Another cheating post. I’ve (28m) seen plenty of posts like this but this is my first time posting one. Anyone have any advice for myself and him (31m) in our 4 year relationship?

Throwaway for no good reason. I’m sure this will be recognizable. If you find this, just tell me and let’s talk about it more.

I’ll just get to the point.. About a month ago, I found out my (28m) boyfriend (31m) of almost 4 years cheated on me multiple times while we were in long distance. The most recent time being about 2 years ago. There’s a lot of context and backstory to this all that’s left my head spinning and It doesn’t help that this is my first really serious committed relationship of this length… and the first time I’ve been cheated on.

If anyone cares to hear the whole story, or at least my side of it, continue to the wall of text below. Otherwise, there’s a TLDR at the bottom.

We lived in different states and met through a mutual friend while I was visiting them. I actually had zero intentions of doing anything like this, but we really did have an instant connection. He made me feel safe and comfortable. Before my week there was over, I ended up staying at his house as much as our mutual friend’s.

Of course there were some red flags… but he was very open and honest about his intentions and situation. He basically told me up front that he’s been friends with benefits with his “straight” best friend and felt that he provided a safe route for this friend to explore his sexuality. He also said that he was already bringing and end to this for a reason I can’t remember and he said that if things got serious between us, that there was no reason at all for me to ever worry (foreshadowing). We both agreed that cheating is causes nothing but pain. And both definitely agreed that we would rather the other be up front and break things up if it came to that. His honesty and upfront communication about it all convinced me that he was genuine about it all.

After I returned home we kept up very consistent and good communication. Phone calls almost nightly and texting throughout the day. I found myself quickly starting to get real feelings for him and he told me he felt the same. We both lived very close to airports that regularly had dirt cheap flights back and forth and both worked jobs where we could change our schedules or take time off often enough to visit each-other at least every few months.

Im not even sure when we started officially dating, but I know we had plenty of conversations about the things we wanted. A real loving and caring relationship. We both agreed that a monogamous relationship would be best in the beginning while we really got to know each other and especially while we were long distance while still being very open to the idea of opening things up with strong communication and mutual understanding in the future. I tend to be more anxiously attached anyways, and it goes without saying that dating in long distance definitely brought some struggles along the way for me so hearing that helped me feel more secure.

All that being said, The first year was still hard for me to truly fully trust him with his best friend. They often spent time together, sometimes alone. And I found myself getting jealous or insecure at times. I’m sure I overreacted to some thing, but undoubtedly under reacted to just as many. Over time though, I got to know this friend very well too and I convinced myself that my fears were unfounded and that I was being irrational.

Fast forward some time and my gut started to try to tell me things were wrong. A white lie here, mismatched stories there.. the occasional big bold faced lies. Hiding things and just generally not treating me with same respect I had felt before. After about a year, we went through a pretty rough period. He was struggling with a growing drinking issue (Not that bad, it was more the health / mental health effects from the amount and frequency) and also started a new job in a new town traveling between work, staying with different family members, and traveling to his home every week. I noticed a drastic change in our communications. Everything seemed forced and I felt like nothing I heard was the “full” truth. Lots of white lies, half truths etc. mostly to avoid phone calls or explain periods without contact but sometimes for some major boundary crossing. And I felt that my attempts to understand the truth (or understand the lies if things didn’t line up) were received by him as prying and monitoring. Which in hindsight, I was struggling with it and I’m sure I was over the top with a lot of things.

It was hard for me to understand why everything seemed so muddy and “secretive”. Even every day mundane stuff. I feared the worst and brought it up multiple times, but our conversations were never good about it. he made me out to feel crazy and controlling and made me feel like I was pushing him away with my anxiety. And I believed him. We would fight in circles and get no where. “You never trust me with anything… This can’t work if you don’t trust me… etc” and I’d retort “the things you do make me not trust you… etc” and it would just get nasty from there. After months of this things got a little better. I tried as hard as I could to ignore my entire body screaming at me that something was definitely not right. And he seemed to be a little more open and honest. But looking back… there were So many small signs and things that just didn’t make sense or line up that I ignored. I’ll probably never know the full extent tbh.

We continued on these ups and downs for a while until his contract at this job was up at the end of that year. For about 6 months we had planned out his move up to me and it was finally time and everything went surprisingly smoothly. We got everything moved in and started our new life together. It was financially challenging for a while because he couldn’t start his new job for over 2 months and I’m not rich but we made it work with some help from his mom.

Then comes the new challenges. We suddenly went from speaking anywhere from daily to weekly to now living together. I should say that my love language is almost entirely physical touch. Cuddling, kissing, sweet talk… you know, the sappy shit. His love language is more acts of service and quality time. So we definitely struggle to show each other love at times. We’ve lived together for almost two years now and we have come a such a huge distance in our communication and showing love to eachother. I genuinely was really starting to feel good, happy, and comfortable before this happened. We still had fights and arguments, but doesn’t everyone?

The bombshell hit me about a month ago. I’m not sure what even made me do it, but I went through his MacBook and iMessage. Really, a part of me never let go of the fact that I for sure knew some stuff happened in the past. I just didn’t know exactly what, but I had a very strong feeling. I searched his best friends name in his iMessage and scrolled down to find a conversation with a different friend of his where he fully admitted to cheating on me in “the most involved actual sexual experience to date with him”. Reading that immediately cut me deep. I immediately confronted him and we’ve half multiple lengthy talks about it. To this day, the biggest thing we have struggled with is our sex life. We’ve talked endlessly around his major struggles with self image issues and anxiety around the bedroom. I can understand how he feels and how it affects him, but it’s still so hard for me. There is a constant “stigma” around sex. We both are horny, but his anxiety around his appearance and performance is actually crippling at times. We kinda cycle between better periods and times where he rarely initiates sex and I feel like I have to pester him into it until he feels obligated into it. Which just makes a terrible experience for both of us. This is a thing we are definitely still working on and I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t affected my self image too. It makes it so hard to feel like he’s attracted to me and wants me when I often feel the last thing he wants is to have sex with me. We’re both can be a little kinky, but most of our sex is vanilla mutual masterbation and It often seems to be pushed off to the last minute and then rushed to get through quickly. I should say we do have sex often, and it’s often good too. But the whole anxiety feelings around it make things volatile and sometimes uncomfortable.

But All of that is to say… when I read that message… the thought of him topping his friend and knowing how much they thoroughly enjoyed that and how non-vanilla that all was… that kills me and hurts so fucking bad. The thing I’ve wanted so badly for so long now was given to somebody else and not me. And knowing, now, that he knew this for 2 years… and remembering the arguments we’ve had where my feelings were used against me… all the effort I put in to get to know this friend and build a friendship with him so that I could learn to trust them. All of that was for nothing because they were doing exactly what he said would never happen. Exactly what I feared for so long and what my gut was telling me all along. And that got used against me, to convince me I was overly anxious. That was a major blow to my self esteem and probably has permanently changed me and my view on relationships. I’ve been up and down since then. Some days are mostly normal, others I can’t help but cry.… If I can get over this thing from the past, should I? I want to, but I can’t help but somtimes feel like I don’t even know who he is anymore. But then I think about how long ago this was and how different things were. It’s just all so confusing…

And On top of all of this, Our lives are pretty intertwined at this point. We both want to work things out and I have really felt a genuine effort from him to work towards that with me. If we did end up breaking up, he would be left without a home and I would be financially wrecked. So that’s another thing weighing on both of our minds even though we haven’t verbalized it…

Maybe i can end this novel on a good note? Or maybe I’m just blind and hopeful.. idk. But we have talked about this a lot. I think we both need some support currently and it’s support that we can’t offer each other because I’m hurt and he’s the one that hurt me. And he feels guilty for that. I honestly believe he has changed tremendously since this happened. We both have. And our conflict resolution and communication is light years ahead of how it was then. Like I said before, I really was feeling more comfortable and excited for our future than I ever have before. But now it’s all so hard to think through. I just don’t know how to get this image out of my head of them in ecstasy, who knows how many times, all while I’ve been trying to get that up to this very day….

TLDR

My boyfriend cheated on me 2 years ago, 2 months before moving states to move in with me. And it was with his best friend whom I’ve had anxiety and worries over since the beginning of our relationship. I didn’t find out until a month ago. I had lingering feelings of something being wrong in the past and really wanted to know the truth so I checked his laptop and found a full admittance to a different friend of his. The cheating itself doesn’t hurt as bad as the years of lying and being made to feel crazy for being suspicious. And all the time waisted building a friendship with his best friend so I could learn to trust them. As well as the image of them having the time of their lives, at least twice but who knows how many times, all while I’ve been struggling with feeling unwanted and unattractive due to our ongoing struggles and anxiety in the bedroom.

Idk what I’m really even asking for. Maybe just for someone to listen and understand me? Or Share some related stories. Or give some advice on how to keep going from here? Idk

Regardless, if anyone took the time to read this entire post, you’re a real one and I really do appreciate that. Just typing this all out has helped me to some extend I believe…

Thanks guys

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* This article was originally published here

I lied to my boyfriend and I wanna come clean

Recently, I (F16) found out about a dating app out there, and being bored during vacations, I figured I'd try it for fun. I created a profile with my real name, picture, and all, but I put my age as 18. Turns out, I matched with a guy (M22) who's honestly really sweet! We have a LOT in common, and we clicked very easily. We spent some time chatting, and finally, we had our first date yesterday, and he asked to date me. Being so in love with him, I said yes (So 1 day long relationship). However, he's 22, and little does he know that I'm actually 16. The age of consent here is 14 years old, so nothing can possibly happen to him, but I feel extremely guilty about it. I wanna tell him my actual age so bad because I truly believe that relationships don't flourish under lies, but I don't know how. I really don't want him to leave me, but I also wanna come clean. I haven't lied about a single thing except my age, and I just don't want this to end so soon. What do I do?

TLDR: I met a guy online and lied about my age to him. Now he asked me to date him and I wanna come clean.

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* This article was originally published here

Partner spending on mobile game

Hi everyone,

I need some advice about my partner's (F 29) spending on a mobile game. To give a bit of background, we have a 10-month-old, and my partner has been on maternity leave since just before he was born. We agreed she'd take a year off work, and I was happy to support us during that time.

Recently, she's become quite addicted to this mobile game. We've had a few arguments about how much time she spends on it and whether she's giving our son enough attention. These talks haven't gone well.

I've noticed some odd transfers from our joint account to her personal account. I ended up checking a recent bank statement for her account and saw lots of payments to this game. They're small amounts, between $4 and $30, but there are so many of them. When I asked her before how much she was spending, she gave a very low number, and I believed her.

Now that I know the truth, I don't know how to bring this up without it turning into a big fight and her getting defensive, which has happened before. I know I was wrong to snoop, but I cover all our finances, like groceries, our son's clothes and toys, outings, everything. Even though some of the money she's spending might be from her savings from before our son was born, I can't help feeling frustrated. I'm paying for everything, and she's spending hundreds a month on this game.

I'm really not sure what to do next.

TL;DR: My partner, on maternity leave, is spending a lot on a mobile game from our joint account. We've argued about her game time affecting our son's care. I cover all our finances and need advice on addressing her spending without causing a big fight.

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* This article was originally published here

I (57F) told my daughter (24F) that I would not be attending her wedding due to her fiancés (29M) past. My extended family has now turned on me, advice on how to handle them?

Hello, I made a previous post on this somewhere else. I think you should be able to see it, I'm new to Reddit but I've looked around for the past few weeks

My daughter (24F) is marrying "Connor" (29M) at the end of August. Conner has a not so great history that I went into on my previous post. Two days ago I told my daughter that I would not be attending her wedding because of this history, but I still always be there for her. I wasn't a large part of the wedding party other then being family and I'm not removing any financial aid I've already given or promised them.

I genuinely only ever want my daughter and son to be happy, but I can not go to this wedding. I raised them to accept everyone and to love anyone they liked. I am aware that I am going against my own teachings but, as previously stated, I can not go.

My extended family does not know of Connor's history. I didn't until my son informed me roughly two weeks ago. My daughter was naturally upset at my refusal to go to her wedding and I do not in any way blame her for telling them that I was refusing to attend. I do wish she had said why or given a more detailed explanation as to why I wasn't.

I am now being flooded with calls and messages from my extended family, all calling me awful names. According to them I'm an awful mother, I failed and I should never have been allowed to have children. A particularly spiteful message from my cousin told me she was glad my eldest daughter passed away when she was 12 as I couldn't ruin her wedding. That was 15 years ago now, but I cried reading that message.

What I'm asking about is this, I want to tell them why I'm not going to my daughters wedding but I also feel it is not my place. Is there any middle ground here? How do I get them to back off? Did I make a mistake saying I wouldn't go to the wedding?

TLDR: I told my daughter I wouldn't go to her wedding due to her husband to bes past. She reached out to my extended family and told them of what happened and I am now being called and messaged nearly every hour with awful things being said about me. Please help me

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* This article was originally published here

BF crosses my boundaries constantly

I've been struggling with something in my 3 year relationship and need some advice. My(21f) boyfriend(25m) often crosses my boundaries, but it's never been anything "major".

He'll make jokes about hitting me. He once threw a glass bottle at me (we were laying right next to each other, but still). He also grips my wrist too tightly sometimes, to the point it hurts, and has pinched me really hard in the breast after I made a joke he didn't like. There are times he pushes my head down forcefully, which makes me feel really uncomfortable or slaps my leg so hard it leaves a mark.

He apologizes and promises not to do it again, but it keeps happening which makes me really upset. I'm starting to wonder if I'm overreacting or if these are red flags. Has anyone else dealt with something similar? I feel like he really loves me because he keeps on buying me expensive gifts and cooking for me. And he is nice 95% of the time.

TL;DR: My boyfriend makes "jokes" about hitting me, grips and pinches me painfully, and pushes my head down sometimes. He usually apologizes but keeps doing it. Not sure if I'm overreacting or if these are red flags.

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* This article was originally published here

Can ‘dad jokes’ be good for your relationship with your child? - WTOP

Can ‘dad jokes’ be good for your relationship with your child?  WTOP

* This article was originally published here

My (24M) boyfriend cheated on me (22M) on holiday with a stripper and gave me herpes

For background information we have been together for 3 years and every year he goes on a lads holiday with his friends. In the beginning he kept liking pictures following girls like adding people even though we were together which hurt and I felt disrespected. I communicated this to him but he still kept doing things and making comments even publicly about other people or still liking pictures two years later. His friendship group, half are in relationships but I’ve seen in group chats they just talk about other girls in a really sexual manner and personally when in a relationship I think it’s disrespectful. They also degrade girls based on their appearance and say like mid or how ugly they are when they aren’t the pick of the bunch like I generally do not have a good impression of his friends: I went through an obsessive phase of checking his account and logging into things during this time due to the whole situation making me feel paranoid and anxious but I loved him and kept forgiving him thinking he’d finally change.

But fast forward to three years later every few months I feel like I find some new disrespect but I’ve lost interest in checking all the time and decided I just needed to trust him if it was ever going to improve. We were getting to a better place I felt like so when he went on his holiday this time we had no arguments I didn’t feel anxious and I trusted him. Yeah he’s been disrespectful on social media and done things I wouldn’t do to him but I never thought like physical cheating was something he’d do.

He comes back is acting really nice and like overly lovey but again I had no suspicions, I was even going to sleep before he got back from his nights out because again I trusted him to not physically cheat on me. We sleep together and a day later I start to feel pain down there but think nothing of it. It gets worse so I google my symptoms and everything that is coming up is STDs but I’m in disbelief and brush it off like it can’t be that. So I used a mirror to look and I was swollen and had bumps and I confided in my sister who told me what it sounded like - herpes.

So I booked in to the doctors and got tests done and messaged him saying we needed to talk. He proceeds to ghost me for 2 days and acts like I don’t exist while I’m sat here confused hurt crying like conflicted about what has gone on.

He finally messaged me the truth, well half a truth but I kept pressing cos his story of just being touched at a strip club and sharing a sponge and bed with his mates does not spread an STD. So he told me apparently she just like kissed the top of his dick and he was so drunk it took a while to register what was going on and he left. If anybody knows is that enough to like give someone herpes because I’m still conflicted whether to even believe that.

His reasonings for going to the club were he would be the only one not going in and his mates were robbed in a taxi the night before so he didn’t want to leave by himself, he also thought since I am the only girl he has slept with like he’d have this dance and then it’s out of his system - disgusting. And his friends in relationships too all went with him to this club.

He’s told me how sorry he is and how much he’s fucked up and he realised what he’s done and I feel bad for him because he seems to be so insecure about the fact he lost his virginity late and doesn’t have a lot of experience with girls so I feel like he just tried to fit in with all his friends. He does genuinely seem sorry but I know for a fact no matter how drunk I was I would not do that to him.

I feel conflicted because again he left and how apologetic and guilty he seems to feel like makes me want to forgive him. But at the same time I just feel like I’ve been going through a cycle of being disrespected and hurt for 3 years now. I feel like because we were so good in the beginning and I really love him I just want to see the best in him but surely if he loved me he’s make effort to change and my feelings would be worth more than fitting in with his friends.

I just don’t know what to do and he admitted he wouldn’t have told me what happened so I’m lucky in a Wierd way that I got try is STD even tho it’s made me feel embarrassed dirty and violated. I just don’t know what to do. Does anybody have experience of trying again after somebody has cheated? What was it like? I just don’t know where to go from here.

TL:DR - boyfriend has cheated on me in a stripper club on lads holiday and gave me an STD but seems to be very remorseful and regretful about it and I’m conflicted about what to do, can a relationship still function after the trust is broken like that?

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* This article was originally published here