. I really trusted her. And at times felt like my relationship with her was better than with my own mother. Now this perfect relationship has had a complete 180 since the birth of our baby and it's not getting resolved and it seems to be getting worse as time goes by. Our baby was born in March 2025. Lovely home birth planned and my parents-in-law turned up minutes after the baby was here to help clean up the house as I had to go into hospital for stitches and monitoring, which at the time I felt was supportive. My husband and I then decided that we wanted to be in our new parent bubble for the first weekend and out of the hospital appointments. John diss testing, tongue tie cuts and navigating breastfeeding all with a baby that would sleep anywhere but on me. It was tough. That week felt like the longest week ever, but we eventually made it through and my parents-in-law were invited to meet our baby. First and backstory. Now my mother-in-law has been a childminder for 30 years. That's in quotes, but hasn't been doing it for the last 10 to 15 years officially. She babysits a kid on her road every week, but she has been a quote no at all during my pregnancy, preparing and brain washing my husband and I to do things a certain way, like she raised her kids. Anyway, she meets our baby and proceeds to show us how to burp them as they are quite gassy. My husband and I didn't like how she handled him, not completely supporting his head. She then does bicycle wheels with their legs and we hear a click at this point. We jump up to take the baby from her. Oh boy, a click over the course of the next couple of weeks. She buys caught bedding for the pram because she doesn't want us putting our baby in there without a sheet, even though it's not recommended. She buys a bike for our baby's first birthday without asking us, etc. That's really funny. That's maybe a little too early. One year old baby on the bike. I mean, hopefully it's like those little bikes with like no wheels and you just like on it or something like you just sit in like. Oh yeah, there's no pedals. They just like it's like a running bike. Yeah, no pedals. Have you ever seen the videos of like all the kids like racing on those like little kids? There's like it's like before like you do dirt biking and it has like a motor. It's like when they're like like four or five, they're all racing on little dirt bikes with no pedals and they're just like running with their legs. That's so funny. It is a hilarious site. That's honestly like entertaining to watch. Are they on like a dirt bike road? Yeah, they're on like a dirt bike path. Like they're like a dirt bike route. Yeah, we'll be watching that later. Anyway, our baby is now three weeks old and she is hosting a family get together at Easter and it's an hour away. At this point, my husband and I weren't comfortable taking our baby in the car for that long and we decide to decline the invitation. We then get manipulated into going as it'll be our baby's first Easter and keep the peace. My husband decides that we should go. This turns into the biggest bad decision we've made as the whole event was a disaster. Oh, no. So my aunt-in-law is a qualified midwife but isn't working as one as she was fired shortly after qualification. This is another story. So now she works as a nanny for the rich. That's pretty crazy though. You fired from midwife. Now let's be a nanny that feels like you got to go into a completely different like industry. Maybe just pivot to like accounting or something. Sure. Get into that. She was at this family gathering showing us how to put nappies on, not like we've been doing it for the last three weeks and watching me breastfeed, telling me to feed on a schedule when I want to feed on demand, telling us to put our baby down in their pram to cry while we eat dinner. And it was really stressful taking any confidence my husband and I had away and making us feel like we're not doing it right, but also stressed by having to justify why we want to do it our way instead. We left with a comment of my husband snapping at his mom saying, don't you add to this too or something along those lines. Even though my mother-in-law hadn't said much at this family event, she had made comments before. So my husband was preemptively saying this. Anyway, she took huge offense and rang him the next day, moaning, playing victim and putting her point across in these words. I'll never forget. You continue parenting like this. You will fail your baby. They will still be in nappies when they go to school and won't know how to use a knife and fork. Yes. Yes. You're going to raise little poopy pants. Hand eater. Yes. I honestly was expecting that to be worse. Not going to lie. If these words that you never forget putting your point across. I mean, it's still like, it's still like, hey, mom, calm down. Yeah, but I was expecting that to be worse. It's like just because like what because we don't want to do the exact same thing that you did or did or do. I mean, it's good to like hear people's advice, but then it's like, you know, you weigh it against what you what else you've heard. Yeah. Just because someone is your parent doesn't mean they're an expert in anything. Right. So after this, we didn't speak to her for a while. Then she randomly came around one day in tears apologizing and claiming that she doesn't know how to be a grandmother. We then tried to put it behind us. By three months, our baby was still needing support with holding his head and his mother-in-law is throwing him up in the air and catching him. Whoa, dude. No, no, no, I'm an idiot. And even I know you don't do that with a three month old baby. Young. You gotta wait for them to get a little sturdier, dude. Yeah. Yes, our baby was smiling, but we were very uncomfortable seeing this as we hadn't done that with him yet and weren't sure he was ready for it, which made us on edge and continued to be on edge anytime the mother-in-law would pick our baby up or interact with him. This obviously over time created an atmosphere that the mother-in-law picked up on and at the age of four months, there was a huge family argument. And this happened after countless times. My husband and I asserting we're doing it our way and explaining why, which was met by no respect from her and only offense that we were doing it our way and trusting our own research and current guidance instead of hers. Anyway, this huge argument blew up with my mother-in-law complaining about me getting my front airbags out all the time to feed my baby and she didn't like seeing it. Well, go then. Hey, do you see these two things on your face called your eyes? You can do this. I look away. I look away from that. Or you can look right at me and you could just close them. Close them. And you say, oh, P tell me when you put the bitties away. Yep. Tell me when your chest is back in your shirt. Yeah, then you're good. It's not that hard. The fact that we didn't want anyone but me and my husband to kiss our baby, which is very backed up by science. Dum dum. Yeah, we were told to use our common sense and respect her as an elder with experience. She complained that none of her friends had met our baby yet and are mortified. How other people just hand her the baby when they see her and we don't. She then says that she's a scare and storms upstairs yelling at us to get out of her house. Yeah. I got to love weaponizing a diagnosis when the conversation is just we're going to parent our child and you can give us advice, but we're not always going to listen to it because we're parenting our child. Yeah, like it's not even that you can't see the child. Like they're not saying that not yet anyway. They're literally just saying like, yo, you got to respect what we're doing as parents. Yeah. Like if her mindset is that like, well, I've had a scare. I really want to be around family now and I feel like I'm missing out on these these memories. It's like, well, you don't have to. You just have to shut your trap when it comes to parenting advice. Shut it. At this point we leave as she wasn't listening to anything we were saying and it was just a huge attack on how we're parenting and it's done for business. Two months go by with no contact. Then my father-in-law starts randomly turning up at our house unannounced wanting to see his grandson and I feel bad for him because he hasn't caused or done anything wrong only enabled his wife's behavior. We then start having a relationship with him like we used to and things fell back into normal almost anyway. Clearly mother-in-law doesn't like this and the father-in-law starts to try and rebuild bridges. The mother-in-law is demanding an apology and wants to change our baby's nappy and take them out in the pram on her own for an hour to prove we trust her. At this point my husband and I just think she's made this 1000% times worse and why would we trust her after everything? I propose that we just try and start again with a clean slate and she says no. Another month goes by with no contact. Then at eight months old she just starts turning up with my father-in-law unannounced with random gifts for our baby and it's mega awkward. The elephant in the room stares at my husband and I yet no one addresses it. They do this four times and even when I've had my family around they've turned up and pushed them out. It's so rude. Oh my gosh. We've been doing dinner and they've just turned up. Each time my husband has kindly said give us a call please before you turn up and she ignores him. The last visit she picks up our baby from their play mat happily playing because she wants a cuddle but she doesn't ask. My husband kindly asks her to put them down as they were playing and she ignores him twice before she finally does it. Anyway. Okay like that I feel like was the thing I've heard where I'm like all right now we're actually probably going a little too far where it's like being like the baby was in the middle of playing and the baby needs to finish playing before you pick it up and go hello baby. Yeah. That feels like a little too far to me. Yeah. I get it. You go and put the baby back down. The baby going to be okay. That's true. You can put the baby back down. The grandma's just saying hi. Grandma's not going to go oh I'll wait until you're done with your blocks and then I'll pick you up and give you a hug. It's like nope I'm actually going to pick you up and give you a hug right now. Right. Right. I mean I guess if the baby starts crying when he gets picked up that it's like okay well he was just happy a second ago and you ruined it. Yeah. I can't understand that. That's different. But yeah that makes sense. My husband kindly asks her to put him down as they were playing and she ignores him twice before she finally does it. Anyway two weeks have passed and this brings us up to present day. Five days before Christmas we discussed how we were going to see them and exchange gifts and Christmas and as Christmas hasn't been discussed with them we're only free Christmas Eve morning. So we were posed stopping by theirs. This was ignored until today when we received a manipulative letter explaining how she feels worthless is offended that we want an invitation or permission to visit us and how she feels that it was cruel and rude to ask her to put our baby down with his toys and now she's finished this stupid letter with a comment about how she's just being her and how my husband has to decide if you want her. But yeah there's a little bit more to the story but yeah that's very big to me. I think we just need to really make sure that we're not because your mother in law definitely has done some stuff that's like whoa hey you're crossing boundaries and that's not cool and you're kind of not respecting us. I just want to make sure that we don't like interpret everything she does now as like a something that's like a boundary that's being crossed or like as it's disrespectful because like honestly her picking up your kid and being like and then putting him down. That's just what a grandma would do if you walk in the house you see your grandbaby you go my grandbaby give you a kiss give you a hug make sense you eight months old now. You know that's reasonable. Yeah I feel like that makes sense. I'm so angry with my mother in law. I feel bad for my husband. She's made this whole year the whole time our baby has been with her about her and this drama. We thought it would be happy families like it is with everyone else around us. We didn't expect it from them and no we are here with no idea how to move forward no idea how to respond to this letter. Also my husband is now in counseling and so am I trying to navigate this whole family drama. There is an edit a massive thank you to everyone for your responses I've shared with my husband and will update you with the outcome. Oh and first update we me my husband and baby bumped into father-in-law today and asked if he knew that the mother-in-law has said this letter. He knew about it had nothing to say only that he thinks me in the mother-in-law need to talk one on one and talk it out. I tried so hard not to laugh but my husband explained how he was feeling having received it and his dad listened but he then left us in the shop saying he won't tell us a sign that he won't tell his wife's mother-in-law that he bumped into us and that's the end of that story. I always hoped my father would finally prioritize me until the day came. He prioritized you and you didn't like it. Trigger warning mentions of DV and substances. My father's torch is out. He's been voted off the island because I got better. This is a bit of a long one as I've known this person my whole life and I'm 31 now. This is about my father. By the way this comes from Tats and cats 25 and if you want to submit your own stories go to the r slash okay story time subreddit. I'm Sophia. I'm Carly. I'm Keon and we're here to give good advice googly but we don't have all the answers. We only know what we do so let us know what you would do in the comments and also folks this comes directly from our subreddit and Opie says my father and mother met in their twenties got married and had two kids my older brother and me a daughter in Ontario Canada and before I was one year old my father came home one day and asked for a divorce. My brother remembers the troubles they had before this happened. I do not my father immediately moved in with another lady growing up this other lady became a big part of my life. A second mom you could say if I saw my dad I saw her. She's very family oriented so I also got close to her family. Her dad became my papa her brothers and sister became my uncles and aunt growing up from an infant to a child I only saw family whether or not I understood that they did not share my blood they were family. My dad was a dad growing up as a child. He was my protector and my role model of what a man should be. He meant everything to me and my brother when I turned 12 my mom met a man. I mean she met a few before this one but none really stuck around this one though stuck. I remember my mom putting us to bed and he came over for coffee because he knew my mom could not leave the house and was willing to wait until we were in bed. I heard them talking and as a 12 year old I snuck to the top of the stairs to peek down the corner of the landing and made complete eye contact with this strange man scruff around his face just smiling at me. He said I think someone's awake and I giggled from there on out my stepdad has always seen me when I was 15 my dad picked my brother and me up and said we're going to see my man up north for the weekend. We were excited. We had not seen my man for a while since she lives five hours away. As soon as we got in the car and put on our seatbelts he said I have something to tell you guys your stepmom and I broke up. He did his best to explain his excuses. My brother and I spent that five hours sobbing in the car. He insisted we could still see her which made us feel a bit better but we knew everything would change. About two months after we were still adjusting to everything. I still spoke to my stepmom on the phone and saw her a few times of course not as much as my dad. He then sat us down and asked us not to see my stepmom anymore. You can't switch it up. Yeah how long did he go before he switched. Yeah I was like two days he was like that's it. All right you're done. I'm sick of it. At this point our hearts were broken. He was not asking us to just stop seeing some random girl we had been seeing but a person who had been in my life for as long as I could remember not just her but my papa my uncles and aunts and her whole family. Oh that's hard. My brother and I came back to my mom's that weekend and tears and with such fears. My mom the angel she is said you could see them on my time. She saw the pain her children were in by losing this family and made sure that we wouldn't. That's a good God after about four months my dad said he had a girlfriend younger than him maybe 10 years or so. We'd go over and they'd smoke hard in the house and drink. I never noticed my dad's drinking until this girlfriend. He'd have one after work with my stepmom but he drank day and night with this girlfriend and so did she. My dad ended up canceling on us a lot saying he was working so we would go to my stepmoms or stay at my mom's about a year after they started living together and without any notice at all my dad said we just got back from Switzerland. We got married. What? That's a wild one. I let him show me pictures and just said that's beautiful. But to be so blindsided not even a thought in my dad's new marriage as a 15 year old still a child managing to deal with the family I didn't fully understand. My brother and I pulled away at this point. We did not enjoy going over and breathing and smoke. We did not enjoy just staying in a house because they wanted to drink and we just did not enjoy our father anymore. My mom supported our wants and never made us go if we did not want to. We explained what made us uncomfortable and my mom understood my dad and his wife broke up over many DV calls. My dad went to jail for it and my uncle his brother had to bail him out. I did see him during this period. We would just go out for dinner in a movie. I hope that since he was away from her he might choose us again. He did for a bit. He told us a lot about his current ex that she didn't like me and my brother because we're not biologically hers and she wanted her own. Why is he telling you that? Weird thing to talk about all the time. That's so messed up. Again, I did not point out that he let her do it to the point he did it himself. I smiled and waved hoping for a better relationship with him. He got a new girlfriend with a young child which became his priority. Caring about this kid would make her love him. He was a golden dad again. This is when I realized he's never been a good dad. He's been a fake dad. Through all of this, I still spoke to my stepmom knowing her since I was one. She never had kids and I've always been that to her. She has always made me feel like her daughter. I found out that my dad would ask to cancel when he was with her, but she said, Nope, it's your weekend with the kids and I want to see them. Once I heard that everything fell into place. She still insists he was great dad. Maybe he was, I believe because of her. He wanted to impress her and him being a good dad was everything to her. My brother and I are still everything to her. That's lovely. Well, well, you got two moms. Yeah. Like, yes, you have seemingly bad relationship with your dad, but you got something out of it. A lovely relationship with this lady. On my 16th birthday, he texted me. I'm sorry, baby girl. I forgot. Can I take you out next week? I sucked it up and said yes. Next week came and I got a text. I'm sorry, baby girl. I have to work. Next week, I promise next week came around. Hey, baby girl, I'm sorry, but I have to work. At this point, I had enough. I was getting a full picture of who my dad was and I was mad. I texted back go to heck and he responded. I'll see you there. Wow. Dude, you're the one is like not showing up for anyone and that's how you're responding to your daughter. Wild. That was my 16th birthday present from my dad. He continued to ask to go out to dinner or get together. Sometimes I would go. Sometimes I would not. I'd see him at family Christmas and he'd always asked to get together. I just smile and wave. When I had my son at 23, I decided to give him a chance again. I kept it only in public places, just going for dinner for an hour or so, then going home. He would choose to spend that time talking about my mom, my stepmom and my brother and how they all have faults, but he has none. That dinner made me hate him. He has no faults of his own. He does not see the way he treats people. He told my stepmom he was divorced before he was divorced. She did not know and my mom did not know until they became close friends. He took all my mom's money when he left her, cleared the shared bank account and she had to declare bankruptcy. He didn't just do it. Her he did it to us. My brother and me living the house with my mom. He didn't pay child support. His brother, my uncle helped with groceries and childcare. Of course, good parents do not tell their children these things. I asked the questions and my mom was willing to give me the answers. Unlike my dad saying to me, I shouldn't be paying your mom child support. But you go to you. It did go to me. A roof over my head, food in the fridge, clothes on my back and heat to keep me warm. I had a terrible ex myself. He ended up doing shady things in my name, which got us both arrested. After a long four years of fighting, I have a clean record and full custody of our son while he is in and out of jail. Well, I'm glad that you have the clean record. Thank goodness. Yeah. The day I was offered bail, it was my mom and stepdad standing in the courtroom, willing to put their house up for my bail. As soon as I walked out, I saw them standing there. My stepdad right away held up his fist to his heart as a way to say stay strong. He knew I would break down seeing them. When the judge granted the bail, they took the handcuffs off me and I walked right to my stepdad. He hugged me so tight and said, you're safe. I have you. Stepdad seems great. My bio dad was my protector, but this man really made me feel safe in every way. He really showed me what a real father is. He took me to lawyers and courtrooms, was by me through it all and let me make the choices I needed to get through such a hard time in my life. My bio dad never reached out once when it came to how I was arrested. I didn't know what anyone was thinking about me. I just cared about the ones that did not question me and trusted who I actually am. I went to my nans a couple of years later. My dad had a new girlfriend. He was there, but I did not ride with him. I came with his brother. At one point I was in the fridge at my nans getting a drink for my son. His girlfriend came up to me and said, we saw you in the paper. We thought you did it. What a weird thing to say to someone. Hey, I know you were like falsely accused of that crime. We thought you did it. We believe that you actually could be that person. Like what? Why are you telling me this? Why are you even talking? Why are you even talking to me right now? That was the only response I got to my whole arrested situation from my dad. His girlfriend saying they thought I did it. Your dad sucks, but A plus mom, A plus step dad, A plus step mom. Like I'm glad that you have some people that are there for you. Totally agree and stuff and that you have full custody. I ended all ties here. I changed my number not just because of my bio dad, but also my ex-boyfriend. And I never gave my bio dad my new number. I deleted him off all socials and do not speak to him. Last I heard he moved to Florida with his girlfriend and her family. He's been arrested for more DV, which he's on a bail website for and has been arrested for trafficking substances. Well, bio dad, if I have anything to say to you, it's that I know you did it. My ending is happy because I have five Christmases to celebrate. Well, my bio dad has none. I still have everyone I want in my life. Well, he is none. I hope he enjoys Florida because Ontario, Canada is doing great with Adam. I do not wish any ill on him, but I cannot say I care to be at his bail hearing and there it is. Good for you. Oh, it shows growth. Like absolutely. You're doing great. Yeah. You're growing and learning and he's stuck in his terrible ways. I was gonna say you don't have to wish him any ill because he's already doing it for himself. Yeah. He's doing it all that himself. You don't need that type of person in your life. He's got his own issues. You're you're fine. And that's the end of this story. We're going on to the next one. Hey, it's Carly. Your favorite axolotl host here. We're going to get back to the stories, but here's three minutes of ads from our sponsors. No gloss, no filter, just stories spoken without fear. Addiction is a disease and it should be looked upon as any other disease. How did you cope with a reckless father like me? Join me, Pooja Bhatt, as I sit down every week with directors, actors, musicians, technicians and beyond. You don't need to work with the biggest people in the biggest sound to have great music. I have gone through the sub-CD hachakar, reached the pinnacle, stung by the snake and I've fallen down again. Yeah. I am not writing actively anymore and when I see my old work it kind of saddens me. I'm only as good as the last shot that I gave. Mom's gone, but don't shut the theater. The show must go on. Listen to my weekly podcast, the Pooja Bhatt show on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Come for the honesty, stay for the fire. I went above the limit on my sister's gift. She still tried to manipulate me. Give me more. My sister and her family live in another state across the country. Our family trades names so that we do not have to spend as much money since we're a big family. By the way, this comes from sassy pants me. And if you want us to make your own stories, go to the r slash. Okay, story time subreddit. I'm Carly. I'm Sophia. I'm Keon. And we're here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers. We only know what we would do. So let us know what you would do in the comments and O.P. says, I got my sister's family and sent her a game she has on her wish list for several months along with some expansion packs. I went a bit above the family spending limit, but I was feeling generous because she lived so far away. I had it shipped directly to her home. Apparently her kids got too excited and she just couldn't make them wait. They were thrilled when they saw the game, which is great. At least my sister said thank you. The next day, however, she called me to ask for another gift. She was worried that when we do the family zoom on Christmas Eve, her family would feel left out since they would have no gift to open. When I said I could not afford another gift, she started crying. Oh my God. She told me I should be the one to tell the kids why they would not have a gift to open. Yes. This is what you got. You got you go to them and go, Hey kids, you're not going to have any gifts to open on Christmas. And they're like, what? Because you already opened yours. Because your mom refused to make you wait. Yeah, open it. You already opened it. That's why you have no gift. I reminded her that I'm a teacher and I have my own family to care for. I told her she needs to be more responsible by another gift and or teacher children to be patient. She hung up on me. Next time they will get an e gift card. We have an update. I was telling my husband some of your suggestions. He now wants to buy them an advent calendar to help them understand when Christmas. That's funny. And they get an open little presents. I love you know what start getting more advent calendars because I love them. I think my first Christmas working on stitch. My mom got me an advent calendar of little stitch toys. So every day I had a little stitch to open and my bookshelf was lined. It's just a ton of stitches. I just love getting a little chocolate treat. I deserve a little sweet sweet for opening this day. It was it's always but then you're like tomorrow's going to be here anyway. I'll open that today. My mom was pretty strict about it and she'd be like that's it because we didn't have a lot of like we had like sweet sometimes but it like wasn't like a sweet heavy house. So it was a big deal when you got one advent calendar chocolate. Do not worry. We're not actually going to do it. We have another update. Yes. I know the gift could be rewrapped. I'm not concerned about whether the kids will have a gift open. I can easily remind them of the game if they seem disappointed at the party. My sister is an entitled brat and was likely fishing for another gift. Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I believe she was the impatient one who wanted to open the gift and see if she could get another present from me. The kids are usually well behaved around more mature people who hold them accountable. Here's some comments. Comment one. She's the parent. It's her job to teach your kids the consequences. They opened it early. That's on them. Opie says what makes it even worse is that her kids are mostly tweens to older teenagers. It's not like they are toddlers that don't understand the concept of waiting. Comment or two. She just wanted another present because she's so special. Has she always been like this? Opie says she can be very selfless and generous at times, but the entitlement has always been there in various forms. When we were teenagers, she had really long nails. She would use them to scratch anyone who tried to serve themselves at dinner before her. Sounds terrifying. So she'd get first pick or the biggest servings, etc. Or when she babysat, she'd have us hide because we were playing hide and seek. Then she just wouldn't look for us and would watch TV. In reality, she just didn't want to be bothered with taking care of us. Comment three. Her kids didn't even know it had been received. So that's on her. And if her teens don't know how to wait, have that level of entitled and can understand that they already opened their gift, I'd rather not have them in my social circle. Opie says they know how to wait when asked. When I've had them over, they're always respectful, but that may be because I expect them to be. I have a feeling she just wanted to see their faces because she knows I always try to get something I know they'll be excited about. I think she couldn't wait to be honest. Opie gives examples of when her sister was selfless. Okay, when I was getting a divorce and at the risk of being homeless, she gave me and my kids a place to live, took care of my kids while I looked for work and continued taking care of them when I found a job. Okay, so she can be nice. Can be nice. Cool. She didn't charge me rent, daycare, etc. I lived with her for several months, not just a couple weeks. She's actually generous and selfless at times for the people she loves. She is selfless and generous for praise for people she cares about since she's a good Christian. I have nothing against Christians. She just doesn't practice what she preaches. Opie on her family's background, Opie says my family was very dysfunctional. My mom has bipolar disorder, so there was a lot of unusual things happening at home and my dad did the best he could given a crazy wife and six kids. Mom wasn't exactly sane and dad worked two jobs. Opie explains how her family's draw entire family's names for Christmas if her sister is not in the same state. Opie says my sister's the only one multiple states away. So we gather at my mom's house and the zoom call is mostly my sister and brother-in-law watching everyone else open gifts. Her kids only participate to say hello and open their gifts or socialize for a few minutes. As for getting to one family, I have five siblings with spouses. So 12 adults total. There are over 30 grandkids. My sister alone has eight kids trying to get a gift for everyone that breaks the bank. Having one family makes it so we can gift quality gifts without spending thousands of dollars. It doesn't have to be only one gift. That's just what I chose to do since she has eight kids and her own grandkids in addition to that and terraforming Mars can be enjoyed by their whole family. We have an update six days later. I'm so glad we got the game. This is not like a situation that you're going to be like cutting off your sister for right. Yeah, but it is just a thing where you put down the you know the rules. Right. You're like, girlie pop. I gave you a cool gift. You guys like it so much. You've been playing it. Yeah. That's it. I'm sorry. Not getting anything else. We had our family Christmas party yesterday. I was actually surprised because my sister thanked me for sending a new gift. This didn't make sense to me because I didn't send anything new and it wouldn't have arrived in time if I did. But they opened the gift and it was an advent calendar with a note that said next year you can count how many days before opening your gifts. Love dad dad coming in clutch. It was this whose dad is this is this brother-in-law or is it OP and sister's dad. OP sisters dad or OP sisters husband. That's what I'm saying. I don't know. We're gonna we're gonna get that. Yeah, we'll find out. We're about to get that. Okay. But honestly hilarious that someone did it. I love that iconic full circle. Beautiful. Amazing. Turns out my brother-in-law was mad at my sister and bought the app in calendar. He apologized to me for my sister's behavior right there on the zoom call. My sister yelled at him at how he had just embarrassed her and ran off somewhere. Bonus to the story. My nieces and nephews thought the calendar was funny and after everyone finished with presents they spent the next 10 ish minutes planning their next visit so we can play terraforming Mars together. We have some relevant comments. Commenter one. Haha. That was perfect and very satisfying. OP says it sure was. I loved that he secretly bought the gift and pretended it was from me. That was the chef's kiss. He's my favorite commenter to that advent calendar was a masterclass in peaceful petty dad and brother-in-law handled everything perfectly. OP says dad and brother-in-law are same person. Okay. He wrote the note to the kids as a way of putting my sister in her place without calling attention to the fact that he knew it was her. My father passed away seven years ago. Commenter three. That was awesome of your brother-in-law. How did he find out about the suggestion you mentioned in the update to your previous post? OP says he and my husband talked at some point. My husband didn't tell me they talked until earlier today when I was talking about posting an update. Commenter four says and sister still hasn't learned her lesson yelling at husband for embarrassing her. Someone smacked the woman upside the head with the advent calendar. OP says she's 50. I doubt she'll ever learn. Commenter five says turns out your brother-in-law is the MVP of the story. OP says he's hilarious and is probably the main reason any of my nieces and nephews are sane. That's the end of that story. Yeah, I think that all worked out. It seems like your nieces and nephews were copacetic. Yeah. And your brother-in-law is a funny guy. Sounds like everyone got a little tee-hee-hee. Yeah, a little. And your sister-in-law got what she deserved. Yeah. And next year they'll count down the days. You should start yearly advent calendars for them, honestly. I like that idea. And that's the end of this story. We're going to go to the next one. My cousin demanded I shave my beard for his wedding and I don't want to. I ain't shaving my beard for no one. I, a 30-year-old male, was asked a few days ago to be in my cousin's wedding party as one of his groomsmen for his wedding in April. I was excited to be asked as I have never been part of a wedding procession prior to this. And by the way, this comes from user chickenoddbaugh. And if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash okay story time subreddit. I'm Dakota. I'm Sophia. I'm Keon. And we are here to give good advice goofily, but we don't have all the answers. We only know the things we know. So let us know the things you know that we don't in the comments. And, uh, oh, he says, my family is Mormon, though I am not. And it is widely known in my family that I am no longer a part of the church or many of its traditions. In some ways, I feel that my personal choice to leave the Mormon church is reason enough for my family members not to ask me to be a groomsman, best man, or anything similar. My sister barely had me in her wedding for that reason. But I will provide more details on that later. He called me on the phone to ask if I'd be willing to be a groomsman. And I immediately said yes. Like I said, I was excited. He's one of my closest extended family members along with his sister as we grew up in close proximity to each other. After he asked me, he shared details about the wedding or mutual friend and best man's bachelor party ideas, suit and tie colors and other minor details. Nothing too crazy. Until he snuck in this sentence at the end. Oh, and all the groomsmen are to be clean shaven. Everyone else has agreed to shave for the wedding already. So you're the last one I need to tell. I went silent. My body went cold and my face got hot. I didn't know what to say. I'm six foot a little chubby with a long, full brown beard that I have kept up for nearly a decade. I spend upwards of $600 a year just on my beard upkeep. What on earth? Okay. So are we talking about? Are you talking about like, let's say products. So I'm thinking like a curly hair product routine or something beard oil. Do you use like a lot of products for your hair? Yeah, a couple. Okay. So like roughly how much of the products you use for your hair like a month? Oh, no, usually it lasts long enough to be like a couple months, but I would say I would spend about 50 bucks on this said product. So probably last me at least a couple months. So it's like you're spending like 200 max a year or no, maybe like 300 max a year. What do you think? Yeah, I would say around that depending if I keep my hair long, if I cut it, probably not. I don't need the hair product if I cut my hair. Yeah. And then I don't know if he's cutting his beard. I'm assuming he's cutting his beard himself. So we're not talking about like that. So maybe he just has really expensive products for his beard. I'm imagining he goes to like a salon. Beard oil and what makes sense. Beard oil and like he big it clean and like trimming it. They put little cucumbers on it. That does sound really nice. And they like whisper to it. They're like, you're a good beard. You're a really good beard. So $600 is on the more expensive side, but it does make sense if you're like doing a lot of care for it. I go to a barber who knows how to cut beards and keep it nicely structured and lined up. I don't want to say that I care more about my beard upkeep than the rest of my body as I am an extremely hygienic person, but it is pretty dang close. I've kept it at about seven inches for the last six months. I don't think I can shave my beard for your wedding, Daniel. After about 20 seconds, he said, but I already told the other guys to shave and they said they would. I started to get upset because with what he was telling me, not only did he know this would be a big deal for me, but them saying yes already felt like I was being pressured to shave or else I would not be part of the wedding. The last thing he said before he hung up was I strongly urge you to reconsider this. Otherwise, I'll have to rethink the number of groomsmen. I've been struggling with this because I'm so shocked that I was given this sort of ultimatum. The wedding is in a few months. So maybe he'll reconsider. I'm really hurt. I don't think I'll have another chance to be in another wedding party because my other cousins aren't as close to me or are already married. I was barely part of my sister's wedding. She was upset and so were my parents that I decided to leave a church that it emotionally mistreated me for over two decades. I was devout, wore my temple garments and did everything I was supposed to do. When I decided to leave the Mormon church, my parents and sister saw it as a personal attack on them because I wouldn't choose family and keep my covenants that I made with God. This caused a substantial rift and it was close enough to my sister's wedding that she wrote me out of her wedding party and the toasts. And I was supposed to sing with her and her husband at the reception. Being a part of this wedding with my cousin feels like one of the only times that I can be a part of any weddings in my family. But I don't think it's fair to be asked to do something so drastic to my body. Am I the a hole for standing my ground and not shaving my beard? No, no, not at all. We have comments. Come at one, not the a hole, but you should respectfully drop from the party and attend as a guest. Those are the groom's wishes. And even if they are not reasonable to you or to Reddit, it is his wedding and you shouldn't cause a fight and create more drama for him on his big day. It sounds like your cousin's wedding is a redo of your sister's one in your mind, but that's not the case. Also, I got an impression that the core issue is not the wedding, but that you crave more connection to your family. I would suggest to rather tackle this one and get overworked about being in the wedding party. Reply says, OP, is it the one creating the drama? The groom is f this mindset that everyone has to bow to every whim of the bride and groom on their big day. What if the bride asked all the bridesmaids to shave their heads? Then the bridesmaids say, no, I don't want to be your bridesmaid. Comment to it is honestly weird why people can even feel entitled to ask somebody to change their body and appearance for a wedding. Dress code is one thing, but shaving your head or beard or changing the color of your hair or covering tattoos or losing or gaining weight. This type of demand is completely ridiculous. Not the A-hole. Comment three says, not the A-hole, but my suspicion is that this is actually an attempt to draw you back into the church. At least get you groomed appropriately, not to mention testing whether you'll submit to their demands in the name of family unity and participating in a family event. And then maybe they can make further inroads to get you back. And we do have an update. Oh boy. I appreciate every single one of you for responding. It meant a lot to see your comments and opinions. I meant to reply to some of you to explain my relationship with my family a little better and with the Mormon church, but I forgoor. I've been stressed at work and I'm in the middle of moving my girlfriend into my apartment. Don't tell my family or else they'll say I'm going to spooky Mormon. My parents and sister are devout Mormons. When you get married in the Mormon church, you have a private ceremony with full-fledged church members only and a reception afterward. The reception is the larger affair for the whole family. Anyone who has been in or close to churchgoers may understand this. I was disallowed from participating besides a couple of photos during the reception part of my sister's wedding. I felt it was a public display of my family's contempt for my choice to distance myself from the church. I am in contact with them and have dinner or holidays occasionally but we're on rocky ground after this whole tobacco. Daniel and his fiance Tanya are active members. Daniel and I have been very close from early childhood and have many mutual friends because of this. A lot of my hurt and confusion comes from this and I neglected to mention it before. My invitation to their wedding party as a groomsman includes helping plan the bachelor party, buying things to decorate their wedding car and delivering a toast as an open mic would take too long. This is more than what I was allowed to do at my sister's wedding. On to the update regarding my current dilemma. My cousin Daniel called me again. He had discussed my beard with his fiance and his parents during dinner over the last weekend. The consensus was that he was being unreasonable and if I keep myself presentable with a nice trim, I should be able to keep my beard for the wedding. What would you look at that? Well, it seems like there was another way. If that isn't a twist. If I've ever seen there's always a third door in my mind. I had thought that she pressured him to ask the groomsman to shave because not only did I not know her well. I thought I knew my cousin well enough to be a reasonable person. I had met her once at a movie night with him and some mutual friends. I thought she was a very lovely person and a great match for Daniel. Besides that, I hardly knew her. After a long talk, I took some advice from a couple of you and offered not to take part in the wedding and reception. I genuinely would be uncomfortable if I upset anyone at their own wedding. He declined my offer and told me that having me as a groomsman was more important than me shaving my beard. Well, there you go. He admitted that he was worried that I would keep it scraggly and unkempt, which I suppose is understandable. I ultimately assumed this was the cause for concern. I let it grow for weeks at a time. Sometimes if I'm not going anywhere fancy, but I remember getting it cut and seeing him and our friends shortly after a couple of times. I had more questions, but ultimately I felt relieved and did not want to poke holes to get more answers as to why I needed to shave in the first place. I feel the issue is resolved. With a trim, I will be a bearded groomsman for my cousin's wedding. I don't plan on updating, so I'd like to say again, thank you to those who commented. It meant a lot that you were kind enough to offer an opinion when I felt I was at a crossroads with all the issues I have with my family already. And that is the end of that story. Yeah, lovely. Thankful little guy with a big old beard. I love how it ended. All's well that ends well. And that's the end of this story. We're going to go to the next one. Hey, Keon here. We're going to get back to the stories, but here's three minutes of ads from our sponsors. No gloss, no filter, just stories, spoken without fear. Addiction is a disease and it should be looked upon as any other disease. How did you cope with a reckless father like me? Join me, Pooja Bhatt, as I sit down every week with directors, actors, musicians, technicians and beyond. You don't need to work with the biggest people in the biggest sound to have great music. I have gone through the sub-city, the pinnacle, stung by the sneaker, I've fallen down again. Yeah, I am not writing actively anymore. And when I see my old work, it kind of saddens me. I'm only as good as the last shot that I gave. Mom's gone, but don't shut the theater. The show must go on. Listen to my weekly podcast, the Pooja Bhatt show on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come for the honesty, stay for the fire. Co-op members now get prices matched to Audi. Hold on, no way. Okay then, so co-op members now get everyday essentials price matched to Audi. Sign up and start saving. Co-op owned by you, right by you. I wasn't expecting that. Court member prices matched versus comparable selected products at AudiGP. Court membership required. Court group, foodstallstoneucc.com.uk slash AudiPriceMatch. My boyfriend acted like a child at my family dinner and I'm turned off. You're going to bed. My boyfriend, 29 male and I, 22 female, have been together since January, so about 10 months. He kind of has a pattern of being weird or childish in situations involving food. I found myself very embarrassed by how he acted at Thanksgiving with my family today and I want to know if I'm being too harsh or dramatic. By the way, this comes from throwaway awkward TG 2021 and if you want to submit your own stories, go to the r slash okay story time subreddit. I'm Angie. I'm Sophia and I'm Vincent with Keon and we're here to give good advice, goofily, but we don't have all the answers. We're just going to know what we're going to do in this situation. So let us know what you would do in the comment. The first thing was that when my mom was about to start preparing the turkey for roasting, he stuck his hand inside it and pulled out the little bag with the giblets. She asked what he was doing. He asked if he could give them to the dog. She said no, they don't feed him anything besides dog food as they don't want him learning to beg with Mary eating. He then got a knife and fork and started dissecting bits of the jiblets on the counter, staring at them closely and touching them had to remind him to wash his hands. All the while my mom, brother, brother's girlfriend and I were trying to actually get stuff cooked. I could tell my mom was annoyed at the dinner itself. He commented out loud several times on food that he didn't like not just politely turning it down, but comments like, you I hate gravy and this stuffing has onions. Onions are gross. He asked what type of cranberry sauce there was and then said, oh, that's a gross kind. I definitely noticed they looked uncomfortable. My mom even offered to make additional food if he wanted something else in particular. He said he was fine with what was there, but hardly ate anything. My mom felt bad afterwards and I had to reassure her that it wasn't her fault at all. Towards the end of the meal, he left the table. I figured he was just getting something or going to the bathroom. My dad got up shortly after he later told me that when he went into the kitchen to bring out dessert, he found the dog eating the jiblets from earlier off the floor and my boyfriend in the act of scraping a pile of food from various dishes into the dog bowl. My dad said that he was giggling himself as he did it. He was explicitly told not to feed him people food and then did it in secret like a child and even got caught like a child. He's dad's fight. Hey, hey, we told you you couldn't do it. You have to go in time out for the minute. However many minutes, wait, however many years old you are is how many minutes you have to be in time out for a half hour. No, and then they're like, and you're gonna have to take a bath after the. We're going to take away your iPad. Five minutes. I have never seen another adult do something like that. Then back in the table for dessert, he loaded his plate with two to three times as many sweets as everyone else took on the first round that they were being passed around 90% of what he ate was dessert. When cleanup time came everyone, including my elderly grandparents volunteered to help accept him. I had to ask him. He did a half effort job and kept inspecting the turkey carcass. He was pulling bones apart and making a mess of it. My dad irritated from the earlier incident with the dog snapped at him to either put it in the fridge or leave it alone. He went back into the dining room and ate more pie while the rest of us were finishing cleaning up the kitchen. Overall, I am majorly embarrassed by his behavior. I feel like the mom of a little kid except a kid wouldn't know better. I shouldn't have to correct the behavior of a grown man, right? And before you ask if he was just anxious about meeting my family or something, he's met them all before several times. Even if he hadn't, that wouldn't explain it because he's done similar things before in front of his own family and when it's just the two of us. I'm tired of the weird way he acts around food. I am tired of worrying if he's going to get weird looks from other people. As someone in my 20s, I shouldn't be getting reports from my parents that my boyfriend did something rude and immature. They questioned if I felt like he was on my same level. I feel like I'm generally happy with him and then things like this pop up and I remember that he has his other side that really turns me off. He's older than me, but I feel like I'm the older one sometimes. So I guess my questions are how important is this? Is there any chance he'll grow out of it and what would help that happen? How would you recommend I bring it up to him? I don't feel comfortable bringing him around my family again unless he acts normal. So I can't just pretend nothing happened. What do you mean? Grow out of it. Well, at this age, he was very common. Boys will be boys. At this developmental stage, he's going through a big chain. Yeah. Yeah. 30 because it's the kind of thing where it's like, I mean, you could try to talk to him about it, but you also can't control people and shouldn't you shouldn't want to. You shouldn't have someone that you want to change. Yeah. This drastically. Yeah. But there are some comments here. Shay Bridgeman says, I would go crazy over the dog thing. It's not just about begging. It's about pancreatitis. Jesus F that could end your dog's life or at least be several thousand in treatment. Dogs digestive systems are set up to basically handle one major protein at a time. When you add new proteins and fat dogs can be very ill. I mean, it was disrespectful too, but Jesus F with my dog and you're out 20 some years in and off in vet med and holidays like this are just chock full of emergency pancreatitis. The rest is also ridiculous. He's almost 30 not 13. He's not 13 year old baby. This is seven year old baby. Yeah. For real. He's acting like a toddler. This would be a deal breaker for me. Sorry. Opie says, I didn't know anything about this. My parents got the dog after I went to college. They joked that he's their replacement kid. Haha. So I never grew up with dogs or have any myself. This is horrible to think about. I am so glad my dad stopped him in time. I'm even more pissed now and we have an update. I talked about it more with my parents yesterday and realized if I'm embarrassed to honestly answer their questions about my relationship, then that's a bad sign. I found myself trying to give a bunch of excuses to make his weird behavior seem less bad than it was. I also outright lied a couple of times about other things in our relationship. Eventually this got exhausting and I just confessed that I'd f'd up and had no good excuse. My mom asked what I thought would be best for me. The answer at that point was obvious. I also left out some details when I wrote my first post. I guess I was too embarrassed to give the full picture. Oh, there's more. Oh God. Oh. I want to provide it now as a confession thing, but also because I can now more clearly see how effing weird this man was and just want people to validate that after I spent so long in denial. So the giblets he fed to the dog, he fished them out of the trash bin to do that. My mom had thrown them away after he cut them up and made a mess on the counter. He would have needed to dig through the effing garbage to find them again. My parents found chocolate bars missing from the cabinet. Those were not part of the dessert that was available to everyone. We think that he snuck them at some point like a little kid. His general diet is atrocious. It's like what a five year old would eat except I know there's tons of kids who eat way better. Pizza, chicken nuggets, pasta, fries, chips, grilled cheese, mac and cheese, lucky charms and other sugary cereals, ice cream, candy, not a single thing that isn't white, beige or some hideous artificial shade of orange and yellow. Who had never tried to share my food or get something else for him. He'd snap at me angrily. He doesn't have a job. I know, I know, fully expecting to be raked over the colds were ever accepting that and a partner at this age. When I finally admitted it to my parents, they were like, are you serious? I told them that he was in school and living with his parents to save money. He actually was thinking about going back to school, which never took the form of any action and lives with his parents because where the else can he live with no income? I guess I thought I could help motivate him. I thought that that's what you do as partners support each other like a team. Now I can see that there never was any team. It was just him doing what he wanted because he was broke. I also ended up paying for most of the stuff that we did together when we went out. Some people asked about the part where I said he did similar weird food things with his family. You guys wanted to know how his family reacted. They didn't. They'd either pretend to not notice or else thought it was normal. I'm not sure which he did things in front of them like blowing bubbles in his drink, cutting grains of rice in half with his fork over and over and eating ice cream directly out of the container instead of spooning it into his bowl. I'm guilty of that. I do think because a lot of people have been saying it, but also I kind of agree. Is this some sort of like, you know, he has autism or that's what I is even diagnosed with something that feels like the only possible explanation because this feels really extreme for yeah. Yeah. I would just like assume and hope that yeah, there would be other signs against that. I guess I'm just surprised that Opie hasn't mentioned it at all. You mean to I thought it might come up. Yeah. There was one time that his parents were going to take all of us out to dinner and when discussing which restaurant to go to they eliminated a bunch because they didn't have anything that boyfriend would eat. His mom would sometimes serve him a completely separate meal if whatever she'd made for the family was something that he refused to eat. Yeah, he only wanted me to do things to him, but didn't want to do anything for me. He criticized me for my natural hair down there and then for having stubble after shaving it like what do you want? He criticized my body so that my front airbags weren't big enough. I don't even know guys. I don't know what his issue was. So that's pretty much that I'm unspeakably embarrassed. I ever dated this loser. Sad thing is if not for my parents insisting on talking with me about it, I'd probably still be dating him for who knows how long thinking that this was just what it's like. Well, it doesn't have to be. I'm very grateful that they helped me see that he wasn't normal. Thanks for all the same comments on my first post. Seeing that consensus also made me realize that I needed to leave. And there's the end of that story. I hope this guy gets help because it seems like his parents just kind of let him do whatever and haven't actually got him the proper help he needs, which is an issue. And that's the end of this story. No gloss. No filter. Just stories. Spoken without fear. A person who is not generous cannot be an artist. The world will be at peace only when it is ruled by poets and philosophers. Listen to my weekly podcast, the Pooja Bhachow on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Come for the honesty. Stay for the fire. This is an I Heart podcast. 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